The last thing I need is more unpainted miniatures. I could start painting all the stuff I already own today and die well before ever finishing them all. But not surprisingly, curiosity got the best of me in December. I saw some folks selling cool-looking 3D printed miniatures on eBay and decided to buy some to see what I would get. You know, for SCIENCE!
I really like the sculpts from Highland Miniatures, and this particular eBay seller was printing and selling some of those. I purchased the following models / model-sets, all in 28mm.
Eternal Priest
Ancient Skeletons with Bows (10 figures)
Steppe Goblins (10 figures)
It took one-month from the time that I ordered until the 3D models arrived. Here are a few very quick snapshots of a few of the figures I got.
First off, the Eternal Priest. He is quite detailed and would fit perfectly as an Undead Pharaoh/General for an Egyptian themed fantasy army. I might have to paint him up to use as a Priest for God Smite. Hmm…
Next up are a few of the Ancient Skeleton bowmen… I like these guys too. Decent variety in the sculpts and they’re sized about right.
Lastly, we have the Steppe Goblins. While I love the classic GW goblin look of these little dudes, they are really small. They’re scaled at 28mm but look significantly smaller than my chunkier GW goblins (maybe even smaller than my Heartbreaker gobbos too, although I didn’t compare them side-by-side). More sized like Troll Trader gobbos I think (which I still haven’t painted despite going in on a Kickstarter for them a few years ago).
As their own unit they’ll probably be fine, but the jury is still out.
It’s always fun to experiment. I think if I would do this again (buy 3D printed figures online), I would go with more heroic 32mm prints, especially on stuff like goblins, dwarves, halflings, and the like.
Who am I kidding, I ain’t no LL Cool J. Whatever you want to call it, I sure as heck hope that 2026 proves to be a rebound from the last year and a half of tabletop gaming for me.
Aside from attending two HMGS East wargaming conventions (Historicon and Fall In), and a few head-to-head games with my best bud Kevin, 2026 has been a lost year of gaming. There were many reasons for the lackluster year (health, social schedule, trips, etc.). However, the biggest reason for the disappointing output was me trying to come to grips with the huge loss of my long-time friend Wally Wenklar, who was a big part of my inner-circle of gaming buddies. I struggled with motivation to play multi-player games this year, and while things are slowly getting better on that front, life will simply never be the same without the jovial Wally Gator around.
I couldn’t even find the motivation to paint anything. My painting station looks pretty much like it did this time last year, with rat-men, mummies, a couple of monsters, and a few terrain pieces all begging to be finished. I finally picked up a nice set of Speed Paints 2.0 to try, and I’m pondering a cleanup & re-org of my home office space in 2026, so perhaps those things will lend some impetus to get me back to painting again.
There was one bright note this year. Initial design & development work on two new miniature wargames (God Smite; The Great Greenskin Revolt) commenced in 2025 and good progress was made. If I can step on the gas a bit harder in Q1 2026, then hopefully I’ll have something viable to playtest with my friends come Springtime.
I also managed to finish all the major updates to Sword of Severnia, my passion-project fantasy battle game now in its 6th version. It’s time to break out the miniature armies and battle! I plan on getting that game to the table with my buddies Geoff and Kevin as soon as possible.
I’ve come to realize that when it comes to gaming and hobby time, your Mental Outlook has an enormous impact on your success or failure. Hopefully, that will improve for the better for me in 2026. Wish me luck.
Until I post again in 2026, Happy New Year to everyone!
Almost two years ago, I created a Hobby Bingo card to encourage myself to paint miniatures more regularly. It was a really cool idea, but it failed miserably. My painting & modeling output has been atrocious these past 2 years.
In an effort to prove “there’s always hope”, I’m resurrecting my bingo card for 2026. Maybe, just maybe, this will be the year I kickstart my painting again and get back to doing something that I sorely miss.
Call me an optimist, but I don’t think that Artificial Intelligence will be the death of us all.
ChatGPT
Artificial Intelligence is all the rage these days thanks to ChatGPT and a host of other popular generative AI software tools. As someone who took an Artificial Intelligence class back in 1986 as part of my Computer Science curriculum at Penn State and built a simple “Inference Engine” using LISP as part of a semester-long class project, I’m aware more than most people that the concept of AI has been around a long time. Building intelligent systems is not easy, so the recent leaps & bounds in the usefulness of AI technology is amazing and interesting to me.
In and of itself, ChatGPT is a pretty astounding tool. It’s basically a prediction-engine which rapidly analyzes scads of harvested data to spew out what it computes to be the best response to your question (prompt). What’s scary about it is that it can generate sensible responses so fast and mostly gets things right.
Yes, AI is nowhere near 100% accurate. Most of us have heard about its hallucinations and made-up facts. But heck, we all know HUMANS who respond to our questions with utter bullshit and made-up facts, right?
Fortunately, the best tools provide references to their source-material, which provides a nice sanity check for end-users. Although having to check your gen-AI’s output for accuracy feels like a major annoyance. You’re giving me a tool to help me get an answer FASTER, but then I have to SLOW DOWN and do my own damn research to verify that it’s actually right? That seems counter intuitive. And there-in lies the first SCARY part of AI; most people will go for the low-hanging fruit and simply accept whatever answer AI generates as the absolute truth. If almost 40 years in the software development industry has taught me anything, it’s that users often choose speed and ease-of-use over accuracy/quality.
ChatGPT is a handy tool for research and idea generation. As a creative person who truly enjoys the creative-process, I don’t need it to write an entire email or document for me, nor do I want it to do that. No thank you ChatGPT, let me create because that’s what I actually enjoy doing.
While there will undoubtedly be many people who use gen-AI to write things for them because it’s fast and convenient (we’re seeing it now with canned web-articles, students who use it to write papers for them, etc.), I feel that true creatives will treat it with a significant level of disdain; how dare some soulless software bot infringe upon My Creativity?
Image Generators
For many of us, especially folks who love highly visual hobbies like miniature wargaming, gen-AI image generators like Dall-E, Nano Banana, Midjourney, etc., are even more breathtaking than those much less flashy text generators. These new-fangled visual tools are continually getting better and better with each passing month.
But compared to text-generators, nothing has created a greater firestorm of controversy than image-generators. That’s because these tools aren’t just trained on historical facts, public domain works, and other written materials. No, these tools take the works of numerous artists (both lesser and very well known) and use them as underlying components to generate new visual works that imitate the style and technique of those artists. Many people decry this as stealing intellectual property and they’re 100% right to say that. AI image generators are trained on art that they’ve never been given the consent to use in the first place.
If you’ve ever created something, whether it’s artwork, music, software, or written material, and had it stolen by someone else, you understand the feeling of personal violation that comes with it. Simply put, someone took PART OF YOU and gave you NOTHING IN RETURN for it.
I understand and side with artists in their anger about AI image generators. Unfortunately, the cat is out of the bag. There are numerous AI tools which can generate some pretty remarkable images (six-fingered super-models notwithstanding). Which brings us to the second very SCARY part of AI; the creation of “good enough art” is now available to the masses. All it takes for a non-artist to produce passable artwork is to type some colorful and descriptive text into the prompt-box of an AI image generator.
Recall what I said earlier about low-hanging fruit? People are using these tools with reckless abandon, letting their imaginations run wild, and flooding the internet with endless AI generated images. But isn’t this ultimately stealing from other artists? I’m sure most people think, “Who the hell cares, stealing be damned! If we can pirate software and illegally download music and movies like we’ve done for decades, then we can sure as hell steal art!” It’s sad to see, but convenience has trumped morality.
I won’t pretend to stand on such moral high ground that I haven’t delved into playing around with AI image generators myself. They’re fun to use and produce some really cool stuff. I’m fine with using the generated output for personal use. Where I have a problem is when companies use AI generated images in their for-profit products, rather than paying real artists to produce art/graphics for them. For example, Stronghold Games has come out and said they will be using AI art in their board games. It’s all done because it’s FASTER and CHEAPER. Wow, businessmen going for the low-hanging fruit, who would have expected that to happen! Grrr…
That said, my feelings about ChatGPT still apply here. True artists will still produce art because it’s in their soul. And some companies will avoid using AI images in their products because they actually value quality and prefer the look and feel of HUMAN created artwork.
Where are we headed?
It’s fun to predict the future, even though we’re usually wrong about it. As we round the corner into 2026, I can’t help believing that generative-AI is here to stay. It can be a very useful tool to assist people in making better things when used the right way and for the right purposes.
There will undoubtedly be many people and companies who take the easy way out and abdicate hard work, thinking, and craftsmanship to AI tools. That will result in a flood of homogenous, low-quality products. In gaming circles that amounts to overly intricate minis that look like they’re made by machines rather than characterful figures sculpted by real artists, and game systems that lack innovation and soul.
My feeling is that products produced quickly and easily with AI will become the low-priced, mass market class of items. Products created by humans and including real human art will become high-end products, purchased by folks who appreciate quality and what human hands & minds can create.
I’m a software developer and know how bug-prone software is even after we’ve had decades to perfect the process & methodology of creating it. That makes me very hard to convince that AI is going to completely take over our lives and replace humanity any time soon. But more than that, we all have something that software doesn’t have: FREE WILL. As humans, we can simply decide that we DO or DON’T want to do or use something. As long as there are people who truly value human creativity, there will be ongoing fights to sustain it. We won’t let the bots steal that from us.
In a year of low gaming output, I was absolutely thrilled to get in a game of classic HeroScape with Kevin on Sunday, November 16th.
HeroScape is one of my all-time faves; the Rise of the Valkyrie set being the best out-of-the-box miniature skirmish game ever made. Throw in several of its best figure & terrain expansions and the “toy factor” of this stellar battle of all-time brings out your inner 12-year old like nothing else can.
Our initial battlefield setup looked like this. I was shooting for a dual-bridge scenario where the ultimate struggle for control of a valuable glyph would occur within a choke-point in the center of the battlefield.
Kev’s forces started on the left, within the hills, while my band of misfits started in the swamplands at the right-hand side of the battlefield.
We drafted beefy 600-point armies for this battle, which I figured would give us a more robust, 2-hour game.
My force include the Roman Legionnaires & Archers, their leader Marcus Decimus Gallus, the Orc Gruts squad and the Swog Rider, Grimnak riding atop his T-Rex, Deathwalker 9000, and Raelin the Kyrie Warrior.
Here’s my guys making their way from their deployment zone towards the central bridge. It was a 2-pronged attack with Deathwalker and the Romans on one flank, and the Orcs and Raelin on the other flank.
Kev’s troops included the Shaolin Monks, the lava-filled Obsidian Guards, Warriors of Ashra (female elves), Sonlen the Elven Archmage, and the nasty Charos the green dragon. Here are Kev’s guys working their way through the hills towards a confrontation with the enemy.
“Uh oh, how did Charos sneak up on me that fast?” ponders Deathwalker 9000 in his synthetic brain obviously programmed by bad AI.
Deathwalker’s rocket-launcher is deadly, but he didn’t stand a chance in a hand-to-hand fight against Charos the dragon. With the giant robot down, things were looking very promising for Kev’s force in the early going.
Just when I was feeling cocky that my Orcs had wormed their way onto the central bridge and taken the Glyph, up came the mighty Obsidian Guards to meet them in all their lava-fueled rage.
Fortunately, I was smart enough to also move up Grimnak and fly Raelin in for support.
Meanwhile, the Romans moved up. The Archers peppered Charos with arrows from a safe-distance, while the Legionnaires heroically waded into combat with the dragon and lava-men.
The lava-men pummeled the Orc warriors and rumbled across the bridge towards Grimnak and the remaining Orc grut with burning savagery in their flame-filled eyes.
But Kev’s troops forgot one important thing: the Glyph. It was just sitting there, ripe for the taking.
Charos was tied up with the pesky Romans. And in their lust for blood, the raging lava-men didn’t account for the winged Raelin the Kyrie Warrior, lurking on the nearby shore.
Raelin swooped in, took the glyph and eventually flew it off the edge of the battlefield, narrowly escaping from the scaly clutches of a nearby Charos. Victory was ours!
It was a close-run game, and while my forces lost in the soldier count, we pulled out a hard-fought victory through good tactics.
As always, it was another fun game of HeroScape. I’m going to make a point of playing it more often in 2026, as I have another friend who really wants to play it and it’s just good, simple fun.
While I’m happy to see the new edition of HeroScape having a moment, I’m not enamored with the majority of the new models outside the master-set and the premium pre-painted stuff is quite costly. More than that, I have so much classic stuff already, I really don’t need anything else. But, I guess you should never say never when it comes to wargaming toys.
Hope everyone in the USA had a happy Thanksgiving. Only 4 weeks until Christmas; where in the heck has 2025 gone?
It has been a week and a half since Fall In ended. A few days after it ended, I pondered WHY I still go to HMGS East conventions after all these years.
The first HMGS con I ever attended was back in the 80’s at the Penn Harris Hotel & Convention Center on the Camp Hill Bypass near Harrisburg PA. It seems like forever ago. I was a young lad in my 20’s back then. That was back before the Penn Harris went downhill, although recent renovations completed in early 2025 have revived the place somewhat.
I’ve been going to these wargaming conventions off and on over the last 40 years. You might be thinking, “aren’t you tired of it all by now, there can’t be anything new that you’re seeing after all these years?” There’s certainly some truth to that. There are a lot of familiar faces, vendors that have been hawking their toys for many years, big games that look and feel similar to games you’ve seen before, and scores & scores of nice-looking miniatures.
But is that necessarily a bad thing? There’s something special to be said for tradition, even in our hobbies. Despite seeing familiar games, there’s always something cool and new to see. There’s joy in paying a visit to vendors who you’ve bought toys, terrain, dice, paints, and rules from before, and it’s fun to say hello and catch-up with them. Seeing familiar gamers gives you a sense of belonging to something bigger than your local game group. Engaging in the tradition of going to these conventions is like putting on an old, well-worn sweatshirt; it’s stretched & faded, but it’s comfortable.
More than anything else, I typically get the chance to spend time with close friends at the convention center, share stories, laugh, and come home with some new stuff and full of inspiration to focus more on the hobby than I’ve done since the last time we attended a convention. So, no, I’m not tired of it all. Maybe that will happen one day, but I hope not.
In addition to the Viking longship, granary, and painted minis that I bought, I also purchased a set of Army Painter Speed Paints 2.0 from Cotton Jim. I’ve been wanting to get these for a while, thinking they just might (combined with the slap-chop technique) kickstart my painting output. Fingers crossed. I’m going to gift my old 1.0 paints to one of my friends.
I also picked up some AK 3rd generation primers, which I’ve never tried before (I use Vallejo or artist’s gesso), so I’ll be experimenting with those.
My final purchase was a copy of the To the Strongest rules by Simon Miller. I’ve always been a rules junkie, which is not unusual for those of us who enjoy designing miniature wargames. Since I’m designing two grid-based wargames (a mythology themed game, and an orc/goblin civil war game), I figured it would be educational to compare notes to TTS since it’s also based on a grid system. It might also be fun to have familiarity with the rules so we could play it at a future HMGS convention (I’ve seen a few games of it being run in the convention-guides).
Some year, I hope to make it to PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia. That’s a very popular tabletop convention in center-city Philly, about a 2-hour drive away for me. It happens to be taking place this weekend, but I have other plans with Anna and some old friends. Not sure which convention I’ll attend next (PAGE in Philly, Cold Wars 2026 in Lancaster, or Williamsburg Muster). Winter weather on the East coast of the USA is always very unpredictable in JAN & FEB, so we shall see. It’s 42 degrees outside right now, so winter is threatening to come early.
Until next time… Played HeroScape last Sunday, so gotta report on that!
The flea markets at HMGS East conventions are always hit or miss. My personal Lead Mountain is so big that I rarely look for unpainted minis in the flea market. Instead, I’m always on the prowl for decently painted figures and terrain in 28mm.
I showed restraint and passed on a few things that enticed me, including some terrific looking elephants (Punic Wars era), a massive Celts army of around 170-200 figures that was a true bargain at just $250 bucks (if only I had more cash in my wallet at that moment!), and a giant Cave Troll that was right out of the Lord of the Rings movies. I also saw a handful of nice 1/72 diecast tanks, but nothing that I needed and they just weren’t very good bargains.
One guy was selling an enormous, painted Undead army for $800 bucks, but after some time decided that he would sell it piecemeal if people were interested. It included some great Oldhammer models. I happened to be looking to beef up the undead cavalry I use in my fantasy games, so I bought 12 mounted dead guys. The spooky group included a couple of vampires and wraith-like riders.
I also snagged a VERY HEAVY red-headed giant from a different seller. It turns out that I had seen this big lug before at Historicon and almost got him. Well, now he has a new home. He can terrorize & stomp all the puny enemies he wants in my loft.
He needs a little TLC and touch-ups, but that’s okay.
And that was really all she wrote. It was far from the biggest haul of painted minis I’ve purchased at a show, but I’m happy to have these new guys and can easily see them hitting the table.
Next time, I share my final purchases and a few closing thoughts about HMGS conventions in general. Peace out.
For a long time, I’ve wanted a nicely painted 28mm Viking longship model that sat flat on the table, had room for soldiers & baggage/chests, and didn’t cost me a kidney. It would be a nice bonus if the mast could be furled or unfurled. Enter this ship from the fine folks at Huscarl Miniatures, a relative newcomer that sells painted terrain for tabletop gaming. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words…
I also got a Granary building, which is something that I’ve not really seen before from other manufacturers (maybe MBA makes one?). Anyway, our soldiers gotta eat — especially the Orcs — so I sprung for one.
And that was the extent of my terrain purchases. So, what does it mean? Well… I can forsee some SAGA or Ravenfeast games where angry Vikings sail in and raid a village, stealing pigs and grain from the Granary. I have a Norse styled army that I use in my fantasy games as well (the Krone barbarians), so they will definitely be making use of the new ship. Now, I’ve just got to figure out where I’m going to store this thing!
Until next time, when we look at a handful of new figures… Be good!
On Friday, November 7, I made the 45-minute car trip down to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to meet-up with my friend & wargaming buddy Geoff for the start of Fall In 2025, held at the Wyndham Lancaster Resort & Convention Center. It has been a few years since we last attended a game convention together, so I was really looking forward to it. Just catching up on life was bonus enough.
Geoff isn’t too keen on playing in convention games, strongly preferring to play games with friends at our private homes. As a result, this was going to be a day of gabbing, viewing lovely game tables, and shopping. Mix in our chats with other folks and lunch at Texas Roadhouse (HMGS gave attendees 10% off coupons to the restaurant — a super nice touch), we ran out of time to do a Paint & Take session which we had considered. Oh well, I guess we were having too much fun. I had a terrific time catching up with Geoff.
On Saturday, I drove to the convention and engaged in some shopping by myself in the Flea Market (Wally’s Basement), as well as the Vendor Hall. It’s always a bit dangerous to my wallet when I shop alone at an HMGS East con, and this time was no different (although it was quality over quantity). I’ll save showing off my purchases for the next blog-post.
As usual, there were some truly awe-inspiring games on display, and people seemed to be having fun playing them. Here’s a handful of snapshots from the event (some from both days). The Fall-In discussion groupon Facebook has way, way more photos than I could ever capture.
From plundering pirate ships, gangland mayhem, western shootouts, samurai battles, the Battle of Bosworth, Stalingrad, Frostgrave, Tomb of the Dragon King adventure, and Sharpe in 54mm, just to name a few, there’s really a smattering of something for everyone at these shows.
Even though I didn’t play any games this time, I’m happy that I got to attend, engage in a little retail therapy, and catch up with some folks. It’s a good way to end the year on a high note (barring any gaming we might squeeze in over the coming holidays).
Tiny Painted Heroes 