Time for War!

So,

Last weekend I got to Demo CAV: Strike Operations to my buddy Tom, it was also a quick chance to see if I was able to break down the rules for Talon Games into a quick play demo style of rules. I was given the task from Jon Walker of Talon Games to create a 4 or 5 page set of the rules just going over all the basics.

Rach Starter Set

Terran Starter Set

With two fully painted starter sets, Tom and I set out to demo the game. All in all I nailed all the core mechanics of the game, although I did forget to add the section about damaging (which I have corrected).

As well as showing Tom the game, I had a few folks come by to see what we were doing, it seems that Big Stompy Robots are a draw! Tom enjoyed himself and actually won the game by having only his Starhawk alive at the end of the game.

All in all it was a great showing for CAV: Strike Operations. In a few weeks I will be doing more demos and may hit up a few other stores in the local area as well as possibly heading down to Tucson to show off the game.

So as I mentioned above, I am contributing to Talon Games on CAV:SO and will be doing some further writing for them in the very near future. I will also be going down to Reapercon/CAVcon in October to help run games as well as answer questions about the game and future projects.

I have also set up the CAV: Strike Operations HQ Facebook group and I am the Admin for the group. I am also running the first ever CAV: SO paint competition on the group with prizes for 1st, 2nd & 3rd place, this is all being hosted on the CAV:SO HQ group at the above link.

Besides that, I am also working on my  Malvernians and have a new battle group.

I am thinking of taking this group to Reapercon/CAVcon in October, I have a few more models to paint up.

Oh and I am about to start writing my first ever fiction book, which I plan to self publish on Amazon. I have the blessing of Talon Games to set the book in the CAV: SO universe. In fact this weekend I plan to do a story synopsis of the book, I am a little nervous about writing fiction and I will not lie, it scare the pants off of me. But what scares us makes us stronger right???

So lots of CAV: Strike Operations going on around here, but I will confess, all these new GW games is making it very hard to stay focused on CAV!

TK

Oh Days of Old...

So,

With my brother moving out to Arizona, we have had a resurgence of Warhammer Quest. You see back in the day, we used to play the crap out of this game, our wives also enjoyed exploring the long lost dungeons and we all had characters that were starting to get pretty far advanced in levels.

But all good things pass, my brother and his wife moved out to Georgia, I moved out to Arizona and pretty much the game went up onto the shelf. Yes I did bring it down for a short while and actually ran a few games for a group of folks at my local store. But I was on to other games and slowly Quest slipped into the past.

During this long slumber, I actually acquired another almost complete set of the game from a friend that only really wanted a few of the miniatures. This second copy went up onto the shelf with my copy and there it sat.

Then about 6 months ago, my brother gave me the news that he was relocating to Yuma AZ, (I am in Phoenix) and he came out to stay for a weekend. While out he suggested we bust out Quest again. Now my good friend DrunkenSamurai mentioned he would be interested in trying out the game. So when my brother made the trip out, Quest came down off the shelf and hit the table again.

So with that, I set up a game night, which included my wife, my son (who loved watching us play back in the day), Drunken and his wife as well as my brother. I choose the DM role, flipping cards and running the monsters. A great time was had by all. We all agreed that we would retain the characters for the next time we all got together.

Well a few weeks pasted and my brother made another trip to the valley, in which prompted another night of Quest! Fun was had by all, except my wife, who's Wardancer set off a trap and fell into a pit, which wouldn't be so bad, but the group forgot to bring a rope and the Wizard did not have a levitate spell, so her character was trapped for eternity in the pit! So is the Warhammer Quest Gods, they are brutal at times.

Then last weekend I was visiting a friend in Kansas and he just happened to have the last piece of the Warhammer Quest puzzle that I needed, the Catacombs of Terror models! I had the campaign pack, but no models. So with an agreement to paint for him, I secured the models.

Then just today, my brother informed me that he would be back up in Phoenix on the 20th, and his game of choice, you got it, Warhammer Quest! So it looks like I will be painting up a bunch more models for this game night.

Which got me thinking, I need to start putting more paint on these classic models, I also need to come up with a better way to store said models. Right now they are just thrown into a box, no rhyme or reason, painted with unpainted. So I think I am going to try to paint up at least one new (old) model a week. I will try to get more done, but at least one a week is doable.

So it looks like Quest is back on the table, my family and friends are enjoying it and so am I. In fact I think I will take up more of a DM roll and actually design adventures instead of using the cards, that was always my goal, why not get started now on it!

So stay tuned for more Warhammer Quest posts folks...

TK

CAV Strike Operations

So,

Its been a short while since I last made an update, so here we go. Today's post is on Talon-Games CAV Strike Operations, a game about Combat Armored Vehicles (aka CAV's) or big stompy  robots! I first heard about this game from Reaper Miniatures sometime around 2010 or so while at my local game store here in town. Back then all the models were metal and I contemplated picking it up, but never did. You see, I was a big Battletech player many many years ago and ever since I left that system I toyed around with getting back into a robot combat game. But for whatever reason, I never picked it up and to be honest, I even picked up Heavy Gear and tried playing that, but just could not get into it.

My next run in with CAV was when Reaper Miniatures announced the new Kickstarter for CAV Strike Operations and the CAVs would be in Bones Material. Well a bunch of friends here got excited and backed the Kickstarter. Sadly I did not due to financial issues. But I had at least 4 friends back it, and my buddy, Mike over at DaGreenskins Blog,hooked me up with the first eight models Reaper did in the white Bones material. Then we had to wait for the kick starter to be fulfilled. So once the models arrived I got to painting them up with ideas of writing our own rules for Robot combat fighting game.

First Reaper Bones White material CAVs

But as things go, life got in the way with my own rules for robots fighting and the Kick starter dragged on. Also the white bones material was rather interesting to work with. The models I was given had slight bends in them on the gun barrels. I followed the Reaper instructions for heating them and cooling them to straighten them out. That last about 4 days and the bends came back to them. Last time I was at Adepticon, I even asked the Reaper guys about this and they were shocked that I was still having issues. I finally had to drill out the gun barrels and insert brass wire in them to keep them straight.Needless to say, I was not feeling very good about this new material and had reservations about the game.

Well the game finally came out and the new grey material was much better than the white stuff. But by the time all the guys here got their stuff, they were pretty much ready to move onto something else. I think part of that is the Kick Starter bubble, people get excited about these new games and then forget about them and move onto the next game or fund the next project.

Well about a year ago one of the guys that got all the stuff in the KS, asked if I was interested in picking up his set for the amount he paid into it for a trade in paint. So that following weekend I had a huge box of CAV models and more importantly the CAV Strike Operation rules. I wish I could say I was super excited about it, but I filed the models into the closet and the rule book onto the shelf to be looked at later.

Well, at the end of last year, I decided that I wanted to take a hard look at CAV SO again, so I pulled out the rules and started reading. I started to enjoy what was in there, in fact I then pulled out all the CAVs and started to assemble them and base them up. Then I found out that my buddy Merle in Kansas, was interested in the game as well. So he and I started talking about the game. He told me that he had talked with the author, Jon Walker while at Reapercon last October. If Merle was into the game i knew it had to be good. So with that I started going through the book and identified the faction I wanted to build, The Ritterlich Republic, a strange Germanic force that had a very WW2 vibe to them. SO with that I decided to paint up a few more CAV's, below are two Ritterlich CAV's, the Cataphract and Cougar, these are two CAVs from the 92nd Schwarzenwald Brigade, the Panthers.

 

I have about eight more Ritterlich CAVs to finish, but I am super excited about this game and you will see more CAV Strike Operations here on the blog in the very near future. So if your looking for a cool Robot combat game that is pretty cheap to get into, than CAV Strike Operations is for you! Now recruit, get signed up for some CAV combat!

TK

First trip into Frostgrave

Well,

Today DrunkenSamurai and I got in our first game of Frostgrave and in a nutshell, we both loved it. What an interesting game it was, we both just put together two Bands and threw down. We did not do any creatures, or specific scenarios. We just wanted to try the game out and get the mechanics of it down.

Necromancer Apprentice and a few men.

I ran a Necromancer Wizard, apprentice, two crossbowmen, two thieves, three thugs and a barbarian. Drunken ran a Summoner  band with Wizard, apprentice, two thieves, two bowmen and a couple of men at arms. Which was surprising that the two bands were pretty similar to each other.

Necromancer himself and a few more men.

Basically we just sort of bummed rushed each other to see how everything worked, since this was our first game. We placed the objectives and just started the game. Figuring out how to move was a challenge, with group activation and such, but we had both printed out the errata and figured it out.

Barbarian hiding behind a wall.

 Combat was pretty straight forward to figure out. We did have a funny situation were I had two Thugs fighting a Zombie (that Drunken had raised). My first Thug attacked, won the fight and only caused 4 wounds, leaving the undead beast with one wound. I then activated the second Thug, only to have him roll a 2 for the fight and loose to the zombie, who in turn killed him outright. We joked that Thug two was cocky and turned his head to congratulate his buddy, only to be attacked by the zombie and tear him apart. I guess he forgot got the Zombieland rule of Double Tap!

Drunkens warband, picture taken from his Twitter page

 When we got to Spell casting, my first attempts were pretty bad, and I wondered how my "Wizard" had become a Wizard, because he couldn't cast crap! Now the Apprentice on the other hand, must have been taking notes, because he was a casting fool. The best casting was when he cast Bone Dart at Drunkens Wizard and killed him outright since he couldn't resist it. I also had killed his Apprentice, but can not remember if it was with a spell or not. I need to remember these things so I could find out experience in later games.

Necromancer Warband

All in all it was a fun game, I actually got two objective markers off the board while Drunken had got none I think, maybe he got one, not sure. But all in all I got the win for the first game of Frostgrave in our little group.

Necro Band Close Up

 So what did I think, well it plays much different than I imagined and different from how it read. I liked the Initiative sequence, feels very much like LotR which of course I love. It made me really think about how I should move models especially about forcing combats.

The rest of the Necro band Close Up.

The movement seemed strange at first, with having to move first and second moves being half of your rate. It got funky when you are in rough terrain, but we figured it out.

Combats are pretty straight forward, and it once again reminds me of LotR, with the higher roll winning. In fact my new Rules use a very similar to Frostgrave, which is strange because when I wrote the Heroic rules, I had not seen Frostgrave.

Shooting is pretty straight forward as well, being much like combat. It is nice that its pretty much the same and keeps the game simple.

Spell Casting is very interesting, I really love if you miscast your spell, which we had a few of those today. I have heard from a few people that they did not like it, but it did not bother me at all. Choosing spells is a very important part of the game, funny thing today, I was playing a Necromancer Wizard, but did not have raise Zombie, Drunken did. So after I get more games in, I am sure it will get easier. I wish that Osprey would have continued to sell the Spell Cards that a guy on LAF had designed. But oh well.

The other part that I like about this game is the terrain, it is going to force me to look at more fantasy stuff like 4Ground lines that I have been eyeing for some time. Today I was able to bust out my old Osgilith terrain for LotR, which was good to have on the table again.

So all in all, I really really liked this game and Drunken and I will be doing more with it for sure in the future, so stay tuned, we will be returning to Frostgrave...

TK

Life is short, death is eternal! - Frostgrave

So,

I am pretty slow at jumping on the new game band wagon and it has taken me a while to get on this Frostgrave wagon. In fact, I picked up the game and first Nickstarter when it came out and promptly stuck the book on the shelf and miniatures in the closet, until this weekend.

Well what happened this weekend to make me bust it out? Well I hosted a Warhammer Quest game for a few family members and friends and the itch to do some fantasy gaming kicked in. So with that inspiring me, I busted out what  I had and started thinking of what sort of warband I wanted to assemble for the game.

Being an old Warhammer Fantasy Undead player, I knew I wanted to try out a Necromantic Wizard with apprentice. With that decided, I tried to think what sort of people would follow a Necromantic wizard that  pursues death. So the next choice was taking a apprentice which cost me 200gc out of the 500 I had to spend. Then I decided that I needed two Crossbowmen at 50gc, one to hang out with the wizard and one with the apprentice. That meant I had spent 100 gc for the crossbows, 200gc left over. So I went for not one, but two Thief's at 20gc each, there job was to go after treasure quickly and bring it back to the Wizard. After that I choose three thugs as cannon fodder and after all the Wizard doesn't care about life, so cheap troops works to throw away. This took me to 9 models and left me with 100gc left over, so I decided the Wizard would hire a Barbarian to watch over him and protect him while casting.

Necromantic Wizards Warband.

So with the models figured out, I decided that the back story would be a Necromantic Wizard and apprentice approached a Thieves Guild to offer his services as a wizard to the guild. But the Necromantic wizard only wanted cheap, dispensable lives that he didn't really care about, and who would care if a few thieves disappeared from town. Plus it made getting bodies easier for his necromantic incantations and would allow him to practice raising the dead!

So there you have it, my Necromantic War band for Frostgrave, the wizards motto is Life is Short, But Death, that is Eternal!

TK

Point 213 Progress - Germans Complete

Well,

This weekend saw the last models I will be contributing to the Point213 game completed, Two Tiger I's.

Two Big Cats

Once again, these are Warlord models and went together pretty fast. Once assembled I primed both models flat black. Once that dried, I then applied Vallego Middlestone by sort of wet drybrushing onto the models. Once the first coat was dried, I applied a second coat of Middlestone to the models.

Wet drybrush of Middlestone applied.

Once that was dry. I started on the tracks and other details like the tools on the deck and such. This went pretty quickly since the Tigers don't have too many detail to pick out. Interestingly I bought the Rubicon German Stowage and was going to apply some of these to the Tigers, but as I looked at pictures, I could really not find too many that had extra stowage on them, especially the ones in Normandy. I chatted about this with Drunkensamurai, and he has a great Tiger book and it seems that only Tigers on the Eastern front had pictures with extra stowage. The Germans seemed pretty fanatical about keeping the Tigers in clean good shape and seemed to have been supplied via other means rather than the crew having to haul it around with them. So long story short, no extra stowage was modeled for these two.

Camo Applied, do you see me?

After the tracks and details were painted, I applied the camo to the tanks using Vallejo German Cam Brown and German Reflective Green. I actually struggled with which camo scheme to apply to these kitties, but in the end with a rather simple design. Once I was satisfied with the camo pattern, I then used Army Painter Strong Tone all over the models and let them sit to dry. Once that had completely dried, I then applied decals to the vehicles using the smaller numbers in the Rubicon decal sheet instead of the larger ones that Warlord supplied. I choose to use Tank Numbers 234, which Herbert Steif commanded and tank number 221 which was George Hantsch commanded. Both of these tanks were at the real Point 213 Battle and were part of Michael Wittmans platoon.

Herbert Steif Tiger
 

George Hantsch Tiger

Once the decals set, I then applied a dry brush of Americana Mississippi Mud color to the whole model, this gives the tanks a light layer of dust and just the right amount of weathering. Once again Tigers were kept pretty clean and I can't stand when modelers go crazy with the weathering effects. If you talk to most tankers (current and past) they kept heir tanks in pretty good condition since it is/was their home away from home. So just a simple weathering effect looks better than going nuts.

And there you have it, two more tanks completed for the Point 213 game. So since I completed these, on Sunday I went down to Drunkensamurai's place and we started working on the 48 linear feet of bocage that will be needed for this game. We are doing the Bocage in 6" sections (once a tank successfully crosses bocage you remove a section per the BA rules) and were using pink insulation foam for the base of the bocage.

Here is about 40 of the sections of Bocage!

 We cut the bases out and beveled them, then cut various heights of pink foam and glued them to the bases. Once that set we went back and filled any gaps and cut the foam into more random shapes. Drunken will be adding some of the section we cut off glued to various sides to give them a more robust, plump look to them. Once that is done, we will be painting them dark brown and applying Woodland Scenics coarse ground foam and applying a ton of glue to harden them up.

So stay tuned friends, the Battle for Point 213 game progress' forward...

TK

Point 213 Progress - British Complete

Well,

On New Years day I completed painting on my British Troop for the Point 213 game in March or April of this year. These are all Warlord models and were pretty easy to assemble, I found that I enjoyed putting these together as compared to building Tamyia 1/48th scale models.

Painting for these was also pretty quick as well. In fact I used the same Testors dark green paint can that I used on my Tamyia models ten years ago, no issues. Then I did a Army Painter Strong Tone wash on the whole model followed by a Americana Honey Brown wash. Decals were from Warlord and went on after the Strong Tone wash and before the Honey Brown wash.

First up, the Firefly:

Warlord Firefly

Next is the Cromwell Command tank:

Warlord Cromwell

Here are all the Cromwell's together:

Warlord Cromwell's

Followed by a group shot of the entire British Troop:

All Warlord Kits

Also on New Years Eve, during the day, DrunkenSamurai and I got in another test game of the Point 213 game. This time I would play the British while he took command of the Germans.

Point 213 Battle test game two.

As you can see from the above picture, the British will be deployed along the road with a random number of pinned down markers. This is to represent the British stopping on the hill to have a conference to find out where are these Germans they have been looking for. This test game went very differently then the last one, mostly due to the fact that I knew what I had to do as the British player and the fact that most of the tanks only had one or two pin markers on them. Needless to say, I will not say what I did to win as the players will need to figure this out for themselves.

Next up will be two of the Tigers I am painting for this game, DrunkenSamurai has the other two. Also we need to get started on the Bocage for the game, since the table will need lots of it, at least 48 linear feet of it to be exact. Here are all the bases that we will be using.

Bocage bases

And hopefully this is what they will look like:

Mikes Bocage sections

These were done by my friend Mike over at Da Greenskins Blog, he built these for our local shop. I may be working on these this weekend, we shall see. So lots going on here so stay tuned.

TK

Plans for 2017!

So,

Time for the obligatory "Plans" for 2017 post. Which is actually good for me because I can keep some sort of record of what I want to do. So lets jump straight into it shall we?

Play More Games - This may seem like a no brainer but this past year saw a decline in gaming for me. Several factors were the cause, most being personal. So I would like to play more games and enjoy my gaming again. I want to expand my board gaming and games this year since these are always a great way to game with other folks rather than the miniature guys.

Saga - Well, I would like to run a Age of the Wolf campaign this year and I would like to start this towards the end of this month. I would also like to get my Moors started for Crescent & the Cross. I just need a few more things and I will be ready to go on that project.

Bolt Action 2 - Well sometime around March or beginning of April, we will be doing the Point 213 battle using the Bolt Action Tank Wars supplement. I also have purchased a new army for Bolt Action, Imperial Japanese Army, this is going to be the first full fledged Bolt Action army for me. All my other armies were for other game systems, which were easily converted over to Bolt. So I am pretty excited about this and look forward to this project.

HEROIC - Well I just got word that my new ruleset is at the printer now, so within the next few weeks I should be getting my copies of the book. So with that, I will be doing demos of the game and working on supplements for it.

Blood Bowl - Well with GW rereleasing one of my favorite game, I had to pick it up and I am currently painting up the new Orc team and plan to participate in a store league. If it goes well, I may try to organize a league for a few friends. Thanks GW for sucking back in!

Infinity - Well I have been slowly working on my Nomad army and would like to get it done soon so I can start playing. Rob finally picked up the rules, so maybe we can get more than one game on the table this year. I would also like to pick up some terrain for the game and have my eye on Plasticraft games terrain.

Black Powder - Well in February I will be hosting a big Black Powder ACW game with a few friends. Now that I have enough stuff for one side, Rob and I want to do a few smaller games to see how it plays.

Flames of War - Well in years past I have played a lot of Flames, but in the last two years it really fell off for me. Mostly due to my attitude towards the game and I was not having fun anymore. This past year, Rob and I got in a couple of games and I really do miss the look of the game and playing it. I would like to finally get my British 8th army on the table for North Africa, so that will be a goal for me this year.

Pulp Alley - I need to get this game back into rotation, I really do love this game. With me building a Japanese army for Bolt, I can start doing some South Pacific Pulp games now. I am also working with the author of Pulp Alley to write a supplement for him. Plus I still have a ton of Pulp Figures that need paint.

Model Railroading - Well I will continue to work on my layout and everything that goes with it, I would like to get all the electrical done by mid year. I also want to build a few modules for a local group of guys I joined up with. And as always I will continue to operate on my friends layouts as well as help out with terrain for these layouts.

So there you go, my plans for 2017, we will see how this goes and see if I can accomplish more than a few of the goals this year.

TK

Time to Look back at 2016

So,

It is that time of year again were most bloggers take a look back and see what we did throughout the year. I have been doing this for some time on Cursed Treasures and its always eye opening for me to see what I did or did not do, so lets see what were my goal.

Saga, I have two armies on deck for painting and Mike and I will be running Ragnarok again. Also my local store would like Mike and I to run some regular demos for the game. Our goal is to get some traction under the game and see if we can build a bigger community for the game. 

So, I got in about a dozen or so games of Saga this year, ran a few demos at our local shop and got at least one person (Jeff) interested in the game. Robert and I also played through the Age of the Wolf scenarios this year to try them out. I started a new Viking army, but sadly no paint on them yet. Did I grow the community with Mike, well one person got into it, so I will say Saga did rather well for me, so its a solid win there. 

Beyond the Gates of Antares, picked up this game late in 2015 and I am committed to building a Concord army. Once again the local store would like me and Mike to run some demos for this, we already have painted up the demo set and in the next few weeks we will start with demos.

 Well for Gates, I did get two demo armies painted up for Imperial Outpost, and helped run a few demos, although Mike really did most of the work. As for the game, I lost interest in it pretty quickly. The game was toted as being in the Bolt Action rules, but for other than the order dice and the way you pull dice, that was about it. The game just dos not spark any sort of feeling for me. Maybe its the background, maybe the rules, I don't know, but I lost interest and don't feel like I will ever get it back on the table. So sadly this is a bust for me.

Batman the Miniature game, this is something I have been eyeing for some time. A mutual author helped with the edits for the second edition. The Models are cool and the game is a skirmish game. Also there is a Marvel game in the works. So we will see what happens.

Well, I did not get into Batman, did take a look at the Marvel game, but once again, I did not like the rules for the Marvel game. Also Knight models are a pain to assemble and to paint, so after taking way too long to paint up the Xmen box set for Mike, I said I was done, which is really too bad because I really wanted to like this game. So another bust for me.

Black Powder, well I hope to get more of my ACW done this year as well as get my 15mm AWI painted and hopefully onto the table. I am also interested in possibly doing some ECW in 28mm, but we will see.

Well, no games were played at all, but I did make great progress in getting four more units of Confederates done. Also in February of 2017 we will be doing a large game and I have been working towards getting terrain and models ready for this, so this was a victory for me this year even though no games were played.

Infinity, I picked this game up in 2015, but only got as far as assembling half the models. I would like to get the starter set all assembled and painted and get this to the table. Recently Rob has expressed interest and I know Mike is also interested. In fact Infinity has a very good following here in Phoenix. 

Well, first off, I got all the models in the starter set assembled, which was the Pan O models and Nomads. I decided that I wanted to try out the Nomads and ended up picking up a bunch more models for the Nomads. I also decided that I needed to start painting on the models and I am happy to report that I have two completed Nomad models, with a third almost done. Rob got one game in, a very simple game just to get the mechanics down. So all in all I did a lot for Infinity, so this was a minor victory.

Bolt Action, in just over a month, Gathering in the Desert will take place so Bolt Action will be back on the table. I did get my Perry DAK painted up for the event as well as terrain. So this will be a success for sure. After the event we will see how Bolt goes after the event.

Bolt Action and Gathering in the Desert was a huge win this year, tons of games were played (well test games for GitD) and the event ran rather well. Rob, Tom and I embarked on a Tank War project (Point 213 game) and I have assembled a few more tanks as well as finished up various small projects for GitD that were related to Bolt Action. So once again, Bolt was a huge victory!

Flames of War, in just a few weeks I will be playing in Shifting Sands 2016 which is a early war event. I only had to paint up a few infantry stands and I am ready to go. As for what lays ahead, we will see in 2016 where FoW

Well I played in Shifting Sands and had a good time, cant remember were I placed, but had a good time. I also purchased and painted a Great War British army in 2016 and got in a game or two of Great War. I played a few games of Flames, but nothing like I did years ago. So i would say it was a minor victory for flames.

Pulp Alley, so I fore see Pulp Alley being back this year. In fact in 2015 I got the Tales of the Golden Monkey on DVD and there are a ton of ideas for games in that show. So Pulp Alley will be back on the table in 2016.

I love Pulp Alley and the Pulp setting, unfortunately I got no games of Pulp[ Alley in at all. I did start working with the author of the game about a supplement, which I am still working on. About the only thing I did that was Pulp, was built and painted two Red Skull models, one for Pulp Alley and another for Konflikt '47. So unfortunately this was a major loss for me.

Conventions, so for many years I have traveled to Chicago for Adepticon. It is starting to get rather expensive to travel and it's not getting easier to travel now a days. Last year Mike and I attended Rincon down in Tucson. It was a great little convention and we will be going back down in 2016. The reality is I would rather support events here in AZ rather then traveling to other places to play games.

Well, sadly I attended no game conventions in 2016, Rincon came and went and there was no other cons related to gaming. Now I did attend Phoenix Comicon and Mike ran a few games of Thunder Alley, but all I did was wander around and take in the con. So this was a bust for me in 2016.
 

Model Railroading, well I ordered the last bit of track right before the end of the year, so my layout will be getting track all laid this year. I have been working on the rolling stock and generally getting ready to lay track. This is a long term project so as long as I get track laid it will be a success.

 Well, I did not get any track laid in 2016, I have it all but just had not gotten around to laying track. Part of the issue was the fact that I have been helping a friend work on his layout as well as operate on it. I also joined a modular group out here and will be building a few modules for said club. So because of this, my layout has not moved along very much. I did get a NCE DCC system as well as a few new cars and a couple of new locomotives. So not a total bust, but nothing significant on the home layout.

So, what else did I do in 2016? Well I was part of a local group of painters that all built new Konfikt'47 armies. I built a German army for the game and got in a few games, but K47 is basically Bolt Action version 1 rules. Warlord also released Bolt Action 2 and there are enough changes that I may not play more K47, but the models will be used for Pulp Alley. Speaking of Bolt Action, I picked up an Imperial Japanese Army and along with Rob, will be building a new army in 2017. I also picked up the new edition of the rules, but still have not played or read them.

So there you go, 2016 is in the books, now onto 2017.

TK