Busy busy busy! We keep chugging along. (And a link to the missions I'll be using at SnowCon!)

I really do need to post more often, but I always seem to run out of time in the day before I get back to the blog.  I've been crossing the days off my calendar until SnowCon, enjoying this lovely fall weather we've been having in December and hoarding my loads of store credit that I received for Christmas.

For all of those of you who want to attend SnowCon, I'll have attached a link at the bottom for the potential missions I'm mulling over.  Check out the blog that goes along with it as well.  The guy who runs it is one of the devout gamers down at Crossroads in Standish.  I've played the crap out of his missions and love every one of them and I am sure you will as well!

Other than that, I have only painted one 28mm model in the last month, which was the Gamesday 2010 model for a friend for Christmas that you can see below. It was about 95% complete at the time of the photo.  After SnowCon, however, I'll be starting the commission work on a Daemon army for a friend.  Expect to see a plethora of pictures from that little endevour!

 Here is the link to the missions. Creative Twilight's mission list

Three Weeks Out: Don't Forget to Sign Up For SnowCon!

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, but it is that time of year when real life gets in the way of the important things like war gaming and blogging.  I just wanted to remind everyone that we're only a few weeks away from the big event.  The following is a copy of my event description and a link to SnowCon's site. My next post will be a little more info on the where I am getting my missions and some of the wonderful prizes that we have in store for those who attend! Have a fun and safe Christmas/Hanukkah/Festivus to everyone.

In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future there is only War.

This is a Warhammer 40k miniature tournament intended for anyone who is interested in a competitive, three round event. The points limit is set at 1500 points. You must bring your own army, codex, and other gaming implements.

While this is a competitive event, we are also aiming to make this event fun and enjoyable for everyone involved! We will have a prize for everyone who attends, not just those who do the best. We will be using new and exciting scenarios, as well. This promises to be the largest 40k event in the Greater Bangor Area in recent memory, We can’t wait to see you there!

Operation Shock and Awesome Update: The Terrain is Almost Complete!

As you can see in the picture, I set out all the terrain that I planned to use for SnowCon.  For those of your who don't know, the conventional wisdom on whether or not you have enough terrain for a table is to cram all the terrain you plan to use into one corner of the table. If you can fill a quarter of the table, you have sufficient terrain for your game.  I filled two tables completely with terrain.  Quick math tells me 8 table quarters equals 8 tables worth of terrain!  I made it!  Well, almost.  I still need some more trees for one table, but I will acquire them shortly from AC Moore.

For those of you who are particularly keen-eyed may notice that I tried to keep terrain in mind when I set it out.  I tried to keep city terrain with other city terrain, hills with forests, ect.  One of my pet peeves when laying out terrain is when someone sets down a bunch of urban buildings, then slaps down a forest and rocky hills all around them.  I understand that we don't have unlimited terrain, but it kind of ruins the "realism" factor when you're fighting over a city that was built in the middle of a bunch of rocky hills.  So, I am endeavoring to build tables for SnowCon that are both fun to play on, and visually "right."

Also, I want to say for the first time on my blog that my event at SnowCon is officially a go!  Please head on over to SnowCon's website, purchase a ticket, and sign up for my event and any other gaming that you'd like to do that weekend.  I will be putting up a more detailed post about it in the near future, but that is for another rant... until then!

So, We Had A Tournament!

This past Saturday, we held a little tournament at 3 Geek. We also used some of the missions I am considering using for SnowCon.  I am pretty happy with how the missions played. I am also happy and proud of the guys for the fun, relaxed environment that we had, despite the tough fight we all had going on for the prize money!  I managed victories in all three rounds, but finished second in battle points to Will York, who I managed to beat fairly soundly in round two.  He tabled his other two opponents and manged to eek out the win in one of the closest top three finishes we've ever had!

I'm very happy with my generalship over all; I can't complain about my 3-0 record on the day. Couple that with the fact that no lead is safe with the battle points system means that almost anyone has a chance at prize support if they put in good games. Will proved that you can have a bad game and rebound to great effect! That reason more than any other is why I enjoy the missions and the points system that we used for the tournament. The missions were designed to allow people to catch up and never really be out of the hunt for the winners podium. Shifting to this style of tournament will probably lead to a better event overall, and better attendance once the word gets out. Most importantly for me, the missions are going to make sure that SnowCon is a lot of fun!

We were missing a few of the tournament regulars, but we also had a couple fresh faces show up.  As many of you know, we've had some issues with tournament attendance lately.  There are several factors for this:  People leaving the hobby, a shift away from competitive play toward the modeling/hobby aspects of Warhammer for many of the more active gamers, and/or basic economics keeping people from wanting to spend the $20 to throw some dice.

All of the above factors are normal over time for any play group. People come and go, their priorities change, or their ability/availability prohibit them from playing in events.  I would actually argue that we have more people playing Warhammer than ever in the Greater Bangor Area, but the focus of the group has shifted!  Come in to the shop on any random Wednesday around 6 PM.  Without fail we will have anywhere from 8-12 guys there, hanging out, playing games, painting, and talking about their armies.  We even have a few females painting and playing.  That is right boys, our hobby has girls in it!  Despite their cooties, it is pretty impressive that they want to/can stand being around that many male nerds in one place.  Two years ago, when I first started trying to have a 40k night at the shop, we were lucky to have more than a handful of guys show up. The growth and vitality of our Wednesday group has much to do with the group of guys (and girls, eww!) and their open, welcoming approach to the hobby. 

The reverse could be said for our tournament scene.  A few years ago, we regularly had 8-10 guys show up for our tournaments. Since then we have lost a regular tournament goer here and there, and for a while it was difficult for us to get more than three or four guys interested in showing up.  Maybe, just maybe this trend is turning around!  As I said above, we were down at least three of our regular tournament players on Saturday.  I hope this is a portent of the future. 

Again, thanks to everyone who attended, and I hope to see more of you playing at the shop in the future. And congrats that you made it to the end of this marathon blog post!

Six Weeks Out: SnowCon Terrain Prep Underway!

As you  can see, Tyler found our foam quite tasty after a few hours of terrain-ing!

I've spent quite a few hours over the last week fixing up the shop's existing terrain and building new terrain out of styrofoam and toothpicks with the tutelage and help of Tyler Emery.  Yesterday, Tyler and I went to our friendly local big box hardware store (FLBBHS,) and picked up a sheet of 3/4" pink insulation foam, followed up with a trip to the friendly local dollar store (FLDS,) for a lovely set of four "steak knives" and a box of toothpicks. 

Once our shopping spree was complete, we set to cutting, shaping and gluing our creations.  Our mad, mad minds came up with half a dozen new pieces of terrain.   We had to let them dry overnight because the only glue that does not melt styrofoam is Elmers glue, and, as any who graduated kindergarten can tell you, that stuff takes a long time to dry!  Our next step will be to hand paint the base coats and detail onto our new buildings.  Normal spray paint also melts foam, unfortunately.  Step two is a topic for another post, though....

... You didn't think I was done with this post did you?  The joke's on you!  Last Saturday I spent most of the afternoon and evening (until almost 1 AM, in fact) repairing and painting the existing terrain at the shop.  I only got about half of the current buildings done with the help of a few loyal shop-goers.   You can see the progress that we made above.  I wish I had taken a before photo to show the progress, but at best, these buildings were primer black with some hap-hazard dry-brushing work.  I am quite happy with how these buildings turned out and I can not wait to start on the other half of them!  I based most of the buildings with Adeptus Battlegray foundation from GW, and then highlighted with Fortress Gray, Bleached Bone, Boltgun Metal, and Dwarf Bronze.

On a complete side note, I would like to thank everyone who has shown interest in attending SnowCon thus far and I hope you are all as excited as I am for what is shaping up to be a lot of fun for everyone involved!  Stay tuned for more hobby/event updates soon.

Operation: "Shock and Awesome," or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Terrain!"

The Mission:  To make my tables look as cool as possible for SnowCon.

With just under two months before the big event, I wanted to get the word out now that I will be making my own terrain with the help of a few friends.  Along with the terrain I will be borrowing from 3 Geek, I am hoping to be able to put together 8ish really awesome and fun tables to play on.  There are a few reason why I want to build more/better terrain.  The first reason being that some of the terrain at the shop is starting to look pretty haggard and worn out.  It seems like every Wednesday one piece of terrain (I am looking at you Cities of Battle buildings) needs to be re-glued and what little paint there was on the piece has worn off.  I think 40k, and war gaming in general, is as much about the cinematic "shock and awesome" that happens when you see really neat terrain being fought over by two nice looking armies!

The second reason I want to add to my pool of available terrain is because I happened to review the pictures of the 40k 'Ard Boyz regional event that 3 Geek Gaming held a few years back.  At the time we thought we were "the poo" for being able to host such a large, cool event.  A few years later, a few years older and wiser in the world of hobby, I came to realize after looking at those photos, just how poorly our shop terrain managed to do the job.  Granted, we have had quite a few new foam buildings and hills donated since then, but still, take a look at the above photo as my open and shut case on why we need more terrain for a larger event!

To put it bluntly, we don't have enough cool, diverse terrain to do the eight or so tables that I have in mind. The next few weeks are going to see me doing nothing but terrain TLC and building new foam creations for you all to fight over.  The best part is that most of the terrain that I make will be donated to the collection at the shop as well.  I am always a fan of city fighting, so expect to see more buildings and urban terrain features... it is the 41st millennium after all!

Until next time,

40k SnowCon updates!

Hello to anyone who is reading!  I am proud to say that there is very little left to be done before SnowCon, and we are still two months out!  I finished the player's packet last night, received permission to use the missions that I wanted to use, as well as the go-ahead to use 3 Geek's terrain for the tables!  The last piece that needs to fall is that I am waiting for the Schedule-Dude (clearly the technical term,) to get back to me about space availability so that I can officially make the event 1500 and not something smaller to fit onto a 4x4 space instead!

I really want SnowCon to be a lot of fun for everyone who attends this year.  I am hoping to use this as a template for how I would like to see events run at our FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store,) in the future, with a few minor changes.  I don't know about the rest of you, but playing the same 3 missions out of the back of the main rule book gets boring.  This is my attempt to make our games more fun and enjoyable for everyone involved!

Once I get the go-ahead on space, I will probably post a little more detail about what I am doing with the event itself.  Stay tuned and keep on rolling sixes (except for leadership tests!)

In the beginning, there was blog. And it was good! -- Ruthven 1:1

Hey everyone!  I'm starting a blog to keep you all updated on my thoughts on the local gaming scene, special events or gaming days that I would like to see realized in the Greater Bangor Area (GBA,) and my ongoing progress toward organizing the events for this year's SnowCon  (and maybe some things going on afterward!)

I am sure I will also be doing hobby updates and maybe even some model/codex reviews as well, but only time will tell!  For now... there is blog, and it is good!