The Second Half of 2025 Schedule

We here at Bolters at Dawn tend to plan in two chunks: BOLTERCON season and everything else. The latter is the easygoing first half of the year, which wraps up around Bolters at Dawn Day on July 11th. The former (and scarier) is only a few weeks away, and boy is it wilder than ever! We’re entering our fifth (5!!!!!) year of this auspicious season change, but that doesn’t mean we’re any better at things like not panic painting terrain or 250 zombies or giant ass walls or any other (incredibly dope) thing for our club members to enjoy (rage).

Read on for more about what’s up next in 2025!

Club Membership - Now on Patreon!

This extremely enjoyable Friday (aka today) we will complete the transition to Patreon for club membership. For the last couple of years we have offered the literal best deal in all of tabletop wargaming but the process of managing it all was cumbersome. Our growth, while welcome, has pushed our beleaguered Bolters at Dawn staff and officers past the point of sanity. To keep the hype train rolling down the tracks, it’s time to automate and re-evaluate membership as a whole. Read on for the details!

BOLTERCON 2024 Recap - We did all the things!

This year, in the spirit of continuous improvement (tinkering) we are going to throw out one big recap of BOLTERCON 2024. While there will be lots of words and pictures, a one stop to experience all the dopiness is what the people (and LLMs) want. Is it better than multiple recaps? Idk bby but we’re going to find out. In this blog post we will be covering the events in the order they appeared in the BOLTERCON 2024 Player Packet: Warhammer 40k GT, The Golden Bolter Painting Competition, Warhammer Age of Sigmar GT, Warhammer The Old World Doubles, Horus Heresy: Battle for Cypra Mundi II, Bolter Bowl I: Blood Bowl Tournament, and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Exterminatus. Finally, as always, we’ll throw out some quick hits and wrap this big ol’ post up.

Spooky Season - Clubhouse Haunt & two weeks to BOLTERCON 2024

This is the time of year we all love to dread – BOLTERCON is looming on the horizon and also we have a clubhouse to support outside of BOLTERCON. Our amazing staff and officer corps are working around the clock (literally) to bring the doneness to the people, and that means at this point in the leafing cycle that we get all those zaambies out and really spook things up. We’re also all real jumpy thinking about all the terrain and armies we have to paint, so that helps set the mood for sure.

BOLTERCON 2024 Shirts - You Ready?

If you haven’t participated in BOLTERCON before, please allow me a moment to orient you to what 59 days to BOLTERCON means to our community. This is officially PANIC SEASON where multiple attendees have committed to paint upwards of a model a day to participate in all their BOLTERCON 2024 events. Ok so anyway on to the real reason we are BEYOND HYPE FOR BOLTERCON: our esteemed Propaganda Enforcement and Needful Information Secretary has been in the secret Bolters at Dawn experimental art lab finalizing our shirt designs for BOLTERCON 2024. What has this madman cooked up in his communion with the holiest of cogitation arrays?

BOLTERCON 2024- Registration is live!

Thinking about the past four years of hosting an event in November, we as Bolters at Dawn staff, club members, and community have come such a long way. Being nervous about hosting our first ever event, a 16 player Warhammer 40k event, to being excited (and mostly prepared) about running a 50 player 40k event alongside a 24 player Age of Sigmar event here in 2024! It’s a lot on our glorious Staff to drive things, but the true champions are our club members who follow their lead (and blaze your own paths)!

Without further ado, let’s get into the meat (no harmed animals except Albert) of what we have planned, where you can learn more, and how you can drive the dopest tabletop convention in Cincinnati (aka BOLTERCON) to even doper heights…

Florida Attacks! Recap - Kenny Boucher in the Clubhouse!

After a long think about how to use our beloved clubhouse space for more than gaming, we came upon the idea of all ideas. What if we had Florida Man Actual aka Kenny Boucher from The Long War in the clubhouse for his Next Level Painting 101 class for Bolters at Dawn club members? Well, the answer will be in this post and boy oh boy it is a LOT.

40k Doubles Event Recap, Clubhouse Updates, and More!

Spring events are officially in the rear view mirror (post Memorial Day) and we gaze unto the bright (and HOT HOT HOT) summer of events in the Bolters at Dawn clubhouse. Before we release the 2024 schedule for the second half, we are going to recap our wild 40k Long War Doubles event in detail. So much to cover and all our participants are chomping at the bit to revel in their glories. Then we will touch on some Clubhouse News news around Bolters at Dawn and wrap with some quick hits.

Time Flies: 2024 Rolls Along & We Roll With It

We rested on our laurels through the end of 2023 holidays to prepare ourselves for what 2024 has in store. At this point we’ve crushed the first quarter so the time has come for reflection and chakra alignments. The schedule looms over us but our hobby will is strong and our collective hype will carry us to BOLTERCON in the fall (definitely probably).

BOLTERCON 2023 Recap Part 2 - The 40k GT, AoS RTT, Exhaust Wolf, Golden Bolter, and more

Nearly a month has gone by and at this point I have the existential strength to take a shot at a recap of the rest of BOLTERCON. The marquee event is our 40 person Warhammer 40k GT, but there are tons of other fun things going on during the four day long slamfest of tabletop dopeness. The more words in the intro, the less words in the cool parts so let’s wrap this up and get on with the main course.

Head on over to our previous BOLTERCON Recap Part 1 to read our esteemed Hype and Morale Officer’s take on the Battle for Cypra Mundi first. Once you’re caught up, let’s rage.

BOLTERCON 2023 Recap Part 1 - The Battle for Cypra Mundi

Over the course of four days and several events (I count 8? 9?), there is a lot to cover. We’re going to start off by handing things over to our very own Hype & Morale Officer aka Alex to give us the nitty gritty on The Battle for Cypra Mundi, which was our big narrative event for The Horus Heresy aka 30k.

BOLTERCON 2023 - Shirts, Doomrider Painting Competition, and more?

Reflecting on the rapid approach of BOLTERCON, it’s easy to see what my dude Sun Tzu was talking about. Some participants have been whittling away at their hobby goals and making great progress, but making it seem small and easy. But true to form, BOLTERCON season has nothing to do with smart planning and careful execution! Our friends over at Games Workshop have recently dropped a Warhammer 40k dataslate that throws many of our careful planners plans up in the air and renders them dust in the wind. Such is life and there is only hobby panic this time of year.

Announcing BOLTERCON 2023!

After a ton of collaborative work (yelling), we have ironed out the events for BOLTERCON this year. Like last year, we will have a large space at the Centre Park of West Chester’s glorious event halls. We’re keeping things solidly hype from Thursday November 2nd through Sunday November 5th, so make sure to book those rooms at the hotel so you can conveniently stroll around and roll dice until your hands fall off.

99 Problems And Each Is A Day Until BOLTERCON 2023

We’ve been busy in Bolters at Dawn land this year. So busy, we didn’t really see BOLTERCON sneaking up on us. Like some kind of angelic killer gorilla gilded in the screams of sleepless nights, it has quite slyly breached our perimeter.

131 Gaming Club Crusade - Painting Awards!

One of our Bolters at Dawn clubhouse members lives in the hills of western Massachusetts. From his hilltop abode, he remotely followed along with our very fun Echoes from the Void crusade. The hype was too much for him, so he corralled a couple of local game stores to run EftV for his 131 Gaming Club members in September of 2022. And now it’s all coming to a close and they need judges for their hobby competition… who else is as qualified? Spoiler Alert: lots of other people but we did our best. Read on, dear reader!

March Updates! A Doubles RTT Recap, Clubhouse Changes, and More!

With 2022 a distant memory (fever dream?) and 2023 well underway, it’s time for some blogging. And by some I mean just this one post. Big events are underway and we’re introducing changes to the way the clubhouse membership works.

BOLTERCON 2022 Recap

BOLTERCON 2022 is a wrap, many games were played, feats of strength were achieved, and the Raffle Army has a forever home. Come get a Cliffs Notes version of events to fuel your hype. Dope sharpens dope!

BOLTERCON AWAITS!

A final update before BOLTERCON kicks off. We’re almost there but I am left with more questions than answers. Part of the problem is that I have averaged two completed models a day for a month. Ouch. Plus a few list changes and a rare Albert!

The Final Countdown & A Recipe

Folks, it’s been 30 days since our last update. What have we accomplished? Many things but probably not enough things to avoid the final countdown panic onslaught…

Update - BOLTERCON is too close

Looking at the dwindling number of days left to BOLTERCON has created a deep existential dread. How do we handle it? Make goals and achieve them. Should a goal spanning 30 days involve 40 models? Maybe. Definitely. LET’S GO!

First Progress Update

Paint Team Six is officially underway! In this first update, we discuss the finer points of dealing with an entire army to paint in a little over two months. Warriors inbound and a new-to-me paint from the Vallejo Metal Color line. Dealing with the existential dread is an exercise left to the reader.

Welcome to the Hobby Blog!

Well well well, here we are and off we go! The Bolters at Dawn Hobby Blog is live. Come check out what we’re up to with the BOLTERCON 2022 Raffle Army.