My Hobby and Blog in September 2017

September 2017 Reaper 25th Anniversary Model

The official end of Summer 2017 and the beginning of Fall 2017! I am several days late in getting this posted, but it does not mean I have slacked off from my miniature/gaming hobby.

What I have been working on: 

Three of my original goals were: 1) to paint more miniatures to completion;  2) completely transfer my hand-written notes onto the blog and my computer;  and 3) Better organize all the miniatures, tools, and gaming components I have collected over the years. I am still painting (slowly!). I have  taken a pause to transfer my notes for other priorities. I am, however, making a dent into organizing my unassembled miniatures.

To save space, I have been removing the plastic parts from sprues and placing them into zip-lock bags. It saves a lot of space, but take a little bit of additional organization such that I can easily build the miniatures in the future without too many hassles.  I caught up with Malifaux miniatures and have a couple Warhammer 40K plastic kits remaining. After that, all I have left to do are Games Workshop starter boxes/games and many Warhammer Fantasy and Age of Sigmar plastic kits that are enough parts to make 600 miniatures.

For September, I did completed painting the Double-Dollar Coins for Rail Raiders Infinite and the homemade Board Tiles (four 6"x6"). I was interested in creating/painting more of my own terrain pieces so I took my time making walls from previous casting of blocks and trying different paint schemes on stamped terrain features.

What I have been playing: 

I have played Dungeons & Dragons Wrath of Ashardalon with my nieces and nephews. We have lost for the third time now on mission of saving villagers. They are quite fragile! We also finished the first season of Pokemon TCG Theme Deck League. The kids really enjoyed the game and we are getting ready for the second season!

What has been happening within the hobby:

Happy Seppuku Stamps

Let's see, for the month of September I purchased three new texture stamps from Happy Seppuku - Stone Quarry, Stone Shore, and Cave Steps for a Mountain Pass theme. The next stamp(s) to come out appears to be geared toward Sci-Fi settings. I have a lot of fun using these stamps to create board tiles and embellishing on miniature bases. More upcoming blog entries will be pertaining to these stamps.

Rum & Bones Second Tide

Rum & Bones Second Tide had two non-Kickstarter expansions released in September that I purchased. This includes 10 mercenary heroes and a new faction, Hammers of Ragnarok. This new faction is a tribute to Blood Rage, another CMON game. I am surprised and happy to see additional support for this game even though the amount of heroes and factions from the first and second Kickstarter provide a wealth of replay value. The mercenaries expansion is much needed for retail, in my opinion, since majority of the mercenaries from the Kickstarters were Kickstarter exclusive. 

Games I Want: Aristeia! / Shadespire / Tomb of Annihilation 

Aristeia!, Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire. and Dungeons & Dragons Adventure System: Tomb of Annihilation are three games I want and have really gotten excited about. These games will be available for purchase or for preordered in October, but there have been a lot of information provided for these games this month. Aristeia! and Shadespire are both competitive group battle skirmish game on a hex-based board. They both also utilize customized card decks. Both are board games within world settings of tabletop miniatures games that I have invested into: Infinity and Age of Sigmar respectively. Tomb of Annihilation will be the fifth stand-alone and compatible dungeon crawling game within the D&D Adventure System. While the game system itself is fairly limited, the children enjoyed playing the games within the system. I hoped this is a good way to transition into a true RPG experience and other dungeon-crawling games.