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For King and Country, or How I found Myself Playing in my First Bolt Action Tournament
I have never been a overly competitive person when it comes to life. I have, for the most part, been content to muddle my way through life enjoying games and rec-level sports for the comradery, friendship , and fun of it. Thus I was a bit surprised on September 13th of this year to find
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Finding Time For Hobbies, or, My Grey Shame Grows…
After a prolonged absence from my own blog, I’m back! In fact today’s blog has been inspired by that absence and deals with the problem of finding time to indulge in our hobbies, no matter what they are. The Problem Presumably, we chose our hobbies because we enjoy them; whether it is writing, scrapbooking, painting,
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Civilization or, The Curse of “Just One More Turn…”
Today we are going to take a little digression from my usual topic of miniatures and wargaming to discuss on of my other hobbies, computer gaming. Specifically, this entry will focus on one of my all-time favourite game series, Civilization! Since the seventh edition of this venerable series is set to release on Tuesday, I
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Historical Accuracy vs. Artistic Expression, or, Why is it 1:30AM and I’m still up reading about Republican Roman shield decorations?
Hi everyone, in my last few posts I’ve written about how to prep and paint miniatures, but I realized I left out one part of the process: how to figure out what colour and paint scheme to use when you finally take the brush to them. After mulling the process over, here is what I’ve
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A Beginner’s Guide to Painting: Part Three – A Tale of Two Minis…
It may have taken a while, but here is the third part of my Beginner’s Guide to painting. In the first two parts I wrote about some of the tools you may need, as well as how to prep the minis for painting. In this post, I will discuss the how to go about actually
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A Beginner’s Guide to Painting: Part Two – Prepping for Painting
I apologize for the delay between Part One and this part of my Beginner’s Guide. Unfortunately, my job has a habit of getting in the way of my hobby… Once you’ve collected some basic tools and some paints, it is time for the fun to begin! Once upon a time, during the 1980s and even
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A Beginner’s Guide to Painting: Part One – The Tools of the Trade
Welcome to the first part of my beginner’s guide to painting miniatures. It can be pretty daunting when you first sit down to paint your first mini, especially if you have no idea where to start! It can be even more intimidating when you look at the incredible job that professional painters do on the
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Why We Game or, Aren’t You Too Old to be Playing With Toy Soldiers?
A reasonable question to ask is why do I devote some of my precious downtime to this hobby? Why do I spend hours not only painting tiny figures, but also spend hours researching the historical background for the various samurai clans, Republican Roman Legion organization, and different types of ancient infantry. Surprisingly, there is a
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About Me, or, Where is the fine line between a hobby and an obsession?
As long as I can remember, I’ve been blessed, or perhaps cursed, with an overactive imagination. This has manifested itself in many ways, including a love of science-fiction and fantasy. As life would have it, this served as my doorway into the hobby of miniature painting. Back in the neon-bright days of 1986, a friend
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Alea Iacta Est – The Die is Cast!
A few months ago, I was playing a tabletop wargame set during the Punic Wars. I was playing a force from the Greek City State of Syracuse, and realized I had managed to position one of my phalanxes in a near perfect spot. It had a river protecting one flank, a large building shielding the
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The Happy Phalanx 