Hotlead and Army Painter 2019

This past weekend I attended Hotlead, SW Ontario’s premiere gaming event. This was their 25th anniversary. I’ve gone the last 10 or so years. 

The event is held at the Arden Park Best Western and this year I stayed over. 

Friday night I managed to get in on Daniel Hutter’s Roman game. There were 16 players using 11 factions. 

Romans, evil Romans, Nubians, Gladiators, German Mercenaries, Franks and a few others.

Daniel Hutter is a fantastic game master. Typically, there are several objectives spread across the various factions meaning lots of alliances and backstabbing takes place. My Romans were charged with bringing the payroll to the Roman fort and then going to the tavern. We achieved this result. Huzzah!

Afterwards a few of us retired for some scotch and brewskis. After a short sleep, we hit up a local breakfast joint for some great food.

Saturday Morning I played Le Cateau, a WWI battle where the Germans had to attack a British gun placement which was firing off the table on an imaginary German fortification.

Ian Tetlow was the Games Master and we used a shortened version of Contemptible Little Armies. 

I was the Germans along with my qHotlead friends Konrad and Matthew. The rules were super easy which was awesome since I may have been a tad hung over.

What I like the most about Hotlead, besides the comraderie is the Bring and Buy. Over the years I’ve offloaded a ton of stuff and picked up even more.

Here is this years haul:

The Crusader Russians are to be converted into Korean Chinese forces. I picked up 4 packs for $5 ea. A good deal. I checked the table again later and the remainder were $2.50 each. Truly a steal.



The books were all new and full price except the US Cav one. I traded the Cruel Seas spruce from Warganes Illustrated for it.

Lastly, this week I finished the 1st batch of figures for my 2019 Army Painter challenge. I’m painting a bunch of Middle Eastern figures from Spectre and WWI Arabs from Artizan Designs.

Latest projects

Lots of time since my last post. This year my plans are to continue with my Back or Beyond project and work on my Wild West project. That was it. I’ve maintained pretty good discipline thus far but I did grab 2 Rumbleslam figures and about 40 Spectre/Radio Dish Dash insurgents.

January and February have been busy with non hobby projects. I found a paint/stain hack online and have transformed my golden oak staircase to a more modern dark stained handrail and newel posts and white spindles.

The top picture shows the original colour of the stairs and the new stain.

The bottom picture shows the finished product with the white spindles. 

We also had new carpet laid on the stairs.

Several years ago I had 11 Wild West buildings scratch built by Colin Rush. They are truely works of art. Unfortunately, I’m not able to get any for the time being, so I thought I would try to mimic his style and usedthe excellent guide in The Rules With No Name by Wargames Foundry. 

This is about 1 hour worth of work. I didn’t photocopy the templates so had to measure all the openings which was probably the longest part. I bought a “Stick Cutter” from Kelvin Tools which made cutting the balsa wood super easy.

I used an artist board for the backing and 1/8 thick balsa for the siding. I have some 1/16 thick balsa for the trim. 

I actually cladded the whole bottom piece and about 1/4 of the one on the left. 

These will be two side walls and are for a 2 storey building.