Year in Review: 2024

        2024 was definitely the "Year of Sci-Fi" for me and my painting and modeling projects!

Looking back over my most prolific year posting here on my Lead Legionaries blog, two main periods were dominant. Science-Fiction was by far the most dominant period I posted about, whether writing about new miniatures I'd painted or buildings or scatter. Second place was Post-Apocalyptic, as I began an entirely new type of game (Zombie Apocalypse), while continuing to run games, paint miniatures, and get buildings or scatter ready for the tabletop. Modern gaming was a distant third, though to be fair, much of what I created for post-apoc games could also be used for ones set in a modern (non-apoc) setting.

    Contingent of 3-D printed Stormtroopers from JS Wargamer Printing guarding an Acheson building

Science-Fiction

Part of the reason that I posted so much about Sci-Fi was because there were three separate sets of rules or types of games I was playing (or getting ready to play).  In the beginning of the year, I was heavy into getting things ready for a Xenos Rampant game. Although virtually every size game likes to call itself skirmish nowadays, no matter how many figures are on the tabletop, I would call this a "big battle" game. We typically have six players for our games on Sunday evening, so I had to build forces for six different factions. I went with what the rules recommend, 24 army points. That typically means 4-6 units of anywhere from 5-10 miniatures. In some cases it may be fewer, like a war machine or bot. For the rank and file, though, 5-10 figures is the most common.

    We found that my table was a little small for six full-size Xenos Rampant detachments

In the end, I used two factions belonging to my friend Keith to run our 6-player game. Still, fielding miniatures for four factions was a lot of work. That's around 20 units, so maybe between 100 and 200 miniatures? Some were painted last year, or taken from my post-apocalyptic factions. Still, it was a LOT of work. And the worst part about it is I haven't gotten around to running a second game. We agreed after playing that six 24-point factions on my 5'x12' table was just too crowded. After discussing it, we settled on 18 points per faction for future games. Hopefully, that future game will be soon, possibly in January. I will be hosting for much of January and February while our regular host, Mike W, is out of town "snow birding."

    The Inconceivable crew sneaks up on the objective in one of my Five Parsecs from Home solo games

In addition to Xenos Rampant, I began playing regular solo games of Five Parsecs from Home. Ostensibly, I was "testing" the system out to see if it would work as a game for our Sunday evening crew. As fun as Five Parsecs is, I didn't think it would be a good fit for six players. I was enjoying the way the rules create a story arc as you continue along on your campaign. In fact, Capt. Alistair Valentine and his merry crew will finish their quest with the next mission -- so I definitely want to play that one out in 2025. My trip to Morocco in November derailed the captain and crew of the Inconceivable temporarily, but hopefully readers of my blog will be enjoying more of their adventures soon.

Although I got in only one Xenos Rampant game in 2024, I hope to play more in 2025

The third Sci-Fi game or period that I was busy prepping figures for was going to be a true skirmish (players control 4-6 figures -- not units!) in the Star Wars universe. I was bouncing around trying to decide which rules to use. Of course, we could use Wiley Games' Galactic Heroes rules as we are familiar with them. We've played a couple games with them already, plus it is the same basic rules engine and system I use for the post-apocalyptic campaign. However, I wanted to try something to give a different flavor, and an old friend suggested I download Space Weirdos (thanks Steve P!) from Wargames Vault and look over it. I liked it enough to say that's what I will try first for my Star Wars skirmish, which hasn't had a game played, as yet. I have all the factions completed (a LOT easier when you're painting 4-6 figs instead of units...ha, ha!), though. Look for that in January or more likely February. I still need to create cards for each of the player's characters and the measuring sticks it uses.

    I took these fantasy Gatorfolk from Beldolor Studies and converted them into Sci-Fi figures

Just to give you an idea of how heavily focused I was this year on Sci-Fi, I made about 16 posts about painting miniatures for the period, along with about 10 blog entries about buildings or scatter. So, a big part of my output was geared towards Sci-Fi, it seems! And now that I have all these figures, look for a lot more game reports covering these rules!

    This downed chopper was the focal point of a scenario in my post-apocalyptic campaign

 

Post-Apocalyptic

Like my Sci-Fi projects, my production in the Post-Apoc period was a mix of old and new games. Our post-apocalyptic games using Wiley Games Core Rules is still continuing into its third year. That's great news. I think my players would like me to run it more often than I do, and hopefully I will be better at cranking out scenarios for them in 2025. For our most recent game, my friend Mike S provided the scenario so he could use the city block terrain he'd been busy building. I'm sure he wanted a chance to game with it on the tabletop, so he talked me into GM'ing the scenario he'd created. For the scenarios that I create, they tend to revolve around a particular piece of terrain or scatter I've created. One example was the "Chopper Down!" game I ran where the factions were converging on a helicopter that had auto-rated down into the middle of a ruined city. There had been no explosion, so hopefully that meant some great salvage! 

    Mike S brought his city ruins terrain he'd bought and had been working on for another scenario

By far the most posts I did on this period in 2024 was a new niche, or mini-period -- zombie apocalypse! I was inspired by purchasing the County Road Z rules and began accumulating the necessary zombie horde. As I was working on it, though, I read about another set of rules called Zombie RV. It was much shorter, way less expensive, and had a fun, quick, and bloody feel to it. I was so intrigued that Jenny and I pulled out some of my post-apocalyptic figures, I set up a tabletop, and we played a game of it. Although our mission to collect supplies failed miserably, we both agreed it was fun and we'd just had some awful luck leading to our deciding to flee the field prematurely. 

    Zombies swarm towards the survivors in one of our Zombie RV games over the course of the year

I reached out to the rules author David Bezio, and he sent me an unfinished "campaign" introduction in answer to my questions about running a continuing series of games. He encouraged me to expand on what he'd started and work up my own rules for experience and improving character skills and abilities. The next step was to inflict it on the Sunday evening group. I ran three side by side battle boards with two players sharing the four survivors like Jenny and I had done. It went over really well, except Keith had issues with zombie senses -- how do they see? Do they smell? Hear? Everyone else took the simple rules with a grain of salt, but Keith had questions. So, for the next game, I wrote out an even more detailed Zombie A.I. that the rules come with to hopefully answer his scientific inquiries...ha, ha!

    3-D printed fortified trailers from Bad Goblin are one of the highlights of my Zombie RV tabletops

Of course, more players meant more zombies would be needed! My zombie horde ended up totaling 74 figures, which included a handful of "Fast Zombies" and "Nasty Zombies," according to the Zombie RV rules. The first half of the zombie horde were 3-D printed ones from JS Wargamer Printing. After that, I was able to get ahold of some Wargames Factory male and female zombies to finish out the horde. A couple people suggested using Zombiecide figures, but my initial 3-D printed batches were way too small compared to the oversized ones from the board game. Luckily, the Wargames Factory zombies were close in size, so it all looks good together on the tabletop.

    Painting female zombies from Wargames Factory were a nice change of pace in the horde

I do have to admit that I got a little tired of painting zombies! Thank goodness for the female zombies my friend Keith gave me -- I know, that sounds weird! They spiced things up and I could have some fun with various outfits including party dresses, bikinis (hey, that's how they molded them!), evening gowns, and more. I was getting so tired of painting the walking dead that by the end I was painting them to resemble my gaming friends. Of course, no one thinks "their" zombie looks like them...!

    This 3-D printed bridge from Rusty's Jarls Workship was the centerpiece of my Mean Streets games

Mean Streets Gang Warfare

My "Convention Game" for 2024 was Mean Streets, my self-published rules covering rumbles between street gangs. I ran it at Cincycon, Drums at the Rapids, and Origins. It was a big success at all three conventions. I had lots of interested players and sold some copies of the rulebook (which is also available at many other places, including Ganesha Games, Shieldwall Gaming Club, On Military Matters, RRB Minis & More, Brigade Games and other places). It turned out to be the 25 anniversary of the movie that inspired the rules, Hollywood's 1979, The Warriors. So, it was appropriate I ran a Warriors-inspired scenario in 2024. 

    The Eastmoor Kings gather on the bridge after running the gauntlet of rival gangs in 'Mean Streets'

My big terrain piece for that scenario was probably one of the biggest ones I have ever assembled and painted. It is a modern, stone city bridge that I bought from Rusty at Jarl's Workshop. I went for a yellowed, golden stone work and really like how it came out. I added in graffiti as it will see use more often in my Mean Streets games, or maybe even post-apocalyptic ones. In the scenario I ran, it was the goal for the Eastmoor Kings, who were taking on the role of the Warriors and trying to move from one side edge of the board to the opposite one. I didn't paint up any new gang members in 2024, but I did paint up some civilians.

    More than 14" height, this is my tallest terrain piece, a 28mm water tower from Bad Goblin Games

Speaking of big terrain, I also painted up the tallest terrain piece I've done to date. Once again, 3-D printed, it is a water tower from Bad Goblin Games. It has yet to see action on the tabletop, but it went together very easily and painted up quickly, as well. At $20, it is a bargain and I highly recommend Bad Goblin's 3-D printed terrain. Their fortified trailers were featured in a couple of my Zombie RV games and are fantastic. 

    My gaming year included a trip up to Blisffield to visit my friend Jim and play in two of their games

What DIDN'T I Paint?

Compared to other recent years, there has been one (probably) noticeable period missing in my 2024 posts. I may as well talk about it, too, as it does influence my gaming. I have found myself taking a break from Saga over the course of the year. I began the year finishing my Thracians, and painting their severed head fatigue markers. However, the only other painting I did for Saga otherwise was Warlord stands to give away as prizes at the Advance the Colors and Origins tournaments. And speaking of tournaments, I have also taken a break from being the one running them, too. Thankfully, others in the Saga Ohio community, such as Lee, Joe, Dan, Rusty, and James stepped up and took over running the ones I did.

    I enjoy making specialized fatigue markers for each Saga army - severed heads for my Thracians!

I was still playing Saga through the first three quarters of the year, though. I simply was not writing up blog posts about our Saga Sundays or my tournament entries. I played in both the DayCon tournament (run by Adrian and Jim) and the Hold the Line Ancient tournament (run by Rusty and James). We were still getting together on Sundays at the Guardtower East, but our number of players was steadily shrinking. Sometimes, we had just four show up -- and that is counting Jenny and myself. We did some Facebook polling and text discussion, and eventually in the Fall decided to suspend our once-a-month, Sunday get-togethers. There was another group at the Guardtower West who were gaming weekly and were much more active. We thought, "Why split up the player base into two groups?"

    An Ancient Warlord stand that I painted up as a prize for the ATC 2024 Saga tournaments

Interestingly, in this time of my declining Saga interest I finally got around to trying my "Saga Lite" ideas. With Saga Lite, there are no Advanced Abilities. Players use only the Basic Activations, Combat Bonus, and Activation Pool on the top half of their battle board. I was happy with how it worked out, and may run that for friendly games on Sunday evenings when we have a hankering for Dark Age, Medieval, etc. battles.  

    We tried out 'Rebels and Patriots' rules for the Revolutionary War and liked them, playing 3 times

Odds and Ends

In the early part of the year, I didn't do too good of a job blogging about what our Sunday evening group did on our game nights. True, it was often board games, and sometimes the same ones over and over. Let me tell you, if I never play Seven Wonders: Architects again...ha, ha! However, looking at the rules sets I did blog about, there are nearly 20 different ones listed. Granted, many of them were "one-off" games, typically when Keith got an urge to play PT Boats or Age of Sail or something similar.

    My long-time gaming companions, Joel & Allen, enjoy an Age of Sail game put on by Keith

However, one that I think will stay is Rebels and Patriots, which are the American War of Independence version of the popular Lion Rampant series. It is what I would call a "big battle" game, and we played it three times (I believe) over the course of 2024. It uses the same engine as Xenos Rampant, which should be a positive, right? We will be more familiar with the mechanics when we play a game. The only thing that worries me about sets of rules that use the same mechanics in a wide variety of periods is will the games feel different? When I run another game of Xenos Rampant, I don't want everyone to say, "This feels like the American Revolution but just with space figures. Does this make sense? A game system's mechanics should give the feel of a period. I worry that systems like Rampant and Wiley Games may suffer from sameness. Honestly, that is why I chose to try something different than Galactic Heroes for my Star Wars skirmishes. I don't want it to feel like a Western gunfight or post-apocalyptic game simply set in space.

    After 3 games, our group has the basics of how 'Rebels and Patriots' works -- which is always good!

Still, Rebels and Patriots has gained traction in our group. I enjoy it, Keith likes running it, and the players are become more and more familiar with the rules. We will see when I run Xenos Rampant again if anyone remarks, "Hey, this feels like an AWI game..."! I'd be interested in hearing from readers if you have encountered this in your own game clubs or feel that way yourself. Perhaps I'm the only one who worries about this or feels this way? Feel free to comment below.

    Although not mentioned on the blog often, we are avid board gamers, too, on Sunday evenings

Speaking of comments, this has probably been the most prolific year by commenters on Lead Legionaries, too. I really enjoy reading your feedback and hearing your thoughts. So, thank you to Bill, Donnie, Jason, Neil, Ray, Tom, and the man who seems to be everywhere, Anonymous! Ha, ha! Seriously, I really enjoy your comments as it confirms for me people are actually out there reading my blog. I'm sure every blogger wonders about that. Lacking any passive feedback such as "Likes" that you see on Facebook or "Times viewed" on Lead Adventure Forum, your comments are what I have to go on. I have had friends or acquaintances tell me they read my blog regularly, so I appreciate that, as well. 

    Expect more Zombie RV AARs in 2025 - more close escapes and characters that don't make it!

A Look Ahead (and some stats)

I mentioned 2024 was my most prolific year. If I get this posted tonight (New Year's Eve), it will be my 86th post of the year. That beats by about 20 my previous high, which was 66 in 2014. December 2024 has been my busiest month ever, too. This will be post #15, eclipsing the previous high pf 13 in October 2013. I actually started Lead Legionaries in September of 2013, though you will see posts dated 2007 through 2009. Those were "re-posts" of After-Action Reports from games played in those years.

    Keith, at right, gets a hankering from time to time for random periods -- like Civil War ironclads!

Why all the productivity this year? Well, it should be obvious - RETIREMENT! When people ask me how retirement is going (I finished teaching in May), I answer, "Every day is a good day." Unless I am out of town, I begin every day by going downstairs into my hobby room and putting in about an hour on whatever I am painting or modeling at the moment. I do get an occasional chance to sneak back downstairs during the day, but this steady one hour a day had done wonders for my output. As you may have seen at the bottom of my posts throughout the year, I have been tracking my Acquired vs. Painted totals. I ended up this year painting 254 miniatures. I took in 227. I hope to make the gap even bigger in 2025 with a full year of being retired.

    My 'Five Parsecs' crew investigates some of the Sci-Fi scatter & buildings I painted up in 2024

What projects will you see posts on in 2025? A number will continue -- my post-apocalyptic campaign and Zombie RV games are both meant to be continuing series. So, my players' characters will improve (though some will likely die -- especially in Zombie RV!), which hopefully means they'll want to keep playing games. I like campaigns, though nowadays this means a continuing series of linked skirmishes rather than the old school Ancients ones where players controlled a kingdom. What else? I will likely finish the story arc of Five Parsecs from Home and then reevaluate whether I want to keep playing solo games. You will see the start of my Star Wars skirmishes, with players controlling factions ranging from the Empire to the Rebel Alliance and all shades of opinion in between. I hope to keep running one-off games of Xenos Rampant, too.

    'A new period...?' Admiral Akbar asks..."It's a trap!!" Mon Calamari 3D-printed figures

 What about new stuff, you ask? Wellll...I enjoyed how Sellswords & Spellslingers worked for my Viking Town Raid. I plan to use that system for a series of linked skirmishes set in Britain during the Viking raids. The players will control a couple characters, seeking to help the inhabitants of Britain survive the fury of the Norsemen. And I plan on tinkering with that system to adapt it to...Vietnam! I have long been tempted to run Vietnam games, but balked at starting a new period (and not having a set of rules I liked). I like the idea of running Vietnam cooperatively, with each player being a sergeant in control of a squad of grunts. Their goal will be get as many of their men to survive their 13 month tour of duty in Vietnam. I will likely test it out solo, first, using my 20mm modern Africa figures. If I like how it works, I will probably invest in a new period in 2025 -- 28mm Vietnam. We'll see, though -- no guarantees!

Thanks for reading my Year in Review! I know it was long, but your readership is appreciated...!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 227
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 254