ViscountEric's Hottest Flashback Posts for 2025-26

I know I'm the only one that cares about blog stats, but I do love tracking stuff, not only the popular current posts, but also the older ones that still have traction.

**Disclaimer:  Year over year, the bot traffic is evolving from hitting the front page of the blog, to finally hitting more and more individual posts.  Like a lot of the blogs are mentioning, I had over three MILLION hits for the year, and most... are still the front page hits.**

2024-2025

My reviews of game stores like Lazarus Games, The Adventurer's Academy, IGAR, and Mythic Beasts and Brews dominate, plus my paint job on the Dollar General Mummies.

2023-2024

The Games Keep in West Chester and a random Space Dwarf Biker Gang Kickstarter pulled in the most traffic this past year.  Games Keep definitely get bot traffic plus a healthy dose of defenders of the shop from my opinion.

2022-2023 

The game store reviews continue to pull views for Sword in the Stone, Alchemist's Lair (Schuylkill Haven), with Dragon's Den in Honesdale getting a ton of traffic, with the sad little post about my divorce and losing a job rounding out the top picks.

2020-2022

International Gnome Week continues to gain traction based on my original post.  The year with two Historicons (November '21 and July '22 technically). 

I'm still not sure what bot or algorithm picked up on it, but a fairly mid rant about original  Fluxx and Unstable Unicorns being the optimal version their games has garnered enough traffic to become my most popular post... of all time!  The Navuoo Legion (aka The Mormons in the HMGS Gnome Wars games) remains popular, as well as a fluff piece about Gnomes and Fungus.  

Finally, Fourteen Beers at Chili's from my Call of Cthulhu "Curse of Nevoz" game, and a surprising blast from the past "My Paint Scheme for My Marines" seemed to draw in views organically.

2009-2019

These older posts reinforce what I see year-over-year:  Reviews seem to keep things alive.   I also saw a huge uptick in my Ballad of the Pigeon God AD&D campaign, as well as my run of Masks of Nylarathotep.  I was also amsued to find that my main posting about Samoan Riflemen for my Second Samoan Civil War game cracked the Top 20 in its year. 

The biggest gains in this era were for my Texas Roadhouse Massacre Risus-Illuminati University (IOU) game.  This actual play netted the #3 all-time spot, just beating out the Games Keep.

My Top 10 Popular Posts of the Past Year, Beyond the Last Year

1. Fluxx and Unicorns                                 - Rant
2. (Risus) Texas Roadhouse Massacre        - IOU
3. Hellboy Board Game                              - Kickstarter
4. The Games Keep, West Chester             - Reviews          - 2024
5. Dragon's Den Games, Honesdale           - Reviews
6. Tales from the Loop: The Board Game  - Kickstarter
7. Gnome Wars, 2nd Edition                      - Reviews
8. Gnome Vs Dragon Lawn Ornaments    - Gnome News
9. Space Dwarf Biker Gang 2                    - Kickstarter
10. Miniature Building Authority Castle Ex - Kickstarter

My Top 10 Popular Posts of All Time 

1. Fluxx and Unicorns                                                       - Rant
2. Hunting for Wizard of Oz Minis                                   - Wizard of Oz
3. (Risus) Texas Roadhouse Massacre                              - IOU
4. (Review) The Games Keep - West Chester                   - Reviews
5. (Kickstarter) Hellboy: The Board Game Expansions    - Kickstarter
6. Contemptible Little Armies Review                              - Reviews
7. Settlers of Catan 15th Anniversary Edition                   - Retail 
8. Wardlings, Toy Aliens, and Post-Gymnastics Universe - Rant
9. Eureka Minis Release Mice Warriors                            - Mouslings
10. (Kickstarter) Tales from the Loop: The Board Game    - Kickstarter

(Painting) Outrigger Canoes by Diabolical Terrain

 I did complete my first unit Hawaiian Gnomes (The Polygnomials) less than a year ago.  They have proven to be a fun nationality, and most of the rules tweaks involve some procedural options with the Spearmen and the making the Pineapple Catapult somewhere that's not useless but not terrorizing the board.  

As we figured out early at Historicon, the Hawaiians needed to accessorize, and I found two items that work well, adding some lore to Hawaiian lore.

First off, the most obvious choice, outrigger canoes from Diabolical Terrain.  Your might want to try the larger 30mm scale, but with the 25mm canoes, your definitely need five of them to traverse the sea and conquer the surrounding islands.  

EC3D-DY: Dugout Outrigger

During the summer closeouts at the Dollar Tree, I picked up some "Candy Holders," clear red plastic in the shape of pineapples.  In my two lines of thinking, I painted half up as giant pineapples, and the other four as carved pineapple rocks, perfect for a fire inside the crown.  

The final item to complete the Hawaiian "base?"   A small ziggurat structure, perhaps one level, that would be perfect for a the pineapple sculptures and perhaps an appropriate altar? I will have time to scour the dealer's hall and flea market sessions this year. 

Next Up:  I do have a massive project with sixty (60!) figures that I'm already in the midst of, for Fall-In!  I might have even more, but the first sixty should be enough.  After that, there's nothing specific on the painting bench, so I might wander between Gnomish Space Marine stuff, and more of the 3-D fantasy stuff I picked up at Historicon.

Project 350:  We just mentioned this yesterday, but we're at  470 (313/157) from 471 (313/158).  October is NOT as pre-packed full of posts as prior years, so I don't see perhaps a handful of games plus working on the placeholders for the #CharacterCreationChallenge in January.

My Gaming Plans for 2026-27

Another year, another 20% of plans actually achieving. 

To be honest, I hit six out of seven (83%) of the core goals last year, with close to zero success from the pie-in-the-sky projects. 

Keeping it real, like last year, I need to recognize two big things: 

• The era is ending.....  Maja driving has given her freedom, and has resulted in less time both girls have with dear old dad.   And to make matters worse, the whole boyfriend thing is a whole lot more serious than the last foray, and I foresee her coming down for Historicon only (He is a gamer, so there is still a chance...)  Millie can still get excited from games, but she's definitely an engaged casual player.
• Enjoy what everyone enjoys:  Essentially copying word-for-word from last year.  I enjoy all the online community projects and there are certain things I'll do, even if no one else ever reads them, no matter how foolish.  The biggest posts of the year for me are (1) convention AARs, (2) game store reviews, (3) Pulp Game AARs, and (4) my painting.  I'm not monetizing the blog, but engagement matters, both practically, and selfishly.

With my "Mission Statement" out of the way, let's get into my plans, from immediate projects to fewer pipe dreams.

1. The last guaranteed Historicon with Maja - Maja will have graduated high school, weeks away from attending college, probably somewhere in New York State.  Although she'll try, Historicon 2027 might be the last be hurrah for Maja... or maybe not.  She's basically independent of us outside of Next Gen activities, so like this past year, I'm going to enjoy it.
2. Death Planet Iota Ongoing -  My Fistful of Lead sci-fi campaign using anything and everything I can get my hands on.  This includes painting up anymore figures, vehicles, and scenery. 
3. Mousling Fantasy, Take Three - Still tinkering, using the mouslings, fantasy figures in general.   System still seems to elude me.  
4. Pulp! - I'd like to finish Tomb of the Serpent with the girls, or just solo.  
5. Gamma World Alternatives -What started as joke that worried all my players, we do need an alternative or low attendance friendly game for Monday nights.  Something like Nations and Cannons is great, but with a group of history freaks, that might require more GMing output than I'm ready for.   
6. Painting - Yet another reorganization of the queue, and restock, replenish, and retool my paint shelves for colors I need to replace.   Gotta find a project after all the Death Planet Iota gets finished… Who am I kidding… I just found another bag of West End Games Star Wars figures last night. 

And the pipe dreams:

    7.  Toon - "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Kodos"  After years of running the "Cthulhu Comes to Springfield" Toon game, and dusting it off for Mepacon 50, I had been tempted to run a Simpsons game of "episodes" that fit the con's alien theme, but withdrew.  It might still be a thing for Mepacon 52 in April.

    8.  What's next for Gnome Wars?  Of course there will be Gnome Wars games at HMGS cons, but I wonder if it's not high time for Gnome Wars 3.0, with expanded campaign data straight from this blog.

    9.  Local Next Gen: With the girls leaving school soon, it might be a good time to get a Next Gen grant and set up a Viking, or AWI, or something better for Next Gen sessions at local libraries.