Terrain-o-rama!

At the start of 2015, I ended up purchasing a little gaming table set up for my Nerd Lair (i.e. my Man Cave), but really had nothing to go on top of it at all.  For the first few weeks of January I have been mostly working on terrain, and I have come a long way in a short of amount of time, but there is still plenty of work to be done before my table is "playable".  I have also encountered several challenges along the way as well.

Challenge #1: Cheap.
- I want everything to be cheap, and thus far it has been.  Originally I look at a lot of the "Battlefield in a Box" stuff and other Terrain manufacturers, but it would end up costing me way too much to fill a table!  I'd rather spend a couple hundred dollars on an army, rather than terrain, which means a lot of creative problem solving, and scratch building.  which leads me to the next challenge...

Challenge #2: I suck @ building!
- have you ever seen those people online who can take everyday junk like pringles cans or a sheet a cardboard and turn them into something crazy and beautiful on the tabletop?  I am NOT one of those people!  If I use a pringles can or a toilet paper roll to build something, it always comes out looking just like that... a pringles can or toilet paper roll.  I also tried building a foamcore WWII building, and it was a headache!  It actually looked alright, but at the same time, it didn't look "authentic" enough to me and I felt it just wouldn't look or feel right on the table.  So, in other words, whatever I do has to be kind of fool proof, and still look good.

Challenge #3: Multiple Scales, multiple genres.
-  I'd also like for most of the terrain to be workable in both 15mm and 28 mm scales.  Obviously, some will, some won't, but I'm hoping the majority of it will.  Especially for the WWII stuff as I move into both Flames of War and Bolt Action.  The other tricky part will be the multiple genres.  Obviously, I'm going to have issues getting the 40k terrain to mesh into the WWII stuff, I know that.  BUT what I'm mostly referring to is having basic stuff like hills, and wooded areas, the kind of basic things seen everywhere, and every time period, so I can bounce from WWII to Dark Ages, to the Roman Republic era.  Another option would be a desert board in the future to serve this same purpose...

Well, hopefully I have not bored you too much so far.  From here, let's take a look at what progress has actually been made..

This Geek's Week...

Shot from my painting desk...

Hobby/Modeling/Miniatures:
- Worked a bit on my Arena Rex gladiators.

- I felt bad for "shelving" my 40k stuff, so I got them down, worked on them a wee bit, then thought: "nah" and shelved em again!

- I wanted something historical to work on, so I got out my Sherman's from the open fire box set for FoW and worked on them.  I plan to have them with my Mid War Rangers...


Card/Board games:
- Played the usual daily games of Pokemon TCG with my daughter.

- Picked up the SAO and Persona4 trial decks for Weiss Schwarz.  Looks like I'm starting a new TCG, as they hold tournies on my one semi-consistent night off.  A few days later, I picked up an SAO playmat, deck box, and my first SAO booster box...

- I HAD planned on attending this Saturday's DBZ tourney, but got stuck painting the Tae Kwon Do school that afternoon instead.  It sounds like I lucked out, lots of Ginyu decks everywhere, and some added drama over "cheating" and such.  What a silly hobby when people stop being civil and resort to petty stuff like cheating over a few alt art promos and a playmat... You know, that $12 thing I mentioned above that I bought just a second ago.  Yeah, people get salty over that!  Sheesh!  I'm seriously rethinking how much I wanna play this game... Silly behavior + lack of diversity + schedule, tends to put an overall damper on things...

- Sold a DBZ UR for $45 and a couple boardgames I never played for another $50...


Video Games:
- Played several rounds of world of tanks: blitz, them rage-quit/deleted

- Played a bit of GW2.  Went back to trying another human Mesmer...

- Played several rounds of DBZ: Battle of Z, then I got stuck fighting against Super Saiyan Goku...

Play it COOL.  Enjoy the GAME.
- WuhSawBe -

This Geek's Week...

Sword Art Online... I'm liking it thus far!

Hobby/Modeling/Miniatures:
- Worked more on my terrain, finishing up the ruined buildings, a 15mm V-1 Rocket, and two of the little Italian-style columns

- Had some store credit at one the LGS', and seeing as there was very little in the store I actually WANTED, I picked up an Angels 20 starter, mainly for the bf 109's for FoW, and the maps to use for Wings of Glory.


Card/Board games:
- Played a several rounds of Pokemon with my daughter.

- Did a few deck test games of DBZ.

- I've actually been selling some of my games, and have parted with my 40k conquest stuff, my LoTR stuff, and my MYTH game. I'm looking to start trading/selling/swapping several more in the future.


Video Games:
- Been watching a lot of Sword Art Online lately, which had me wanting to play GW2 again.  I tinkered around with some humans of various classes, then deleted them and went back to my Charr characters...

- Re-downloaded World of Tanks: Blitz on my phone, and played a few rounds...

This is officially post #200!

This Geek's Week...

I can totally see this being my daughter.  She is turning out to be a little gamer...

Hobby/Miniatures/Modeling:
- Worked a bit on some terrain.  The ammo boxes are done.  The hills turned out better than expected.  I also picked up some Tamiya sandbags and the Tamiya brick walls have arrived as well, so I'm also working on those as well...


Card/Boardgames:
- Played a few games of the Pokemon TCG with my daughter.

- Worked on tweaking my DBZ decks.

- Played a game of the 40k LCG.  It was alright, but I'm just not intothe game as much as I thought I would be...

- Played 2 games of innovation.  First game, I had no clue of what was going on.  2nd game, I ended up winning, but it was an overall long game, and still a bit "meh".

- Conducted a trade online, some of my DBZ foils for some Weiss Schwarz stuff.


Video games:
- Been playing a ton of DBZ: Battle of Z on the PS3.  My daughter likes it as much as I do!

- Played a couple rounds of the Pokemon TCG Online...

- Played a little bit of my Pandaran on Wakfu.

Bolt Action & Flames of War... planning ahead!

 When it comes to miniature wargaming, it seems you have a couple of camps: one collects/buys what looks cool and will build a list around what they've picked up, the second will plan out a list, tweak, change, etc before making any purchases.  I definitely fall into the second category, and as such I've recently ordered the Bolt Action Rulebook along with the US & German Armybooks, and really briefly, I'd like outline some of my initial plans for BA and FoW as well...

1st "This Geek's Week" of 2015...

we got the shoes at least...

Hobby/Miniatures/Modeling:
- I finally got around to getting a suitable gaming table in my "Nerd Lair" (I.e. My Man Cave), now I'm just in dire need of terrain.  I painted up an old AT-43 storage container I had laying about.  I also experimented with building a ruined farm house from scratch, but I don't think I like it.  I'm also unsure about the foam hills I created as well.  /sigh... I'm just terrible at crafting terrain!

- Ordered the Bolt Action Rulebook and the US & Germany army books. I also ordered some Tamiya terrain as I need to fill up a WWII Italy themed gaming table quickly, and cheaply, and the scratch built stuff doesn't seem to be working...



Card/Board games:
- I picked up Boss Monster at a small game store while I was out of town, and played a few games of it.

- Played a round of Pokemon with my daughter.

- Worked on reconstructing/tweaking my DBZ decks, I feel like my "main decks" are done for now, though I'm still on the fence about a couple of the "side decks" to be honest...


Video games:
- I picked up a copy of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z for the PS3.  I was going to wait till February for DBZ Xenoverse, but I decided a used older one would be cheaper and just as entertaining.


Other Geekery:
-  I ordered a lot of miscellaneous geeky stuff on amazon, like: a DBZ phone case, a new DBZ bag to carry my DBZ cards in to events,  season 2 of DBZ: Kai, The last season of Spartacus, and all 4 of the ALIENS movies on DVD, as I never got around to replacing the VHS versions I used to own...

Here's to hoping 2015 will be a good year for this geek!
- WuhSawBe-

2014 End of the Year Report...

It's that time of the year again, in fact, it's the end of the year!  Just like last year, I'll be reflecting on my "geeky accomplishments", only this time I kept better record keeping.  I'll be looking at things such as top 5 most played games of 2014, total numbers of models painted, and total books read.  I don't really do the whole "new years resolution" THING, but instead I'll reflect upon how 2014 went, and how I hope things in 2015 will go.  It feels like I didn't really do a whole lot in the geek department, but take a look at my numbers, and see what you think..

Up first, Top 5 games played of 2014...