You find a flyer from the front: A Ninth Legion Deserters update

 What a may it's been...

Welcome back to my hobby blog. It's been nearly a year since I updated, but I've managed to really start engaging with my miniature wargaming hobby in the most full-time way I can. I was on the 'employment insurance' for about six months (thanks Justin!) after losing my job at the weed farm, but I've managed to find employment with a corporate position, and it's union and pays pretty well(for where I live. If this was vancouver it would be starvation wages, but thankfully I live in a place that I own and I have extra money to buy my plastic toy soldiers, so I'm pretty happy about it all things considered).

I was looking back on my life, and all the things I've done to me,

I'm still looking for the answers, I'm still sear- hold on, that was Mr. Osborne's line.

No, I'm been thinking a lot about what I want from my hobbies, and how it relates to spending. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was a young lad and those tiktok videos about ADHD "resonate"(ie, can be related to in some fashion) and that probably relates to why my first year of being into the miniature wargaming hobby caused me to, hm, let's say overcommit to being a part of games workshop gaming lines, leaving me with some of my first miniatures ever painted (and boy, do they look like first minis ever painted..) and also buying a ton of Warhammer Underworlds and also buying Space Hulk and also buying the Dominion boxed set despite not being interested in Stormcast or Kruleboyz and also the Kill Team Starter set and also purchasing Blood Bowl Second Season edition and also getting into Battletech and also...

and also. and also. and also.

If you're the kind of person who likes shiny and new things all of the time Games Workshop really does have you covered. You will be left with a mountain of half-finished projects and an empty wallet. What a nightmare! Do not believe the lies about whether or not you can "spend less money" on your hobbies by playing games with a "low model count" and other such nonsense. If you're the kind of person who throws reams of cash at new things then the "only 2-4 models for an army!" game will not help you save money. That's all self control. You can buy a single warhammer army and never buy anything else again and be fine. You can buy the "cheaper" warhammer underworlds and not even realize on your 15th warband, you could literally have just...bought the goddamn warhammer army and been good to go.

I also upgraded my PC with a new GPU and power system just in time for Darktide, only to immediately lose interest in the game after less than forty hours due to not really liking the 40k setting as much as the excellent Old World setting. And generally finding I just don't really like videogames unless it's wintertime because it's harder to get around in winter.

Basically I needed to bring my stuff into focus. Get far, far more aggressive about actually playing the games I wanted to play (I didn't do as much tabletop stuff in 2022 but I also managed to hit the beach with my more outdoorsy tabletop gaming friends on eight different occasions in a mostly wildfire smoke free summer so I don't consider it a waste, especially since the sky is a lovely vomit yellow currently...). I've been logging it in my journal, which I mostly keep for bullet-point to do lists, but I think I've done well so far - actually playing and running the games I bought. 

Here's a quick rundown: 

INIS - 12/02/23

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Session #1 23/01/23

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Session #2 19/02/23

Dungeon Bowl  09/03/23

Blood Bowl 7's 18/02/23

Cyberpunk RED #1 05/03/23

Cyberpunk RED #2 18/03/23

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Session #3 02/04/23

Space Weirdos, two games 11/04/23

Space Weirdos 17/04/23

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Session #4 07/05/23

And that's just the non-Battletech stuff. I've been going hard on arranging Battletech shit this year.

Classic Battletech (Campaign #1) 09/02/23

Alpha Strike (Teaching Game) 11/02/23

Classic Battletech (Campaign #2) 19/02/23

Classic Battletech (Teaching Game) 04/03/2023

Classic Battletech (Campaign #3) 04/03/2023

Classic Battletech (Teaching Game) 05/04/2023

Alpha Strike (Teaching Game) 11/03/2023

Alpha Strike (Teaching Game) 12/03/2023

 Classic Battlech (Weird Grinder) 19/04/23

Classic Battletech (8000bv Batchall) 30/04/23 

So uh. Yeah. I've been getting my money's worth. And it's not stopping. Fed up with the slow dripfeed of news regarding the Old World I decided to look into getting some Rank and Flank armies on the table and playing games, and after taking a few sniffs at Dragon Rampant, Kings of War, Hobgoblin etc, I settled on on Age of Fantasy: Regiments, because why not? I've been slowly building up an IXLD army for that setting, I finished some Mordheim guys and hey - oh holy of holies, I have finally built enough models for my Skaven army that I can field them in a game. So I'm playing Age of Sigmar this year. A lot if I can help it. 

 
Here's my general hobby plans for the rest of the year:

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

Age of Fantasy: Regiments will be added into the game's systems if I can figure out a way to get the players into a situation where they need to lead armies into battle against their enemies. I know you may be thinking "Holy shit Klang, you have deep-ass pockets" and the answer is I'll probably be looking into using cheaper miniature company figures to do this. Wargames atlantic gives you, for example, 40 Halfling soldiers in a box, which can be built as pike, sword, or bowmen. All of them. For about 50$ CAD, or about 37 usd. Less than a buck for a mini? They also have decent Empire chaff proxies in the Conquistadors box and decent Goblins. There's also the Oathmark miniatures from North Star Military Figures. 30 Tolkien-esque Orcs in a box and you can build them as, again, Hand weapons, bow weapons or as pikemen. They also do dwarves, elves, humans etc. Don't get me wrong, I still bought a Steam Tank for the IXLD but basically, I can teach them an easy to learn system and they can do heroic stuff that doesn't involve killing Bloodthirsters of Khorne.

Blood Bowl

I'm just a humble player in the league. I hope I do well. No more buying BB stuff for me, however. I have three teams and I think that's basically all I need. 

Battletech

More battle reports coming for this. Alpha Strike campaign starting. I have a custom army for it mostly built aside from two missing ones. Nothing else to say here, we start on the 20th of May.

 

Age of Sigmar

I finished my Skaven army. Now they need to be painted, mind you, but I can start playing now, and uh, yes I am going to.