2025: Year in Review

2025 is nearly over! It has been a year of many firsts for me.

Beep the Troll, leader of the Beeps of Jimbus warband for Cauldron

First year working full time in the board game and miniatures industry. First time meeting a huge amount of my online friends in person. First year of being a home owner. First time solo traveling and first time designing my own miniatures game. And so many new tattoos. I didn't think I would be experiencing so many new things as a 34 year old. There are so many things that happened, its honestly hard to remember everything.

The Art Goblins

I got to meet so many of my online friends this year and they became real life friends. Some traveled through NJ and we got to meet up for a game. Others I flew to Milwaukee to meet and others I got to meet up with on the east coast at CT. All of them were just as kind in real life as they are online. So many of them inspired me to keep creating in all aspects of my practice. Adepticon was one of the highlights! A bunch of my friends traveled from abroad and we got to kit bash in person. A bunch of them even had their own games to play! I played Fiver's Snak28, Clay's Threnodessy and Steven's Bloodwork. I spent hours kitbashing and chatting with everyone around the Grim Dark alley. I even kitbashed my first Missile Toad that led to the creation of the game. I also got to meet up with Gage a few times to play some Games of Forbidden Psalm. At Pax U, I played against Ben in Cauldron (my warband was way to overpowered). In between all the events, I played games with my local crew of Dellon, Mikey and Ant. I also attended Under the Dice Fest in CT. Alot of the people I met at Adpeticon were at this event too. I watched the Mordheim open while walking the floor to visit the vendors and check out the Rusted Demon entries. Also hung out at the HiveScum studio while Trent casted up some miniatures. Played some games of Cauldron, Ballad of Blades and introduced Missile Toads to new players. 

Forbidden Psalm with Mikey and Gage

The founding of the Jersey Girls has been one of the best things about this year. It originally started with 3, grew to 4 and now the group has 15 members all over New Jersey. It has been great to bring players from all over the state together to connect and play indie games. We also get to support our friend's shop Sanctorium Games where we have plenty of room to spread out and purchase all the miniatures, paints and supplies we need! 

Anthony hacked Cauldron to run an RPG. I of course played Beep 

The year in Numbers: 

Game Days: 25

Different Games Played: 17

Most Played Game: Cauldron

Miniatures Kitbashed: 110

Miniatures Painted: 290 (so many Skaven and LoTR Rohan army)

Conventions attended: 3 (Adepticon, Under the Dice Fest, and Pax Unplugged)

Events participated in: 4 (Ent Moot, Monster Bash, Festival Rumpus, Kijune Kitbash)

Missile Toad Game at the First Jersey Girl Hangout

Next year I hope to do more traveling, work collaboratively on projects with more friends and spend lots of time playing games. We already have out first event for the Jersey Girls next month! If your in the tri-State area, drop by and play some games. I also want to release the final zine of Missile Toads. There are a few changes to make to the game and layout before printing. Once that is done, I'll have the printed zines available through my web store. Other Goals for 2026 is painting all my Middle Earth miniatures, finishing my Age of Sigmar spear head of Chaos Giants and my Lobster Pot 28 warband. Work on more Tyranids for my fully kitbashed army, I'm sure this list will grow quickly!

As we go into the new year, I hope we can all show more kindness to other's and ourselves. This hobby is about uplifting each other. If you are alienating people because they might be a little awkward or weird, GTFO! We got all types of people in this hobby, it's what makes us one of the best communities out there. Intimidation, gaslighting and harassment has no place at my table. If you ever feel uncomfortable at an event, come chill with me. 

Have a happy and safe New Year! 

Dragon Rampant

After many months of talking about Dragon Rampant with the core crew, I finally got the chance to give it a go. Dellon had given us a brief over view of the game during the early Fall to explain how it was different from other rank and flank games we played. I was excited to play Dragon Rampant which led me to kitbashing an army of Goblins, Trolls and Orcs. I had the option to use my Skaven for this game but I really wanted a project that would connect my Cauldron warband with a larger force.

Using the Dragon Rampant Second Edition rule book, Dellon helped me put together my first army list for our game. What I really enjoyed about Dragon Rampant was how flexible assigning a stat block is to a unit. There isn't just a Troll state block to use, you can choose how you want to run them. They can be elite units, they can be brutes, they could just be a rank and file melee unit. Then after a stat block is selected, you can choose a key word to add special abilities to the units. Most of the time this increases the cost of the unit, but some reduce the unit by penalizing an ability. 

The Shellborn Knights

The first unit we stated out was the Snail Knights. Even though they are snails, they move quickly as a calvary unit. To reduce the cost of the unit, they received the Slowness ability to reduce the speed by 1 inch. Additionally,  they are Venomous (Which I forgot to use during the game). 

The BogTooth Bashers

Next the Trolls were added. These are the brutes of the army with high strength and courage. They had way more abilities than my other units. They had Ranger, Wildchange, Counter Charge on Foot, Fleet Footed and Cannibalistic. 

The Blackfen Quiver 

Since the game was going to be focussing on one army storming the castle of another, I need to add more range units. A hoard of goblins with bows was selected to help protect the walls of the castle. They simply had the Sharp Shooter ability which did come in handy during the game. 

The Bog Breath Wyrm

I bought this awesome metal Reaper cannon to add to this army. I really liked the dragon design and what goblins don''t love explosions. Having a cannon to defend a castle is a must. Turned out the Cannon was over powered for the point value we were playing for our armies, but hey it was fun to use. 

I plan to do a future blog post to go into the lore of the army that I wrote for each unit. Stay tuned for that in 2026!

The Game

To get started,  Dellon and I placed the models on our side of the board. I was defending the castle while Dellon was invading. Turned out we did not add too many line of sight blockers for Dellon's army to hide behind and my cannon blasted through a unit of warriors. After a few rounds, the game play loop was easy to learn. I did forget to use most of my special abilities, but it helped to learn the game loop and add the abilities in for the next game. 

My poor Shellborn Knights did not stand a chance against the giant. They were quickly smashed to bits after charging out of the castle to defend their territory. My Trolls also didn't last long against the archers across the table. I did not have good luck with my melee warriors as they were quickly destroyed by Dellon's army. My range units faired much better! The cannon knocked out a unit of warriors in a few turns as they marched towards the castle walls. Once units actually got into the range of my archers, they managed to take some warriors out too. In the end, Dellon's elite unit did make it through the gates of the castle. Quickly they slaughtered my archers and only the cannon remained. Luckily, the cannon blasted the away the last enemy and the castle remained in the hands of the Drowned Maw Marauders. 

After my first game, I definitely want to play more! Looking forward to my next game using more of my custom kit bashed units.   

Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game

Over the past year and a half, I've played in a few campaigns and one day narrative events ranging from Warhammer Fantasy to Forbidden Psalm and most recently Cauldron. While I have hosted and game mastered many RPGs, I've never run a campaign for a miniature wargame. 

A few weeks ago, I was cleaning my studio and organizing my miniatures. During that process, I found my case of all my Lord of the Rings miniatures from college. Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game was one of my first wargames along with Warhammer Fantasy. As an elementary student I was introduced to the world of Tolkien. His name kept popping up with association with CS Lewis as I was reading the Narnia books. Then the movies released! I remember watching Fellowship of the Ring at my neighbor's house and being completely inthralled in the story. From there I beg my Mom to buy me a copy of Fellowship of the Ring, which was way higher then my 6th grade reading level. It took me all of middle school but I finished it. Luckily, I had the aportunity to do a book report on the Hobbit in between reading the first book. In High School, I read the other The Two Towers and Return of the King along with all the other stories of Middle Earth. When I got to college, I finally had the chance to play some wargames that I had seen growing up. A friend wanted to play Middle Earth Strategy Battle game and that provided me the opportunity to start collecting. I picked up a few different factions but mostly collected Rohan. Back then all the Hero characters were metal and cost less then 15 bucks! Those days are long behind us with miniature prices. I remember playing many matches on the floor of my first apartment with my sister, Rohan VS Gondor since neither of us collected evil. 

But after college, I packed up my miniatures for the most part. Sometimes I would break out my Rohan soldiers and paint them a bit when I was feeling low. But with out regular games, I lost steam on painting miniatures all together. After all, I was trying to build my illustration career and also working full time. It didn't leave me a lot of time to play games. But I still kept my miniatures, shuffling them from college, back to my parents then to my first apartment post college. While I worked on an unfinished space orc army and other warbands, my Lord of the Rings model sat in the corner. After clearing out my Middle Earth case recently, I was determined to 1. Finish painting my Rohan army and 2. run a mini campaign for my friends.

The army was not the crazy colors I paint now, it was much more in line with the box art. Originally I was determined to paint my army to fit into the Middle Earth color story. After painting one foot soldier, I was not happy with the result. I felt like I was fighting my natural instinct and went back to my usual painting style. Over the past week, I painted my entire Rohan army, I have still have more minis to go but I am happy to have completed my second army this year.

With the idea of a campaign swirling in my head, I began to jot down ideas of when and where the battles will happen. I decided to start out with Battle Companies to allow players in the campaign time to paint armies. This also will help introduce the rule set to the players and if they don't enjoy the system, it was only a few miniatures and a smaller time commitment compared to an army. Over 4 games of Battle Companies, a narrative will build to a full army battle. This campaign first and foremost will be about the narrative. Each match will be good vs evil, with the winner and loser affecting how the narrative will play out. It will change who a more advantageous position in the next match. I already have plans for creating a campaign packet with the general rules everyone will need to reference along with a lore for why the scenario is is playing out. My hope is that the last match of the game will involve all the players running a small army in a giant battle to capture the grand battles in the Lord of the Rings. 

My plan is to start in January at the first Jersey Girls meet up. We'll sit down and plan our Battle companies and maybe get in a practice match for players new to the system. While I personally remember the general rules, I'm sure there are many changes from the first time I played 15 years ago. Over the next 6 to 8 months, I'll be starting narrative battle reports. Meanwhile, I have lots of terrain to paint along with an army of goblins and small collection of Heroes who may or may not show up to aid the players. With Howard Shore's soundtrack blasting, I'm going to have lots of fun creating for Middle Earth.

First meeting of the Jersey Girls

Last week we had the first meeting of the NJ Grim dark miniatures club, the Jersey Girls. We met at Sanctorium Games in Flemington. (Mike has been working hard to get this store up and running for the holiday season. Make sure to visit in your in the area for any of your gaming needs.) We agreed to meet up at noon and finish when we grow tired. 

I got to meet a number of new people who I've only chatted with through Discord. It was nice to be able to put a face to a name. To get started, we all showed off what he brought, from miniatures to terrain to what game we are excited to share with the group.

Our first game was a round of Cauldron. The new players were added to the round as invaders of our part of the swamp. I squared off with Tom to protect my territory of Bloodless Ruin. Beep and her battalion of Trolls, Goblins and Orcs were way to overpowered for it to be a fair fight. Tom was a great opponent and had many cleaver maneuvers to evade big rock. After the match completed, we tallied our XP and treasures. Through Tom's invasion of my territory, he found many of Beep's long lost treasures buried deep in the bogs. 

Tom's orc and Beep could not manage to hit each other for many rounds

Jake and Dellon face off

Tom's orcs

After we all finished our games, we split off to either play a one shot RPG or Kitbash. I decided to kitbash with Tom and Jake (IG). We chatted about our projects we are working on and shared bits we had brought. We sifted through my huge bits box to find the perfect pieces and offered interesting bits as we searched. I managed to finish my army general and another troll for my Dragon Rampant army.

After kitbashing, Jake and I teamed up to play a game of Lobster Pot 28. How I never heard of this game, I have zero idea. It has so many of my favorite things! Witch hunts, cosmic horror, and narrative story telling, sign me up! Jake brought his custom board which he built in the base of an old record player. It was the coolest way to transport a board I've seen. He also had his warband kitbashed with some of the coolest mutations including a dog with a tentacle tail. It took a few rounds to nail down the rules but we managed to stop the cultists from completing their ritual. Didn't mean we didn't lose some of the warband during the fight. 

Jake's awesome board for Lobster Pot

Meanwhile, Dellon and Tom played a game of Dragon Rampant. It was a battle of Chaos Dwarves VS Orcs, Goblins and a dreaded Hill Giant. So many goblin green bases faced offed. I didn't get a chance to catch the game, but it looked like it was a lot of fun! 

While we hung out, we ate alot of pizza and drank coffee to keep us going. We all enjoyed checking out the shop and picking up some treasures to add to our collections. I gladly picked up the Wargames Atlantic Goblin kit to make even more little guys for my Dragon Rampant army.

After our fill of pizza, we closed the night out with a huge game of Missile Toads. Chaos quickly ensued as toads farted, slapped and shot each other in the butt. At one point, a toad tank exploded causing a chain reaction of explosions. It was one of the biggest games of Missile Toads to date and provided a great amount of information for me to make some further changes to the rules and abilities in the game. The game ended in a tie between Jake and Alejandro. 

After 9+ hours of gaming, it was time to call it. Look forward to the next meeting where I will be starting to run a Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game narrative campaign. I have a million ideas of what I want to do. It's exciting to return to my first wargame and brain dump all my Tolkien knowledge.

If you are in NJ and want to join us for the next hang out, reach out!

Kitbashing a Titan Toad

With the rules written for the Titan Toad variant of Missile Toads, it was time to start bashing the first Titan. To get started, I cast up a copy of Trent from Miscast’s Garbo toad. I made this mold in late spring and had casted a few at this point, but not one for myself.  Lately, I have been casting Miniatures in Smooth on liquid plastic and it has really improved my casts. I highly recommend this material if you’re starting out with molding and casting with no equipment.

The main inspiration for my Titan Toad is Howl’s Moving Castle from the studio Ghibli film. I was looking to create a ramshackle random structure on the back of the toad that was lived in and rusted but also a tank.

The Foundation was built with some resign casts from Ramshackle Games. A while back I bought a tank kit and now I have an excuse to use the extra parts. Additionally, I added some random plastic bits that I assume are from Games Workshop. I also added this cheap pastic gas tank from a dollar store toy. Make sure to give it a good sanding to ensure parts will glue to it and paint won't flake off. 

Then like I always seem to do, I got into the grove of kitbashing and didn't document a huge amount of steps. But I will do my best to explain it. After building the base of the structure, I started to add to the sides of the toad. I was playing with the silhouette alot during this stage. The tank and toad needed to mesh together with one not out weighing the other. Luckily I had plenty of random sci-fi weapons to bulk out the build. The barrel of the large cannon is a pen with a cheap toys built on top to fill out the shape and add detail. Also added barrels for eyes since it felt silly to me and the toad had an extra eye anyway so it has no problem seeing.

After a few hours of kitbashing, it was done! Not only because I had a self imposed deadline to make sure it was ready for play testing or anything... But the rule set worked and it will end up in the final zine! 

28 Mag international women’s Day issue

This year I had the privilege of illustrating the cover for 28 Mag’s International Women’s Day Issue. I feel fortunate to be trusted to illustrate for a pillar in the 28 community and be trusted to craft an image to represent all the women artists. While I had many ideas of what to illustrate, I ended up illustrating this goblin witch. The final illustration is a combination of ink and pencil on Bristol board. Ink was selected for this project as I am constantly inspired by old gaming art in manuals from the 70s-90s. The process was pretty straight forward with an under drawing in pencil, inked with pens of various sizes then cleaned up before adding the graphite to add further dimension. I am very pleased with the final result. 

More illustrations will be on their way as I draw a few new pieces for the Missile Toads Zine.

Make sure to check out all the fantastic artists in this year’s International Women’s Day Issue. Check it out using the link below!

28 Mag 2025 International Women’s Day Issue

Missile Toads

  You might be asking yourself what is Missile Toads, well it’s a game I designed this year after returning from Adepticon.

First Toad Tank Boggart

This whole game originated from a kit bash. I started at the Grim Dark Alley on top of a nearby trashcan. People were leaving bits for others to trade and take. I was sitting with my fellowArt Goblins and I wanted to start a new project.  In that pile of bits, I found a 3-D printed toad. At the time. I didn’t know who made it, but it was printed by my friend Ben. While sitting at a table with my friends, I began adding mechanical parts to it. Quickly adding cannons and other weapons to the top of the model. I happen to be carrying the Toad Tank around when my friend’s kid mentioned it was a Missile Toad. I was like wow this kid is way smarter than me and has better ideas than I do. I decided to design a game specifically around toad tanks.

Franklin The Tanklin

When I got home from a Adepticon, I was exhausted but excited. I knew I wanted to design a game that focused on a large number of players being able to play at once and a low model count. Often at conventions, you never get a chance to play a game with everyone that you want, but what if you could have everyone or almost everyone play in one game. This is what I thought about all the time at work, washing dishes, trying to fall asleep at night, I kept thinking about toad tanks. I explained my concept of a game to my friend Dellon of White Tiger table craft during one of our hobby hangouts. Quickly, we were able to lay down the foundation for the game. My general concept was to add Mario kart elements to a tabletop war game that was easy to play easy to teach and has freedom for kit bashing. After talking with Dellon, that night I wrote down as much of the rules as I could remember and figure out. Within a week I had a game ready to play test.

I am fortunate to have a local game group to test my game out with and we met up at my friend Mike’s house to play. Mike had a great board for us to use which was his previous turnip 28 table. It had the perfect amount of muddiness for a natural toad habitat. My friends kit bashed unique toads that were much different from what I made. Which showed me that the game had enough room for people to have their own creative spin. After a few matches, I saw where some holes were and where to add additional clarifications to the rules. From there a playtesting document and drafted and posted it online.

People begin creating their own toad tanks and let me know their plans to play. I continued to run some play testing including a game at Under The Dice Fest. I was able to share the rules with new people and show others how the game works. I had a great time walking my friends new and old through my game.

Banjo

The next step is for me to finish up some editing, create some drawings, and finish the layout for my zine. My goal is to bring the zine with me next year to Adepticon where the game originated. If you play or make a toad tank, please share with me as I would love to see it. While the base rule games are done, I do plan on making some additional material including the alternative play style called Titan Toad. It still needs to be play tested but that should start soon! 

Download the rules for Free!