Exceeded the 100K visitor count!

Well, after nine years I have finally reached 100,000+ visitors. 

I first need to thank all my friends in Russia, Ukraine and Singapore without whom it would have taken many more years to have had that many visitors. In the early years Russia and Ukraine were major 'supporters' of the site but have in recent years dropped off. They now sit at 5% and 1% respectively. Now Singapore is the number one all time visitor to the site at about 24% of the total hits. By comparison, Canada is 17%, the US 19% and the United Kingdom is at 4% (so roughly 40%). Rounding out the top seven is Hong Kong at 10%

It would be nice to think that all these visitors to the site are actually gamers and not just robots, but it seems unlikely that they are. 

On the other hand maybe 40-50% are truly gamers interested in some of the stuff that I have posted. So 50K hits by actual humans is not so bad a thing.

Thank you

The state of my blogging saying goodbye to a miserable 2023 & hello to the hope of a better 2024

Well, last year was the worst year so far as posting goes, a meager 15 posts for the entire year, and nothing since August, simply unforgivable! 

Please forgive me, oh wait...

Last year I hit a major down turn in interest and motivation in gaming and in blogging. The only gaming that I really did was board gaming and that only because a friend regularly visited me and 'made' me play games. Oh, I enjoyed the games, but left to my own devices I most likely would have played nothing.

I did start up a miniature campaign, Pulp Alley China Station, and that went well for a while but an illness throughout October and that same low level of motivation saw that campaign grind to a halt. Perhaps it will resume, but experience does say that when you have a long interruption it just is not that likely that it will start again. We shall see.

On the plus side my new drugs seem to be working better and my malaise seems to be dissipating! Happiness has returned (drug induced but so what) and I have finally started to produce things for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. The challenge started on December 21st 2023 and it took me until January 13th 2024 to put up my first post 24 days into the challenge. Hell it took me until today to update this blog, archiving last years data and updating titles to indicate 2024.

All this being said I note that this is the 4th post that I have made this year vs 15 for all of last year. Some may not realize it but I have 5 other blogs plus the Itinerant Gamers blog. For the most part those blogs have limited activity being meant to focus on specific aspects of my hobby life. The League site has some activity, but really only myself and one other person ever posts on it. The painting & building blog site has at times had a lot of activity, nothing much lately, but soon to see more posts. The other sites will only ever have sporadic posting (though I really need to up date the cat & dog companion blog)

This has been a rather long winded rambling, the gist of it is that I plan to post more often and more regularly than in any previous year (fingers crossed)

Terraforming Mars

 

So, I played a two player version of this game last week and well it went on for a long time, a very long time, and upon reflection, well, I think we broke the game. So the game is supposed to last maybe 2 hours, ours lasted closer to 7 hours! It was the first time that I had played the game, not certain how many times my opponent had played. The game is actually a fairly straightforward game, the rules are not complex and the game play is fairly intuitive. There is a large degree of randomness as the game is driven by a deck of 208. Every turn you receive 4 cards which you may keep by paying for them or discard if you do not want some or all of them. These cards do offer up ideas on how your corporation will develop in the game what point gathering strategies you can employ, what attacks you can make on your opponent etc. There are also 2 tracks (temperature & oxygen) and 9 ocean tiles, that once the tracks are completed and the ocean tiles depleted the game will end. Part of the problem with the game is the game ending conditions.

You see, there is not a strong incentive to end the game (beyond the insanity of a 7 hour game), nor does the game force you to meet the game ending conditions. Yes you advance along a chart that gives you money and victory points, but you can also get those items from the cards you draw. Also, while the game has a turn tracker, the turn tracker only applies to the solo game forcing an end after 14 turns. In the regular game there is no such mechanic. The mini game of building money/VP engines is terribly tempting and can supplant the whole terraforming theme of the game. 

This is a problem. 

It is also exacerbated by the fact that some cards have victory points on them and many of these cards once played will be hidden so only the owner will know how many victory points they have. Thus one is further incentivized to gather as many victory points as you can and since you have no way of knowing you opponents total you are de-incentivized to end the game as you may not know how well you are doing.

Despite all this the game was entertaining (newness factor) but I am not certain if the game will work for me and my regular player(s).

End of day one...can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

 

Thankfully nothing has been broken, yet, but it certainly looks like a tornado went through the place. Technically it is a simple straightforward  swap of furniture, but it has become like one of those puzzle squares where you have to slide the pieces around to form up what ever the image is, or the correct number sequence etc etc. To move the main storage shelf I had to move chairs and a desk to make a path. Before I can  place the storage unit where I want to I have to move the paints, but that means I have to set up the painting table but some bookcases are in the way. You get the point.

Here is the largest of the storage units to be moved. 

OOP Ikea large Billy cabinet 16" deep

An especially large fully loaded cabinet with 20 shelves in in, bloody heavy!  So out came everything, however 2o shelves of miniatures is not an easy thing to disperse around a crowded room. I had already taken other items off other shelves so the pile on the gaming table really started getting out of hand.

Stud finding with magnets!

Now, normally I am kind of lazy and will try to move a cabinet even with stuff in it, but this cabinet presented a challenge. As you can see, an air duct blocked me from doing a simple dragging of the cabinet. This challenge meant that I was forced to remove the 20 shelves in addition to the miniatures. Once done it was a 'simple' job  of tilting the whole thing onto me then pushing wobbling it over a floor joint hump, and under the air duct then back up with out crushing me or pushing it over the other way. All this with out ant help even from a traveling gamer (not pointing any fingers) Anyways as I am writing this after the fact you may surmise that I survived the experience and also the second large cabinet that was quite heavier, oddly shaped and just as awkward to shift as the first cabinet.

However despite the chaos and confusion I do see a glimmer of hope. Below is the newly cleared area where my painting table had been. Once done this area should be about a foot wider affording more room for the players and even room for a chair or two.

So could not work on it as much as I would have like to on Sunday, some rearranging and culling of books, the big push will come Monday and Tuesday. As a side benefit it was good to take another look at my Sci-Fi and fantasy book collection to see what I wanted to keep and what I could give away. Thanks to kindle a fair amount of my collection has migrated from paperback to digital. While I still love the feel and smell of books, the ability to easily flip back and forth to find certain passages, the lovely covers, my eyesight is much worse and the ability to adjust font size must win out over nostalgia and tradition.

A change is coming...

This may not be a bad idea, but it certainly will be painful and disruptive as I have decided to rearrange my gaming room. After two years of no gaming and with the first potential gaming day just a month away, I have decided that now is the time to rearrange my gaming room. 

When I started to think about this reorganization I figured that there was no way that it could work, there just wouldn't be room for everything to be shifted where I wanted. Then I started taking measurements and plotting what I might be able to do. Well, sadly it should (at least in theory) fit perfectly, damn. 

So the plan is to 'simply' have this painting area...

 

 ...trade places with these shelves and wall unit. As it so happens both are 280cm in length (there is 60cm of CD racks just out of the shot).

 

Also plan to do something with this corner unit and replace it with a more conventional shelving unit. This part of the plan has not yet been figured out. Originally I simply planned to replace it and chuck it out (actually Kijiji it). Now however I may have figured out a use for it we shall see. It also looks like I will replace at least one low shelving Ikea Billy unit with a high unit. My rule storage are has become a little crowded of late.

 

Also in the mix, I plan to remove my bits boxes to the garage freeing up shelf space below the gaming table. This space will allow me to store some scenery under the gaming table either in photo copier boxes or simply free standing.

 

 The new high book shelf unit may also free up some of these shelves for scenery as well.

Finally, this reorg will open up some of the zones in my room. Once moved, the painting tables new location will mean  that I can push back away from it without colliding with the gaming table. The area where the painting table was, will gain one foot of space making moving around the gaming table that much easier.  In addition there were things that got in the way of the miniature cabinets, specifically a low wheeled table was for ever getting in the way, soon it no longer will. 

All this will also require some additional lighting, I will need to replace one light fixture with an outlet that will then have some overhead lighting plugged into it to provide illumination to the new painting area. 

IKEA here I come!

Aprils project seems to be taking shape naval gazing!

With the water board in place, I guess I will be doing naval action. It was not my original thoughts, I really want to finish off the left overs from the AHPC, but what could go wrong if I put that off a bit. (APHC XIII?)

 So I already have a number of naval games

• Water battles makes up a large part of Dystopian Wars
• Blood and Plunder is a pirate game
• I have Sally4th steamer to build for Pulp Alley
• Some Sarissa speed boats also for Pulp Alley
• A riverboat steamer that will show up in All Quiet on the Martian Front

 

Heck even Godzilla came out of the ocean!

So that should be enough stuff right, I mean that 4 different games, 3 different scales, yeah I think that should do it...or is it?

Life after the challenge

 😧

So, today is the second day after the end of the Analogue Hobby Painting Challenge, I am therefore into my second day of withdrawal. For three months I have been living and breathing the challenge. If I wasn't painting I was prepping stuff to paint, if I wasn't prepping I was planning & thinking about painting. However, for the last two days I have not painted anything & for the last two nights I have woken up in the middle of the night thinking that I am running out of time to get stuff painted! When sleeping I dream that I am painting. I think it is a sign...!

So, throughout the challenge I was under a self induced pressure to produce. Whenever I was in my gaming room, I was there to paint and occasionally build stuff to paint. If something fell and I did not need it for whatever I was working on, then it would lie where it landed. If I was done with something it would be tossed aside to be picked up some time later. Worst was the styrofoam carving, for the most part it too just remain as ground cover to be tracked through the house. (boy does it cling)

Overall I was just too busy painting to be bothered to clean up my messes. It created an interesting obstacle course for me and anyone else foolish enough to dare enter my room. It provided a nice test of flexibility and spatial awareness as I pretzeled my way through my room being careful not to step on anything! It was like those movies where the spy has to avoid a laser grid to get to the treasure. 

I also had the challenge of finding places to put finished items, or space to work on new projects. Case in point, the mountain project required a lot of shifting and a lot of piling of stuff onto stuff into a teetering pile. The apocalyptic city board covered up my RPG stuff and forced my computer into another room.

Here is a video that reveals the horrible state of my room the day after the challenge ended. Be warned, it is not a pretty site...

Today is Tuesday and for two days now I have been working on my room in an attempt to reclaim it from the devastation that I wrought upon it. It is of course slow going, but I am channeling the energy that I devoted to the challenge into the challenge of cleaning my room.

Stay tuned for an update...ooh will he clean it or will he fester and wallow in his own wreckage?

I wonder why I sometimes can't find things in my gaming room...

 

Actually, I wonder how I ever find anything!

So, my desk and room are never the neatest, but after 5 weeks of the painting challenge my room has massively deteriorated. Every week I am in a mad rush to get stuff painted, based, flocked, photographed, upload to the blog and words added to describe what I have done. Four out of five posts have gone right to the deadline on Tuesday, before 6 pm. The minion that oversees my posting day lives in England, and given the 5 hour difference I try,  to get my stuff up early so that she does not have to stay up too late. As a result I just keep plugging away at that weeks projects letting other things lie where they drop, literally! 

Analogue challenge update March 16th

So far so good!

This challenge has really got me painting stuff, maybe not so well but certainly quicker than I normally do, and are, at least, tabletop ready.  Four weeks in and I have almost equaled my entire output for all of last year. Further more I am, mostly, enjoying it. I say mostly as there have been late night sessions to push myself to finish off stuff before the posting deadline of Tuesday, so those moments maybe are not the best times. However even the pressure and the late nights ultimately leave me elated as I see the results!

My gaming room is a disaster zone as I keep pulling out more and more stuff to potentially paint. At the start of this event I had laid out a selection of miniatures that I hoped to tackle, however this has not entirely worked out as planned. While I have worked on some of this stuff, I have pulled out far more items covering a wide selection of genres. Right now on my table [Friday January 21st] are at least 100 figures, while surrounding my work area are maybe another 100 or so figures. 

All these figures are in various stages of completion, which is normal for me. Sometime between now and Sunday night I will have to narrow down my focus to what can be done for Monday/Tuesday. My target day is to have stuff done for Monday night, my actual deadline is Monday before 6pm (at the latest) As I said I have quite a few items nearing completion so I hope to have another good 300+ posting. 

Amazingly I am currently sitting with the most points, but it is a staggered event, with posting dates throughout the week so it is a very ephemeral thing and not a focus of mine. What I really want to do in this challenge is not only to paint as much stuff as I can but to also establish a painting habit that I can maintain after the challenge is completed.  

Stuff in the pipeline:

1. 70 points 14 Women's naval unit
2. 180 points 4 islands with 17 add on buildings
3. 80 points 4 Dystopian wars landing barges
4. 165 points 33 Sanwar Martian warriors
5. 70 points 14 Martian female fighters
6. 85 points 17 Female Nazi she wolves
7. 135 points 27 Spy-fi Henchman 
8. 75 points 15 Super alien host figures
9. 25 points 5 super alien host figures
   
10. 100 points 20 Spy type figures
11. 25 points 5 Jack o' lantern figures
12. 80 points 4 out of 10 tanks/armoured car
13. 25 points UNIT troopers
14. 100-200 points 20-40 super figures 
15. 75 points 15 Ice warriors
16. ? points for assorted polar explorers.
17. 8 Eldar titans
18. 200 points 40 Chaos in Carpathia
    

Updates

Wow, I got an email today telling me that Brigade games has just shipped my order today! 

Great news, a little startling considering my order was placed November 28th!!!! Not the quickest dispatch time. Oh and I almost forgot the best part, to take advantage of the maximum possible discount of 20%, everything I ordered was from the, apparently, inappropriately named "Ready to Ship" line!

On the other hand I did receive two parcels today the big one, and the one I was looking forward to, is my order from Alternative Armies. It contains a few infantry packs, but the bulk of the order is a large installation/base. It contains towers, and connecting passageways and some weapon mounts. I have already washed the parts both soap and a degreaser, and will hopefully find an opportunity to prime them tomorrow. They will then be added to my items to paint for the painting challenge.

The other parcel came from Caliver/Minifigs and contained a few minor things, but the feature item is a nice VSF submarine. It too has been washed and will see some priming  soon.

The painting challenge plan of attack!

So, as mentioned in my painting blog, I have signed up for the 12th annual Analogue painting challenge. I will be updating the painting blog with progress reports over the next 3 months. Now, the main goal of this challenge is to get stuff painted, it is not a competition per se. (at least that is how I view it) It also does not involve judging the quality of the paint job, the only judging is how many points a given project is worth. For the most part, the points per figure is pretty clear cut, but some miniatures do defy classification, or at least stretch the boundaries. For instance while certain models might have been designed for 15mm, the actual size of the miniature, say a giant robot, might well be the size of a 28mm or even 54mm figure. In those cases they are often judged at their actual size not their scale size.   So it will be interesting to see what my 1200 scale Dystopian war vehicles get rated at as they are ridiculously over size for that scale, with many being more in line with 15mm or 20mm. At some point I will review old posts to see if I can find some comparables. 

Again the point of this exercise is to tackle my ever expanding collection of unpainted lead, plastic and plastic. But, I did set a goal, and I would like to achieve that goal. To that end I plan to make use of the bonus points available for theme related entries. So far, any theme that I plan to submit figures to, involve figures that I already plan to paint, so why not take the extra points.

So the plan, there are three planetary rings surrounding a mysterious core. We get to pick our starting planet, and can then move about to adjacent planets or by painting a female character we can move to a non adjacent planet. There are also warp points that allow you to move between rings. Each themed submission gains a person 20 points. Well as I look at the options I can see a number of existing projects that would fit one or move themes. So better map out what will be for each planet.

The Outer Ring  (TBD)

Week 1 / Week 2 / Week 3 / Week 4/ Week 5 / Week 6 /   Week 7 / Week 8 / Week 9 / Week 10 / Week 11 / Week 12

 
1 Vulcan: Something Logical; Pointy Ears 10 Martian cavalry 100 +20 points

Solaris: Deception; Illusion

Arda: Fantasy; Tolkienesque Dragon(s) ?

3 Caprica: Doomed; Ambush Fenians on Mars

1 Death Star: Hubris; Of Questionable Design Vickers Independent tank (20+20) 40

2 Skaro: Strange Doctors; Weird Robots 4 Hydra robots + queen

4 Klendathu: Bug War; An Invasion Gone Bad Martian tripods4 tripods + 1 large tripod

Glorantha: Quest; Runes; Heroes 

Istvaan V: Betrayal; Heretical/Heretics or Loyalty/Loyalists Cultists?

2 Babylon5: Operatic; Low Budget Fun Cyclops

 The Middle Ring

5 Perelandra: Venus; Oceanic; Temptation Dystopian wars landing craft, fort & islands

Noel’s Comet: Friendship described miniature, along with a loquacious story (You know, as Noel would say, 'Why use 10 words when ten thousand will do.')

6 LV426: Aliens; A Really, Really Bad Idea Old Glory Super hero aliens

5 Arrakis: Desert; Worms; Spice; Machiavellian Ironclad Desert nomads

7 Cybertron: Giant Robots, Transformational/Transformative Dystopian robots

Vlogsphere: Bureaucracy; Black Comedy

4 Corsucant: Imperial; Good vs Evil Queen Victoria vs Martian queen

 The Inner Ring

8 Altair IV: Forbidden; Old Robots Robbie, 5 of 13 old glory robots
9 Gethen: Ice; Cold; Androgyny Dr Who cold warriors 2 arctic tracks penguin sat

7 Krypton: Weakness; Superhero More Old Glory superheroes

10 Terra: Earthbound; Home Planet of the Apes

Lune: Witchcraft; Changing Tides; Moods, Sorcery Chaos in Carpathia gypsies etc

Xanth: Never Ending; A Unique Talent

11 Mars: God of War; Barsoom; A Mysterious Neighbour Space 1889 High Martians mesa

That is my thinking so far, some details, some things that I will have to gather together to see what I have number wise. 

 

Either way I will be starting with the Independent tank and the 13 robots.

 

Oh, and beyond that I will be working on the 50 Martian cavalry, the 10 French cavalry, the 10 Bengal lancers and the nearly 100 or so back of beyond cavalry. At ten points per mounted figure my goal of 1000 points is possible to reach..

 

 week 9

• Gethen ice/Mars polar and high martians
  

week 10 

• Luna chaos in Carpathia
  

week 11

• Terra Planet of the apes

week 12

 

End of year madness updated December 15th, new update on December 21st update Dec 30

 So, I went a little mad (we all go a little mad sometimes right Norman?) and got rather involved in some November sales, madness! For the most part I did not buy anything that I had not already thought about buying before any sales. The frigate was an impulse buy in that it was at a good price and though I had not planned to buy one, I had wanted to but it was always too expensive for me to actually buy it. 

Most items were on sale, but some just got caught up in my determination to finally pick up whatever it was that I wound up buying. So some rule books were items that I had looked at many times and just decided to stop looking and buy them already. That would also include the items from Empress Miniatures, they have been in my cart many times, I just never would order them. Well it is a done thing. I am not getting any younger, besides, the pension fund was just sitting there...

Most of my orders are coming from the UK, the exceptions are noted beside the name of the company/store from which I ordered the stuff. The farthest out this year was Sweden

The great spend of 2021

	Ordered from	What was ordered	Cost	Ordered	Received
1	Plastic Soldier Company	Barbarosa & T34s (awaiting restock)	TBD	Oct 30	Feb 11
2	Amazon (CANADA)	28mm Frigate	(150)	Nov 8	Cancelled
3	Ground Zero Games 16	Vehicles, jet bikes	138	Nov 14	Nov 30
4	Rule books    14	Caliver Books	173	Nov 19	Dec 3
5	Sarissa 14	Bases	134	Nov 19	Dec 3
6	Arcane Scenery 14	WI mag, Wild west figs, Gaslands figs	81	Nov 22	Dec 6
7	4 Ground 21	Diner & Airship	140	Nov 22	Dec 13
8	Alphaspel (SWEDEN) 25	Dystopian wars stuff	168	Nov 22	Dec 17
9	Caliver 10	BoB figures	66	Nov 26	Dec 6
10	Col Bills 17	ACW limbers	56	Nov 26	Dec 13
11	Litko (USA) 12	Dystopian tokens & ACW gauges	160	Nov 27	Dec 9
12	Sarissa 16	Castle tower & Gruntz gauge	90	Nov 27	Dec 13
13	Drive Through RPG (USA) 10	WWI rules, BoB rules	77	Nov 28	Dec 8
14	Brigade Games (USA)	BoB, Wild West, Pulp	157	Nov 28	Jan 10
15	4 Ground 15	Flyer, Fort	159	Nov 30	Dec 15
16	Alternative armies 22	Sci Fi settlement, Ikwen	267	Dec 1	Dec 23
17	Sentry Box (CANADA) 5	Battlecry board game	112	Dec 1	Dec 6
18	Old Glory 15’s (USA) 29	ACW troops	75	Dec 1	Dec 30
19	Caliver books 8	Minifigs 28mm VSF sub, tanks	104	Dec15	Dec 23
20	Empress Miniatures 11	Bob/VBCW tanks	215	Dec 4	Dec 15
21	1st Corps 17	WWI A/C, WWI Whippet tank	85	Dec4	Dec 21
22	Caliver books	BoB figures (awaiting restock)	137	Dec 17	Jan 4
23	Amazon (CANADA)	Osprey Undaunted WWII game	41	Dec 7	Dec 7
		Total Cost	2394  +151 2545	it was only money

Update December 15th

So, mid December and 14 out of 23 items have arrived, 1 cancelled(refunded as it never arrived) and 3 still awaiting restock. So 18 accounted for. Taking 17 items (not counting Amazon) that have arrived it took an average travel time of just over 12 days to get to me. 

The longest to get to me so far was 4Ground at 21 days for the diner and airship, while the boardgame shipping from Alberta Canada arrive in 5 days. I fear some will exceed the 21 days the 4Ground took, if they even get here at all!

Now to get ready for the last couple of year end orders to place, as some sales are still happening, but will end soon.

-------------------------------------------------

Update December 21

More items have arrived! The stuff from Sweden made it, which is great as I had doubts about it arriving this year. Let's just say the Swedish postal portal has a lot to be desired.

My 1st Corps armored cars also arrived. 

All of the new arrivals have been assembled and washed and are ready for priming, so that I can add them into the great Analogue painting challenge.

The other good news is that Caliver has put through two charges to my visa card. Caliver you see, only charges your credit card when the order ships, so that means they are on their way (Caliver does not send out an email to say that the order has shipped, go figure) 

So, 6 items still outstanding, with the Plastic soldier reprint going to take the longest time to be fulfilled. Disappointed but not surprised that Brigade order still has not arrived. Still 3 days left this week, so maybe the Alternative armies stuff will make it before X-mas.

Average shipping time  13.56 days

-------------------------------

Update December 30th

Items from Old Glory have arrived, 29 days after ordering and intercepted by customs. So far 4 packages have had HST applied, the two from 4Ground which were sent by courier, one by Litko that prepaid/collected the HST in advance and one order from Old Glory sent by USPS. 

The OG order from the states was not as big as some orders from the UK (or Sweden) yet it was intercepted. It leads me to suspect that where an order originates from (the US) has an impact on customs, oh how I look forward to the arrival of my Brigade order!

Average shipping time  15.33 days

Last update as the last items finally arrive two weeks ago on FEBRUARY 11TH.