19 June 2016

All Quiet on the...


I've been quiet the past month, largely because I've been really busy. That's a bit of a "good news/bad news" story. I'll start with the good. A lot of it has been personal & family stuff. Everyone seems to be getting married this Spring/Summer, as well as the usual assortment of other events & activities. I'm even trying to enjoy the outdoors and get a bit more active, too. I'm the crazy old man on a skateboard for the first time in something like 25 years, and I'm finally learning how to swim!

I also finally got back into a long overdue vinyl (multiple) toy commission project. I didn't measure, but he's something like 8"-9" tall.


I'm not sure if I shared the other two before. (I haven't completed no. 03 yet, he's been the big hold-up lately, before I finally decided to go ahead and work on nos. 04 & 05 recently.) They're on my art & toy page. Blog. Whatevs. I also painted a little one for my niece's birthday. She's been repainting Littlest Pet Shop toys (more or less a similar thing) as well as doing a lot of drawing. I had briefly wondered if it was a little too weird/creepy for a young kid, but she's the only reason I know what Five Nights at Freddy's is, so I'm probably safe. :)



So now to the bad news. We have been living in the top two floors of a a duplex for years. Things started off OK, but unfortunately the family below us moved a few years ago, and since then we've had a string of bad tenants living below us, as well as some problems with one of the neighbors. Not minor nuisances - I mean serious threats to health and safety. I feel that we should have called in Exterminatus long ago.


So we are hunting for a single family home. No more mystery tenants and their problems.

Hunting for a rental home sucks.



Of the limited choice available, it boils down to this: you can have a nice house in a shitty school system, or a shitty house in a quality school system. This is something I've never had to deal with until recently. In fact, one of the reasons we live where we currently do is the great schools. Unfortunately, the only options around here leave us at the mercy of sharing a house or apartment with mystery tenants, and that has not been working out.

Naturally I am concerned with how this will impact my gaming hobby. ;) Not that I've gamed much, but I still daydream about that part. We still haven't signed a lease, so there is a lot still up in the air. However, we did find a rare nice home in a good (well, one of the best around, actually) school districts. The problem is... it's small. Probably no gaming table, and I'm not even sure how a painting desk will pan out. I will consider it a challenge in downsizing and efficiency.

Also, moving into a single means my small gaming budget is going to be crunched further. Luckily I think I'm set with quite a bit to paint for a while. In fact, I just scored a rare eBay bargain, and acquired some of the middle-era Citadel metal wight cavalry on plastic skeletal horses, and the all metal mounted wight lord.



Lastly, I have been feeling the itch to start a very small scale sci-fi skirmishing project. I've been envying a lot of the oldschool Rogue Trader projects I've seen on other blogs & forums. So maybe something like that, or Inquisimunda. Or maybe something along the lines of Space Hulk in gameplay -- confined combat, limited scope, and accessible to solo play. Some friends and I used to play very small point games of 2nd ed. 40k on Space Hulk & Adv. Space Crusade tiles and enjoyed that quite a bit, too. Not sure... I like the idea of avoiding "armies" -- so more like rogue traders, pirates, etc.


5 comments:

  1. Oh man, I would LOVE to see your take on INQ28/Rogue Trader/Inqusimunda

    Re: housing, it is always a bummer to try and figure out where to live... even if you have money, houses always seem to cost MORE money than you have access to. (particularly out here in California) maybe there will be a garage that could be a game space?

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    1. Thanks. My initial thought is to do a really small 28mm project, where I can put detail into each figure, rather than my tendency to go with speed painting on my fantasy figures. But part of me is wondering if I should try 15mm figures, but still keep it a small skirmish -- that way I could try something using less table space. Given that I will probably not do much gaming, I think I'm still leaning toward the larger figures.

      We do have a garage, and although it's clean, it's detached which means being at the mercy of Cleveland, Ohio weather. Although I'm not certain about gaming in there, I am hoping I can save a corner for a little workshop for larger & messier projects -- something that wasn't available in the attic. (So there are positive aspects to the new place, not just negatives!)

      Since my gaming table is lightweight and easy to disassemble, I'm also hoping maybe I can maybe store it somewhere (garage?) and then temporarily set it up if I ever manage a game. But it would have to be a regular "spend a few hours playing, then put it all away" game instead of my plans for playing a game in small increments.

      For now, if I can continue to paint I will be happy for the moment, though. And I think I can manage that.

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  2. Yeah, being able to slowly paint away at figures is probably a nice minimum level of hobby.

    As for 15mm, being able to buy a bunch of figures for $5 and play on a 2x2' square is pretty appealing. Not as much fun to paint as 28mm though (unless you are into tanks!)

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    1. If I did tanks, I'd drop all the way down to 6mm. Don't confuse me any more than I already am! :)

      Honestly, I will probably end up just painting a handful of 28mm figures for fun, with dreams of sci-fi skirmishing. ;)

      Or maybe I should go back to my thought of a "Many Worlds Theory" skirmish. A while ago I had thought to find a skirmish system (mechanics) that I liked and open it up to any and all "warbands" that I could come up with. So I was starting with something like zombies, robots, pirate women, cowboys, and... hobbits. In fact, long ago I started buying some small batches of figures with that in mind, and even pulled out a couple of pirate women, cleaned and primed them. I think that the RT fictional setting could really account for a lot of diversity, and satisfy my Many Worlds Theory desires. :)

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    2. I believe that there is suitable coverage from the "song of" rules, although you would have to buy quite another to do everything. Some of the other new rule sets might also suit... after all, it is easier to add swords to scifi than scifi to historical sets.

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