Second half of 2022 on my painting desk & high lights WIP

 House Martell, Ancients & WW2 fighter planes 

dominate the desk

Back to Hamburger Tactica!

Good to be BACK!

Hamburger Tactica is my most favourite Wargames Show (I've been to Salute, Warfare and local smaller events too). It combines beautiful tables (Germans really excel at this), a good catering of demogames to play, good range of traders and after 4 visits already quite a bunch of nice people I've already gotten to know! Also "bring and buy" has always been a great opportunity to buy stuff you didn't really know you were needing! So it was good to back after too many years of break - I last visited in 2017.

Start - toasting with Michal from www.wargamer.pl - where we make a lot of club orders

 

Turning 50 and celebrating 35 years in the hobby with a BANG!!!

 Seven tables set for my gaming mates

Yes, I turned 50 this Summer and held several parties to my friends and family.

I also painted my first wargaming miniature some 35 years ago (I think it was a Chaos Dwarf of a Dark Elf that we used playing role playing games), so I wanted to set up a special event to celebrate these milestones with my wargaming mates. So on I went and decided to organize a (demo) games day at our Nopat & Taktiikka club here in Helsinki.

I brought miniatures and some terrain too, to set up 7 different games, recruited fellow gamers to run the demos and invited 20+ mates to come and play. Read on to find out what was on the menu!

ASOAIF: first go with House Martell

 Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken

ASOAIF community is buzzing about the approaching release (hopefully during Q4 this year) of this new faction for our favorite game! Last weekend in Gencon (US) the starter set and minis were shown to the public for the first time. Based on what was seen there and some information leaked before, the community has stitched together enough resources to facilitate actually giving Martells a go!

This week we played a first game with them, facing their current allies - House Targaryen!

Read on to learn how it all went down! 

First half of 2022 on my painting desk

 Tradition continues

It is my continuous struggle to finish the minis / units I start painting. I always paint for the next game I'll play and that leads to a situation, that I have several started and almost finished units in my painting queue. Playing a lot of campaigns is a good remedy for this, they bring continuity to my painting, during the campaign I will manage to finish (at least most of them) those units I've started to paint for the campaign. We have played campaigns for Song of Ice and Fire (no big surprise there), Saga (Limes)  and Infamy Infamy! So my armies for Picts (Saga) and Early Imperial Rome (Infamy infamy!) have been on the table, as have many units for different Song of Ice and Fire factions (that continues to be my absolute number one game)

My current status 213 painted minis for this year ( and probably an equal amount of started but not finished ones). I'm happy, that I've had the stamina to finish minis started last year or earlier too!

Read on and enjoy the eye candy. Comments and feedback are welcome!

Good ol' games back on the menu: Star Wars Legion and Blood Red Skies

 Decisions made

In my 2021 retrospect and 2022 plans post I wrote, that  SWL would be one of the five focus games for 2022 and BRS would be a game I would come back to (as would Infamy Infamy be as well, see a separate post on that). This plan has now come reality as I've has a pretty good "heat" with Star Wars Legion and Blood Red Skies playing has also been started recently and next games for both of them shall be played next week! 

At our club we have plenty of suitable terrain for Star Wars. Mates from the club have even adapted Dead Man's Hand rules to Star Wars. They call them Mos Espoo :-D

With Blood Red Skies I have so far only played with Imperial Japan. My plan is to paint some planes for Finland and Soviets too.

Armies on Parade: ASOIAF House Stark - updated 17.3.2023

 Winter is Coming

The Family

ASOIAF: First ever 2 day tournament @ Winter War event 5.-6.3.2022 and talking Stats

Clash of 18 Commanders

Winter War tournament has for many many years been the largest wargaming event in Finland, organized by our club Nopat & Taktiikka. It caters tournaments for many games including The 9th Age, Flames of War, MESBG, Bolt Action and this year for the first time ASOIAF TMG. I was organizing this tournament with my mate Jaakko as the second TO. Read all about it!

Hobby year 2021 in retrospect and plans for 2022

A good wargaming year

Looking back at 2021... we learned to cope with Covid-19 and with 2 vaccinations at least my hobby life was pretty normal, excluding large tournaments. Read on to learn about my wargaming and it's high lights.

Armies on Parade: House Baratheon - WIP - updated 16th of June 2022

Ours is the Fury!

When I got the opportunity to buy a large collection of Baratheons from a friend, I just couldn't resist it! Baratheons really don't play into my usual play style (strike fast, strike hard), but I really like many of the miniatures like Stag Knights and Rose Knights. So why the heck not!

Alester Florent, Stannis, Davos Seaworth & Master Warden

Warfare 2021

After a couple years break, I was fortunate to be able to travel to a Wargames Show again - just before the Omicron variant of Covid messed things up again! So we dared beyond the borders of EU, all the way to the misty and far far away Island of Britain! Warfare was now arranged in a new location, I guess to make it safer. My experience from 2017 was very good, so I was really looking forward to this!