General Update - PacifiCon and Lord of the Rings

Hey there folks!  Wow, I've really been consumed in recent months.  What time I have gotten for hobby stuff has been packed full of making progress on multiple projects.  The good news is that while I have not blogged much, I have been making steady progress.

If you are still following this blog by some miracle ... thank you!

Lord of the Rings

An exciting new development is in the area of the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game.  For DundraCon (February) I'll be running a game called "Charge of the Mûmaks" - in which 5 Mûmaks will be facing off against 60 mounted Rohirrum. 

I finished assembling the 5 Mûmaks and they've been sent off to the trusty Steve Dake for painting.  I did some head conversions on them to add some variation, and used the Forge World Mûmak Chieftain conversation kit for the "main" guy.  I'm working through assembling the Rohirrum now.  They will be divided into 5 groups of 12 models each (with a leader/character in each).  Theoden's retinue will be 1/2 Royal Guard, along with Gamling and Theoden himself.

Really looking forward to this game as I've been meaning to get LOTR on the tabletop for years now.

PacifiCon

I attended the PacifiCon Game Expo this year in Santa Clara, CA.  I've gone many times in the past, however last year we opted to rent a cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains and do our own thing for the weekend.  This year we headed back though.

I did have fun, but not because of the miniatures games.  We opted to "take it easy" and play mostly board games all weekend.  I had several new games I wanted to try and they all turned out to be a hoot.  The hotel is under construction which really dampened the entire atmosphere.

Unfortunately, my overall opinion of the convention hasn't much improved.

Perhaps I'll be a little too honest here ... I generally want to provide positive reviews of gaming related things (following the age old "if you have nothing positive to say ...") - but an exception is warranted here.  

This is a convention that has been on life support for years now IMO.  Miniatures has been the focal point of what is played at this convention, but sadly the games showing up are mostly on the very medicore scale with essentially none that are good looking at all.  Matt Hilzendrager ran his Bunker Hill game, which looked splendid ... but it was the only game that looked anything like "quality convention" level gaming.  The size of the miniatures area has shrunk.  The miniatures coordinator and convention in general hasn't done anything to provide a welcoming atmosphere for miniature gamers - to the point of sending long rants ahead of time about not wanting long running games or large games.  Sadly, that mostly keeps me and the group I play with away from running anything there.

I do recall - long ago - the good times I had there playing and hosting miniatures games.  I hope for a future return to that - but for now my time and effort will be invested in DundraCon (February) and KublaCon (May).

On a potential positive note though, a new miniatures coordinator is stepping in.  We'll see if a change is heralded by this - but I'm not holding my breath.

Other Things

I continue to pick away at my ships for Trafalgar.  This is taking longer than expected due to work getting in the way of things and my general proclivity towards gaming distractions.  I needed to take some time to assemble the LOTR stuff ... but rapidly closing in on finishing that.

I've had two Kickstarters arrive --- the second wave of pirate stuff (the No Peace Beyond the Line KS) - which has a truly redonculous sized Galleon - and my Game of Thrones stuff (ASoIaF).  The GoT stuff I have on the radar to get done, but it is slated for the first half of 2019.  I also have some odds and ends to wrap up with my Napoleonic French and ACW armies.

My big thing right now I wanting to just play more games in general.  I'm a little burned out on "all work with no play" ... so I'm pushing to host some games very soon.