Traveling and painting in 2024 part VI

 

            After NEEAT 2024 I went straight to Cali. My paint kit came along. The same one I paniced about sitting in 100 degree heat on a run away with my little dolls melting. No panic as they sat this time. I am a slow learner. 

            I had only one night in two weeks to paint. Only infantry bases were base coated for the Sallies. I had to switch hotels mid trip. Both Holiday Inns. The first one was only 1k bonus. The 2nd was 5k a night kicker. 

            The San Tomas HI has pretty bright desk lamp. The killer is the over head light. No rooms have over head lights any more. It makes a huge difference.

            I made diamond for delta on the way out. That is a 200USD gift.

            A red eye home. First class with two screaming babies IN 1st class. I tlold the mother in 5A the kid in scream because its head is pressurized. Please give him something to drink. I get the stink eye. The little fucker shut up. There must be a rule created that there are no kids or babies in 1st class. 

            4th and 5th were holidays. Then back to Albany and from there Cali. At Albany I stayed in the Marriott Residence, Straight points. A real desk but no Lamp.

            Delta back to Cali, no 1st class available. Well mix 1st class. You pay for 1st but we will toss you in coach or + on one leg. Comfort + this trip. For Cali I am back in the San Tomas Holiday Inn. Its 5k a night plus 2k for every two nights stayed.

            One week free. I was pricing Custer books all week. No painting. Next month is the annual Conference. We have 4 tables.

            Now back to Cali. Delta 1st class Sunday night, red eye back Thursday night. Everything for Delta went straight into full blown clown show. They lost their PCs. Bags stacked ass deep every where. 2 flights arrived and 4 were canceled.

            It toke 2.5 hours for Delta to give me back my bags. Monday I rode United. I have not been on a United flight in 8 years. I was 1st class for over triple what it normally cost to get to Cali. United doesn't give you water when you sit down. Nor do the movies work right away. There is no pre flight drink. 

        The first class seats are nicer than Delta's. A Lufthansa type design. Of course there is a baby in 1st Class. The 2nd leg I got a water in a plastic cup or sparkling juice offered pre flight. No Liquor, Is United a Mormom company? In flight meal is old school. Once the meals came out, the liquor came. United has 8 different whiskeys. You get a proper glass and the dude was pushing drinks like he planned to fuck me.

            On San Tomas. Double points, 2k every 2 nights, and 5k a night.

        Anno Domini 1666 dogs

        A bunch more Sallie Bases

           Same crappy light. I am not traveling with mine when I fly. Rhinos basing for a tactical detachment. Two Crusader Land Raiders for Devs.

HMGS HistroCon 2024

 

            This is the hardest Con for me to get to. And it is 10 minutes down the road. The summer is what kills it for me. So many guys bang out in the summer. I don't bother trying to get time. But now that Cold Wars is no more. I will have to get my time off in. Next year I will go and run games.

            I was not scheduled to be home this week. Customer failed to get their shit together. I sat waiting on phone support. Then mom torpedoed me. She has tumors. They cut those out this week. I got to baby sit. A little pain and some get around issues. She is a warrior.

            I bagged the kid with watching Gram. Then escaped to the Marroitt Friday night. Ran into the regular old guard and most the dudes from Little Wars. Not the gaming group. The Chicago are guys.

            We don't do Epic or Warmaster. None of our regular local crew was about. I think Shawn made it Saturday. No one was available for a Friday night pick up. And I did not plan on going. I had no scheduled games. Which left me shit talking and drinking and spending my birthday money from grandma.

Vendor Hall

             Like I need elephants in 28mm. 3 elephants, 2 types of crew 40 bucks

            They will become forest bases

            Warlord had all the pre-order ancients. The main game sold out in the first 2 hours. All the other sets were available. The US rep was there selling his ass off. These things are far from cheap. GW type prices. I got just the commander sets. Each was like 30 bucks!!!

            I will use them as command stands for my Warmaster anceints.

Pirate stuff

            Musketeer for 1666

            And more pirate stuff.

            The big score for Force on Force. 25 beans


Walley's Basement Friday night was junk. People clearing out 40K and Flames of War for ebay prices. There was a 600 mini India collection for 2700. Beautiful minis, nicely based. No one was interested. Some Epic and ManOWar was about. I got a baggie of metal rhinos and predator for 15. The rest of the Epic was plastic in bad paint jobs for a ransom. The ManOWar was bought before I could see what they wanted.

THE MOUNTAIN

Bought = 589

Sold = 507, 29 detachments, 5 armies, box set

Painted = 362

28mm = 46

20mm = 0

15mm = 96

10mm = 0

Epic = 49

Terrain bought = 30

Terrain painted = 170

Printed Terrain = 0

Minis Printed = 0

Games = 16

Played = 11

Games hosted = 5

Books 

Bought = 5

Read = 3

2023

Bought = 321, 6 collections, 6 armies, 4 buildings

Sold = 142, 166 Detachments, 6 Armies, 1 Collection

Painted = 950 

Blood and Plunder York gaming night.

 

            There is a local group that plays on house tables Thursday nights. They play many different systems. This is the first time I will be home.

            Two Spanish forces are going. 100 & 200 points, land only.

There was no 200 point game. Only 100 points. As traffic delayed most players.

            Minis

            The host's has his gaming stuff in the basement. No one has ever seen a basement like this. There is easily 200,000 minis. The entire basement holds this massive collection. I would guess the structure is 40-50 feet long and 30 feet wide. Some of the minis are on the plastic shelves as an army. Some are doubled layered. Those plastic shelves are lined up like book cases in a library. Then there is maybe the original game room set up as Waterloo. The table in that room is 4.5 feet by 24. The walls are lined with 

those plastic craft type drawers, floor to ceiling. The new game room. where we played has a 4 by 18 foot 

table.

            I did not want to play with boats. The pirates rarely saw action ship to ship. This gaming group loves ship to ship action. I wanted to play on land of course. Due to 3 people dropping out. The sea battle and land battle plan was tanked. The summer of plunder has a teamed beachhead event. So that is what they wanted to do. 

            My force was set for land. As a Spanish garrison, yet I got the landing force roll. My minis are to attack the left flank. The plan is to hold the dock and prevent the two forces from linking up or supporting each other.  

            I took the dock easy enough, secured one objective, and laid fatigue on the pirates facing me. My indians took the block house. That stop the linking up. It allowed me to start peppering the other opponent. And he had to hold the center to prevent my advance as his mate was getting shot up.

            A huge engagement was on the beach. I started to shift fire support over.

            I killed the captain opposite me. The beach was extra bloodly. Our side had one objective and one contested. Tie. We tied in strike points. In points killed the other 3 had round 20 points left each. I had 60 with Teo, my captain, worth 30 alone. Attackers win

THE MOUNTAIN

Bought = 506

Sold = 507, 29 detachments, 5 armies, box set

Painted = 362

28mm = 46

20mm = 0

15mm = 96

10mm = 0

Epic = 49

Terrain bought = 30

Terrain painted = 170

Printed Terrain = 0

Minis Printed = 0

Games = 16

Played = 11

Games hosted = 5

Books 

Bought = 5

Read = 3

2023

Bought = 321, 6 collections, 6 armies, 4 buildings

Sold = 142, 166 Detachments, 6 Armies, 1 Collection

Painted = 950 

North East Epic Armageddon Tourney 2024

 

            I left my house Friday at 10 for a short 5 hours drive. The hopes were for a pick up game the night before. I got there at 7. Terrible drive. I avg 35 miles an hour for the first 4 hours. The drive killed me, smoked. I didn't even want to play. 

            In both games the double Manticores did the heavy lifting. They went off turn 1 and broke detachments. The Manticores are too much for the garrisoning Malcadors. The ability to take 2-3 activations away places the Traitors at an unfair advantage. The opponent is left trying to play catch up the whole game. The loss of those activations and the area denial of Malcadors creates an unintended effect.

            Manticores must be removed completely.

Game 1

            Traitor guard Vs Squats draw. Traitors win 1040 to 650. I garrisoned both Malcadors, sentinels and disciples. I won initialtive T1 and T2. A retain with the manticores beat him up good, 3 activations out. The tank companies made Tim struggle to get out of his deployment zone. Along with failing just about every activation roll. T2 was about the same. T3 the tunnel machines showed up on my Blitz. Tim won initiative, his dice came back, and I started losing activations. The tunnel dudes saved him. I poured 3 activations into breaking them. Which left me with nothing left to take ground. We went to points. 

Traitor Deployment

Forward deployed Malcadors

Squat deployment

Game 2

            Traitors Vs Chaos Marines. Traitors win 2-1 DTF and TSNP to DTF. This was a primer/demo for Joe. I still tested the abuse of the manticores. They put two detachments out T1. One never came back. Both armies were beat up. There was little to activations left.

            There are no pictures or battle reports. I suck!

The FW City table made it's first event. Saturday 0800 cigar. 8:30 we got access and I started to set up the city board. By 9:15 we started. The table went together quick. Only a few pieces were damaged in travel. Minor stuff that is a result of the way in which they were made. Not from the packing and storage or transport. No damage from game play!!! 

            I have no idea who won. Friday night I got called to travel to Cali Monday morning. Applications has a 4 month on going problem. I missed the last game. 

  

THE MOUNTAIN

Bought = 506

Sold = 507, 29 detachments, 5 armies, box set

Painted = 362

28mm = 46

20mm = 0

15mm = 96

10mm = 0

Epic = 49

Terrain bought = 30

Terrain painted = 170

Printed Terrain = 0

Minis Printed = 0

Games = 15

Games hosted = 5

Books 

Bought = 5

Read = 3

2023

Bought = 321, 6 collections, 6 armies, 4 buildings

Sold = 142, 166 Detachments, 6 Armies, 1 Collection

Painted = 950        

The Great Clean Out part four

            More 28mm romans gone, eldar titans, and new Epic city terrain.

        Finished the Dark Forest and False Gods for the 3rd time.

THE MOUNTAIN

Bought = 506

Sold = 507, 29 detachments, 5 armies, box set

Painted = 362

28mm = 46

20mm = 0

15mm = 96

10mm = 0

Epic = 49

Terrain bought = 30

Terrain painted = 170

Printed Terrain = 0

Minis Printed = 0

Games = 13

Games hosted = 5

Books 

Bought = 5

Read = 2

2023

Bought = 321, 6 collections, 6 armies, 4 buildings

Sold = 142, 166 Detachments, 6 Armies, 1 Collection

Painted = 950

Traveling and painting in 2024 part V

 

No painting at Sea

        

First in house gaming day

 

        This is the only picture all day. At the end of the day. 3 dudes cam by. 5 games were played. Empanadas for lunch. A pig butt was smoked. Cigars were smoked.

                    And the Sallies went down in both games. First game dropped into the advance. Second game out activated and sallies suffer speed problems.

THE MOUNTAIN

Bought = 506

Sold = 493, 27 detachments, 5 armies

Painted = 362

28mm = 46

20mm = 0

15mm = 96

10mm = 0

Epic = 49

Terrain bought = 30

Terrain painted = 170

Printed Terrain = 0

Minis Printed = 0

Games = 13

Games hosted = 5

Books 

Bought = 3

Read = 2

2023

Bought = 321, 6 collections, 6 armies, 4 buildings

Sold = 142, 166 Detachments, 6 Armies, 1 Collection

Painted = 950