Flesh and Blood Pre-release, and thoughts on pacing

 

On Friday evening I headed down to The Dice Cup for the Flesh and Blood "Super Slam" pre-release. The new set has a bit of a death match / wrestling theme, and two of the four heroes are the class I play - Guardian.

I had a bunch of fun, winning two out of my three games, and got a bunch of cards I'll be able to use later. However, it turned out that sorting these cards out, so I can return the cards I don't need to the store "commons" box next week, took up a good chunk of my hobby time this weekend.

I got as far as "getting the box of stuff for eBay" out in order to take photographs and get started, but once I'd finished sorting household tasks, it was late Sunday and I stood a real risk of wrecking my work week trying to get it done.

While circumstances conspired to cause there to be a few more household tasks than usual, I should have been able to foresee the time that sorting cards would take up, and maybe not have decided that Sunday would be a great time to cook a roast rather than a stir fry.

So it's an important reminder that while you might at first thing that things beyond your control are impacting your hobby time, there's still plenty of stuff that you do control, and choices you make that get in the way of you having more time for your hobby.

The hobby of moving boxes around

 

My weekend was pretty caught up with washing up and laundry, which is not really the stuff of hobby blogs. But there's a reason why my time was spent on house stuff rather than fun stuff.

The house move is nearly done. I've been engaging in what a recent Knights of Dice YouTube video kind of referred to as "the hobby of moving boxes around". We still need to sell the flat, and the new house is full of boxes that need sorting and surplus stuff selling, but soon, soon, we'll only be heading down to London for work rather than for work and working on getting the flat ready for sale.

Still, I did manage to fit in a trip down to Bad Moon Café to play some Flesh and Blood the last time I was down. It remains my hobby sanity lifeline, but remains challenging to photograph. So have this painted junction box from South London instead...

Some potential projects

The real world continues to inconveniently time consuming, and impeding my ability to spend all my time on random hobby projects. The tedious and complicated way our house move is happening continues to soak up vast amounts of time, but the little windows of delight in our new home show that it will all be worth it in the end.

I am actively champing at the bit to get to some hobby projects. It goes without saying Infinity is high on the list - that hasn't changed. But what else is catching my eye?

There's a pretty big Underworlds scene up here, and I do have a couple of warbands painted already. I do need to find the new edition cards I have somewhere. The matter is slightly complicated by my not having the current edition box for boards and tokens and whatever, and budget currently precludes fixing that.

But it seems likely I should be able to get a few games in once I've found the decks, and if I have fun with that, I'll look to get the latest set.

Quite a few people are also playing Age of Sigmar Spearhead. For this, I do have a whole Spearhead in the Skaventide box - but it's unassembled and unpainted. That's a slightly more chunky hobby project than "find a few things", but I do at least already own everything I need to do that. I've got both of the Spearhead scenery and board sets, too.

I'm getting quite excited by Heresy, as lots of other people are. A little audit of kits has shown that bits and pieces of other abandoned projects comes to about 800 points or so, but is heavily lacking in troops. One box of Heresy Tactical Marines would get me to a small playable force at about 1,000 points or so.

But I have no finished models! This feels like a good "get a couple out, get them done, then paint another kit" type project. If and when I've gotten everything else done and ready, I can grab the tactical box as my reward.

 

I am wavering on Old World, readers. While I have a bunch of Bretonnian kits, what is bringing me joy is the idea of Empire of Man. But I am definitely not in a place to be buying a huge new army.

Conveniently for me, the TSN Arena has put together some rules for playing The Old World at 500 points. This seems eminently more achievable as a goal for the Bretonnians, and perhaps once that's done, I can switch my focus to Empire?

What do you know, Malifaux is releasing a new edition! I was just getting into the local scene as part of a Slow Grow campaign when Covid hit - my last game got cancelled right as lockdown hit for the first time.

I haven't found anyone playing locally, but there is a pretty thriving national scene. I can't see it being too challenging to get some paint on my crew, grab the new cards once they come out, and sign up to a small event.

And finally, the low bar. This bit of resin from Fenris Games is intended for my photography set up. Once I find it, cleaning it, undercoating it, and painting it up with some simple techniques will be a pretty simple win to get something done.

These are a whole lot of projects. My current thinking is very much based around trying to set aside the time to get one pretty hefty hobby project done a month. I definitely have too much on in September, but I'm looking thoughtfully at October or November for being able to maybe start doing something that isn't unpacking boxes, or sorting things to be sold on eBay.

Having the space, both physically and metaphorically, is the reason we moved. I'm looking forward to being through the work that gets us there.

Bad Squiddo Resistance Kickstarter

My buddy Annie from Bad Squiddo Games is running a Kickstarter until Wednesday 10 September. It's primarily to produce a range of women from the WWII Resistance in a variety of countries. There's something like sixteen figures overall, all cast as single piece metal miniatures.

It feels like a good time to be celebrating women who risked (and in some cases lost) their lives to oppose fascism. Each of the figures represents a specific historical figure, but they could also be used as resistance fighters in historical wargames, or armed women in pulp or horror games in the relevant period.

Annie's got a couple of partnerships going on this Kickstarter, the first being texture rollers that leave the right type of tracks for Sherman and Panzer tank tracks.

Annie is also launching a Jon Hodgson World War Ruins backdrop with the Kickstarter, so this will be the first opportunity to pick these up. Given all the excitement around more modern conflicts and alternative history, like Trench Crusade, there's going to be plenty of options to utilise these.

Historical games aren't my usual thing, but I know quite a few of my readers enjoy such things. If this is something you like, or like to see, please consider backing it and picking something up. Small firms run Kickstarters to make sure that projects like these can happen. It has already funded, but I like it when my friend isn't worrying about making rent or guinea pig vet bills, so do consider backing, or telling your friends about it if funds are tight or its not your thing.