October Recap

Well, just more than a few days late posting up my October activities but there was not much to report out regarding my hobby activities for that month.  Nothing done in just about every category imaginable.

I did manage to read the 3rd book in the Expanse series:  Abaddon's Gate.  I continue to really enjoy this series although there was a "twist" toward the end that almost felt as if the reasoning was "I can stuff another 200 pages in this book if I do this."  Maybe it's just me since I have been wondering why the "average" Sci-Fi book has seemed to grow from 300 to 500 pages.  But I can't help but have these thoughts after reading something like The Forever War, clocking in at 260 pages and spanning over a 1000 years of an interstellar solider's life.  Anyway, moving on.

Significant time was also spent ("wasted") playing video games this month.    I still haven't kicked my Overwatch addiction (BTW, why the hell isn't there an Overwatch miniature game in development!?) although there are signs that my obsession with it are almost over.  One of these signs was my purchasing of 2013 Tomb Raider reboot and immediate consumption of it.  I knew going in it was supposed to be "great" and I am happy to confirm those assertions.  Hmm, what should I play next.  Wait, I have another hobby and it's what this blog is supposed to be about...

There were also some new additions this month, of course:

New Rulesets, leaf punches, Alexander.  Wait, WTF!?

Hmmm, now to figure out priorities...  lol  Anyway, that little guy above poses some serious questions about where do I go from here concerning the hobby.  It was hard enough to stay "engaged" in this hobby the first time around when it was 2v1 (2 parents vs 1 child).  Now I'm in a 2v2 situation...  We'll see where things go from here.

That being said, you can see some new rulebooks in the acquisitions above.  So I will probably try to do review/overview of some of them (reading is about the only activity I can manage in the 5 min increments I get right now).

A few new/upcoming things under consideration:

I'm a sucker for Greek mythology.

Sci-Fi Frostgrave?

Pre-Registration starts Nov 21st!

Anyway, that is about it for now.

January Recap

Been a little quiet on the blog, so I thought I would post a quick update recapping January.  I'm not sure a monthly recap is going to be a regular thing or not, I had actually planned to post most of this as more individual updates but never got around to it.  We will see...

On the "hobbying" front I have managed to get in a little bit of modelling every week.  No actual painting though.  Surprisingly time consuming, I did get my Malifaux and MERCS models transitioned from foam storage/transport to magnetic tray storage/transport (btw, I believe MERCS second edition comes up in Feb/Mar and includes rules to use a standard tape measure instead of the card based movement - should be interesting to see).  I also got 4 new guys for my Hadross Wrath of Kings assembled and based:  I wasn't really satisfy by (game play wise) one of the specialist from the starter set, so I wanted to either try a different specialist or add another taxi crab.

(The loner off to the side of the group was actually assembled last year)

I have also gotten 4 games of Guild Ball in over the month with Mike over at Mini Mayhem.  I continue to be impressed with the game.  So far Mike and I have only gotten 1 game in at the full team and table size (without terrain).  I'm holding off a post with more thoughts on the game until I get a few more under my belt.

I've gotten a little more connected into the Kings of War and (separate) Malifaux communities.  It has been a little hard but I think I'm starting to unravel the fractured gaming community here.  We will see.  I would really like to get out to one of the weekly Malifaux nights that has been re-established to show support but so far I just haven't been able to juggle it into the mix.  Hopefully soon.  There have been some rumblings about Frostgrave too, so I picked up the rules for that but haven't digested them yet.  It really looks like I am going to have to bite the bullet and get into Facebook though to help integrate into the gaming community down here.  *sigh*

The only other thing to note for January is I started and finished reading Caliban's War.  The second book in the Expanse series  Again, I can not believe that such frantic pacing can be maintained for the entire length of a book.  It manages to introduced some really great new characters that I hope to see again.  Hopefully this puts me far enough ahead that I can now watch the first season of the SyFy series.  For reading though, I think I am going to take a little break from this series and read something lighter, probably one of the new Star Wars books.  But then again Lois McMaster Bujold has a new book out:

This month (/next) we appear to be on course for closing and moving into a new house.  That should see the establishment of my new man cave, the return of all my tiny soldiers and my airbrush!  The harsh reality of this is that I probably wont have much actual time for hobbying for the rest of February and maybe part of March.