Game Plan 2020 - Q2 Plans

I like this Quarterly Planning thing...

I started writing this just after ToonCon 2020. the main event of 2020-Q1. With that over, I  turned to planning for Q2. But, wow, so much has changed since then... this has needed a bit of a rewrite!

Q1 is finished, and overall I'd say it's been a success!

Looking back at my Q1 Plan...

5x5 Quarterly Challenge - I'd planned to play the following games five times:

Necromunda
Wrath & Glory
Hellboy
Blackstone Fortress
Power Grid
(the last one wasn't entirely designed in the plan - it was a nebulous 'other game' that may or may not be a fourth game I was going to run at ToonCon and ended up being Power Grid Deluxe as John suggested I play in it to 'help out' with it at ToonCon)

What I've played...

Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress x10
Wrath &a Glory x6
Necromunda x5
Hellboy: The Board Game x5
Betrayal at Baldur's Gate x2
7 Wonders Duel (with Pantheon) x2
Patchwork x2
Power Grid Deluxe: Europe/North America x1
Power Grid x1
Terraforming Mars x 2
Viticulture Essential Edition x2
Railways of North America x1
Blend Off! x1
Firefly Fluxx x1
Kingdomino x1
Peptide: A Protein Building Game x1
Splendor x1
Virulence: An Infectious Card Game x1

Well, it's more than 25 games. I did complete Blackstone Fortress, Necromunda, Hellboy, and Wrath & Glory. Didn't quite get there with Power Grid... but I did end up playing a LOT of other games!

The February Gaming Weekend didn't happen, but the Wargaming Birthday Bash sure did:

The Return of Karloth Valois - Annual Wargaming Birthday Bash

THAT was a LOT of fun. I had started feeling like - rather than trying to host a skirmish game night once a week, I should try and put together something like that once a month (or every other month...?). Both of those ideas are on hold at the moment.

ToonCon - Check!

ToonCon 2020

40K - there wasn't really a PLAN, per se, to play any 40K - just noting that there might be tournaments coming up early in the year. They were coming. Not so sure now!

PAINTING - the plan was generally to focus on Blackstone Fortress, Hellboy, Necromunda, the Daemons of Chaos (and some other chaosy 40K stuff?)

I DID finish all the stuff from the Blackstone Fortress core set - so this alone makes it all a success!

I didn't really do ANY more Hellboy stuff - other than painting up the single Frog Monster I'd missed when I painted all the others and priming some of the doors and furniture - which was finally located!!!

So far this year I have painted 132 28m figure, but have somehow managed to acquire 132 as well!? (Mind you 40 of those were birthday gifts of stuff I didn't really need and probably won't be painting for sometime... so.. not my fault!). That breaks down to:

PAINTED

5x Khorne Flesh Hounds
10x Khorne Bloodletters
10x Slaanesh Daemonettes
5x Nurgle Plague Marines
5x Nurgle Plague Marines
1x Nurgle Plague Marine
9x Nurgle Plague Marines
2x Daemon Hedgehogs
1x Chaos Sorcerer
1x Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour
2x Chaos Space Marines
1x NOISE MARINE
5x NOISE MARINES
2x NOISE MARINES
1x Inquisitor
2x Imperial Fist Space Marine Scouts
2x Imperial Fist Space Marine Scouts
1x Tangermarine Space Marine Scouts
1x Imperial Guard Commissar
1x Daemonhost
3x Blackstone Fortress Characters (Draik and Rogue Psykers)
3x Blackstone Fortress Explorers (Locarno, Shadowguide, Gotfret de Montbard)
1x Blackstone Fortress Explorer (Dahyak Grekh, Kroot Mercenary)
1x Blackstone fortress Explorer (Pios Vorne)
4x Blackstone Fortress Explorers (Taddeus, UR-025, Rien and Raus)
4x Blackstone Fortress Spindle Drones
4x Blackstone Fortress Beastmen
14x Blackstone Fortress Traitor Guard
3x Blackstone Fortress Chaos Space Marines
4x Rogue Trader Glitchlings
4x Space Millipedes
3x Necromunda Scavvies
1x Necromunda Scavvy Champion
11x Necromunda Plague Zombies
1x Necromunda Giant Greenback Spider
1x Hellboy Frog Creature
1x Servoskull
1x Hive Scum
1x Ratling Bounty Hunter
1x Karanack, The Hound of Vengeance
1x Renegade Knight Acheron
1x Chaos Objective Marker

Acquired

1x Necromunda Scavvy
29x Nurgle Plague Marines
1x Nurgle Malignant Plaguecaster
3x Squats
4x Imperial Guard
1x Eldar Farseer
2x Space Marine Scout
8x Cultists of the Abyss
10x Chaos Cultists
18x Noize Marines
13x Chaos Space Marines (to be converted into Noise Marines!)
5x Chaos Space Marine Raptors
7x Chaos Terminators
1x Master of Possession (Start Collecting Chaos Space Marines)
2x Greater Possessed (Start Collecting Chaos Space Marines)
2x Obliterators (Start Collecting Chaos Space Marines)
10x Chaos Space Marines (Start Collecting Chaos Space Marines)
1x Chaos Space Marine (Servants of the Abyss)
1x Rogue Psyker (Servants of the Abyss)
2x Negavolt Cultists (Servants of the Abyss)
2x Chaos Beastmen (Servants of the Abyss)
2x Ur-Ghuls (Servants of the Abyss)
2x Spindle Drones (Servants of the Abyss)
7x Traitor Guardsmen (Servants of the Abyss)
1x Goblin Commissar
1x Inquisitor in Power Armour
1x Female Psyker
20x Ngoni Tribespeople (gift from John)
6x Plastic WW2 Germans  (gift from John)
6x Plastic Landsknechts  (gift from John)
10x Plastic Roman Legionaires  (gift from John)
3x Ogryn
1x Aerosan transport (to convert for use by Valhallans!)
1x Venomcrawler (Start Collecting Chaos Space Marines)
1x Tactical Command Table
2x Epic Ork Bone Krusha Tanks
2x Wee Ships  (gift from John)

More details can be found here:

2020 Painted versus Purchased

I would say, more or less, I have accomplished most of my Q1 goals for painting. I didn't complete All of the Daemons (still have 3 Bloodcrushers, 3 Fiends of Slaanesh, 5 Seekers of Slaanesh, and Infernal Enrapturess to finish up - they are all partly painted...) and I didn't make any movement on the Hellboy miniatures (and am a little worried that project has ground to a halt...). BUT Blackstone Fortress (core box) is all done and I'm fired up to get more done. I DID get some necromunda and other 40K stuff done. AND I didn't acquire more than I painted - and a good chunk were just given to me unexpectedly, another good chunk were things I picked up because they were on sale (but that's almost always my excuse for EVERY purchase!?) and I had some bonus cash, and a few more things were picked up specifically for upcoming events. None of these I expect to happen again in the next quarter, or likely all year....


Q2 PLAN

5x5 Quarterly Game Challenge

Again, this is just for me - not involving the family, or anyone else in particular. Given the state of things, these will likely either be largely solo games or with the family. Here is what I was thinking:

Wrath & Glory
Blackstone Fortress
40K
Other Skirmish Games
Five New Games!

The Wrath & Glory campaign was a lot of fun and, though Keira's dropped out, Amanda and Finnegan still seemed interested enough to carry on, but it kind of ground to a halt. I'd like to get this going again (and/or I might open the game up to others via some online platform - like Roll20?).

I'm really enjoying Blackstone Fortress right now. It'll probably just be me and Amanda going forward... but that's okay.

Warhamer 40,000 - I was thinking this would be easy - I was planning on playing four games of this at the Battleforce Recon tournament in April - so surely it shouldn't be THAT hard to get in ONE MORE GAME (as practice before hand?) at some point in the next three months! But... I don't know... I have a feeling Battleforce Recon might get cancelled - and if it doesn't, I'm not entirely sure if I'd even want to go!

"Other Skirmish Games" - Still loving Necromunda, but I'm hoping to get back to playing Kill Team as well. So "Other Skirmish Games" is Necromunda and Kill Team... but I might also include Hellboy, if I, or anyone else, suddenly felt the urge to try any of the other scenarios.

FIVE NEW GAMES - with the disposal of the record collection and reorganization of games onto the voided shelves in the living room, I noticed a LOT of games on those shelves that I haven't even played... like, EVER!? (and there are MORE than FIVE!). So my plan (Challenge!), in the next three months is to play FIVE of those games that I have bought but never played!

This might shift... I'll Definitely get in the Blackstone Fortress games... Not so sure about the 40K - especially considering we might be in lockdown for the next three months and all the games I play will have to be solo or with immediate family members, who have all gone off 40K for the moment - and board gaming in general. Amanda seems to be up for anything - she likes skirmish games.... 40K... less so... We shall see...


EVENTS

Given the COVID-19 pandemic, it is unlikely that I will be attending or hosting any events in Q2...

I HAVE been thinking about an online campaign again - like a few Hordes of the Things campaigns I ran a number of years ago - where the heads of state of each of the countries were not from Saskatoon and all the negotiating and turn planning and stuff was done through email. Then all the games were played locally - I'd host a game night once a week for local players to play out the games generated by the campaign. Though, those games would now just be solo games or played by me and Amanda and/or the kids... We shall see...

Battleforce Recon was supposed to be on Sunday, 26 April 2020. I am signed up and was planning on taking a force of Emperor's Children Chaos Space Marines - with a large component of NOISE MARINES... but I'm not so sure that's going to happen now... and even if it does... I'm not sure I'd even want to go!

Same thing goes for Battle of the Abyss Apocalypse event and Strange Bedfellows tournaments. Last year both of these happened in the first half of the year and I was hoping they might take place again this year.... at SOME point. But that seems unlikely now.

The Apocalypse Event seems to be on hiatus - not sure if it will even happen later this year, or at all... there was some discussion about locales and whether to use the new Apocalypse rules (not sure why that's even a discussion at all - the new rules are Amazing - I guess there was some concern that there weren't enough copies in circulation and there were a lot of grumps that had no interest in trying it out and, now, there has been moaning that GW isn't even supporting it anymore - though it does look like it's still available...?).

Strange Bedfellows? I'm not sure what I'd even do for this...? Not sure the kids would be interested in doing it again, so I'd have to find new Team Mates. I have no shortage of options for stuff I could field. If Amanda's around this year, she might join in with her Drukhari...? Have to wait and see if it even happens this year and when, I guess.


PAINTING

The first priority was to finish up the stuff I need for Battleforce Recon - about 15 more Noise Marines. I had originally planned to take a Daemon Prince, Sorcerer (SorcerESS, actually - according to the background I've been drafting up) and a Chaos Lord in Terminator armour along with all those Noise Marines... but since I've picked up the Start Collecting Chaos Space Marines Box, I think I might like to put together and paint up the Venomcrawler and take that instead... I'll have to juggle some points a bit... but I think I might be able to manage it!

Other than that...? I'd like to get back to work on the Daemons and finish up the stuff from the Wrath & Rapture Box as well as more stuff for the Chaos Space Marine force. It's all about CHAOS this year!

While I'm still stoked about it and wanting to play the game, I imagine I'll get some more stuff done for Blackstone Fortress - the Servants of the Abyss box - adding more of the basic Hostiles to the pool. After that there is the stuff from Escalation and the extra Cultists of the Abyss that I picked up. AT some point - though it may not be in Q2, I might pick up the Traitor Command and No Respite expansions and paint those up... but I think I'm going to wait until we've played through the first campaign (the Quest for the Hidden Vault) and see if we're still as interested... we still have Escalation and the Dreaded Ambull to play after that, so, no rush.

I would also like to get some more stuff for Necromunda painted. I still have Orlock, VanSaar, Goliath, and Ratsin gangs to paint - as well as a host of other random hive scum and characters I can paint up. I should pick one of those and say I'll get THAT done this Quarter. Maybe it should be the Goliaths - since House of Chains is now out.

Finally, I have a little Kill Team project I'm working on... It's a secret. I'm going to get that done.

Other stuff...? I've been feeling like I SHOULD get some stuff done so I can play Rebels and Patriots... but SHOULDs never work out... I'll back get to that at SOME point - no point in FORCING it!

the last couple of days I've been eyeing Fantasy and Mythical armies - some stuff that was earmarked (or already based for) Hordes of the Things and have been thinking about reorganizing/rebasing them for Dragon Rampant.

OTHER

The basement.

Yeah... that kind of needs to happen this quarter. ToonCon and my birthday bash are over. I promised I would start moving forward with the renos after that. So... not fun and only tangentially related to games... but that needs to happen, so I'm putting it here in The Plan.


Q3/Q4

I'm trying not to think or plan TOO far ahead - that's the POINT of these Quarterly plans.

Amanda and Keira were supposed to be off to Europe at the end of the summer for a couple weeks. I thought it might be fun for me and Finnegan to do something together while they're gone... could be something game-related...? But that's all up in the air now.

MINI-EVENTS - I had a great time running the Wargaming Birthday Bash and I'd like to do more games like that. I was thinking it wouldn't be too hard to do something like that on a monthly basis - there wasn't a LOT of painting or terrain making involved - I MOSTLY used stuff I already had. I feel like that's a thing I should get doing, but don't really have a solid plan for that yet (head still reeling from toonCon). Originally, I was going to commit here to doing at least ONE game like that in Q2 - But I think I might hold off on that for a while. Maybe start making plans for the fall...? or next winter...? Or whenever this Pandemic finishes its course!?

I was also originally considering running a game weekend later in the fall... but I'm not thinking that's really an option - at least not an IN PERSON one...



Anybody care to guess what I'll be doing in the Fourth Quarter of 2020? Your guess is as good as mine, at this point! Come on, leave a comment, let's here the wildest predictions you can think of!


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

March Games

MORE Blackstone Fortress

A Painting Update...? But I'm not sure of what?!

Perhaps some pics of some reorganized and rebased (and a few newly painted?) Fantasy and Mythological forces for Dragon Rampant (originally part of Hordes of the Things armies).

Blackstone Fortress: Stronghold Assault

AS we'd collected up a PILE of clues in our previous expeditions, we figured it was time to launch an assault on one of the strongholds. FOUR strongholds need to be conquered before we can make an attempt of the Hidden Vault!

As Draik seemed to be a survivor, even if he was a bit of a ponce, the adventurers decided to bring him along once again, so we both played the same explorers - Amanda played Amallyn Shadowguide (Aeldari Ranger) and Pious Vorne (Zealous Missionanry of the Eclisiarchy) and I played Expern Locarno (Imperial Navigator) and the aforementioned Janus Draik!



The Stronghold we drew for our first assault: Descent!

Before the attack on the Stronghold itself, however, the explorers had to fight their way through the access route - six exploration cards. Unlike regular expeditions, where Challenges and Combats are separated, four of each drawn and then shuffled together, This required they all be shuffled together and six totally random cards drawn! Could be all challenges... or ALL COMBATS!!!



The first card we drew was a Challenge. Locarno was wounded - but managed to recover it in the following Recovery Step. Vorne had her Agility reduced to a d6... I wasn't sure how that would affect anything... until I drew the Encounter Cards for our next Combat.



The next card was, indeed, a Combat. In the location of the Discovery Marker #3 there was a Twist instead of a group of Hostiles - when entering a location with a Discovery Marker and explorer had to pass an AGILITY roll - or suffer a Grievous Wound! Suddenly Agility seeming a bit more important.

Oh, and for Gambits... but we rarely use those...



Amanda, trying to figure out the most efficient way of immolating Ur-Ghuls.



BUUUURRRRRRRNNNNN!



Whoopsie! Two Survived!



Never fear! Janus Draik to the Rescue! HA! AND he snagged a bit of Archaeotech to boot!



And then got SWARMED by cultists!



And needed saving by Vorne... Luckily the Xenos wasn't nearby to see it!



And then... MORE Urghuls!



Who also attacked Draik - but again he survived...



And Vorne finished them off...



Draik sprinted across the cavern to try and snatch another bit of ARchaeotech before the Xenos could get to it... and ran into ANOTHER group of Ur-Ghuls (there were four originally, but Draik killed one with a riposte!) Somehow, he managed to survive THAT onslaught (but I think he had four wounds by then...)



Only to have four Traitor Guardsmen come piling out of that same entrance!



And that is when his luck ran out...



The Ur-Ghuls and Guard that attacked Draik were taken care offend Locarno summoned a Maglev chamber... only to have SIX more Traitor guard appear out the other portal!



Vorne rushed across the cavern - using all the Destiny Dice - and burned a load of the Guard along the way!



Four of the six were killed then she jumped into the maglev chamber and the party fled!

My camera glitched and I missed the set-up pictures of the next encounter - another Combat Card!



This one was an Ambush - all the attacking groups went first (well, except for one, as Janus, despite his four wounds, could still do his free gambit one the first round of a combat!). three of the four Hostiles groups were melee-only and too far away to get into contact on the first turn - Except the NegaVolt Cultists... so he swapped with them, I think...?



Vorne incinerated them anyway...



and then laid down some fire to block charging Ur-Ghuls - which made it THROUGH the fire!

Somehow I was missing the rest of the pics for this encounter as well... Long story short, we made it out. Locarno and Draik took care of the Spindle Drones and Shadowguide sprinted past them to summon a Maglev chamber - to ensure no reinforcements would come out there. Locarno and Draik just hung out intuit chamber while Shadowguide and borne dashed around the rest of the chambers finishing off the ambushers and collecting up Archaeotech and Clues.



The next card was ANOTHER Combat and ANOTHER Ambush - and this one was like a knife fight in a phone booth!




Guard rushed in and all attacked Draik (because he's a foolish bastard and kept shouting at them and goading them)

(really he has a riposte ability that allows him an attack roll against anyone he's made a critical success defence roll against. Took out two cultists that way... but eventually succumbed to their attacks - as he STARTED with four wounds - having been unable to recover any between encounters)



Then it was Vorne's turn... She started by slaughtering the three cultists adjacent to her with her Eviscerator chainblade....



Then charged into the for chamber and burned all the heretics present...



Then through some fire down the hall to prevent the other Guard and Ur-Ghuls getting at Locarno and Shadowguide who were backed into an alcove... the fire, for once, worked - I think two of the Ur-Ghuls and a couple Guard all died trying to leap though those flames - others were taken out by Locarno's Force Rod or Shadowguide's Power Blades...



Vorne came back to help (and collect some Archaeotech!)



But reinforcements just kept rushing out of the entryways. These ur-Ghuls were dealt with, but we decided to abandon the final discovery marker.



As we were leaving MORE Ur-Ghuls AND MORE Guard all showed up!



In the recover phase, the group checked on Draik - who had been dragged out by Vorne, only to discover, he'd perished from his wounds.

Does anyone else see a pattern emerging here...?

Fuck him, he was a wanker anyway...

Next Expedition I'm bringing UR-025!

We decided to press on with only three explorers, and drew another card, but it was another (Fourth!) Combat! We decided to call it a night and finish up tomorrow (well... today... at the time of writing).

So, we have a Combat... and another Expedition Card (which COULD be ANOTHER Combat!?)... before we get to the Stronghold... which has Rogue Psykers and CHAOS SPACE MARINES!! Curious to see how awful they might be! We did face ONE in the prequel scenario... and it wasn't TOO bad...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

The finale of this first Stronghold Assault!

Painting has slowed. Feeling scattered and unmotivated. I did some cleaning and organizing of the workbench last night - cleaned it entirely off... and then loaded it up with a total distraction!? Amazons!? WTF!? I'd started re-basing them a month ago, and thought I should just finish that job. I may or may not paint a few to complete a couple of the units that have only one or two to be finished. I likely won't go painting any of the units that are completely unpainted... but who knows in these uncertain times! we NEED distractions from our regular distractions!!!

Adventures With Draik Continue

Saturday afternoon Amanda and I played some more Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress and finished off out second expedition on the Quest for the Hidden Vaults. The first part of this expedition can be found here:

Enter Janus Draik

We'd played through half of the expedition over two days and when we'd left off Janus Draik had FOUR Grievous Wounds! he kept going though - refusing to give up while that filthy xenos that was accompanying them was willing to press on!

I finished off a few of the Servants of the Abyss - a box set of additional models that come in the Blackstone Fortress core set...



I finished off a few Ur-Ghuls... Unfortunately, it's been over a year since I painted the FIRST BATCH and I kind of forgot which paints I used... these turned out...



...mcuh darker than the others... I'm also using a considerably different basing scheme than I'd originally planned to... I might have to update the others bases. I'm not sure about bothering to lighten up the newly painted ones (or darkening the others!), though...



also finished up a pair of Spindle Drones.



The others were painted much more recently, so I had no trouble matching therewith the others... mostly... Now that I look at these pictures, I think I might have gone in and dry brushed the others with a bit of silver highlight after using the purple wash... Hmmmm...

On with the game: Our first card draw was a combat.



We've seen this layout before. And it was populated with Ur-Ghuls and Spindle Drones! but not enough to necessitate busting out the newly painted ones...



The proximity of the Ur-Ghuls to the arrival chamber was a bit alarming! Luckily Vorne was quick to react to their presence.



She rushed out of the chamber and roasted them all!



It took a few blasts to finish them all off.



Then she threw some fire down the passage ahead to hopefully burn any other hostile that might come that way...



Unofortunately they came the other way... Not to worry, Shadowguide blasted the one with line-of-sight before it got a shot off (and collected up some Archaeotech in the process.



On the second round Vorne rushed down the corridor and burned the Spindle Drones from behind!



Treasures were quickly collected and everyone made it to the Maglev Chamber before any reinforcements showed up!



The next card was a challenge - shooting fleeing hostiles in the back... Seems like Draik's sort of thing...




But actually he ISN'T very good at killing things at range - only scored one wound - not enough to draw a discovery card! Locarno did collect one - as did Vorne and Shadowguide, who both dealt out a terrifying amount of wounds!



On to the next encounter!



This was interesting - it was all ONE BIG CHAMBER - and with TWO larger groups of Traitor Guard - who really love shooting aimed, long range lasgun fire... things looked a little bad...



Then we remembered the Support Ability of the Vanguard - and made good use of that!!!



Vorne, once again, led the charge... roasting more Ur-ghuls (for the record... yeah... they taste like chicken...).



Then, using up all the destiny dice, rushed past their smouldering corpses and burned one group of Traitor Guard...



... and then another... and then swept back across the first...



By the time she was done, she'd almost wiped out the squad!



Locarno actually helped out in this one - destroying a couple of Traitor Guard with Warp Energy released from his Third Eye!



Shadowguide shot up the rest of the other squad - and then sprinted across the chamber to summon another maglev chamber.



Before she could, however, one appeared elsewhere - on her way there, she realized they'd missed one of the Traitor guard and took care of him!



Vorne, standing a little too close to one of the entry points was ambushed by a group of Ur-Ghul reinforcements! Somehow she managed to survive their onslaught.



Then she stepped back and isolated the lot of them!



Locarno rushed to help, but Vorne really didn't need any.

Another Guard they'd thought dead popped up and was cut back down by the Aeldari Ranger with her brutal Power Blade.



and even tried to slow us down... but all made it to the chamber and escaped back to the transport... and we all headed back to Precipice!

It was a wonder that Draik made it back at all!

(Hmmmmm... between this and the Previous Report, there seem to be only three challenges... I must have forgotten to take note of one... probably played on the second day..?)



This is what we got back to Precipice with! LOADS of stuff. Vorne traded the Emperiyan Chronometer to Draik for the single piece of archaeotech he'd collected - thought it was worth three times as much! The Chronometer is Draik's Secret Agenda and with it could START expeditions in Inspired Mode and kick ass... seemed like a thing she'd do... The Aeldari Ranger? She'd have probably sold it off!



During the Legacy Step, we drew a second Countdown card! Whew!



All the goods on offer at Precipice.



Not having much archaeotech to spend, both Locarno and Draik ended up heading to the Traveller to check on the Ratling Twins - to see if Locarno's team had had any luck in reviving them... nope...

Shadowguide headed over to the Vanguard and snatched up the Draikskin Cloak and the Refractor Field - both things that give re-rolls for defence rolls. She passed on along the Draikskin Cloak to Vorne and kept the refractor field for herself! Meanwhile, Pious Vorne headed home to the Clarion and picked up EVERYTHING on offer - a couple of incantations... and a BIONIC EYE - it exhausts to let her re-roll a failed weapon attack (meaning she can use it once every turn in combat)!

We didn't have much else to do afterwards so we decided to start another expedition after supper - since we'd gathered so many Clues, we thought we'd try out a Stronghold Assault! Stay tuned for THAT!


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog: 

Part One of the Stronghold Assault!