The last month and a half has been a ride, only some of it unexpected, but there were a few things that came up that I thought were worth at least a mention and instead of giving them each their own individual post, I think I’ll probably just put some of it collectively up in a cornucopia of little updates that give a look at where I’m headed next, hobby-wise. The good news is that the last month or so I’ve been super productive in terms of painting but also in terms of updating things in my “setup” for photography and other things, so when I’m back to routinely posting (for a while at least) things should look a little easier on the eyes.

To start off my update and to talk about one of the army projects I’m doing this year, I’ll start by saying we lost a real one in 2025. Noble Miniatures, the FLGS where me and Kinpatsusamurai and others have played in the past, and that I’ve featured in a few of my batreps here, closed its doors on February 20th. In a last, triumphant hurrah, the owner lowered prices past the normal GW thresholds on discounting Warhammer since the store wasn’t going to be moving, just shutting down, and since he’s probably not going to be back in the business in the future. Needless to say, I have never seen a store full of Warhammer store so packed, and I have never seen Warhammer inventory vanish from the shelves that fast.

I’ve got lots of good things to say about the place, especially in this era where “third spaces,” social spaces other than the home and workplace, are increasingly challenging to find and sustain. The owner at Noble Miniatures was fantastic, the staff were fantastic, and the table setups were immaculate, by comparison to anything else available on an LGS level in the St. John’s area, even if Paradise was a bit of a drive. It was a great social space abounding with banter, where wild dice rolls were celebrated, where Eldar slander was expected but also respected, and where terrain only got licked sometimes. This was one of my favorite social places, and definitely my favorite place to get my fix of plastic crack.

So, where to go from here? Well, I’ve been running a lot of One Page Rules over the last while and I think I want to keep up on that, while also getting back into mainstream Warhammer 40K 10th Edition when the new season cards drop, given the recent Adepti-Con reveals. I think 8th-9th will always be my favored edition, but especially in light of losing the FLGS I want to be more proactive in connecting with and arranging games with local players. My pile of shame has grown despite my efforts and I think this is going to be a year where I narrow my focus a little more in the interest of doing a few things really well instead of a whole bunch of things that I juggle and drop.

As much as Ulthwe is my ride-or-die Craftworld, I’ve also had a concept floating around in my head for the last while (and bless XenonMage’s soul for listening to me talk about it pretty much nonstop since.) I want to start a new Eldar army using some of the miniatures I got from Noble’s closing sale as a sort of “core.” It’s going to be a pretty ‘budget’ army, and there’s a couple of reasons for this, not the least of which is that Canada is knee-deep now in a sustained trade war with our neighbour to the south. Costs have already started to increase, and some of the suppliers that I might previously have gotten art supplies or other components from are no longer viable (or ethical, because “elbows up”) options given the circumstances.

Fact is, I’ve collected Eldar for years now, and when I’ve dabbled in selling the completed models on Ebay the return on the investment has never been great. Instead, what I think I’m going to try and do with finished models I haven’t used in a long time is a whole lot of self-rescue models – paint-stripping them en masse and trying to build them back up to something that looks fantastic. I want to keep the amount of plastic I buy this year as low as possible, in large part so that I can save up for other projects but also because as of a few days ago, I’m laid off for who-knows-how-long from my current employer. That said, I’m optimistic and looking forward to having at least a little while to refocus back on the blogging and sharing some of the weirdness I’ve been working on. Thanks for coming along for the ride!