1. To play the miniature games I don't usually get to play (done that).
2. To buy a bunch of stuff, without paying shipping (I bought a lot of terrain from Acheson Creations, and about a pound of old Ral Partha animals).
3. To play those games I've been hearing about but have never played.
On that last part I got to play three games I had never played before.
First one was Leviathans, a game of VSF flying warships. The miniatures were very nice, the game mechanics worked well for the most part (though I'm not sure a group of Destroyers could ever take out Battleship in a Naval Game with just gunfire), but I'll probably never buy it. I am sorry, but giant flying warships/areonefs just never made sense to me. They all just look like warships mounted on flying stands. Air combat should be three dimensional, with weapons that can train up or down, not just to the side.
I played Malifaux (pronounced mali-foe, not mali-fax, like I pronounced it when asking about the game). I love the miniatures, less fond of the actual rules. The use of cards to determine power levels and success seems a little too tricky for me. I'd rather have a dice-driven system where I can easily determine the odds (which I may or may not pay attention to). It seems to have so many special rules for special characters, that I would find it hard to know what would have a chance against what. Just not my cup of tea.
The last game I tried was Dust. Wonderful models, and an easy to learn and understand system. I've been tempted by Weird World War II games for several years, but managed to avoid them because I didn't already have a WWII army (I play GASLIGHT because I already had a bunch of 25mm Civil war Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry. All I needed to do to play VSF was add a few steam contraptions). Since I don't already have a 25mm or 28mm WWII army, building a 1/48th force wouldn't be so bad. If the miniatures rules are as straight forward as the board game, I'll be very tempted to make this the next game/army I'd invest in. If only I could find somebody to play it with nearby.