I have a lot of thoughts and new memories I’d like to share with you – in the spirit of “getting things done” I’m going to be following the stream of consciousness rather than fussing too much with order and editing. So if you’d like to come along for the ride, strap yourself in and let’s go. I could split all this up into multiple posts to make it easier to digest, but I’m feeling merciless. So grab some Tums for the road, too.

3-D Roleplay Con V Wrap-up

It’s crazy to think that 3-D Roleplay Con V was already two weeks ago – time sure does fly. Here are some things I loved.

SPACE BOSS HENRY

Everyone at the con witnessed the SPACE BOSS HENRY project come to full fruition. I’ve put an image of my painted version in this post but you can read more about it here. Chase came over to my place the day before the con and we finished packaging all the little metal intergalactic Hanks. I could not have been more pleased with how they looked. I designed the packaging to look like classic hang-tag miniatures from Citadel’s early days.

SPACEFARERS was a very cool 25mm range from the early 1980s. 1983 was the final time anything was published about them. To all of the PDX 3-D Roleplay gang that patiently waited until Sunday to purchase a SPACE BOSS HENRY: thank you, you allowed other con-goers to get their hands on a terrific limited miniature. And I’ve said it many times but HUGE PROPS to Chase for fashioning molds and for casting over fifty metal miniatures in his garage. Damn.

DARK HOBBY GAME BUTTON SET #3

This is third year I’ve done 1″ button packs as a fundraising effort to help pay for con expenses. I am very pleased with how they came out. Above is a picture of a completed “sticker sheet” showing the full set. I don’t always condone bootlegging as it quickly gets into very murky waters and sticky (albeit important) matters like “legality,” “artist compensation,” etc. all become relevant. I justify this particular project by affirming that I do not personally profit from the making or sale of these pins. I cover my material costs, donate my time making these, and donate the remaining money to the convention fund. Every year, I limit these to 30 packs, a total of 120 pins. I do these things in order to share my appreciation for the art, for the convention, and for the wonderful community of hobbyists here in PDX, OR. I hope you will not be offended by my use of the artwork.

DAWN OF THE GOLDEN SPAWN

I had an amazing time playing a wacky game of “Warhammer” (I put it in quotations because most Warhammer players today would not have recognized what we were doing as “playing Warhammer,” even though I insist we were doing so) with my good friend Lars as the GM and many other lovely friends as players. Slann, “Pinkies” and troglodytes everywhere!

My slann mage, XOCHI, summoned an UNDEAD CHAMPION (check out the mini here) during the game. He also cast “animate sword” and sent his weapon flying around the cave to lop off some limbs.

My other three favorite parts of the game were:

1) Lizardman babies had imprinted on a character and were following him around. The character was then killed, so I asked, “What happens to the babies? Do they scatter? Do they start attacking other slann?” to which Lars replied, without missing a beat: “I think they just start crying.” I was howling in laughter.

2) One of my “Pinkies” (read: lobotomized human slave) survived multiple rounds of combat against all odds, then got bored with the attackers and simply turned and walked away from the fight. The attackers missed all of their “free hacks” as the Pinkie marched off. His luck did not last and he was eventually felled. The players and I all decided that the UNDEAD CHAMPION that had been summoned earlier in the game was, in fact, the PINKIE CHAMPION, somehow brought back from the dead before he died (time is an illusion, yes?).

3) Xochi’s apprentice, Pimbu Ono, quite literally flying around the cave to point and scold the other characters for attempting to hatch eggs they had “no right to hatch.” Pimbu later proved himself to be the game’s biggest hypocrite when he hatched an egg and secretly abducted the lizardman baby with plans to raise him as his own apprentice. Honorable mention goes to the other Pinkie (with a terrible singing voice) that decided he was, in fact, a slann brave, and left the cave to join his brethren in the swamps.

Thanks for Kyle for his images in this section.

SMALLER PAUL ASSUMPTION (!?) AND HIS GLORIOUS BOBGOBLIN BADGES

Many of us in the 3-D Roleplay group are enormous fans of Bob Olley’s work (one of the greatest miniature sculptors of our time). Long ago I settled on calling all of us BOBGOBLINS. We are legion, we are many, we are maybe, like, five. For some time now, I’ve had the idea to make pin badges with a copy of a suitable Bob Olley miniature head and the text CERTIFIED BOBGOBLIN. I mentioned this in our Discord server and my new friend Jonathan LOVED the idea so much he just… made it happen. So fast. Suggested puns included “OLLEY’T YA ALIVE” (“I’ll eat ya,” it’s a stretch I know), “BOB TO THE BONE,” “BOBRACADOBRA,” and more that I’ve forgotten. Look what he did!!!

I was so excited to paint mine and I sported it on my stupid BATTLE VEST both days of the convention. Thank you for the wonderful gift, Jonathan!!

DELLON “WHITE TIGER” VISITS

He flew from NJ to PDX just to hang out with me and to attend the con. We played some games together (including the Warhammer Fantasy Battle 1st edition scenario ZIGGURAT OF DOOM – my new friend Kyle also played that with us, hi Kyle!), got outside and tromped through some beautiful parts of the Columbia River Gorge, visited Mindtaker Miniatures, played Space Hulk… It was awesome. I’m so happy he was able to make it. We “met” online 4 or 5 years ago and have been in touch ever since. I met him in person for the first time at Adepticon last year, so it was very, very good to see him again and to spend some quality time with him.

The above photograph shows Dellon losing his mind over the enormous amount of BLACK TREE MINIATURES currently available at Mindtaker Miniatures in Vancouver, WA. I’m confident that it’s the largest stock in the USA. And please don’t try ordering these miniatures from the company’s website – many of my friends have tried, only to never receive their orders. And sincerely, good luck getting a refund. I do not believe this is intentional – I suspect the folk(s) that run Black Tree Miniatures are in poor health and their life priorities/situation simply do not allow them the bandwidth to shut down the order section of the site (feel free to ask me more about this if you’d like). Buy Black Tree Miniatures from Mindtaker instead. Leave me a personal note on your order and I just might send you something fun.

This photograph is of us at Latourell Falls. I think. We saw a lot of waterfalls that day. It may have also been Bridal Veil Falls. Anyway that’s not the point. We’re the point.

WHAT ELSE DO I WANT TO SHARE

Oh, yes. Dellon and I have been writing a game called BATTLE OF THE SIX LORDS. We tried it out at the convention and it left us feeling very deflated. The map and exploration aspects of our game seem very fun and solid but we made two mistakes: 1) we did not play a narrative scenario, so our game immediately devolved into everyone’s least favorite way to play Warhammer: my army this side, your army that side, let’s rush them toward each other and just have a big scrum in the middle until someone routs or dies, and 2) we may have just written a “worse Warhammer.” Dellon made some comment about making a square wheel. So we’re reconsidering a lot about the core aspects of our game. We might just publish the map/explore-y stuff as a bolt-on ruleset for your favorite fantasy battle game.

I PAINTED SOME AWESOME ZOMBIES AND GOBLINS

In the days prior to the con I absolutely crammed some painting. Chase gifted me 13 beautiful zombie miniatures, sculpted by Bob Olley in the early 1980s for Essex Miniatures. I posted one already here, and I’ll be making a separate miniature post for the rest of them shortly (same goes for the goblins) but I wanted to mention them here since they saw use at the con both in some games of CAULDRON and BATTLE OF THE SIX LORDS. They’re still available from Essex Miniatures for very cheap (although shipping is probably murderous). As an aside, they recently updated their website. Looks like they’ve finally left the 1990s and have entered their 2000s web design phase. LOL.

Also painted the above goblins – these are super fun. Expect to see more on these guys later but they also deserved a mention because they are currently available from Alternative Armies, and I wanted to take a moment to thank Gavin and everyone over at AA for sponsoring 3-D Roleplay Con V with a discount code and some very cool prize support.

WORDS AND SOUNDS

This post is getting quite long indeed but I really wanted to include some music that’s got me excited and the last book I read and very much recommend.

SOUNDS #1

CONAN recently released their new album Violence Dimension and it really rips. I had this on in my car pretty much exclusively while driving around PDX with Dellon. I saw Conan play a concert in PDX last year and it was amazing (Lars was there – it was fun – hi, Lars!). Conan is going on tour again this year and will be back in PDX in September. I’m planning on going. You should, too.

SOUNDS #2

Conan is playing shows with MARES OF THRACE, who also just released a new album (today!) called THE LOSS, and although I haven’t had a chance to listen to it properly just yet I will be doing so today while painting a classic Citadel troll. I can tell you it starts with a bang, they sure don’t waste any time getting into the screamy bits, and it sounds extremely promising based on the 20 seconds I heard blasting out of my shi**y iPhone speaker.

SOUNDS #3

Final music thing is yet another album that just released today (!) by the inimitable and oh-so-locked-in dudes of DROUTH – it is entitled THE TEETH OF TIME. I found their first album, Excerpts from a Dread Liturgy, at a record shop in Nehalem, OR, and picked it up on a whim because I was ABSOLUTELY SMITTEN with the incredible artwork by Matt Stikker (a man of many many talents who happens to also be the lyricist and lead vocalist of the band).

Their new album is entitled The Teeth of Time and features yet another mind-blowing artwork on the cover. I can’t wait to dive into this one while painting some BattleTech miniatures today (yes I plan on painting quite a few things today if I can manage it).

BOOK #1/1

Okay last last thing – somehow I had existed for thirty-three years on this planet without having ever read a single book by Terry Pratchett. How is this possible? I recently finished reading Mort while on holiday in Port Townsend, WA, and boy oh boy did I love it. If you don’t know anything about Pratchett’s work, here’s a super duper brief summary (that may not be entirely accurate): his stories take place in DISCWORLD, a land that is indeed flat and exists on the back of a giant space turtle. The tales are told in easy and simple language that flits quickly between dry British jokes, absurdly silly dialogue and base potty humor. Yet all of his work contains nuggets of the truths of human existence. It’s whiplash in the best way. There are multiple “cycles” that all interweave, so pick your favorite and start with the first book in that cycle (I chose the DEATH cycle but I heard the CITY GUARD cycle is a fan favorite).

Okay that’s all thanks for reading geeze this got long okay bye!

PS (WHY IS THERE A PS) – Kyle BWAMP Reimergartin has a great blog post about 3-DRC V, he is also working on a COOL GAME with FAIRIES and CHAOS called RUMPUS. He sculpted some very adorable miniatures for it, and I was lucky enough to get some. I’ll paint them up and post about them later but HI KYLE I LOVE WHAT YOU’RE DOING, KEEP IT UP, YOU’RE A RADICAL HUMAN BEAN.