Under the Dice Fest 2025: Day 1

While darkness and ill-tidings are certainly the theme of many of the games played at Under the Dice Fest 2025, the camaraderie and friendship on display at the event was just the opposite.

In the past few years, the three of us at Between the Bolter and Me have made an effort to attend more gaming events and conventions, though if we are being honest, it has largely just been attending events hosted by the Under the Dice/Hive Scum crew. May 16, 17, and 18 of this year was the 2nd Under the Dice Fest, and Adam and Greg made the trip to Connecticut to attend! The Under the Dice/Hive Scum crew have been tirelessly promoting the weirder and independent side of the miniature-based tabletop wargaming hobby. They have been shining a bright light on those hobbyists that are interested in telling their own stories through miniature gaming, and those who are willing to step outside of the scope of the game rules as written, or even create their own games and miniatures, to do it. Every event that they host is a gathering of amazing, like-minded people passionate about their interpretation of the miniature wargaming hobby, and something we do not want to miss.

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!

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.