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About this blog

A Blog on my part in the Hobby Community.

Entries in this blog

Building a Community : Part 1

Hello everyone!  I wanted to start a sub-series focused on building a community around Miniature War Gaming (particularly Age of Sigmar) by sharing my experiences.  My hope is to speak with other community members during this series, and share ideas to use with local gaming groups.  Part one of this series will focus on developing your local scene.  I will explore connecting a personal gaming group to a larger scene in future articles. Before I dive in I want to preface the article a bit.  

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Post Adepticon 2018 Impressions

Hey Everyone! Last week at this time Adepticon was in full swing and what a great adventure it was this year!  I got to hang out and catch up with friends from last year and meet plenty of new folks as well.  All I can say is four days is just not enough and I am planning on hitting up more events so I can see all these great people more than once a year.  The biggest challenge will be getting myself across the water to visit that fantastic gentleman who invaded from the U.K. this year.  This po

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NOVA Open Warhammer Age of Sigmar Events

Hey everyone!  Today I wanted to talk about the upcoming Warhammer Age of Sigmar events at this year's NOVA Open Tabletop Wargaming Convention.  I have the honor of being selected as the T.O.  Lead for the Age of Sigmar Grand Tournament and Team Doubles Event, but there is a variety of Age of Sigmar events for all players and age groups and the Age of Sigmar Lead Team are working together to make it a great year.  I have invited the Kidshammer and Narrative Leads of these events to come on and t

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Airbrushing: My First Steps.

Weeks ago I decided to finally begin Airbrushing in earnest.  Until that moment I was honing my skills with a brush (and even did a lot of priming with a brush) with  a plethora of techniques to still learn. Here is my weapon of choice.  Found a great deal online. I managed to find a great deal on the brush above and purchased it without a second thought (over one year ago).  Then I let it sit in the box unopened for about eight months.  To be honest I was intimidated by the thought of st

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The Importance of your Hobby Space and Future Content

Happy Holidays everyone!  Today I wanted to take some time to discuss your Hobby Space and give you some insight to future content I will be putting out (with help) to the community in the coming year. Where the hobby happens... Above you will see my new dedicated hobby area (Video Tour here).  There is still more lighting to add as well as general improvements due to it being my basement, but that will come with time.  While it will always be in constant development I could not be happie

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Preventing Hobby Wobble between Projects

Hello again everyone.  Sorry for the delay between posts recently, but you will be happy to know I will be back to my regular posting twice a month! We all have experienced Hobby Wobble and as Wargamers we have come to almost accept it as part of the process.  It sneaks into our hobby time like a Nurgling dancing around distracting us from the Great Unclean One that is our current (or next) project.  What are some of the ways to prevent Hobby Wobble? Is it possible to use Hobby Wobble to yo

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Hobby Tunes

Hey Everyone!  Nova Open is in full swing right now with live coverage from Warhammer TV as well as pictures all across Twitter so be sure to check out what is going on.  Today I wanted to discuss what I listen to while I am building or painting in at my Hobby Desk and what I have heard others do as well be it for background noise, a distraction, or a form of motivation while they are deep into the Hobby.  At the end, I added some playlists on some of my Hobby Music Playlists for you to judge an

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Armies on Parade 2016

It is that time of year for us to muster our forces and display them proper in Armies on Parade! Every year I watched as hobbyists across the globe created armies and display boards for their local Armies on Parade.  Seeing the projects was always a great way to get my hobby mojo going either through the White Dwarf or Online posts by the community.  This year I finally have a Games Workshop location within driving distance and I am finally able to participate. I decided to use my Stormcas

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Weekly Hobby Update : 3-28-18

Hey Everyone!  As all of you know this past weekend was Adepticon 2018 out in Schaumburg, IL.  It was an amazing experience once again where I got to hang out with friends and get to know them all even better.  While there wasn't much actually hobby other than food, drinks, and games my Hobby mojo is very high after such a great event so expect a lot in the future.  I plan to do more in-depth coverage of Adepticon on my Friday posts, but for today here is some of the fun that took place! I

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Why Do We Hobby?

Hey Everyone.  To wrap up The Realm Gate's birthday week I wanted to propose a question to all of you as well as offer my answer to this simple question.  Before I do, however, I want to give a shout out to Vince over at Warhammer Weekly who proposed a similar question in his Topic of The Week series recently, albeit a bit more focused.  Go check out his channel if you haven't already as it is my favorite Youtube channel around this Hobby and well worth your time.  The question I wish to put for

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Life Lessons and Wargaming: Goals and Purpose

Hey Everyone!  Today I wanted to start a new article series about lessons in life but applying them to our hobby of Miniature Wargaming.  As we mature in our lives we discover little bits of knowledge that we carry with us through our time here on earth.  Some simple while others grander in nature.  Often times we are taught these lessons by a Parent, Close friend, and sometimes through hindsight.  What I find interesting about these lessons is how they can help someone improve their quality of

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How to connect to the wider Age of Sigmar Community

Hey Everyone and happy Friday!  Years ago when I began my hobby journey and began laying Warhammer I never imagined how it would become more than a hobby and truly a part of my life.  I cannot see any future that does not involve Warhammer and Tabletop Wargaming as a key aspect of my life.  Beyond being a healthy and enjoyable hobby I have come to realize, over the past year or so, that it is a community of so many different people.  This community is the single greatest part of this hobby.  The

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Falling for Chaos : Part 2

Hey Everyone!  Today I wanted to talk about Khorne in a light not usually seen, but these parts of his persona were integral in my choosing to follow the Blood God over any other as I began my Fall to Chaos.  These character traits also helped in the choice of my color scheme choice of White and Gold across the army. Everyone sees Khorne being all about Blood, Rage, and Skulls and while these are indeed part of who Khorne is he also represents Strength, Honor, Discipline, and a Motivation u

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How to Hobby while Traveling

Hey Everyone and happy Friday.  It is no secret that I have been traveling quite a bit for my job recently.  While it is fun flying across the country and seeing new places once the work day is done it can eat away at your hobby time.  Today I wanted to share some tips for keeping your hobby going strong even when traveling. I tend to travel a lean as possible be it for work or pleasure.  I enjoy not needing to check a bag when flying and being able to make just a single trip to my hotel with

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Nova Open 2017 Impressions Part 1

Hey Everyone!  Hope you had a great week of Hobby with plans for more throughout the weekend.  Today I want to bring you more coverage of my time at Nova Open 2017 looking more at a general recap, how I spent my time and all the great people I got to know better, meet, and spend time with throughout the weekend.  In one of the next posts in this series, I will do a more in depth breakdown of my games so keep a look out.  I am sure I missed mentioning a few people in the sections below and if I d

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Weekly Hobby Update : 9-27-17

Hey everyone!  Today I want to show you my completed Blades of Khorne army.  I managed to finally wrap up the painting last week and the basing over the weekend.  It is always exciting to complete an army and really give you a lot of satisfaction on seeing the army laid out as a whole.  I have seen some hobbyists who take a well-deserved break after completing an army to prevent burnout, but for me, the opposite effect happens and I get really excited to jump into my next project.  Thankfully I

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Why You Should Rebase

Hey Everyone!  Today I wanted to talk about that still, somewhat, controversial topic of rebasing your models to round and oval bases in Age of Sigmar. If you have been following my blog for the past year or so you would have seen me accepting the move to round bases, but refusing to rebase any old armies.  You would have also seen my reversal of opinion as I began my Aelf rebasing project that is still ongoing currently.  Today I wanted to dive into this topic about why I feel the community nee

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Post Adepticon 2017 Impressions

Hello, everyone!  I have recently returned from my first Adepticon and I wanted to share an overview of my time at the convention and run through my experience.  Spoilers...it was great! I traveled out with my buddy Matt and from Pittsburgh, PA.  We took a predawn drive Thursday morning through a few states; Indiana being the worst due to construction, and seven hours later we arrived at our hotel.  After a bit of unwinding, I headed over to the Convention Hall to Register and explore. My A

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Coalescence : Malign Portents

Hey Everyone!  In just over a weeks time the second Coalasence Global Narrative Event Day will take place.  On March 17th Warhammer Age of Sigmar players are planning to gather for some fun narrative gaming for glory and fun.  Following up on last summers successful event I will be running this event once again in my local club.  The Neon group have outdone themselves once again and Games Workshop even gave the player pack a nice facelift to make it look stunning.  There is still time to jump on

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Adepticon 2018 : AoS GT and Team Doubles Events

Hey Everyone!  Today I will wrap up my personal Adepticon coverage as I take you through my games from the Age of Sigmar Team Doubles and the Grand Tournament.  I say my personal coverage because next week I am having Paul return to talk about the Narrative event he ran now that The Gibbering Dome's halls have quieted down.  All in all, I had eight great games with wonderful opponents and while days of gaming can become draining near the end I came out of it all energized for me.  The body might

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Weekly Hobby Update : 6-7-17

Hey everyone!  It is Wednesday so it is time for my weekly hobby update.  My Hobby hasn't slowed down despite a lot of work travel lately, but the more hobby the better.  From Club Days to  Coalescence preparation, and even my Youtube Debut it has been frantic and fun. I was lucky enough to be brought on as a guest on last weeks Warhammer Weekly Hosted by Vince and Tom.  We did a review on the "New" Stormcast book and I was honored to join them and hope to be back on in the future.  Check o

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Club Day : Terrain Building

Hey Everyone! This past weekend my club held a very important event in place of its standard gaming days.  We had determined at our Town Meeting that our terrain was in need of a facelift and we committed to repairing, repainting, and if needed replacing terrain from our club collection.  I also committed to painting up all of my terrain so when I am running Age of Sigmar events such as Coalescence I can also bring a few extra tables of quality terrain as well. I went to this project with

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Steel City Sigmar's First Event

This past weekend I was able to attend the first event for The Steel City Sigmar Series.  The event was hosted at Legions Hobbies and Games.  Organized by Bill Souza and acting as T.O, Mike Ryan.  I wanted to run down my games and give some of my opinions from the event.  I took Stormcast Eternals to this event using the Hammerstrike and Thunderhead formations.  I do want to mention that this club is separate from the local scene that I am trying to grow within my immediate area that has been th

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Introducing The Steel City Sigmar Tournament Series (ITC)

Hello Everyone!  I wanted to talk this week about my local club, and the exciting things that are happening. The club is located in and around Pittsburgh, PA, and several small Age of Sigmar groups have popped up all over the place.  Clubs from Latrobe, Ligonier, Pittsburgh, Bridgeville, Monroeville, and I am sure others I have missed, are off playing Age of Sigmar together at their friendly local gaming store (FLGS).  Occasionally people from these gaming groups pop into our new Games Wo

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2017 Hobby Resolutions and Goals

Happy New Year everyone!  2017 has finally arrived and that means setting a few goals and resolutions for the coming trip around the Sun.  Here are my Hobby resolutions and goals for 2017. 1) Attend more Events and go for a Podium.  I have always been competitive and while I am one of the consistently better players in my area I am pretty sure I will be suffering "Big Fish, Little Pond" syndrome with this goal.  Nonetheless I want to try to hang around the top tables at some major events and

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