Happy Thanksgiving

I wanted to take a second to wish all my readers a Happy Thanksgiving. While gorging myself on turkey and stuffing I thought it might be a good time to reflect on what I'm thankful for (with a hobby related spin of course)

1. My Family: I'm thankful to have such a supportive family that understands my dedication to my hobby and even though they might not fully understand while a grown man plays with toys; they support my efforts and see the "art" that goes into my creations.

2. My Club: The Paperbag Warriors have officially been my gaming club since 2003 and in those 10+ years we've had a rotating cast of members all of whom bring something different to the table. Having such a great group of guys to play games with and share of love of the hobby isn't something all gamers have and I'm thankful for them.

3. A Disposable Income/Self-Sustaining Hobby Budget: Let's be honest this isn't a cheap hobby, sure the amount I spend on models and whatnot might be what someone else drops in a night at the bar it's still a significant investment. Having a good job and a booming side business via this site is what makes my hobby possible and I'm thankful for both.

4. My Creativity: I'm thankful for being gifted with the creative spark. This makes my hobby enjoyable and provides me with a good job.

5. Game Designers: Without them our hobby wouldn't exist so I'm thankful for all the creative men and women that strive to produce quality games and models to full my endless desire for the new shiny. 

What are you thankful for?

Back to Badab ... A Warhammer 40K Campaign

Warhammer 40K - It's about that time again when I try to organize our gaming group to play a linked campaign. I've done my research and looked through numerous reference books to see if I could find some inspiration for a setting to tie together our games of Warhammer 40K. With grand plans to write up something immersive and complex I set to work ... and then realized I don't have time to get that in depth.

Currently everyone in my group has a Space Marine force of some type, and we never really played out a full campaign the last time we tried to run the Badab Campaign. So rather than get in over my head I'm using the forgeworld books as a starting point and making up my own missions to fill in the blanks.

Below are the missions we're using for week one. Each week I'm providing the missions to the warlord of each side to delegate who will fight which mission. Named characters can only appear in one battle each week so that will help to force some tactics when deciding who will fight where.

This will act like a ladder, each battle has to have a clear winner to move on to the next warzone. If it ends in a tie the game is replayed the next week as part of an ongoing siege. Units that survived the first part of the siege will begin on the table and any additions to the force will arrive via reserves.

During the campaign if a named character is killed they cannot be used in the following week's missions.

Week One

Capture the Shuttle (1500 points) Desert Big Table (4'x6')

A shuttle carrying vital information has crashed. Both sides need to recover the information.

Primary Mission: King of the Hill - Uncontested control of the center objective at the end of the game +5 points

Secondary Missions: Slay the Warlord, First Blood

Special Rules: Nightfight (in effect first turn), Reserves, mysterious forests, Fast Attack counts as scoring and gives up 1VP when eliminated.

Set up: Diagonal 12" no mans land through the middle 

Secure the City (750 points) Small City Table (3'x3')

Amid the sprawling hive you must secure a location to set up a command center.

Primary Mission: Objectives Place (6) objective counters in various buildings throughout the city, they are mysterious and have random values. 

Secondary Missions: Slay the Warlord, First Blood, Linebreaker

Special Rules: Reserves, Intact Buildings AV12, firing points per model, Nightfight begin rolling on turn 3

Set-up: Standard 8" deployment

Secure the Complex (750 points) Small Swamp Table (3'x3')

Deep in the jungle swamp something nefarious is happening in an underground complex. Secure the entrance and prepare to cleanse the base.

Primary Mission: Table quarters for each uncontested table quarter held by scoring units +2

Secondary Missions: Slay the Warlord, First Blood

Special Rules: Reserves, mysterious forests/rivers, Heavy Support counts as scoring and gives up 1VP when eliminated.

Set-up: Standard 8" deployment

Paperbag Warriors

I've designed a back patch for our gaming club. Pretty simple and a bit cooler then a simple t-shirt. The patch consists of a top rocker, the paperbag reaper, and a bottom rocker to denote the members home store. This idea was of course inspired by the Sons of Anarchy television show. I have to say its one of my favorite shows and I'm patiently waiting for the new season and the release of season 2 on DVD. 

I've also been remodeling the game room and converting some 4x4 tables over to the new 3x3 format. I've also scaled down my 4x8 table to a more reasonable 4x6. That way we still have a standard size Warhammer 40K table that will hold the smaller Malifaux table tops. In the event that we start playing Warmachine/Hordes in the future the smaller table will work just fine, in fact it will speed up the game quite a bit. 

Once things are in a more finished state I'll post photos of the remodeled game room and new tables. 

Thanks to the D6G for plugging my site on their Twitter feed, I hope whoever won the terrain set at Temple Con enjoys it.