HednesfordGamers

OK, I've just taken up a challenge.  The 6 Month Mountain Reduction & Painting Challenge to be exact.  There are rules...

1. The challenge starts September 1st, 2014 and goes for six months.
2. No purchasing of new miniatures, EXCEPT if you use a joker card. As in a deck of cards, you get two jokers to use on a figure purchase during the six months of the challenge. This could be a blister pack, an eBay bundle, or a single figure. Not an entire army and you can’t splurge!
3. Gifts do not count against the you. If you’re given gift cards, you can use them without penalty on anything you want miniatures wise.
4. Paints, terrain, materials, and other hobby supplies are exempt from the the no purchasing rule.
5. You must make at least one hobby related blog post and/or Instagram update a week. If you Instagram, be sure to hashtag your pic with #6MMRPC.
6. Zombtober will be part of the six month challenge so Zombie related stuff during October is ENCOURAGED!

So I'm going for it.  I know I'm a little late to it, but only a couple of days.  And I did order some new minis (on the 3rd), but a) I didn't know about the challenge, and b) they're Zombies, and will allow me to join in with Zombtober.

So that's it.  I'll blog at least weekly, with photos.

First photo is planned for this very afternoon, and will be a pic of the "mountain".

After reading this and this and this I took some time to consider my position on the Opportunity Cost / Focus / Be Ruthless discussion.

I love games, ask anyone.  I love all the bits.  I love all the mechanics.  I love finding something new.  And that's a problem sometimes.  Something new invariably costs money.  And money is not something I have in spades.  And every new game in the collection steals at least some of the focus from the rest of the collection.  Just because I have a new game, does not mean I have more time in which to play it.

A while ago, some point last year, I decided that, if a particular game scrathes a particular itch, the what would be the point in having more than one game that scratches that itch?  I had 3 deckbuilding games, Dominion, Ascension and Thunderstone.  I decided that Thunderstone should go, and it has, but I can get rid of either of the other two, I love them both.  I'm still contemplating selling on A Touch Of Evil, as it shares so much with Arkham Horror, but got hold of Eldritch Horror anyway, since I love all things Lovecraft.  We've played EH a lot more than AH lately, mostly because it's a smaller time investment, and we've not touched aToE in ages, I should maybe get that one gone.

I have a lot of boardgames, and some of them don't get played anymore, passed over in favour of more recent titles, but I don't want rid of them because I had so much fun playing them when they were new, I look forward to revisitting them at some point.  Which is perfectly feasible, since I live with a boardgamer and we don't necessarily need to wait for games night to play.

Miniature games are another story though.  I don't live with a mini gamer.  She really not interested.  The Mini gaming group is a small subset of the Boardgaming group, and we get chance to play far less frequently, maybe once or twice a month. So gives, at best, 24 opportunities a year.  I have 2 Dreadball teams, and am contemplating a third.  I have 2 Mordheim Warbands, and am contemplating a third.  If I go ahead with those 'thirds' and manage to keep up the twice a month thing, that gives each set of models 4 outings a year.  At best.  A lot of time has gone into those minis, to only have them used 4 times a year seems criminal.  I think, therefore, that I will stick with I've got for both of those games.  I do love the painting part of the minis hobby though, but Descent, which kind of crosses over the boardgame/minigame genres, still has plenty of work to be done on it.  Unless of course a better Dungeon Crawler comes along...

Cue: Dungeon Saga : Dwarf Kings Quest.  Currently on Kickstarter, and looking great.  Do I need another dungeon crawl? No.  Do I want this? Oh yes, so, so much.  Not only does it look great, it's also looking like great value for money and has furniture!  It does look like it fits more into the Minis group than the Boardgame group too, so that sets it apart from Descent, I suppose.

So, after that waffle, I conclude that I should trim the collection a little, only invest where there is a new itch to be scratched and keep on playing my games.  Be a little more ruthless, focus on fun, and bare opportunity cost in mind when I open my wallet.

Wow, so, my plan to blog regularly has failed.  Oh well, you do what you can.  A catch up post is in order then.

Same old, same old?

Mordheim : Various things mean this has had very little table lately, which is a shame.  A damn shame.  So I'm look for ways to change that.  I've had some thoughts on it that I'll post about separately.

Boardgaming : Thursday continue, with many games seeing the table over the last few months, none more than the latest Ascension set.  Factions Unravelled adds a very tactical edge to the game without losing the immediacy of it's forebears.  We like it.  A lot.

New Games!

Painting Descent and Mordheim continue slowly, but my painting has had a new focus : Dreadball.  Mantic Games answer to Blood Bowl, Dreadball is excellent fun.  Expect more blogging, picsm and painting on here soon.

Finally picked up Betrayal at House on the Hill.  Glad I did, only play a couple of times so far, but we all enjoyed it. Much fun!

The advance into Mordheim has begun in earnest, with a total of 7 games having happen since I last spoke of it. Currently, Tom's Possessed look most handy, with a 100% record after 2 games.  My Orcses and Goblinses are looking strong having 3 wins from 4, with the amusing Animosity rules causing more entertainment than issue.  Lee's Undead are 1 from 2 after a fair old drubbing and a reboot after game 1.  Darren's Mercs have yet to win a game, but that stat rather belies the strength of his warband, which has been cursed with bad die rolls and injuries.  I'm certain they will be victorious on the battlefield soon enough.  The first outing with my second warband, the Tomb Guardians, was interesting and resulted in a success against the accursed Mercenaries.  Not much luck was had by either side and many hits were landed to no effect.  The few that I did manage to hurt with though were enough to force a rout from the undoubtledly frustrated men of Middenheim.

Terrain / Scenery building continues, though as Christmas approaches I suspect the rate will slow right down.  I'll add some piccies to the photo section just as soon as I remember to take some.

In other gaming news, Ascension : Rise Of Vigil has been a staple of games night for a few weeks now, with little else other than Yahtzee able to get any table time.  Rise of Vigil is very good, but appears to have a small issue, that may or may not be to do with our inexperience with it.  It seems that the new energy resource will, more often than not, create a runaway leader.  Although most games are still quite close, if someone is able to buy up a fair amount of energy early, they will be hard to catch.

So, tonight sees our warbands take to the table, in various states of paintedness, amongst the ruins of Mordheim, also in various states of complete.  It'll look rough, but it should at least give us a better idea of how we're doing.  And what each other's warbands are up to.

So, a good 7 or 8 years ago, I had a Mordheim Warband.  Not the best, and it was my first foray into miniatures gaming, but it was fun.  A bunch of us had a conversation and Morheim is back on the table, so to speak.  We've spent countless hours building ruins and painting minis, mostly still in progress, and shortly it will be time to put it all on a table.  Photos will be added to the photo section as I take em!

So, who playing, and what are they bringing?

Me - Orcs and Goblins

Lee - Undead

Tom - Cult Of The Possessed

Darren - Middenheim Mercenaries

Let battle commence!