Quar Campaign Day and Ongoing Quar stuffs.

 

Greetings!  

Are you by-chance in the mood to read about my ongoing projects in the world of Quar?

Also known as War Muppets.  Sometimes called Battle Newts.  Conflict Kangaroos. Army Anteaters.

Only I use those terms, but I'm thinking they could catch on. 

Maybe in the mood to see WAY too many pictures of a day of Quar gaming as part of a larger a campaign?

You are? Great! Because by a totally random coincidence I happen to have a post full of Quar right here, right now.  How lucky for everyone.  

and if ya aren't, then Adios Hippos.  

Post Full of Quar

To start things off, here are some more recently painted Quar.  These dudes are a faction of the Crusaders called Toulmore Veterans.  I know that doesn't mean anything, to anyone, who is not a Quar aficionado, like all of us cool people are.  I feel the same way when Naps players say "Prussian hussar" and I think 'now you're just making up words.'

These guys are the same as Crusaders except they have Teal uniforms and white helmets instead of green unfirms and brown helmets.  so TOTALLY different.

Here they are showing off the
adequate paint job.

The Whole Patrol

so far, so fabulous.

but that was like 12 miniatures!  12!  how utterly exhausting and boring to paint SO many miniatures.  I probably went through like 8 paint brushes.  I needed a break from miniatures, so the next project was doing some easy terrain. 

In previous posts I have written about how I wanted to stop using my ACW snake fences in games of this This Quar's War just to stop the constant This Quar's American Civil War jokes.  

Gamers can be so cruel, and the internet is like a middle school playground. 

(no one actually was cruel, I'm lying for dramatic effect, like your Aunt Jenny during a wedding toast).

Previous posts also discuss how I attempted to scratch build some fences and sucked at it, so bought these instead, and painting and flocking was a simple affair.  Just goes to show the life lesson that one should never try if one can buy.  

I got about 10 lengths of fences done in time for the Quar Game day.

Quar Campaign Day

My new faction and fences would come in handy, as I had a big day of Quar gaming on the calendar being hosted by nice guy Mr. NB.  

This was on the Sunday during the Valentines Day weekend.  Disappearing for a day to play miniature games would require the expenditure of many hubby points. Luckily for me I had the bank roll laid in, as evidenced by her Valentine's gift to me....

Can't argue with a travel coffee mug.

Don't worry, I got her gifts too.  I got her flowers, candy, and a cheesy Valentines card, and on the inside I wrote in a dirty joke.  Just what all women want.

I woke up early and drove the 2 hours down to Fremont and spent the day there doing game stuff and then drove back up.  It helped that the Monday after was a holiday, so the kids had no school, and I had no work, and therefore the wife had no responsibilities on the day after my day of no responsibilities.  

Walking into the Quar area you're greeted by a table full of snacks, with drinks below.

The Quar in the large frame is founder of the Crusade.
Loved or hated depending on what side you're on.

Campaign Day Set up:

Mr NB really deserves a LOT of credit for pulling together and running the event.  He fangled 12 players (so 6 pers side) to play in 3 linked games.  The first round was 3 games of 2vs2 in a 'Kill the opponent for fun and profit' scenario, then the next round was 6 games of 1vs1, each with it's own special board and scenario.  Then round 3 was back to multiplayer, where the scenario had 3 objectives across the middle.  In each round, each scenario had a primary and secondary objective; and accomplishing these contributed to small bonuses in the next game and to overall victory.  How this worked exactly was either secret or I wasn't paying close enough attention.  

The nice guys from Zombiesmith (the makers of Quar and the rules) also sponsored the event, provided some prize support, and were on hand to run a demo or 2.  

I brought along my new Toulmore Vets to fight for the crusade.  Another nice touch is that everyone got a little "national pin" to wear for the side that you were on:

National Pins that one wears on the collar.
The blue is the Royalist side, the yellow is the Crusade

Photo-Barrage:

I have a LOT of photos here.  If I know what's going on in the picture I'll write a caption.  Otherwise, we'll just go 'oohhh, preeetty' and move on. Some smiling faces, but mostly tabletops and crotches.

Now in no particular order:

one of the last multiplayer games.
Crusaders are trying to capture that Tractor (tank) in the middle.

My dudes pushing over a statue to dam the river for an objective

oh pretty

Oh pretty

crusaders need to place a charge on the gun, being guarded by 
some Fidwogs with their itty bitty teeny weeny one Quar Tractor.

Quar Farm with Guard Beetle

Escorting a tractor over the bridge, which has barricades 

oohh preety.
The dudes lying down are Out of Action, I think.

I gotta get my hands on the trench scenario from Mr. NB.
I am very curious.

oh, pretty

Assaulting the teeny tiny wittle bittle tractor.
because it's a menace.
Just like toddlers.

The snake thingy that kinda sorta looks like Randall from the Monsters Inc Movie
is actually part of the faction's force (called Gloamers).
It's kinda sorta like a war dog.  Sorta.

Here I am fighting over a village: the objective is to have
2 of the 3 buildings under your control at the end of the game.
This is a pic of my second game, where I was very confident of victory
until I got shot to pieces and all my dudes were dead.

My last multiplayer game.

The event ran long, and we were cut short when the store staff said "Look, we gotta close soon, so you nerds gotta go."  Still, everyone was a fine sport, looking to play fun games in a relaxed atmosphere.  I thought it was pretty amazing that one could gather 12 people in a room, each with their own Quar collection.  With Quar being something of a nitch within a nitch, behind the ditch sort of genre.  

It also became clear to me that I need to read up more on how some of the different factions work if I wanna keep up my "I'm 'The Quar Bro, I know everything bro," attitude.  

Cleaning up in a furry, we then held a brief award ceremony outside and Mr NB awarded a fairly large selection of prizes based on our accomplishments or failures.  There were infantry boxes donated by Zombiesmith, and a wide assortment of 3d printed items.   

I was happy to be awarded one of the giant statues for my peppiness and willingness to tell everyone the rules whether they wanted to hear it or not.  

Size of the Statue with a normal Quar.

The statue is a historical figure from the lore of the world.  Something like a Ghangis Khan and a Socrates rolled into one.  It's a very cool and unique item, and now I gotta have a think about what I want to do with it.  

Still thinking.  I'll probably make it a part of some sort of spent Pluck container. 

That last sentence only made sense to Quar players.  

Thanks for Reading.

Double Thanks for Writing a comment.

Till next time.

A Year of Hobby Expense Report

Where was I?
no sooner did I announce to the WORLD that I was back to blogging when I was stuck down by boredom and sickness and totally lost momentum.  

Mostly sickness, mostly pneumonia.  

No matter.  I'm back above ground now, like new sprouts pushing up in a new year. And our parasocial relationship can stand the break.

But still just as just as bored.  

Now let's talk money.

Hobby Expense Report

Alternative title: Holy Sh-  How Much???!! 

Back in January of last year I had the idea that it'd be interesting (and not at all scary) to track how much money I spent on hobby stuff throughout the year.  Kinda like a New Years Resolution.  But unlike those other resolutions like diet and exercise and being nice to my children, I actually did it.  

The rules were simple: doesn't matter what was purchased, but if it was purchased for the purpose of hobby-ness then it made the list.  If the item has other uses that's all well and good, but if I got it in the first place because it was a hobby need, then hobby purchase it was.  NEED say I.  Like breathing and water.

Here is the of purchases with the initial organization just the sequence in time as I purchased things throughout the year.  

-$20 bouncy balls
-$16 storage tubs
-$70 more paint pens
-$68 more Quar Miniatures
-$360 more Wooden Wars
-$30 Hot Lead and Cold Steel ACW rules
-$45 Bolt Action 2nd Edition rules
-$30 Drop cloth
-$30 House paint 
-$60 Quar tractors
-$95 plastic Quar Miniatures 
-$50 Army painter dark-dip
-$47 More Quar Miniatures
-$134 Proxxon Hot Wire foam cutter.
-$17 paint brushes
-$17 balsa wood stripper
-$10 Balsa wood sheets
-$78 XPS foam
-$78 lumber
-$58 Shifting Lands Guider Pro (MDF fence for the Proxxon)
-$20 Spackle and Liquid Nails
-$20 Craft sticks
-$38 Magnetic miniature bases
-$7 Coffee stir sticks
-$25 Hydrocal plaster
-$50 Bolt Action V3 rules 
-$28 storage tub / metal sheet
-$50 more Quar Miniature
-$300 Pacificon convention
-$15 spray glue
-$20 coffee grounds
-$300 Army Painter paint set
-$72 More Quar Miniatures
-$25 Vetcon
-$40 resin fences 
-$60 Midgard heroic battle Rules
-$105 terrain making scenics from Scenic express (flock and stuff) 

And not to bury the lead, the grand total is $2,410.  

Which I am not sure how I feel about.  It's definitely more than I thought it would be at the beginning of the year (about 150% more than initial estimate) but less than a Disneyland vacation for the family. I'm sure I missed a few things here and there. I don't see spray primer on that list and I'm pretty sure I bought a can of Krylon matte Black spray primer sometime.  Or did I? 

Kinda shows that if I just stopped buying stuff for a year and just painted what I had, I could have saved a not insignificant amount of money. 

Now that I have data, I can do my best impression of Johnathan Freitag and do some maths and analytics.  or it is data?  I never know if it's data like Dah-tah or if it's data like Day-tah.  

here are some broad categories:

Money spent on....

Miniatures:

Quar: $392

Wooden Wars; $360

Rulebooks:  $185 (4 total)

Paints: $350 

Attending Conventions:  $325

Proxxon Cutter and accessories: $192

Terrain Supplies (including the trench boards):  $418.

I could go into more details I guess, but it's doesn't seem all that interesting to actually do so.  

And I have no idea if this represents a typical year of my hobby spending or maybe I was a spendthrift or maybe, even, I was incredibly restrained.  

So I'll do it again this year.  

Like last year I'll keep a little tally going on the right side of the blog.  

And then maybe next year there'll be more to talk about.  This post is just convenient online storage.  

Thanks for reading.

Double thanks for writing a comment.

Till next time.

Resume!

 

New year, new season. same boring blog. 

Is January almost over already?  Damn, that seemed to go fast, but somehow, wasn't long enough maybe? Depends on how you feel about boring wargaming blogs. I know right?  I'm not sure I like them either.

I don't do blogging over the winter.  I get busy and frankly, I just lose the vibe. It's like having seasonal affective disorder but only applied to miniature wargaming.  

But winter is over.  mostly over.  It's over here in California.  Time to rejoin the blogging world and shake off this malaise.    

I'm sure someone, somewhere, while they were unable to sleep one night due to having caffeine too late in the day wondered to themselves.. 'I wonder what that Stew guy is up to, I wish he would post something so I could chuckle at his stupid jokes.  And then he can comment on my blog and we can be the bestest blogging buddies again."  "I mean, as long as it's not still those lame Anteater dudes."

Well!  Here I am again! Whoohoo!  and by 'lame anteater dudes' you meant "awesome Quar." 

And it is more awesome Quar.  See,s like you get a litle good and a little bad.

It's like you rolled a 6/1 on the random outcome table.  

And's that a joke that only Quar players will get, if that. so, eat it.

Quar

I continue to be invested in Quar.  Not only because I like the rules and the miniatures (and because I'm a super slow painter and builder and in general it takes me forever to do anything), but ALSO; because I've somehow gotten myself involved as something like a play tester, or like a promoter, or a like junior volunteer assistant developer looking for college credit.  It's my first time interacting with a miniature wargame as something other than just a consumer.

And it's kinda cool.  

I don't expect to get anything out of it other than my name in the acknowledgments paragraph in the introduction.  Maybe it could be Stewart "really cool nickname" Blain.  

Over the winter break I painted exactly 6 miniatures:

I painted two farmers and some livestock.
The green things are supposed to be some sort of fluffy pig.
The other is obviously some sort of giant beetle.  

And two armed civilian dudes.
technically these are "partisans" but I'll likely use them as armed farm hands.
which is kinda the same thing, I guess.
I'm rather proud of Gilligan hat.

And to start off my wargaming season, the other weekend I had a small game at my house to play test some stuff.  It was last minute, and in the sad commentary of my life I emailed like 8 people just to have 1 be available.  So it is.  I guess I can count myself lucky that I had 8 people to even ask.

Table Set Up:

Two squads of crusaders in the road being ambushed.

Left and Right,
Left an' Rght,
march, march, march.

random in game pics;

All Caught Up

And there ya go.  Now we all caught up with each other.  

Told ya it was boring.  Probably put that guy who drank too much caffeine too late in the day right to sleep.  At least I can say I did some sort of public service. 

Welcome back to the blog of Terrible Loss.  I'll go check out what's been up on your not terrible blogs.