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!

Grand Adventure Continued and year end wrap up

On the Friday of Fall-In

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.

Frogs and Trucks

At Hotlead I sold off 24 Great War Miniatures WWI Early war French miniatures I had purchased the year before on an impulse.

Over the past year I have decided early war isn’t something I will get into so had them bookmarked to sell.

I’ve been looking at Brigade Games WWI French as they come equipped with Adrian helmets as opposed to Kepis. I’ve had them in my shopping cart several times but failed to pull the trigger.

Imagine my elation when I chanced upon some in the Hotlead B&B. There were about 47 figures and had a retail price of about $110USD. I snagged them for $50CDN.

I based them yesterday. Now just a long wait until they go off to be painted.

I also received an eBay order of 4 models of yesteryear trucks. The 1918 Crossley was the one I was after. The others are a little late for RCW gaming but will work for WWII.

The 4 trucks cost £7.00 altogether but shipping was a princely sum of £12.40 which worked out to £19.40 or $33.10 CDN.

Maybe I’ll flip some of the trucks at next years B&B.

So $175.09 plus the trucks equals $208.19.