It's been a rough ending to the year on the vehicles.

In the Freestar, we had the alternator replaced. Three times. I've had alternator trouble before so I knew to have it checked out when the dash lights started throbbing. I replaced the plug on the block heater. Then we just had the thermostat replaced as it's not getting good heat.

For the Uplander, we had the check engine light cleared when the car was having trouble starting. We had the fuel injection system adjusted. We just had to replace the wipers when one tore with the ice. Now we just had the 'reduced engine performance' message. It seems that the throttle body will need to be replaced. So. it's ending 2018 in the garage to be picked up on Wednesday.

So, all-in-all, it's been a fairly pricy year.

Avengers - graduation

After my Avengers Alliance facebook game ended last year, I finally started playing the Avengers Academy game. Based on the recommendation from cosplayer Riki Lecotey from Riddle's Messy Wardrobe.

I like it very much. I started with the second edition about a few challenges in and, after a slow start, have gotten deep into level 7 out of 8. They just announced that it too will be shutting down at the end of February. They gave a big pile of rewards to help to complete the quests and get the remaining characters.

New GW boxed sets

So there are more boxed sets coming out from Games Workshop. Since they use the same figures as their regular lines, they are a lot more expensive than an introductory game would be.
Some I am able to pass over easily. With the close of the Warhammer World I was able to make a clean break and did not get any of the Age of Sigmar sets. Although I do have to admit that the Night Haunts in the new AoS boxed sets look very tempting.
Skipping Age of Sigmar made it easy to skip the new Warhammer Quest set, as well as the Shadespire boxed game.

The new Necromunda looks very good. I had the old set and might be tempted but there is so much of the new set, with the gangs, and terrain, and all the rule sets that I will probably pass on it as well.

I am definitely going to take a pass on the new Titans sets. With the new scale and the amount of figures needed, I am not going to be able to afford it. If they come out with Tyranid Biotitans and one of my friends gets the main set, I might be tempted, but would only get some if one of my friends has the main set.

I still haven’t picked up any of the boxed sets or rules for the newest 40K edition yet. I’m still likely to get it, but am not in any rush as I will have a lot of codices to pick up. The choice is harder with the three boxed set levels to choose. The smallest set is only $50 but the set with the Hardcover rules is $180.

Kill Team seems like it might be a good way to ease back in to 40K. But there are already 2 big box sets for it as well as a lot of figures. I will likely pass on it as well. The second box set with the Rogue Traders is very tempting though.

Speed Freeks is the new Ork racing game. It comes with 2 vehicles, 6 bikes, and a bit of terrain. So far, it isn’t really grabbing me.
As I do have figures for an Ork army, the vehicles would probably help to bulk it out. To get the boxed set (2 big vehicles and 6 bikes) plus the other 4 big vehicles would cost $400 though. It is not one I would rush out and get but I might have to pick it up due to the pricing. It is not quite as good a deal as the Gangs of Commorragh box was but it is still cheaper than getting the figures alone.

I am already getting a fair amount of the new Blood Bowl stuff. I have the boxed set, the extra rules Almanac, two big figures (Ogre and Troll) and two of the extra teams (Skaven and Dwarves). I will definitely get the Undead team, and probably the Elves, and Dark Elves.

When they advertised Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress, I was figuring it would be an easy one to pass over. But, even though it is called Warhammer Quest, it is really a 40K game than an Age of Sigmar one. The figures look good so I might have to pick it up. I just hope they don’t start churning out expansions for it like they did for Kill Team.

Figure Painting Total - October

Not many figures bought this month. I started painting one of my Blood Bowl team, but nothing finished yet.

BM/DCU Justice League Dark – 3
BM/DCU Suicide Squad – 3

Oct figures bought – 6, figures painted – 0

Running total 2018 – figures bought 180, figures painted 0

Facelift

I had used the remains of two cans of spray foam when filling some holes in the outside of the house to fill in the chicken wire on the tree.

I tried painting it to see how it would look and decided that I definitely need to give a coat of monster mud. This is made from patch filler, glue, and paint mixed together and used with torn-up pieces of cheese cloth just like paper mache.

After this dried, I painted the eyes and mouth black with spray paint.

I followed up with a mix of brown paints to cover the rest of the face.

When that dried I went back with drybrushed with a lighter brown to make the features pop.

Figure Painting Total - September

While we were in Thunder Bay, I popped into the two game stores and picked up a bunch of the new Blood Bowl figures and rules. I have 4 of the new teams, and still have figures I can use for others, but I would have liked to get the Dark Elves and maybe the Elves to round out my sets.
I have already assembled, based, and primed the Blood Bowl figures.

Burning of Prospero - 47
Revel – Fokker E-III
Revel – Nieuport 28
Savage Worlds – Texas Ranger Male – 1
Savage Worlds – Texas Ranger Female – 2
Chronoscope – Andrew Lane “The Ghost” – 1
Chronoscope – Wichita Witch – 1
Chronoscope – Frank Buck – 1
BB – Dwarf Giants – 12
BB – Skavenblight Scramblers – 12
BB – Ogre – 1
BB – Troll – 1


Sept figures bought - 81, figures painted – 0

Running total 2018 – figures bought 174, figures painted 0

Books read May through September 2018

May
VOR The Maelstrom by Mike “Skuzzy” Nielson
40K: Sanctus Reach: The Red Waaagh! by The Games Workshop Design Studio

June
40K: Sanctus Reach: Hour of the Wolf by The Games Workshop Design Studio
40K: Shield of Baal: Leviathan by The Games Workshop Design Studio
Artful: A Novel by Peter David

July
Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and his Revolutionary Comic Strip by Nevin Martell
Monsters by Vincent Price and V.B. Price
Last Days – Zombie Apocalypse by Ash Barker
Serenity: Big Damn Heroes Handbook by Cam Banks, Jennifer Brozek, Jim Davenport, Jason Durall, Tony Lee, Nathan C.S. Rockwood, and Clark Valentine
Egyptian Mythology by Veronica Ions
Werewolves by Jon Izzard

Aug
Poseidon’s Warriors – Classical Naval Warfare 480-31 BC by Mark Latham
The Boardgame Book by RC Bell
Dracula’s America: Shadows of the West: Hunting Grounds by Jonathan Haythornthwaite
The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction by Philip Athans
The Mysterious Maya by George E Stuart and Gene S Stuart
Batman Arkham Knight campaign by Mark Latham
Rolling Stone: The Complete Covers 1967 – 1997 by Fred Woodward

Prospero achieved!

Our local Games Workshop posted that the Horus Heresy games have been discontinued and removed from the website. Even though they were released about a year apart, they discontinued both Betrayal at Calth and The Burning of Prospero at the same time.

Since I missed out on the Gangs of Commorragh, I will probably have to pick up the rest of the game (without figures) online cheap, and then have to buy the figures for a much higher cost.

I wanted to be sure that I was able to get Prospero without having to do that. So even though I haven’t been able to save up beforehand, I checked with the misses and got the approval that it wasn’t going to cause any problems to pick it up. I probably could have waited a little bit as they had six copies but I didn’t want to take the chance.

I also popped in to a new Hobby Store called Hobby Sense and picked up some glue as well as a Revel Nieuport 28 and Fokker E-III. They seem to be a nice new store with a lot of model kits.

Figure Painting Total - August 2018

I have picked up a few more figures for the Batman Miniatures/DC Universe game. As well, I picked my first batch in several years of regular figures. With the summer winding down, we have a busy two months coming up, but then I hope to be able to really get to painting some.
I really think that I'm close to approaching critical mass here.


BM Arkham Knight – 1
BM/DCU – Birds of Prey – 3
BM/DCU – Enchantress – 1
Reaper – Dumpster – 1
Savage Worlds – Stone – 2
Savage Worlds – Texas Ranger Male – 1
Savage Worlds Undead Outlaw – 1
Chronoscope – Agatha Fox – 1
Chronoscope – Deadeye Slim – 3
Chronoscope – Ellen Stone – 1
Chronoscope – Highland Heroine – 1
Chronoscope – Hillbilly – 1
Chronoscope – Max Graves, Pulp Investigator – 1
Chronoscope – Rex, Dark Future Hero – 1
Chronoscope – The Black Mist – 1
Townsfolk Strumpet – 1
Townsfolk Undertaker – 1
Wild West Wizard of Oz – Dorothy (and Toto) – 2
Wild West Wizard of Oz – Lion – 2
Wild West Wizard of Oz – Wicked Witch – 1
Wild West Wizard of Oz – Winged Monkeys – 3
Wagon and 3 figures – 4


Aug figures bought - 34, figures painted – 0

Running total 2018 – figures bought 93, figures painted 0

Game Knight new location

I also popped into the new location of Game Knight, a local game store. They have a much bigger place. It looks really nice. I was looking for expansions for the Firefly board game (which they no longer had) and ended up picking up some figures while I was there.
They had a lot of the Reaper Bones figures. I picked up a dumpster, 5 western figures, and 3 other figures. The dumpster is for scenery for Batman miniatures / Universe / Last Days.

The western figures are for RWNN and Dracula’s America.

The three other figures caught my eye and looked like they would be fun to paint.

I also picked up some 30mm and 40mm bases for some proxy Universe figures. I picked up a 2” base in the hopes that it would be close to a 60mm bases but it is too small.

The Reaper figures don’t come with bases. I almost picked up 25 1” GW-type bases for $5 but decided not to.
I’ll have to go back and get them.

Birds of Prey

I also took some of the money that I was saving for Burning of Prospero and made another miniature order. I picked up some more Batman Miniatures/DC Universe figures. I bought the Birds of Prey and the Enchantress.

The Birds of Prey were a repacking of the older metal figures for Black Canary, Hawkgirl, and the Huntress. These came with DC Universe cards on one side and Batman Miniature Game cards on the other. The first two had cards in the rulebook but this is the first time for the Huntress for DC Universe.

The Enchantress is one of the new resin figures. Since I already had the Suicide Squad set, I figured that I should probably pick her up to complete it. Plus she is one of the magic users for the new magic rules of the second edition.

The figures were complete, which is often a worry with Knight Models (although I haven’t had too much trouble). They are lovely figures but the sculpts are tiny and the joins are very small and fiddly.

Osprey Wargame Series

I’ve picked up a few more books from Osprey. They have been doing a Wargame series with small rules for skirmish games. They also numbered the books, so I feel compelled to get them all. Some are quite good. I do hope to be able to give a bunch of them a try. With the extra Heroclix and Arcane Legions sets, I should have enough figures to try out a bunch of them.
I just picked up Broken Legions – skirmish rules for Roman warbands, and Poseidon’s Warriors – ancients ship battles. They both look pretty good.

Their newest hardcover set thought is Last Days Zombie Apocalypse. It is by Ash Baker from Guerilla Miniature Games, which is a youtube channel I found when looking for playthroughs of the Batman Miniature game. He’s from Ontario and used to work for Game’s Workshop. He seems to have a pretty good attitude about games and is fun to watch.
His game looks like it will be good to try. I will see if I can get it to the table sooner rather than later.

Celebration of Life

Because I turned 50 last month, my wife held a celebration of life on Saturday. She cooked up hot dogs and hamburgers, and my mother brought potato salad and coleslaw. She invited a bunch of my friends and we got together around the fire. I had wanted to do a spread of condiments for hot dogs for a while and this was finally the excuse. We had ketchup, mustard, barbeque sauce, and sriracha sauce as well as relish, onions, hot bell peppers, sauerkraut, pickles, and cheese, as well as the two types of buns.


She had also made a trivia contest and scavenger hunt. This allowed those friends who were not able to attend in person to still participate. I thought that this was a brilliant idea. Apparently my friends did not.
One of my friends who was not able to make it sent in some pictures for the scavenger hunt, and my sister did the trivia even though she could not come. My mother, who did come, did the trivia, and had some pictures for the scavenger hunt. The rest of those friends who showed up did neither, and the rest who were not able to able it did not even try the trivia. My kids, who have access to everything from the scavenger hunt at our house did not even try.
We ended up going through the trivia questions (all about me) and I gave the answers provided by my mom and sister, and then the actual answer. My wife had come up with the questions but did not have all the answers. While I normally dislike trivia games that do that, I had fun with this one. It gave me the chance to wax philosophical to my friends.

While it would have been nice to have more friends show up, and more of those who did and didn’t come to have done the scavenger hunt or trivia contest, we still had a good time. We even ended up trying a modified version of Geek Out – another trivia game that only provides questions.
We had two Jeanne’s cakes – marble and banana. We had a lot of food left over. We ended the night having a bonfire and hanging around and chatting. It had rained briefly early in the afternoon but otherwise the weather was very nice, and we were mosquito free.

New new Age of Sigmar

The last two sets of Warhammer were placeholder sets for me. The 7th edition Dwarves vs Goblins starter is still on sprues and I haven’t even opened the 8th edition Elves vs Skaven starter yet. Even though, as an undead player, Nagash was a big character for me I didn’t get the End Times books either.

When they went to Age of Sigmar, it was a clean break for me, and I didn’t pick up anything from it. I’m not a big fan of the new names, and I think the Stormcast Eternals look too much like Space Marines. I’m not even tempted by the new sea elves. Two years in, they are doing a second edition.
The new starter set includes Night Haunts which look very pretty. It’s very tempting.

I do have to say that, in packing away some of the older sets, I saw the starters again. As well, I recently went through some older figures that I was in the process of painting and saw that I have 10 halfling archers, a hot pot artillery set, 20 dwarf slayers, 10 dwarf crossbowmen, 10 dwarf hammerers, as well as some vampires and necromancers, ghouls, and zombies all in various states of base coats. Since the Empire and the Bretonians didn’t really make the jump from the old world, and I’m not a huge fan of the new fire dwarves, I’m not sure how quick I am to finish them.

Approaching end of second quarter century

When you are young, your age is super important to you. A lot of place have age restrictions and as you age are able to do more things. Some things you eventually age out of, but most require you to be at least so old to do.
For the first five years (or at least the last three of those first five), you can track your years on your hand. Below 10, breaking down by years isn’t specific enough so you also track the half years. School makes it easier to track your age, you can add 5 to your grade and usually be right.
You also have the built in milestones. You become a teenager at 13. You can get your driver’s license at 16. You can legally drink at 18 (or 21) as well as vote. At 20 you are no longer a teenager. At 21, you are legal across Canada and the United States.
At 25 you have passed your first quarter century. Some friends that you knew from school have gotten married, and some have had kids. If you went to college or university, you are probably done your program, and should have an idea of what you are doing with your life.
Then it slows down. You still track the big dates every 5 years but don’t really notice it as much. You are probably working with people of a wider spread age group than you have been in school. Kids lump all of you together into a generic ‘old’ category. You get to the point where you have to do the math to figure out exactly how old you are at present on the off-big date years.

Then the second quarter century draws to an end.

By this point you should have a solid idea of what you have been doing with your life. Some people who have gotten married are no longer that way. Some of the kids that you and your friends have had may be getting married or having kids of their own. Some of your friend’s parents and even a few of your friends may have passed on. Some of the injuries you have accumulated over the year have added up and are coming back to revisit you. Health-wise, a lot of us have dropped a step. You no longer spring back from simple injuries and staying up late has more consequences than it used to. The overnighters take a bit longer to recover from.
You have had a lot of time to figure out what is important to you. Some people radically change their lifestyle if they feel the needs aren’t aligning with their goals, either health and diet-wise, or job and relationship wise. The things that we have accumulated start to loom over you as legacies. You might divest of some things that used to be important to you but you haven’t really used in over a decade.
Hopefully by now you have already taken a hard look at your finances and are in a good state. You do still have a bit of time to make a few corrections but you should have your big costs out of the way. Your house, if you have one, should be close to being paid off. You should take some time and really lay down your funerary plans, as it makes it a lot easier on those you leave behind.
Depending on your costs, and what you have saved, you may be looking forward to retiring in the next few years, maybe a bit later, or maybe even not at all. You will still need to find something to keep busy. You probably don’t want to be one of those people who works right until the end, or retires and then dies shortly afterwards.

I am approaching this point. My health is not what it was even 10 years ago, but I’m still feeling okay. I have slowly gotten to the point of taking a second look at my possessions. I can see that they weigh you down, and that your possessions end up owning you, but I am not ready to streamline right down. I am starting to work towards it though.
Making a list of my top 100 games has helped to cut back on my purchases. It has made me aware of what games I already have, and what games I like. Tracking my plays on BGG has shown me what games we actually play, with the caveat that I am trying a lot of unplayed games to see if we like them. If I already have 5 great skirmish, race, or word games, do I really need another? It depends – but I’m giving it a lot more thought now.
The house isn’t as close to being paid off as we would like, and we will need to replace the vehicles in the near future. Hopefully not too near, but certainly in the next 5 years. The storage locker is still a drain, we’ll have to see if we can part with some stuff and bring that down to a smaller locker or even do away with it altogether.

All in all, it has been a pretty good run so far. I look forward to see how much of the next quarter century I will be able to enjoy.

The Grim Cheapness

I don’t have the same internet access that I used to. I work on a bit of a rolling shift, so I can start anywhere from 8 am to 10:15 am. My wife starts work at 8 am. With dropping my wife off in the mornings, I often used to have a couple hours on most days, plus my lunch and breaks, when I could watch videos and surf the net.
They had tightened up on internet access earlier this year. We are no longer able to browse while on breaks. This means that I am now way behind on the youtube videos that I was following, the online comics, as well as the sites that I was watching.

That’s how I came to miss that one of my favorite blogs has stopped updating since January. TheGrimCheapness is a good site for ‘paperhammer’ – or papercraft templates that you can build for stand-ins for Warhammer 40K vehicles, especially the titans. He also had a good writing style, which is well as it turns out that he is a now-published author. He’s taking an extended break from updating but will leave the site up.

If you haven’t been in before, it’s still worth a look.

Figure Painting Total - May

In the Deathwatch: Overkill box they list 50 figures. But they also have two marker figures that they don’t count toward that total. I have included them in my count below.

Deathwatch: Overkill - 52

May figures bought - 52, figures painted – 0

Running total 2018 – figures bought 59, figures painted 0

A bit of a shakeup

My wife has had a bit of a shakeup at work. She will be ‘retiring’ at the end of October as they are closing her department. She was thinking about retiring in a few years but that would have been on her timeline. Any changes to her plans always throws her a bit off, but she is coming to terms with it. We should end up being okay.

This will have two direct gaming-related impacts on me. First, she will be home and prone to cleaning through my stuff. I keep putting off doing a good sift and will need to make that a higher priority. Secondly, the storage locker becomes even more of a hot button than it currently is. We are hanging on to a lot of stuff. Some of it was stored in haste and we really need time to go through it properly again and repackage it and decide if really does need to be kept. I had done a bit of a sift a while ago, and we repackaged the 11 bins of models model kits into 6 boxes.

I have been meaning to go through a bunch of the games and maybe passing them along. Especially with the games that I had picked up when it seemed like we were getting an expansion on the house. A lot of those I am not particularly attached to and could let go. It’s also time to take another look at the books and comics. This was all stuff that we were going to do anyways.

This just puts more of an impetus on this.

Deathwatch: Overkill - acquired

I was finally able to save enough to get a copy of Deathwatch: Overkill. It took a lot longer than I had hoped due to the spike in gas prices cutting into my discretionary funds. In the meantime, Gangs of Commorragh has been discontinued and has disappeared from the shelves and online.

I was in the area, so I had popped in to the local Games Workshop. I would have picked up the Gangs set now and pushed back the Deathwatch but they no longer had the Gangs set. The Deathwatch: Overkill had been boxed up to send back to the main office but he dug it out for me. It had a bit of shelf wear on the corners but at least it was here.

Gangs of Commorragh was going to be the next on my list but, if it’s out of print, I may try to save up for the Horus Heresy: Burning of Prospero or get some of the other Blood Bowl teams. Or I might try to get some more figures from Knight Models for the DC Universe Miniature game.

Books read January - April 2018

Jan
Rogue Stars by Andrea Sfilogoi
The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter
Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and other Magical Tales by Penn Jillette
Dark History of Hollywood by Kieron Connolly
Gaslands: Post-Apocalyptic Vehicular Combat by Mike Hutchinson

Feb
Warzone – A Fast and Furious Miniatures Battle Game by Bill King
Diablo III: Book of Cain by Flint Dille
Dracula’s America: Shadows of the West by Jonathan Haythornthwaite
The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game by Alessio Cavatore & Matthew Ward
Old Sword Play: Techniques of the Great Masters by Alfred Hutton

Mar
Future City edited by Roger Elwood
Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
The Queen’s Doll House by Lucinda Lambton
Molly’s Game by Molly Bloom
American Pickers – Guide to Picking by Libby Cullaway, with Mike Wolfe, Frank Fritz, and Danielle Colby

Apr
The Geek Dad’s Guide to Weekend Fun by Ken Denmead
The Art of Horror Movies: An Illustrated History by Stephen Jones
Small-Scale Modelling by Caroline Osborn
Handmade Book: Binding, Folding and Decorating by Heather Weston
Haynes Star Wars Millenium Falcon: Modified YT-1300 Corellian Fighter Owner’s Workshop Manual by Ryder Windham, Chris Reiff, and Chris Trevas
The Hero’s Closet: Sewing for Cosplay and Costuming by Gillian Conahan

spring spray

With spring being delayed a bit this year, we haven’t been able to get outside and start the yardwork. We did have a nice weekend so I was able to get outside and spray some foam.

In an effort to make our house a bit less mouse-accessible (or mousessable), we bought some of the low-expanding Great Stuff foam. I have heard of people using it for terrain and props/costuming but have never used it before.

I had concerns about how much of a mess it would make but it seemed pretty well contained. In addition to some of the gaps around the pipes and windows, I also used it to spray some foam into the chicken wire we have on the tree in the front yard. It puffed up pretty nice. It will to be painted to blend the yellow color and may need to be trimmed a bit. I will also need to get a second can to finish the job.

Gaslands compared to Car Wars

Gaslands is much simpler than Car Wars in some ways. The record sheets for the cars are much more streamlined, it doesn’t have the bloat of components that are available, it uses special dice, and it has templates instead of a turning key.

Instead of the detailed record sheets from Car Wars with the armor locations by side and all the components represented with hit points, the Gaslands sheets seem very simple. They have Hull Points which replaces the armor and components, and the weapons are simply noted.

The Gaslands rules allow for 11 vehicles and 21 weapons. This isn’t far off of where the original pocket boxes were for Car Wars. Car Wars soon added all the Uncle Al’s Catalogs, and later editions for more variations in components by weight and spaces. In the pre-spreadsheet days, it was a bit more of a challenge to fine-tune a car.
One simple rule that Car Wars always had (in the first and fifth edition rules) was the ‘drop the counters from a foot off the board’ rule for collisions. I hated that rule. I much preferred the (granted more complex) rules from the Car Wars Rules Screen. Gaslands has rules for collisions that are simpler than the CW screen but still have enough meat on them to still satisfy.

Where Car Wars just used regular six-sided dice, Osprey has six-sided dice with special faces. You can purchase them directly from the author, make your own, or even use regular D6s and consult a chart. Considering the amount of dice rolling in this game, I recommend buying or making the specialty dice.

The original Car Wars had a turning key to make maneuvers. It took a little bit to get used to but it was elegant once you learned it. Gaslands has many multiple templates for maneuvers but people may be less intimidated as they are now familiar with this from X-Wing, and Wings of Glory. These can be bought or made but are definitely needed in order to play. There is a copy in the back of the rulebook and can be printed out from the website.

While waiting for the new Car Wars edition

We played a lot of Car Wars back in the day. I played from the original pocket box sets, through the bloated 4th edition. We spent a lot of time designing cars. We played at conventions and even ran races and arenas at conventions. I played through the Convoy solo adventure a few times. I still play the Car Wars Card game.
I even played the old video game on my Apple IIc.

Even though we don’t play as much anymore, I had picked up the 5th edition booklets when I found out about them and we actually played a game of it – upsized at WinCon.

We also played a bit of Games Workshop’s car game, Dark Future. I have Avalon Hill’s RoadKill but didn’t ever manage to play it. I never played Thunder Road but would pick it up if I find it.

There is a new version of Car Wars in the works which should be out shortly. I’ll most certainly pick it up when it comes out. I’m still in the target market for it.

In the meantime, I picked up Gaslands by Osprey. It seems very simple compared to Car Wars but still interesting enough to give it a try. I’ve already picked up some cars to use, and will need to make dice and templates before we can try it. It should be fun enough to keep us busy.

Figure Painting Total - February

I finally got a Bommerz over da Sulphur River. It only has 6 figures - planes, and 4 of those are Orks. I look forward to playing it. If it is even passable, I should be able to paint up the planes and get a few in the painted column.

I was also able to get my hands on two of the Games Workshop painting handles. I've heard good things about them, so anything that makes it easier for me to start actually getting some paint on the figures has got to be a good thing.

Bommerz over da Sulphur River – 6

Feb figures bought - 6, figures painted – 0

Running total 2018 – figures bought 6, figures painted 0

Pokemon Go! -- level 25

I won a raffle for an ipad mini back in September. I don't use it for much, as I only use it with wifi. But I am playing some games on it. Pokémon Go is one of those games.

I joined team Mystic when I got the chance. My daughter, who had been playing since it launched up here, had joined team Instinct, and my wife is on Valor. They both have data plans on their phones so they are able to play it more than I, although my daughter isn't playing much anymore. My wife still plays to keep ahead of me.

I'm liking it enough to keep playing it to keep my streaks alive. Currently, I've only caught 164 separate Pokémon and seen 272. I've only used my coins to level up my bag and storage and can now hold 450 Pokémon and 400 items.

Are you guys still playing? What teams did you join?

Wii Fit - finally 270

It took much longer than I thought it would, but I finally crossed the 270 pound mark. I had been close to it a few times, being sub 271, but was never quite able to drop enough to get below 270. I went up slightly with the trip to Disneyworld, had worked it down to almost 270 by the end of the year, and the spiked again with the holidays at the end of that year.

Last year I maintained a weight between 270 and 280 pretty steadily. I still haven't been exercising enough but have been aware of my portions. With the holiday eating from Christmas and New Year's, I started this year at slightly over 280.

Since then, I have been slowly losing weight again. I've been inspired by Penn Jillette's book Presto! about his weight loss. Not inspired enough to just eat potatoes, mind you. I still fluctuated a few pounds here and there, but finally got down to 269.6 pounds on Tuesday. So, I am a year behind, but am still going to try to push for a goal of 250 for the end of the year.

Heroclix Overview 2017

I kept up with the Fast Forces/Starter sets another year. I didn’t get any of the new sets with the exception of a few western figures from Elseworlds to use for some western skirmish games. The dollar wasn’t too bad, I didn’t start picking up any of the new 40K sets, but did pick up a lot of the Marvel and DC Universe Miniature figures as well as a bunch of the Batman miniature game from Knight Models.

I did pick up some Heroclix in batches and was able to complete three more old sets and two newer ones. I finished Armor Wars, Secret Invasion, Arkham Asylum, Kick-Ass 2, and AVX – Avengers VS X-Men.

I continued my focus on completing the older WizKids sets.

With the figures I’ve picked up, I am now close on Ultimates (0+3), Mutant Mayhem (3+2), Legacy (0+3), Origin (4+0), Mutations & Monsters (1/3), Crisis (0/2), Hammer of Thor (3/8), Brave and Bold (8/7) and Batman Classic TV (3), and TMNT (3+3).

I didn’t get any of the older larger figures. My line on the Foom (with pants) did not pan out. I still need Spectre, both green Fooms, and both of the Phoenixes, as well as the original Manhattan and Galactus. I did pick up the Ameridroid.

Neca only put out another 8 sets in 2017, and another 6 Fast Forces sets. I didn’t collect any of these sets. I still kept up with the Fast Forces sets.

I now need an unreachable 2262 heroclix figures. Even winning the lottery, that would be a real challenge to get. I now need 1265 Marvel figures and 900 DC figures. My REV total is now 1782 and my Unique/SuperRare total is 454 plus 26 Giant figures and 13 Team bases.
But I have come to an acceptance of it. Not being concerned about completing all the Neca sets of which I need 2241 figures (1774 REV and 441 Super Rares) and focusing on completing the old WizKids sets of which I now only need 21 figures (8 REV and 13 Uniques). I will still get a few Necas as available especially the Undead set, and then switch to some of the smaller Gravity Feed sets.

That should free up some money for Games Workshop sets.

Top Ten Games - 2017

I have put together my top 10 games for 2017. Note that these are games that I have played for the first time in 2017, not necessarily games that were released in 2017. With all the games that I already have, I got another 37 games plus expansions last year. Some were gifts, some were purchased at the thrift stores, and some were new.

The new games were: Batman Miniatures Suicide Squad, Blood Bowl (2016), Bob Ross: Art of Chill Game, DC Universe Miniature game, Dracula’s America, Five Points: Gangs of New York, India Rails, Iron Dragon, Iron Man 2: Game of War, Kill Team, Knightmare Chess 3rd Ed, Lanterns, Lost in R’lyeh, Lost Patrol, Mad Dogs With Guns, Marvel Universe Miniature game, Oddville, Pamplona: Viva San Fermin!, Perpetual Commotion, Risk Europe, Rogue Stars, Santorini, Shadows Over Camelot: the card game, Super Mario Bros. Power Up Card Game, Sushi Go Party, Zombies!!! 5, Zombies!!! 6, Zombies!!! 7, Zombies!!! 8, Zombies!!! 9, Zombies!!! X, Zombies!!! 11, Zombies!!! 12, Zooloretto.

The ones I picked up not new were: Bananagrams, Cathedral, Flames of War: The World War II Miniature Game, The Hunger Games: District 12 Strategy Game, Zombie Fluxx.


A lot of these did not hit the table this year. Some games from previous years were finally played.

Games that I played for the first time that did not make my list were:
Don’t Take My Word, Double Feature, Happy Salmon, Kittens in a Blender, Mars Attacks: Ten-Minute Takedown, Set, Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi – The Sarlacc Pit, Zombie Fluxx


13 – Zombie Run – has a Blind 31 feel to it. You have four face-down cards and you start by seeing two of them. You have to swaps cards out to try to get the lowest amount of zombies on your cards at the end of a round. The lowest score at the end of five rounds wins.

12 – Cars 2 Sorry Sliders: World Grand Prix Race Edition – a pretty simple flicking game. It works fine for younger kids as well as for adults.

11 – Sheriff of Nottingham – a bluffing game about smuggling goods in to the market. You don’t have to lie to win, but it is easier to win if you do lie at the right time.

10 – Sharp Shooters – an older Yahtzee-type dice game where you are trying to score points by finishing hands on cards. It seems to be a precursor to Roll For It!

9 - Dealer’s Choice – Despite being both heavily overproduced – with the blue books and the huge card holder, and having some of the cheapest paper money, this game still holds up surprisingly well. It represents buying used cars for your lot. The car values are very dated but the gameplay could be updated without too much trouble.

8 – Scotland Yard – one player plays Mister X and the rest of the players try to catch him based on his movements. They can see how he moves and occasionally get to see where he is. It is an older game but still holds up quite well. The logic trees in solving the location really appealed to me.

7 – Sushi Go Party – it is a larger version of Sushi Go! It has all the basic cards plus more cards for variations. While it is great with all the extra choices and the ability to play with up to xx people, it does require more setup time than the classic Sushi Go!

6 – Bob Ross: Art of Chill Game – A surprising good game. You have to try and mix paints to make the landscapes before Bob does. We played it with people who didn’t know Bob Ross and it still holds together. It plays just long enough to get the idea but not too long to become boring.

5 – Lanterns – You place tiles to match lanterns by color to get cards. You can cash in the card sets to get scoring tokens. It’s pretty easy to pick up, looks pretty, and has a nice light depth for the length of time it plays.

4 – Batman: Gotham City Strategy Game – You play as the villains and are trying to get enough resources to level up enough to win. Batman is a game mechanism that smacks you down. I like the way it plays. Our first play was a bit long but l am looking forward to trying it again.

3 – Lemonade Stand – similar to the old Apple II game. It has cute art and simple rules but it is a bit complex to start for such a short game.

2 - Pamplona: Viva San Fermin! – A quick game about running with the bulls. It looks like it should be quite simple but there is definitely something there. It is a bit confusing to start but by the second of the four heats you have most of the play down.

1 – Acquire – an old classic about buying stock in hotel chains that I was finally able to play. It still holds up well with strategy about which chains to merge and which stocks to buy and when to do both of those.

Figure Painting Total - Dec and 2017

I ended up getting Blood Bowl for Christmas. I also picked up some assorted Heroclix to use for Marvel Universe and some western games. I did not add those figures to my total as they were already painted and, if I don't paint them, they will go with my Heroclix totals.


My list for the year was:
BM Heath Ledger Joker – 1
BM Black Flash – 1
BM Suicide Squad Starter – 13
BM Affleck Batman – 1
BM – Objectives Game Markers - 4
BM – Watchmen – The Comedian – 1
BM – Watchmen – Rorschach – 1
BM – Watchmen – Silk Spectre – 1
BM – The Dynamic Duo – 2
BM Bat Signal – 1
BM Construction Set 2 – 11
BM GCPD van – 1
BM/DCU – Black Manta – 1
BM/DCU – Clayface – 1
BM/DCU – Deathstroke – 1
BM/DCU – Flash – 1
BM/DCU – Green Arrow – 1
BM/DCU – Harley Quinn – 1
BM/DCU – Hawkman – 1
BM/DCU – Killer Frost – 1
BM/DCU – Lobo – 1
BM/DCU – Professor Zoom – 1
BM/DCU – Ravager – 1
BM/DCU – Soloman Grundy – 1
DCU – Trinity – 3
GW The Lost Patrol – 17
GW – Kill Team – 23
MU – X-Men starter – 4
MU – Brotherhood of Evil Mutants starter – 4
MU – Guardians starter – 4
MU – Avengers starter – 4
MU – Dark Avengers starter – 4
MU – Deadpool – 1
MU – Gambit – 1
MU – Nightcrawler – 1
MU – Sabretooth – 1
MU – Groot – 1
MU – Nova – 1
MU – The Thing – 1
MU – Black Panther - 1
MU – Dr. Doom – 1
MU – Hawkeye – 1
MU – Vision – 1
MU – Emma Frost – 2
MU – Jean Grey – 1
SM/MU – Spider-Man – 1
SM/MU – Daredevil – 1
SM/MU – Green Goblin -1
SM/MU – Punisher – 1


Blood Bowl – 24


Dec figures bought - 24, figures painted – 0

Final total 2017 – figures bought 155, figures painted 0

Books Read September - December 2017

Sept War Zone Fenris:Curse of the Wolfen: The Rules by Games Workshop in Nottingham
Codex Deathwatch (7th edition) by Games Workshop in Nottingham
Codex Genestealer Cults (7th edition) by Games Workshop in Nottingham
Codex Imperial Agents (7th edition) by Games Workshop in Nottingham
The Academy Awards: the complete history of Oscar by Gail Kinn and Jim Piazza
The Train Robbers by Piers Paul Read
Drafting Scenery for Theater, Film, and Television by Rich Rose

Oct
The Original Canadian City Dweller’s Almanac: facts, rants, anecdotes, and unsupported assertations for urban residents by Hal Niedzriecki and Darren Wershler-Henry
Grinding it Out: The Making of McDonald’s by Ray Kroc with Robert Maderson
Guy Fieri Food by Guy Fieri
Magic 1400s – 1950s by Mike Careney, Ricky Jay, Jim Steinmeyer
Batman: The official Book of the Movie by John Marroit

Nov
Art of Atari by Tim Lapetino
Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster – the Creators of Superman by Brad Ricca

Dec
Flames of War: The World War II Miniature Game (2nd edition) by Peter Simunovich and John-Paul Brisigotti
Pirates of the Spanish Main: Swashbuckling Roleplaying in the Age of Piracy by Paul “Wiggy” Wade-Williams
The Official Making of Big Trouble in Little China by Tara Bennett & Paul Terry
Suicide Squad: Behind the Scenes with the Worst Heroes Ever by Signe Bergstrom