Having just returned from TempleCon 2014 and made reparations at home for my time away, I find myself a bit morose and melancholy at my desk as i write this, thinking of all the people I already miss and all the fun I just had.  If no one minds I think I’ll go back through some of the highlights here and talk about why TempleCon means the world to me.

Fearing the approaching snowmaggeddon, we hastily decided last Tuesday to depart early and drive all night to beat the majority of the snow and mess that would come with a Winter Snowstorm the day we were meant to drive 8 hours to Rhode Island.  We LITERALLY would have been driving through the worst part of the storm for the majority of the day, and that is not something I really wanted to do.  So rushed packing and hasty departures had Ragnarok and myself in the car and on the road by 8 PM, hoping beyond hope to not hit snow till early Wednesday.  We made good time and crossed the border fast after an awesome chat about being unique and different with the border guard and quickly got underway crossing the desolate space that is the I-90 in New York State.  Making but one pit stop for gas and a bio-break, we had what i consider to be a pretty good run all the way to Warwick, Rhode Island and the Crowne Plaza hotel.  We had heard from the second car that they were getting some snow, and I expected to get hit when we started to head south towards Providence/Warwick, but fortunately our car made it all the way to the hotel with no snow.  We checked into our room at around 4:45 AM Wednesday and went back out to get the bags from my car, only to be greeted by 2cm of snow already down in the time it took us to check in.

 

 

Okay so a pretty close call, and our second vehicle got stopped and had very bad conditions which delayed it for another 5 hours before getting to the hotel, so thankfully we were able to crash and get some sleep.  Reports came in sporadically of how others were doing all day Wednesday, but for us it was a late breakfast, some quiet time, unpacking, and then a nice lunch in the hotel restaurant.  We felt we had earned that at least.

Throughout Wednesday people we love and admire showed up to visit, move in, or get their own places for the pending con, and it was awesome to start to see so many familiar faces back in those familiar surroundings of the Crowne Plaza hotel.  We found a wild Plarzoid, a wandering Faultie, Lonelymonk, Snakeman, Hacksaw, Gdaybloke, Yaum la machine, Spud Spudlington, and so many more.  We saw the Road to War guys, the Muse on Minis guys, the Removed from Play boys, locals from Burlington, ON and Montreal Steamheads galore, my boy Nog from Nog’s Painting Cave and just plenty of people from all over.  I recall at one point Ragnarok pointing out that I seemed to know everyone at TempleCon, and though I think that may have been a bit of an exaggeration it does feel like I am surrounded by my real extended family when I am at TempleCon.  So many people I admire, respect and love all in one place at one time.  For games and fun!

Thursday was the day we lined up for Privateer Press pre-release models and goodies at their booth, so I joined the sheep in line and waited for our sweet, sweet meal of new plastic/resin/white metal candy.  I managed to get an Iron Mother Directrix, one of the new Heavy Vector kits, Transverse Enumerator, Swamp Shamblers, and the Trollkin Sorceror.  Some friends who didn’t want them got me 2 extra Heavy Vector kits and I traded Nog the Sorceror for a Heavy Vector kit and the difference in cash.  That took me to four of the Heavy Vector kits and made me a happy Blade.  Once I paid for my haul, I was able to step to the right and enter the line for some product from Lost Hemisphere Radio sponsors Broken Egg Games’ and their amazing new wooden token sets for my Legion of Everblight and Convergence armies.  I also got one of the 40mm double-120mm Tournament trays for use all weekend, cause I figured that is something that would go well for carrying around my lists I wanted to play.  The Broken Egg Games guys are amazing and I will be reviewing all of their product I use in time, it really made life easy for me during the Convention.  Also doubles as a great air freshener for my tool box, but that’s for another article.

 

 

Started playing in the Iron Arena, and my first game was with Yaum over at Yaum La Machine painting service.  We usually try to either get in the first or last game of the weekend, and this year it was time for the first game, which is cool cause we both needed to knock some rust off.  I took my Thagrosh1 T4 Army of Annihilation list vs his Kara Sloan Cygnar.  We played on a dock scenario table where the Defender has to come out of some buildings and defend a dock and crane from the attacker with very few options for getting down to the “ground” level where the attacker is.  There are flags to control as well, but one could be easily isolated and the other was on the ground, so it seemed as if the Attacker had the advantage.  Lots of fun was had, and I got to drop a Stormclad when I destroyed the section of dock it was on and it fell 4″ to the ground level, taking a POW 10 + 5d6 damage and being knocked down for my Carnivean to clean up next round.  The game ended in a loss when Kara Sloan used her Feat after being lowered to the ground level behind Thagrosh and managed to get it done with the help of her Defender.  Yaum’s die rolls were pretty bad, but a Fury-less Warlock in the back can’t deal with 5 shots!!  I really enjoyed this game, and we had a few times where Yaum felt it was going really badly for him so we adjusted play, and yet he still pulled it off, so I suspect some form of Jedi Mind Trick was used on me.  Or I’m just that bad.

 

 

Played a couple more games and spoke to my girls back home before heading to dinner and drinks in the bar to celebrate the birthday of local Press Gang member PG_TimtheEnchanter who was celebrating.  We stayed up too late and drank too much, but it was all in good fun.  The best part was when they closed the bar and told us to leave, and we did.  Once I was in the room and getting ready for bed I realized they had asked us to leave before I got my bar bill, meaning we didn’t have to pay.  Not too swift when I am drinking 18 year old Balvenie Scotch (They caught up to some of our table and got paid, and I would have paid the next day regardless, but still, how dumb is that?).

 

 

Friday was get up and go catch the Privateer Press panel at 10 AM before registering and playing in the Team Tournament at Noon.  Some great reveals and speculation/excitement from the panel, for me the best part being a Blindwater Battle Engine, Gator Warlock, Epic Absylonia and a character heavy Nephilim for Rhyas/Saeryn as well as the faction Lesser Warlocks.  Some good stuff ahead, and the Mercenary sub faction of Cephalyx seems pretty cool too, and should be fun to play against.  I hope my Convergence can withstand the Monstrosities that will be showing up locally.  After the panel we went and lined up again to get the “Rolling the Bones” Goreshade1 convention exclusive from PP and he appears to be well worth it.  A great sculpt and awesome pose with Dice included in the sculpt.  I don’t play Cryx, but it will be fun to assemble and paint this guy at some point in the future.

 

 

Once back in the room I convinced our team not to go down to the team tournament since I was tired and felt like more casual games rather than a prolonged endurance test in the Team Tourney.  There wasn’t much grumbling about this, and the guys were happy to head back down to Iron Arena for more games and skulls bounty.  Fortunately for me this ended up getting Ragnarok enough skulls to get the print of Una the Falconer, the Circle Lesser Warlock for his collection of Circle worship.  Went to dinner with a group of friends and then came back to play some Super Dungeon Explore with 5 people, followed by a Super Dungeon Arena game against Gdaybloke where we each get 1 Hero and 2 Spawning Points and then battle it out over 3 treasure chests on a reduced surface.  It was super fun, and with two win conditions it was pretty cool to change tactics or activation on the fly.  I want to play a lot more of SDE this year, and will try to paint up the models I have in my possession.  Arena was fun, and getting the win helped me enjoy it I’m sure.  😉

 

 

Saturday was lazy, and I recall playing a game, sleeping in, having dinner with Stubbs and Ragnarok, then being up late again hanging out in Iron Arena and with friends who were playing Beermachine and passing around free rum and whiskey.  Saturday was also the day I did the Mulled beverages: Mead taster and the Whiskey: Touring Speyside tasting as well, so I was already feeling pretty good by the time I was wandering the floor of IA and watching games.  Late night again!

 

 

Sunday was a quieter day for me, the partying and late nights caught up to me and I stayed in bed till around Noon before descending to the gaming area.  Watched a lot of games and spoke to a lot of people before finally deciding my final game was before me.  As Iron Arena was winding down I grabbed my stuff and pulled Ragnarok into a game so that we would be the last table playing at TCon 2014.  And we were.  Another fun scenario table and a game where I finally got to play Bethayne & Belphagor.  Had been planning to try that list out all weekend and never got around to it, so it was my first game with Bethayne.  Which is just a preface to saying I lost.  Not badly, really, but dice swung hard against me and I made some huge mistakes (as one does when playing a new `Lock) that basically ensured the victory would go to Ragnarok.  Was nice to see that Ashen Veil is as amazingly good as I thought and heard on Striders + UA, and Carnage + Feat on Hex Hunters is just plain silly as well.  All in all I learned a few things and hope to punish that Wolf-loving mongrel in a future game of ours, though his skill at the game is quickly outpacing my own.  Next time perhaps.  With the end of Iron Arena the Con was over, with loads of people helping to pack up and players wandering off to get some rest, food, or both.  We dropped models off in our room before heading out to Uno’s for dinner with a big group of locals from Ontario.  It used to be that we would watch the Superbowl on the Sunday of TempleCon, but since that bit of disappointing sports happened earlier this year I was spared and we could just enjoy a meal and chill at the bar.  Once done, we returned to our room and packed what we could, I crawled into bed and listened while Ragnarok and Gdaybloke played an SDE Arena game before blissfully drifting off to sleep.

Monday was the drive home, which is really pretty irrelevant other than to say I am amazed Ragnarok could sleep with the music on as loud as I had it in the car.  We hit a small spot of snow and otherwise had a great return trip, and I was overjoyed to see my girls once home.

I’ll be posting some product reviews and unboxing blogs soon for the stuff I grabbed at TCon, as well as hopefully getting some more work done on my Legion.  One thing I did experience was shame at how unpainted my stuff was in contrast to so many others.  The painting is a part of the game that people embrace, and even some “quick” or “simple” paint schemes look really good when facing off on the table.  I am vowing to work harder to get all my lists painted for events and to use the Leagues to get as many hobby points as possible so I can be nicely painted for my games next year.  I have to decide what I’ll be playing as a lot of things have changed for me over the past week or so, but Trollbloods, Cygnar, Convergence, Legion, Mercs, Retribution, Blindwater Congregation and Menoth all bear some scrutiny before I make any blanket statements.

Yeah you heard me right, I apparently play THAT faction now, after my amazing friends did the following to me:

(Warning, not entirely safe for work due to my expletives, and the large bellies on Gday and myself…)

 

 

I’ll get around to discussing this more in the future, but needless to say I have been looking at my Protectorate book and coming up with some ideas on how to expand this list.  Not sure how much more evil it could have been, choosing Harbinger and her theme force seems to have really cornered me into making someone’s day miserable.  I sort of like it.

 

Okay massive text block over, I swear, just wanted to get this out while it was still somewhat fresh.  Not as many pictures as I would have liked, but some is better than none anyway right?  Even random ones I guess.

– NB