2025 Year in Review

First things first: we live in Hawai'i and its fantastic! 

We hosted a bunch of great visitors, family & friends alike, snorkelled & hiked on multiple islands, and even saw a volcano erupt on the big island of Hawai'i (super cool!)

Mrs Man Cave and I just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary, and this year I travelled to Australia, Japan, Phillipines and 6 other states in the U.S. including visits to NASA Huntsville, Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, and Udvar-Hazy Air Museum. 

"Rocket City", Huntsville Alabama

OV-103 "Discovery" - the most flown of the Shuttles

Apollo-11 Capsule

So clearly I en joyed getting my space geek on this year! But from a Hobby lens its been a more mixed bag.

The Good

I reconnected with Rich after many years, and we've been playing some remote Pulp SciFi games which we wrote up here on the blog. Super fun and more in-person games are planned together in 2026. 

I managed to see a few of the lads when I slipped home for a work trip back in April, and even managed to get a 6-player Trojan Wars game in using Midguard, which I enjoyed. Was great to see John, Alan and Gav.

And thats it, those were the two games I managed to play over the whole year. The local gaming scene is 40k and Age of Sigmar only. The search continues but hope is fading. Didn't get to any game conventions either. 

I missed my good mates, our regular gaming and egging eachother on to get our next projects to the table. So I lived somewhat vicariously through other's gaming and Owen favoured me by posting a few of his battle reports here, which I really appreciated.

With the move overseas it also took me another 6 months to get a brush back in my hand too. I really missed it and most of my materials had to be reacquired. Projects were planned, sometimes acquired and then drifted into silence. Still, I did manage to paint up a couple of things for my Black Templars collection (which is in storage back home).

And for the first time ever, I entered into a local painting competition with his guy, which felt out of my usual depth!

On the upside, a range of diverse projects are now in hand for AHPC Season 16, where I'm really enjoying reconnecting with the guys back home on our interweb "paint & chat" sessions. I'm going to actively ride this wave of enthusiasm into next year

In the absence of the tabletop I re-engaged with some solo board wargames this year to fill my tabletop void, and enjoyed my narrative Stuka Ace campaign. I have a few others lined up for next year.

I missed catching up with David & David this year, and appreciated this 'missing man' pic and libation!

After helping out as a playtester, I was also thrilled this year to see Frank go gangbusters with his Blood on the Sands kickstarter and know he is working hard to get it ready for shipment. Cant wait to see that in hand of lanistas across the world!

And finally, I finished my Goodreads reading Challenge which I enjoy each year. 16k odd pages read, unsurprisingly focused in SF and fantasy genres.

If I had to pick a favourite read of the year this would be it

Thanks to all I've chatted and connected with across the year. 

May 2026 be a great year to all.

2024 in Review

I've done 15 of these posts before, but this one feels different. This year we've lost 3 wargaming friends to the big tabletop in the sky (vale Rolfe, Mike & Stephen; you will be missed fellahs). Two mates recently survived heart attacks (one just this week) and two others have started cancer treatments. Made me reflective and appreciative; you'll see that I now post more pics of the people I am playing with, not just focusing on the tabletop.

AHPC 14 Wrap-Up with Reilly!

This year work has taken me far afield once again- from the High North of Norway and sailing in the Arctic Ocean, to looking across the Han River into North Korea, and deployments into the SW Pacific. My extended period in this Command role has now completed and it was an amazing experience.

Revisiting the awesome D-Day situation room at Ike's HQ, Southwick House (formerly HMS Dryad), Hampshire UK

On the gaming front, one of my key highlights was Alan and I getting our Roman Civil War project onto the table after years of planning, thanks to AHPC pushing me I might say. 

We used the quick playing, To The Strongest to get lots of troops on the table while still getting a solid outcome in less than 3 hours. While initially I thought I wouldn't like either the gridded system or the cards, both work very well indeed.

The day that Alan's Legion's Eagle was lost - literally!

I'm really chuffed to have finally gotten this army to the table after years of start-stop and disruption. No army is ever really 'complete' of course and some half painted units went into storage with disappointed looks on their little metal and plastic faces...

https://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2024/07/a-civil-war-4-years-in-making.html

Pompey got the odd Ally in his cause too! :-)

Consul Marty was loyal to Ceasar's cause though!

The (re)release of The Old World early in the year had us every excited and dragging out our old Warhammer Fantasy armies!

The 4 rank "Doombull Deathbus" with Shaman proved brutally effective

Reilly has not 1 but 3 of these Arachno-terrors in his army!

My Beastmen went from a 3rd tier army in WHFB 8th to quite competitive in The Old World

This year also saw Reilly (aka 'The Lad') move out of home - flying the coop some 2,000 kms north. We packed a number of hobby items into his car and had ourselves a great Boys' roadtrip. I love his frequent calls giving me the play by plays of his Blood Bowl games up there (some of them get posted here also)

His farewell game was an epic 10 player Battle Royale set in the Trojan wars, ending in he & I having a classic Hector vs Achilles duel! One for the ages :-) Check it out here: https://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2024/03/achilles-rampant-farewell-to-lad.html

Separately, there was some great gladiator action with Frank and his Blood on the Sand rules - look to 2025 for the Kickstarter!

During my travels this year in London, I got to catch up with long time friend David Crook of "A Wargaming Odyssey" (https://awargamingodyssey.blogspot.com/) for a pint or 3 and a great chat. 

Then I caught up with the effervescent Ashley from "Paint it Pink" (https://panther6actual.blogspot.com/) and the fabulous Susan. Together we went to the Roman Life exhibition at the British Museum which was really excellent  https://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2024/03/legion-life-in-roman-army.html

Photo with the only surviving scutum shield!

Conventions wise, together Slowpainter John and I attended CANCON (with Reilly also), BrisCon, ShireCon and MOAB - probably a record for me. 

CANCON Shenanigans!

A a rare sighting of Matt aka Blue Willow in the Canberra wilderness!

And a surprise visit from my Melbourne mate Rob - it had been over 20 years since we'd seen eachother!

Along the way I did my usual Annual Reading Challenge through Goodreads, for my 12th consecutive year. Helped considerably by Audible while painting and driving it must be admitted (unabridged versions only of course!)

And then we finished the year with the minor matter of moving to Hawaii for our next adventure.  Before I left, we enjoyed a big Space 1889 game with clubmate Gavin https://pauljamesog.blogspot.com/2024/11/battle-for-trading-outpost-part-2.html

....and a fun, tropical themed game of Silver Bayonet with the gang: a wonderful sendoff! 

https://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2024/12/quest-for-golden-pineapple.html

The Quest for the Golden Pineapple! Blessed to have such good gaming mates

As a natural outcome of the big move, I've forgone participating in AHPC this year. I'm helping Curt out by being a Minion which will be fun, but I'm really missing the therapeutic brush time.

Mrs Man Cave and I are very excited about the opportunities to live in the US again and enjoy life on a tropical island too, but I've had to leave most of my hobby materials behind. Only a couple of boardgames, a few rules sets and some brushes came with me. I'm now looking around to see what the local wargaming scene might look like.

Roadtrippin' with Slowpainter John! Many bakeries were raided...

Hobby wise 2025 and the few years beyond, is rather tough to chart out or even guess at. I'm looking at a few low figure count skirmish games with RPG lite elements (including 5 Parsecs from Home, Devilry Afoot, Deth Wizards and Silver Bayonet) and SAGA: Age of Chivalry interests me, but it depends on what I can find being played locally (also just found an alt medieval history game called 1490Doom that looks fun and only uses 3 models per side!)  

Comrade James and I catching up in Perth mid-year for games!

It's likely that my hobby will be focused away from tabletop miniatures for awhile. I've brought a few boardgames with me and had had my eye on others for awhile. I definitely want to get to Historicon too. I'm also considering doing some design work for some new games and expansions, which I've enjoyed doing in the past - we'll see what comes of that.

May your 2025 bring good hobby and great times with your mates!

2023 Reflections

Completed AHPC 13 with Reilly, which is always hugely fun

Another year, another look back at my hobby - in fact this is the fifteenth time I've done this. Most importantly, I enjoyed a range of great games with my mates, spread as ever over a wide array of genres.

1st game of the year was with Alan  for Dark Ages Dux Bellorum

Napoleonic action with Valour and Fortitude

15mm Punic Wars with To the Strongest

Space 1889 VSF with TMWWBK

Gladiators with Blood on the Sands

Getting utterly pulped by Reilly in Bolt Action 

Getting my revenge and having a rare Father's Day grudge match win in Dungeonbowl

Last game if the year was with Alan, John and Marty: Middle Empire Romans vs Gepids in To The Strongest

I painted stuff too, but thats all secondary to spending time at the table rolling dice and having laughs.

I also managed to attend THREE conventions - admittedly CanCon and MOAB here in Oz are relatively routine but attending WARFARE in the UK was wonderful, with the best part being to meet face to face with great people I've only been 'e-mates' with until now.

Work travel wise I was again busy on the road and afloat with trips to New Zealand, Indonesia, USA, UK and France. Highlights included time at sea embarked in USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT and USS AMERICA, and visiting Portsmouth UK where we lived 20 years ago.

I also completed my 11th annual reading challenge (though admittedly many are audible books while driving, travelling and painting). A minor achievement but I really enjoy this and it gives me great impetus to discover new authors and titles over the year.

Whats up hobby wise in 2024? A whole lot more swapping and chopping across periods and genres most probably! I'll likely move interstate again at the end of next year so will focus this year on completing projects with the local gang before I go. On my painting table right now are Gladiators, Caesarian Romans and some VSF stuff but in a month...who knows? 

The Old World and Legions Imperialis do beckon though. And I've got my eye on the planned Victrix release of Early Saxons next year too - the previews look very tasty!

May 2024 be good to you, with happiness and health aplenty!

and the Real World stuff that happened along the way