Well The Las Vegas Open (2017) is now officially over. Although I did not partake in any ‘official’ event, I still had a pretty decent time. I was actually doing really good with the vendors hall too, until later in the day on Friday (more on that below). This will be just a brief daily recap and then some photo dumps.
Category Gaming
2016 Year in Review
Once again it is that time of the year where us blogger’s get to recap what we did or did not accomplish for the year. I actually kind of enjoy writing these posts along with the first post of the new year for my goals.
2016 started with a “What’s in store for 2016” so we will use that post as basis for our year in review.
Bolt Action
2016
Painting Goal: None at the moment.
Gaming Goal: Play at least 1 game.
I accomplished my painting goal for Bolt Action. Nothing was added to any of our armies. But things are changing for that. Two weeks ago I got the bug to get back into Bolt Action. So armies were shipped from Arizona and a new Great Britain army was ordered from Warlord Games, so look for more Bolt Action news in 2017.
My gaming goal was not accomplished, I had thought maybe I woud get in 1 game, but that did not happen.
Dugeons & Dragons (Roleplaying)
2016
Roleplaying games take a lot of commitment on a weekly basis. I honestly do not see myself getting involved with another group unless it is planned to be a short session.
I had no plans to continue playing D&D in 2016, and those plans were met.
Warhammer 40K
2016
No plans at all for completing any more armies, the prices from GW are too ridiculous for me.
Painting Goal: None at the moment.
Gaming Goal: I can see myself possibly getting in a few games.
There was no painting done on my Warhammer 40K armies nor any games played.
Warmachine/Hordes
2016
Now this is the one that I see will take up most of my time in 2016. If the year continues as it ended in 2015, it should be a good year. The big question is hopefully my son will not get burnt out on Warmachine/Hordes. As long as he stays interested, I see myself staying interested. As I mentioned the other day, I love the sculpts from Privateer Press. So even if the gaming is down for the year, the plan will still to be to collect and paint.
Painting Goal: Tough to say. I use a Painting Points system each year to track my painting progress. Not sure if I will put a number for a goal, but maybe a collection of armies. I am in the middle of painting my Gatorman Army, after the Gatorman are completed to at least 50 points, I will probably move onto my Trollbloods or continue on my Khador. My Khador Army for Warmachine is “my” army. That is the army that will be played most and I would like to try and collect all the models for Khador. So that will be my goal, to at least own every Khador model. Getting them painted will be a different story. Any ‘new’ armies for Warmachine/Hordes, unsure at the moment.
Gaming Goal: I would love to say 52 games (average 1/week, which may be doable) but let’s be realistic. Let’s shoot for half that. 26 Warmachine/Hordes games played for 2016.
2016 was actually not a bad year for Warmachine/Hordes (at least the first 7 months). I did get quite a bit painted more for Khador army. I completed my Gatormen army, and I also was working on my Trollbloods army. Gaming on the other hand I fell 2 games short of my goal, I played 24 games of WM/H’s. If I did not move to Michigan at the end of September, I know I would have gotten in a few more games with my son.
X-Wing
2016
I really want to get back involved with this game, realistically if I concentrate as much time as I have planned for WM/H, it may be unlikely, especially since we are ow behind on quite a few of the Wave releases. Plus the game has always been a ‘meta’ game with the latest releases.
Painting Goal: Not applicable.
Gaming Goal: I am going to shoot for at least 5 games played of X-Wing.
Nothing was accomplished for X-Wing in 2016, and I do not see myself buying any X-Wing models for myself in 2017. My son and I shared our models, so I will not have him ship me anything either. So it looks like X-Wing will be a done game for me….”looks” is the key term, but you never know.
Events/Conventions
2016
This is a new topic for 2016. I always enjoy attending conventions, more for the comraderie with other players than ‘winning’ a tournament. When I lived in Chicago, it was always AdeptiCon each year. Living in Arizona, attending AdeptiCon gets a little costly. We already have 2 events planned for 2016. Las Vegas Open in February, PP Lock & Load in June, and I am going to look for one possibly in the Fall (maybe Warmachine Weekend).
Well my son and I did attend the LVO back in February and drove out to Seattle in June for PP Lock & Load. I really enjoyed myself at these conventions and that is where I got most of my games in the year. I did not attend anything in the Fall with my move taking up all my time.
Stay tuned for my 2017 goals posts and what events/conventions are planned for the new year.
To anyone reading this, have a Happy Holiday!
Daily Chronicle: ‘Weekend Roundup 1/22-24/2016’
Since I did not finish any models this past weekend, I thought I would start up a ‘Weekend Roundup’ post for anything that was happening gaming related over the weekend.
On Friday night 1/22/2016 my son and I finally play tested our full 50 point lists for the Las Vegas Open. I made some slight changes to what I was originally going to play. Speed of play has been slowing me down in my games, and I thought I would probably need to take a few less models to help remedy that situation. I am going to Las Vegas for ‘fun’, if I win a game then great, if not, oh well, at least I got to play some Warmachine. We played the scenario ‘Outflank’ for the first time and we decided not to use a clock for this game since it was our first time with the full 50 points.
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| Conquest really does tower over everyone else. |
Turns out we both played pretty slow learning our models. I had a time limit (3 hours) to play the game so we can both get home to bed (cycling race for me the next day, work for my son). In the very very end I did have 1 CP, but I am calling this game a ‘Draw’ since time would have expired long ago for one of us.
Saturday had no gaming or modeling for me. With driving to Picacho, AZ for a Time Trail cycling race and later in the evening taking all 3 of my boys to see the Arizona Coyotes vs Las Angeles Kings NHL game, the day was busy.
After a nice Sunday leisure coffee bike ride, I started on another model for my son. I asked him on Friday night if he wanted me to paint up his Colossal so he can bring it with the La Vegas for some ‘fun’ gaming with it. He said sure, so I started the prep work and laid down the first color.
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| Stormwall WIP |
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| Stormwall WIP |
During the week I had also started the base color for my Khador Ruin Warjack. He will have to be moved to the back burner while I work on Stormwall for my son.
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| Ruin WIP |
Since I will be busy during the week working on Stormwall and maybe a little on Ruin (when I get tired of ‘blue’) more than likely there will not be too many posts here. But stay tuned on Twitter @TOWC_Gaming for some WIP photos of these two.
Happy New Year! What’s in store for 2016
Happy New Year 2016! Everyone.
2015 started off really good for me in hobbying/gaming, had a dry spell half way through, and then really picked back up late in the year with my resurgence into Warmachine/Hordes.
The other day I wrote my 2015 Year in Review and I was quite amazed with the games I did and did not play. The 2 games that I thought would see little time, saw the most, and the 2 that I thought would see a lot, saw very little.
So today we work on our goals/objectives for 2016.
First off I would like to say, that I am going to try and be very reasonable with this list. Cycling in 2016 is still going to take away a lot time for me to get in gaming/hobbying. I am on a local race team for the year and I will have a lot of weekends where I will have to attend an event. So we try and squeeze in our gaming/hobbying in between.
Second, years ago a friend wrote a blog post asking what kind of gamer are you in order. Gamer, Modeler or Collector. I have always thought of myself as a Collector/Modeler/Gamer. I enjoy the collecting of the different armies, followed by the painting of them and finally getting to actually pay games with them. I still see myself as this way.
Let’s start:
Bolt Action
As I mentioned the other day and last year. Between my son and I we have 3 fully painted armies. Getting in at least 1 game in 2016 would be 1 more than 2015.
Painting Goal: None at the moment.
Gaming Goal: Play at least 1 game.
Dungeons & Dragons (Rolepaying)
Roleplaying games take a lot of commitment on a weekly basis. I honestly do not see myself getting involved with another group unless it is planned to be a short session.
Warhammer 40K
No plans at all for completing any more armies, the prices from GW are too ridiculous for me.
Painting Goal: None at the moment.
Gaming Goal: I can see myself possibly getting in a few games.
Warmachine/Hordes
Now this is the one that I see will take up most of my time in 2016. If the year continues as it ended in 2015, it should be a good year. The big question is hopefully my son will not get burnt out on Warmachine/Hordes. As long as he stays interested, I see myself staying interested. As I mentioned the other day, I love the sculpts from Privateer Press. So even if the gaming is down for the year, the plan will still to be to collect and paint.
Painting Goal: Tough to say. I use a Painting Points system each year to track my painting progress. Not sure if I will put a number for a goal, but maybe a collection of armies. I am in the middle of painting my Gatorman Army, after the Gatorman are completed to at least 50 points, I will probably move onto my Trollbloods or continue on my Khador. My Khador Army for Warmachine is “my” army. That is the army that will be played most and I would like to try and collect all the models for Khador. So that will be my goal, to at least own every Khador model. Getting them painted will be a different story. Any ‘new’ armies for Warmachine/Hordes, unsure at the moment.
Gaming Goal: I would love to say 52 games (average 1/week, which may be doable) but let’s be realistic. Let’s shoot for half that. 26 Warmachine/Hordes games played for 2016.
X-Wing
I really want to get back involved with this game, realistically if I concentrate as much time as I have planned for WM/H, it may be unlikely, especially since we are ow behind on quite a few of the Wave releases. Plus the game has always been a ‘meta’ game with the latest releases.
Painting Goal: Not applicable.
Gaming Goal: I am going to shoot for at least 5 games played of X-Wing.
Events/Conventions
This is a new topic for 2016. I always enjoy attending conventions, more for the comraderie with other players than ‘winning’ a tournament. When I lived in Chicago, it was always AdeptiCon each year. Living in Arizona, attending AdeptiCon gets a little costly. We already have 2 events planned for 2016. Las Vegas Open in February, PP Lock & Load in June, and I am going to look for one possibly in the Fall (maybe Warmachine Weekend).
So to keep it simple, it looks like 2016 will mostly be Warmachine/Hordes and attending some Events/Conventions.
Time for some modeling!!!
2015 Year in Review
Well once again it is that time of year where us gamers do a recap of our accomplishments (or non accomplishments) from the year.
I had pretty high ambitions for 2015 when it started out, but then the weather warmed up and my Cycling started to take over my life (and health…losing 90lbs from cycling). Cycling 3 times a day made it hard to get any other hobbies in for the day, then on the weekends it was usually going out riding with a group for longer rides which took up most of the day and throwing in some out of town weekend Tours.
2015 started out with my post “What’s in store for 2015“, so I will be using that original post and we will review how the year has went.
Bolt Action
This was a game I had thought was really going to see the gaming table a lot in 2015 (with having 3 fully painted armies and models to add). I had ranked this game as a Top 2 for me to play in the year. As you can see in my Sidebar, I played 0 games of Bolt Action. BUST
X-Wing
X-Wing was predicted to be my Top game for the year, with pre-painted models and games only lasting about 75 minutes, I thought for sure this would be played a lot. I started the year with a pretty decent start, playing 7 games…..then nothing. Not even the new movie got me re-excited for the game. I also personally feel that Fantasy Flight Games started releasing their Waves a bit too fast for me. I enjoyed it when the Waves were not one right after another and gave you sometime to collect the models. BUST
Dungeons & Dragons
With the release of D&D5E in late 2014, I got really excited for this game and jumped back into role playing. My oldest and youngest son both joined me and we found a weekly gaming group. We did finish the first 2 official modules for D&D5E. Then the group wanted to play an alternate universe that did not interest me so the roleplaying stopped.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game
Like with X-Wing, this game started hot for my oldest son and I, then died on me. We managed to play 8 games for the year.
Warhammer 40K
I had rated this game farely low (3 on a scale 1-10) for being played in 2015. The first 4 months of the year that changed. I managed to get in 8 games, paint a few models and we started a map based campaign. Then as I mentioned above, the weather got nice and I stopped all gaming from April-September.
I really do like W40K 7th Edition, but GW’s prices are extremely high, and I feel there are too many codexes out now for all the different variations you can have in the armies.
Warhammer Fantasy Battles / Kings of War
As I predicted with a score of 1, Fantasy did not see any gaming time for me, nor any interest.
Warmachine/Hordes
This one I had scored it a 3 and that depended if the bug bite to play again. Well in September for some reason that bug must have bite me pretty hard. Warmachine got me back into gaming for 2015. Since September I managed to get in 7 games and this month I was able to paint up 32 models.
My son and I are also registered to attend the Las Vegas Open for Warmachine in February, and we are also signed up for Privateer Press’s ‘Lock & Load’ in Seattle in June of 2016.
With Warmachine/Hordes, I enjoy the farely low model count in the army (takes less time to setup a game). PP does a nice job with their Steamroller Rules each year with different scenarios, and with ‘deathclock’ the games are played pretty fast. For some reason, I really really enjoy the sculpts of the models, especially Hordes and I enjoy my time painting them.
Thinking this game may be a bust, it turned out to be a late hit for me.
Flames of War
Just like Bolt Action, another BUST for me with 0 games played.
Legends of the Old West
I still had no inclination to play an Old West game in 2015. I scored it a 2 and it received a 1.
Beyond the Gates of Antares
I gave this game a score of 7. I was pretty excited to see a sci-if version of Bolt Action and I really thought I may get into this game. The official rules were released late in 2015, and I did NOT purchase them. A lot of locals did purchase the rulebooks and starter sets. For now I am holding back, maybe I did not jump into it because I actually played some W40K this year (and still have plenty of armies for W40K).
That’s about it for 2015. The year started off really strong and is finishing really strong (with a hiatus in between).
Stay tuned on Friday January 1st when we find out What’s in store for 2016!
Garage Cleanup (Dragan’s Lair)
Over the last few years, my garage has gone through quite a few cleanups depending on which hobby I am currently interested in. Originally when we moved in 5 years ago it was mainly for storage (since we do not have basements here in Arizona) with room for a gaming table.
Then I went on a gaming hiatus and cleared out all the items in my garage into a storage unit and placed a custom wood routed 16’x19′ 1/24th slot car track.
Once I was done with slot cars (the track is now located not far away at a friends garage), the items from storage returned and I setup a work area for my RC cars.
Now my hiatus from gaming is currently over and all the items went back into a storage unit this weekend. My son and I spent all day Sunday getting the garage cleaned up and turned into the ‘Dragan’s Lair’.
The first picture below shows a work in progress (I forgot to take an initial picture when we first started cleaning), and the second picture shows the end result. My son really wanted the carpet in there (so it looked more like a gaming den) so we ran out to our local atHome store and picked up a couple of 9’x7′ rugs.
Warhammer 40K Gaming Board (Secret Weapon)
The past week I have been debateing about what kind of gaming board I want for my garage. I currently have the original Games Workship grass mat, and a brown 6’x4′ felt mat, but I do not have anything really for Warhammer 40K.
I’ve been debating between a black felt mat, Frontline Gaming Mat, GW’s new 40K realm of battle board, and making my own board from pink foam. Pink foam is very hard to find here in Arizona, but I came across a 1″ 8’x4′ board last night night. So today I had decided I was going to go the way of the pink foam board and just make my own ruined board, then I came across the Secret Weapon Miniatures website and they now make gaming tiles in 1’x1′ pieces and you get 24 tiles.
You can choose between ‘Forgotten City’, ‘Rolling Fields’, ‘Scrap Yard’, ‘Urban Street-Clean’, and ‘Urban Street-Damagesd’. I really liked the way ‘Urban Street-Damaged’ looks and decided to order this board.
All orders over $150 included free shipping which was plus. Hopefully we’ll get the tiles next week and I can start getting them painted.
Battle Foam: X-Wing Wave 4, Large Ships, Huge Ships
The foam I ordered from Battle Foam for our added X-Wing miniatures was finally ready to be picked up today (2 weeks from order to pickup). I sent my son this morning to pick it up so later today/tomorrow we can finally put away the new ships.
I think with these added foam trays, we may need to order a larger bag (I guess we’ll find out shortly).
We ordered the Wave 4 expansion, Huge Ships, and the new Large Ship foam trays. The Large Ship foam tray has room for the new VT-49 x2 and YT-2400 x2, plus additional space for 2x YT-1300, 2x Firespray-31 and 1x Lambda-class Shuttle. Now we have room for our 3rd YT-1300. Looks like we’ll need a couple more Firespray-31’s, Lambda and another YT-2400.
The Huge Ship tray will be housing the Rebel Transport and Tantive IV expansion packs, and the Wave 4 tray will hold all of our Wave 4 expansions (currently housed in spots that fit in our other trays).
Long term goal = fill every spot we have 🙂
Battle Foam M2 Bag ‘Bolt Action’
Last week I placed an order with Battle Foam for a new bag and foam trays for my Bolt Action armies. It turns out that Battle Foam has an agreement with Warlord Games and makes custom bags just for them. Yesterday afternoon I received word that my bag was ready to be picked up.
The Battle Foam bags for Warlord Games are called the M2, and they have the Warlord Games logo stitched into the bag and the bag also comes with four patches to represent each of the Warlord Games: Black Powder, Bolt Action, Hail Caeser and Pike & Shotte. You can order the bag ’empty’, ‘pluck foam load out’, or ‘standard load out’. I was debating about the ‘standard load out’ with the custom cut trays, but I felt I could probably fit more figures if I went with the ’empty bag’ and choose my own foam sizes.
The bag itself can hold 12″ of foam. So when you add up all of the trays you also need to include .25″ for each tray (which is the base of the tray). For example a 1″ tray is really 1.25″. Seeing how I already a 1.5″ tray I was going to use for this bag to hold my weapon teams, I ordered the following trays:
6x (IG) 72 Troop Foam Tray in 1″
1x Pluck Foam Tray in 2.5″
Those 7 trays plus the existing 1 I had would total exactly 12″. I already had one of the 72 Troop Foam Trays for my W40K Imperial Guard army, so I was able to test fit my Bolt Action models and they were perfect. Each one of those Troop Trays will hold 6 squads for each army, or just about an entire 1000 point army allowing me to store multiple armies in the same bag. The 2.5″ Pluck Foam Tray was going to be used for my vehicles like Tanks and Half Tracks.
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| Battle Foam ‘M2’ Bag: Front. |
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| Battle Foam ‘M2’ Bag: Back. |
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| Battle Foam ‘M2’ Bag: Front pocket for rule books. |
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| Battle Foam ‘M2’ Bag: Side pockets for dice. |
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| Battle Foam ‘M2’ Bag: Front smaller pockets perfect for my iPad Mini| with my Army Lists. |
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| Battle Foam ‘M2’ Bag: All 12″ of foam. |
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| Battle Foam ‘M2’ Bag: 1″ 72 Troop Foam Tray. All of my Soviet Infantry fit into the one tray. |
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| Battle Foam ‘M2’ Bag: 1.5″ existing foam tray. |
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| Battle Foam ‘M2’ Bag: 2.5″ Pluck Foam Tray. |
Gaming in the Northwest Valley (AZ)
Another great gaming store in the Phoenix area is Imperial Outpost Games. They are in a part of Phoenix known as the ‘West Valley’. To be more accurate, the ‘Northwest’. The owner is great guy and also loves to play the games that he sells. Unfortunately IOG is long haul from the ‘East Valley’ so I rarely do get to make the trip out there. I have played and ran tournaments at IOG and I do try and get out there every once in a awhile.
If you ever on the west side of Phoenix, check out:
Imperial Outpost
4920 W. Thunderbird Rd.
Suite 121
Glendale, AZ 85306
602-978-0467
The Old West Chronicle 