Fun Games and Good Times at Siege of Augusta

    Headed down to 'Gator Country' for Siege of Augusta - very cool pool terrain with lurking reptile

It had been quite a few years since I had driven south to Siege of Augusta. My friend Jason, who lives in Columbia, SC, regularly prompts me to come down. Now that I am retired, I don't have the excuse of not enough days off for another convention...ha, ha! So, Jenny and I drove down Thursday, spent the evening with him and his family, and then headed to the convention on Friday.

I'd looked at the games on the Siege of Augusta website, and there were a few that I was interested in. We planned arriving before the noon session of games so that we didn't have to get up ridiculously early. Jason lives about an hour and fifteen minutes away, and Siege's first session begins at 8am, so there was no way I was getting there Friday in time for the morning session! Siege has an unusual system for attendees to sign up for games: it doesn't have one! You have to find the table and ask the GM if he or she has room. Nothing at the registration desk, no sheets on the game table (well, the chariot game had a signup sheet, but that was the only one I saw) -- nothing! I have to confess that I was disappointed with this aspect of the convention. 

    Main hall at Siege of Augusta -- I got to hang out with Jason, play in fun games, & meet nice people

Another thing I wasn't thrilled about was that start times are v-e-r-y approximate. The GM can list a firm start time in his description. If not, you have to assume it starts when the session starts. Except that they don't always do that. For example, I was told by people who got up early enough that the "8am" games that most didn't start till 9am. However, you don't know that. Since you can't sign up for it in advance, if you really want to get in a game, you have to be there at 8am. Or actually sooner, as spots are given to the first players to arrive (assuming the GM hasn't already promised spots to someone). All in all, it encouraged me skip the first session on Saturday morning. I just didn't want to deal with the uncertainty.

As Jenny and I made the rounds checking out the games Friday, we ran into another problem. Which games were which? There was no schematic or map anywhere to be found, so we had to deduce that from the event titles. The event descriptions were online (if you brought your laptop with you). However, the Siege website doesn't work well with mobile devices and condenses the nice, easy-to-understand grid into spaghetti. So, that part is hit or miss, too. We did our best to match the terrain and figures we saw on the tables with event titles on the handout we'd picked up from the registration desk.

    Col. Munro leads his daughters & a British column through the woods in Magua's Revenge

One of the games we talked about getting in was "Magua's Revenge" by Les Faison. He was just setting up when we walked by. We saw the trees and dirt road and figured that was it. We asked if this was the right game, and if he had spots open. Les said he had one of his five spots left. I encouraged Jenny to play, as I had some serious shopping to do from the nice selection of vendors (see yesterday's post on my Siege of Augusta purchases).

   Hawkeye & Chingachgook escort Cora Munro while in the distance Uncas helps Alice

It would have been fun to play, though. As some of you may know, I am the author of the rules he was using -- Song of Drums and Tomahawks. I watched a bit of the game in between my shopping. I was hesitant about stepping in and explaining the rules when players had questions. Les had listed in his description that it was a modified version, so I didn't want to tell anyone the wrong thing. After the game, when he found out I was the author, he said I shouldn't have been so shy. It was only his second time playing the game and he had questions. Jenny has run Song of Drums many times, though, so she was able to assist when I was off wandering around. Les' tabletop was very cool and his 40mm French & Indian War miniatures were awesome. Jenny said she had fun and was able to recreate movie history by having Hawkeye and Chingachgook rescue Cora Munro and get her off the table. Uncas did rescue Alice Munro, but both them were shot down by treacherous Huron as they tried to flee off-table.

    Les, the GM (in red), assists one of his layers as he moves up his Huron to ambush the British

I spoke with Les for a bit after the game and praised his game and adaptions to the rules. I gave him my email address in case he had further questions. I liked how he adjusted the turn sequence so that players would not necessarily have to wait too long if they "crapped out" early on their activation rolls. Typically, I do four players maximum in one game to avoid player frustration when their dice are not cooperating. His system of using a card deck to determine whose turn it was alleviated some of the bad things that poor dice rolling can make occur in multiplayer games of Song of Drums. For only his second game with the rules, he did a great job!

    A U.S. naval landing force of sailors takes position on the rooftops looking for downed airmen

Jason and his high schoolers, Lily and Graham, showed up a bit before the 4pm session. We all decided to get in Mark Young's Banana Wars Mayhem game together. He could take up to nine players and ended up with somewhere around seven, if I remember right. Each of us controlled a faction in early 1900s Nicaragua -- U.S. Marines, Banana Corporation private security, bandits, rebels, and more. I took control of one of the two rebel factions. We each had about 15 or so miniatures (except the more elite Marines and U.S. Naval landing force). The activation order was randomized each turn, which in the end, worked out really well, allowing my rebels to execute their nefarious plans.

    My force of Nicaraguan rebels arrives on the board ready to cause trouble in Banana Wars

Besides being rebels and killing government troops (Jenny's Federales -- I would end up pitted against her all weekend...ha, ha!), we were also on the lookout for two downed U.S. pilots. It would be a feather in our rebel sombreros if we could take possession of them and give them to the leader of our rebel movement (presumably to ransom back to the U.S. for lots of money!). Wouldn't you know it, but the Naval landing force (their to rescue the pilots) came on board to my right, while Jason's bandits entered the table on our left. I immediately began politicking and dissembling. I told the Naval player that we had nothing against the United States. It was our own government we hated and wanted to overthrow for the horrible way it was treating its people. He let me know he was looking for the pilots (everyone had a secret mission), and I told him that I would definitely not fire on him or the pilots. If I found them, I would let him know (heh, heh...).

    Dole Corporation's trucks ferry a shipment of bananas through town, guarded by private security

I moved from the board edge to a large building to our front, and then to another one in front of that on the next turn. We manned the second story windows of the second building looking down the main street. And who should appear in our gun sights but the hated Federales? We shot up Jenny's troops for several turns, though her leader did use his Jedi mind tricks on us to make us miss several times after we'd hit. Apparently, her leader was in charge of the secret police and causes fear in anyone his malicious eyes are turned upon! After a few turns, we'd killed all of Jenny's visible troops (she had others on the opposite sides of buildings, and was busy shooting at pretty much everyone else on the table). She did a great job making the Federales the hated force that they were!

    Jason's bandits arrive on board, hungry and looking for some bananas to steal from Dole

Just then, a rocket flare went up not far from us. I guessed it was the pilots signaling the U.S. forces of their location. We returned closer to our board edge, which fortunately was near where the pilots had secretly moved. The Naval player asked what I was doing and I said that we'd killed all the Federales. Did the sailors need any assistance? He was suspicious, but I'd done nothing negative to him all game, so he seemed satisfied. Soon enough, the pilots ran to the building the sailors had occupied, adjacent to the neighboring building where all my men were huddled. As the last turn began, I hoped we would move after everyone else. Fortune smiled on the Revolution -- everyone else moved before me. 

When our turn finally came, we sprang our treachery and dashed into the sailors' building, seizing control of the pilots. It was likely the last turn, but there was no guarantee I would be able to maintain control of my hostages if we'd played another. So, I told the player controlling the landing party maybe we could come to an agreement. The pilots were apparently carrying a wad of cash to bribe their way out of trouble. I suggested we do a trade. They hand over the cash and I would give them their pilots. He agreed, and thus I declared a "cinematic victory." After all, our fearless leader off-table was going to ransom them anyway, right? I just saved him the trouble! Victory -- with an asterisk!

    A gorgeous looking game I would have LIKED to get in -- 'Mythic Earth' run by Mike Frang

Jason and Lily decided they wanted to go to dinner and skip the evening session of games. Jenny and I agreed, as spending time with them was the main reason we'd decided to attend the convention. Graham is a hard core convention goer, though, and he stayed and played in Renaissance Naval Warfare game. When we returned from dinner (bringing carryout for Graham), we walked around and shopped a bit. Jason and I marveled at the 3-D printed terrain that Bryan Stroup of Garrison 3D had brought. He picked up some Egyptian statues from him, and then admired an Ancient, domed temple. I could tell he wanted it, but Jason is a very deliberate shopper. He's not prone to impulse purchases and likes to think things over. I warned him it might be gone tomorrow, but he stayed true to his nature and held off buying it (until the next evening!). We closed out the night with a game of Settlers of Cataan, which I somehow managed to win (no asterisks this time).

    Deer Hunter, left, moves up to guard our flank while Pork Chop hurries towards cover

As mentioned earlier, I skipped the early session of games. Thankfully, the folks at Bad Goblin Games had saved Jenny and I a spot in the noon running of Trailer Park Warlords of the Apocalypse. We had both played in this game at Historicon 2024 and had a blast. I had chatted with three members of their group Friday and had been encouraging them to follow through on their idea to run it at Cincycon 2025 this March. Two of the members will be in town for work, and they thought, "Why not stay in town for the weekend and attend the convention?" They live in Florida, though, and are flying to Cincinnati. I offered to bring down my own trailers I had bought from them, as well as a game mat and other terrain for them. I hope they follow through. I think Cincycon players would enjoy playing their game.

    Monster truck in the center of the board (at left), is everyone's objective - but first, you need the pig!

It was the same scenario I had played at Historicon, and I even controlled the same faction, aka the "awakened" mutants of Team Road Kill. Jenny had won that game in cinematic fashion. The goal is to seize control of a pig who has a surgically implanted monitor which deactivates a kill switch on a Monster Truck that all four factions were drooling over. If you try to start the truck without the slippery pig with you in the cab...BOOM! The other factions included Jenny's "Bubbas," Dave's Childen of the Soil plant mutations, and Lily's Bubbas. We each began in a corner of the 4'x4' board out of sight of the other factions. 

    Col. Clucker takes advantage of the cover in the trailer park to move towards the board's center

Over the first few turns, we crept forward utilizing the cover (chiefly provided by eight of their trailers, as well as various other buildings, walls, and dumpsters. I really like their activation system. You begin the turn rolling 1d10 per figure you control (we all started with four). Then, each round you secretly choose one of those dice to use that turn. First to activate are 10's, then 9's, and so on. That way, the order of activation switches each round. Some turns you may want to move (or fire) first, other turns you may want the react to what the other players do. There is a card deck, too, which can affect Initiative, protect you from damage, give you an extra turn -- all kinds of interesting possibilities. You draw back up to five cards at the beginning of each turn, though there are some cards you may want to hang onto. I hung onto one the entire game in case a player got a "kill shot" on one of my figs, which thankfully never happened.

    On our left, the Children of the Soil move towards the center, threatening our flank

The pig begins the game on the truck, but then moves about the board controlled randomly by one or more players each round. If the 10-sided die you used to activate that turn matches the one rolled for the pig that round, you get to move it. In a weird statistical occurrence -- which my friends would laugh at and say is just my bad luck -- I think I activated the pig only twice over the entire game. Jenny was fortunate on pig activations, and was the first to grab the pig. Unfortunately for her, that also made her the target for the other players. My leader, Col. Clucker (a mutated chicken) blasted away at Joe, her leader, a couple times along with other players and Jenny was soon down one gang member. I had placed Deer Hunter (a deer armed with a hunting rifle) on my left to keep a bead on the plant people. He ended up killing their Mushroom Man and wounding his large carnivorous plant, Audrey (yes, from the movie). 

    Pork Chop's gambit - sprinting across the street and snatching up his distant porker cousin

My own mutated pig, Pork Chop, dashed into the trailer bordering the street where Joe lay bleeding. Using an extra action card, he dashed across the street, snatched up his distant cousin, all the while keeping an eye on huge, lumbering two-headed Jethro in his bib overalls not far away. Naturally, someone else activated the pig before Pork Chop could carry it towards the monster truck, and I lost the opposed die roll with my 5d10 vs. the pig's 2d10 (there's that statistical occurrence again!). He squirmed away, squealing, "Four legs good, two legs bad!" (Hopefully, some readers get the Animal Farm reference!) Things got real confusing after that. Lily's faction entered the fray, blasting away at Jenny's depleted ranks. She returned the favor, lining up her flame thrower to fire up three of Lily's gang members with one shot!

    The other players, including Jenny's 'Jethro' here, would keep Porkchop from succeeding

As we headed into the last turn, Jenny looked ready to pull off her trailer park magic, again. She played the right combination of cards and one of her gang members scurried to the cab of the monster truck with the pig. Unfortunately for her, she had moved first in that round. EVERYONE opened up on her. Jenny was secretly holding onto a card which allowed her to heal 1d10 wounds immediately. She played it after her last character moved, but before my final one. If she rolled high, she would survive and win. If she failed, I had -- you guessed it -- another nefarious plan. I m-a-y have chanted, "One, one, one!" to influence her roll, which was indeed a "1"! With that, Col. Clucker fluttered down from the sandbag emplacement on a nearby trailer and hopped into the cab with her many-holed corpse, but more importantly, the pig. We pressed the start switch and lobbied for a cinematic victory. I did not have control of the pig, true, but it was already in the cab. So, the truck should rumble to life and not explode, right? 

    As it turned out, the Children of the Soil didn't cause my Team Road Kill any harm

The GM conferred with his partner, and they said they do like to allow for the "Rule of Cool" in their games for strange things that occur. So, they admitted they were leaning towards awarding Team Road Kill the victory, albeit with another asterisk! Either way, it was once again a very fun game that came down to the last turn to decide who would drive off with the monster truck. If you get a chance to play in their game at an upcoming convention (or buy their rules), I encourage you to do so. 

With that, Jenny and I decided to hightail it out of Augusta, Georgia, as snow was forecast the next day in the mountains for our drive home. We stole a march on Mother Nature and made it home shortly after 1am Saturday. I had fun hanging out with Jason and his kids, played in some really fun games, and bought cool stuff from nice vendors. A successful trip to Siege of Augusta! Will I be back next year? Hmm...I do wish they'd fix their event registration system. If so, definitely. If not, I would have to think about it...

MINIATURES Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2025

• Miniatures acquired in 2025: 7
  
• Miniatures painted in 2025: 4 

TERRAIN Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2025

• Terrain acquired in 2025: 5
  
• Terrain painted in 2025: 4

SCATTER Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2025

• Scatter acquired in 2025: 9
  
• Scatter painted in 2025: 1

Purchases from Siege of Augusta 2025

    Damaged Trailer #2 - one of Bad Goblin Games' excellent 3-D printed pieces of terrain

My first convention of the year was a drive down south to visit my friend Jason in South Carolina. He usually attends Siege of Augusta every year, taking his two high school age kids along with him. Jenny and I drove down Thursday and spent the evening with him before we all headed to the convention for Friday and Saturday. I'll do another post covering the games I played in at Siege, but here is my overview of what I bought while there. Knowing ahead of time that both Miniature Building Authority and Bad Goblin Games were going to be there, I expected to drop some cash!

    Fortified Trailer #2 - which is the 3rd of Bad Goblin's fortified ones that I own - can't wait to paint it!

My first purchases were at Bad Goblin Games, since I knew how quickly their products sold out when I first saw them at Historicon 2024. I picked up two more of their 3-D printed trailers, one fortified and one "damaged". These are truly excellent pieces of terrain. All of the sandbags, tires, wooden palettes, and such are all printed on. All you have to do is prime and paint them. Once these two are done, that will put me at five trailers for the tabletop. This will give me the chance to run a game set exclusively inside a trailer park and not have it as the "bad side of town" on a city board. I am looking forward to painting these up!

    Cinder block walls & random scatter I picked up from Bad Goblin (& a free pack of ladders!)

Also purchased from Bad Goblin Games were some 3-D printed cinder blocks. They were out of them at Historicon once I decided to go back and buy them, so I wanted to make sure I got them before they sold out again. They have two packs -- one of straight cinder block walls, and another of more random piles of them. I am curious to see if I can cut some of the walls up so that I also have individual cinder blocks. I could use them for various pieces of scatter on the bases of walls or even larger figures. Either way, at $8 a pack, these are incredibly affordable -- as are all of Bad Goblin's products.

    Besides making very cool trailers and other scatter, I love Bad Goblin's LED lit fires and other items

Another of the products that Bad Goblin makes that I love is its range of fires. At Historicon, I'd picked up one each of their Dumpster Fire, Barrel Fire, and Pit Fire. This time, I grabbed two packs of their generic fire markers, which has the battery and flickering LED light contained underneath and inside the fire marker. I can place these anywhere on the board, and honestly, should probably have bought yet another pack of them...ha, ha! I'd forgotten about their Scrying Pools and such. These come with different colors and also LEDs that slowly fade and brighten. I couldn't resist grabbing one of the scrying pools. Very cool stuff to have on the tabletop of a miniature game! Oh, and in thanks for my previous posts on Lead Legionaries about their products, they threw in a free pack of 28mm Ladders, too. I'd said they should sell those separately, instead of just including them in the trailers and water towers, and they aparently agreed!

    Miniature Building Authority's two story Customs House with balcony which I picked up on sale

Awhile back, a friend of mine urged me to stop at Miniature Building Authority early on when visiting a convention they were attending as a dealer. He said they often have special deals, so this time I actually followed through on his advice! I found this two story Customs House on sale for just $40!! Now, it was marked down because there was no roof (not sure if it had been lost or damaged). However, I can easily make a roof myself. I do also need to make a second floor to place atop the first floor room walls, but that will be equally easy to cut to size. I really look forward to getting this piece painted up and on the tabletop. It'll make a great anchor piece for a modern city street.

    This MBA "Souq" will match my other buildings I have from them and can be used in many periods

I had intended to pick up 2-3 more buildings from Kirk at MBA while at Siege, but I waited till Saturday to pick out which ones. MBA has so many cool buildings with character, that it was simply a matter of deciding which ones I liked best. I have a number of their stone buildings which are intended for the Middle East, but can be used for just about any era -- including Sci-Fi. I ended up picking up their "Souq", which is a stone building with three small storefronts. I'll likely paint it to match the other MBA buildings I have.

    MBA's Shanty Town range has a number of flavorful buildings I can use for  Modern & Post-apoc

I have to admit, that in addition to picking up the "Contractor's Office" (which is a building ostensibly made from a modified shipping container) from Kirk, I am soooo stealing this idea! I have at least one or two Reaper shipping containers sitting amidst my unpainted terrain. So, I'll be making my own, too! Anyway, this piece is very cool and could be used on a modern construction site, for post-apocalyptic games, in a trailer park -- you name it! I'm thinking it should paint up very quickly, so it will be one of the many buildings jostling for position at the front of the line on my painting desk!

    Some of the great scatter terrain that Kirk brings to shows and hangs on his racks to entice buyers

As some of you may know, I keep a list of all unpainted terrain that I have sitting in my closet waiting for its turn to be readied for the tabletop. A number of those items on the list are from MBA's extensive line of resin scatter terrain. I love spinning the racks and searching through what he brings at every show. I picked up a few more this time, one for a project under way this year and another couple for a "one day" project. I have visited many Mayan, Aztec, and Incan sites in my travels. I really want to game the period one day, but have never gotten around to it. That hasn't stopped me from collecting great terrain and scatter pieces, though! So, I picked up a couple small Olmec heads and a very cool Aztec calendar to add to my collection. I also grabbed a pair of Asian water buffaloes for my Vietnam project I'm starting this year.

    A new vendor I'd not encountered before had some amazing 3-D printed Sci-Fi terrain

My final purchase at Siege of Augusta wa from Bryan Stroup, who I believe is calling his 3D-printing business Garrison 3D. He had a huge display of amazing Sci-Fi buildings, as well as some Ancient, Medieval, and Western, I believe. I almost bought in big, but considering my larger purchases already at Bad Goblin and MBA, I limited myself to a half dozen Sci-Fi Transmitters. These were really cool looking scatter pieces I can add to my Sci-Fi tabletop. Six of them for only $10 was too good a deal to resist. My friend Jason went bigger, though, and grabbed his huge, domed Ancient temple, which appeared to be modeled on the Roman Pantheon, for his Stargate games. Great stuff! And I hope to see Bryan and his prints at another show.

    Not the greatest pictures, but here are Ragnar Lothbrok from the Vikings TV series & friends

The final purchase in this post was actually done online. It did arrive while I was at Siege of Augusta, but I'd ordered a week or so earlier. I've decided that for my Viking Town Raid game that I will be running at shows this year I will use Ragnar Lothbrok and his friends and family as the leaders of each player's group. I went online and searched various 28mm miniatures that evoked (or were modeled on) the characters from the Vikings series, and chose the ones from Brigade Games. These will be the next miniatures to be painted, as soon as I finish the six on my desk that are mostly complete. So, expect better pictures of Ragnar, Lagertha, Rollo, Floki, and Bjorn soon!

MINIATURES Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2025

• Miniatures acquired in 2025: 7
  
• Miniatures painted in 2025: 4 

TERRAIN Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2025

• Terrain acquired in 2025: 5
  
• Terrain painted in 2025: 4

SCATTER Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2025

• Scatter acquired in 2025: 9
  
• Scatter painted in 2025: 1

Purchases from Advance the Colors 2024

    My acquisitions from ATC 2024 all laid out on my purchased "Frostgrave" snow neoprene mat

Advance the Colors is my local HMGS chapter's flagship convention. As such, it is the "biggie" for me as far as time and effort I put into helping organize and run it. This year, I was the vendor coordinator, flea market coordinator, and all-around assistant for Convention Director Randy Miller. At any convention I attend, I like to support the vendors and make (probably) more purchases than I truly need. However, without dealers at a convention, something is missing, I feel. You need gamers, GMs, and vendors -- the three legs of the stool -- for a truly fulfilling, good con. My opinion, of course!

So, it is no surprise that I spent a lot of money at ATC this year (um...again). I thought I'd do a blog post running down what I acquired at the show. I say acquired rather than purchased because I actually won a couple things in the raffle - woo-hoo! I can pretty much guarantee this will be the last major purchase(s) of the year for me. In fact, it may be my last convention of the year. There's an outside chance I will go up to Fort Meigs in Perrysburg, OH, for World at War, Nov. 1-2. Considering I leave for Morocco less than weeks later, there is a possibility it won't happen, though. We shall see.

    I picked up both of these boxes -- not for Stargrave -- but for my Sci-Fi skirmishes from Shieldwall

Let's talk about the simplest purchase, first. I need some Star Wars style "rebels" for my Sci-Fi skirmishes. I have painted up quite a few things I can use for mercenaries, corporate security, imperial stormtroopers (see next post), criminal syndicates, and even some Mon Calamari ("It's a trap!"). However, I really don't have anything that screams rebellion type figures if I am doing a skirmish in the Star Wars universe (which I want to do). I knew my friend Jeff Gatlin of Shieldwall Gaming carries the Stargrave plastic kits, so I searched online through the various sets on his website. Sure enough, one of the "Crew" sets seemed to fit the bill. Since he's such a great guy, and I wouldn't be purchasing any Saga stuff from him this show, I bought both the "Crew" and "Crew II" boxes. And yes, for some reason, I can actually handle assembling these plastic figures. Normally, I hate putting together multipart figures and avoid them like the plague. However, since I already have successfully done so with the Troopers and one of the Mercenaries boxes I bought from him, I figured (ha, ha) I could handle these.

    A section of my 6'x4' snow and ice or 'Frostgrave' mat I purchased from Griffons Lair

Speaking of Stargrave, which I do not play, I did pick up a 6'x4' neoprene mat for the original game in that series, Frostgrave. I wanted it because it is one of the few types of terrain that I don't have a big mat for. I have jungle, desert, plains, rocky, etc., but no ice. It just so happened that a new vendor to ATC, Griffons Lair from Erie, PA, had a nice selection of mats. I noticed the snow and ice one right away after they finished setting up on Friday. I waited till Saturday to buy it -- probably not wise, in general -- but luckily no one else had picked it up, yet! I know that I won't use it all that often, but it was something I had been looking for to have waiting when I did need one. Remember - I always try to support the vendors at the conventions I attend! 

    My raffle win from ATC -- I know nothing of the game, but thought a couple minis looked cool

Speaking of Griffons Lair, they were the vendor who donated the raffle item that I won this weekend. They are from a game (or line of miniatures?) called ABC Warriors. The tag line on the Warlord Games website says, "Supreme military robots, created for a conflict that ended centuries ago, the ABC Warriors are built to endure warfare in all its deadly forms – atomic, bacterial and chemical.." My friend Mike S pointed them out to me as we were cruising the three tables stocked with raffle donations. I am generally not a fan of "big stompy robots", but who knows? Maybe I could find a use for one or more of these very interesting looking miniatures! Anyway, if you look at the price tags on each box in the picture above, you see how incredibly generous Griffons Lair (and all the other vendors who donated items at ATC), truly were! Thanks, Steven and James -- it was nice to have you at our convention and hope to see you back again next year!!

    More purchases for my Sci-Fi games from RRB Minis & More -- lots of robots/droids!!

Another of my "acquisitions" ended up costing me no cash, as well. I had picked out a few things from my friend Rich Brown of RRB Minis and More's website before the convention and asked him to bring them down. I have a few of his Sci-Fi scatter items painted up and part of my collection. I picked out a few more -- 3-D printed Large and Very Large Habitat pods, as well as a large Arcane Energy Collector. What I really wanted from him were some robot or droid like figures from the venerable Reviresco line of metal miniatures. Particularly, I wanted ones with tracks like the Robot Power Gun I painted up almost a year ago. I picked up a half dozen of these figures. There is a very good chance I will cannibalize one or more of them for their tracks. I plan to paint up/model a variety of droids and robots soon for my Sci-Fi skirmishes, and these are a big part of my plan. Oh, and I say "acquired" rather than purchased because I traded some painted Splintered Light Miniatures for them (see below).

    My purchases from Diabolical Terrain include three large, 3-D printed Sci-Fi buildings

Speaking of my Sci-Fi games, I have picked up quite a bit of scatter for those games from my friend Ron Weaver of Diabolical Terrain. Ron and I regularly give each other grief, but he does some of the cleanest 3-D printing around. You have to struggle and look closely to find any print lines. Normally, they disappear immediately once you prime the model. I appreciate him taking the extra time to print a high quality product. This time, though, I was picking up buildings. I got three relatively large Sci-Fi buildings that wouldn't look out of place on Tatooine for what I feel was a very good price. They will be painted up relatively soon, and will likely be ditching other buildings that were in line ahead of them! In addition, he had some cool Sci-Fi trucks that would look good at a spaceport or something, so I grabbed one of those, too. My final purchase from him was some textured round bases for Sci-Fi figs. Just in case I want to mix things up and use something besides my "asphalt" look, these will come in handy.

    Not exciting looking now (bag of MDF) but these are really cool pieces of terrain from Dad's Armies

Another vendor who made the trip to Springfield, OH, from Pennsylvania was Dad's Armies. Sorry for the lack of a link, but reach out to me in person for an email of one of the owners. I believe they are still working on getting a webstore up and running. Anyway, John and his wife Patty Elbro purchased the Impudent Mortals line back in 2021, I believe. They carry a variety of items besides that line, but I was excited to pick up some of their MDF Sci-Fi terrain. Much of it has of a gritty, industrial look -- perfect for the Star Wars universe. My friend Mike S went to town and bought quite a bit of it. I limited myself to a really cool saucer-shaped building, a Rylos Arctec TL-42 space fighter, a "hopper" flying vehicle, and a leaf punch from Green Stuff World.

    My friend Derek J kindly gave me a couple retirement gifts - modern scatter for my games

The last "acquisition" was a gift from my friend Derek J from Indiana. He and I have a running joke that he's going to steal my scatter terrain off of my tables (especially my tree stumps). In honor of my retirement, Derek (one of the nicest guys you will ever meet at a game convention) bought me a handful of various modern scatter. One box was a Scenics Accents Street Accessories in HO scale. The other looked 3-D printed and includes three soda machines, ice cream cart, dumpsters, trash cans, fire hydrants, and street lights. These are all painted or printed in color and will need only a small base and a dark wash to be ready for the tabletop. Thanks, Derek!

All of these purchases were actually more than paid for, though, by a couple sales of painted miniatures that I made (or delivered) at ATC. I mentioned the Splintered Light Miniatures that I traded to Rich of RRB Minis, above. In addition, a week or so before the convention, I asked him if he'd be interested in my collection of Mice, Squirrels, Raccoons, and Foxes that I had painted up long ago. They were based on large hexagons for a fantasy miniatures rules system that I never got around to writing. I knew Rich played and enjoyed Mice-at-Arms from Grey Area Games (same author as Zombie RV). I figured he might want these to use for that game. Unfortunately, those big hexagon bases of Splintered Light Miniatures have sat on my shelf, unused, for a decade or so. They have all kinds of cool custom banners and are painted to a high quality, I feel. He bought the whole set from me for a very fair price, I felt. In addition, at the show, I let him pick through my individually based Splintered Light animals, and he grabbed enough to offset the RRB purchases I was making from him. Finally, a newer Saga player borrowed my Republican Roman army to use in the Friday tournament at ATC. She had fun with them and I asked her if she wanted to make an offer for them. We agreed on a price. So, like at Historicon, all of my purchases AND my hotel and food expenses were funded by my own sales. Score one for being a (relatively) responsible retiree...ha, ha!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 226 (sigh...well, I WAS in the green for awhile!)
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 183 

Saga Warlord Stands for ATC 2024 Prizes

    The warlord stand that I painted up as a prize for the ATC 2024 Age of Ancients tournament

I recently turned over running Saga tournaments in the Columbus area to other members of our group here in Ohio. However, I am keeping alive the tradition of painting up a prize for each tourney. Since Joe and Lee are running Age of Ancients and Dark Ages tournaments at Advance the Colors 2024, I decided to match what I painted up with the theme of the competition. I am really happy with how these two stands turned out, and it will be a shame to give them away. But that's the whole idea of painting up a prize, though! Isn't it?

   The warlord stand I painted as a prize for the Dark Ages Saga tournament

The Age of Ancients warlord stand was the hardest to find figures for in my unpainted lead pile. I decided to go with a Reaper Bones figure for the big man himself. It is a classic Ancient Mediterranean looking figure with a Corinthian helmet, sweeping cloak, and leaf shaped sword. I'm sure it is supposed to be a Greek of some sort, but you could easily use it for many of the Graeco-Roman cultures. The armor is a tad bit fantasy and a bit less historical, I felt. However, I did my best to tone down the crazier parts and make it simply look like a heavily armored warrior. The shield is interesting, with its almost figure eight design. I'd picked the figure up at the Guardtower East when I was planning to paint my Thracian army as the shape is almost like it is from that culture. I ended up not using the figure, though, so had no problem donating it to be a prize.

    A good look at the ancient standard bearer, a Crusader miniatures Thracian

The standard bearer is one of my leftover 28mm Thracian figures from Crusader Miniatures. He is holding his hand up in the air, which I felt would make him look like a perfect standard bearer. He is also more Greek and less Thracian looking, which make him a good fit for a warlord stand that I am purposely painting up to be "generic Ancient Mediterranean." His Corinthian helmet matches the general's, so even though he is smaller in height, this is mitigated a bit by the uplifted army and the banner he is holding. 

    Close up of the priestess figure on the Ancients prize, and the Gamers Grass columns

I went back and forth over the third figure for the warlord's base. Typically, I choose a musician or sometimes even a pet dog. Dig as I might through my unpainted lead pile, I couldn't find anything that looked like an appropriate ancient trumpeter or other musician. So, I expanded my search through the Dark Ages figures, but likewise came up blank for a Greek-ish warlord stand. I kept going into my Pulp figures, which is where I found this priestess in a dress. I was actually looking for a Reaper Socrates figure I bought years ago (but never did find!). I thought she would be a cool addition to the stand -- the priestess of Apollo (or some other god) giving the omens of battle to the general! She was easy to paint up. I really like her braided hair with streamers attached, and the wreath around her head. 

    A nice look at the Medusa banner I created from Google Images using Photoshop

I had a wealth of choices for the Dark Age warlord. I have been regularly buying Gripping Beast general packs from Cotton Jim's clearance bin at Historicon. Looking through the giant ziploc bag with Dark Ages generals, I didn't have any mounted figures generic enough. So, I decided to go with an all-foot warlord stand for this one, too. This figure (I believe) is from their Varangian Guards pack, but I could be wrong. I love his balding head, drooping mustache, and relaxed stance with his helmet tucked under his right arm. His left hand was open and I went back and forth about what to put in there. I decided to go with an upright sword. I figured that would look more inspiring than a grounded ax or similar. I chose brown for the fur cloak over his shoulders as it would contrast better with the chainmail armor. The bright red (but not too bright) cloak and dark blue sleeves show his wealth in poorer and less fancy age.

    Zooming in on the three figures that make up the Dark Ages warlord base

His standard bearer is about as generic as you can get for the early Medieval period. His conical leather and banded steel helm, chainmail, and round shield strapped to the back made him an obvious choice, as well. I decided to go with a faded blue tunic and sleeves. In fact, both these warlord stands seemed to have its share of blues! I really like how his Raven shield design came out. I used a black micron pen to do the wings, tail, and head. It didn't stand out as much as I wanted, so I added the streaks of light blue and that really made the design pop. I decided not to put any other weapons in his hand, but considered a sword for awhile. I didn't like how it looked with the pose, so kept it simple.

    A nice look at the Viking runic stone, which I added to the base to set it off a bit

The final figure was another easy choice, a chainmail armored musician with a sweeping cloak. Since blue seemed to be the theme, I gave him a medium blue cloak. I was happy with how the colors came out on both stands. As I was finishing them up and eyeballing the 60mm round stands, it looked like both needed something else to make them come to life. I looked in my closet and picked out one of the 3-D printed Viking runic stones that I'd picked up from Scott Gray at Sword & Scabbard Games. I am going to have to get around to painting up the rest of these runic stones (I bought two packs!). They were easy to do and look great! For a Dark Ages general, it really makes the vignette pop. Scott will be at ATC 2024, so pick some of these up from him if you will be there! I also added a couple more small boulders to complete the stand! 

    A look at the raven banner I created in Photoshop, and the standard bearer's shield

For the Ancient stand, I remembered that I bought two packs of Gamers Grass Ancient ruins from Michigan Toy Soldier and Figure Company at Historicon 2023. Scale-wise, they probably would work better with 15mm figures. However, they have such a great variety of broken and complete Greek or Roman columns that I was able to figure out a combo that looked nice. In addition, I added a chunk of plaster cobblestones to the blank area in the middle. All together, the vignette worked out really well. 

    A final look at the Ancient warlord, with a close up of the Reaper Miniature's shield

The banners I did in my usual method. While painting the miniatures, I had decided that I would use a medusa for the Greek standard and Raven one for the Dark Ages. I spent about a half hour looking through various Google Image searches until I found the ones I liked best. Next, I found fancy square and rectangular borders to go around the images. I imported them into my venerable version of Photoshop on my MacBook from two generations back. I manipulated the colors and sizes, then put them on a USB drive and took it up to the local office supply store. I prefer using their color laser printers for my banners. You do have to paint the edges after you cut the banner out and glue it around the brass wire pole. Otherwise, the white paper shows through noticeably. 

All in all, I think these two stands came out to be a...shall I say it...a "winning" pair??

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 170
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 170 (I'm back to even again!)
  

Zombie RV at Hold the Line 2024

    Zombies running amok in a trailer park during my games of Zombie RV at Hold the Line 2024

I hosted two sessions of Zombie RV at Hold the Line convention inside the Liberty Aviation Museum in Port Clinton, OH. I had three 2'x2' boards set up and was planning on two players teaming up to run the survivors on each board. Four players signed up for the 10am session and two in the 2pm session. Hold the Line is a relatively new convention with a LOT of tournament players and it is still growing its standard, non-tourney games. I feel there were definitely more attendees at the show this year compared to its debut last year. So, I was happy with a 50% fill rate.

    Morning session with four players trying to scavenge supplies from the Zombie Apocalypse

One of the boards featured my two fortified, 3-D printed trailers from Bad Goblin Games and one heavily-modified MDF trailer from Sarissa Precision. There were various other bits of terrain on the board, including burned out cars, smaller storage trailers, and a small patch of woods. This board was chosen by the players to explore in both sessions. It was nice to get my newest painted terrain out on the tabletop, and I got lots of praise from players and passers by for how it all looked.

    Zombies wandering the industrial board trying to track down the player characters (their next meal)

Another board featured an industrial area, with two factories, a convenience store, ruined building, water tower, oil storage tank, and even a smoldering, crashed helicopter. This one was played in the morning session. The third board, that did not get chosen, was my Shell service station with a parking lot full of burnt out vehicles, gasoline pumps, and various other bits of trash and rubble. I even jazzed it up with something new. I had saved the plastic windshields from the die cast vehicles that I had burnt up. I put them inside a ziploc bag and broke them up into tiny pieces. I poured this around the building to represent broken glass from all the windows. Looked cool even if no one played on that board!

    Zombies move towards survivors according to an "A.I." in the Zombie RV rules

In addition, I had created stat cards for each of the characters, listing their scores in each attribute (Might, Brains, Quickness), their two Level 1 skills (and which die rolls they affected), along with the equipment they were carrying. As per Zombie RV, one character had a rifle, another a shotgun, the third a pistol, and the fourth only a melee weapon. Two other melee weapons and one supply of extra ammo was also distributed among the characters in each four-character survivor group. I had also created a pair of double-sided QRS sheets with all the relevant charts and tables, as well as detailing the zombie "A.I." which directs their movement. Finally, I had created noise tokens from wooden disks, flocked to resemble asphalt, and featuring a number of grayish-white stones equal to the noise token number. I arranged the pattern of the stones to mimic the pips on a 6-sided die. It is one of my things, I realize. If a game calls for markers on the tabletop, I want to create something that blends in with the battlefield and adds to its look rather than detracting from it.

    Junior with his noise token indicating "2," is in trouble with zombies coming at him from both sides!

Everything was all set up for the players, including a vehicle as each group's starting point -- van, pickup truck, or RV. Five ordinary zombies were already lurking at the spawn point, ready to shamble towards the survivors after they took their first turn. I explained the rules first, and everyone agreed they were easy to pick up and had no problems running the game themselves after the first turn. Typically, I have the players make all the die rolls for the zombies, too, rather than trying to be everywhere and do them myself. My role was to dole out the zombies each turn, help adjudicate any questions, define the terrain, and so on. 

    A wounded 'Roman' is chased behind a trailer by one Nasty zombie and 3 ordinary ones

As I'd hoped, Zombie RV ran great as a convention game. All of my players had fun and some said they were going to pick up the rules themselves, too. Only one of the three games was a complete victory/success for the survivors. I define a completed mission as one in which they pick up the resource tokens on all four quarters of the battlefield, return their vehicle, and drive off. Even that one success was a near thing, too. We did a kriegsspiel at the end and talked our way through what would happen on the last couple turns. It appeared fairly likely the last straggler survivors would make it unscathed back to their vehicle. So, rather than move the enormous number of zombies they'd spawned during the two hours of the game, we did some measurements and agreed they'd make it off. Barely!

    Zombies attacking the survivor's van where two of the characters have taken refuge

A similar thing happened in the 2pm game. A pair of survivors were trying desperately to run from cover to cover along the edge of the board and stay out of sight of the various hordes of zombies that had collected. One was wounded and moving at essentially half speed. Meanwhile, another of their original group had bailed out and exited off the back edge of the board. With two wounds, he was fairly certain that he'd never make it back to the van. He hoped to link up with his friends later, but it would be suicide to try to run the gauntlet. The other two survivors in the van (they'd located another survivor armed with a melee weapon in their first search), were driving the van back and forth running over zombies and trying to keep the attention of all the zombies on the board before the van was surrounded and overwhelmed. It was a tense ending to the game, with the player controlling those in the van ready to abandon the other two more than once!

    Sonny & Woody (new guy found hiding) race back to the van to get off the zombie-infested table

That's one of the things I really like about Zombie RV as a game. It is cooperative, and the players have to brainstorm how to get to all the search spots and not be surrounded and overwhelmed by the zombies. Players are forced to take risks, and you can feel the tension when important rolls have to be made or otherwise a survivor is likely to be swamped by numbers and taken down. That happened twice in the morning game in the trailer park. The players lost two of their four survivors and eventually fled the table back to their van. The players had to take the same risks that the other survivor gang did in the afternoon game. In the afternoon game, fortunate die rolls allowed the survivors to escape the clutches of the zombies. In particular, shotgun-wielding Junior managed to escape what looked like certain death not once but twice! However, in the morning game, Daisy and Sonny were not so lucky. When the zombies closed to contact, and the survivors tried to flee on their next turn, they were knocked down and wounded. That spelled the end of each, as there was no way to get away as it takes a wounded player's only action to stand up.

    Per the player's plan, Big Bass waits in hiding behind the helicopter, ready to ambush these zombies

I did not run out of zombie figures, which I admit I was worried about. I'm very glad I finished my most recent batch of four "nasty zombies," though. A couple games had two to three of them running around on their board. There weren't many "fast zombies" rolled, which was fortunate for the players. Their speed (equal to the survivors and twice as fast as an ordinary zombie) has a way of throwing carefully choreographed plans out the window! In fact, that's one thing that successful survivors must do -- mentally map out where the zombies will end up and ensure that survivors are able to keep their distance. If more than one zombie is able to close with the same survivor, things definitely look bleak in this game.

   Things are looking bleak for Daisy as she is chased by a horde of zombies through a burnt out truck

Zombie RV is NOT a game of mowing down hordes and hordes of zombies. Ammunition is short, firearms are in a questionable state of repair, and you never know when you're going to either run out of ammo or have the weapon jam. Then the survivor is left with a glorified club! Actually, in game terms, you do know when it is going to happen. If you roll a natural one when making a shooting attack, the gun is out of ammunition. I rationalize this as possibly also meaning badly jammed. Only one of the three firearms carrying survivors has extra ammo, too. So, if you are planning on manning a barricade and mowing down zombie after zombie to cover for your friends, your plan can fall victim to a poorly-timed "1"! In most of our games, this has led to the death of that unlucky survivor.

    Sonny confidently holds off a group of zombies until rolling a "1" -- CLICK! Out of ammo!!

With the success of my games at Hold the Line, I am satisfied that giving each character two skills instead of one special ability in the original rules does not make them too powerful. The brand new skills I added (such as Sprinter, giving an extra 1" of movement for each action), did not seem unbalancing either. The rules author had also given me his ideas of introducing three attributes (Might, Brains, Quickness) for each character. He wanted to use them to be used for various checks in the game. For example, when survivors come to a door, there is a 50/50 chance it is locked. If locked, they need to pass a successful "Might Check" to force it open. The character adds their Might score (which is between 1 and 3) to the roll of a dice, needing a "6+" to successfully force it open. If they fail, they can try again next action. Notably, this does make more noise...

    Sonny tried to run, but when the zombies made contact and knocked him down, the end was near

Since characters are still scrambling to complete the missions successfully in our games, I think the balance has not been thrown off by these additions. Next, I plan to introduce my experience points ideas. I'll have the Sunday night gang choose to spend the experience they gained when we played it a few weeks back (see Zombie RV Times Three). Then we will play some more games. I plan to keep track of how many "skill improvements" each survivor gang has earned and either add in more zombies or modifiers to the spawn roll each turn to balance it out. That will probably be a judgement call based on how successful the players have been.

    After a handful of turns, the entire board seems to be crawling with zombies

The other thing I have planned is to try one big game with up to three vehicles of survivors rather than each band of four on their own 2'x2' board. I would like to go with a 3'x3' or 3'x4' board. I will include one spawn point for each vehicle's (4 characters) worth of survivors. I am also thinking that instead of a third spawn point, perhaps have zombies show up randomly on board edges? I would number the board edges and roll to have three lone, wandering zombies show up. Or perhaps I will randomize the number of wandering zombies? Roll 1d6: 1-2 = 3 zombies, 3-4 = 4 zombies, 5-6 = 5 zombies. One roll would establish which board edge they're coming in on, and then a D12 to see how many inches from that corner it arrives on. I think this would definitely foul up the survivors' plans more with the uncertainty of where they're coming from.

    You can also find other survivors in hiding on the board, as was the case with Woody in red

Plus, I always enjoy miniatures games where we get the whole group playing together. I am imagine there would a be a lot of hilarity as we laugh at the struggles (or poor die rolls) of our fellow players! So, while my painting for the zombie project is coming to an end, the playing of games is hopefully heating up! Stay tuned for more highlights from my zombie apocalypse!

    His friend inside searching the trailer, Sonny covers him from the porch, blasting away at zombies

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 170
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 154

 

Drawn by the noise of tires squealing and the crunch of a van hitting bodies, zombies hurry forward 

    Despite 2 zombies in contact, Junior was fortunate on his rolls and was able to slip away and survive