My current distractions and what not...

o/

First up, I have some very important news! Well...okay so its not that important since its being announced here and not on an actual news site, but anyways: My game room is once again open for operation, Huzzah!

Here it is, set up for last night's Bolt Action demo game. My thoughts on which I'll get to next week so stay tuned...

The last two of my grandparents' ginormous dollhouses that were designated for my cousins left the premises last Sunday, and to my knowledge they left the state of Tennessee yesterday. They ought to be in Pennsylvania/New York by now. There are of course three smaller ones still under the tables, to which we need to be mindful of, as much for the sake of our knees (as Screech found out last night) as for the houses themselves.

As for distractions, we've been feeling a bit of a 40k burnout here lately. Its a seasonal thing, nothing to be alarmed about, but still annoying. Attendance at the FLGS has been down (though the college kids going home for the summer has a part in that as well). The easy switch was to WHFB.

On that front, my Army of Stirland had a good run of 2:1 out of three games. However at 1850 points (pretty much my max army size) I have one build, with little variation beyond a character swap or two. So it gets old fast. We've pondered a campaign some, in the form of an Empire civil war among the three local Empire armies. However 1/3 of that is MIA for the summer (see the college kids bit above) and another 1/3 is lacking the Empire rule book and (more importantly) the funds to remedy that. So will just ponder it some more for a while.  Given my reluctance to invest more in that game right now, I'm thinking 1000-1250 point games would work best if we do try a campaign.

Looking elsewhere, Rob keeps mentioning the Malifaux beta rules are out, to which I keep reminding him I have no interest in that game. He doesn't bother with mentioning Warmahordes as that cause is lost from the start (that said, I'm still rather fond of Lt. Moen, if only for my 'fluff' for him). The FLGS had a bunch of the Warlord games on display, kinda out of nowhere really. While Rob likes Pike and Shotte, to me that looks like my Stirland army all over again. So being the history buffs that Rob, Screech and I are, we're pondering the Bolt Action game instead, but I'll get into that next week.

One other idea, is to resurrect Heavy Gear again. I have 250-300 points in the form of one squad (all previously painted minis barring the one I was going to proxy for Battletech have long since been sold off). Rob has 3 squads of Northern Guard which he said he'd give me! As nice as that is, before he buys a new faction, I think he ought to hang on to two squads, and we'll give it a few games to see if we want to really give it another go. If we do, then he can give his two remaining squads to Screech and dragoon him into the game. Besides, we never quite got the rules all the way down before, and Screech is much better at translating the rules from a rulebook to the table top than I am.

Prior to discussing Heavy Gear, I painted up these two Stripped-Down Hunters last Sunday for no other reason than they were 'something different'. Also I wouldn't have much time to paint as we were moving dollhouses around, and Gears paint up rather quickly. Stripped-Down Hunters are more or less ad-hoc recon gears, where the rocket pod and some arm, leg and shoulder armor is removed and replaced with ballistic cloth. The weight reduction increases their speed, though as expected as the expense of firepower and protection. They're common in the Western Frontier Protectorate (my favorite faction) which tends to be on the lower end of the economic spectrum.

So, will ponder Bolt Action some more for next week, while still playing 40k this coming weekend. Burnt out as we are, I still did miss it after a month or so of WHFB.