Daily Chronicle: 1/28/2015 'Updated Painting Queue'

It has been awhile since I last wrote a 'Daily Chronicle', and since I will be heading out of town tomorrow for two weeks, I thought I'd do a quick post.

I haven't painted anything also in quite some time and I could not leave a new month, new year unpainted.  Seeing how I recently gotten a resurgence into Warhammer 40K (even though in my New Year's post I gave it a rank of '3' of getting back into the game) I decided to paint up two Space Marines for my Black Templars army.  I needed two more guys modeled with Bolt Pistol / CCW to complete one of my units.  This past weekend I was able to find two guys at Mercenary Market held at Empire Games here in Mesa.  So I decided to quickly get those two painted up so I can have some Painting Points for the month.

I also decided to update my Painting Queue on the right side.  I made the mistake of deleting the Bolt Action items instead of sliding them down, but anyways it is now updated with a few Warhammer 40K models.  I'll be constantly editing this section through out the year.

I am also happy that I was able to get quite a few games in this month also.  4 games of X-Wing, 2 games of Warhammer 40K and 8 games of The Lord of the Rings: TCG.

Looks like when I get back from vacation, most of February will also be devoted to these three games.  I'll need practice for the X-Wing store championships I'll be attending in March, plus my son and one of our friends will be starting a Warhammer 40K map campaign between the three of us so we can familiarize ourselves with the rules again.  Hopefully I'll also be able to paint some more models next month, at least get a few assembled and ready to go.

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D&D 5E: Hoard of the Dragon Queen 1/25/2015

Episode 6: Castle Naerytar  / Episode 7: The Hunting Lodge

The first thing we had to take care of today was getting our Cleric and Fighter conscious again.  Being a Level 5 Ranger, I had still had two spell slots remaining and one of my spells is Cure Wounds.  I quickly cast that on the Cleric so he could gain a few hit points.  Once the Cleric was conscious, he was able to cast Prayer of Healing with a Level 3 spell slot and we all regained 20 additional hit points.  Once we were all on our feet again we were ready to continue through the castle and carry on.

We managed to find the steps leading to the dungeon of the castle and hopefully our way out.  Once in the dungeon we came across a pool of water and we saw looed to be a gem sparkling in the water.  Our Rogue use Mage Hand to reach in and grab the gem.  Thinking it was safe, our Fighter got greedy and reached into the water to scoop up some gold and some kind of glob dripped onto him causing some acid burns.  Once we took care of the glob, the Rogue continued to scoop up the remaining valuables.

Continuing through the dungeon we managed to come into a room that was filled with mist, all but our Cleric rolled poorly on our Perception rolls and the Cleric being short as he is, managed to see on the ground what looked to be markings of a teleport.  Our Dwarf Cleric shouted out the words "DRAZIR" and poof, we all vanished.

The next thing we realized we were all standing in a wooded forest and what looked to be a lodge in the distance.  We decided to proceed towards the lodge and enter.  We searched most of the first floor and the second floor with not much alarm, until we were approached by four guards.  The guards had said that Talis has been expecting us.  Not wanting to put up a fight at this moment, we decided to see what Talis had wanted from us.  When we met Talis and asked what she wanted, she said that she has been watching us from the beginning and has an offer for us.  She believes that her ranking in the Cult should be higher than what it is, and wants us to eliminate Rezmir.  Talis also mentioned to us that she will provide guidance on reaching Skyreach Castle and will also provide a pass-phrase.  We accepted Talis's offer with the condition that she provide us food and shelter for the night and we will continue the journey in the morning.

That was all the time we had for today's session.  By completing Episode 6 and Episode 7, we all gained 2 levels.  Myself, my youngest son the Cleric, the Rogue are all Level 7, and my oldest son the Fighter is now Level 8.

We will be missing the next two weeks,  So stay tuned later in February as we eneter the final episode of the adventure 'Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

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Bolt Action: Errata and FAQ Updated 01/21/2015

Alessio Cavatore and Warlord Games have just updated the Errata and FAQ for Bolt Action.

You can download the latest version here:

Besides addressing their new Theater books and special named characters, they made a few core changes to the game.

Here are some of the key changes and clarification:

Errata:

Flamethrower (vehicles) are now range 12” instead of previously being 18”. Players feel flamethrowers on vehicles are too over powering and most tournaments in the US have started to ban these options. With the range now being 12”, we’ll see if that levels the playing field.

FAQ:

Assaults: Assaulting around/through an obstacle was clarified. The charge move of the first model is what matters. If he has room to go around the obstacle then assault the squad, they will attack first instead of simultaneous. They include a picture as a reference.

Armies of Germany: They also covered four questions regarding the one shot use of flamethrowers that are used with Eintossflammenwerfer Team.

A few more clarifications were also made but I do not see any of them being too major.

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X-Wing: Arizona Store Championships (Winter 2015)

Well it is that time of year for the Winter X-Wing Store Championship season here in Arizona.  Below is a list of the current stores, dates, and times of their events (special thanks goes out to the 'Phoenix Squadron' for this list.)




January 29th 2015, 6:00 PM: Tucson Gadget and Games (Tucson)
January 31st 2015, 10:30 AM Registration / 12:00 PM Start: Game Depot (Mesa)
February 7th 2015, 11:00 AM: Desert Sky Games (Gilbert)
February 21st 2015, 11:00 AM: Imperial Outpost Games (Glendale)
February 28th 2015, 1:00 PM: A2Z Games (Tucson)
March 14th 2015, 12:00 PM: Empire Games (Mesa)

Here is the prize packet each store is receiving for the Winter season.

Personally I plan on attending the one on March 14th at Empire Games, my son is already registered for February 7th at Desert Sky Games and more than likely also be attending Empire Games with me.  We may alos attend the one in Tucson on February 28th, that one still depends on my availablility.

I am really looking forward to my first large event for X-Wing, my plan is to go just to have 'fun'.

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D&D 5E: Hoard of the Dragon Queen 1/18/2015

Episode 6: Castle Naerytar continued

Today's adventure has us continuing to search through the castle to find more clues about the Cult of the Dragon Queen.  We had two encounters today, so not much exploring was done.  From where we left off last week, we headed upstairs to the 3rd floor of the castle and found ourselves inside what looked to be an observatory.  As we were investgating what looked like a telescope (but with the possibly of showing us the future), we were attacked by 4 gargoyles made of stone.  Being made of stone our mundane weapons did hot do much damage to them, only magical weapons had full effect.  It took us quite awhile to bring down these gargoyles, but we finally managed.  We also did manage to find some kind of a keyword, "DRAZIR", not sure what that means yet but I am sure we will be finding out.

We then headed back downstairs to the first floor to continue our exploration.  As soon as we arrived at the 1st floor landing we were approached by 8 cultists and 4 dragonclaws and they gave us a riddle: "when the sun is high", after two failed attempts at the riddle, we decided to attack.... 4 on 12.... we were abe to bring down pretty easily, but being outnubered 3:1 was pretty tough.  We eventually defeated them, but or Fighter and Cleric are both now unconscious.

We ended our session at this point and will continue next week...........

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Battle Report: W40K 1/16/2015

Yes, you read the post title correctly, a battle report for Warhammer 40K.  The last time I played a game of Warhammer 40K (W40K) was just about 2 years ago with my friend Gyan.  We were just learning the rules for 6th Edition.  So I have only played 1 game in the last 5 years.  7th Edition was released this past May (2014) and over the summer my son picked up a copy of the new rulebook with the intentions of playing with one of our friend Gyan.  That did not pan out for him and the books have been sitting on the shelf.

On the 1st of this year when I wrote "What's in store for 2015" I had brought up Warhammer 40K and out of a rating of 1-10 for getting back into the game, I gave it a 3.  Well that changed last night,  the last few days I have been contemplating getting back into the game and started to look at the new rules to see what has changed and if I remember any of it.  I also downloaded some of the GW enhanced Codexes to my iPad.  How serious am I for getting back into W40K, that is still to be determined.  I did sell a lot of my armies 5 years ago, but did manage to also keep quite a few, plus I still have plenty of unfinished models.  I am right now debateing on if wee to purchase another rulebook.  It is nice for each player to have copy rather than handing the book back and forth.

For my first game back I decided to play with my Imperial Guard, or should I say Astra Militarum.  My son elected to go with his Space Marines Salamanders force led by Vulkan.  We were just going to be playing 1000 points since I knew a lot of the time was going to be with our heads in the rullebook.

For deployment we just did standard 12" and we elected to play the mission 'Purge the Alien'.  The Imperial Guard force I was playing was all Mechanized and my son had quite a few Multi-Mela guns.  Ths was going to be good.

To keep things super quick, I ended up winning 10-4 at the end of Turn 6.  I managed to just about kill everything he had except for his Terminator Squad.  The Salamanders managed to get a couple Chimera's, a Veteran Squad and received a point for being in my Deployment Zone.

We still have a lot to refresh with in the rules.  Neither of us had Psykers or Flyers so we did not cover any of those rules, and we only managed 1 round of combat.

Once thing I am not liking about this edition is the wound allocation for shooting, not really sure if I like the fact that closest model takes the wound first and keep applying the wounds to him until he fails a save (if I read the rules right on this).  I'll need to re-read and look at any FAQ's.

Here are a few pics from the game.

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Battle Foam: X-Wing Wave 4, Large Ships, Huge Ships

The foam I ordered from Battle Foam for our added X-Wing miniatures was finally ready to be picked up today (2 weeks from order to pickup).  I sent my son this morning to pick it up so later today/tomorrow we can finally put away the new ships.

I think with these added foam trays, we may need to order a larger bag (I guess we'll find out shortly).

We ordered the Wave 4 expansion, Huge Ships, and the new Large Ship foam trays.  The Large Ship foam tray has room for the new VT-49 x2 and YT-2400 x2, plus additional space for 2x YT-1300, 2x Firespray-31 and 1x Lambda-class Shuttle.  Now we have room for our 3rd YT-1300.  Looks like we'll need a couple more Firespray-31's, Lambda and another YT-2400.

The Huge Ship tray will be housing the Rebel Transport and Tantive IV expansion packs, and the Wave 4 tray will hold all of our Wave 4 expansions (currently housed in spots that fit in our other trays).

Long term goal = fill every spot we have :)

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D&D 5E: Hoard of the Dragon Queen 1/11/2015

Episode 6: Castle Naerytar

Continuing from where we left off, our adventuring party was now approaching Castle Naerytar.  We dismembarked from our canoes and started to make our way towards the castle.  We were approached by some Lizardfolk and talked our way into having them show us the direction to the castle entrance.  Instead of always 'hacking' out way through the adventure, I thought today would be best to try and talk our way out of some of the encounters.

We entered the castle and started making our way through the ground floor.  Most of the encounters we used the same story that we were working for the 'Cult of the Dragon Queen' and that Rezmir (a half dragon) was expecting us.  When we approached the inner ward of the castle we were attacked by 3 guard drakes.  Now that we are all at level 5 and our fighter level 6, the guard drakes were no match for us.  We continued our exploration and came across a guest room that looked to be occupied.  We rummaged through the dresser drawers and came acroos some red robes (we believe they belong to a red wizard we encountered on our caravan) and a small locked wooden box.  At that moment a fireball shot into the room catching the room on fire, our party took full damage except my Wood Elf Ranger only suffered from half damage.  Once we regained some hit points we attempted to pick the lock of the wooden box.  We left that to our Rogue, he picked the lock and opened the box and an acid arrow shot right at him causing enough damage to bring his hit points to 0.  Our Cleric stabilized him and then healed him with some magic.

We were at our stopping point for the day.  In the room we found a spiral staircase leading to the second floor of the castle and we will continue from that point next week.

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Battle Report: X-Wing 1/10/2015

With the 'Store Championship' season quickly approaching for X-Wing, 'Dark Knight' and I got in another 100 point game in yesterday afternoon.  I wanted to test out a Rebel list that I played once before and wanted to see how it did again.  I know we will more than likely be attending one of the store championships (probably at Empire Games on 3/14/2015) and I may be able to attend at least one more.  My son more than likely will also be attending at least 2-3 himself.

Game: Dogfight
Points: 100

'Wes, Wedge, Luke' [100] (Arrow)
Wes Janson (X-Wing) [30]
[Veteran Instincts]
Wedge Antilles (X-Wing) [33]
[Opportunist]
Luke Skywalker (X-Wing) [37]
[RD-D2, Draw Their Fire, Shield Upgrade]

'Han Shoots First' [99] (Dark Knight)
Han Solo (YT-1300) [57]
[Millennium Falcon, Marksmanship, Gunner, Dash Rendar]
Rookie Pilot (X-Wing) [21]
Rookie Pilot (X-Wing) [21]

All I can is that I missed flying without a large ship and all the Shields/Hull.  I decided to take a little bit more aggresive approach and go right after the Rookie Pilots.  That was a mistake and I should have concentrated my fire power on Han Solo first.  I did not realize how easily Han was taking damage once I started firing at him, but by the I was already down an X-Wing.

"Arrow's" Starting Fleet

"Dark Knight's" Starting Fleet

Wes, Wedge, Luke concentrate on a Rookie Pilot.

Rookie Pilot #2 shoots down Wes.

With Han's help, Rookie Pilot #2 finishes Luke.

Han takes a close shot at Wedge and destroys him.

With Wedge being the same PS as Han, Wedge

Fires back at Han and brings down the Falcon.

'Dark Knight' got is first win of 2015.  

The Rookie PIlot #2 was the last ship flying and the MVP of the game.

Now it will be time to playtest another list (probably with a large ship in it).

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LotR-LCG 'Journey Down the Anduin'

Date: 1/10/2015
Quest: Journey Down the Andun
Number of Players: 2
Heroes Player 1: Eowyn, Dwalin, Dunhere
Heroes Player 2: Legolas, Gimli, Thalin
Result: Success
Score: 148
Quest Mode: Easy

After four attempts at 'Jouney Down the Anduin' my son and I finally completed the quest on the fifth attempt.  We attempted the quest originally with the same decks we used in 'Passage Through Mirkwood', but that was not workng for us.  So I then elected to play with the 'Spirit' sphere, and my son was playing with the 'Tactics' sphere (he had to give up his Aragorn from the 'Ledership sphere).

When the first attempts with those two spheres failed, we then elected to customize our decks with some of the player cards from the next two Adventure Packs ('The Hunt For Gollum' and 'Conflict At The Carrock') we then also picked up the next expansion 'Khazad Dum' and added a few of those player cards and the hero Dwalin.

After those changes, we actually managed to complete the quest and were in no danger at all to losing the quest.  The 'Spirit' sphere did it's part in keeping my threat costs low, and the 'Tactics' sphere took care of defeating the larger enemies.  Our final score was 148.

After we completed 'Journey Down the Anduin' we then attempted the third quest in the Core set, 'Escape from Dol Guldur' with the same two decks.  This quest is the hardest of the three in the Core set.  From the get go we were doomed........ stay tuned for more on this quest.

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X-Wing Goodies

It feels like it must be Christmas.... Oh wait it is.  Being Eastern Orthodox, today is Christmas for my family and I.  So of course I had to add some X-Wing goodies for my oldest son and I.  I decided to finally add some of the Huge ships we were missing, and to duplicate some of our other models.

Here is a list of what we got.:

Rebel Transport Expansion Pack (new)
Tantive IV Expansion Pack (new)
Millennium Falcon Expansion Pack (#3)
Lambda-class Shuttle Expansion Pack (#2)
VT-49 Decimator Expansion Pack (#2)
TIE Phantom Expansion Pack (#2)

(not shown: TIE Phantom)

Now I just need to wait for my Battlefoam order to be ready so I have room to store all these ships.

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X-Wing: Z-95 Headhunter #4

I had forgotten to mention the other day that while we were at Desert Sky Games on New Year's Day playing Dungeons & Dragons, my son and I decided to add another Z-95 Headhunter Expansion to our collection.  This will make ship #4 for the Z-95's.

I decided to slowly build these ships up to eventually be able to play with a Rebel swarm, plus since my son and I share all the models, we can now play with 2 each if need be.

You can see our collection of X-Wing models HERE

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Battle Report: 1/3/2015 X-Wing

My son (Dark Knight) and I (Arrow) played our first game of X-Wing for 2015 last night and it was brutal for the Galactic Empire.

I wanted to try out a new version for me of a 'Han Shoots First' list, and my son elected to play with the Empire.  I was shocked, he always plays the Rebels and this was only his second time with the Empire.

Game: Dogfight
Points: 100

'Han Shoots First XY' [100] (Arrow)
Han Solo (YT-1300) [62]
[Millennium Falcon, Engine Upgrade, Veteran Instincts, C-3PO, Luke Skywalker]
Biggs Darklighter (X-Wing) [25]
Tala Squadron Pilot (Z-95) [13]

'Vaders Squad' [100] (Dark Knight)
Darth Vader (TIE Advanced) [33]
[Expose]
Dark Curse (TIE Fighter) [16]
Winged Gundark (TIE Fighter) [15]
Alpha Squadron Pilot (TIE Interceptor) [18]
Alpha Squadron Pilot (TIE Intereptor) [18]

Just about all of the asteroids were in the center of the battlefield, so my plan of attack was to sweep around my left side edge and hit the Empire from behind.  Well the Empire just about had the same plan for themselves, lucky for me Darth Vader had some bad flying skills which casued him to land on top of two asteroids eliminating his chance of any shots against Han.  The Rebels took advantage of this and Han got some early shots into Vader and lowered his shield.  Tala put in a few shots on Vader and eventually Han finshed Vader off.

One of the Empire's TIE Fighter was strong enough to bring down Biggs Darklighter, but Tala then returned fire and shot down the TIE Fighter.  Rest of the Empire fleet then made easy work of Tala and now they had to attempt to bring down Han.

This was not happening and Han easily brought down the rest of the ships.

Rebel Win

A huge mistake with Vaders flying cost 'Dark Knight' the game.  I think Vader needed to fly with 2 of the TIE Interceptors and concentrate on Han (and avoiding asteroids), the the TIE Fighters on the X-Wing and Z-95.

Obviously I had fun because I won, hopefully 'Dark Knight' did to.  It's just a game and I'm glad to see he changed it up and played the Empire instead of the Rebels.  Part of the fun of this game is getting to play with all the different ships.

Rebel Fleet

Empire Fleet

Han lowers the shields on Vader.

Han fires to his backside to finish Darth Vader.

Biggs goes down to the Empire.

Tala returns fire on the TIE Fighter.

Han up close and personal to finish a TIE Interceptor.

Long range shot and brings down a TIE Fighter.

TIE Interceptor flanks Tala for the killshot.

Han with the final blow.

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LotR-LCG: 'Passage Through Mirkwood' (normal)

Date: 1/2/2015
Quest: Passage Through Mirkwood
Number of Players: 2
Heroes Player 1: Legolas, Gimli, Thalin
Heroes Player 2: Aragorn, Gloin, Theodred
Result: Success
Score: 116
Quest Mode: Normal

Later in the evening yesterday my son and I attempted to replay 'Passage Through Mirkwood' in 'normal' mode.  This was only the second time playing the game and first in this mode.  I thought for sure we were going to get slaughtered.  Lucky for us, the Encounter Deck was in our favor.  Seeing how we were also a little bit more familiar with the rules and our card texts we were able to play some combinations that easily took down the enemies.  We managed to complete the adventure in only 4 turns. We played this adventure still using the starter decks and we will probably attempt the next adventure with the same decks.  I think once we play the third adventure that has a difficulty rating of 7, we'll probably have to customize our decks.

The next adventure will be 'Journey Down the Anduin'.  We will probably be playing this one sometime later this week.  So stay tuned.

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LotR-LCG: 'Passage Through Mirkwood' (easy mode)

Date: 1/2/2015
Quest: Passage Through Mirtkwood
Number of Players: 2
Heroes Player 1: Legolas, Gimli, Thalin
Heroes Player 2: Aragorn, Gloin, Theodred
Result: Success
Score: 169
Quest Mode: Easy

My son and I just completed our first quest for the Lord of the Rings: The Card Game.  Seeing how this was our very first time playing this game, we decided to play it in 'easy' mode instead of 'normal'.  It took us awhile to go through the first couple of turns since we were following the rulebook for each Phase to make sure we do not miss a step, plus we were still getting familiar with all the cards.  The game probably took us about 4 hours to complete (yes, that's a long time) but it included a lunch break.  Tonight we are to tackle the same adventure again, but this time in 'normal' mode.  Hopefully we'll be able to get through it a little faster (seeing how we'll be having 'The Fellowship of the Ring' playing on the TV, it may not take us any faster).

It is still a bit to early for me to decide how much I like this game, but one benefit for me is the Co-op play style.  It is a nice change of pace to actually work together with my son rather than always trying to beat him like in all the other games.  I can see for this reason alone that we'll be continuing to play this game.

Fantasy Flight Games also offers a nice Quest Log tracker online to keep track of all the adventures you played and the outcome of your results.  To access the log, click HERE.

I'll be updateing my stats online, plus I'll continue to do a short write up like this one here.

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D&D 5E: Hoard of the Dragon Queen 1/1/2015

In yesterday's blog post I mentioned I am going to include some of the other games I/we are playing like Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.  Seeing how we are a couple months into the adventure I will just continue these going forward instead of catching the blog back up.  I will try and keep these pretty short and quick.

Yesterday on New Year's Day 2015 we continued our adventure in 'Hoard of the Dragon Queen'.  We are playing with a Level 5 Human Fighter, a Level 4 Wood Elf Ranger (me), a Level 4 Dwarf Cleric and a Level 4 Wood Elf Rogue.

Currently in our adventure we are on a 60 day journey taking us from the town of Balders Gate to Waterdeep.  We are traveling with a caravan and tracking down some Dragon Cultists who we discovered are carrying gold and jewels up North.  During this journey we are met with some encounters.  Yesterday we picked up on Day 22 of our journey and ran into a few more encounters.  The first encounter was 'The Golden Stag' in which our caravan approached the stag.  Most of the members of our caravan that we were riding with wanted to hunt down the stag, with a few that wanted to protect it.  Beeing a Wood Elf Ranger with a background in Outlander and the ability to favor Beasts and Forests, I wanted to track down the stag and learn some information.  I succesfully tracked the stag into the forest and approached the beautiful golden stag.  We spoke in the Elvish tongue and he was grateful that I did not harm him.  He presented me with a Magical Golden Bow +1.  We also learned information that we must follow the golden river to the castle in the sky.  I then found my way back to caravan and we continued on to Waterdeep.

Our second encounter 'Payback' we came across a man buried in the middle of the road up to his head.  We managed to dig him out and then magically healed him so we can gain some more information.  He also told us he was working for the same people as us and was a member of the 'Harpers' organization.  He provided us information that we needed to find a roadhouse that was North of Waterdeep.

We finally reached the city of Waterdeep and quickly settled any debts we had from our journey.  We were hired on as workers the next day to fix a road from Waterdeep to Neverwinter.  Once we reached the roadhouse our Fighter was recognized from our 60 day journey from one of the Cultists and was challenged in a duel.  While he was fighting the rest of us decided to search the roadhouse and came across a trap door.  The Fighter won his fight and we waited for nightfall to back through the trap door.  As we picked the lock to the storeage room (where the trap door was located) we came across 6 Lizardfolk, the 4 of us quickly defeated them and we descended down the door that lead us through a tunnel to a swamp.  When we reached the swamped I noticed some footprints and we decided to follow those to a Lizardfolk camp.  We were then approached by 9 more Lizardfolk and took down 8 of them and knocking out the last 1 so we can interogate him.  Once he awoken, the Fighter intimidated him to provide us with some information that would lead us to the castle.  We then decided to rest at the Lizardfolk camp.

We then ended our adventure for the day, with all of us gaining a new level.  I am looking forward to seeing what Level 5 will bring my Wood Elf Ranger.  Our next session will not be until 1/11/2015.

I guess I really didn't keep this short :)

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Happy New Year! What's in store for 2015

First off to any readers out there, I would like to wish a Happy New Year 2015!

As you can notice, I spent some time last night going back to a simplified template for Blogger.  I still have some work I need to continue on it today/tomorrow.  One reaon going back to simplified was the Blogger app for iPad.  Now when I use the app to write a post, my fonts will match the template.  With my advanced template I was running, the Blogger app would publish my posts in a large font and not match my site.

Today is the day we try and make a plan for our hobbying/gaming for the upcoming year.  I hope you read yesterday's post on what was and was not accomplished for 2014 and we will be expanding on that.

First off I'd like to say again that 2014 was a good year for me in regards to hobbying/gaming.  I picked up the paint brush again after a long hiatus and finished quite a few armies for Bolt Action and had my second highest 'Painting Points' total ever.  On a personal note, the end of 2014 was not too good to me.  The Monday before Thanksgiving my Father past away after being on this earth for 79 years.  It was all of a sudden and we were not expecting it.  Your life changes after something like that and we had to make arrangements to send him back to Chicago and for my family to all go back there.  Now a lot of my time is going to be helping my Mother out to make sure she can continue with the finances and what not.

Bolt Action

On that note we are going to be starting with Bolt Action.  With 'Gathering in the Desert' not happening this year, I was going to be organizing a 1 day tournament for Bolt Action, 'Operation Desert Assault' on April 18th, 2015 (www.operationdesertassault.com), but with the circumstances mentioned above, I had to cancel/postpone the event.  I am unsure exactly what our family situation will be at that time and I may have to devote some finances to my Mother.  I am hoping to maybe just postpone the event to maybe late August or early September.

Gaming:  Bolt Action will more than likely be a top 2 game for me this year.  With 3 fully painted armies, ease of rules, I definitely see this game hitting the table a lot this year, either in the smaller 600 point games, larger 1000 point games or even Tank Wars.

Modeling:  This will be a tough one, I do not want to get my hopes up to high for the year.  I still have planty of models for the game that need to be painted for the three armies I have.  I think to be safe to say, I will concentrate on those models before I venture off on any new armies (but we never know).

X-Wing

Gaming:  In 2014 I was really amazed on how much I really like this game.  100 points in 75 minutes with quick setup and pack up.  I have a feeling this will be my number 1 played game for the year.  I am even going to try to attend some of the local tournaments / store championships with a 'lets have fun' attitude and get some more games in.  I along with my son recently joined the 'Phoenix Squadron' gaming club on Facebook to be more in touch with X-Wing events here in Phoenix.  I am hoping to get more games in with the members this year.  With the new Star Wars movie coming out in December, I can see a late push in the year getting more games in.

Collecting:  Well there is not much modeling in this game (I am not one to paint the already pre-painted models).  So we make this paragraph about Collecting.  My goal for the year will be to have all the ships in the collection as they are released.  We are pretty close to it at this point except for the 'huge ships'.  We'll be sure to add those also to our collection even though they may not see much playing time.  Obviously some of the ships we collect, we will have mulitples.  I am also going to get caught up on the 'Battlefoam' that we need for our ships.  I still need foam for Wave IV and Wave V and maybe a dedicated abag (currently we share the same bag for Bolt Action), this one I am unsure about and it will soley depend on the finances.

Dungeons & Dragons

Gaming:  Back in August my family got into D&D 5E and I am really enjoying it.  We meet every Sunday (when we can) at Desert Sky Games from 12pm-2pm (we actually also played today to make up some time from the Holidays).  We currently playing the first adventure "Horde of the Dragon Queen" and I hope we finish that one shortly and continue on to the second adventure "The Rise of Tiamat".  We will see what other adventures it brings us afterwards.  I think for 2015 we will stick to just one RPG game, with everything else I have, there is not time to expand into any of the others.  I even went out and purchased a new iPad Air just for this game (so I can have a larger viewing character sheet over my iPad Mini).

Collecting:  Even though they do have models you can use for D&D, we currently do not need them for our adventures and I do no expect to be purchasing any.  Even though Wizkids did just release D&D Attack Wing which is very similiar to X-Wing.... OK, let's not go there.....

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

Gaming:  With the recent end of the year sale at our LGS Empire Games, my son and I decided to pick the core set for this game and the first 2 adventure packs.  I know this game is a 'living card game' and can get quite expensive to keep up with it.  All we have done so far was the get the card in their sleeves and start reading the rulebook.  We are planning to start our adventures tomorrow January 2nd.  We were debating between LotR and Star Wars, but with us already playing X-Wing and with the final release of the Hobbit movie recently, we elected to go with LotR.  Stay tuned to this site to follow our adventures while we learn the game.

Collecting:  OH BOY!!!! as long as we really enjoy this game, I can see us going back and catching up on all the expansion and adventure packs....

Now I am going to talk about some of our other games that we have previously played and may or may not make a comeback.  I know my son is going to be reading this, so these are a very slim chance and don't get your hopes up to high.

Warhammer 40K

Gaming:  I still have some armies left for this game (I did not sell them all).  I know I do not have the current ruleset (I don't think I even had the previous edition rules).  I would need to evaluate the cost of purchasing a rulebook to how much we would actually play before I make the leap and get a game in.

Modeling; I do not plan on any modeling at the moment.  I think I have still have at least 2000 points of Chaos Space Marines that need assembling and painting let alone quite a few models for my son. 

So there is a very slim chance in getting back into Warhammer 40k.  On a scale of 1-10, I would rank it a 3.

Warhammer Fantasy Battles

Gaming:  Even though I spent a little money and time getting some of my models out last year, I honestly do not see this game hitting the table in 2015.  I think Kings of War would stand a better chance.  Rank 1.

Modeling:  I do not see this happening in 2015, my son may be disappointed at this decision since we were thinking about updateing his Wood Elves last year.

Warmachine

Gaming:  I don't think I played a game of Warmachine since 2011 (maybe got a game in 2012, not sure).  I believe my rulebooks are still current and we do have quite a few fully painted armies.  I can maybe see getting in at least 1 or 2 games this year....anymore than that wil depend if the bug to replay bites.  Rank 3.

Modeling:  I have a Khador unit that needs to be finished.  Probably will not happen unless I really feel like painting.

Flames of War

Gaming:  There may be a chance for a game or two, but no plans at the moment.  Rank 2.

Modeing:  This may happen only because I would use the tanks in Bolt Action Tank Wars.

Legends of the Old West

Gaming:  If not Legends of the Old West (since Warhammer Historicals no longer exists) maybe another Old West skirmish game that may be out there.  Rank 2.

Modeling:  I have plenty of model and terrain for Old West that still needs to be painted.  Slim but a possibility.

Onto some possible new games in 2015.

Kings of War

Gaming:  Since I do not own any specific Kings of War armies (unless I can utilize some of my WFB armies) this is another slim chance unless the Fantasy bug decides to bite me this year.  Rank 2.

Modeling:  Not in the foreseeable future, but the models are not too expensive.

Beyond the Gates of Antares

Gaming:  This is a new Science Fiction game from Warlord Games that is based off of Bolt Action and written by Rick Priestly.  I also love Sci-Fi as much as Fantasy.  If I decide the pricing to get back into Warhammer 40K is too much, I may have to dive into this game.  Currently the rules are in Beta and are availble for free to download.  I'll have to spend some time in the very near future and give them a read thru to see how much I like the game.  Knowing the rules for Bolt Action, I should be able to easily understand them.  Rank 7.

Modeling:  They have just recently released some models for the game.  I have yet to see any up in person.  If I like the rules, I may order some to take a look at them.

Ok, I think I am now starting to stretch myself thin again.  Besidies gaming, my family and I have plenty of other hobbies.  We as a whole family love to go to the gun range (so ammo takes money), plus my youngest son just recently got into model rocketry, so I am spending time with him going to club launches.  Plus I used to race RC cars and Slot Cars and haven't touched those much last year either. Then there is the personal fitness.  In the Summer I started my diet again and picked up road cycling.  So I have been trying to ride as much as I can each week also.  It has been very busy.

I have also been thinking about consolidating/adding some of my other hobbies into this site (the model rocketry) and including D&D and LotR; The Card Game and others.  The name will still be The Old West Chronicle, but instead of 'Wargaming Out West' maybe 'Gaming Out West' or 'Hobby Life Out West'.  Making the blog more of an everyday blog instead of just a wargaming blog.  I am still undecided on this one.

I believe that is all for now....  time to start hitting the gaming tables for the year.

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