Hendybadger hosts a giveaway

Over at Tales of a Tabletop Skirmisher, our friend Hendybadger is having a great holiday giveaway. Choose either the Arkham City Batman or the Dark Knight Trilogy Batman from Knight Models for their excellent Batman Miniature Game.

Entry is easy: Comment on the post there on his blog and share news of the giveaway around. That's it!

Thanks, Hendybadger, for a great holiday surprise for the gaming community.

"The Miniatures Man" hit 100K pageviews

Joakim Ström over at The Miniatures Man blog is celebrating 100,000 pageviews with a giveaway.

The post detailing the prizes and method of entering is here:

http://miniatyrmannen.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/100-000-pageviews-its-time-for-give-away.html

I plan to do something similar when I finally hit 50,000 pageviews, or 100 public followers, whichever comes first.

But as we await that glorious day, go check out Joakim's blog. Definitely worth it.

New fiction up on "Brass and Blood"

I've just uploaded a new short piece of fiction on our sister blog, Brass and Blood.

This tale introduces Pritkin, a human mage. More Gothic horror than steampunk, but a depiction of the scale of conflict in my setting.

The post is here: http://bit.do/wheelswithinwheels

In addition to the entry, there are links to the story as a pdf and on Google docs.

Welcoming Wednesday

This week we welcome aboard two new followers:

First is Blaxkleric, who himself is the author of more blogs than one can shake a stick at.

• The Brown Bag, "An English Comic Collector Blog," which does exactly what it says on the tin.
• Fantorical, "The Fantasy-Historical Miniature Painting Guide," the one from which I primarily know Blaxkleric.
• 10 Years and Counting Down, "The 10mm Miniature Painting Blog," appears to have lain fallow for about a year.
• The Analog Hobbies Painting Challenge, which logs this and past year's painting challenges. Well worth the visit.
• Mooretoons, "Comic Capers Within a Universe of Mystery, Horror, Alien Invasions and Super-Heroes." Ummm, nothing I can say will explain Blaxkleric's original webcomic. It's a "you-had-to-be-there" kind of experience. And I mean that in a good way. The format of toon plus an explanitory/expanding block of text works a treat here.

So everyone make Blaxkleric feel welcome.

Next is Gordon Richards, who has made quite a splash with his new blog,  I have wrought my simple plan...

He promises a predominance of content for IHMN, already gracing us with his Nautilus crew. I'm definitely a fan and look forward to his upcoming entries.

Let's welcome Gordon, me hearties!

OK, that's enough cheering. Back to the boards, everyone, and I'll see you across the table soon.

Thankful for my FLGS

This photo of Moxie Games' interior is lifted from its Facebook page,
as my photos didn't turn out very well.

Reflecting on the many things for which I'm thankful, I realized just how grateful I am to again have a wonderful local gaming store to frequent.

We were without one here for a long time, so the presence of a gaming store that gets it right is something to be celebrated.

My local haunt is Moxie Games, run by the incredible Jerry and Meredith Fry. These Indiana natives, parents of Leah and Cash, originally ran Moxie as a paintball equipment company. They first started carrying Games Workshop product as a sideline to get them through the slower winter season. Now a few years and a relocation later, the paintball equipment is all gone and tabletop, board and card games and their accessories line the store, and the store has multiple tables and terrain available for your gaming pleasure.

A typical Tuesday's incoming goodies.

One of the things they do that I love is post weekly pictures of their new shipments as they arrive. Just seeing the assortment of new goodies does a gamer's heart good. There are also soft drinks and snacks for sale.

They support a thriving (and growing) gaming community. In addition to GW's 40K and WHFB, they carry minis, rulebooks, dice and decks for Warmahordes and Malifaux, and they are more than happy to special order items. Magic the Gathering is incredibly popular, with drafts and standard events three days a week. Those games that straddle the line between minis and board games are represented as well, like Super Dungeon Explore and Krosmaster Arena. Other items include RPGs, paints, card sleeves and mats, Funko vinyl figures -- your usual geek assortment.

I've never played any CCGs, so I have no idea what
any of this sign means. It might as well be written in Abyssal.

Board game nights are Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, when you can bring your own or borrow from the store's demo collection. There are usually weekly Heroclix tournaments at 3 p.m. Saturdays. A 40K escalation league has just wrapped up, with a tournament coming this Saturday. Stars Wars X-Wing has caught fire among the customers, it seems. I can't really speak to the meta here, as I'm much more a shopper than a hang-around-and-play type.

But I do love hanging around to chat with Jerry and Meredith. Meredith says many people have told her that, once meeting them, they immediately felt like family, and I can attest to the validity of this statement. Jerry exudes a relaxed surfer vibe, unless he's riding herd on unruly tournament players (Don't cross him, people. Don't poke a sleeping bear.) Meredith is a great conversationalist and a talented artist, and she is funny. I know I'm not related to them, but when I got out of the hospital this summer, one of the first things I did once I could travel again was go to the shop and give them each a hug. They are warm, witty, knowledgeable, customer service geniuses who will bend over backwards to help an earnest customer. Their staff share these traits as well.

Meredith and Leah

Jerry and Cash. Photos again from Facebook, used with permission.

I remember overhearing that Jerry also stays up into the wee hours to play Pokemon online. At that hour, I guess his only opponents are kids on the other side of the planet. I do not know if Jerry can talk smack in Korean.

And did I mention how smart their kids are? Scary smart. And cool. Smart and cool. Smash some face, Cash.

The clientele is warm and welcoming, with none of the stink-eye, distrusting, insular treatment new customers or players sometimes get at gaming/comic stores. You know the kind, I'm sure.

So here's my thanks to Jerry and Meredith. Thank you for giving us a gaming home in Columbus, Ga. May your business and your family continue to thrive.

Enough of my gushing. Back to the boards, everyone, and I'll see you across the table soon.

New technology is dangerous

You will not believe what I did.

After adding apps to my new Android tablet, I did a little browsing on Amazon. I was getting used to the much larger screen than on my iPhone 5s.

I created a new wishlist for gaming-related items. I added some minis,  some tools, the usual, but for some reason, one of the items didn't appear on the list when I checked it later. I figured I'd just screwed up the necessary keystrokes.

If only.

About 10 minutes later I get an email that the third-party Amazon vendor is preparing my order for shipment.

I'd hit the verdammten "Order with One Touch" button!

And what mini was it, you ask?

The effin' Woldwrath Gargantuan for Hordes' Circle Orboros. FML.

At least I got a good price on it and had a gift card waiting to be spent on my account.

And I immediately disabled one-touch ordering.

Ahoy, we've got new followers aboard

After months of going along with a steady state of affairs, we suddenly have a burst of growth. That this happens in a month when I've been singularly inactive, does this mean people like it more when I say NOTHING? Really? Well, forget it! I'm gonna speak my mind ... what I have left of it, anyway.

Janice and Pirate Percy aboard the Laughingstock
from "Candle Cove," as interpreted by Ominous-Artist on deviantart

There are three new followers here, so I want to introduce everyone around. Here they are, in a random order:

• Herbert West, author of the Critical Failure blog, is a former gaming industry professional who is now a teacher. His blog began back in September and already seems to be going great guns. Give this fellow fan of Victorian SF a look and a follow, if you please.
• Malifaux Ve is also a new follower here. I'm a friend of Malifaux Ve on Facebook and a follower on Twitter. There's a shortage of information on the person actually running the account, so it may be several users sharing moderator duties, I don't know, but MalifauxVe is all over social media. I believe the person handling (at least some of) the accounts is an (or the) official Malifaux Henchman for Venezuela. All I can say is I first starting looking at the painted models on his/their Twitter feed and was way impressed. Always nice looking stuff there.
• Gingerbhoy is our third new addition. Gingerbhoy appears to have had a couple of blogs but the links on his blogger profile are dead now. If there's a new link, let me know in the comments please!

(Regarding the above choice of illustration: Yes, I'm a creepypasta fan, and I think Kris Straub's "Candle Cove" is the greatest creepypasta ever written. And yes, I know, if there's any pirate ship you'd NOT want to be press-ganged onto, it would be the Laughingstock.)

So, this is a big con week with Blizzcon just wrapping up for the videogamers and Fall In taking place for the tabletop wargamers, and innumerable others also going on. Like 'Mater in Disney's "Cars," I'd give my left two lugnuts to be at a convention instead of working this weekend. So all of you attending cons, have fun, take plenty of pictures, and I expect a full report when you get back. If you want to hook a brother up with some swag, I won't say no.

I've got more planned for the coming week, none of which involves explaining my complete failure to produce anything for Zomtober. I'm batting a perfect .000 over two years now. Feel the cool breeze of Failvember. Yup. And then right into pine-scented Decembust.

In the pipeline I've got a look at some recent acquisitions: more Patrick Keith shinies from Bombshell, a couple of gorgeous ladies from Hasslefree and some Cephalyx creepiness I snagged.

Today my copy of Ravage Issue 15 (English edition) came in, so I plan to do something I've never done before: an item-by-item review of the contents of a magazine.

That's it for now. Back to the boards, everyone, and I'll see you across the table soon.