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!