This past week I sorted out the awards and prize support for this summer's Coalescence at my club. I have slimmed back on the awards this time around but doubled down on the prize support thanks to my FLGS. I chose to have fewer awards in order to encourage the participants to actively go after an award as opposed to just seeing what they get at the end and they are all focused on the narrative and hobby. There is no award for winning all your games this time. As for the prize support, it will all be awarded via a random draw of names. There are ways to earn extra chances as well such as dressing in costume, typing out your narrative for your opponents, etc... It should be a great time and it is looking like there will be even more players than last year and I have some unexpected plans for those who come!
Every Coalescence, since the first, I have enjoyed adding my own local narrative into the event for everyone to enjoy. During the first Coalescence last year my club was playing in the basement of a local library so I set the local story in Hysh as it seemed fitting (it also let me use my beloved Aelves in the narrative). Since then the club has moved to a new venue in a local church basement so I thought this year I would continue to use Teclis as my driving force, but incorporate Sigmar and his chosen warriors as well. I always enjoy adding my own bit of story to my games and once the dust is settled I can do a narrative wrap up about how the event went and tie it back into the global narrative.
My good friend Sean M. (BrushForHire) came over this past weekend and together we tackled something I never thought I would find myself doing. Mixing my own paint from Pigment. A few years ago I was gifted a plethora of very old Pigment from my Mother-In-Law. She had painted on canvas, but with that hobby, more or less behind her, she passed them to me as she knew I painted Toy Soldiers regularly. With Names like Cobalt Blue, Chrome Oxide, and a fair few bottles with the word Lead in the title I knew I had some hard to find stuff so they sat until now. Sean and I mixed up a few colors to play with and I was shocked at just how much pigment was needed for even small bottles of paint. The Cobalt Blue was by far my favorite and after mixing it up I had to put it on a model. The only spare model I had was an extra Liberator, which had suffered a priming accident a while ago. Undeterred I decided to paint on since it was just a test piece and for a bit of fun. The color is great, despite the fuzzy priming of the model, and I know it will be a primary color for a future army.
Looking ahead to next weekend I will be playing in the Rend 4 Age of Sigmar Team Event with my good buddy Matt H.. If you recall the club is run by Neil L. and he has set up a great format for promoting hobby and gaming in the Age of Sigmar. Each "season" is capped off by a gaming event like the one coming up and if you recall last time my Khorne army and I managed to have a terrible outing on the table, but a great day meeting new people and hanging out. This go around I get to bring my Daughters of Khaine and I expect my Witch Aelves to fair a bit better than my Bloodletters on the table, but either way, it will be a fun day playing Age of Sigmar while being excited with other players about the new edition.
I want to give a shout out to Dan M. as well for crushing the hobby award this season. A few months ago during the last Rend 4 event season, you might recall me talking about Dan and our back and forth in the final weeks before the end as we both turned out a large number of painted models. Dan pushed me harder than I have ever been pushed to hobby, even painting 1500pts worth of Nighthaunt in a single night, to claim the win. Dan continued his trend right into this season without breaking stride and painted like a machine to claim the title for himself. It is well earned and inspiring to see such quality and rapid model turnout Dan, congratulations!
