Winter Update

It is a little embarrassing to think I was about to start this article with almost the exact same language I used before during this time of year. So instead I will be more direct. I've come to the realization that I need to be a lot more active here and I plan on doing just that in the new year. In many ways the beginning of new year with be a new start for me. In one major way this will be the case is that I will be moving in January. This will affect the blog in two ways. First, even though I plan on being more active next year, a lot of those plans have to wait until after I move. My models are being boxed up and I don't want to order new stuff until I'm at my new address. Second, I'm going to make sure in my new home I will have a place dedicated to working on models and recording video. In the long run this should be good news for the blog. Many of my current projects will be also getting a fresh start in one way or another in the new year. Here is a summary of those projects as well as my status with other games I've mention recently.

Team Yankee/Flames of War - I lost my motivation to keep up with Team Yankee when I had no one to play with. Along with the feeling that my Americans were cursed, I didn't see a purpose to follow a game I had no way of playing. Tracy drop everything gaming related to work on a personal project. He also sold or attempt to sell all his terrain that we used to play with. But he still has his Soviets and mentions how much he miss playing. And I have to admit I do too. Especially since the game has move so far since I've been active. I quit when West Germans were coming out and now we have Britain, East Germans on the horizon and new toys for Soviets. As if this wasn't enough to get me excite, Battlefront announce 4th edition of Flames of War. I always enjoy Flames of War and partially the reason I gave it up was because of Tracy's dislike of how complex the rules were. With 4th edition, it seems Flames of War is getting the stream line treatment Tracy always talked about. With all this excitement, I've decided that in the new year I will work on both Team Yankee and Flames of War stuff so if and when Tracy is able to play again I will have my own painted force to use. Also on a side note I'm planning on doing some traveling by train. If this experience isn't a complete nightmare it will open the door for me to travel around the country to attend wargaming events. As Team Yankee and Flames of War are the games I'm most interested in going to events for, I need to put in the effort to have forces ready if the opportunity presents itself.

I'm taking a fresh start with my Team Yankee force. It seems something always goes wrong when I work on my Americans. So I'm going to start a West German and a Soviet force. I'm going with West German because they seem similar but better than American in most ways. I know Americans have their advantages but I think West German just fit me better. I'm also going to work on a Soviet force because I thought up a silly idea for a list I want to play with. When I realize I could make a list with 20 T-72s and still have almost a fifth of the points available to purchase other things, I wanted to see this in action. I have no idea how I want to spend those points yet but since it will be a while before I will have my 20 tanks, it is a problem I can save for later. I do have another reason for starting my Soviet list. When Tracy becomes available to play again, there are a lot of scenarios I think would be fun to play. The thing is, many of these scenarios require way more T-72s than what Tracy owns. If and when we start making videos and battle reports again, I really want to try to limit the amount of proxying that is require. I don't have the means to grab these armies quickly. What I can say is that when I purchase something new, I will assemble and it paint it as quickly as I can. My first Team Yankee purchases of the year will be 1 Leopard 2 tank and 2 T-72 tanks. The irony here is that I won't be able to finish these tanks until I buy more stuff because I will lack decals since I'm buying just the sprues. At the very least I can get them to the point where I'm done painting them.

On the Flames of War front I'm also going to start fresh with new models. I have a handful of Flames of War stuff that is currently unfinished but I've decided to sideline them for now. The first thing I needed to decided on to restart my Flames of War force was which list to focus on. While it is in my nature to randomly pick up units, Flames of War lists are so varied that I could buy 10 different late war units and there could be a list that has none of those units as options. The Bridge at Remagen book has lists that I enjoyed playing with but instead I went with my last Flames of War purchase, Berlin. There is a lot I can say about the Berlin list but I will saved it for another time. For now I will say my Berlin list is going to start with the Kleinpanzer Wanze. Ever since I first saw a picture of it I wanted the model of this vehicle. With its six Panzerschreck rocket launcher tubes, I so want to see the Wanze in action on the game table. My only regrets about them is that 1. they are only in the Berlin book (to my knowledge) and 2. I can only ever take one unit of them. Once I finish painting an unit of Wanze, I will consider where to go next.

Battletech - My Battletech status is more than a little embarrassing. My friend and myself came up with a scenario to play. We picked sides and crafted special rules to fit our scenario. The only thing we need to do was to fill out our roster. I never finish making my roster and we both stop talking about Battletech. Since then I have forgotten a lot of what we develop for the campaign and my friend has pick up a new Battletech book that covers some of the stuff our campaign is about. Last time I check we both were still interested in playing. We need to get together to review the rules and discuss if we want to change anything with rules from the new book. In the meantime I will post a summary of the scenario we are planning on playing. After we rehammer out the rules, I will post those rules on its own page. I wasn't going to give Battletech its own page but the campaign we design turned out quite a bit more complex than I thought it was going to be. We won't be able to start playing until after I move. I also want to pick up a couple of mechs based on my roster before we start as well. I'm looking at March to be about the soonest we can start our own personal war.

Relic Knights - Relic Knights continues to be the game I'm most excited about that I've never played. The two games of Hordes I played this year reminded me of Relic Knights in many ways. After playing a few more Hordes games I will do an article comparing the two systems. My plans is to do two Relic Knights videos, one in March and the second in May. At this point all my Relic Knights models will be fully painted and I will be looking for games to play. If I do get to play a few games then I will do a third video around July talking about my experience playing the game. That is as far as I can plan out because I still don't know if I will like the game. Everything I've read about Relic Knights tells me it should be something I will really enjoy but sometimes games have deal breaking quirks that you only learn about playing the game yourself. If I do end up not liking the game, I am playing two other games that uses similar bases in which I could use the models for instead.

Frostgrave/Civil War - Both of these went nowhere this summer. I never saw the Civil War group for the rest of the summer. Afterward the summer I stop going to my local store so I had no opportunity to see either of these groups anymore. At this point I have no interest in trying Civil War because I already have so many other things I'm working on at the moment. I would still try Frostgrave as I could use models I already own for that. Still I would put it as a very low priority and its highly unlikely for me to play it before this summer.

Warhammer - I am drawing a blank on where to go with regards to Warhammer. I'm torn between 8th which both my friend and myself enjoys more, and Age of Sigmar which is what I expect to play if I travel around the country. My Holy Moon plans are on hold until I finish a lot of models and terrain. It also doesn't help that there is a lot of armies I want to build. I want an 8th edition Bretonnian army, a goblin army that can be played in either 8th or Age of Sigmar or a "poison" army that also can either be played in 8th or AoS. Until I can decide what to focus on first I think I should probably just work on terrain since I don't have any of my own. My local gaming store has plenty of terrain to use but it would be nice to have my own colorful terrain plus it is something I will need for my Holy Moon project.

Hordes - My second Hordes games didn't go well. We started playing way too late so not only were we rushing, we didn't get to finish. This lead to an unenjoyable experience. That said, I got two things out of the game. One, I learn the game is really picky on facing. This is something I may have an issue with. I need to play more games to know if its something I can deal with or that facing will be such an annoyance for me that its a deal breaker. The other thing I learn is that I can't play with proxies, at least not in the way I was thinking of doing. I had hope I could used my friends Trollblood models to proxy in for my Circle Orboros force. The problem is that it was so confusing trying to keep everything straight (I never had this problem before except playing with the Berlin list in Flames of War). Added to the fact that I was still learning the game and learning what my own force could do made everything a mess.

My friend has picked up a second army which will making learning the game much easier for me. I won't be able to get a feel for my own Circle Orboros force but learning how the game works with a different army will still be helpful. When my friend brought the second army, it included two Circle models which he didn't want so he gave them to me. My initial modelling plans caught a snag. My cockatrice is much too big to be used with Hordes (at least for what I was planning to used it on). Turns out that the Tyranid Hormagaunts are the perfect size to kitbash to make Circle warbeasts. They may be a little small but they should work ... if I could find my remaining sprues! This was a mystery that drove me crazy. I check all my bit boxes and the remaining Tyranid sprues were nowhere to be seen. The box allows you to make 12 Tyranids and I only used 2 bodies for my Forsaken conversions. I suppose I can check again after I move and will have all my hobby stuff in one location. In the event that they never show up, I will have to go back to the drawing board for conversion ideas. I will be buying one thing for Hordes with Christmas money. What, I'm not sure yet. I need to look over the faction deck again to decide what will go with the two monsters my friend gifted me. I might wait until I've played a third game of Hordes before deciding what to get.

Mobile Games - To start I no longer play DC Legends (that was quick). Days after my mobile games post DC had an update that made the game functionally unplayable for me. The required a new client to be download and installed. The new client is such a resource hog that I would had to deleted everything else on my device to update it. While I'm reasonably sure I wouldn't have lost my progress, I enjoy Summoners War way too much to risk it for DC. I also have a Warhammer: Age of Sigmar app on my tablet. When I downloaded the app it didn't include the any war scrolls unless I click on an individual profile. Not something I want to deleted and reinstall every time DC Legends wants to update, which could be as often as once a week. I enjoyed DC Legends but its not a game good enough to endure that kind of headache. I have since started playing a new mobile game though I don't want to say which until I'm sure I'm staying with it. On one side I'm not sure how I could tie it into my blog here, while on the other it does reminds me of Blood Bowl.

Summoners War is something I am still playing (maybe a little too much). I have already posted the first episode of my Summoners War series and I am currently working on future episodes. As I am working on the direction I want to take the series, I am beginning to think maybe not every episode will be link to miniature gaming. I will try my best to link my SW stories to miniature gaming but the narrative may go in a direction where is little or no parallel. In this case I think it would be best for me to not to force an unnatural comparison. My thoughts on Summoners Journal is constantly evolving. The one thing I'm certain about it is that it will be a staple here for a while, especially during my moving.

Shieldmaiden Knights - Shieldmaiden Knights is a project I am still working on. Making them into a Warhammer army is attempting if it wasn't for the fact Games Workshop has so few female models. So for now it will be a side project for when I see interesting female minis. The last time I was in a gaming store, another Reaper's Bone miniature caught my eye. It was a female giant (I don't know if its suppose to be a cloud or storm giant). It look really cool in the package and since its a Bone miniature it's cheap. The next time I am in the store I will be picking up two. I still haven't came up with a history for the Shieldmaidens yet. I will start working on it once the Knights first 3 minis are fully painted.