MTG – A blast from the past

I’ve played a lot of Magic the Gathering in the past and Tuesday night I had a few games against my local store owner for a bit of fun.  I don’t have much of a card collection left so I threw together a Modern format deck from what I had left.  It’s not ideal but the games were the important part not the results.

I actually had a lot of fun playing although perhaps not enough to entice me back into what is one of the most expensive games out there to stay current with.  Far too much investment in new cards is required which is a shame as it’s actually one of the best games around.

I think I’ll keep this deck together just in case I get a few more games in the future.

Deck

4 x Goblin Bushwacker
4 x Legion Loyalist
4 x Foundry Street Denizen
2 x Mogg War Marshal
4 x Warren Instigator
4 x Goblin Piledriver
2 x Goblin Rabblemaster
4 x Goblin Chieftain
1 x Krenk Mob Boss

4 x Lightning Bolt
4 x Goblin Grenade
3 x Dismember

4 x Bloodstained Mire
2 x Verdant Catacombs
2 x Blood Crypt
2 x Cavern of Souls
10 x Mountain

It actually played quite well despite not being very well tested but then I have no idea of the current meta.  For those in the know I played against Soul Sisters which is perhaps not the best of matchups for goblins.

What I really should be doing is testing for my Infinity tournament in 45 odd days not playing Magic!

The king is dead, long live the king….

It’s been a long time since my last update here and quite a few things have happened. Not least of which was the Hawk Wargames kickstarter for Dropfleet Commander. I’m not going to dwell on it here because, quite frankly, it still winds me up. All I will say is that I’ve sold off or given away everything related to Hawk and if they were the only games producer on the planet I’d give up playing rather than give them another penny of my money or minute of my time. The whole thing soured my love for the hobby and I drifted for quite a while not really settling on a new system or having any motivation to paint.

See, told you it still winds me up! Let’s move on.

The good news, for me at least, is that I’m starting to get back into the groove and I’ve found a system that I think can solve my desire to play tournaments. That system is Infinity. I’m enjoying playing it despite not actually winning a game yet and whilst it is reasonably complex that doesn’t put me off. I don’t think it is for everyone but if you get the chance to try it then give it a go. I took part in the local league recently (didn’t win a game) but I enjoyed it and the the local players have been great at helping me out and getting me started. I’ve signed up for my first tournament which, at the time of writing, is 46 days away so hopefully I can get some practice games in before then. Maybe even win a game at some point! Would be nice.

I’m also going to try picking up the paintbrush again due to my local shop having a single minature painting competition. Not sure how I’ll do in that but if it’s nothing more than motivation to get painting again it will be worth the time and effort. Those AoS Chaos I started painting before have got no furhter than what you saw here which is a real shame. I really like the look of the new Kharadron for GW and whilst I shouldn’t be buying them I know what I’m like for ‘new stuff’.

So the new plan for the blog is just to give me somewhere to share my painting and tournament preparation. I really will try this time to do more updates even if they don’t have too much content.

The time they are a changing

Things have been a little hectic recently and I’ve not done very much worth an update. I was thinking that I really should put something up here soon when I found out about a significant change in my available hobby time. So at least I have something to talk about even if it’s not hobby related in the traditional sense.
My local shop runs a system where they focus on a specific system(s) on a specific night of the week. If I want to play X-Wing, for example, then I need to turn up on a Tuesday. It’s not a bad idea in principle and allows me to have a fair chance of getting a game even without pre arranging it before hand. It does have the down side in that if the system you love is on a night that you have other commitments it’s a little awkward but just because a system is ‘featured’ on a specific night it’s not like it’s banned on the others.
In the near future I may be able to spend more time playing games, which in principle is great news. The downside is that the nights that I’m going to be available will be random and I will not have access to a car. This means that I will struggle to always get to the ‘correct’ night and I’m going to have to take all my stuff on public transport. Not only will it take a lot longer to get to and from the shop but the chances of me being able to take large figure cases worth of stuff are very close to zero. At this point I really need to try and figure out the best way to handle this new situation.
Now like most gamers I own more than one system. Shocker I know! So in theory, looking at the club schedule and my pile of toys, I could play Warmahordes/Malifaux on a Monday, X-Wing on a Tuesday, Dropzone Commander on a Wednesday, Thursday is a bit sparce but does include Dicemasters and Friday is Age of Sigmar and Magic the Gathering. So that’s sorted then right, I just take whatever for the days I’m free and job done. Well, no, not really.
I’ve got to take all my stuff on public transport and the 20 minute drive turns into an hour bus ride! Now I know I can take the bear minimum for a pre designed list but in some systems that is harder than others. I do want to try out MK3 Warmahordes but my existing Circle force includes quite a few figures. I’m still trying to paint my Age of Sigmar but when I do that will need probably more and/or larger figures than Warmahordes. Malifaux is a system that expects you to take a large selection of your collection as well even though there is less to it than the other systems I’ve mentioned. Even in X-Wing it’s nicer if I can have my collection to chose from rather than the one list that I’ve pre-packed in the morning.
So about the only really easily portable system I have is my one remaining Magic the Gathernig deck! I’ve recently stopped playing MtG and whilst I don’t mind keeping that deck it’s not something I really want to get back into.
I also have the problem that I actually like the tournament scene and I’m going to struggle to get better at any game if I’m only playing it one or two times a month. Don’t get me wrong I could play the same system every night and probably not win anything major but that’s another issue. Also it’s going to be very difficult for me to particiapte in shop run leagues with such a random schedule.
So I’m kinda stuck about what to do. I’m thinking that perhaps I should have a main system and one or maybe two fallback systems. Try to pre-arrange a game in my primary system no matter what day I end up having free and use the fallback systems when that fails. I’ll also have to be able to accept that those secondary systems are only ever going to be ‘for fun’ rather than tournament systems. All those systems have to require a minimum of things to be carried around even if that means I take a pre defined list for the night. I know that X-Wing will be my primary system but after that I really have no idea what to do!

So it begins…..

Hello internet peoples.  A couple of months ago I was getting bored of playing Magic the Gathering and started looking around for some other hobby time distraction.  I thought about getting back into war-gaming and found a very friendly local shop to go visit.  A couple of months later and I’m hooked again in no small part due to the really friendly staff and players in that shop.

I’ve now (re)started playing so many systems that I thought it would be good to have a place to record progress and keep myself honest and on track.  It also stops me clogging up the store Facebook group with random posts and pictures!

You are all welcome to come with me on this journey; let’s see where it leads.