Grand Adventure Continued and year end wrap up

On the Friday of Fall-In I explored the venue and took lots of pictures. Here’s a small selection of several of the rooms.

I played a WWI Chain of Command variant where after each scenario the terrain was expanded on.

The GM Mitch Abrams, was very good and his terrain was modular and well designed. We played 3 rounds and I had great fun. 

Next I explored the vendors hall and got some stuff. TBH I don’t entirely remember what I bought on which day and from which vendor anymore.

Here are some photos of some of my haul.

Armoured cars from Brigade Games, an FT17 from Gaddis Games (in grey) and from Empress Miniatures (yellow).

Some WWI Austrians from Brigade Games and some hero types from Old Glory’s Chaos in Cairo range. I also picked up a resin boat from Old Glory as we had a membership.

Some resin Scenics from Ainsty, Miniature Building Authority and some Empress SCW Moroccans.

I also got some other stuff that didn’t make it to my camera roll. WWI Turks from Brigade Games, some WWI American trench fighters from Brigade Games and a Wargames Illustrated.

Then I played another WWI game based on the battle of Belleau Woods. The rules were Trench Wars and GM’d by the author Jon. Great far and nice terrain as well. Think most of the figures were Great War Miniatures, Brigade Games and some old Renegade Miniatures.

Saturday I wandered the venue again and took. Ore photos.

I met a few YouTube stars. Mark from Mark’s Game Room and Greg from Little Wars TV. I didn’t want to be super annoying so just thanked them for producing great content.

Next I played a Spanish Civil War game. The rules were based off Flames of War and by the end of the game, I still wasn’t sure what I needed to roll for hits. IMHO a good convention game is one where the players don’t need to go thru the GM for the basics after several turns. However, the figures and terrain was stunning and there were prizes after. Perhaps part of my issue were the players at the table.

The game was set up that the loose alliances ultimately would have to turn on each other to win the game. I wiped out one of my allies early in the game and that guy got so upset and quit. Another player thought things weren’t fair and threatened to quit and I had another ally who kept running away and then made a deal with the enemy. His victory condition was to eliminate that enemy. 

I’ve played in many convention games over the years and never left a game feeling WTF is wrong with people. Lol. My friend Dan was also at the game and he agreed that the players really detracted from that game. 

I decided I was done playing games that weekend and skipped my evening game altogether. I had dinner by myself at Longhorn. It really was THAT good.

I went to Wally’s bargain basement a couple times on Saturday and Sunday and the vendor hall as well.

I scored a deal on some terrain, about 50 painted WW2 German infantry ($100) and a 4ground building ( $5).

We left Sunday morning and went to Antietam for and ACW battlefield tour. It’s not my period, but I gained a real appreciation for it.

The tour guide was fantastic. We ate as a group of 9 at Denny’s for dinner and stayed overnight at a Super 8. We’ve decided that next year for an extra $10-15/person we will stay at the Hampton Inn.

Dan, Brett and I split from the main group and headed home. At the drop off, I stopped at Picard’s Peanuts for some snacks and made it home to get my kids from the school bus.

I’ve already booked my November vacation around Fall-In for 2024. I think next year I will maybe do less games and more hobby university stuff. All in all it was a great trip.

I finished the year putting together some of the figures and 4ground building I purchased. I also made a purchase from Badger Games for more 4ground buildings so I could have a set.

We’re headed to Bukhara

I’m just going to ignore the fact it’s been over 1 year since my last post. To be fair not a lot of miniature progress occurred in 2024. 

A bit of a set back was my commission painter retired and moved to Asia so the lead mountain has been creeping up. 

I did manage to slap some paint onto some WWI highlanders (from Great War Miniatures) that I was planning on using for VBCW and onto some WWI Americans (mostly Great War Miniatures and some Brigade Games).

I attended the 29th annual Hotlead in March of this year, which was followed by almost 3 weeks vacation so I really found my mojo invigorated.

I built a small Middle Eastern village following some plans/tips from Pulp Alley’s YouTube channel. I’ve started building the great walls of Bukhara.

I have a 24” section built and have another 4x 12” sections in various stages of assembly.

 I also worked on the RCW armoured train and the train tracks.

Here’s what I’m currently working on.

The black figures in the foreground are mostly Artizan Irregular Arabs from their First World War range. There are 5 Brigade Games Arabs scattered in. They have been painted for probably 3+ years but I haven’t done anything else with them. I put texture paint onto the base so they are almost done.

The silver figures are a mix of Copplestone Castings and Brigade Games WWI Turks to finish off that army.

My plan is for them to be a regular/well trained force when gaming Back of Beyond in any Middle Eastern theatre.

There are a bunch of primed horses and cavalry figures, again from Artizan Designs/Brigade Games.

It’s quite unfortunate in that I purchased many of these figures once online years ago that were lost in the mail. I never received compensation from the seller either, so I’ve had to buy them again. 

I also found some camels from Saga that were particularly discounted. 

The three figures in fezzes are Egyptian police from Artizan Designs. They will be guarding the jail house in Bukhara once build.

Lastly, here are the Artizan Designs Sharifan Infantry. 

These might be amongst my favourite figures. It’s disappointing that there are only 4 poses, and one of them is the figure carrying his rifle. I purchased 3 packs (one at Hotlead) and the other two online for 12 figures total.

I figured two HQ types and a 10 man squad would be sufficient. Cough unless Artizan decides to make more cough. 

The figure on the left is the stock figure.

The middle figure has his rifle cut away from his hand, his hand was opened up and a banner pole was glued in place. The rifle from the rightmost figure was glued on his back.

The figure on the right had his right hand cut away and the rifle was cleaned up and donated to the banner bearer. A new right hand with revolver was sourced from the Warlord Games British & Canadian Army infantry. At this scale, a revolver is a revolver. However, it’s likely a Webley which was in service in WWI so all good.

Lastly the left hand was removed and some of the body was shaved down. The binoculars and straps were sourced from the same Warlord kit. The straps were cut to look like they went behind the neck. I’m not 100% happy as the hands are slightly oversized but it’ll be fine. I just have to greenstuff a small gap at the wrist and he’s also done.

April Fool

A lot has happened in the last 3 months, and I realized my January 7 post didn’t save properly! On no!

Anyways, life goes on…

My son got Undaunted: Normandy and Undaunted:Reinforcements for Christmas and we played a bunch of that. Great game.

My Oathmark Elf Cavalry arrived and I built those.

Like all Oathmark plastic kits, they are well made and easy to assemble.

I also built my Goblin Slaves. I also finished another 2 boxes of undead. 30 Skeletons and 30 revenants.

Next I built 3 4ground houses.

I also got the Century: Big Box and we played that. Very similar feel to Splendor which we enjoy mightily.


I also jumped in head first to HeroQuest and picked up all the expansions. My youngest son and I have almost finished the quests from the core box.


I also decided to start gaming a Very British Civil War (because I need another era to game in). Thankfully I already had this platoon of Footsore Miniatures Early War Scotsmen.

I primed them, painted the kilts and hats blue (base colour for Black Watch Tartan -wtf am I thinking) I also painted the webbing green, and all the black and brown bits (boots, scabbard, rifle). All that’s left is the skin, hair and metal bits.

In the end of March we attended Holyead. Southwest Ontario’s premier gaming convention. It’s in its 29th year.  Saw a lot of friends and played 4 games.

The first (Friday night) was a WWI game set in Africa in 1914. Rules were modified 1 hour skirmish Wargames. GM Dan Hutter runs a well oiled table. 


Saturday AM my youngest played a game for all ages but meant for kids. Wooden soldiers and armed teddy bears and frogs. Great way to introduce youth to the hobby. 

I also hit the bring and buy pretty heavily. I sold about $255 worth of old rule sets and codexes and some plastic figures I’m not going to use.

I purchased some interesting things. I did have a bit of buyers remorse though. I was debating buying two full painted Afrika Korps armies (one infantry based and the other vehicle based). Instead I bought painted 3D printed Battletech mechs that were printed to a larger scale (my kids and I played Gamma Wolves with those mechs last year and they loved it). I bought the mechs for them but they didn’t seem to impressed with them this year. I should’ve just bought the Africa Korps for myself then.

I also picked up a larger river (6 pieces) and a set of 4 fields from an estate sale. 

I came out slightly ahead all in all. Then blew the earnings and then some on some 3D printed vehicles for VBCW.

Saturday afternoon, my eldest had a nap so I brought the youngest down for a game of Speedfreaks! Think Gaslands using GW Ork vehicles and rules. Last year we placed a paltry 2nd place. This year we took home the cup.

Saturday evening, after his nap, my oldest joined us for a game of silly hats. Back of beyond somewhere in Warlord China. White and red Russians, Mongols and various Chinese factions all vying for the hand of a Warlords daughter.  Another Dan Hutter masterpiece.

All in all, quite a busy three months. We played a game yesterday but I plan to cover that later this week.

Cheers everyone!

A Grand Adventure

On Wednesday November 1, 2023 at 11pm, I packed up my car for a weekend getaway and drove out near Kitchener to meet some “friends of Hotlead” Dan and Brett.

Shortly before midnight we started the 5+ hour journey to Ligonier Pennsylvania.

We were in the first leg of our trip to Lancaster Pennsylvania to attend a HMGS convention called Fall-In.

We were the “East” group and would be meeting up with the “West” group comprising of David, Pete, Brian, Keith, Kevin and Joe.

We arrived at our preplanned meeting spot. A diner called Ruthie’s. Blink and you might miss it. We got in at about 5:50am. But the diner didn’t open until 7. 😂 

So we laid back and grabbed a nap. We went inside just after 8am.

I was hungry and needed a boost so I got two breakfasts. The special, eggs, ham, potatoes and toast for the princely sun of $6.95 and two hotcakes for $4.95.

As I drove the entire night, Dan graciously offered and paid for my breakfast.

The other crew arrived after 9 ( they had a longer drive 8hrs and took a little unplanned detour). 

After breakfast we drove down the road to visit Fort Ligonier. A French and Indian War fort erected in 1758 by the British. 

It was fairly impressive in two respects. It was build on a hill and had multiple walls several inches thick which meant it was literally an uphill battle just to

get to it. 

Secondly there was surprisingly large amount of artillery located at the fort.

There were 6lb guns, mortars, howitzers, and swivel guns on the ramparts.

Upon viewing the displays inside the museum and speaking with a volunteer guide, the purpose of the fort was to guard the thousands of tonnes of supplies and almost all the soldiers bivouacked outside of its walls.

From there we drove about 3 hours to the Wyndham Hotel in Lancaster Pennsylvania. With pit stops at a liquor store and Walmart for supplies.

We unpacked and divided ourselves into two rooms.

Then went to dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse. I’d never been there before but it was amazing.

At 8:30pm, exhausted I crashed and fell asleep.

Sci-Fi Terrain

Bit of a break lately. Busy with work and the oldest’s soccer tournament to Maryland.

I picked up a copy of Xenos Rampant and have also backed Wargames Atlantic’s “The Damned” crowd funding campaign.

I purchased two Kill Zone Octavius terrain sets last year. They were 50% off due to the boxes being damaged. I assembled them and they’ve sat.

Well, I figured with the new set of rules and miniatures due out in 2024 (LMAO) I should get that terrain going.

I primed all of the big pieces white yesterday using several cans of white primer. It’s fairly warm this week so they dried in the garage.

I found a few great videos on YouTube. Bill Making Stuff is particularly good at this style.

Using Dollarama craft paint (burnt umber and pure pumpkin) and some water to aid in the paint flow I covered everything to get a rusty base coat down.

My youngest helped me for about 75 minutes to get a good base coat on everything. All in all it took a little over two hours to do everything. I had to go over his pieces to make sure everything was covered and there wasn’t excess pooling but he overall did a great job.

That’s all for today but up next is the painful process of drybrushing everything silver. Wish me luck.

I spent $43.34 on the rules and another $1.50 (x2) per bottle of paint and $1.75 (x2) per large cheap paintbrush for a grand total of $49.84.

The GameFund campaign hasn’t ended yet so I won’t include that in the total for this month. It’s my Father’s Day gift from my Wife. Perhaps I shouldn’t include it in the total then…

I realized this is the first set of figures I’ll have ever acquired from Wargames Atlantic. Hopefully they are as nice as the pictures let on.

An open wallet

Alrighty, it looks like since Hotlead, I’ve gone on a bit of a spending spree. I had two packages at the door today when I returned from running some household errands.

I ordered 2 packages of French Foreign Legion from Wargames Foundry. £24.00 + £15.00_ shipping converted to Canadian is a whopping $68.46.

Seriously £15 shipping for 14 miniatures. 

I have 7 of these guys painted up already so wanted to get a few more. 

Maybe next time I should wait for a sale or something. Hey, at least they threw in a free figure that I have no idea what range it is from.

I also ordered 7 figures from Artizan Designs and the March and April issues of Wargames Illustrated. With £10 shipping this converted to about $69.49 The April WI issue came with some Warlord Games Epic English Civil War figures that hopefully I can trade or sell at next years Hotlead convention.

It is an interesting scale but I don’t have the capacity for any more projects right now.

The photos of the miniatures are below.

I also placed a small order with Westwind Productions. It converted to $35.11 Canadian, but that’s for 8 miniatures total.

Lastly I purchased 3 pots of Citadel contrast paints and a can of primer for $52.45.

So with a previous hobby budget of $208.19 plus another $225.51 for a total of $433.70

I also added 29 figures to the lead mountain.

Today it’s pretty hot out and I primed 13 Battletech miniatures.

Finishing touches

Small update.

I painted 6 Pirates belonging to  the Artizan Designs and Crusader Miniatures ranges last year but I haven’t had a chance to base them. 

I finally got around to it last week. I used the Tropical Beach Sand from Geek Gaming Scenics.

I also received my RCW Ukrainians from my painter Karl and decided to get the flag on ASAP. I just have to touch up the edge where the white seam shows through.

Lastly I built about 10 of Warlord Games plastic German Grenadiers. There were 30 in the box.

I got frustrated with the arms. I don’t like having figures with STG-44 rifles. I prefer the KAR98 or Gewehr’s but the frame has a limited number.

I’ll build the rest later and take some photos.