T'was the Swap Meet Before Christmas...

(Image from: Boardgame & Miniature Quarterly Swap Meet #13) 

A few days before Christmas I ventured up to the Angel of the Winds Arena for the 13th Boardgame & Miniature Swap Meet hosted by OOP Games & Hobby.

The venue was nice, large enough to accommodate all the vendors and easy to get to once off I-5.

Since I left 30 minutes later than I planned, I rushed off without my cameras, so I don't have any "man on the street" pictures to post.

My usual quest at these affairs is purchasing items I don't have to cut-out, paste together or paint.

For the most part I was successful in this endeavor.

One vendor, I'm afraid I didn't get his name, was selling off spare items from the several Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader Kill Team Starter Set.

 For a mere $10, I obtained the rulebook...

...the supplement guides...

...the double-sided, mounted playing board...

...and the status counter sheets.

Okay, that's one item I have to punch out and trim, but there's less than 50 counters, unlike many boardgames which contain hundreds of them. Even over a thousand if you consider monster games.

I've never been good at haggling.  But when I asked another vendor about these near-future, pre-painted figurs, he said it was $25...

...But then added prices could be negotiable.

When I offered him $20, he accepted.  Upon my return I conducted  a quick Google search an extensive on-line research and found these figures sell for about $20-$33.

So I got another deal.

The most expensive item I bought turned out to be this WH40K-ish looking dice tray made by Carrie Emmerich, artist and proprietor of Omnibusy.

She also runs a Tumblr blog called Iris of Ether.  The dice tray cost me $30.  But as we concluded my purchase, some of the furniture figures on her display table caught my eye.

Specifically, these wine/beer casks:

Carrie originally wasn't planning on sell them, but offered them to me for $5 each.

Unlike previous swap meets there were a number of non-gaming vendors, specifically artists and authors.

While I spent some time chatting with these folks, along with other game vendors, I didn't spend any more of my money.

I always feel rather bad when I don't help out small/at-home business owners.  My late mom was an artist and attended art & craft shows throughout her life.  Plus I'm a wannabe writer myself.  So I know how hard it can be to make a profit at various shows, conferences and conventions.

However, I couldn't bring myself to buy anything else I was interested in, or something I have no room for, like this:

(Image found on eBay, not from the vendor I spoke with)

One vendor did have this Star_Wars_Miniatures AT-AT but I had to pass it up due to lack of shelf & storage space.

Here's a list of the game vendors, artists and authors I talked with and picked up business cards from before departing:

Authors 4 Authors Publishing

Almost Critical

Moon Dragon Games

Arcanum Miniatures

Ink Gasket

Ford 3D Printing

This has been the second swap meet I managed to attend. The last one two years ago, which I didn't even get a chance to write about. What keeps me away is my rotating work shift.

Hopefully it won't be another two years before I can attend the next one.

Happy New Year everyone!

Five Second Flick Theater: When All Else Fails, French Indochina Version

My friend Tim likes wargaming the French Indochina War.  A couple weekends ago, he hosted a game at Fall In!

He and a friend took several pictures of his game.

And of course, I couldn't leave well-enough alone and concocted another Five Second Flick.

Pass in Review: WH40K Imperial Inquisition

(Image:  Inquisitorial Rosette)

When I got into Warhammer 40,000 (WH40K), I intended to raise only an Astra Militarum/Imperial Guard force, because the stories that move me the most are about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.  And the “...grim darkness of the far future...” is about as extraordinary as circumstances can get.

However, I had the good fortune to attend one wargamers swap-meet and stumbled across some great deals.

The first of which were three lots of painted and previously-owned Imperial Inquisition vehicles and figures.

Here’s a rundown of my Inquisitor and her entourage set in the Sector Fronteris:

1. Inquisition Land Raider.

2. Three Inquisition Chimera Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs)

3. The Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus with her entourage/henchmen, servo-skull and cherubim.

4. I'm calling this character "Inquisitor Faustina."

5. An alternate version of Inquisitor Faustina.

6. Crusaders.

6. A Ministorum Confessor flanked by Acolytes.

7. A Sister Dialogous flanked by Ministorum Missionaries.

8. A sister from the Order of the Blue Robe's Dominion Squad, a Grey Knight and a Vindicare Assassin (I think) in winter camouflage.

9. A Callidus Assassin (I think), moves stealthily through the ruins on her way to sow mayhem among the enemies of The Emperor.

And stealing as an homage to Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition Skits, I concocted this meme:

Halloween 2019 Five Second Flick--Part II

Here’s another Five Second Flick I made to celebrate tonight’s festivities.

Halloween Five Second Flick--Part I

Here’s a Five-Second Flick I concocted merging a Halloween image created by "Korolevatumana" With the Windows 3D Effect Program.

Enjoy!

2019's Halloween Greetings

Halloween approaches!

It’s been a few years since I concocted some Halloween greetings, using my ComicLife program.

This year, I decided to feature some of our artificial jack-o-lanterns.  The one featured in the top image, my wife and I call “Jack.”

Yeah, original, I know.

Anyway, I purchased Jack 20 years ago, from Spirit Halloween.  He still lights up when we plug him in and place him in the living room window.

The next jack-o-lantern is almost as old.  I purchased this one at Fred Meyer, I think, and usually place it in the living room/hallway.

My wife bought this white jack-o-lantern, but I don’t know where from, or when.  Unlike Jack, this one, which we haven’t thought-up a name for, has a red light as opposed to a white one.

While trolling the internet, for Halloween memes, I came across this quote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which Ray Bradbury used for the title of one of his novels:

Product Review & Pass In Review of Kill Team's Killzone Sector Fronteris Expansion

It's been a couple of months since I posted anything about Warhammer 40,000 (WH40K) Kill Team.

That's because I was waiting for my friend Dan to finish painting my set of STC Ryza-Pattern Ruins and Sector Fronteris Environment Expansion.

I haven't gotten the Kill Team Starter Set's buildings painted yet.  I figured I'd "start at the Imperial Frontier and work my way Coreward."  That is, when I picked up my frontier buildings and ruins, I gave the Starter Kit buildings to Dan to work on next.

Okay, so back to the Frontier.

This expansion includes a thick, double-sided board, which depicts a frontier outpost, which may or may not be active...

...and an urban area--which I forgot to take a picture of--and I didn't want to delay posting this by doing another photo shoot.

Other items include:  An 8-page booklet, a dozen Fronteris Tactical Cards, a Fronteris Environment Card, 4 Fronteris Mission Cards and of course four frames of ruined buildings.

Instead of coloring the buildings red, as depicted in the expansion kit's cover art and just about elsewhere, I had Dan paint my buildings a shade of khaki to suit the desolate terrain.

The Sector Fronteris and Ryza-Pattern ruins have a lot of pieces in common and both of my sets are intermingled.

The following is a sample of my Fronteris terrain collection.

1. Right-angled ruins and a ruined wall with a ventilator fan:

2. An intact environmental shelter:

3. A ruined support section--and another ruined wall with ventilator fan:

4. Two large, right-angled ruins:

5. A couple small, ruined walls:

6. A two-story ruined wall and a tunnel hatch leading to--where, I wonder?

I'm impressed with how solid and sturdy these terrain pieces are--and even more impressed with Dan's work.

Warhammer 40K Webcomic

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Author's Notes:

I got the idea for this silly, gender-bender story while rummaging through my miniature collection in preparation for the Chaos Cultists Pass in Review post.

I thought:  What would be the "worst" that could happen to a bunch of evil, vengeful fighters?

While their fate may not be as horrible as their previous lot in the "...grim darkness of the far future..." the story was fun to write.

As to the "behind the scenes" of this webcomic's imagery:

About half of the female figures were from an older line of D&D Miniatures from Wizards of the Coast.  The other half, including the male bartender were another set of pre-painted figures that I can't remember who manufactured them.  Googling the images hasn't helped.

I was also frustrated at attempting to find the source of the "Inquisitor Faustina" images.  I downloaded it from Tumblr years ago, but am unable to relocate it, even when I typed-in the HTML, my search came up with zilch.

Here's what I can tell you about the other products used during the creation of Suitable Servants--

--The badlands scenery is a terrarium backdrop I purchased from PetSmart.
--The ground is represented by Cigar Box Battle Store's Arid Lands Terrain Mat.
--The mysterious Chaos Temple is the Altar of Evil by Pegasus Hobbies, I purchased years ago.

The planet Kalf does exist in the WH40K 'verse.  It's listed as a frontier world in the Calixis Sector that can be found on the inside cover of  Fantasy Flight Games "Only War" WH40K RPG (2012).

A more readable map can be found on the WH40K Fandom Wiki:

I picked this location for a few reasons.  First, the idea of a frontier world brings to mind a planet that's not the usual toxic waste dump, war-torn hell that WH40K games and stories take place on.  Second it's one of the border worlds, so it's close enough to main fighting that was portrayed in Fantasy Flight Games' (FFG) Only War series, without being on the front lines.  But at the same time, close enough for raids and incursions by xenos and heretics.  Finally, it's location fits in with both FFG's WH40K RPG and WH40k/Wrath & Glory's Imperium Nihilus or the Age of the Dark Imperium.

I hope you enjoyed Suitable Servants along with the background material that went into creating it.

Thanks!