Are roving reporter hobbit has come back from his big adventure.
Alas he didn’t meet any Dragons or Elves….The odd troll maybe. The lucky sod got to go to TempleCon AND SmogCon in almost the same week.
Listen to him talking about both (yes this is a Kev episode we are sorry).
Any reviews/comments are welcome as we strive to be the best wargaming podcast for you the listeners.
On with the show! We last saw our intrepid hero and his band of compatriots in the House of Bread Sticks, in which Gdaybloke quite enjoyed the Gnocchi. The dinner table that night was a raucous cacophony as the crew indulged in ribald humor and shared anecotes, and otherwise engaged in tomfoolery to the amusement and possible embarassment of the wait staff. Then they returned to the Crown Plaza to indulge in more Templecon the following day…
“Whut? Oh, yeah, we just won this li’l ole’ thing…”
Privateer art printed on stretch canvas. Perfect way to class up your nerd cave.
… that’s not a euphemism.
[Crossposted from Hobby Hysteria]
So it’s a New Year and we’ve been busy behind the scenes for some time, mostly working on armies, ideas, thoughts, and scrounging around for some content to keep things going here. While I have the time, I hope to bring some more news and info to the blog while I can. Spring and Summer aren’t that far off, and that means I get busier and have less time when the sun comes out and people feel the need for some beautiful backyard leisure. regardless of all that, let’s discuss what we have been working on over at the Hystericave!!
For me, I picked up a new army that I have always admired from afar but avoided because my friends already played the faction or were working on it and enjoying it. I won’t lie, I am one of those people who would like to be playing and painting something different from the majority of the crew at the FLGS, and wanting to be the paragon or pure player of the faction that I am championing. That means sometimes you need to play the underdog, or play the less competitive stuff. In this case it was just a shortage of players in the faction and the time was right for a new army and new challenge for the Road to TempleCon 2015.
For several years now, at Templecon, the Lost Hemisphere team – ably supported by the New England Privateers – have conducted a charity fundraiser. It started with victims of horrific flooding in Australia, which was obviously near and dear to my own heart. The next year, we raised funds for the Hope Alzheimers’ Center, which cares not only for those afflicted by the crippling dementia, but also for the families of patients, providing a support network that goes above and beyond. Next, if was Children’s mental illness, and last year we raised funds to benefit research in prostate and other colorectal cancers. This year we’re returning to Hope, with added poignancy given that I personally have lost two family matriarchs in the last twelve months, and other Losties are even now doing their best to care for family members locked in the grips of Alzheimers’ disease.
Last year we opened things up to the community to create a raffle prize table, with all sorts of painted and NIB models donated by our readers and listeners, as well as donations from Privateer Press, KR Multicase, Dragon Forge Design, Broken Egg Games, and the Temple. The generosity of our prize-providers helped spark the same flame in Templecon attendees who opened their wallets and helped us raise several thousand dollars for the Jimmy Fund. It was a huge success, and we’re repeating the formula this year. Contributions big and small have been trickling in, and an amazing prize pool has already developed..
What I didn’t expect was to come home today and find this.
I looked at the name of the sender – Mr David Not-That-One Cameron – and thought “That doesn’t make any sense…”. Opening the package took some carving – there’s a LOT of bubble wrap on there – and there was a letter addressed to me within that essentially started with “Well, I *was* just going to paint up a battlebox, but things kind of got away from me…”
Ladies and Gentlelost, it’s time to share with you our plans for Templecon 2015. As our loyal readers will know, Templecon is our home convention and the Losties migrate en masse every February to take part in the biggest li’l Warmachine convention there is. Every year we also select a charity and hold a fundraising raffle, giving gamers a chance to give back to the world at large, and prove that we’re so much more than just a bunch of folks in black t-shirts and the occasional utilikilt.
2015 is Templecon’s 10th anniversary, blending elements of previous years to make for a chronological crossroads, a temporal t-intersection, a… okay, my alliterative skills only go so far. With the marking of Templecon’s milestone, it occurred that it might be a good time to look back at the roots of our own relationship with Rhode Island’s most awesome gamer event.
Accordingly, Templecon 2015 will see Lost Hemisphere’s fundraiser benefit and honour those suffering from or affected by Alzheimer’s Disease. We will once again be working with the Hope Alzheimer’s Center of Cranston, RI, as well as submitting a portion of the funds raised to be directly applied to research into prevention and one day, a cure.
The Hope Alzheimer’s Center provides support and respite for those suffering from Alzheimer’s, and for their families and carers. It’s often easy to focus directly on the Alzheimer’s sufferer and forget how much of a struggle it can be for their loved ones. This year the Titans – Lost Hemisphere’s core support team – have been heavily impacted by Alzheimer’s Disease, including the loss of loved ones and one Titan struggling daily with an elderly family member’s fading memory. In Peggy’s name, in Jean’s name, in Laurel’s name – we’re looking to do some solid fundraising this time around.
Turn up at Templecon and bring raffle money. We’ll be selling tickets on our usual model – $2 apiece, 3 tickets for $5, $20 for an arm’s length – and as with last year’s highly successful fundraiser, we’ll have a table chock full of niftiness for you to choose your prizes from.
Yup, and we’re doing it again. If you have something you’d like to donate to the prize table to help make this a success, we’d be honoured and delighted to have you share in this with us. There’s a couple of criteria though. If you’re making a donation to the prize table it should be either:
(a) new product in its original packaging, or
(b) completed models that we can display.
This event is not exclusively for Warmachine/Hordes. Models from other game lines are welcome, as are board games, terrain, hobby tools and the like. If you’d like to contribute, please drop an email through to submissions@losthemisphere.com with Templecon Donation in the subject line.
Well, much of that depends on what people submit. This is an opportunity for some small businesses to get their name out there – we will be publishing the names of donors unless they wish to remain anonymous – for their products or painting services. Lost Hemisphere will be donating a number of prizes saved from Review product received throughout the year, our sponsors traditionally have something nifty on the table (that’d be Dragon Forge Design, Broken Egg Games and KR Multicase), and every year Privateer Press has stepped up in a big way and provided an entire army to give away. I also have it on good authority that an entire army of Blighted Nyss is making its way over from Australia to be added to the prize table. Last year we also saw donations from local game stores, both new-in-box and professionally painted Colossals, and a custom unreleased terrain piece.
Given that we were still receiving donations two days into last year’s convention, the exact contents of the Templecon 2015 prize table won’t be known until, well, Templecon 2015.
We hope you’ll consider pitching in to be a part of our annual fundraiser, perhaps as a donor or, if you’re attending Templecon 2015, as a participant. Someone has to buy all of those arm’s lengths worth of tickets, and you never know what you’ll end up going home with. Please take the time to check out the Hope Alzheimer’s Center’s website, and maybe, next family gathering, have a little extra love for the older members of your clan.
See you in Rhode Island.
During my recent trip to Australia I reconnected with pal Tim (and got to meet Erinn too!). When I last saw Tim he was, well, much more vertically challenged than he is now.
I’m chuffed to report that Tim and Erinn will be crossing the big blue pond and joining the Losties at Templecon 2015… but that’s not all. Check out Tim’s latest post on RAWRMACHINE! for a taste of things to come.
I’ll just tease you with this piccie, you can go to Rawrmachine to find out what it’s all about.
Lost pal Plarzoid is already gearing up for Templecon 2015. On the one hand I’m all like “Pshaw, plenty of time, no worries mate!”, and on the other I’m all “Duuude, that’s all proactive and not a bad idea.”
Locking yourself into a faction more than ten months away from a convention requires a degree of willpower that I’m not sure I have, but I’m keen to encourage my buddy in his planned shenanigans. He’s building based on four very simple core principles:
1. Thunderdome
2. Scalability
3. Speed
4. Portability
Thunderdome may seem like an odd thing to plan around, but it’s possibly the fastest way to rack up Iron Arena skulls for playing people from different states/provinces/countries, and different factions… and all it requires is three painted warcasters/warlocks. Choosing three that will synergize well in the format can lead to victory skulls as well, and bringing three painted ‘casters to a convention means that if you can build three lists, one for each ‘caster, you’re covered for pretty much any tournament requirement as well.
Scalabity means you need to have armies that can go from 15 to 25 to 35 to 50 to 75pts. There are Iron Arena awards for playing each level, and there are going to be tournaments at most of them as well. Being able to perform well at each level can make a huge difference in your win/loss ratio. Granted, that’s never a major concern per Lost Hemisphere core tenets, but it can also mean the difference between having some good, tight games, and being walked over repeatedly in every game for four days. Having fun is important.
Speed is primarily an issue in tournaments, but when you’re looking to rack up as many games as you can, as fast as you can, to earn Iron Arena skulls so you can snaffle that certain prize before someone else snipes you, having lists that can activate quickly can be important. Yes, fielding over forty Mage Hunter Strike Force models is a thing (Oooh, yeah, it’s a thing…) but it makes for a lot of time chewed up in setup and activation. Having armies that aren’t going to be clocked out should be a goal.
Portability means having an army that doesn’t require you to bring three different army transport bags. Plan for lists that have crossover in units and warjacks/warbeasts. Consider, do you really need to bring both Colossals and a Battle Engine? Can you limit yourself to a single faction? There’s only so much room in the overhead storage bins on the plane, and the very concept of having to lug all that stuff to and from your room at the convention when you want to play is enough to make my lower vertebrae ache. Personally, I like to fit everything into a KR Multicase Kaiser 1 – slightly bigger than Battlefoam’s P3 paint case, but it’s actually a fully self contained bag with pockets for books, dice, cards, etc.
You can read more of Plarzoid’s thoughts and help him with his list selection over at his awesome read-a-lot station, Plarzoid.com. I do highly recommend it.
Every year at Templecon we, the Losties, hit up the gamer community for contributions to charity. This year we broke our usual format and also asked for contributions to the prize table, and dang if it wasn’t a roaring success, raising over $4245 for the Dana Farber Institute, benefiting colon cancer research. This is a cause near and dear to a number of us, so it was both humbling and awesome that the fundraiser was such as success. This year we tag-teamed with the New England Privateers to make it all happen, so tip o’ the ole’ hat to them too.
Thanks to Lost pal Kyle “RedPhantasm” Hagan, we have pics of the winners! If you’re a winner and your pic came out flattering, you own him a beer. If not, sock him one in the arm. 😛 Note that a couple of people did scarper before we could get pics with them, and a couple of the prizes were late additions and so unfortunately I don’t have a card identifying the painter/donor and/or winner.
The prize table as it looked shortly before the mob descended
It’s been about a week since the last update, and that’s been largely because I’ve been away from home at the one event us Losties look forward to most each year: Templecon. Templecon’s been our home convention, despite it being a day-long road trip, for many years now. It’s where we hold our annual charity fundraiser, where we vie to see who gets stuck in the room with the snorers, and in many cases, the only time of the year when we actually get to hang out with some of our interwebs friends. If you were following us on Twitter or Facebook it’s likely you’ve seen the vast majority of these photos already (cos I was an uploadin’ fiend), but the Templecon Photodump is a blog tradition. Accordingly, PHOTODUMP!!!
Yeah, so apparently I packed a few things. A goodly portion of this was in fact prizes for the charity raffle but we’ll get to that in a bit.
