Incoming Big Stompy Robot stuff!

 So,

Got busy on some more CAV models the other day. I have a large collection, but these I recently purchased from Talon Games. Like a few folks I got excited about the pending launch of the new GW Epic game, but the delays sort of bummed me out. I then took a hard look at what do I have that could simulate the same sort of game, two ideas came to me, one, CAV and the other Wiley Games Battle suit Alpha.

So I busted out BA and started looking at it, and hence the reason for purchasing more CAV models. John has some very nice models and it was time to get a few more. 

First up are the new Tsuiski II aircraft which look very similar to a Warthog, which is one of my favorite aircraft and this futuristic take looks cool!

Tsuiseki II

Next up was a new new CAV model, the Kodiak, reminds me a little of the old Battletech Hunchback.

Kodiak

I also picked up these two Cobras, love the way the packs on the shoulders invoke that Cobra Hood in a weird sort of way.

Cobras

Up next were some of the new Infantry models that I picked up, one nice thing about CAV model range, its all in scale with itself. Something that used to bug me in Battletech, the mechs were never in scale, say a spider was the same height of a Battle Master, one was a lite mech & the other was a Heavy mech, but were the same size. Well John at Talon makes all his models in scale which is roughly 10mm. Here you can see just how big a CAV model is to an infantry man.

Scale of models

And here is a close up of the infantry, went with a very simple scheme for them and they have just enough detail on them. 

Infantry models for CAV

So there you go, another batch of models kicked out, still have a bunch on the table to get to.

TK

CAV Strikes again!

So,

I love Robot/Mech games, one of the first games I played was the classic Battletech, I would always be buying Ral Partha Mechs and actually started selling these painted models to my local game store back in CA. But as things do, I drifted away from the game and startrd playing on the computer and many console games. BT was great, but it was more better suited for the computer then on the tabletop.

Then a few years ago I got introduced to CAV from Talon Games (was formerly with Reaper Miniatures). I worked with Jon Walker of Talon for a few years. But once my time working ended I drifted off to other games. But I had a ton of CAV models left to paint.

So this weekend I decided to paint up a few models just for fun, here is the results.

I have a few more models to work on, so I will be adding them here on the Old Blog so stay tuned.

TK

Adepticon 2018 Recap

So,

I survived Adepticon 2018 and it was an interesting show to say the least. I flew out the Wednesday before everything started to help set up the CAV Strike Ops booth with the Talon Crew (Jon, Nate Luke and Myself). Jon of Talon Games had built a new booth for this show and it looked awesome! It was big, bright and full of all kinds of CAV Strike Ops love, what more could a CAV player want!

Another view of our Awesome Looking Booth!

Our goal was to make a splash with the booth and Jon and Nate would operate the booth while Luke and myself would run the big CAV Strike Ops game throughout the weekend. But do to some miscommunication with the Adepticon crew, they had scheduled the big game for a solid 6 hour block. We wanted it to be set up so that players could cycle into the game every two hours, that way folks could play in other games or attend classes. But with it showing for a 6 hour block, no one wanted to sign up for a 6 hour game. So instead we ran folks through demos of the game and kept score of the folks that did the most kills.

Large board for the Big Game/demos

As for Adepticon itself, it had a strange vibe to it this year, I really can't put my finger on it as to what felt different though. Maybe it was because I was in a different role this time as a vendor, maybe its been a few years since I last attended. But I did meet up with a bunch of friends that I have made throughout the years and it was also very good to catch up. I have always stated that Adepticon is a great place to build new friendships over our hobby.

Some of my haul this year!

Now, with being a vendor this time around, I had early access to the vendor haul, so once we got our booth set up, I started wandering around looking at all the cool vendors. Fantasy Flight was there in Force with all the Star Wars games including Legions that released while I was there. Two of the companies that I knew i would spend money with was Pulp Figures (which I did spend about $85.00 with!) and Knuckleduster Miniatures which I bought about $80.00 in minis from them. I also picked up a few Blood Eagle models from Footsore miniatures for myself and a few friends. I also picked up a few terrain items from Death Ray Designs for Drunkensaumari.

Chicago Deep Dish Pizza!

As mentioned above, I did get a chance to make the rounds and see a few games that were being hosted at the event. One in particular was the new Fallout miniature game. I couldn't get any good pictures due to the amount of folks around the table. It did look pretty cool, but I noticed that it uses specialty dice much like Fantasy Flight games for Star Wars. This seems to be a trend I am noticing in the game world. I also got to see the new Blood Red Skies WW2 game from Warlord, it looks interesting but with so many new games coming out, I really can't seem to get to excited about buying. There is just only so many games one can actually get to the table in a year and I am not sure I am ready to jump into a new game right now.

One last thing, Jon Walker of Talon Games and his two boys, Nate & Luke were awesome to be around all weekend. Jon seems to know most of the vendors and I got to meet and hang out with a few of them, especially Ed from Reaper (who owns the company). So it was rather interesting to hear how other vendors deal with this hobby of ours and I got to see behind the current of the game industry.

So overall, the show was good, not great like it had been in years past, but overall it was good. I do believe that Adepticon is changing as more big game companies come on board with Adepticon. It seems that this con is now looking to expand into the realms of Gencon status as it grows larger every year. So if you have never been to Adepticon, go, it is an experiance, but as a long time traveler to Adepticon, I may not be back for sometime. It really depends if Talon Games goes back and they need me for the trip to help out again. But I think my days of going as a gamer are just about done, it was still an expensive trip for me even with the help of Talon Games.

TK

Heading back to Chicago!

So, in just about 9 days I will be boarding a flight and heading back to Adepticon 2018 in Chicago. But this time I will be going as an actual vendor this time with Talon Games for CAV Strike Operations.

I will bet there running demos, working the booth and running the large game that we will be putting on for the event. It will be nice to see some of my Chicago friends again as it has been about two or three years since I was last out. So if you are a fan of this blog, stop by and say Hi or better yet get in a demo of CAV Strike Operations with me!

I of course will be taking tons of pictures of all the fun and of course will be doing some shopping while there as the list of vendors is pretty large. So stay tuned for more updates here.

TK

Arizona Game Fair Recap

Well Arizona Game Fair has come and gone and I have survived! This was my first time attending this event which is normally a all Board/Card convention, this year I was the first actual miniature game to be hosted (Yes X wing was there, but I look at that as more of a board game than miniature game), which was CAVSO. I also was brought in to run the Paint & Take for the event, which was sponsored by Talon Games. 

I ran about 20 people through the CAVSO demos, which all but one had never played a true miniature game. All that played this weekend had a blast and loved the game,  so I would say that it was a hit!

CAVSO Demo Table, thanks to Robert for lending the terrain!

A packed table for CAVSO!

Besides the demos, as I mentioned I ran three Paint & Takes with CAVSO models. Talon Games sent a bunch models to use as well as Reaper paints. My friend Richard who recruited me to AZGF, bought the brushes to use for the event.

CAVSO models on display to inspire painting!

Two full packed tables for the Paint & Take

Each session had 12 folks signed up and all but a few had never actually painted anything before. As I said before, this is primarily a board and card show, so not many painters there. Now with more board games having cool miniatures, more folks are looking to paint there miniatures in their board games. So this was a great excuse to pick up a brush and test out their skill with out having to invest in paints and brushes. Once again folks had a blast painting and for most, these were the first miniatures that they ever painted.

So how was the rest of the event? Well from what I saw of it in between my demos or classes, tit looked like it was pretty well handled. There were lots of board games and when I went over to the RPG room, it was packed! The vendor area had a good selection of shops, including Imperial Outpost. All of the shops present had good selections of items, although not to surprising, none of them had any miniatures. All the folks that played in the demos or went to the Paint & Take were asking me if they could buy any of this there, which sadly I had to point them to the Reaper website. I imagine that with more miniature games, the vendors will respond by bringing more minis next time.

And because of the success of the events I ran, it looks like i will be going back next year to host more games. In fact I will be running a few Fistful of Lead games next year at the event. How do I know that, well I went and did a bad thing the other day, I ordered two bundles of Sarissa Precision of Old West terrain!

So next year, we will have some Old West Action going on at Arizona game Fair. I am also meeting with Richard to discuss just what sort of miniature games should be show cased at future events. Now, I need to wait to get my new toys, so stay tuned for some new terrain.

TK

CAV Strike Operations

So,

Its been a short while since I last made an update, so here we go. Today's post is on Talon-Games CAV Strike Operations, a game about Combat Armored Vehicles (aka CAV's) or big stompy  robots! I first heard about this game from Reaper Miniatures sometime around 2010 or so while at my local game store here in town. Back then all the models were metal and I contemplated picking it up, but never did. You see, I was a big Battletech player many many years ago and ever since I left that system I toyed around with getting back into a robot combat game. But for whatever reason, I never picked it up and to be honest, I even picked up Heavy Gear and tried playing that, but just could not get into it.

My next run in with CAV was when Reaper Miniatures announced the new Kickstarter for CAV Strike Operations and the CAVs would be in Bones Material. Well a bunch of friends here got excited and backed the Kickstarter. Sadly I did not due to financial issues. But I had at least 4 friends back it, and my buddy, Mike over at DaGreenskins Blog,hooked me up with the first eight models Reaper did in the white Bones material. Then we had to wait for the kick starter to be fulfilled. So once the models arrived I got to painting them up with ideas of writing our own rules for Robot combat fighting game.

First Reaper Bones White material CAVs

But as things go, life got in the way with my own rules for robots fighting and the Kick starter dragged on. Also the white bones material was rather interesting to work with. The models I was given had slight bends in them on the gun barrels. I followed the Reaper instructions for heating them and cooling them to straighten them out. That last about 4 days and the bends came back to them. Last time I was at Adepticon, I even asked the Reaper guys about this and they were shocked that I was still having issues. I finally had to drill out the gun barrels and insert brass wire in them to keep them straight.Needless to say, I was not feeling very good about this new material and had reservations about the game.

Well the game finally came out and the new grey material was much better than the white stuff. But by the time all the guys here got their stuff, they were pretty much ready to move onto something else. I think part of that is the Kick Starter bubble, people get excited about these new games and then forget about them and move onto the next game or fund the next project.

Well about a year ago one of the guys that got all the stuff in the KS, asked if I was interested in picking up his set for the amount he paid into it for a trade in paint. So that following weekend I had a huge box of CAV models and more importantly the CAV Strike Operation rules. I wish I could say I was super excited about it, but I filed the models into the closet and the rule book onto the shelf to be looked at later.

Well, at the end of last year, I decided that I wanted to take a hard look at CAV SO again, so I pulled out the rules and started reading. I started to enjoy what was in there, in fact I then pulled out all the CAVs and started to assemble them and base them up. Then I found out that my buddy Merle in Kansas, was interested in the game as well. So he and I started talking about the game. He told me that he had talked with the author, Jon Walker while at Reapercon last October. If Merle was into the game i knew it had to be good. So with that I started going through the book and identified the faction I wanted to build, The Ritterlich Republic, a strange Germanic force that had a very WW2 vibe to them. SO with that I decided to paint up a few more CAV's, below are two Ritterlich CAV's, the Cataphract and Cougar, these are two CAVs from the 92nd Schwarzenwald Brigade, the Panthers.

 

I have about eight more Ritterlich CAVs to finish, but I am super excited about this game and you will see more CAV Strike Operations here on the blog in the very near future. So if your looking for a cool Robot combat game that is pretty cheap to get into, than CAV Strike Operations is for you! Now recruit, get signed up for some CAV combat!

TK