Obsession with A song of Fire and Ice ... WINTER IS COMING!

Winter Is Coming

For years I've heard how good these books were from most of my friends ... between work ... family stuff ... gaming ... and a passion for reading non-fiction dry old history books (the history major in me never dies it seems) I just never got around to it. Well several months ago when I heard that HBO was doing a Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones series by George R. R. Martin  ... I finally bit the bullet and read the books.  I just finished the 4th book "A Feast for Crows" and thus far I'm very much in love with this series. I've actually already started thinking about gaming in this universe ... unfortunately the available RPG stuff is somewhat hard to find ... I do plan this winter to utilize yea ole Amazon.com and pick up the Green Ronin RPG ... the original RPG put out by a now defunct Canadian company. As for miniature gaming ... we've been talking about using WHFB or Warhammer Ancients or possibly even Armies of Arcana and running a campaign.  At any rate I'm happy I took the plunge and read the books prior to the television series ... I'm extremely excited it appears as though the cast is top notch ... its being done by HBO which bodes well and it sounds like Martin has been somewhat involved in the adaptation (though not the actual production). Good all round! Something to look forward to this winter for sure Winter is Coming!! (that link is to a really good blog that has a very comprehensive amount of info on the production, the cast, shooting info, etc. etc. its huge and very detailed! Check it out ... well worth it!!).

Addendum: 
My biggest worry honestly is that GRRM won't actually FINISH the series ... he apparently has stalled on the 5th book ... and there are at least two after that more that need to be written but knowing him probably 3 to 4 (The Winds of Winter and a Dream of Spring) ... the guy is over weight ... 62 ... clearly preoccupied with traveling and doing geeky stuff (can't say I blame him there) ... so be warned if you haven't read these books ... you might come to a frustrating end. 

In Production

Lately I've been on a quest to acquire a big set of figures for D&D. I have a pretty fair amount of GW Warhammer Fantasy Orcs and Goblins as well as Ogres, Undead, etc. My hope is that next summer I can run some classic D&D in a big Hirst Arts 3D dungeon. Then I'll have all that stuff available for an eventual game that I plan to run for my five kids ... that is still a few years out though ... but the figs are standard D&D with the group in the meantime as well. So its really a long term thing with hopefully multiple benefits as far as versitile gaming opportunity and really good return on investment for me in terms of just lots of fun with the same gaming material. 

Anyway I also noticed something really cool along these lines. Wargame Factory Plastics has announced that they are going to be doing orcs!! At first I was like ... meh ... I have tons o' orcs ... cool as it is to see em doing that ... not going to benefit me much. But then I saw their sculpts and they would make perfect D&D hobgoblins. So  I could do a big hobgoblin force. This also got me thinking about some of the WHFB fan-dexes and the  possibility of a counts as hobgoblin army for WHFB, etc.