The Man Cave: April 2024

20 April 2024

ShireCon 24

While lamenting the loss of our No 1 Wargaming apprentice (who regularly kicks our arses on the table, just to show what fantastic instructors we are), Slowpainter John and I attended ShireCon over the weekend. This is a small and relatively new show, at the same venue at MOAB held in late Sep). We also caught up some some locally infamous characters, including Frank showcasing his awesome "Blood on the Sands" gladiator game and experimenting with some new gladiators classes

Head Lanista Frank showcasing his great Gladiator game

Interestingly, there were zero traders, just games and a bring and buy. On offer was some Kings of War, a small 40k tourney, and a Blood Bowl 7s competition "The Outback Cup"

A dozen or so BB coaches focused on their game

Some snazzy Black Orcs lead their team!

The Outback Cup - now in its fourth year (not counting COVID!)

This quick play "Grimdark Future" game was being demoed and had quite a bit of interest - basically a "not KillTeam", the basic rules and army lists are available FREE through the website here: https://www.onepagerules.com/games/grimdark-future-firefight

Some Old World action at play

Back to Blood on the Sands, it was great to see Frank running some new players through the game, as well as experimenting with four new Gladiator classes - looking forward to givng them ago.

The Lansita's T-shirt says it all really... :-)

Frank also had samples of his new custom dice on show, as well as some mdf hex tile arena which really look the business

New dice!

The newly available mdf hex tile arena

I got a few small treasures from the Bring and buy, this "Legion A-A5 speeder truck" from the Star War Legion line, with a view to using it in 5 Parsecs from Home for my crew to boost around in. Now it needs a snazzy paintjob!

01 April 2024

Adieu AHPC Season XIV

Another year and another great Dad & Lad hobby event! Naturally, we lost some productivity by playing games against one another, but its a great problem to have and we both met our challenge targets which was great!

From Paul:

With my work schedule having me away for more than a third of the Challenge, I set a modest target to achieve 8,000 lifetime challenge points (over 10 Challenges) but ended up cracking a thousand points for only the fourth time, and submitted above my last few years' average.

More lead models than plastic this year, so it felt like a thousand points worth carrying it!

I had a couple of different projects prepped but in November & December we enjoyed a few games of To The Strongest, which reinvigorated our stalled Roman Civil Wars project from AHPC IX. That became a throughly wonderful focus and I've now got the army ready for the tabletop to face Alan, which is exciting! Naturally, there was space for some Beastmen to celebrate the release of The Old World too :-)

And cumulatively, my 10 Challenges look thus:

(Season VI isn't spoken of in polite company...)

And this was a unique event in the history of AHPC, and wont happen again I'm sure!

Thanks for the Project inspiration and keeping me on track mate!

From Reilly:

While thoroughly distracted with preparing to move house, I set a low bar to get the last few units done in order to finish my 3000+ point Warhammer Fantasy Battles Spider Goblin army. Whilst happy that I managed to get the few units done, inevitably with the release of The Old World more units to paint came flooding in and the project continues to grow.

These massive spiders never cease to impress me
with their presence on the table... before they die.

From us both: Many thanks indeed to our Minion Millsy (the Antopodean 'paint and sip' sessions were excellent!) the broader minion crew that made Season XIV happen, and the wonderful AHPC community for their encouragement, banter and kind comments.

As ever the lion's share of gratitude goes to Curt and Lady Sarah - another wonderful hobby event, and thankyou for your tireless enthusiasm and passion for this project!!!