Vastarian Contest- Entries Part 1

Entries Part 1

Below are the first ten entries in our Vastarian contest!

Vastarian: Contest Update

“Blessed is the mind too small for doubt.”

We are excited to say that our Vastarian Open Invitation contest recently came to end, and it was incredibly successful! All told, we received 32 entries, all imaginative explorations into what life might be like on a Cathedral world. We are currently reviewing all the entries carefully, reading their lore and poring over the amazing photos. We want to give all the entries the attention they deserve, and therefore still need a few weeks to review them all. With that said, we want to start sharing the entries with all of you, so over the next week or two, we are going to be posting all of the entries on our blog, complete with all of the photos and background! We hope you are as excited as we are about them all!

Adepticon 2024: a recap

It has now been a few weeks since we returned from our first Adepticon, and although we released a podcast of interviews we did while there, we wanted to share some photos from our time there! We met so many wonderful people and got to reacquaint with old friends. It was an amazing time; I hope these photos can capture some of the magic of it!

28 Vol. 6 out now!

John Blanche is the feature artist!

We are excited to announce that volume 6 of the digital magazine 28 is finally out! As always, it is free to download from their website. It is filled with all sorts of grim hobby content, along with an interview from the legendary John Blanche! We also wrote an article for the issue, talking about our inspiration for starting Vastarian! It was a long road completing the volume, but we are glad it is finally complete and hope you enjoy it!

Dragged into Turbolasers 108: Adepticon 2024 interviews!

Adepticon 2024!

In this episode, we interview people at Adepticon (2024), the United States largest miniature wargames convention! It was our first time at the convention, but we were able to set up our recording equipment in the Grimdark Hallway, run by our friends from Hive Scum. Below are time stamps of where you can listen to each interview!

Vastarian: Ironcrawler at Adepticon!

Last week we revealed a duo of Adeptus Arbites from a specialized unit for performing covert missions. We created this pair, Hypatia Etranzi and Cygnus Poward from Special Operations Unit Mitsukurina, to use for a Vastarian scenario at Adepticon later this week! The premise of the scenario:

Special Operations Unit Mitsukurina and a group of Adeptus Arbites are attempting to transport a group of psykers, across the blasted wastes of a former Vastarian sea, to a secure holding location before they can be conveyed to the Black Ships. Although this transport is being done in an unmarked Chronos-pattern Ironcrawler, retrofitted with psychic dampeners, various religious cults have learned of its purpose and are intent on raiding the convoy to obtain these powerful psykers for their own fanatical ends.

Vastarian: Special Operations Unit Mitsukurina

I am the law!

Special Operations Unit Mitsukurina is an elite unit within the Adeptus Arbites that specializes in covert, solo infiltration missions to neutralize revolutions or insurgencies in politically or religiously sensitive areas that would foment unrest if handled via conventional means. They are adept at locating and nullifying psychic threats, as most are trained psykers themselves. The group has been functioning on Vastarian for years, quietly neutralizing threats that could upset the tenuous religious balance on the cathedral world. The opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum spurred on an unprecedented psychic awakening that brought about the planetary collapse of the governing bodies and fractured the religious tolerance of Vastarian. It also ensured there was no shortage of psychic threats to be neutralized, particularly the transport and acquisition of psykers designated for the Black Ships.

Vastarian: Contest ending this month!

Transfiguration's gonna come for me at last.

It has been just about two months since we unveiled our Vastarian Open Invitation contest, asking people to create a Vastarian Cult! Since that time, there has been a huge amount of interest in the setting, with people writing lore and building models. We wanted to showcase a little of it and remind people that they still have until the end of March to submit something of their own to the contest!

Dragged into Turbolasers 107: Under the Dice Fest 2024, Part 2

Under the Dice Fest 2024, Day 2!

In part two of a special two part episode, we interview people who attended Under the Dice Fest 2024, a small festival in Massachusetts celebrating miniature-based tabletop wargaming. The festival was designed to appeal to those who shy away from the mainstream iterations of the miniature wargaming hobby, focusing on those who want play the games on their own terms, sometimes outside of the scope of the game rules as written, or those who want to play old games which are no longer supported by their publishers. It is highlighting those who are more concerned with telling a story with the miniatures they build than with creating something that would be optimal in terms of a game’s rule system. A punk rock approach to the miniature wargaming hobby, if you will. Below are time stamps of where you can listen to each interview!

Under the Dice Fest: Day 2

Under the Dice Fest Day 2.

We were fortunate enough to be able to attend Under the Dice Fest 2024 at the end of January. The first day was focused around the New England Mordheim Open event, which we covered in an earlier post. The second day was primarily focused around open gaming, though there were a few small events taking place: a Marvel Crisis Protocol tournament, a Magic: The Gather Commander Tournament, and the Flames of Orion World Championship. We also had the opportunity to set up some boards to play games set on Vastarian!

Under the Dice Fest: Day 1

Under the Dice Fest Day 1.

On the last weekend of January, we were fortunate to be able to attend Under the Dice Fest 2024, a small festival in Massachusetts celebrating miniature-based tabletop wargaming. The festival was designed to appeal to those who shy away from the mainstream iterations of the miniature wargaming hobby, focusing on those who want play the games on their own terms, sometimes outside of the scope of the game rules as written, or those who want to play old games which are no longer supported by their publishers. It is highlighting those who are more concerned with telling a story with the miniatures they build than with creating something that would be optimal in terms of a game’s rule system. Last week, we reported on the day prior to the event (Day 0). Now we want to showcase some of the photos we took from the first full day of the fest, including pictures from the second annual New England Mordheim Open (NEMO) event. This year we didn't actually play in NEMO, as we didn't have new warbands to use and wanted to just hangout and talk with people (and take photos!). Learning from last year, the organizers reduced the number of games played during NEMO to three (a multiplayer game was not played this year). This allowed all the games to be comfortably played throughout the day without anyone rushing. In addition to NEMO, we also recorded interviews with some of the attendees of the first day, which you can listen to here!

Dragged into Turbolasers 107: Under the Dice Fest 2024, Part 1

Under the Dice Fest 2024!

In part one of a special two part episode, we interview people who attended Under the Dice Fest 2024, a small festival in Massachusetts celebrating miniature-based tabletop wargaming. The festival was designed to appeal to those who shy away from the mainstream iterations of the miniature wargaming hobby, focusing on those who want play the games on their own terms, sometimes outside of the scope of the game rules as written, or those who want to play old games which are no longer supported by their publishers. It is highlighting those who are more concerned with telling a story with the miniatures they build than with creating something that would be optimal in terms of a game’s rule system. A punk rock approach to the miniature wargaming hobby, if you will. Below are time stamps of where you can listen to each interview!

Under the Dice Fest: Day 0

Under the Dice Fest Day 0.

One of the most exciting parts of 2023 was taking part in the New England Mordheim Open (NEMO), held by the Under the Dice/Hive Scum group. When NEMO 2024 was announced, this time as part of Under the Dice Fest, we knew it was something that we needed to attend, primarily to see so many of our hobby friends, including many who were at the Rich Grimmond event last year. Like last year, we took along all of our recording equipment, for interviewing people at the event, along with our Vastarian warbands and Bill Ford’s (the_ruin.501) Church board. We decided to drive to Connecticut the day before the event kicked off to see Hive Scum’s studio space and see if we could play some games before the controlled chaos of NEMO 2024.

Vastarian: the Smallest Church in Saint-Fauré

Ehret Filipovic, Chief Bibliognost of the Church of the Red Athenæum, with a sister of the Order of the Crimson Hour.

Bill Ford, of the Mordheim 2022 and Rot of Hondious fame, created an amazing game board to represent the interior of a small Imperial chapel for Vastarian, complete with pews and a raised dais. The main board was created primarily with foam, with individual stone tiles created from foam. The walls and flying buttresses are from Pegasus Hobbies 28mm Gothic City Building model kits. Having just received the board, we really wanted to create a narrative framework for the board that would easily allow us to play thematic games at upcoming events, such as Under the Dice Fest at the end of the month! We ended up devising that the chapel is one of the houses of worship for the Church of the Red Athenæum, and current resting place of a significant holy artifact, the Codex Pháros:

2023, a year in review!

With 2024 upon us, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on 2023 and what we accomplished on the blog, before plunging ahead with new projects. The blog has now completed eleven full years! Throughout 2023, we were able to maintain regular blog posts while also continuing our podcast, and weekly Twitch streaming. With this post we wanted to look at our most popular posts of the year, while also highlighting our favorite episodes of the podcast.

Vastarian: Open Invitational Contest

In the later part of 2023, Between the Bolter and Me launched its first major Open Invitational called Vastarian - Dreams of the Pious. Vastarian is a major cathedral world that has been thrown into bloody turmoil due to the opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum, which caused a massive psychic awakening. The invitational is set in this world and encourages anyone to create their own Imperial Cult (the more eccentric and deranged the better) and with your favorite ruleset, play some skirmish games to help develop the lore! We have had a series of posts continuing to develop the setting, including showcasing two factions (the Church of the Red Athenæum and a faction of Spyreheads) and some artwork showing others, as well as writing a battle report within the setting! To our excitement, other hobbyists are already starting to create cults for Vastarian, which can be seen via searching #vastarian on Instagram! To generate additional excitement and get more people involved, we thought it would be fun to run a contest that had people create their own cult, complete with models and some background lore!