Still Around

I'm aware that I have a habit of posting fairly sporadically, but since the last time I posted here, I've run two long Warmachine campaigns, attended weddings, suffered personal injuries and been drunk. Basically, life gets in the way of some the other things we enjoy doing.

But I digress.

At the local game store, we're in the final six days of round three of the War-Torn Alliance campaign season. That's kept me pretty busy, since there's a fair bit of paperwork involved in keeping scores. The fact that I can store the PDF files for the missions and point spreads on my phone does make it a bit easier, though. Thank god.  Competition has been pretty stiff this time around,  with everyone pushing to try and reach the five game limit for each week.  After this round wraps up, I'll have about six weeks of downtime until the final round starts. In that time, I've been requested by the guys to run a Steamroller tourney, and the Colossals book release event. So in reality, there's not going to be any downtime. It's a lot of working being the Press Ganger, but damn if it isn't fun and rewarding when everyone is getting along and competing.

These events aren't the only events I'll be hosting, either. Lucky for the guys, I've got stuff planned for the whole winter, leading through until next spring. Heap and Infernal Contraption v2 are both releasing soon, so there will be demos of those two games (I can't wait for Heap!), I've just discovered that there is an "XGL" league for Grind that I'd like to run, and of course, the release of the IKRPG book soon. I'm in the process of designing a test campaign that has the potential to evolve into something truly awesome, if I can keep up with being a GM on top of everything else. I'm also hoping to have a terrain building contest soon. Lastly, I'll be running Journeyman v2 for the guys, likely in September or so.

Damn. That's a lot of stuff. I wonder if I could list this as volunteer experience on a resume....

Speaking of volunteering and helping the community, that reminds me of another event I'll be running. Yeesh.
If you read Privateer's "No Quarter" magazine, you'll likely know about Foodmachine, organized by the NJ S.O.B.s . We ran a splinter event at Forbes' Hobbies last year, and were acknowledged as the only Canadian event. Granted, we had a despicably small turn out of 6 guys. Regardless, we still managed to gather over 100lbs of food for our local Food Bank. This year, we want to try and get all the stores in the area together, and raise 1000lbs of food. Yes, a lofty goal, indeed, but I'll make it work. That said, I should start making some calls....


More later. Maybe. You know, life.

Learning....

Its been a busy couple months.

Throughout February and March, I ran a Journeyman League for our local game store, my first attempt at running an organized event. That was a helluva learning experience, for sure.

Initially, I was intending to run the league for our main group, which consisted of about seven players, including myself. I was planning on using it as motivation for our group to get their stuff painted, as our models were all seriously lacking in that department. By the time the League actually started, I had 17 players, including myself! Nearly half of that were new players. Exhilarated, we launched Into it. Problems cropped up early, though.

You see, because it was just going to be our group of experienced players from the outset, I had allowed for custom battlegroups within the allotment of 12 points. That caused some problems with the new players, and I spent a lot time doing damage control from that. Then there is the issue of trying to organize 17 people, and dealing with the inevitable clashes that will occur between 17 different personalities. These clashes ranged from minor disagreements and passive-aggressive behaviour to arguments on Facebook and threats to "take it outside," if you catch my meaning. Eventually, all of these issues were ironed out, due in no small part to my close friends and I spending a lot of time talking and negotiating with the offending parties.

Now, I realize that all of this sounds negative, but in the end, everyone came away from the League satisfied, and with a positive attitude, including myself. I received a lot of feedback from the individuals in our group, and feel that it was a fantastic learning experience that I'll keep in mind when running future events, both gaming related and otherwise.

This weekend sees the beginning of Olgunholt, the second season of Warmachine and Hordes 2012 campaign, War-Torn Alliances. Here's to an exciting and competitive season!

New Year, New Stuff

Ok, so I've been away for awhile, but that's what happens with the Christmas season. With that finally out of the way, I can get back into normal mode.

We'll start with an update:

In the middle of December, I finally heard back from Privateer Press regarding my application for Press Ganger status that I had applied for last March. I spoke with Will Hungerford briefly on the phone, (a 3 hour difference between here and Seattle), and shortly thereafter was given my status as PG. I'm quite happy about this, as now our LGS will be able to host official events, and maybe even increase the player-base for Warmachine and Hordes in our area. Better yet, the store may finally be able to get in some product. (Forbes' has had an ongoing problem with trying to obtain stock from their distributor, but that's a story for another day.)

I plan on running the Journeyman League around the beginning of February, which will hopefully lead us into the campaign season for 2012. Of course, I'll be throwing in Steamroller tournaments at least once every other month, so that we can start stepping up the competition around the area.

On the painting side of things, not a whole lot has been done, again mostly due to Christmas. My buddies Magus and Damien, however, did get me the Trollbloods warpack and a unit of Scattergunners, and I bought myself Epic Grissel Bloodsong, Marshal of the Kriels. I now have about 30 point of trolls to paint. Actually, that's not true. I have painted Grissel and Madrak.

Madrak Ironhide

I think save the rest of the trolls for the Journeyman league in February though, so that I can gain some points and hopefully badges for painting.

Grissel Bloodsong

In other news, the other day, coming back from my LGS, I was carrying both mine and Magus' stuff back into my place. (Remember, I'm painting Magus' army for him, bit by bit.) Well, it seems that Magus failed to properly secure the latches on his army case, and as I neared my door, it fell open, spilling the entire contents onto the snowy walkway. Great. I had to spend 15 minutes digging about in the snow trying to find all the pieces.Luckily, most of the damage was superficial, with only a few models breaking, and even then only on joins where the glue was weaker. Morale of the story: carry cases flat.

Finally, before I head off to bed, Damien has recently convince me to think about the game Firestorm Armada.Its a cool deep space dog fight game by Spartan Games. As far as getting into games goes, it's fairly cheap, with a starter box running anywhere from $55-$60 that gives you enough to play right away. The rules, while a little contrived, aren't bad. Not sure if you want to buy into the game? That's ok! The rulebook has sheets to photocopy that are representative of three of the starter fleets. That's pretty cool in my books. 

As usually happens when starting into a new game, we've been discussing the races/fleets we most like. Damien will be playing the Terran Alliance:

And I'll be playing the Arachnid-ish Relthoza:

That's all for now.