February is weird

 In case you missed it, Beasts of War is running Mercs Week. Check it out. They do good work, and Mercs totally deserves the coverage.

So yes, February is all but behind us. Not much actual gaming for me, but things happening in the backfield. 

Spent a few nights recently getting stuff ready to sell at Cold Wars next week. Looking forward to the show! My to-buy list is already as long as my arm, and I know I will wander into awesome surprises there as well. A little Gaslight on Friday; evening game up in the air. Selling stuff Saturday morning, then more gaming, Catching up with a friend who lives up near there Saturday night, too. Action packed!

Will be selling off some of my Imperial Guard there as well. I haven't played 40k for a couple years now, and it's just taking up space in the basement. (And selling it will fund more purchases, heh.) I kind of wish I hadn't checked eBay prices ahead of time, because wow. But really, the plan for the past couple years has been to eBay them, and it hasn't happened. And pricing them to move at Cold Wars will get them out faster and I won't have to fiddle with the post office. So there's that.

My compatriot Imam is also asking me to sell off his Flames of War British while I am at the con. Yep, the army he loaned me while I (slowly) got my Cobra together.

Not pictured: the other large infantry platoon.

But in exchange, he's loaned me an even-larger Hungarian army. Switcheroo! Will have to schedule some time to play with lists in EasyArmy.com.

When he was over, we also played more Gloom (which my wife won) and then some Ticket to Ride (which my wife won. She's good.) I actually met Imam on Usenet back when such a thing was vaguely relevant. We don't do as much toy soldier gaming as we used to, but make up for it with the board games, and apparently, loaning me armies. He's a prince among men.

Next update likely to be the post-Cold Wars report.

checking out Infinity and Dark Age, and more

Just throwing up a few quick pics. Last week, hit up my Friendly Local Game Store to check out a couple games. They're starting up an Infinity campaign, and Infinity is popular enough online to be on my radar, but a game with which I was at best vaguely acquainted.

This is a TAG. They are apparently scary.

Primarily, was watching Aaron take his Yu Jing to face off against Mike's Ariadna. The game itself is similar to other games I play, alternating unit activation, point builds, etc. I do like the reaction system better than Mercs (which is a little awkward.) The rules are definitely on the more believable side of scifi, with a lot of details, but does not feel overly strict. The setting has a lot of charm. Currently thinking Nomads or Haqqislam, if/when I buy in, but that's a while off either way.

The game also demands a high level of terrain, and I am a big fan of that. The above table, which I know I took pics of before, continues to impress. Doubly so in that it's more modular and transportable than it looks.

The other table featured some Morat on Morat action. I didn't check who won, but I presume Marc acquitted himself well in battle.

The surprise game of the night was when a game of Brushfire broke out! Usually it's my crew that's playing the game no one else has heard of. Lovely figs, too.

The other reason I showed up was to get a run-through of Dark Age. Again, a game I know a lot of people play, including in my own circle, but I never sat down to really check out. We didn't play through a full game, but ran through a turn and a demo of combat. Very brutal and fast-paced, it has a great action vibe that a lot of games miss out. Much like Infinity, every faction has some really lovely figs. I guess I'd look at Skaard or the Forsaken, but the Kukulkani are pretty fancy too.

So now that I've taken a closer look at both, I will read up voraciously on both online for the next few weeks, checking out websites and blogs and forums and galleries and the like. I have opponents available in the area, so I won't have to win anyone over, and can even borrow a force to try out first, which is always a benefit. If interest sticks around, I will pick up the rules, and then start shopping around for an intro force or pretty figs I've had my eye on.

This typical schedule will be slightly put off as the next couple weeks will be spent putting together stuff to sell at Cold Wars. And not too long after the con, I should start getting the toys from a couple Kickstarters from last fall (Reaper Bones, Relic Knights, and more.) So loads of treasure rolling up in the near future. It's not like I didn't already have plenty of figs I should be painting, but really, it's a great complaint to have.