Category Archives: General

At Last

General, Miniatures

After finishing up the Italian Wars and Husaria figures in early January, I decided to get on with it and take care of the last of my  15mm Ottomans.  I was on a painting roll, and they were the last of my projects.

Yes, the last.  I may augment what I have, but that’s it for any large scale endeavours.  I know;  Never Say Never….

Here they are.  Now, they won’t stay in a cardboard flat.  Gave that up some years ago.  Hundreds of dollars in figures and countless hours of work left in flimsy cardboard.  No, they’ll go into a tool box.  A nice home….They’ll make excellent opponents for my late Medieval/Early Renaissance (@1450 CE) Europeans.

Going to give painting/constructing  a rest for awhile.  Work on my East Africa Renaissance Campaign, as well as get out some skirmish figures and terrain that need to see the light of day.

Quitter?

General

Came to a startling conclusion yesterday…..

Checked out the Multiman site on general principles.  Discovered a couple of new ASL/ASLSK titles were available.  Couldn’t reconcile pulling the trigger, even at pre-order discounts.

To paraphrase, “It’s a fine line between collecting and obsessing.”  I was getting obsessive about picking up ASL/ASLSK titles.  So many interesting scenarios and troop types.

I doubt that a quarter of them will get played.  The main reason is my avoidance of scenarios with vehicles.  Just another layer of too much granular complexity.

Another is that there are just so many other games to play.

Same thing happened a couple of weeks ago over at Strategy & Tactics Magazine.  Two intriguing magazine games on Russian expansion in Central Asia and the Russo-Turkish wars of the late 17th century.

Would love to have them.  But after paying well over $100, they’d just be browsed and then consigned to a box.  I already have the Red Sash games for the latter, as well as  a “Ready Box” of magazine games that have been waiting to be played for years.

I guess every gamer gets to this point.  I’m never going to say “never”, but it will be awhile before I pay for a new game.

OK, OK…..I did ask for, and received, “Malta Besieged” for Christmas.  I can rationalize that.

Missed It…..By That Much

General, Miniatures

The timing was just right.  Finish up over a year’s worth of planning and work on New Year’s Day.

I was close……but didn’t quite make it.

The genesis of all this was my decision to focus on  specific figure brands for  each period.  The next steps were to inventory all my painted lead and decide what rule sets to use.  This all occurred way back in October 2022.  The rule sets were…..

Pre-Renaissance:  WRG 6th Edition;  Italian Wars:  DBR;  Eastern European Renaissance:  Husaria.

Purchases were made, grotesque shipping charges paid,  and the painting began.

I added an even dozen Hinchliffe Sipahis, along with random German Knights, to the to-paint list.  These stalwarts had been occupying a paper sack since about 1991, but lacked mounts.

Progress was in fits and starts until mid-October, when things got serious.  To keep things moving at speed, I relied on cheat sheets like this:

The bulk of the effort  involved the Old Glory Italian Wars figures.  Painting was the least of my worries.  Figure prep involved a power drill auguring out hands for pikes, spears and halberds.  This was accomplished with White Knuckles and Cold Sweat.

The Hinchcliffe figures came with plenty of flash, requiring way too much X-Acto knife work (with accompanying loss of flesh).

To complicate things, I was running low on metal bases.  Fortunately, after several calculations I determined the quantities on hand were (just) adequate.

The culminating events would be a final base flocking and spraying the figures with gloss coat on New Year’s Eve, with all of my storage boxes (metal hand and shop tool boxes) cleaned and re-organized on New Year’s Day.

It all happened……but late on 12/31 I discovered  two lonely Sipahis and eight Arab Archers  had been missed.  OK, not that big a deal……but still.

These figures will be finished this week.  But, as they say, “Now Is When The Work Begins.”

I have to start playing with the damn things.

Expansion

General

I now have one of the most expensive wargame areas in Central Oregon, if not the state, region, nation or world.  We decided to devote one bay of the garage to our hobbies.  This involved upgrading the lighting (sorely needed regardless) renting storage some 30 minutes away, and building a storage shed (target completion date (10/21) for those chattels, as well as Coach (our Airstream RV), The Baby (2004 Audi TT Roadster), and our other  First World seldom-used-but-can’t-part-with chattels.

I now have a 4×8 surface for board games, enough for two standard size maps, with room underneath to store my various miniatures storage boxes.  I also purchased a heavy-duty metal bookcase for game storage/display.  Not even thinking about the cost per square foot.  Why ruin the fun?

Here it is…..all brand new and ready to go.

And, an In Action shot, with Kernstown on the left and Serbia/Romania on the right.,

Don’t Want To Look

Boardgames, General

Playing Fall of France (it’s that time of year) with Tim using Jet (JET?) software.  He finally talked me into it after years of cajoling.

Jet is quite an accomplishment.  While the graphics are rudimentary, and the program has its quirks, in the final analysis it is quite an accomplishment.  I marvel at how it eliminates much of the cardboard and paper drudgery.

I have the results of his German May II combats downloaded to the computer, but I can’t open it.  I’m playing the French side.  I have gained new insights as to how General Gamelin must have felt.  Nothing but bad news.  Wake up in the morning, look at the situation map and go right back to bed.  I almost did that last week after I received his May I turn combats.

I feel the same way about opening this file as I do when I hear a loud 3 AM Thump downstairs.  I would prefer not to investigate and am loathe to get the shotgun.

What makes it worse is that his well intended informational snippets contained in the body of the email are, to me, not informational but loaded with ill portent.

This apprehension  is so acute that I promised to watch a movie with my Wife this evening………

 

Where Has The Time Gone?

General

Fifty days or so since the last post.  Not that things haven’t been going on, just haven’t posted up.  So, we’re going to binge over the next couple of days with some followups to earlier posts and new business.

Here’s a laundry list of new and on-going projects that have evolved/hatched over the past 45 days.  Some real old school in here.

Old West Gunfights – 1/72 Figures and Terrain

Sword and The Flame – Boxer Rebellion With Old Minifigs (and some new recruits)

Traditional Miniatures – Flat Figures, Charles S. Grant and Peter Young classic rules.

Convert DBA to WRG 5th Edition – Dark Ages and Late Medieval

Larger Kriegsspiel Games – Additional Regiments and Other Types of Units

15mm Colonial – Old Minifigs Used With Arab/Turks for Victorian Campaign.

All of this will get me to the New Year!

 

Goodbye To All That

General

Packaging up the last of some 35 games sold over the last few months.  Running out of space.  Many had been played.  Rules read for others, but no great motivation to get them on the table.  So, cull the herd.

In the midst of this mayhem, I found a thread over at boardgamegeek.  I thought I had a collection!  Nothing compared to some of these men.

Now have to play the ones I have.

What Now?

General

Back from my trip and slowly cranking up the Spring/Summer planning, although the weather here is anything but Spring-like.  Lots to do and wargaming time will be at a premium.

Interesting Winter for gaming.  Emphasis on Tanks and Advanced Squad Leader.  Tanks filled the bill for a new game with fun rules, along with terrain and model building/painting projects.  ASL provided a means of playing with accumulated game inventory and expending any Christmas gift money.

D-Day at Omaha Beach and Patton’s Best were lost in the shuffle.   Stared at D-Day all the time.  Patton’s Best was sequestered in the trailer, and out of sight out of mind.

My DBA game gathered dust.  Just couldn’t get enthused about the campaign.

Write off D-Day and Patton’s Best.  Pack-em up for another day.

Intrigued by area movement games  Storm Over Arnhem and Thunder At Cassino.  Played Storm Over Stalingrad last summer and enjoyed it (but didn’t report it).  Fun, challenging and not over-complex.  So why not try these.

I’ll get that Early Renaissance DBA campaign going.  I will, I will, I will.

 

 

 

 

Food For Thought

Boardgames, General

Recently purchased “Custer’s Luck”.  Found out it could be played solitaire.  Very reasonable price, just slightly more expensive than a pint of beer.

While researching the game, I came across an interesting article by Charles Vasey over at Boardgamegeek.  I also read the posted comments about the game.   People either love it or (mostly) hate it.  Actually sounds best (now) as a multi-player game.

Vasey’s perspective is an interesting one, despite his caricature of an Ordered Gamer’s personal life.   Today, Experience Gamers might be characterized as interested in narrative flow.  Both Ordered and Experienced Gamers enjoy games that closely follow historical outcomes or their personal bias toward narrative/outcome.  Any uncertainty is limited to replayability, and often this categorization is predicated on the number of variety of scenarios, not the replay of the same scenario.

Chaos Gamers want nothing of it.  Any historical setting must be basic in the extreme, with limited constraints.  Game flow is unpredictable with outcomes varied in both impact and timing.  To me, this involves a level of impartiality that is difficult if not impossible to attain.  I know I have favorite units, sides, and the need for one side to attain an outcome.  It takes discipline not to re-roll for an event that shouldn’t have happened.

The upshot of this is that I’ll try to categorize my gaming experience, starting a game with the pre-condition that it meets one (and only one) of Vasey’s categories.  Good Luck with that, Ralph.

 

 

Work or Play?

General

Just returned from four days of fishing and cycling in SE Oregon.  Nights were windy and rainy, so I spent a lot of time buttoned up reading back issues of Miniature Wargames on my IPad.  Unfortunately all those great photos and articles didn’t get me all fired up to dive back into things when I returned.

I’m messing around with Thunderbolt/Apache Leader, pushing some DBR lead, painting a few 15mm Arab houses and a mosque, even reading the flight rules for Enemy Coast Ahead, and poking my nose into Carrier.  Still, it’s just messing around.

Got to get to work…………ahhhhh, maybe that’s the trouble…..it seems like work.  Need to think about that for awhile.