By Troy Hill

I had to face a stark realization recently. I’m in gaming burnout.

That’s not surprising looking back at the last three years. When the pandemic hit, a lot of gamers went from 60 to Zero in the blink of an eye. We needed our gaming fix! But how?

We overcompensated, at least I did, by hobbying in so many other ways. Three-D printing was coming into it’s golden age, and like so many other gamers lurking in our little zones of no-people outside the bubble, I have printed a huge “pile of opportunity” in my my little gaming cave. And I’ve got another HUGE “pile of opportunity” in plastic figures from a variety of games, all waiting for paint, and for table time.

Sooooo many games to learn. So many games to play. And, now that the world has opened up, soooooo many cons to attend.

And then the record screech sound effect echoed, and I realized I was in a big pit of gaming burnout.

But what is it, and how to get through it?

Guest post by Jackson “CrackerJax” Horigan

This is part of a new feature where NDNG features upcoming historical wargaming tournaments, gamedays, and conventions for the games we cover.

Hello Players! My name is Jackson Horigan here to bring you the Bolt Action Winter 2023-4 event lineup hitting the Great Lakes region. You may know me better by my moniker “CrackerJax” on Facebook and Discord, but names aside, I have a list of excellent events coming up this winter both as a TO and an attendee that I’d love to share with you.

As some of you may know, I tend to travel a bunch around the Midwest for work and leisure, and more often than not will drive for many hours to sniff out a great Bolt Action scene. This past weekend I had the privilege to attend Troy Hill’s “It’s A StuG Life” tournament in Fort Wayne, Indiana only to find myself in Pittsburgh, PA this weekend for Charles Sherrange’s “Tanksgiving” tournament! It’s been a wild November for Bolt Action, and I am quite excited for the coming months as we approach the holidays and the bitterly cold Great Lakes winter. Grab your mess kit and some Lucky Strikes and let’s see what’s heating up across the Midwest…

By Troy Hill (Photos by the author and Jeff Wiertalla except where noted)

Sixteen players gathered at the Rumble on the Rivers game convention in Fort Wayne IN this past weekend (November 11, 2023) for a three-round, beginner-friendly, Bolt Action tournament.

Many dice were rolled. Many FUBARS did occur (four at one table!), and much fun was had.

So, what happened?

By Troy Hill

Photos by Troy Hill and Michael Carter

As you might remember from my last piece on Kings of War, I’m at best, a middle-of-the-pack player in any game. I’m not a competitive player, at all. I don’t “Meta” nor “Net list” well.  And I rival Mitch Reed for the bottom of the barrel when it comes to painting talent here on the NDNG staff.

My goal is to field an army that doesn’t look bad on the table, and spend the event time pushing models, joking with my opponents, and rolling a lot of dice. Perhaps even emulating a late Ambassador of the game, Jesse Cornwell, and calling upon “Pizza Jesus” to bless the rolls when I really need that 11 or 12. (OK, I didn’t do that at this tournament, since I was usually pretty far in the hole in each game. One extra set of boxcars wouldn’t have done much good.)

But, somehow, I managed to bring home one of the trophies from the event. It now sits on my fireplace mantle, surrounded by a bunch of “Benchies” I’ve 3d printed over the past few years. Getting a solid Benchie from a 3D filament printer was about the best award I expected in gaming.

So, what’s my secret to winning while losing? Even more important, what did I do to get a trophy?

By Troy Hill

For the first time in almost a decade, North East Indiana in the USA seeing the return of a weekend-long gaming convention in November. With the demise of PentaCon earlier this century, the pre-Thanksgiving game con slot has been empty in this part of Indiana.

True, Ft. Wayne Indiana is still home to the Winter Fantasy role-playing convention every winter (WF now run by Baldman Games), but, in my humble opinion, the Fort needs a late fall convention focussed on tabletop miniatures.

And the Death or Glory (DoG) club is hosting just such an event in the same time slot, and at the same location as the now-defunct PentaCon. They’re hosting Rumble on the Rivers at the Grand Wayne Center in downtown Fort Wayne November 10-12, 2023.

DoG has hosted three successful Motor City Mayhem tournaments so far in the greater Detroit area. Their first was in 2021 at the height of the pandemic. Rolling with the state of the world then, they instituted social distancing among tables, and performed temperature checks by on-site medical personnel.

No Dice No Glory is happy to be a part of the event and is sponsoring two of the historical tournaments. What tourneys are going to be hosted?

By Troy Hill

Forces are gathering in the Tri-State area of Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio for a full-on offensive of Bolt Action tournaments. As lockdowns eased, game conventions, game days, and especially tournaments have blossomed like dandelions across the world. And gaming tournaments in the tri-state area of the Ohio Valley are no different.

Over the next eight weekends, across three states, players have the opportunity to play in one Bolt Action state championship, and three beginner-friendly Bolt Action tournaments in a variety of convention styles and locals. There may never have been a better time to be a table-top gamer with all of the opportunities available.

If you’re in, or want to come to the Ohio Valley area (Michigan, Indiana, or Ohio) between now and mid-November, you’ll find the details for the gaming below.

Even if you’re not a Bolt Action player, each of these events is held at a convention, from HMGS-Great Lake’s Advance the Colors, to GT style (Michigan GT, and Rumble on the Rivers) events, and even a new kid on the block, Hold The Line. 

Details below:

By Troy A. Hill

On 12-13 August, this Hoosier (aka, Indiana native) convinced his wife to let him travel the seven-hour trip up to Hamilton Ontario, and participate in my first-ever Kings of War tournament. Hosted by Black Knight games, the two-day, five-round tourney had players from New York, as well as many parts of Ontario.

This particular tourney wasn’t just my initiation to Kings of War (KOW) on a competitive level, but also my first experience playing under the constraints of a chess clock. I was worried that I’d face melt-down brain as I watched the seconds tick by, struggling with analysis paralysis.

by Troy Hill

I’ve been looking for a great game outside of the historical tabletop genre. One that will take me back to my fantasy gaming roots. And I might have found THE ONE.

No, not the one from the behemoth company out of Nottingham. The one from that other, upstart company out of Nottingham.

By Troy Hill

This weekend (May 27-28, 2023) saw chaos and pandemonium descend on the Detroit suburb of Novi, Michigan as the Death or Glory group of GW gamers hosted Motor City Mayhbem, a Grand Tournament style of game convention at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi.

In addition to all of the Games Workshop madness at a GT, Warlord Games Raider Jeff Wiertalla organized two Bolt Action events, which I assisted by playing as the Gumby/Ringer in both.

Other games like Kings of War, Conquest, and Star Wars Legion also had events. Below is my own recap of my action in the Bolt Action tourneys, and a photo-dump of what I saw in the non-GW space.

By Troy A Hill

I put my preorder in for Warlord Games new Pike & Shotte Epic Battles Push of Pike boxed set, and it arrived this past weekend. Warlord continues their epic streak of 14-ish mm Epic Battles scale releases.

Special shoutout to Morgan, who packed my set. Everything looks spot on, and I couldn’t be happier with the set.

That said, I’m totally confused now. Growing up in ‘Muricah! and only getting to study the American Civil War (ACW), one can imagine my surprise to find out that our British cousins had their own civil war (English Civil War, or ECW) a couple of centuries before ours. So, now I’m wondering who the English versions of Lee and Grant were?