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.

Peach Con - Painting Competition

 

I did not get many photos of the Peach Con painting competition, because a lot of people were looking at the pretty miniatures, and I didn't want to elbow my way to the front to take photos with my phone camera.

There was plenty of good stuff, though, like this medieval marginalia warband.

Unsurprisingly, given the fan crossover between Peachy Tips and Rogue Hobbies, there was a Rascaltown Gnome.

There was a whole bunch of cool big monsters and vehicles.

I often find, looking at painting competitions, I start thinking "I should do some painting myself". Do other people get that?

And thus we come to the end of my Peach Con coverage. Sorry for the delay on this last post, life got a little busy for a few days. Still at least I can leave y'all with a smattering of other people's painted models and get back to trying to bring a degree of order to the chaos.

An awful lot of cases

 

Part of the process of moving house is that you have to put everything into boxes then take it out again. This has a side effect of you starting to take stock of just quite how much stuff your life has accumulated.

This is my pile of KR cases of painted or assembled models. With the exception of a couple of Infinity cases, they're now all in the loft so they're out of the way while other sorting and unpacking happens. Longer term - this is more stuff than I have time to really play with, so they will be gone through for eBay at some point in the future.

The conservatory, our current repository of hobby boxes, is slowly getting to the point of being functional. We're now to the point of having a table space available, and the first planned activity is getting some things listed on eBay.

The current plan is to spend the bank holiday weekend taking photos and making listings, scheduling things to go live on the last weekend of August. 

That said, I am slowly finding all the bits I'll need to play Infinity, as there's some local folk keen to start learning. It's a little way off yet, as "delightful house" is higher on the priority list, but soon. Soon.

Peach Con - Mermaids (Siren's Oath) and Paint Brushes by Tesseract Miniature Studios

 

Continuing my "Peach Con" coverage, there were a couple of other small companies promoting cool new stuff that caught my attention. First up is Twisted Spire, a sister company to Warp Miniatures. They're producing a series of mermaid miniatures and a one shot TTRPG to go with it.

They were showing off some of the painted miniatures (one not shown here as it was in the painting competition), and had a preview miniature available for sale. I was reminded not to buy the preview miniature while we haven't finished unpacking at the house, but I was very tempted and needed some moderate arm twisting!

This is an upcoming crowd-funder. It's going to be on Gamefound rather than Kickstarter. You can give the campaign a follow so it reminds you when it starts. I'm super excited for it.

Also with a stall at Peach Con was Tesseract Miniature Studios. Stu has started a range of brushes that he's developed with a partner company, and it seems like they've been flying off the shelves. The stand had some little 3D printed frogs, wet palette, paints and brushes so you could try them out for yourself. I sadly didn't manage to drop by any time the space was free, but that's probably a good sign.

Stu was kind enough to gift my me and my wife a "Workhorse" brush to try out once our hobby stations are back up and running. He had a whole bunch of his recent pieces on display, as he's been getting more into display and competition painting lately.

He's also got some plinths for sale, and I believe his first miniature bust is due to be released soon.

I've assembled this Infinity TAG, and it's in my paint queue, but I don't think I'm going to be able to quite hit these heights. It's always lovely to see some miniatures you've seen pictures of online in person.

Peach Con was definitely a bit of hobby balm for the soul. Seeing this cool new stuff from Bad Squiddo, Twisted Spire and Tesseract has got me really fired up to finish clearing the space to start sorting my hobby area out. We're still a little way off yet, but there's a lot of enthusiasm for when it arrives...

Peach Con - Bad Squiddo and Trench Crusade News

 

One of the traders at Peach Con was the legendary Bad Squiddo. They had a few boxes of miniatures (including the ever terrifying Turkey Man) and backdrop books to sell, along with a couple of exciting previews!

First up was the Women of WWII Resistance Kickstarter that's coming later this August. They had a bunch of the sculpts to show off. While I failed to get closer pictures, they're really good quality. Given the fashions of the time, these are also excellent miniatures for period RPGs, horror and pulp games.

At time of writing, the Kickstarter hasn't started yet, but the preview page is up. If you like Bad Squiddo, women in wargaming or anti-fascist stuff, it's super helpful to "Save" the project whether or not you back it, because it helps the project get recommended to others. You should totally back if if you can, though, it looks super cool.

The other, more mysterious preview, was this! The Jon Hodgson backdrop books have been a huge "step up" for my miniatures photography. I'm very excited to see this subtle hint that we might possibly be getting a dedicated Trench Crusade backdrop book in the future.

My attempts to bribe Annie for more information about this were unsuccessful. You'll have to keep an eye on social media for more news, though I will do my best, if I spot it, to make a blog post about it when more news surfaces.

There was a little display of how you can take cool photos of your miniatures using backdrop books. Sadly, I'd not brought any of my own so I was forced to try it out on the fearful Turkey Man. Annie was probably in a little bit too cramped of a corner of the hall given how popular Bad Squiddo is, but it's only the second Peach Con, so the odd bit of teething issues are to be expected.

These weren't the only new and exciting things at Peach Con, so I do have another post coming later this week about those. In the meantime, maybe go and have a nose around the Bad Squiddo site, or save the upcoming Kickstarter?

Peach Con - General Event Thoughts

On Sunday, my wife and I went to Peach Con in Derby. This is a small convention in a school cafeteria organised by Peachy Tips. The event is in its second year - last year seems to have been more of a Patreon meet up, while this year has graduated to a good sized small convention.

This was the main hall, with a good mix of demo tables and vendors. There was a painting competition in a side room. I also heard later about a quiz being held in another side room, and the corridor to the main room had a table with free teas and coffees.

There were a good number of games to try out - from the Games Workshop games you'd pretty much expect, to Baron's War and Team Yankee.

While I saw Team Yankee's launch, it never took off locally to me while I was in London, so I've never seen a game of it played. It was interesting to see a full urban table and an awful lot of miniatures for it engaged in a big battle.

Trench Crusade also had a table there. Sadly, I didn't manage to find the time for a demo outside of times it was already incredibly busy.

Warlord was also there with a pretty big historical table, though I think it was a display rather than an active demo.

Similarly, there was a table for Relicblade that I think Exit 23 had bought.

Battletech also had some representation - I think Alpha Strike by the cards.

Of the Games Workshop demos available, I decided to take a photo of this amazing Bretonnian force.

The Tabletop Smithy had this Ork Furby, that was deeply disturbing...

This post has already gotten long enough. I'll be posting more on Peach Con, hopefully later this week. I saw a few cool previews or releases I'd like to talk about, and they deserve a dedicated post or two...