I am back, friends, the Shenanigans are resuming!

 

Where to start, I have been out of the gaming community at large since 2021. The pandemic did a number on me, I didn’t realize how much I needed to be able to get together with people and socialize. It really messed with my head, to be completely honest.

I have struggled to get a good footing ever since. My living situation was in flux for about 3 years. I have landed in a good place where I am comfortable with roommates that I like and get along with. All of my family and my best Friend of 30+ years have moved out of California. So I am alone, I do still have many gaming friends in the area but most are at least an hour to 90 minutes away.


My hobby space is now limited to my bedroom although I know with adequate notice I could grab stuff from storage and host a game with the friends I still have in the area. I have for the first time in 3 years found my painting mojo and have started painting frequently again. However my hobby ADD is in high gear, but I am trying to suppress it enough to get things done with a unit or two for individual projects.

The thing that finally broke my painting block was being stuck on disability for almost two months. I have recently had surgery and been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes which I an controlling well now. I’ve not been able to walk or put weight on my right foot since September 1^st. It’s a good thing I went into the hospital when I did, I was septic and had  a bad infection in my foot under the callus I didn’t even know or feel it.

Just yesterday I was given the go ahead to start walking and put weight on my foot, which hopefully will put me back to work in the next few weeks. I wanted to post and share what is going on with me as I gear up to start back into the hobby again.

 

I also plan to restart the Days of High Adventure podcast soon as well. I still have a voice and things I would like to share. I have had a few false starts with this relaunch but this is the time to get back to work.

Well, that is it from me for today, I have missed the community and look foreword to reconnecting.

Praise the lord and pass the ammunition!
Big Jim out

Big Jim's Middle Earth Birthday Bash

So we got together yesterday to celebrate my birthday and play some Middle Earth SBG. We had 6 players broke up into two teams of 3 one playing the forces of good and one playing the forces of evil. Each player controled 800 points of models, combined with their team to make both sides have 2400 points of Middle Earth hotness!

In the end the forces of good lead by Aragorn and the Grey Company won the day, although we called it before complete victory. My favorite point in the battle was when Aragorn entourage charged in a swept 3 Mordor Trolls from the table over two turns! Here are a selection of pictures from the day.

1600 points of Mordor forces

starting positions from the good side

starting positions from the evil side

Until next time, take care!
Jimbo

Going back to Middle Earth

I've dove head long back into Tolkien's Middle Earth, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit were a huge piece of my Childhood. My Pop Jim Sr read the books to us when we were very young, to this day they are imprinted on who my siblings and I are.

So as you can imagine when Games Workshop released their strategy battle game for Lord of the Rings to accompany the movies my Father, brother and I were stoked beyond belief. For Christmas that year it was all Lord of the Rings related gifts for the male members of the family. It was glorious, we had so much fun building models together after Christmas dinner.


By February we were already play testing a scenario to run a Kublacon in that following May. We played this scenario 3 times before the convention, with scads of our gaming friends.

It was a magical time for us, many of us were gaming together for the first time in years.

It started off very basic terrain wise, but got much more elaborate with every play test.

I will be revisiting this scenario in the near future for a redo with the newly updated rules set. There will be many pictures and post to follow on this one going forward.

Until next time,
Jimbo

Reforging a piece of my Gaming History

This upcoming weekend I will be refurbishing this ancient terrain piece from my Pop's original modular 3D terrain set back in 1983. We have always referred to it as the "Rock".

I will be removing it from the warped MDF base board, clean off the foliage on it, retexture the bare Styrofoam and remount it on a new base board that is more form fitting as a stand alone terrain piece needs.

Here are a few pictures of the whole terrain set back in the day.

Pictures of the reforging as they happen over the weekend will follow.

Until next time.
Big Jim

Space Wolves for the new Kill Team

Space Wolf team converted from the Space Marine heroes line, with custom Wolf Scout.

In the spirit of what I did with Special Operations Killzone for Kill Team 5^th ed I am tinkering with the current much improved version of Kill Team. I want to push the more narrative aspect of the game to a higher level. 

I am currently working on House Rules for a generic gear and weapons list that all teams can access as well as faction specific ones. I am also working on additional entries to most of the factions to make things more lore centric.

The first thing I have done is made a proper Space Wolves list for the new Kill Team. This list completely replaces the Tactical Marine and Scout entries for Grey Hunters, Wolf Scouts and a single Long Fang entry. This new list gives you a flavorful lore centric Space Wolves list that any Wolf Lord could be proud of.

Narrative Kill Team Space Wolves

I reimagined both the Tactical and Scout squad entries to match the options available to their Space Wolf cousins in the Grey Hunters and Wolf Scouts. This gave me a conundrum of how to handle the Grey Hunters melee weapons upgrades, as it is very common for a Hunter to carry a Chainsword or Combat Blade in addition to his Boltgun and Bolt pistol. Since having melee weapons like this gives them a clear advantage over tactical marines, I decided that Grey Hunters can all take a Chainsword or Combat Blade for the additional cost of one point, this way you can choose to take it or not. 

Since Grey Hunters don’t carry Heavy Weapons I chose to add the option to take a single Long Fang for that duty. I also limited the Grey Hunters to a single special weapon to off set this; even Heretic Astartes cannot take two special weapons they are limited to one plus a heavy weapon.

Feel free to share your thoughts and comment below. 

Praise the Allfather and pass the ammunition, until next time,

Big Jim