Monday, May 9, 2016

Weekend hobby retreat

Close to a year ago, I tried to see if people in my gaming club would be interested in going to a hobby retreat. Basically, going away for a weekend to a retreat center to hang out and enjoy our hobby. While some said they were interested, once I tried to actually set one up, the board went silent.

Well my wife has been doing scrapbooking retreats for quite a while now. And this past weekend, she was going to go to a combined retreat for scrappers and quilters. Well she invited me to come along too. The retreat is at Menucha (you can google it), and it is an amazing place that I have been lucky to be involved with for many years.

My wife even payed for me to go, so I got a weekend getaway with my wife, and got to work on my models for the entire weekend. Yeah..she's pretty amazing.

We got there Friday night and was provided supper. Menucha does family style dining, so tables sit 6-7 and everyone takes from a variety of dishes. Friday's meal was roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, salad, and corn bread. Very tasty, and neither my wife or I had to cook it. After that, it was off to my table to get to work.


Originally, I was going to just work on my Ad Mech models...but then I realized that I can already play with my Ad Mech army...one army I couldn't play with is my Space Wolf army...mostly because I don't have many marines put together. So first up, grey wolves. I was able to get five of them done and that pretty much was it for the night. The next morning, breakfast was at 8am. The day was simply perfect outside and Menucha is in the gorge, you couldn't ask for a better view. Kind of a shame to be indoors doing modeling. But alas, it was back to work. Since this was the long day of the retreat, I decided to tackle bigger projects. First up was an Ad Mech dunewalker, and then an Imperial Knight.


I got the walker fully assembled except for the weapon systems. I decided I wanted to magnetize them as much as possible, but since I left my magnets at home, that was going to have to wait until later. So then I started in on the Knight. I have to say, that is one beautiful model. I had the walker done by lunch at noon, and then after that I worked on the knight. It lasted me all the way until dinner. I need to magnetize the shoulder pads so that I can swap arms. Plus I'll probably do the same for the torso. Makes it a lot easier to transport.

My wife had done a half marathon that morning and had stopped by the house before coming back to Menucha. So I asked her to bring some more models for me to work on as I was making such good progress I thought I might run out of stuff to do. So after dinner, I got to put together some electro priests.


Thank god for Loctite. That gel glue was a life saver for these guys. I can't imagine trying to build them with normal super glue. As the evening rolled on, I did another five grey wolves as well.


I was the only guy there for the Scrap and Sew retreat. Most the ladies there were quite impressed with the models and showed actually interest in them. Most had kids or family that they could see getting into the hobby. So that was nice that I could share this with them. They never made me feel like the odd man out.

Sunday morning was the last day with breakfast and lunch being provided, and we had to be out by 4pm. My glue was running really low, but I started on some Casteleans (sp?). No pics, but I got them mostly assembled, and need to do some magnet work on them as well.

What a great weekend. I got to hang out with my wife most of the weekend (she was sitting beside me at the table). I got to work on models the whole time, and put together 15 infantry, a vehicle, a super heavy, and two MCs. Six great meals were provided, and two nights stay, all for under $200 a person. And we only had to drive 20 minutes to get there.

I may try again to set up a retreat for my fellow wargamers. I had a great time and got a lot of work done. Next time I'll probably just bring models and paints.

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