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.

Dragged into Turbolasers 118 - Part 1: Under the Dice Fest 2025.

Under the Dice Fest 2025.

In part one of a special two-part episode, we interview people who attended Under the Dice Fest 2025, 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 to play the games on their terms, sometimes outside of the scope of the game rules as written, or those who want to play old games which their publishers no longer support. It highlights those who are more concerned with telling a story with the miniatures they build than with creating something optimal in terms of a game’s rule system. A punk rock approach to the miniature wargaming hobby, if you will.

Flames of Orion: Dark Spirit painted

Echoes Through the Empty Chambers of Heaven.

Earlier this month, we converted a model for Flames of Orion, a mech combat game that Steve (sovthofheaven) designed. It was an ideal time, as a Kickstarter is currently running to create a physical print of the book (which is available to download for free). It was also just in time for Under the Dice Fest, where we used the model in the Flames of Orion event, Beneath a Dying Sun!

Photography: Developing Black and White Film

A History of Bad Men (Tmax 100; developed in Ilfosol 3 [1:9]).

For the past year, I have been fascinated by film photography, having been introduced to it from my late grandfather. Shortly after starting to shoot 35mm film, I began to scan my negatives using my Nikon Zf with a 105mm f2.8 MC lens and a Valoi Easy35. This allowed me to pay a lab to develop the film for me, but digitize and edit the negatives myself, rather than paying for the lab to scan them (and often give low quality jpegs unless you pay over $20 per roll). This reduced cost while also affording me more control over the process. Despite this, I could not escape the feeling that I should also be doing the development myself too. My grandfather would often talk about how he used to develop his own black and white film and even had a darkroom for a short while. After doing some research, I discovered that the process is relatively straightforward, only requiring a single developer that can be used at room temperature (20oC/68oF) and a fixer. To my delight, I was given a Paterson Film Processing Starter Kit as an early birthday gift, and wanted to share some of my initial results!