I look back at this picture, and for me, it represents the peak of my X-Wing experiences. This was right before the game transitioned to its second edition, and as you can see, I was fully immersed in it. The event was called "40,000 Credits," and it was a high-energy, imaginative scenario centered around a crash site in an asteroid field. The goal? Navigate through the field, avoid intense Imperial and Rebel skirmishes, and secure as much loot as possible over six rounds.

The premise was simp...

This past July, we hosted our second annual GottCon event, and it was an incredible experience! Our mission goes beyond just gathering tabletop enthusiasts; GottCon was created to support the Masonic Youth Orders and to offer a welcoming, introductory convention for those who may have never attended a game convention before. With a focus on accessibility, camaraderie, and community support, GottCon is a space where gamers of all backgrounds can come together for a great cause. Planning is alr...

Lately, I’ve been diving into Joan of Arc: Time of Legends, and our most recent session brought us to the iconic Battle of Crécy. If you’re familiar with the history, you know this was a critical battle where English strategy, terrain, and weather worked together to devastating effect on the French forces.

In our game, my friend John commanded the English, while I took the role of the French. The scenario begins with the Genoese crossbowmen already retreating in disarray, adding immediate...

Wow, it's been a while since I last posted here! Time flies, and there's so much to catch up on. Between epic game events, ongoing campaigns, and even starting our own mini-convention, I’ve been staying busy in the world of tabletop gaming. Here’s a quick rundown of what I’ve been up to, with plans for more detailed posts (and photos!) to come.

Big Events Recap

Over the past couple of years, I’ve had the chance to host some exciting large-scale events. In 2023, I organized a Stalingrad ...

If you are familiar with Frostgrave, Stargrave, or Rangers of Shadowdeep this game will be familiar territory to you.

The premise is that during the Napoleonic wars undead and other magical creatures have appeared on the fringes of the various battles. You are charged with creating a ...

One of the perks of being a board gamer is that I get a lot of little really good tough boxes I don’t use. Sometimes they get used for things around the house. Sometimes I just never take the expansions out of them. But there are times when I get them, and I have nothing to put into them. Then I'm forced to think about throwing them away or something else.

Recently, I got a copy of Dinosaur World. If you're familiar with that game there was a lot of expansions that came with it. It was pre...

Daimyo Rebirth of the Empire

Back in July of 2020 I was looking at this project when it was on Kickstarter thinking I was going to back it. I ended up not doing so and I kind of regretted it. I happened to luck into somebody that was selling a new unopened copy of this locally and picked it up.

First Impressions

When I opened this up, I thought to myself this is a colorful and busy looking game. Started reading the rules and there are some bits of it that remind me a lot of Scythe. looking...

It has been a little time since I have updated my blog. Had to take a break from a couple different things and have not really had much of a chance to work on this lately.

Things that I have been working on or looking to work on:

Stargrave: The new game system from Osprey has recently come out and I am super interested in it. The fact that it uses generic science fiction figures to do a sort of progressive campaign small crews is what is pulling me towards it. I will more about that a litt...

Yesterday, I did the final touches for the Kasrkin. At this point they are complete.

On Monday it was all about getting the basing done. I focused primarily on getting all the materials on the miniature’s bases. I started off with some small size rocks for the bases. I attached them with white glue and let them sit overnight. When they had dried the next morning, I then applied the sand to the base of each of the miniatures. Applying the sand, I used white glue mixed with some Brown paint...

Today was all about doing details on the Kasrkin. to start today off I wanted to kind of get all the bits and pieces done that I've been meaning to do but have just been like niggling little details I haven't had time to actually sit down in iron out and figure out.

I started with the scopes where I take and put red with the yellow highlights on the camera lens. The yellow on the red turned out to be a hefty contrast so I decided to take some red ink and put it over the whole thing. I think ...

Over the last few days, I have been having discussions with some old friends about some of the projects I have been working on recently.  I want to talk a little bit about how I am approaching it and how it seems to be helping me to get these things done.

In the past I have approached painting a figure with the goal of getting it finished and getting super focused on that to the point where it becomes an all or nothing thing. I have been finding that that is not working very well for me.

Last night we played Thunderstone for the first time. It has been a game that has been sitting on our shelves for many years and surprisingly enough last night was the first time we had played it. We initially got it as a gift for a daughter. She indicated interest on it based off playing it with a friend of ours.

It was kind of funny the reason it got to the table last night was because I was getting ready to play a game of it online with my friend Aron on Yucata. My wife heard me listenin...

Back about 15 years ago I used to be big into the tournament scene particularly for Warhammer 40K but there were times I would play in other tournaments as well. At the time there was a large program that games workshop used to run called the Rogue Trader tournament program. For those of you who were not around back then the rogue trader tournament system consisted of tournament packages that were supplied by games workshop mostly to stores but on occasion to clubs that would run tournaments ...

It is Friday and the week is over, and I think I found a solution to my Kasrkin command problem. Been kind of searching here and there for different options. I think I found two of them I am going to work with.

First off, I found a Sergeant On eBay that looks kind of interesting and it was not hugely expensive but the only thing that's kind of a bummer about it is that shipping is going to take a while because it is coming from Russia I believe. But it gives a couple different options for he...

Coming back into 40K the last sets of games I played were 4th edition which was quite a while ago. I did kind of dip my toes and start with 8th edition, but the pandemic hit I never actually got any games to the table. During the pandemic 9th edition came out and I managed to score myself a rule book. Now I'm going through this and taking a look at the new rules and trying to figure out what's different between these 9th edition rules and what I used to play and 4th Ed.

One thing I find inte...

Got started today on my new commissar for my Kasrkin Imperial guard army. This one is made by Grim Skull and it's called the Imperial iron commissar. Looking at it it's got some good detail it's all resin very clean cast. Very minimal cleanup needed.

When I was looking at it I was wondering if I should actually go and pin pieces together but when I stuck the sword arm into the arm it went in there with a nice little peg that stuck in there pretty well without any glue and was pretty solidly...

2-23-21

Making slower progress on the Kasrkin. For the most part I have been doing detail work. On the helmets I did the visors. On the rifles I did the scopes.

Did the skin tones on the sergeants as well.

The picture above is with the base coat and eyes done.

The next thing is the gloves and the data pads. I am starting them by priming them white. Still haven’t figured out what I am going to after that.

On the other hand, I also added some new pieces to the army. In this case I picked...

Been meaning to post some update on this but the project has been progressing. I got some serious work done on these last week. I am working at putting paint on the brush every day. Being that these figures are out of production. They all started out a little differently.

I started by priming the black ones with Krylon Green camo paint. Then I did the uniforms with AK Interactive Ocher Khaki.



I painted all of the gun housings white. then hit them with Basilicanum Grey contrast paint.

For the hos...

This morning I finished the mounted Knights for Time of Legends: Joan of Arc. As I mentioned in an earlier post. Mounted figures have always been a stumbling block for me. But with a lot of things, you just must work at it and keep pushing forward.

That is what I did with these guys. After I got all the base work done on these, I started on the colors on the barding. I would to 15 minutes here and do one color and take 10 minutes to do another one at another time until I finally called it d...

Time to start the Mounted Knights for Time of Legends: Joan of Arc. For some reason mounted figures have always given me trouble. It is more of a mental block than any thing else. I am not sure why that is but it is something that I have always had an issue with. But with this game there are lots of mounted units and they all need to be painted.

My plan for this was to have all the JOA content that I own finished by the time the new stuff arrives. Right now, I would say that this is looking...

Another game that I am just about finished painting is Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps by GF9. Initially I was going to give this one a pass, but I changed my mind and ended up pre-ordering it.

I found the minis effortless to put together. The Aliens had a little fit issue with the tails but in the end, it worked out. The Marines went together much easier.

The Aliens were super simple to paint. I primed them with a grey primmer. Then I gave it a coat of Citadel Contrast Wyldwood....

Back to the Imperial Guard.

For those that knew me back about 15-20 years ago when I used to play lots of 40k I played a lot of armies. I built a lot more than I played. But there was always a consistent army that I built and played over and over and that was Imperial Guard or as it is known these day Astra Militarium. I lost track of how many plastic Cadians I did but they easily numbered in the 1000s and built dozens of vehicles from the little Sentinels to the Mighty Baneblades. I have ma...

Not a huge entry today but I wanted to close the loop on the Bowmen. 

Well, I finished the bowmen on Tuesday. I dry brushed by working my way from Raw Umber to Yellow Oxide to Unbleached Titanium. I use Acrylic paint for this because the are not thinned out where you have to spend a lot of effort getting them ready to drybrush and a little goes a long way.


Here is a picture of the various stages of the dry brushing. The lighting wasn't the greatest in this picture but hopefully you get the idea...

So, I finally bit the bullet and started painting the massive amount of plastic for Time of Legends Joan of Arc. Most people suggest that you paint what you need for the starter so that if what I am doing, but with a twist. If I need bowmen, I am painting all of them.

Started by gluing the on popsicle sticks to make them easier to handle and prime.

I primed them white.

After they were dry, I did the cloaks in Citadel Contrast. I want to vary them to give the m more of a peasant levy sort ...

Last January my buddy Wayne and I got a booth for the GK Flea Market at the Mountain View store. (Little did we know that this was going to be the last Flea Market any of us would ever attend there).

We are setting up our table there and as we are doing so, a guy across from us along with his wife are setting up boxes and boxes of GW products. He then puts a sign up saying that everything on the table is free.

I had been interested in getting back into it for a while, so I go an ask him a...

• Libertalia
• A Bridge Too Far: Operation Market Garden

• Dune
• China Town
• Wasabi!

The Venus Next expansion for Terraforming Mars was released in 2017 and we only got around to incorporating it into our game. The previous expansion (Hellas and Elysium) got put on the table the day we got it. For whatever reason this one took longer.

This expansion adds a few new elements to the game. On the surface some of them look to be a bigger factor than they actually are. And there are a bunch of little ones that make a more of a difference than you would imagine

New Corporations:

• I ...

1. Need to finish painting 
2. Need to finish the Frigate
3. Maybe make some more cave terrain
4. Maybe make some more debris
5. Put together a checklist and make sure that everything is packed.
6. Make ...

Spent a lot of the last couple of days putting the Customs Frigate together. Need to balance it out. It feels like it is nice a solid and structurally sound. Here are some pictures:

Also I updated the description of my event with some rules. Here is the link to it

38 Days and counting……..

The clock continues to count down and we are still making progress. Last night I spent a lot of time making more debris pieces.

I also spent a lot of time adding greblies to the engines.

Been trying to get in a little work here and there for the KC 2017 Event. The past weekend was one of great progress. I started to get into a groove on a bunch of stuff. It got to kind of a critical mass where the momentum of it start to take over.

Quite a bit of progress happened on the Customs Frigate over the weekend. I got the command section nearly completed. However the thing that is going to be the challenge is going to be the structural portion of it. I ran a single spar through it ...

• A framework for the scenario special rules has been set
• The NPC Rebel and Imperial Forces 
• Generic Lists for Scum Players
• Generic Lists for Imperial Players
• Generic Lists for Rebel Players

So I had to cancel my playtest over the weekend due to lack of people. Was not a huge issue. I spent Friday night cleaning and putting away all of the things that I do not need.

One of the other things that came up on Friday was that I got my table assignment for KublaCon. I am at table 28 in the Regency Ballroom.

I didn’t get too much time to do much else this weekend. 

It is the Thursday before the big playtest and I feel like there is so much still to do with very little time to do it.

At this point I have to stop work on the Frigate and use it as is for the playtest. Here is where it stands right now:

I need to construct the stand for it. (It is not going to be any good if I can’t put it on the table) I have a stat sheet and damage chart for it so it is playable.  The big challenge that everyone keeps asking is how I am going to transport it. I have ...

So last night my daughter and I spent a lot of time talking about things that happen in high school while we gesso’ed the frigate. There are still a few other things the need to be done. At This point they are not limited to:

• ·         Building the Engines
  
• ·         Finishing the Bridge
  
• ·         Finish detailing the hull
  
• ·         Building the docking bay
  
• ·         Build the Stand
  

Here are some pictures of how it looks today:

Also yesterday I spent some time working on the scen...

One of the big issues that I've had at larger scenarios is trying to figure out how much damage a particular ship has taken. With 10 or more people at a table they can get quite confusing to figure out how many times a Tie fighter has been hit. It leads to extra questions that don't really need to happen and drags the game down. Additionally it will tend to slow down the scenario.

That being said my solution to this problem was to make little name tents that show the ship the Pilot skill the...

Been playing quite a bit of Firefly recently. It is one of our go to games when we want to have a group over and play a big game. Last Thursday we have a few people over. We played with the all of the expansions with the exception of leaving the PVP elements out (piracy and bounties).

For the set-up we used the Browncoat way to determine the starting ships and captains. It is my preferred method of distributing ships and captains. The way it works is that each player is given $12000. Then a...

Spent some time cleaning up the work bench last night. I started work on the bridge of the ship. I made some decent progress on it but there is still work to do on it. It is one of the focal points of the ship and I want it to look good. I spent a little time applying gesso to the ship as well to seal the foam core. Here is where I left it last night.

Been on a bit of a Memoir 44  kick lately.  In the last week Lisa and I have played three games that were all quite different. 

On the 7^th we played a scenario called the battle of Arracourt from the starter set. Lisa took the roll of the Americans and I took the Germans. Lisa played very well and I just couldn’t get my forces together to coordinate a good response. In the end I got pummeled by Lisa 6 medals to 1.

On Easter Sunday I took the role of the Americans to invade Omaha Beach ...

• 2 Spartan Chariots
• Sebeki Harbinger
• Sebeki Master of Words
• Asar Archer unit
• Nebekaru Archer Unit
• Lots of command counters