Looking Back at 2017

I tend to do this every year. Look back at the GAME PLAN for the year and see what I actually managed to accomplish. Not sure why I do this. I guess because I feel like it’s always good to have a plan and some means of assessment and self-reflection – a way to look at what you’ve been doing with your life and see what’s worked and what hasn’t and then make some changes to the plan to move forward in a more positive, focused way.

So, how’d we do…

Alternating Friday D&D

We played ten more sessions of the D&D 5E Primeval Thule campaign my friend Bruce was running…. Then it kind of fizzled over the summer. There were many reasons for this. Everyone was really busy. Bruce was burning out a bit after running this campaign right after running the Masks of Nyarlathotep. There was also a fellow that joined the group and… just wasn’t working out…

In the fall, I started running a role-playing game again, however, with a (mostly) new group: Tales from the Loop. It was supposed to be every other week, but it seems to be turning out to be once a month. We had to cancel the last game – two weeks ago – because two couldn’t make it and three others were exhausted. And the same happened just this evening – three were out and I was just too tired… I’d planned on running a short campaign until the end of the year. We seem to draw out the adventures and haven’t finished the first (of FOUR) I originally planned to run. I had planned on preparing a new campaign for a new game in the new year… but… Seems like we might just try to get together ONE MORE TIME and finish off the one mystery and then call it. Next I’d like to run Rogue Trader!

50 Games

I had a great plan to play a lot of games… a list of 50 games I wanted to make sure I played this year – one a week. I tried to encourage the kids to do the same so we each got to play a game we wanted to play each week throughout the year… We got off to a pretty good start, but things fizzled through the summer. In the end, I only played 12 of the games on my list. The kids had shorter lists – Finnegan played 16 of the 25 games he came up with, and The Girl managed to play 25 of the 37 games that ended up on her list!

Oh, we still played a LOT of games. According to BGG I played a total of 253 games this year… Most, but not all were with the family. The most played games this year were:

1. Loonacy /Retro Loonacy x27

2. Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition)/Primeval Thule Campaign Setting (5E) x10

3. Just Desserts x9

4. Pax Renaissance x9

5. Race for the Galaxy x8

6. Codenames: Pictures x7

7. Kingdomino x7

8. Hero Realms x6

9. Monarch x6

10. Warhammer 40,000 (Eighth Edition) x6

11. 7 Wonders x5

12. Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game x5

13. Splendor x5

14. Tales from the Loop x5

15. High Frontier (3rd edition) x4

16. Kingdom Builder x4

17. Star Realms x4

18. Abyss x3

19. Carcassonne x3

20. Dominion: Intrigue x3

21. Faustus Furius x3

22. Firefly: The Game x3

23. Five Tribes x3

24. For Sale x3

25. Nations x3

26. Only War x3

27. Secret Hitler x3

28. Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game x3

29. A Study in Emerald (second edition) x3

Saturday Afternoon Games

The plan was to organize longer board games on Saturday afternoons to play with Finnegan and other friends while Amanda was out taking The Girl to her Saturday dance classes. I did pretty good with this January and February, and April through June… but then it fizzled as summer began and renovations with it… Hopefully I’ll be able to get it going again in the new year…

Skirmish Saturday Night

Just didn’t happen… NO campaigns, no one-offs… I played very little miniature games in the first half of the year, and then only a few games of 40K in the 2^nd half of the year. I think this was due to me being super focused on the Vimy Project for the first three months… and then… just tired and busy doing other things…? Renovations…?

Vimy

Didn’t happen.

For half a year I was super-focused on this one project - I got all the miniatures ready and then as I was gearing up to finish off the terrain… Amanda decided she NEEDED to have a new kitchen THIS YEAR!!! …and that kind of killed it right there…

There, I admitted it… that’s actually what happened. I didn’t run out of time. If she hadn’t decided to get that ball rolling in March I totally could have pulled it off. She’d probably be a little cranky if knew I’d mentioned this… Luckily, I don’t think anyone that knows her actually READS this blog… I’m not blame-throwing and I’m not super bitter about it or anything (okay, I might have been – just a little bit – at the time). To be honest, I was a little relieved. All the late nights trying to get it all organized WAS taking a lot out of me and a lot of other things I should have been doing were falling by the wayside.

One day I will finish up the terrain and set it all up. Not going to be this year…

Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter Wargaming Weekend

I didn’t really do one this year. I think Brent came over on the afternoon of my birthday and he and Finnegan and I played a couple games of Pax Pamir and then I played a game of Race for the Galaxy with the family… and that was it.

Family Day Weekend

Two weeks before my Birthday, however, was the Family Day long weekend in February and I organized a weekend FULL of playing boardgames with family and friends.

Summer Skirmish Weekend Campaign

As I wasn’t planning a skirmish campaign for February, I thought I might organize one over the summer… didn’t happen though…  

ToonCon

The whole family did make it out to ToonCon again – and it was at a new location that was WAAAAY closer to our house – like a 15-minute bike ride (as opposed to a 45-60 minute ride – depending on wind direction and energy levels of younglings). There’s a full report of the weekend here:

ToonCon 2017

Things I didn’t plan for…

While I was still working on the Vimy project - and for a while after – I got pretty excited about the English Civil War again and for breaks between units of Great War Canadians I cranked out units of English, Irish and Scottish pike, shot and cavalry. I only ended up playing two games of The Pikeman’s Lament… then the interest died off in the summer.

I got so much of the ECW stuff done, I’m a few units away from finishing all I need for a few forces of English and Scots – enough for a small CAMPAIGN. I would like to get back to those this year…

Then, in the summer, I picked up the new edition of Warhammer 40,000.

I played the original Rogue Trader when it came out back in 1987 – 30 years ago! But kind of stopped just before second edition came out… Sold my copy of the rules and most my minis (STILL kicking myself over that…!). I picked up miniature for it from time to time – because they’re fun – and between editions used ones could be picked up realtively inexpensively on ebay. I also picked up used copies of 4^th and 5^th editions (really cheap after the next edition came out). I picked up 7^th edition when I found out a friend and his boys had picked it up and were building up forces. I tried to get my kids excited about it and tried to play a couple games, but it just fell flat.

I read a lot about 8^th before it came out and decided to give it another shot. The rules seemed a lot more streamlined – compared to 7^th – and so we tried out a few games and it wasn’t so bad. The kids are back into it, and now it’s my major focus for painting and planning. Who knew?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

December Boardgame Round-Up and Game Plan 2018  

(Maybe an Astra Militarum Super Heavy Tank!?)

Skitarii Ranger Kill Team and Other Seasonal Delights

We are well and truly back into the deep freeze...



It's been like this all week.

I have to admit I've been a little jealous looking at all the green trees in the background of the pictures Millsy posted the other day...



It sure is pretty out, though...

The windchill was -42°C on Boxing Day and Amanda forbade me from taking the kids to the Dragon's Den Boxing Day Sale.



So off I went all on my own.

It was pretty busy there.



This is where I joined the queue after collecting up all the goodies on our collective wishlists. Took half an hour to get to the till and pay for it all...



The loot I hauled home for me and the kids.



Our kitchen is now ALMOST complete - complete enough that we moved all the kitchen stuff back upstairs and even cooked a few meals in there (the only outstanding item is the tile backsplash that needs to be installed).



With all of that stuff out of the basement our hobby room is once again a hobby room and not an auxiliary kitchen and our hobby table is once again a hobby table and not a dining/storage table - so we finally got to do some assembling and painting this week! WOO! (oh, I've still been painting over the last four months, obviously, but that's because I have a permanent painting station set up elsewhere in the house. The kids only get to work on the hobby table and while it was an auxilliary dining table, if they wanted to paint they could have - but they would have had to haul all the stuff out of their rooms and get it set up and do the painting that they wanted to do, but when they were done they'd have to clear it up and put it all away... so they kind of just didn't bother doing ANY painting at all for the last four or five months...).



This week I took a break from John's Shadespire minis and cranked out these Skitarii Rangers he's planning to use in my upcoming Shadow War: Armageddon campaign. I think this is the first time I've bothered to use decals on miniatures. They seem to have worked okay. I tried to muddy up the tails of their long coats a bit - make them look a little battleworn and like they've been out "in the sh!t" for some time...

Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have a few posts planned for the next few days; A December Boardgame Round-Up, a Look Back at 2017, Game Plan 2018, Maybe one more post of painted things... but don't count on that...

Crew of the Astropolis, Shanspire and More

Earlier this year I backed the Astropolis II Kickstarter from Lead Adventure Miniatures. I'd passed on the first Astropolis Kickstarter and had been kicking myself ever since, so when the second one came up, I went all in for the megaload - Hyperspeed Level - all packs from both kickstarters! They a few months back and have been haunting the periphery of my painting tables since...



The Caption of the Astropolis and his trusty Astromech robot Twinkles.

These are among the very first miniatures I've painted that didn't make use of my standard dirt basing technique. (Okay there was the Genestealers last week - but I started these WAY before I picked up those Necromunda bases and painted them...). When these arrived and I started basing them I got it in my head that I'd make some modular interior spaceship/space station squares (much like the underground terrain squares I've started) and got thinking that dirt bases would look more out of place there than these bases might look dirtside.



A few of the Mechanical Crew.

I have another dozen or so of these in a half-painted state on the workbench. Hopefully you'll be seeing more of these - along with more Tallarn. Perhaps this will be the crew of the ship that transports my Tallarn Guard Regiments through the WARP!



The body of this figure is, I think, from Britannia miniatures. I ordered a bunch of their 28mm gunfighters, oh, 25-30 years ago...? This fellows head broke off in the mail - which seemed really odd as the miniature themselves seem really sturdy and chunky - perhaps it was taken out of the mould too quickly and broke at that point...? It's been sitting in my box-o-lead for ages and I finally decided to put him to use and glued  on a new head from Lead Adventure Miniatures.



I also finished up a second Shadespire miniature for my friend John. The remaining fellow from this war band is nearly complete...

I probably could have finished it but I took a break from painting the last two evenings to assemble John's Adeptus Mechanics Skitarii Rangers (and deeply regretted having agreed to do those! Oi! They were very fiddly... I suppose the painting will be quick and easy, though...).


In other news...



The countertops went in this morning.



The Girl pointing out where the stove will be going.



In addition to the renovation in the kitchen, Amanda decided it was time to upgrade the main floor bath and so, around the time I did all the demo work in the kitchen, I removed the bathroom sink... and we've been without a sink on the mainfloor for the last couple months... While the countertop guys were installing the kitchen countertops, Amanda had them bring in a new countertop for the vanity in the bathroom.

tomorrow the tile guy is supposed to be in and doing the backsplash in the kitchen over the next two days, and then on Thursday and Friday the final plumbing and electrical work in the kitchen and bathroom should be going on and by Friday night we should have a fully functioning house again (assuming something else doesn't break....)!

Shadespire, Genestealers...

Just a quick update. Haven't been getting much done this week - at least not much painting. I did finish off the first of the Shadespire  iniatures I'm painting for my friend John. The Genestealers I painted a week or so ago, I just didn't get to posting pictures of them.



I picked up some Necromunda bases at the Dragon's Den Games Black Friday to try mounting all of Finnegan's Space Hulk minis on to give them more stability. I looked at the 25mm bases but could tell right away they were going to be just waaaaaaaay too small. These seemed to have worked out okay - but will probably be a bit big for the squares on the game board... we'll make it work somehow..



This fellow is the first of the Shadespire  iniatures I've finished up for my friend John. The other two for this warband are just about complete as well and I've started work on the chaos dudes that also came in the boxed set. I'm pretty happy with how he turned out.



Backside of Shadespire guy.


In Other News...



The panelling on the pony wall went in along with baseboards, so I figured it was time to set up the new (to us) tables and chairs. Looking forward to playing lots of boardgames on this (though I'm not sure we're going to fit Firefly: the Boardgame or Railways of the World on this table...).

Tomorrow the door and drawer pulls go on. Monday the countertops are going in. Tuesday/Wednesday the tile for the backsplash is going in. Thursday/Friday the plumbers and electrician are back to finish everything off! PHEW!

Tallarn Leman Russ Battle Tank

I haven't managed to finish up the Shadespire minis. Screwy head and lack of focus made working on them a little difficult. Tanks are easy, though, so I finished up this Leman Russ tank that's been haunting the edges of may painting desk for far too long.



I bought it off eBay ages ago already assembled. So the  tracks are a bit messed up at the back and there are a few other things that don't quite match up... In fact when I got it the turret was glued down the the hull. I managed to pry it off and found that the older version of the Leman Russ had a separate ring that was glued to the base of turret - which has the tabs that fit into the slots on the hull the allow the turret to remain attached, but till rotate freely - it was glued on upside down so the tabs were inside the turret!? I actually managed to carve this off and flip it so now I have an operating turret.



Unfortunately the sponson guns were in there a little tight and, while they could move, it would just scrape any paint that was applied to the sides of the gun when they were rotated in and out of the sponson... so I ended up having to glue them in place...



I'd wanted to come up with some unit marking - and probably still will at some point when I get to the others. I was really torn as to how to number things or what other stuff to paint on there. I'd thought of using French WW2 tank identifiers (coloured card suites) but then decided against it...

I think it could have done with a bit more kit hanging off of it..



I though of using Arabic - as the Tallarn seem to culturally similar to Terran Arabs. This tanks name is supposed to be "Sala" or "prayer". I was thinking I might pick up a fifth tank and calling this the "Pillar Platoon" and naming each after the 5 pillars of Islam (Faith, Charity, Prayer, Fasting and Pilgrimage). I figured as new societies overtake others they often co-opt elements of the existing societies religion when converting them to their own. In the Grim Darkness of the 41st Millennium, a planet that had been settled by Muslims at one point, when brought back into the Imperial fold after the Age of Darkness, might simply replace Allah with the Emperor...?

I got a little concerned I might end up on a C.S.I.S. watch list with all the Arabic words I was looking up... "Death", "Kill", "Jihad", etc...

I also looked up words I could use for names on my Scout Sentinets ("Swift", "Watchful", "Vigilant", etc...).

Of course "Tallarn" isn't a real English word so I couldn't translate it. I tried looking for faux Arabic scripts and tried Writing Tallarn with that... I'm not so happy with it. I may have to repaint that.. Maybe just try to spell it phonetically with Arabic script?

I do have three other Leman Rus tanks to assemble and paint, two will be battle tanks and the third will be a Punisher variant - with the Punisher gatling cannon (with the new grinding advance rule, it will spit out forty (40!) dice per turn at Strength 5! It will be named Zakat (almsgiving/Charity). If I add a fifth, it will probably just be another battle tank... maybe a Vanquisher...?


In other news...



Cabinets and lights went into the kitchen this week!

 

Starting to look a bit more like a kitchen every day...



The countertop people came on Thursday to make their templates. Unfortunately it won't be until the 18th that they will be installed... but hopefully the tile guy will be able to come on the 18th/20th, and the plumbers are books for the 21st/22nd and then it will all be done just in time for the holidaze!!

Tallarn Scout Sentinel Walker

I love these little scout sentinel walkers. I think their fun models and the fluff is fun. I have no idea if they're at all useful in the game.



I'm not so sure the rules match the fluff - I mean, they're supposed to be reconnaissance vehicles - "The eyes and ears of armoured formations" - or so it says in the book. And yet, they are the SLOWEST VEHICLE IN THE ASTRA MILITARUM!? Slower than all the Chimera pattern vehicles, Leman Rus tanks, and all the super heavies... How is it that the SLOWEST vehicle available to the Astra Militarum could possibly work as their reconnaissance vehicle!? Okay, Okay, with the new "Grinding Advance" special rule no one will actually be driving their Leman Rus tanks at over half speed anymore... but still...



I had an idea that I'd like to do a few of these up to look like something like the Long Range Desert Group trucks or Special Air Service jeeps from World War Two - festooned with kit necessary for long range reconnaissance missions deep behind enemy lines.



I'm not sure if there's enough kit on here... or too much? There isn't a lot of places to OUT extra kit on these little guys. The braces for the giant promethium fuel drum I cut out of plasticard. The bins for the Jerry Cans are just bent wire - I imagined those would have water in them.



I also considered painting them pink - as I know the British used for a time on their desert vehicles - or possibly something like the Caunter Camouflage scheme... But ultimately went with a light tan and brown. I'm kind of wishing I'd gone with pink. I feel like there's just TOO MUCH TAN going on there...



I even had this crazy idea that I could do an entire "Outrider Detachment" of these - ten of them! like an SAS raiding Squadron. There'd be three units of three plus a command one. Of course there are no rules for a commander in one, but I figured if I paid for a tank commander less the cost of a Leman Rus and adding the cost of a Scout Sentinel that might work, right?

Alternatively, I thought for the command element I could put a company Commander in a Taurox (with one of the wheeled suspension kits available from Victoria Miniatures)...?


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have some Shadespire miniatures on the workbench I'm painting for a friend. They'll probably be the next miniatures I finish.

I still have all the Space Hulk minis luring on the edges - at the Dragon's Den Games Black Friday sale I picked up some Necromunda bases to try and put some of the miniatures on - I'm relatively happy with the results - although it was the 32mm bases (because the 25mm ones were obviously just way to small for the miniatures) and I'm not so sure these are going to fit on the Space Hulk map boards so well...

Also still have a unit of Tallarn Roughrider and another unit of Infantry, and some Tau pathfinders...

Probably post some pictures tomorrow or Thursday of the cabinets going into the kitchen...

November 2017 Gaming Roundup

We played very few games in November. There were a lot of reasons for this. The two biggest ones were the never-ending renovation kicking into high gear. The first week I was finishing up framing and electrical and preparation for drywall (y'know, in my "spare" time). The second and third weeks the drywalling and mudding was going on - which added more stuff to the living room and plastic berries between room and dust everywhere. This past week the hardwood floors were refinished in the Kitchen - and they turned out AMAZING!!



These were buried under two layers of linoleum - the lower level was glued to them and after scraping as much as I could off - there was still lots of tar-like adhesive and they looked pretty awful, but once that was sanded off the hardwoods underneath cleaned up really nice. Unfortunately they look SO nice that Amanda's going to want to refinish the entire first floor now!? That'll be next summer though - hopefully while we're away on a vacation!

The other big killjoy was the return of the dizzy-woozy-screwy-head feelings - with he added fun of nausea! I kind of didn't do anything about it for the first few weeks - other than taking it easy when I could - figuring it'd just go away like it did last time and the added nausea made me think, at first, that I'd come down with a mild flu and that had brought back the dizzies. After three weeks of it I finally went in to see my doctor - who berated me (just a little) for not coming in sooner. After a bit of a talk about what was going on she figured what might actually be going on is a weird form of migraine. Wouldn't have occurred to me as usually "migraine" is associated with headache and PAIN - which I really haven't had...? I'm on some new medication for that and HOPEFULLY that will clear it up! (Though it hasn't done much so far - but I've only been taking it for two days  so I'm still trying to remain hopeful and positive...)

Anyway... the games...

Around the end of the second week we hadn't played any games and we'd barely played any in October, so I said to the kids we should each pick a game every week and make sure we find the time to play it. Though there were some limitations - it had to be playable on the living room coffee table - as that was the only surface we really had available. Also it had to be pretty light and not require any role-reading on my part because of aforementioned dizzy-woozy-screwy-head feelings... We managed to do this for ONE week... then things kind of ground to a halt as renos intensified and drywall dragged on way longer than it should have and then we had to paint the entire two rooms in two days before the flooring guys showed up...


15 November 2017 - Five Tribes



I an't remember who chose Five Tribes, it might have been Finnegan - it is HIS game. This was actually the first BOARDgame we've played since ToonCon - last month all we played was 40K (miniatures) and Tales from the Loop (role-playing). I got some Djinn early in the game that gave me some sort of advantage - I think I could claim tiles that had no maples on them that no one else had claimed - and with that I scooped a BUNCH of fairly high-point tiles. I think I also had the most vizier and a pretty good run of trade goods... but I spent a lot of coins to keep going first to get all those things so I don't think I won - I can't remember who did or what the points were - but I think we were all fairly close...?


16 November 2017 - Ra



Well that's off to a bad start!



It's been a while since we played Ra. As I was entering the play on Board Game Geek I realized it was the 10th time I played it - which got me thinking I should check out my Fives and Dimes (one of the many stats BGG tracks for you - games which you have played five or ten-plus times) and I realized there were a bunch of games with nine plays that I decided I should totally make sure I play over the next month to get them to TEN plays (Coup, Firefly, Nations, Nature Flux, Pax Renaissance, and A Study In Emerald)!

Ra was another game that I THOUGHT I was doing really well on, but Finnegan ended up ROCKING it. I had lots of monuments - but most just one shy of being able to score bonus points for having multiples. I had lots of Nile tiles as well and scored those each epoch, but I always has a hard time getting culture tiles - which the kids always seemed to scoop up. It was fun to play though, and easy enough that it didn't hurt my head, so...


17 November 2017 - Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu 



Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu was definitely The Girl's choice (it is her game). I think I played the Hunter. And we won - finally! That's about all I remember about the game - Oh, and I think Finnegan's character went insane at one point...?

The game basically a quicker version of Arkham Horror using the mechanics of Pandemic. I don't mind it, but I think I'd rather play regular Pandemic for a Pandemic type game and play Arkham Horror for and Arkham Horror kind of game... But The Girl likes it, so I guess I'll end up playing this from time to time.


18 November 2017 - Tales from the Loop



On Saturday Amanda and I headed over to our friends Emily and Aaron's to play Tales from the Loop. Christian and his daughter Maeve joined us this time, so we had some character making to get through and figure out a way to join the new kids up with the existing group. Progress was made. Should finish up the first adventure when we play again this weekend!

We were supposed to have played this on the 4th as well, but too many people were sick...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Hopefully some miniature and some game reports! I've been getting a bit of painting done - not as much as I might normally do - due to difficulty focusing with dizzy-woozy-screwy-head feelings. Some days have been better than others - on those better days I get some painting done, on the not-so-good days I've done a bit of prep work - gluing figures to bases or priming - painting the tank - things that require less focus.