I started this to really work on my writing. I feel like I have completely failed in that regard, instead I got it into my head that I had to QUICKLY write up Battle Reports and get them posted as FAST as I possibly could.

Nobody is paying me, why am I rushing? And it’s not like I have readership, this is more of a personal war gaming journal than a real blog, I need to treat it that way. During my second week I have already gotten better at this, mostly due to a lack of time because of a giant pile of mulch I had delivered to my house. So while scooping and spreading mulch I had a lot of time to ponder why write like this?

I wanted to focus on building Narratives in my battle reports, something I need to work on. I don’t want to post about game mechanics (though I feel some explanation will always help give context) but about the stories I see while playing my games. I want to tell stories, even if no one reads them.

Infinity Escalation League: I played two more games, but I didn’t take pictures or plan to write a long battle report for either. I played against Corrigador in Panic Room, which I won because Sheskin walked into a room and killed everyone. And then one more game against Vanilla Nomads for Firefight, which started strong but then my Spitfire Noctifier got critical hit on a 1 which was fun, and then I had a combo of bad decisions and dice bad dice luck that lead to my defeat.

Other Games: I played Twilight Imperium 4 for the first time. That was fun. I don’t see it becoming a staple game we play every few months, first off getting 6 people together was hard and it wasn’t so fun for all seven and a half hours it took to make it worth doing. There was a lot of fun political drama, a great last turn play by the lead player (while 5 people ganged up on him) to score two quick secret objectives. The last two hours were amazing. The first 5 were OK, not a lot happens a small war happened between two factions and they were taken out of the game basically for 2 turns.

Hobby Stuff: With in laws in town I didn’t get much hobby time outside of my game time. But I did paint one piece of terrain and my Noctifier/Gwailo for Infinity.

Other hobby news for me is I completely gave up on Conquest Last Argument of Kings. If no one buys my models I may play a game or two just to use models I’ve spent a long time playing and assembling, but I am selling them dirt cheap so I hope that won’t be an issue. I have two main issues with Conquest, the first is the competitive mindset that they are designing the game with, down to the overly complex and wordy rules writing. I like a bit of silliness and chaos in my Rank and Flank games, I don’t want meticulous balance (which they “strive” for) and over worded rules.

A good example is my boy the Biomancer General, he used to have a supremacy ability that mathematically was very powerful (Though I suspect a lot of players were scared to use it because “Decay is scary” or some other strange line of thinking), it gave all your stands in your army extra attacks, benefiting brute stands the most. You had to design your army around it, but oh man was it powerful and it had an element of skill and fun. Now? Now he has a good ability. It is a straight up better ability. Any unit withing range of an objective can be target by biomancies (he also gains an ability to turn Light stands into Scoring Stands). Come stand in Circles. BORING. Good but BORING.

My other big issue is the 38mm scale. It’s just ridiculously big, I hate painting at that scale, I hate storing that scale, I hate moving them around. They currently take up an entire 4′ shelf plus two storage bins (for unbuilt and all the stuff I need to play Conquest). My 2000 + points of Dwarves for Old World? Takes up 1′ of shelf. Not to mention they could easily be used to play Kings of War (I want to try that) and Hobgoblin (love love love), my spires? Maybe could find second life as oversized DnD monsters (though technically they can be used to play Hobgoblin as 3 stands make up the largest allowed unit sizing). I hope they sell to someone who enjoys Conquest, and they get far more table time than they do now.

Novel Progress: LOL WHAT? I decided to make this a category to inspire my self to write. I am really hoping to be able to bring some finished work to Gen Con this year, and I have made no progress on either of my books. Zero. Zilch. None. Maybe if I keep doing these bi-weekly wrap ups I can eventually shame my self into finishing something.