A Pirate Cure for Winter Blues

Chicago is a damn frozen wasteland. I've lived here over 20 years and this is worst winter I remember, we've had worse individual snowfalls, but not the repetitive brutal cold and consistent snow we're having to date. Apparently this was the norm in the 70's and 80's but in those days I resided in the Mid-Atlantic states.

 I feel like I havent played a game in ages, our club night has been on hold since early December with my my wife slipping on ice and hurting herself, the Holidays, then this brutal weather. Everytime we tried to get together its been sub-zero and a snow storm, not exactly ideal driving conditions to head out into the night to play some games. Usually during this time of year I find myself with my most significant hobby output, the fore-mentioned plus  my new work schedule working totally freelance, and my playing video games with my kids has somewhat curtailed my time in the basement. while I certainly have been whittling away when I can it was about a week ago after I finished this recent project I was on, that I kicked on the afterburners.


Adepticon 2014 is right around the corner, while I always try not to over commit, I usually always do and this year in no exception. I am playing in two tournaments. The usual Lord of Rings Championships, and new for 2014 Bolt Action. My LotR army is singles 750 pt version of last years  Rohan Team army force not much new to see there, a couple new models I didnt  for BBB but I never actually made it to the tournament. The army is done and ready to go. With the recent shakeups at GW and the game fading away from it long standing limited popularity, there is only a singles event this year..and I wouldnt be surprised if its the last. GW cut its own throat on this game releasing some many Hobbit models in Finecast, while they know its not popular then complaining about lack of sales is maddening where if they had pewter or even plastic versions they would have gotten quite bit of my money, and I only like maybe half the releases...I cant be alone there.

Not coincidentally, the majority of the LotR player I know haved moved over to Warlords Games, excellent Bolt Action, very well supported with constant releases and moderately priced with a great ruleset the game is clearly the new Skirmish game of the moment (thou I must say I recently got the Saga Rules and I really like them, especially with fan made battle boards for things like Lord of the Rings!!!..LOL)

The feel of BA and LotR is similar in play. although due to all crazy variety there is alot more going on, My 12 order British Force is Paratroopers and Commandos, and comes in right at 50 painted models, while not quite halfway done, I am totally done with Paratrooper infantry on single bases, and moving on to the Commandos , still need to do the larger base stuff and touch up my Humber with some decals and finish up my Jeep. I dont feel rushed working on there guys I am batch painting the infantry around 6 at time for consistency, pretty confident they'll be totally done by the end of Feburary. I'll start leaking picks soon.  Aaron and I are also doing a table for the Bolt Action tourney
which were are in the building stage off.  Its a classic Northern Europe village set up with some great terrain features, like cobble roads, and bridge, a foot bridge..complete and ruined buildings...finish this up with take some time but I am not doing it alone and helps A TON.

preview of our Bolt Action table, long way to go yet!

Finally I mentioned Pirates!, as I freeze my arse off here, I cant forget that my Legends of the High Seas game is back this year at Adepticon and its is SOLD OUT., while only 10 players...and I think
I know most of them. I thought I'd unveil the table center piece pre paint with the gatehouse here:

Not totally cleaned up for paint yet, but very close...I plan on priming it this weekend.

 I have a lighthouse about 80 percent done and a Church about 80 percent done. Tim K, author of High Seas book is assisting me in running the event and is bring along a bunch of very period buildings from Cresent Root Studio all wonderfully painted. Those along with the my three new pieces and Rich's Ruined Pirate castle supporting my Gatehouse plus my Docks and Pirate ship...we've got one hell of alot of terrain. I'll have more on scenario and table layout in the weeks to come, I hope to have a 6 player demo version of the event here this month, until then I have the great new show Black Sails and Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag to inspire me.

While I had all this Casting going on,  I of course had to revist my Sci Fi molds get a couple ideas going, I'd really like to get some Sci Fi Skirmish going this year, and with the layout I am going to have I hope the guys cant say no. But I'll leave that for future posts.

I think you can get good sense of scale here and how it will work with the current Pirate Castle pieces we use.

Fully playable interior