Distractions and Halcon

The problem with this hobby, which many of us suffer from, are the many distractions that come along the way and direct our hobby energies from one focus to another. Then some event pops up and we realize all the projects that are just hanging around.

Lately I've been distracted by the Dust Tactics models that for some reason I decided all needed to be painted. Originally my thought was to paint the flesh and then just put a wash over the whole figure because they come pre-primed anyways, all the Axis are grey and all the Allies are green. The detail is reasonably good so I thought the wash would be good enough to bring out the details but of course once I started my thought was, "well if I'm putting paint on them I might as well add some color".  So as it turned out I painted them up so each unit looked a little different than the others that way they would be easy to distinguish and though I didn't give them the full paint treatment I did more than I was planning. The sculpts look good and with a little effort they look pretty nice. I painted them all in about 2 weeks and am pleased with the way they look.

So then I wanted to do some prep to get a demo game of Malifaux ready for Halcon, a sci-fi/fan convention held in Halifax, Nova Scotia. And though I really like the ease of storage and transport of foam army cases the down side is, if I don't see the unpainted models I'm a lot less likely to paint them until I open the case and go "oh that's not painted yet". Anyways with all the Dust painting I've been doing I had no time to paint up any of the Malifaux figures that I probably should have been doing.

But Halcon went well. We ran two 4 hour demo sessions which seemed to go well with new players trying it out the whole time and the Saturday session probably could have gone for twice the time. The crews were kept small and simple but we did make some minor adjustments as we went to even the crew match ups a bit better for new players. We had two of us running the demos, me and Ian from the The Aether Vox, which worked out well as we always had someone available to explain game mechanics and also the abilities and possible tactics with the crews we were familiar with.

A couple of the guys from New Brunswick, Jordan and Tyler that had come down for my Malifaux weekend earlier this year were down for Halcon and even though I didn't get a game in with then it was good to see them and Tyler helped out a bit at the demo as well.

I also managed to get in a number of games in the last few weeks,  two games of Dust, the Strategy Game with my son, which is a fun and quick world conquest game.  I lost both of these games but in my defense the second game I gave Tristan some last turn advice which turned a potential tie to a win for him, but a well played game by him all around. I also played three games of Warmachine at the Superstore game night which was a lot of fun. I played two battle box games and one larger 25 pt game with 2 wins and 1 loss.  The next Superstore night I am getting in a game of Flames of War which I haven't played in some time so I am looking forward to that. There seems to be a number of players in the area so we might see if we can get an Infantry Aces campaign under way.

I guess that's it for now, see you in a few weeks. Oh ya, of course my Flames of War Germans aren't quite finished because they've been packed away!

Some of the costumes at Halcon.

The Stormtroopers looked great, better than the originals which I've seen at the Smithsonian.

The games room at Halcon.

The Malifaux demo table.

Demos in action, everyone seemed to enjoy it, Tyler's standing to the left.

Ian, offering sagely advice.

The Axis, Dust Tactics.

The Allies, Dust Tactics.