Little Lead Heroes

Guest Star: Dragon

2012-02-09T00:28:00.000-05:00

DSCN0261, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

I went with Reaper's Young Swamp Dragon for Black Fang. He was about the right size and shape. I didn't really try to follow the module concept art for this, I just painted him black.

Supporting Cast: Reefclaw

2012-02-08T00:14:00.000-05:00

DSCN0251, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

As I've mentioned before, I had to custom convert a miniature for the adventure's Reefclaw. I started with a Reaper moray eel familiar, and added claws from the Creature Components pack, bulked out with a little sculpting putty. If I'd had more time and energy, I might have added the antennae and such, but as it, it's an acceptable figure, I think.

Supporting Cast: Spider

2012-02-07T00:08:00.000-05:00

DSCN0259, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Here's the Reaper figure I painted up for the spider in the Beginner Box adventure. He's just a little guy for a giant spider, so I went with a realistic paint scheme on him based on some stock picture I found on the Internet. I was pleased with how he turned out.

Pathfinder Iconic Character: Valeros

2012-02-06T00:59:00.000-05:00

DSCN0233, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

My version of the Pathfinder iconic fighter, Valeros. I wanted to make his stone mug a touristy one for Faerun, but it was pretty darn small and decided against it! I'm not very satisfied with his eyes-- but I'm done!

Iconic Pathfinder Character: Kyra

2012-02-05T00:54:00.000-05:00

DSCN0225, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

My paint up of the Pathfinder iconic Cleric, Kyra. The eyes are a little sloppy in the magnified pictures, but in real life, her eyes are spot on for the artwork, it's really nice. Again, I totally missed that red sash. Someday-- maybe-- I'll fix it.

Iconic Pathfinder Character: Merisiel

2012-02-04T00:39:00.001-05:00

DSCN0217, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

My paint up of the iconic Pathfinder rogue Merisiel, a.k.a. Patrish, a.k.a. Kaijitsu.

Iconic Pathfinder Character: Ezren

2012-02-03T23:51:00.000-05:00

DSCN0212, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Here is my work up of Ezren, a.k.a. Slate in our game! Already picking up some wear on his casting index finger...Number Two Son, almost four, likes to take HIS turn playing with Daddy's little men. Below is the reference picture and more angles on the miniature. I'm pleased with him, although the color balance is pretty bad in these pictures...dammit Internet, I'm a painter, not a photographer!

The First Time is Always the Best

2012-02-02T22:19:00.000-05:00

1st Character, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

So Number One Son wasn't really fooling about creating his first character. I came in last night with the Pathfinder Bestiary, as our local semi-FLGS, Nord's Games, is going out of business and blowing out their stock at 40% off. As soon as I walk in the door, he launches into a torrent about his character.

"He's got an 18 Strength and a 16 Dexterity!"

"Wow!"

"And I found some armor that gave me +9 so I have an Armor Class of 19!"

"Really! You were able to afford that with your starting money?"

Big grin. "Weeeeeeeellll..."

Tonight we sat down and went over his character together. He made an Neutral Elf Fighter named Legolas. 18 STR, 14 DEX, 15 CON, 13 INT, 13 WIS, 12 CHA. Not bad! Legolas likes to shoot his bow from a horse, so he usually wields a short bow, but he also has a long sword. He's armored with splint mail, and owns a horse.

His character history reads, "I'm a spy for the three Elven Kings. My father was a good lawful person. A war is going on with the humans and the dwarves. I'm an Elf general."

"Can I create another character and give Legolas all his stuff?"

LOL, "No!"

I asked him what kind of place he'd like to play in-- snow, forest, dungeon, desert, etc...? "I want to go all over! Maybe I could take a ship, and it could wreck and I would be shipwrecked on an island, and find a temple full of goblins or something!" Sounds like fun!

We also have the Two Towers queued up to watch on the weekend. I'm going to have to get the movie soundtracks to play as background music when we roleplay.

Pathfinder Complete, Part Three

2012-02-01T00:05:00.001-05:00

DSCN0205, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

The third half of the first day of our Pathfinder fun (part one, part two). We played this last Sunday, and it went well, although not quite as smoothly for a variety reasons, mostly my fault. We had time on Sunday, and I had been monstrously busy at work, and figured this was about the only time I would have for at least another week, and I wanted to get the game finished. However, I had also just bought Number One Daughter the Hunger Games. She is a voracious, obsessive reader, and she made it clear in no uncertain terms that should would rather be reading!! I made it clear that I would really rather come and play with us, and I won. However, she was a little sulky. Mistake first of many, I suppose.

I ran them through a summary of the previous adventure. They were resting in an alcove with a magic pillar, along with a chalk inscription that finally warned them explicitly about the dragon ahead through a crypt (although, I don't think there was any surprise there, as I had had the dragon miniature bouncing around on my painting desk for a month). They could read runes on the pillar, which they could tell read "breath" and "water," which was intended for them to touch and get the ability to breathe water, so they could more easily cross the underground river ahead. They ignored the pillar, though. Fortunately, it wasn't needed, but in retrospect I felt I should have reminded Number One Son about Slate's Detect Magic skill and had him figure out precisely what the pillar did.

Across the deep underground river, they could see the glitter of metal hidden in debris. Kaijitsu and Slate swam the river easily, while Milton, unable to swim, stayed on the far bank. Kaijitsu and Slate soon began divvying the treasure find-- potions of invisibility and levitation, some gold, and a dragon-bane long sword. As they were determining who got what, Milton started yelling from the far bank. The reefclaw had emerged from the river and attacked him! Kaijitsu won initiative, and started to swim the river. She couldn't make it and attack, so I told her to try and throw a dagger-- only as I looked at the situation, I realized she would get a -4 for the reefclaw being next to Milton. At that point, I told her to she probably ought to go ahead and swim the river. She said she wanted to attack the the reefclaw from the water. Crap, I just wasn't prepared for that-- I was pretty sure there were no rules for that. Do I wing it? I was trying to teach the rules as well as play. I dithered a bit, then just asked to swim the whole way and attack from the land. She was obviously a little disappointed. Ugh! I should have just winged, I guess.

Anyway, Kaijitsu wound up dispatching the reefclaw with two slashes of her rapier, without it doing any damage in return. The party then went into the area with the goblin throne room, which had been the source of the earlier sounds of goblins arguing. The goblin king's sister had run off with his dragon toy-- obviously, she was the goblin corpse they had found said toy on in the spider's lair-- and the goblins were arguing about who would have to go find it. At this point, once the kids started trying to talk with the goblins, order rather fell apart. They were talking over each other, interrupting, making jokes, etc... I got a little irritated and had to calm them down again. Eventually, they had Milton hand over the toy dragon, and the goblin king gave them them a Wand of Cure Light Wounds. Yay! Only it turned out, nobody in the party could actually use that. Boooooo. Lack of prep on my part, I retconned it to a wand of magic missile, which please Number One Son Also, the goblin king...well, he told them the way to the dragon. Here my lack of preparation shone large, as I don't believe the king told them to strike at the dragon's belly. Which would have given them a large bonus to hit, I later read. Yeesh.

They scaled a cliff, and there were lots of cracks about leaving Milton behind, getting him killed to see what they could get off him, or just outright killing him. I guess that sort of stuff is just natural! Anyway, this cliff led into the aforementioned crypt, and three skeletons came out. I thought they wouldn't be too difficult, yet the party had a hard time. Nobody could hit for anything, and before too long, Milton would down and stabilized at -2 HP. Number One Son was saying that while his character probably wanted to stay, he wanted to get out of there, while Number One Daughter was saying that while her character probably wanted to leave him, she wanted to stay! Anyway, they retreated a while, away from the skellies and towards the dragon. I pointed this out to them, and they seemed to think the skellies would stay in the crypt. I wasn't sure why, but I said maybe, but maybe they would follow you and you'd just have to fight the dragon and and skeletons. The scales fell from their eyes, and they went back to fight the skeletons.

Slate at this point went into overdrive, using his Hand of the Apprentice to throw his quarterstaff into two of the skeletons, killing each in one blow, and then whacking the last one by hand for critical damage. They tended to Milton, trying to figure out what to do. In game, Milton encouraged them to finish the quest, and come back for him-- if they survived. They really dithered badly on this, so out of game, I explained that the cliff face and the threat of the dragon would probably keep any monsters from coming up from behind, and Milton was pretty secure. Still, Kaijitsu left him her bed roll and several rations.

At this point, I encouraged them to come with a plan of attack, as they could hear the dragon ahead. With only a bit of help from me, they decided Kaijitsu would quaff the potion of invisibility, then creep in and Sneak Attack the dragon with the dragon bane sword. Slate would provide magic missile fire support from behind cover. I talked about how Kaijitsu saw the dragon, slightly larger than a horse, was busy taking huge bites out of dead cow. "Old Betsy!" they declared.

Kaijitsu got into place, and struck home. The dragon roared, and Slate fired from cover, hitting him in the open mouth, I described. And then he used his move to fly away. I was very concerned about the outcome of this fight, a little tired of running it for the rambunctious kids, had a legitimate combat out, and I took it-- if the dragon is ever hit by the dragon bane sword, he flees. The kids seemed a little confused, I obviously didn't draw the connection in game well enough to the sword. I explained that they had basically defeated the dragon by their good planning, and they accepted that.

Then we got to the treasure.

The friggin' thing was guarding a scroll of new life-- basically, a resurrection spell. I don't believe I had ever noticed that at all, concentrating on everything up to that encounter, but nothing after. Not only that, Kaijitsu still carried the Energy Heart. I had been planning for so long to have the dragon acid blast her, since she was carrying it. However, in the heat of battle, and my desire to make sure they didn't die, I completely forgot. I completely should have had the battle go on for another couple of rounds, had the dragon breathe acid on Kaijitsu, attack once more, even if it killed her, and then flee in obvious fear from the dreaded sword. Stupid!! I'm so stupid!

Anyway, I'm a little self-critical because I want to do a better job next time. They had a reasonable amount of fun. Number One Daughter still just wanted to go read her book, so I released her. Number One Son was pretty excited about the game, and asked if she wasn't going to play in the game anymore, if he could have her stuff. LOL.

Number One Son has made noises about creating his own character-- an elf wizard. He said that he had tried to make a character, and found it a little confusing. I told him to go ahead and try, and then I would sit down with him later and go over with him and help him out. I'd like to maybe run him through a solo campaign. This whole game was two two hour sessions, which seemed to be long enough to accomplish some fun and interesting play, but still short enough to keep his attention. And, running the game for him alone seemed a little easier, although we'll see how that works out in longer sessions. Should Number Two Daughter ever wish to jump in, she can always either bring the wandering Kaijitsu back into town, or run a previous NPC.

Thinking about running a solo campaign in a rules-heavy system like Pathfinder, and for a low AC, low HP class like a Wizard, I was thinking about running a few Milton-like NPCs. They stay in the background, follow orders, soak hits, and most importantly, don't steal the spotlight. The three of us have just finished watching the Fellowship of the Ring, which they are very excited about, and he could take a sort of Gandalf role among some other lesser heroes. Anyway, just some thoughts, we'll see how it all shakes out.

Pathfinder Complete, Part Two

2012-01-26T00:08:00.000-05:00

DSCN0205, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

The second half of the first day of our Pathfinder fun, but only the first half of the second game, so the second half will be in a third part. Whew! I asked Number One Daughter, twelve, to join us for the module included in the Pathfinder Beginner Box. She is not a gamer. She has fun when she plays games with us, but she rarely will initiatie or even express desire to participate in any games we play, unlike her brother. She wasn't opposed, just somewhat apathetic. She does enjoy drama a lot, though, so I talked about the story aspect, about how it wasn't a game in the traditional sense, but there were some rules to help people stay in their character's abilities. I also discussed the similarities with improvisational acting, and she became mildly intrigued. She noted how she was familiar with XPs and levels from Pokemon, and I told her how all that had originated with D&D.

Number One Daughter chose to play Merisiel the elf rogue. Only she didn't want to call her Merisiel...first, she wanted Patrish (that's correct, Patrish), but after seeing the Sandpoint Innkeeper art of Ameiko Kaijitsu, she decided to change to name to Kaijitsu. At which point Number One Son piped up that he didn't know he could change his name, and went through a couple of typical choices, including his real name, before deciding on Slate.

One Kid Easy, Two Kids Hard

And this is where the wild ride began. When it was just Number One Son and me, things went very smoothly. However, now that Number One Daughter had been added to the mix, they began to compete, try to one-up each other, interrupt and talk over each other, etc... Once one had a good idea, the other had to do it, too, and take it to the next level. Typical stuff, really. The game itself proceeded just fine, but I occasionally had to "Dad up," calm them down and force them the speak in turns.

Number One Daughter decided that Kaijutsu would speak in a stereotypical New Jersey "Joisey" accent. Inwardly, I am cringing. That's her latest fun thing with her friends, talking like the cast of the Jersey Shore, which she has never watched under MY roof, I will note. Number One Son was saying that as an elf, she should use Thees and Thous. Anyway, I explained that it was her character to develop as she liked. However, I note that in her background, she was an orphan adopted by humans, and the accent could play into that-- I'll have to mention that to her.

I started off back at the Rusty Dragon, Sandpoint's Inn, weeks after the last adventure. Ezren/Slate and Merisiel/Kaijitsu were in the common area, although they hadn't really met. Sheriff Hemlock returned with another request-- some huge creature had been attacking and killing livestock around Sandpoint. The community had gotten together a reward of 1,000 gold pieces to whatever adventurer(s) proved themselves able to run off or kill whatever terrible beast this turned out to be. That piqued Kaijitsu's interest! It's funny, I guess to an experienced roleplayer, this is a sort of eye-rolling start to an adventure, but both times the kids completely took the bait, totally in character-- Slate for the help of other people, Kaijitsu for the money.

This time, one of the town guard was going to accompany the pair. Milton, as he was named, was just the City Guard from the GM Guide. He took no initiative and, being timid, he never took the lead-- he was simply coming along for the ride, it was the PC's story. I thought he might be useful to help deliver some damage-- or soak some. The big bad of the adventure, Black Fang (a very young black dragon) had 54 hit points, AC 21 and could deliver a 3d6 acid breath attack, so he was more than capable of Total Party Kill regardless. However, there are a few items useful along the way, such as a magic ruby that can deliver acid invulnerability and a +1 Dragon-Bane sword (+3 vs. dragons, +2d6 damage).

A Bit More Improvisation

Anyway, the sheriff showed them a black fang that had been left at one of the livestock attacks. Milton the town guard took the pair to the bachelor farmer Reed's farm, site of the latest attack. This wasn't part of the written adventure, but I didn't want to start the kids at the entrance to the dungeon and just let them crawl through. Old man Reed detailed that this "Black Fanged" beast had been killing livestock off various farms. He talked a bit about how valuable such animals were to a farm, and thus it was causing serious problems for the area. His own best dairy cow, Betsy, had been killed just the night before. All that was left for the adventurers was the cow's severed head, laying off to the side of the farm and buzzing with insects. The kids "EWWWED!"

They both rolled Perceptions checks, and both saw a crushed trail away from the site of the attack. Kaijitsu's keener Elf senses saw breaks in the trails, with impacts in the dirt after the break. She picked up right away that the creature was trying to fly, but couldn't. I had in mind that it was carrying Betsy's corpse and it was too heavy. She saw a creature so gorged on livestock that it could hardly fly anymore. I expected them to follow the trail-- however, I mentioned as an aside that it went in the direction towards Weasel Creek, a geographic feature I picked pretty much at random-- and they seemed to assume they would not be able to track it past that!

They decided to wait for the next attack. They debated about how to do this, and decided since it was already late, they would stay at Reed's farm. Reed gave up his bed to Kaijitsu, and the rest of the party slept on the floor. Again, Kaijitsu's keen senses roused her to a disturbance from Reed's sheep. She woke everybody else, and they approached the sheep pen, without lights. She could make out the black form of a winged form about the size of a very large horse on the far side of the pen. For whatever reason, they had pretty much convinced themselves this it was a dragon. I suspect I told my daughter as I was painting up the figures. However, my son suggested a manticore, a beast he had browsed in the bestiary.

The beast seemed to hear them, and was circling around the sheep pen. Slate prepared a spell, although he couldn't see the beast. Kaijitsu gave a running commentary of it approaching. Bachelor farmer Reed had his limit and fled back to his shack. As soon as Slate could make out the form, he fired off a Ray of Frost, striking it. The creature roared in surprise and fled in the direction of the old trail. The party went back to the shack, roused Reed from under the bed where Kaijitsu scolded his cowardice in over the top Joisey form, and they all rested for the rest of the evening.

The Module Begins

The next morning, encouraged a bit by me, they decided to follow the trail. I told them they had no problem following the tail due to the weight of the cow being drug and the blood that leaked out of it. "EWWWW!" This led the easily to the beginning of the printed module. There was an ancient statue from some other civilization, but the statue's features had been worn away, perhaps by acid. "It can breathe acid!" exclaimed my daughter.

At that point, the moss wall behind the statue parted, being in actuality only a curtain, and two goblins came out. They were walking funny, I stated. "Are they hurt? Are they limping?" asked my daughter. I stated no, they were woozy, and had one of them throw and empty jug at here. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaah" she said, knowingly.

They dispatched the two goblins without much effort, Milton following their lead and helping out. They hesitated, but eventually entered the curtain. In the room, I detailed the chest (locked) they saw, and the dirty straw beds (which hid the key). Not being familiar with the "kill 'em and take their stuff" trope, they started to walk on by, so Milton suggested they see what was in the chest.

The chest being locked, Slate started to look for ways to bash or burn it open. Kaijitsu dissuaded him, but didn't seem to have a better idea. I reminded her of her lock tools, and noted if they simply bashed it open, they might damage something inside (there was a healing potion). She rolled, and unlocked the chest.

They were pretty sure the "potion" in the chest was magic, but didn't have any idea what it might do. Leading my son, hoping he would think of his Detect Magic spell, I asked, "What would you do to try and figure out what this might do?"

He pondered a moment, then asked, "Try it on Milton?"

I couldn't help but laugh heartily at this, thinking what a GREAT roleplayer my son was going to be. Anyway, I prompted him to use his Detect Magic, which in these rules, when cast directly on an object, fully identifies it. I think that works really well for an intro game like this, with lots of synergistic magic items sprinkled throughout the dungeon.

In the next room, there was a magic fountain, which via Detect Magic they knew fully well was magic. It had a random list of possible effects, so when Detect Magic was cast on it, they got a variety of words over the top of the fountain related to the possible effects. This didn't inspire any confidence, and they couldn't make DC 20 checks to read the runes around it, so they basically left it along. Nothing much missed here.

From here, there were two paths, and down one, they could hear goblins arguing. They debated which way to go, then went the opposite direction, to the Gemstone Altar. On the altar was a big, glowing ruby, flanked by two statues, and they immediately suspected a trap. Kaijitsu went to retrieve the ruby while Slate and Milton stayed a safe distance away. When she got close to the ruby, she triggered a sheet of fire from both statues. She made her Reflex save, only taking four points of damage. She ducked and immediately grabbed the ruby, while the statues waited for a five second reset. Then, she stood up, and the flame struck again-- only this time, the ruby protected her! At a safe distance, Slate revealed the big, valuable ruby was an Energy Heart, protecting its bearer from acid (convenient, n'est pas?), cold, fire and electricity one time a day.

Number One Daughter, apparently a natural rogue alright, stated firmly that she would keep that.

Continuing on this passageway, they went into a room covered with spider webs with a dead goblin on the floor. "EWWW!" The giant spider there completely blew its Stealth roll, and even Milton saw it. "OH NO!" my son said, as I went for a miniature-- he apparently expected something much larger, and was slightly relieved to see the spider fit on a one inch square base. Regardless, the group immediately decided to completely bypass this room! Kaijitsu was stuck in the webs, but Slate and Milton broke free and ran past the spider, and Kaijitsu followed on the next turn.

There was a wand of Magic Missile in the goblin corpse I didn't want them to miss, so I detailed that, as they ran past it, they noticed several items scattered about it. Slate used Detect Magic to identify the wand there, and immediately wanted it. However, they seemed VERY leery about the spider. They charged it, striking at it and doing a fair bit of damage-- lots of fun explaining the ichor and bug goo leaking out of it!!-- but Slate was bit for four points of damage and posioned (-1 to hit, damage for 10 turns). That was enough for Kaijitsu and Slate to try and leave Milton behind to fight it, but he followed their lead and fled the room to.

Then they mocked Milton's cowardice! I had given Milton a young, breaking sort of voice, and had him full of trepidation and following whatever they did. However, I did point out that nobody else from Sandpoint had the guts to come with them EXCEPT for Milton, and they decided to cut him some slack. They went back and slew the spider, gathering the goblin's items-- Slate keeping the wand, Kaijitsu the 14 gold pieces, and they let Milton have the toy dragon (an item that might be useful later in the adventure, but apparently not very glorious to eleven and twelve year olds!)

Anyway, that was as far as we got in about two hours. Number Two Son was up from his nap and about, and it was time to get the family all back together again. The kids both seemed to enjoy it, and hopefully we can finish the adventure soon, possibly this weekend.

Pathfinder Complete, Part One

2012-01-22T21:59:00.000-05:00

DSCN0205, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Today was Number One Son's birthday. As I have been mentioning here, he got the Pathfinder Beginner Box. However, he also got the friggin' LEGO Batcave, so after opening presents, he immediately retired to his room to start assembling that! I peeked in a couple of times over the next hour or so, and he didn't even crack the seal on the Pathfinder box! However, before too long he came asking if we could play it. That actually threw me for a bit of a loop, as I had planned to play in the afternoon, when Number One Daughter would be available to play as well. So, I had to put my improv hat on.

Opening the Box

There are lots of reviews of the beginner box around, but as we cracked the box open, I have to say I was thoroughly pleased with the contents. Even the order of the contents was impressive. On top were the bags of dice and plastic stands for cardboard figures. Under that was a full-size "READ THIS FIRST" page describing four different ways to approach the beginner box, from a solo scenario using static stats instead of even a character, to full on character creation and GMing the included module.

The module included in the book, which I had planned to run for both kids, is set near a small city called Sandpoint. Even though none of the module took place in the city, there was still a regional map including the city location, the module's dungeon, and various other plot hook places, and a city map listing ten buildings of note in the city with some slight detail about the local inn and inn keeper. There are lists of weapons, armor, mundane equipment, spells, wandering monster tables, random minor and major magic items and a 44 monster bestiary. And, it listed a variety of adventure hooks to use after this module. That's some meaty stuff for an upcoming GM, in my opinion. I could play out of just this box forever.

So, since Number One Son wanted to play and Number Two Daughter wasn't available, I explained to him that I wanted to wait on the big included adventure, and I would just make something up for him. He was totally cool with that. He chose the wizard Ezren. We went over the character sheet, discussed Ezren's alignment (neutral good) and the alignment system, and read the couple of paragraphs of Ezren's back story.

Improvising the First Adventure

I explained that after Ezran began to wander after the ordeal with his father, he had arrived at Sandpoint and was staying in the Inn to study a little while. One morning, in the communal breakfast (like a hotel breakfast area, I explained), Sheriff Hemlock (a book NPC) showed up. He explained to everyone present that he was looking for an adventurer, and knew the Inn sometimes had them, for the farming family Torg hadn't been seen for three days and there were rumors of monsters roaming around their farm. His city guard were too scared to visit the farm, but he was prepared to offer 100 gold pieces if an adventurer would take up the task.

That was an obvious lead in, although I didn't point it out as such and Number One Son jumped up immediately and say Ezren would do it, citing his character sheet background that Ezren wants "to make a difference in other peoples' lives." The sheriff and the deputy led Ezren to the Torg's property, telling him he should try to be back in town before nightfall, as they wouldn't want to have to spend the night out here!!

The Beginner Box includes a folded up plastic map. On one side is the dungeon for the module, but the other side is blank. We laid that out and I whipped out the overhead projector markers. I started to draw the path into the Torg's clearing, but Number One Son excitedly said he wanted to draw it. So I outlined what I wanted-- a clearing surrounded by trees and a farming shack in the middle of it, and Number One Son sketched it out, jabbering about where the monsters might be hiding.

He walked in and I had him make a Perception test, and Ezren noticed the house was barricaded from the inside. He used his Detect Magic, and I stated he detected some weak magic off to the side of the woods. I had no idea what it would be, but I wanted his spell to work. I decided it would either be some magic idol attracting the monsters (I was thinking Skeletons or Zombies) or a deceased adventurer of some sort with some basic magic item.

Ezren ignored the magic source he detected, and approached the house. Father Torg spoke up to him, saying there were dead people walking about! He was safe so far in the house, but they were out of water. Ezren encouraged them to come out with him, but Father Torg stated that he wasn't coming out until the monsters were all dead! He also mentioned that the monsters were attracted to loud sounds.

Yes, I killed my son's character in his first RPG game ever.

That gave Ezren the idea of going to the center of the clearing and starting to yell. By now, I had selected Zombies as the monster du jour. I knew he would meet skeletons in the main module, and wanted some variety. And, hey, they are only Challenge Rating 1/2, right? How hard could it be? Better throw three of them out there. I did have Father Torg start yelling to Ezren, "That's them! That's all of them!" both to peel one off, just in case, and confirm to Number One Son that there were no more he had to worry about. One Zombie went to the house and started attacking the door, while the other two approached Ezren.

As soon as Ezren's Ray of Frost hit for d3 damage against one zombie's 12 hit points, I realized I had probably outclassed Ezren quite badly. Ezren got off a Burning Hands, hitting two zombies-- each for one point only! Inwardly, I groaned about my mistake. Number One Son explained how Ezren only did one point of damage to each zombie because he had done the spell wrong and only sparks had flown out from his hands! I was really glad to see him getting into the flavor of the game, but my joy was short lived as the first zombie hit Ezren for eight points of damage. Ezren has zero AC and only seven hit points!! Aye yi yi, I just killed my son in his first role-playing game!!

But wait! You're not dead in 3.5 until you hit -10. I explained to Number One Son that Ezren was badly hurt, and unconscious. He stabilized at -4, and the next morning, Ezren was roused by one of the town guard who had gotten enough courage to check on why he hadn't returned that night. Of course, there were no more monsters...and the front door of the house was bashed open and the Torg family was missing. Number One Son nodded his head knowingly. As the guard was helping him out of the clearing, I reminded him to Detect Magic again. He did, and I told him he could detect nothing magical anymore. He cheerily gave the dramatic, "DUNH DUNH DUUUUUUNH!" and I knew that whatever it was would have to make a reoccurance at some point! He seemed to naturally enjoy the story and feel it all had not been told yet.

Fun Was Had, Regardless

All in all, he seemed to really enjoy it. There was, surprisingly to me, no sign of disappointment that his mission had "failed." When Ezren got back to the tavern, Sheriff Hemlock praised him for being brave enough to try, and arranged for medical care to tend to his wounds. And the Innkeeper offered to let him stay for free from now on-- now that he had proved himself as a real adventurer! (A statement made about this NPC in the GM guide)

At this point, Mom, Number One Daughter and Number Two Son were all home and we needed to stop anyway. We arranged with Number One Daughter to start the module later in the afternoon, after Number Two Son started his nap. I'll have to write that up in another post. I did manage to get all the figures for the included module painted up-- finishing the Reefclaw as Number One Son was off assembling his Batcave! Here are the last few in terrible, overexposed glory. I'll definitely try to get some better pictures once I have finished the bases.

Here are the painting references I used:

Edition Wars

2012-01-18T10:40:00.000-05:00

My new favorite source of role-playing wisdom discusses the edition wars that are flaring up again after Wizards of the Coast's announcement of 5th edition development commencing. Language warning!

Time Keeps On Tickin'

2012-01-16T23:50:00.001-05:00

Pathfinder iconic characters, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Holy Schnikes!! It seems like just a week ago I had two weeks to get the Pathfinder figures done. According to my calendar, I'm down to just one week now, as Number One Son's birthday is just next Sunday! Fortunately, I was able to bang out two more characters this weekend-- Merisiel and Kyra, the two ladies of the pregenerated characters. So I have the female-friendly angle down, and hopefully can get Number One Daughter, 12 years old, to participate with us. She is not big on gaming, but she seems to be able to feign enjoyment when I force her-- but, she does love acting, so I will be emphasizing role playing as "improvisational theater" to to hopefully pique her interest.

Here's the Pathfinder art to compare the figures against.

No, I didn't freehand all the fabric detail on Kyra. Maybe after I get everything else done, I will revisit that. Also, I completely didn't see the red waist sash while painting it...but now that I'm done, I can totally see it. So, I may even repaint that. We'll see.

Ezren versus Reefclaw

2012-01-08T17:01:00.001-05:00

Ezren vs. Reefclaw, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

I mentioned painting up some Pathfinder figures for Number One Son. Here's the first of the four pregen characters, the "iconic" wizard Ezren. I have looked through the beginner module that comes with the set, and bought what figures I didn't have. I already had goblins and skeletons, and I picked up a small spider and a small dragon. However, I did not have and could not find a miniature for one unique Pathfinder monster they will encounter-- a reefclaw. It "resembles a lobster in the front and an eel in the back," so I decided to take a Reaper moray eel familiar I already had and give it some claws from the Reaper monster parts pack. Here you can see my start on it.

Here you can see the art from the pregen character sheet I used as the painting reference for Ezren. I tried to follow it pretty closely, but there was no sculpted guide on his staff and I wasn't up to freehanding that design.

For Auld Lang Syne 2012

2012-01-05T15:45:00.001-05:00

Welcome 2012! I really can't believe it's 2012 already... I elected not to violate any local ordinances this New Year's Eve, as Mik and I took my gun-controlled European brother-in-law to the shooting range and laid out a good old-fashioned American amount of ammunition for us to shoot. Fortunately, a fellow New Year celebrant stepped up with the greatly impressive All-American Premiere. That is definitely on my fireworks list from here on out. Now, to reflect upon 2011, and see what's upcoming for 2012...

Looking through my 2011 New Year's post, despite not really promising that much, I still underdelivered. I did paint up a substantial (for me) amount of 15mm WW2 figures, notably the Flames of War 29th ID figures with landing crafts. I have some DUKWs ready to be painted up, along with some German beach defenses...pretty much everything I need for a D-Day game except the field fortifications. So, I think that is my solitary goal for 2012. Run some beach landing games in 15mm. If I can manage to run two decent beach landing games in 2012, I will call it a successful year.

I still am itching for some Napoleonics. I just feel like I don't have enough painted to run a large enough game yet. Hopefully, I will get around to getting some more 15mm Napoleonics painted this year. In fact, I've been considering rebasing the ones I have...for the entire last year, apparently...although, really, since I'm not actually gaming with them, what's the point? But if I have time and energy enough, I'd like to pick a few smaller scenarios from Blunders on the Danube and build up those games.

I don't blog about role-playing much here, although I do role-play pretty actively. My Number One Son has his eleventh birthday coming up. I am going to get him the widely-praised Pathfinder Beginner Box. It reminds me of the old red box of my youth. And, coolly enough, this box include pre-generated characters which match Reaper's Pathfinder iconic characters-- so I will be painting up the exact same figures the first adventure uses for him.

Again, not holding out high expectations for 2012. Life has been full and time has been short. Often, I'd just rather veg out somewhere and regenerate than put forth the effort to accomplish something substantial. So, I shall keep puttering along, taking my small victories where I can.

Piquet FAQ

2011-11-21T10:06:00.001-05:00

I haven't mentioned it here, but the Piquet FAQ from Santa Clarita Wargamer deserves to be noticed by those with interest in the rules. He has also posted a lot of Field of Battle WW2 content lately, which I've found fairly interested. Along related lines, Brent Oman is currently developing a squad level FoB WW2 set. I'm very interested in that, as I feel more free to improvise scenarios. At this scale, just about anything could have happened. With FoB WW2 at company scale, I feel more contrained to try and follow history. I mean , not that I actually run that many scenarios as it is...but I do have a Carentan map made up, and most of the figures ready for it. I should really make the time to run it...

Loyal Rebels

2011-09-29T18:09:00.000-04:00

I just received in the mail my copy of Loyal Rebels: Andreas Hofer and the Tyrolean Uprising of 1809. It's a book I've been interested in getting for a while, as English sources on the subject are scarce. I finally saw one come across AbeBooks and snatched it up-- for $8, including the shipping!! Quite a bargain. Not just that, it appears to be signed by the author.

I actually have mixed feelings about such books-- this appears to have been a personal gift from the author to John E. ("Jack") Sunder, apparently a colleague and somebody he seems close to. This almost certainly means it came via an estate sale, so not the happiest of transactions. Still, I hope they both would have taken some pleasure in it ending up in the hands of somebody who appreciates it!

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

2011-09-25T01:13:00.002-04:00

Number One Son is, like most ten year olds, pretty bad with his money (in my stodgy, fatherly opinion). My exhortations to save his money tend to fall on deaf ears. But he is a Lego fan, so at some point I told him that if he would save up half the $260 price tag for the Lego Mindstorms base set, I would pay for the other half. I was a little skeptical when he took me up on it, but he saved his money all summer and, with, I suspect, more than a little help from some grandparents, made the goal last week. He was pretty enthusiastic about it-- he started building the "humanoid" robot Alpha Rex without any instructions, just eyeballing the box! I slowed him down a bit, got the electronic instructions installed on the computer, and encouraged him to start the intro kit. His Shooterbot shot all the gaming group that came over last night for some Race for the Galaxy. I woke up this morning to find him already up, the Shooterbot disassembled, and most of Alpha Rex built. I think to him, it's not a robot if it's not humanoid. He keeps talking about how he has a toy robot, and I keep trying to convince him that, no, this is a real robot. I think it's starting to sink in.

He was like this for too long before I discovered him-- boy, get your butt in the chair and get your glasses on!!

Mah boy gets Gutshot!

2011-09-20T08:24:00.010-04:00

IMG_1648, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Three Rivers Con is an occasional local convention which is mostly devoted to role playing. I've been meaning to make it to one, but something always seems to come up! This year, a small window opened up between soccer games and family obligations for me to take Number One Son to the show. It wasn't just the show, but Mik was running Gutshot with Flounder's assistance. Flounder has run this several times for us, yet I had never been able to make one of the games, so I was actually pretty excited about playing in it! Mik borrowed my Whitewash City buildings, but used Lego cowboys. This was a hoot, especially since Number One Son is also a Lego fan. We were given two Gutshot character sheets at random, and then took turns assembling our characters! It was more fun than I expected.

The game went really well. I spread my characters out a bit to make sure I didn't gang up on my son, although we did trade a number of shots. The highlight of the game was my TN 9 (pretty bad) townie who compensated for his lack of skill by running up and shotgunning three people in the face. He wound up the last man standing.

Really? You're shooting at me again? Come on!

In addition to the game of Gutshot, we played a game of Dixit from the con's impressively large collection of board games available. That's a game I've been looking at and will probably pick up soon, as it seems like it would be a fun game for our family, which includes a couple of "non-gamer" members.

There was also a nice miniatures painting track with sponsorship from Reaper, Mantic and Black Orc Games. While Mik and I had a speed painting contest on a free Gallup (which didn't have a guitar-- we were wondering what the strap was for!), Number One Sun painted up a cool Tiger Swordsman, with tiger stripes and blood spray all over the miniature like only a very enthusiastic ten year old could paint.

A local gaming store sponsor, Organized Play, raffled a $10 gift certificate to the younger con attendees. They only had two entrants in the end, though, and they gave them both one. Very cool of them!

Number One Son and I stopped by on our way home and picked up some Star Wars Clone Wars trade paperbacks and, with a little monetary supplement from the old man, the TPB of the greatest comic so far of the 21st century, Axe Cop.

All in all, a small show, but I definitely felt like we got our $10 worth of fun out of it in just the short time we were there. I would love to have stayed longer and maybe gotten into an RPG with Number One Son. I think we will definitely make more of an effort to clear time out of our schedule for the next show.

Field of Battle 2

2011-09-19T12:51:00.002-04:00

I got Piquet's Field of Battle 2 last week! I've really been sold of FoB for a while. FoB2 doesn't really bring any big surprises. Blunder on the Danube has all the changes to the system. However, the coolest thing about it is, in my opinion, the scenario generator. It's a way to build a campaign-style framework around a one-off battle. Both sides have some options based around the quality of the Commander in Chief's command rating. You choose your focus between Deployment, Reconnaissance, Strength and Tactical Adjustment (once your opponent's disposition has been noticed). If you have a great C-in-C and he focuses his strength on Recon, you're likely to get more areas of the table to set up troops in, especially if your opponent has not chosen to emphasize Recon. However, there is still Fate. Each side gets three Fate rolls, which may or may not apply to each area. It's a simple system-- a d4 to choose the area, and a 50/50 roll to determine a positive or negative adjustment. However, these positive and negatives are rolled via a d12, so there are six adjectives for both the positives and negatives. You might get bonus to Recon due to Cavalry Screen, or Maneuver. You might get a negative modifier due to Bad Maps or Poor Staff Planning. It's enough of a description to give this Fate bonus a little meat to help explain why the scenario set up is what it is. Scenario creation is honestly not one of my favorite things, so anything that helps me come up with a more interesting scenario is a big bonus in my book. Combine this system with a simple "best 2 out of 3" campaign, and it looks to me that you can have some simple, but real, campaign fun.

Skullcracker Bird

2011-08-08T23:47:00.002-04:00

Skullcracker Bird, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

I just finished up my ShadowSea Skullcracker Bird. Technically a fantasy model, he'll probably serve as a pseudo-historical albeit anachronistic Terror Bird in some prehistoric games with Number One Son. It's a nice resin model, and to stabilize it I mounted it on some plasticard (a For Sale sign from the local hardware store). It's surprisingly light, although thick enough everywhere that it seems durable. The paint scheme is loosely based on the snake eating Roadrunner, but I turned his flaring crown feathers into a display. Speaking of resin models, I spent the weekend in Memphis with my wife for our sixteenth wedding anniversary. My mom watched the kids in the evenings so that my wife and I could celebrate, but during the day I took Number One Son to the Games Workshop Battle Bunker.

It's an interesting place to visit, and made me feel extremely old looking through their "archive" display, most of which I've seen on store shelves. Anyway, I randomly looked through the Finecast blisters, and frankly, the casting looked perfect to me. There was a lot of the extremely thin flash, but that's trivial to remove. I saw no pits or miscasts at all. Still don't plan on buying any, though...

You know, I spent a lot of time on this base for it not to show up any better in my overexposed photographs...oh well, can't be bothered doing it over.

Ave Tristan, paintituri te salutant!

2011-08-07T23:26:00.002-04:00

A big thanks to Tristan of GWpertinent for sending me a sprue of Warlord Games Celts and Praetorians by way of Mik. He must have twigged to the fact that Number One Son and I have been painting ancients, and these will be put to some good use by us. That is just supremely cool. Thanks, Tristan!! ...even if you ARE a Chelsea fan. Did you see that ludicrous display last night? The thing about Chelsea is, they always try to walk it in.

...apologies for the bastardized Latin...I actually spent like 30 minutes trying to figure out what the equivalent word for "those about to paint" would be, based on "Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant" before deciding I was just waaaaay over my head and wasting time...

Fireball Forward Brecourt Manor

2011-07-28T00:14:00.002-04:00

Brecourt Manor, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

You may or may not have heard, but the upcoming ruleset Fireball Forward! has released a limited set of playtest rules and initial scenario. It appears the initial book will have a few scenarios following Easy Company, which is just up my alley with my FoW Airborne. So, I've set up the game and we're playing it this Friday. I played FF! at Fall-In! last year and Historicon this year, and I like it. There's really no reason not to play it given I already have the figures. One thing I like about FF! is the relatively small figure requirement-- here you see I only have nine and twelve stands per side. That ought to let you get into a period you have only minor interest in without too much effort and money invested. The "official" basing doesn't quite match FoW but isn't strict-- I'm using FoW command stands for individual leaders, medium bases for teams, and medium bases with larger sabots for full squads.

Amerikanische Burger Essen

2011-07-27T22:36:00.001-04:00

Stuttgarter Hofbräu!

It's been a while since I had a food post on here, but I had a very nice little dinner the other day. It centered around this nice little gift brought back to me by my wife from Germany, a bottle of her local Stuttgarter Hofbräu. I grilled a couple of pounds of hamburgers, which is always fun. I tried a new dish for me, which was grilled broccoli. I mostly followed this recipe, leaving out the Parmesan, instead of our usual steamed. It was fine, not great. I fried some Onion Rings for Son Number Two, who really loves them. But the real pièce de résistance was my Brussels Sprouts. Yes, the Brussels Sprouts. I can't hardly get the vile things down when they are steamed, but during a recent trip to New York, I left a $50 steak on the plate and ordered a second helping of their fried Brussels Sprouts. Delicious, and this recipe is basically what I had. It's easy, and awesome.

The Decompression Chamber

2011-07-22T22:28:00.000-04:00

DSCN0142, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

That's the new name for my "man cave." After five weeks of inactivity when the wife and kids were gone, they have been back now for a week. And in that week, I've finished an entire Flames of War M2A1 105mm artillery battery with staff team and spotter, as well as three Old Glory US paratrooper command teams I was lacking and most of a staff team! I love my family, but after a full day at work and then another five hours with the wife and three kids, I am definitely ready for a break. For whatever reason, I find retreating to the painting table very relaxing. That and my general lack of direction reminds me of "tinkerers" who work in the garage with no real purpose, just tinkering for the sake of relaxation. I tinker with miniatures.

Why a 105mm artillery battery for my airborne, you may ask? After losing several games to German Tigers, I looked through my unpainted box and picked the thing with the highest AT rating I had that I could use. And that was my 105mm battery. After banging away at their top armor 2 with my AT 3 paras, the AT 4 105mms have TWICE AS MUCH chance for a kill! Between that and my P-47s, I should be able to kill two Tigers...although I have definitely been considering purchasing the 155mm battery as well...

I took these guys out to seal last night. I did my usual routine of thoroughly gloss coating them, bringing them inside for at least 10-15 minutes, and then giving them a final coat of Dullcote. Well, you might have heard a little thing about the massive heat and humidity we are dealing with. And, for the first time after, after ten years of sealing in any sort of weather, it finally happened-- my sealant frosted up. It looked like all my figures had been weathered with a white drybrush. I was a little upset, as that was a fair amount of figures and I sure as anything didn't want to repaint them! I've seen enough discussion about sealant frosting, though, that I had a pretty good idea of what to do. This morning, when the weather was somewhat less humid, I went back out and gave them a quick once over with the gloss sealer again. Instantly, the frosting went away. I let that sit awhile, then gave them a quick Dullcote, and viola!!

I'm pretty sure this not the sort of map a staff team would be looking at. However, there are limits to the amount of research I'm willing to put into a figure that's ready to be painted. When I look at that, I see a bunch of guys looking at a map-- staff team, great. I do think they are conspicuously lacking in books, though. Shouldn't they have a few books full of mathematical tables for artillery ranging and coordination? Anyway, the paratrooper staff team is definitely incomplete, but may not be completed for a while. I will throw a few maps and scratchbuild a couple of books for them someday.

Historicon 2011

2011-07-20T14:42:00.005-04:00

Corner Kick!, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Historicon 2011 was a lot of fun. The drive was very long, ten hours, but the facilities were nicer than the usual Lancaster Host (usual for me-- I missed last year, so this is my first HMGS East con away from the Host in ten years). I played in several great Piquet games, which have been spotlighted on Blunders on the Danube, as well as a game of Fireball Forward, which I'm looking forward to seeing published. I also finally made time to sit down for Bob Wiltrout's soccer game Corner Kick!. Ed: AND former local Brian met me for a midnight Blood Bowl 1-1 mauling of my Skaven by his Ogres, leaving 3 of my 4 Gutter Runners missing the next game-- one of which had to be retired-- and killing one of my players! All the games were really fun, and here you see my Number One Son (wearing his Germany jersey) back at home stomping my Argentinians in a game of Corner Kick! with his Subbuteo figures. I had two definite vendor purchases in mind-- D-Day bunkers from Armaments in Miniature and more Primaeval Designs prehistorics from Acheson Creations. Neither was there!! Naturally, I didn't let that stop me from blowing the budget in the vendor hall...

Number One Son at the time was in Germany. My brother-in-law broke out his cowboy figures and played our old copy of The Rules With No Name with Number One Son and his cousin, and Number One Son was pretty excited about it. So, when I saw the nice published version of TRWNN at like 20% at Casemate, I snapped that puppy up.

I picked up the Flames of War North Africa and Dogs and Devils books for my eventual US Airborne vs. Italians, and then grabbed a box of P-47 Thunderbolts since our last game without actual figures caused some confusion. I also grabbed a T28E1/M15 CGMC, which had been difficult for me to find, although on the drive home I realized I actually needed two.

What would Historicon be without a new, previously unplanned period? I had been considering Crusader gladiators for a while, and went ahead and pulled the trigger here, buying an Old Glory Army membership to get their Build a Robot pack. I also picked up some Cowboy Wars figures to paint with the kids. I always liked how they had mounted and unmounted versions of the figures.

I found the last 15mm Landmark Building I needed, the church, and grabbed that. I also got some very nice Mark IV Miniatures/Musket Miniatures buildings.

The best part though was really just hanging around with other gamers and drinking beer and talking shop.

Five Weeks

2011-07-20T12:22:00.003-04:00

Cybermonkey, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Five effin' weeks my family is out of town. You know what all I got done in that time? This. Ammon Miniatures' Cybermonkey. Between being sick, being lazy and going to Historicon, that single miniature is the only thing I completed. Disgusting! This is the first resin gaming piece I've painted, and I have to say I think it's not really an acceptable material. Sorry, Citadel Finecast. Resin has been used for years in thicker and larger scale casting, but at this scale, it's just too flexible and fragile. Painting this guy, I snapped the radar dish off its stand. I shouldn't say snap, that implies something more like a plastic break-- this felt like chocolate cake coming apart. The reglue is probably a stronger joint. Resin can-- CAN-- deliver superior quality casts, and I figure most of these boutique resin castings are more for painting and displaying, rather than gaming. However, this figure was just too cool not to add to my growing super apes collection...

Out of My Mind On Saturday Night

2011-06-29T13:12:00.001-04:00

Khalith, Mummy King, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Productivity, bah! My wife and kids leave me alone and the very next day I am struck down by a nasty cold/sinus infection that has taken me two and half weeks to finally get completely rid of!! TANJ!! I have gotten just about spit done since my last post, but here is a Reaper Mummy Pharaoh I had kicking around primed for a few years and finally finished before I got too sick to do anything but lay on the couch and watch NetFlix. With any luck, though, all these antibiotics and steroids I've been taking will keep me healthy for Historicon next weekend!! I'm looking forward to it, although I just realized the new location is about an hour further than usual...google is estimating a 10.5 hour drive for us. Eh, it's worth it.

Oh, wow, blue smudges on his back left shoulder. I am going to just stop photographing my miniatures so I never notice stuff like this.

Blu-Tack holds the hobby together

2011-06-15T15:26:00.003-04:00

DSCN0058, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

An amusing little snapshot of my workspace. I got the urge to put a few things together, which required a fair amount of epoxying. In the process of curing, I propped all the guys into position as best I could using one of my main stay hobby tools-- Blu-Tack. I wanted Orangatango as soon as I saw him. Super apes are fun, I already have handfuls, and one more is always appreciated. Still, as Orangutan-based super apes go, I still think Harangutan is my favorite, just for the pun. Reaper's mummy pharaoh Khalith is waiting some finishing touches that don't require any Blue-Tac-- although I used that craft paint bottle topped with Blue-Tac as a handle while painting him. I also have handfuls of Reaper Egyptian figures. They hit the table about as often as the super apes...which is to say, not very often... Speaking of super apes, or their mechanically augmented cousins, I recently stumbled across Ammon Miniatures's Cyber Monkey and couldn't let that pass by. Now he was a chore, lots of fiddly gluing and soft resin in an awkward pose-- can't wait to drop him and ruin him! Which I'm sure will happen eventually! And, speaking of resin, with Blue-Tac holding up his atrophied little wings, I assembled my ShadowSea Skullcracker Bird. I picked him up at Fall-In! and he will presumably be fighting my Neanderthals at some point as an only slightly anachronistic Terror Bird.

Landing Craft Done

2011-06-14T13:01:00.001-04:00

15mm Landing Craft, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry... With the wife and kids shipped out Thursday, I took Friday and Monday off work and had visions of one wonderfully productive four day weekend. Friday went pretty well, and I ran a game of Empire Builder Friday night. I noticed my allergies were acting up, so I stocked up on allergy meds and sudafed ahead of time, only it didn't seem to be doing much good, and by the time I got to bed, I realized it wasn't allergies at all but a debilitating summer cold that took me out the rest of the weekend. I spent Saturday and Sunday camped out on the couch wandering my Netflix queue-- of note were two small budget Sci-Fi films I really enjoyed, Hunter Prey and Monsters. Mosters cost $500k to make and grossed $4.5M? Wow. Anyway, I started feeling somewhat better on Monday, and managed to put the finishing touches on my landing craft. The LCT really needs to be detailed somewhat, but it should mostly be sea blue so I'm pretty much done with it regardless. I'm not sure if the decks should be sea blue or navy blue, if I ever figure that out, I can go back over that. And I figure those LCVP crew load stands took at least an hour per stand, even with my Slop-and-go painting of them. I need to be a bit sloppier, I suppose-- I still detailed the faces and hands.

Here's an overhead shot showing five Battlefront Shermans loaded on the LCT. Pretty cool! I'm a little dissatisfied that the LCVP are waterline models and the LCT is a full model. Interestingly, there is a seam between the bottom and top hull pieces of the LCT exactly at the waterline. I could take it apart right there...but I think I'd probably just screw it all up and have to start over, so I'll leave it like it is.

2011 So Far...

2011-06-02T21:02:00.000-04:00

It's not quite halfway through the year yet, but now is an opportune time to examine the state of my hobby. The wife and our three kids will be heading out of town for five weeks soon (my wife is German and spends summers over there when she can) thus I need to make sure I have all my ducks in a row for what will hopefully be one of the more productive periods of the year. In all honestly, last year was not a very productive time. My theory was that there weren't three crazy kids and a wife to need relief from. just me and the dog. Anyway, let's review 2011 in light of my January goals.

15mm WW2. My number one item in January was WW2, and so far, 2011 has followed. I have painted six assault teams of the 29th Infantry and made fair progress on the landing craft. I'm satisfied there. I do have the following future ideas:
- Beach bunkers. Waiting for Historicon for this to decide exactly what I'm going to do. The Battlefront pillboxes look nice and economical...I'm not sure I'd prefer them over the traditional open top. And I'll have to think about how I want to represent a sea wall... Not happening until after the family is back.
- Defenses. Barbed wire, mine fields, dug in counters, beach obstacles...definitely doable anytime. Planned to make some progress here.
- Piquet. I haven't done much with Piquet, although I've been thinking about it...I need to finish my new FoB bases and make a PoA: Blitzkrieg deck. Both of those should be easily doable, so Planned.
- Italians for Sicily. New interest. Operation Husky seems like a logical expansion since I already have US Airborne and Germans. With some Italian gear I could start doing the Combat Jump Sicily book. Not a priority, although I might start categorizing forces and see what I'll need.
New interest: Blood Bowl. A lot of my hobby time so far this year was taken up by something not on my radar in January-- Blood Bowl. I consider it legit, as party planning kind of pushed it to the fore. I have several teams to paint if I want to, but nothing planned right now. Our league continues.
New interest: The Roman-Dacian Wars. Actually, not really a new interest-- I picked up scads of Romans and Germans at Fall-In! last year for me and my son. Honestly, this should have been listed in my January plan for the year, but was an oversight there. Before I bought them, I called our main Ancients guy in the group and asked him if he had any 25mm Roman plans. He mentioned he'd considered Romans vs. Dacians, under Domitian and Trajan. The other day, once Number One Son was out of school, I mentioned these to him. He got all excited and said he had been reading about the Romans fighting the Dacians in one of his books! So, we started assembling plastic Germans. I think this is an official project now, although I'm not sure how much I'll do on my own without him. A possibility. I'll probably pick up cavalry and Dacian models at Historicon.
Tusk: Number One Son and I finished up our dogs and a Smilodon, and I'm planning on getting another Mammoth or two at Historicon, as well as other Pleistocene animals. I will probably pick up some Copplestone "Cro-Magnons" and even some dinosaurs.

...and that's all I've actually worked on. I do, however, have an active imagination...

15mm Napoleonics. I did actually inventory my unpainted figures. I have plenty to do, so I can always paint more. I am short of cavalry both painted and unpainted, so I probably need to put in an order.
New interest: Ancients. A while back I started reading the Kagan's Peloponnesian War. That and the History of Rome have really piqued my interest to at least paint something. On my own, that is, not with Number One Son. So, I'm thinking of Greek Mythology. I just rented Jason and the Argonauts for the kids, and Number One Daughter is ga-ga for mythology. I see Matakishi is one step ahead of me, so it mustn't be a bad idea. I was considering the SuperSystem rules, but Scott just released Labors of the Gods, which is designed to do just this! I picked it up already...the art is kind of weak, but otherwise, looks good.
40mm Napoleonics/AWI/FIW: Yeah. Probably not happening soon. But, always there.
40mm Hellboy: I bought the Graven Images Hellboy, Abe and Roger a while back. Never did anything with them, but recently picked up a passel of German and Russian zombies on eBay...might just be time to turn to this. Again, SuperSystem?
Superheroes: While we're looking at SuperSystem, I still have several unpainted supers, and I could always use more...

So...five weeks of making 15mm WW2 landing craft, obstacles and 15mm Napoleonics, broken up with some Supers and Hellboy figures...sounds alright.

Circling, Waiting for H+1

2011-06-01T10:47:00.004-04:00

15mm Landing Craft, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

All six LCVPs are finished. I initially wasn't going to bother painting the loaded troops. They're totally unnecessary, more stuff to paint, yada yada yada. Yet as I looked over my LCVPs and LCT, I just decided they were too cool not to go all the way on. So, I've got the first two boat loads finished. They're sloppy but effective. The rear one still has wet glue, but has since dried and been painted.

Oh, and by the way, remember me complaining about no LCT Mk.5 pictures? I was looking through Spearheading D-Day with Number One Son, and found no less than TWO overhead shots of a Mk.5, one loaded with two Priests and a bunch of non-combat vehicles, and the other empty. I still think the initial LCTs were LCT(A)s, though-- extra armor and only room for three Shermans, instead of five.

This Great and Noble Undertaking

2011-05-23T14:13:00.006-04:00

15mm Landing Craft, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

And the landing craft are begun! I have six LCVPs by Battlefront and a Mk.5 LCT (still under construction) by Lindberg. The Lindberg model scale is given as 1:125 which is pretty spot on for 15mm, and you see I can fit the standard payload of five Battlefront Shermans in just fine. Strangely, the molded display that comes in the box refers to it as an LSU, which apparently was what they were renamed post-WW2. All I've read indicates the LCTs at D-Day were Mk.6 models, with extra armor and an extended ramp to provide more cover. However, all the beach landing orders I've found show a complement of five tanks on the LCTs, whereas the Mk.6 only apparently had room for three after modifications-- or so I read somewhere (ed: I think I'm conflating Mk.6s with LCT(A)s here). I can't find any pictures of a loaded Mk.6 clear enough to tell for sure. Anyway, I'm not going to worry and bother with trying to convert it just to end up wrong in the end (and, judging by the profiles in the attached picture from Spearheading D-Day, it's probably beyond my ability anyway), and will paint this up as is; i.e., a Mk.5.

>

US Parachute mortar platoon finished

2011-05-19T23:22:00.000-04:00

US Airborne 81mm mortar platoon, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Back into WW2 then, with the effort to get more "lower level" units on the table. Here is my US Parachute mortar platoon. That gives me an absolutely full company with both battalion support options-- the mortar platoon and a machine gun platoon. Thinking about it, though...it's not far from here to a second company. I have three squads of three stands each. If I'm reading my TO&Es correctly, a company was intended to have two twelve man squads, so I'm heavy as is. I have twenty seven stands. If I put six (two squads of three stands) per platoon, I only need eighteen for a three platoon company. So, another nine stands, plus a single officer stand and 60mm mortar stand, and I have two paper strength companies. I already have an Old Glory pack of officers and support weapons. Huh. Also, I just bought a few 82nd memoirs covering Sicily, as well as the Skirmish Campaigns Skirmish Elite: Combat Jump Sicily book. I figure I ought to be able to get some games out of those as well. My focus is actually D-Day right now...I have the LCVPs out and ready to get started on. I just need to put in a paint order, and am having an anxiety attack over ordering paint based on inaccurate web swatches!

Blood Bowl Norse finished!

2011-05-16T11:42:00.003-04:00

Blood Bowl Norse, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Yay! The Norse are completely completed, and I have run them through my little birthday bash as-- wait for it!!-- team name Turning Thorty, har har har!! Anyway, the party was a blast, we played Blood Bowl straight through for almost twelve hours. My incredible wife stocked us up with Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, Subway platters for lunch, local Chenese joint trays of food for dinner, kept the coffee pot full, wrangled the kids, and had more Yuengling on hand than the thirteen of us could possibly drink! We only (!) got in three games. I went into the last round ranked second, and played first place-- we tied and third place won his game, taking the day! My opponent and I also tied on TD differential, so the tie breaker went to casualties, with him having the better differential, so I ended third on the day-- not too shabby. Pictures of my team on the next page:

The bases came out really nicely. I painted them with two dappled browns (wasted effort as it all got covered). I then stuck a variety of Autumn Silflor Tufts on them. This is the first time I've used this product, and I'm sold. Great stuff. I then covered the remaining base with acrylic modeling paste, then drybushed everything with Scenic Cement and stuck it in some snow flock.

Now, I suppose, back to 15mm World War Two...those beaches won't defend themselves, you know...

A New Technique for Rivets

2011-05-04T13:15:00.002-04:00

Whether it's giant land trains, WWI tanks or Necromunda Underhive terrain, I'm always running across people in the hobby making rivets. Micro-Mark just blasted out an e-mail with their new solution, rivet decals, which appear to work much like a water slide transfer. It appears from their picture that you get a page full of rivets, mostly in rows but a few different patterns as well, and trim them up and apply them as needed. I thought it looked like a pretty clever idea-- I wonder how well they adhere?

Blood Bowl Norse Painted

2011-05-03T23:11:00.001-04:00

Blood Bowl Norse, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

There! It took me longer than I thought it would, as it always does, but I have finished painting the Norse team-- nine Linemen, two Throwers, two Catchers, two Blitzers, two Ulfwereners, and one Yhetee. I still have the basing to do, but I want to experiment a little before I start, and then do them all at the same time so they hopefully match well. Despite the basing, they will make their fully painted debut as Björnsson's Bullies at tomorrow night's Painsphere meet up. My Field Marshals wouldn't mind a rematch against them myself...we'll see...

What's next? Nothing big for the next few weeks as I prepare for my birthday Blood Bowl bash. I will be proudly (as long as I don't fudge the basing) playing my Norse.

After that, it will be back to 15mm WW2, I think...I'd like to get some Piquet games going. I have enough to run some decent games of either the traditional Point of Attack: Blitzkrieg, or the newer Field of Battle: World War 2. And wouldn't it be interesting to run some scenarios in Flames of War, POA: Blitzkrieg, and Fireball Forward! (once I get a copy of the rules!)

However, I'd also like to get in some Napoleonic Field of Battle games as a refresher before I go to Historicon. I will be playing the @#$! out of some Piquet at Historicon. Here's the list of Piquet games posted so far on the Piquet mailing list-- if any of you will be there, show up for a game and I'm sure I'll be able to spare a beer (or four if you're playing opposite me!!)

THURSDAY

Morning

Convention closed

Afternoon
GM: Open
Era
Rules
Assistant(s)
Notes:

Evening 7PM - 11PM
GM: Peter A
Era Napoleonic Wars - Znaim
Rules Field of Battle
Assistant(s) Barry F
Notes:

FRIDAY

Morning 10 AM - ? 2PM
GM: Eric B
Era Punic Wars
Rules Archon2
Assistant(s) Peter A
Notes: Troops – Peter A

Afternoon
GM: Tim C 1PM - 6 PM
Era American Civil War
Rules Field of Battle
Assistant(s) Dave M, Jeff G
Notes: ? Some Terrain – Peter A

Evening
GM: Barry F 8PM - 12 MN ?
Era Napoleonic Wars
Rules Field of Battle
Assistant(s) Peter A
Notes: PK List Game
Troops – Barry F and Peter A

SATURDAY

Morning
GM: Open
Era
Rules
Assistant(s)
Notes:

Afternoon 12 Noon - 4 PM
GM: Peter A
Era Late Medieval/Renaisance
Rules Band of Brothers2
Assistant(s) Dave M
Notes:

Evening
GM: Open
Era
Rules
Assistant(s)
Notes:

Most Depressing Gaming Trip Ever

2011-04-28T15:33:00.008-04:00

My Car!, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

We headed over to Mik's to try out some Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3.0. We'd had some thunderstorms throughout the day, nothing major, and it was raining pretty hard while we started generating characters. Then my wife called and said she and the kids were sheltering in the bathroom! Typical overreaction from a wife, huh? I'm trying to get my game on, and she's calling me freaking out over a little rain. She calls me a second time, and I ask her what she wants me to do? I can't do anything about the weather!! Shortly after that, we hear the rain noticeably start to escalate. Then, the "tack tack tack" of hail. Then, "THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD!!!! I never heard that before!! We open the door and there is a carpet of big hail stones outside. I stick my hand it in, get hit by a few small ones, then WHAP get a big one that HURT BADLY and left a nice bruise. And I'm thinking, "Yeah, that would have dented a car..." More than dented, my car was absolutely crushed. We called the game and I went home to apologize to my wife!! We wound up with golf ball sized hail and it was indeed a pretty scary situation after I got home. I am covered by insurance for the damage to this and the relatively minor damage to the house-- nothing at all to complain about when over 250 people died.

Blood Bowl Norse

2011-04-16T14:46:00.003-04:00

Blood Bowl Norse, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

I finished another three Linemen! I was about ready to just stop here-- Norse have a lot of positionals and I think six Lineman are probably plenty...but then with AV 7, injuries and Journeymen, I better just go ahead with the nine I originally intended. I do have basing materials ready to start basing once the last three are done. I will be trying something along the lines of these snowy bases.

Best Wargames Table Ever?

2011-04-13T10:50:00.000-04:00

The Architects of War have made me insanely jealous of their absolutely amazing table set up.

Yhetee! Yippee!

2011-04-08T09:55:00.003-04:00

Blood Bowl Yhetee, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Finally got my Yhetee conversion done! He started out as Reaper's 02697: Yeti, a figure I've had knocking around for a while. I think he turned out pretty well, although I've had a heck of a time getting a decent picture of him once he was painted. I think he looks better than any of the photographs show. I'm not under any illusions about the quality of the sculpting, but I am pleased overall! Click "Read More" to see a lot of in-progress shots and a comparison picture with the Ulfwereners and normal players.

Norse Ulfwereners

2011-04-06T09:44:00.003-04:00

Blood Bowl Norse, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

And the reason why those horns were so unadorned-- I really wanted to move on to my Ulfwereners from Willy Miniatures! These are my first non-Games Workshop "Fantasy Football" figures, and I picked them up through Impact Miniatures. Willy Miniatures has some really sweet figures-- I just need half an excuse to buy those Wights!-- and I really like these figures, although they have some scaling issues. They are ST 4 bodies on ST 3 feet! I also liked his Snow Troll, and almost bought it...but I have other plans for that! And they're coming along swimmingly, and will soon (well, soonishly) be unveiled here! Click more to see the Ulfwereners compared to a normal Lineman.

Norse Linemen

2011-04-05T21:00:00.003-04:00

Blood Bowl Norse, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

I was out of action for a couple of weeks due to work travel, but am back in the saddle again. Here are the first three of my Norse Linemen done. I may go back and pretty up the horns a bit at some point. Or I may just leave it like that... Six more Linemen, two Ulfwereners, and one Yhetee to go...

Solo Tabletop Gaming Appreciation Month

2011-04-04T14:23:00.000-04:00

November '11 marks the first Solo Tabletop Gaming Appreciation Month. It had its genesis in a thread on the SoloWarGame Yahoo group, and I think it's a good idea. Solo Wargaming isn't in the spotlight much anymore but there is still a strong group of enthusiasts. I love the idea, although find the opposition in a solo gaming is often quite boring. ;-) I imagine I'll do something along these lines for November-- however, I won't be committing to it in May! I have a hard enough time planning my lunch tomorrow, much less a game six months down the road...

Getting the Band Back Together!

2011-03-20T23:34:00.000-04:00

The Blood Bowl has been picking up around here lately, and there's a very specific reason why. I've got one of those large round numbered birthdays coming up. Now, I'm not the sort of person who goes for all that celebratory nonsense. To me, my birthday is just another day. However, my wife is bound and determined that we will celebrate this birthday somehow-- so much so, that she threatened to have a party with all HER friends if I didn't come up with a better idea! So, I did.

I've played RPGs and miniature games since I was 8-9 or so. We're talking the D&D red box-- the ORIGINAL one-- here. I was exposed to Games Workshop in college. I had the Rogue Trader rulebook, a couple of space marines and a couple of Epic Warhound titans. I wasn't that into gaming at the time, however, and sold them to some bigger nerd for beer money. Years later, walking the rooms in grad school, I ran across a guy with a photocopy of Squat trikes tacked outside his cube. I recognized them, struck up a conversation with him, and pretty soon, he had me playing Epic and Blood Bowl.

Epic didn't really take, but Blood Bowl sure did, and pretty soon I was participating in a league run out of the local comic store. Many of the guys I still game with, um, 17 or so years later, I met at that Blood Bowl league. Several others have moved on and I see them only rarely now. But, I thought, for my birthday celebration, we're having a Memorial (yes, the age is that high) Blood Bowl Tournament. I'm inviting a lot of the original league, plus my new gaming buddies I've met since then, to my house for a long day full of nothing but Blood Bowl!

Four games, double SPPs, multiple MVPs, double winnings, a skill draft between games, breakfast, lunch, dinner and lots of beer-- I think it's going to be a blast!

Norse Blitzers

2011-03-17T20:30:00.003-04:00

Blood Bowl Norse a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

I finished my two Norse Blitzers this afternoon. I'm pretty pleased with the team, they're turning out nicely. Nine linemen, two Ulfwereners and a Yhetee to go...

Lessons in Anti-Monarchicalism

2011-03-14T23:53:00.003-04:00

SIC SEMPER CERISIAE
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

I've carried some cheap bottle opener on my keychain for about fifteen years. It was given to me by some long ago unreadable vendor, and has served me long and dutifully, well above and beyond the call of duty for a normal bottle opener. He finally gave up the ghost, and I got an almost identical replacement the very next day from Mik. However, this replacement was in name only, not spirit, as he lasted only a few short months. I decided to purchase one, and figuring with luck it would amortize at under $1 a year, I bought a $20 one and got it engraved. I thought I had picked a cool quote any wargamer would recognize...but apparently, I was wrong, as none of my friends appeared to know the reference!! "Sic semper tyrannis!" shouted Brutus, when he stabbed the tyrant Caesar (or so the dramatists say). It is a phrase I've often considered getting as a tattoo, on the off chance I could become the king of Sweden (Field Marshall Bernadotte was rumored to have had this tattoo). The translation: "Thus always to Tyrants!" Listening to the History of Rome podcast, he mentioned how Emperor Diocletian ordered (unsuccessfully) price fixing across the Roman Empire, and how these prices have survived history and included the names of three different types of beer. A little research on the Interwebs turned up CERVISIA as a Celtic wheat beer. As a big fan of Hefeweizen, the epiphany struck-- a keychain with which I could exclaim, "Thus always to beer!" as I killed yet another one.

Blood Bowl Norse

2011-03-13T22:47:00.002-04:00

Blood Bowl Norse a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

I finished the first four of my Norse team-- the two Throwers and the two Catchers. The team colors are purple (in a nod to the Vikings) and gold. I have the two Blitzers about half completed. After that, I have nine Linemen to finish, two Willy Miniatures Ulfwereners/Norse Werewolves in the mail, and a Reaper Yeti that I'm considering having a go at sculpting a winged helmet for...

The Next Project Begun!

2011-03-12T13:12:00.002-05:00

Blood Bowl Norse
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

With our Blood Bowl league underway, we have several coaches new to the game that don't have teams. We have plenty of teams to borrow, but most of mine aren't painted! Here is my attempt to rectify that, by painting my Norse. We have two players in the league who are playing them, so we'd better have two teams painted for the day they both show up for a game!

Sixth--FINAL-- 29th ID section done!

2011-03-11T23:57:00.001-05:00

29th Infantry Division
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

Cue Fanfare for the Common Man. Imagine the slow motion scene of me applying the last bit of Gryphonne Sepia to the beach bases, exhaling, and slowly moving the brush to the paint water. Wearily, I shake the brush, wipe it, lick it to a point, and place it back into the brush stand. Slowly, I collapse back into my painting chair and gaze satisfied upon what I have completed.

Then I consider, well, I'm not actually completed, am I? I haven't magnetized the bases. And, of course, after last game I decided I had to redo my base unit marking scheme as they were indistinguishable on the table. Plus, you couldn't make out the flamethrower stands. Not to mention the six LCVPs I still have to paint! Of course I have to do the infantry loads there, too, so I'm not even done with the infantry!! Then my LCT...and probably some DD tanks...and of course I need a mortar platoon, maybe a machine gun platoon...holy crap, I have so much more to do...I've got a headache, I'm going to bed!

Welcome to the Painsphere!

2011-03-10T16:59:00.000-05:00

The Painsphere in Public
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

We recently started up a local Blood Bowl league in Knoxville-- the Painsphere! I'm pleasantly surprised by the response. We've had a couple of game nights with 5+ coaches showing up, and eight coaches playing thirteen matches so far, just from within our own gaming groups and associates. Last Tuesday, we played in a local gaming shop, centrally located for many of the coaches. This is the first time I have played in a local gaming shop in a number of years!

A little highlight reel from our first night out-- in Blue Fianna (Humans) vs. The Black Fang (Orcs), the Orcs were down 1-2 when the ball popped loose, was bobbled around and somehow wound up in the hands of "Tubby" Tom, the Black Orc! The rest of the Black Fang tried to wall off Blue Fianna from Tom as he trundled down the pitch. The Blue Fianna star catcher, Cathal, was undaunted-- "making, in one turn, a 3+ dodge, 4+ dodge, 5+ dodge, 4+ dodge, 3+ dodge and a 2+ go for it- all without using a team re-roll." All for naught, though, as a Black Fang blitzer pushed him away and "Tubby" Tom went for it to tie the match at 2!

Total War

2011-03-08T11:35:00.002-05:00

FoW: Total War
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

We've put together a few Flames of War games since our primary driver has moved on. One thing that was irritating me was how much support stuff I was putting on the table to fill out points. Eventually, I started to think about using multiple companies per side, to consume points with company level troops and using fewer points for support. Then I bought Das Book, and found the rules for Total War, which are essentially that.

In my mind, ideally, you'd choose companies that would naturally be found together. For example, for this game, the Germans were a Panzer company and a Gepanzerte Panzergrenadier company. Obviously, they could be a kampfgruppe from the same Panzer division. It didn't have a whole lot of support, either...a pair of heavy 15.5cm infantry guns and a recon platoon.

On the US side, we had a company of Shermans and my recently painted 29th infantry making their debut. Again, could be the 29th supported by armor just post D-Day. They had priority air support and some tank destroyers.

All in all, it was a fun match up. It was about 2,500 or so points (we kind of estimated down a little bit from the initial build up of 3,100), playing the Total War scenario on my 8'x5' table divided diagonally. The US defended with their infantry dug in on the left, the closer front, and the tanks on the right. The Germans split their panzers and supported their left.

It was a stalemate for several turns, with the Germans claiming an objective in front of the US infantry, and the Shermans going face to face with the Panzer IV platoon to take an objective of their own. Each Pz IV platoon was reinforced by one of the command Panthers, though, and things started to turn around for the Germans! The American Sherman commander-- yours truly-- tried to take advantage of the fact that in Total War, you continue to receive Victory Points for Objectives you've taken, even if you move on, until the enemy actually takes them. With that in mind, I sent my remaining Shermans off their objective and into the woods, routing a Pz Gndr platoon and giving me cover for a flanking movement on the Panther and remaining Pz IV. However, the Germans darted forward and took the objective! Sneaky Boche! I managed to get the one Sherman which could reach the objective in place-- only to realize he was a command Sherman and didn't actually contest the objective. The Germans went up 1 VP that turn, giving them the win.

Oh yeah, baby! Two Sherman platoons with priority P-47 support vs. one Pz IV platoon! These are odds I like!

The Americans hold on the left while the Sherman OP calls down fire on the German tanks.

Hmmmmm...two to odds in my favor, but I'm taking one to two losses against me...this isn't quite what I wanted to see!

The American tank destroyers go all in trying to drive the Germans off the objective they held on the left.

The German recon platoon keeps the American infantry out of the middle of the city with their four MGs.

The infantry moves forward to try and contest the left objective.

The tank battle on the right gets ugly. The Panther AT value is a WHAT?!!?

I'm not too worried about those pesky little infantry guns moving up-- as soon as my brilliant flanking maneuver is completed and I wipe out these Panzers, they'll be easy to clean up.

Ah, yeeeeah....shouldn't have left that objective, should I?

Tanks scramble, the infantry guns opens up-- but I'm on the objective!! ...with my company commander...

The American infantry contests the objective on the left, but without matching effort on the right, the Americans fall 17-16.

5th 29th ID section done!

2011-02-26T22:07:00.001-05:00

29th Infantry Division
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

Fifth section of 29th Infantry Division completed! I actually had these guys mostly completed last weekend, and was pretty stoked to be well ahead of my slow "two weeks per section" norm lately. I had visions of having the sixth finished this weekend and was ready for it! Then, life happens as it tends to. School functions, neighbor functions, etc... Plus, mid-week I came home for lunch, and just browsed by my painting table to gaze upon them momentarily, and I found the whole table standing in water!! Somebody had dumped my paint cup over on my painting table!!!!!!

No damage, fortunately. I have two primary suspects. The dog isn't talking, and two year old Number Two Son is talking too much. "Are you Number Two Son?" "Yeeeeah." "Did you spill Daddy's paint cup?" "Yeeeeeah." "Did you hide Jimmy Hoffa in the toy box?" "Yeeeeeah." It didn't have the appearance of having sat that long, and Number Two Son was in preschool, and the dog gets into everything anyway, so that tends to implicate him. However, whichever one did it had to reach over undisturbed items, and the dog has never expressed interest in my painting table, so that tends to implicate the boy. Purely circumstantial evidence all around-- but I've put noses in the corner for less!!!

Here's all my 29th so far, and the 6th and last section is primed, glued to popsicle sticks and paint bottle handles, and the first color applied. I gotta say, though, that I'm getting really tired of these guys. I want to walk over to my paint table and see something different for a change! Just one more section to get through...one more section...

Paper Blood Bowl Players

2011-02-15T14:21:00.000-05:00

Make Your Own Game Pieces contains foldable paper cubes to represent Blood Bowl players. It's an interesting idea. Obviously, it's not as nice as a fully painted team, but it's probably easier to use than proxies when trying out a new team.

4th 29th ID section done!

2011-02-13T00:00:00.001-05:00

29th Infantry Division
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

Fourth section of 29th Infantry Division completed! I keep churning these guys out...the fifth one is primed and ready to start painting, and the sixth, unfortunately, is still back ordered (although I got a shipping notice recently, so I should get it soon). I've settled down to about two weeks per section, which isn't too bad, I suppose. I am only painting 2-3 nights a week or so, around family and work stuff. I'm mostly glad that despite a pretty strong pull towards Blood Bowl lately, I haven't given up on painting these guys! Next up, I need to order some paint for my LCVPs...

A Return to Three Coach Blood Bowl

2011-02-02T11:21:00.000-05:00

Threeway Blood Bowl
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

We played an impromptu game of my old hack for Blood Bowl with three players. It actually played fairly well, despite a few oddities. We played with 11 players per side and a single ball, with the kicking team able to place the ball in either receiver's third. What we found was that once the ball was well into somebody's third, he was playing 1 on 2 as both other teams had only a short distance to go to score! I might try to assign scoring end zones instead of letting teams score in anybody else's end zone. We also had a kick-off in which the next player to take a turn was not the receiving team. But, overall, the changes to play felt minor, this still felt like Blood Bowl to me.

3rd 29th ID section done!

2011-01-30T01:13:00.001-05:00

29th Infantry Division
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

Third section done (the one on the left)! The weather has cleared up, so no more snow days, no more holidays, the kids are back in school and their functions have started back up, and I'm back into the swing at work, all of which means less time to paint and a bit slower productivity on my painting. Still, I'm not going to complain much about 103 (if I'm counting correctly) figures in the month of January!

Second 29th ID section done!

2011-01-17T16:08:00.001-05:00

29th Infantry Division
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

Thanks to some snow days and the MLK holiday, I got the second section of 29th Infantry Division with the other optional machine gun finished! That gives me a legally playable force now, although of less than 350 points! Still, I'm making progess...that's just more than half of the boxed set, and just more than a third of what I'm planning on painting.

First 29th ID section done!

2011-01-11T23:50:00.002-05:00

29th Infantry Division
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

I finished up my first batch of 29th Infantry Division troops. On the right, you have a full assault section. On the left, you have an optional machine gun stand, the company commander and 2IC, and then General Cota in front.

Are You Ready For Some Football!

2011-01-10T18:45:00.000-05:00

I'm not! My next door neighbor calls over and asks if I would like to come by his house and watch "the game" tonight. "Sure," I say. "Is UT playing tonight?" UT played their bowl game a week and a half ago! Oops! "No," he says, "the national championship is on tonight!" Ah, really? What am I supposed to say, that I'd rather be an anti-social neighbor and sit at home painting my toy soldiers? At least there will be beer there.

29th ID Under Way

2011-01-09T22:46:00.002-05:00

29th ID Under Way
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

Got some painting time this weekend and started cranking out my Christmas present of Flames of War 29th Infantry Division Assault Company. They are nice little figs, and I'm taking a little bit more time on these than I have on my previous FoW figures. Which means, across the entire weekend, I only got most of one section done. I had intended to crank out the remaining command stand, company commander and 2IC, and General Cota tonight, but I have a head ache, a cold and I spilled my beer so I thinking...29, Let's Go...To Bed! I ordered two more sections and another LCVP box, so I will have a full six sections when I'm done. At the current rate, that could be mid-February, but the current rate is pretty unrealistic!

The History of Rome Podcast

2011-01-08T01:21:00.003-05:00

Whew! I have been listening to the History of Rome podcast and have finally caught up! It's really quite nice-- good audio quality, well-spoken history and fairly comprehensive; it is so far almost 48 hours of podcast covering Rome from the legendary flight of Aeneas from the Trojan War well before Romulus and Remus founded Rome in 753 BC until, most recently, the reign of Emperor Probus, ending in 282 AD. I just finished listening to the last episode as I painted up some of my 29th ID, and I'm kind of sad I don't have another episode to immediately launch into. At least this will let me catch up on the last two WWPD: News From the Front episodes I have missed.

Complete Book of World War II Combat Aircraft

2011-01-03T08:51:00.001-05:00

Complete Book of WW2 Combat Aircraft
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

At a recent game of Check Your 6!, a question was brought up about the features of a particular aircraft, and the host hauled out a hefty tome entitled Complete Book of World War II Combat Aircraft. At well over 400 pages, it certainly does seem comprehensive, and each plane is detailed in a full color, full page (at minimum; many have two page spreads) three angle diagram. And best of all-- once I went looking for my own copy, I found one...FOR A DOLLAR. Score! I got it on AbeBooks and they no longer have any copies below $20. Still, for such a large, lavishly illustrated book, that's not a bad price. For somebody like with without extensive knowledge of the subject, it's a great book just to sit down and skim through. Which aircraft accounted for 50% of the Axis planes destroyed in Europe? Read the book! Or the wikipedia entry. Although, the book has much nicer pictures and is certainly more enjoyably tactile.

Piquet Cards

2011-01-02T00:34:00.005-05:00

Santa Clarita Wargamer has recently written an entry on Piquet's use of cards to simulate command and control problems. It's worth reading if you're curious about Piquet.

For Auld Lang Syne

2011-01-01T02:36:00.004-05:00

Welcome 2011! I can't believe it's 2011 already. We violated a few local ordnances this evening with a screeching round of fireworks. For my own references as much as anything, Magic Crystals are a lot of fun for the price. These things shriek LOUDLY and actually fly. On the downside, one came back down on my new car! No damage that I could see. It rained pretty hard most of the night, but fortunately around midnight it lightened up quite a bit. Our midnight finale' was Sky Quake, which I was a bit underwhelmed by. It was still a 500g power bundle though, and as it started going off, I thought, "Wow, I wonder which neighbors went to bed early tonight..." For a big piece like that, my favorite is still Loud and Rowdy.

Anyway, everybody is doing reflective posts on 2010 and planning for 2011. I have to say, I don't really find myself the self-reflective type. Nor do I especially take to long range planning. Especially in my hobby, I just kind of take it all in stride.

I'm coming out of 2010 feeling like I accomplished something, which is good. My WW2 Flames of War figures were started in late 2009, but the great majority of them were painted across 2010. They've hit the table a few times in some pretty good games. Frankly, that's head and shoulders above what I typically have done in any year. In fact, the argument could probably be made that this was my "most productive year ever." I'm not sure I've painted more of anything else, and, sadly, helping put on two large multiplayer Flames of War games is probably a record for any system as well.

What does 2011 hold?

More 15mm WW2. Yes, amazingly, despite spending the majority of 2010 painting WW2 figures, I haven't really gotten over it. I've got my first assault section of the 29th ID primed on my painting table, and am just waiting for a painting reference to show up next week before I get going on them. It turns out another group member already has some 29th ID and LCVPs painted up, so once mine are painted up, we ought to be able to run a pretty good-size game of the D-Day landings. I'll also look at running some Piquet and Field of Battle games now that I have good sized forces painted up. I'll soon be putting in an order for some 2x3 infantry bases for FoB-- I have some 3x4 bases which hold 3-4 FoW infantry stands on them and look nice, but with 1 stand on a base, I can use a FoW company and run almost an entire division in FoB. So, it might be nice to have both, using the smaller bases for larger games. I'll also be working on terrain-- of immediate need would be D-Day bunkers and beach obstacles, and a sea wall.

Beyond 15mm WW2, I've been itching for some Napoleonics. I have some 40mm Sash and Saber 40mm Peninsular War figures I'd really like to paint, but I don't have any terrain for them. Seems like a long term project, but I will probably start painting some to take the occasional break from 15mm WW2. I'd also like to get back on my 15mm 1809 Napoleonics at some point. I grew dissatisfied with my basing, and really needed to paint cavalry which I wasn't enjoying, so my interest in that waned. I can feel it returning, though.

Tusk! I almost forgot that-- my Number One Son and I painted up most of what we needed for Tusk in 2010. That was fun, and I plan to continue into 2011 with that. I need to get another mammoth to have enough for a two player game of Tusk, and I need a few specialty Neatherthal figures and fire markers. Once that is done, Number One Son has expressed interest in "proper" big game hunt miniature games like Tooth and Claw or Adventures in the Lost Land, so I suppose we'll branch out into that. I have a fair amount of really nice Darkest Africa figures sitting around gathering dust that would make for some smashing Victorian dinosaur hinting games.

Other than that? Really nothing else that is strongly attracting my attention. I'll probably paint up the occasional fantasy or sci-fi figure for the fun of it, but this, I think, will be my focus in 2011.

It's beginning to look a lot like D-Day

2010-12-27T10:41:00.002-05:00

Christmas Gifts
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

I hope everybody had a great Christmas! Ours was great. With three kids and a dog, it was quite a spectacle around our house. But, now all the kids' toys have been played with, the Christmas turkey has been finally devoured, and it's back to work for me. I did manage to receive a nice little hobby-related Christmas this year. Mostly because I ordered it myself! I got some of the new Flames of War Battle for France items-- the D-Day slipcase books, the 29th Assault Company, and the LCVP set. Kind of special purpose, but I've been considering getting D-Day landing stuff for a while, and when the 29th was re-released, I thought there probably wasn't a better way to do it. My wife also got a few books off my Amazon wish list-- Company Commander, a book I've considered an oversight not to have read yet for some time, and the controversial yet popular Forgotten Soldier. I'm already about halfway through Company Commander.

Gaming Tip

2010-12-18T23:28:00.003-05:00

IMG00163-20101203-2250
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

I stumbled across a nifty little gaming tip the other day. When we play the great air combat game Check Your 6!, the guys running the game usually hand out clipboards to the guys running the planes, who clip their planes' roster on it and plot their actions each turn. Most of us will usually clip the quick reference sheet underneath for easy access. Well, the other day I received a clipboard with a clear plastic back. It wasn't intended, but I realized I could put the most useful side of the QRS facing backwards and just flip my clipboard over to take a look at it! Simple, and useful.

On the Road to Sainte-Mère-Église

2010-12-14T00:37:00.007-05:00

FoW Objective Vandervoort
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

I finally got my Vandervoort objective finished up and photographed. I'm not much of a scratch builder, so I'm pretty pleased with how my creation came out. Here we see Lt. Colonel Vandervoort being hauled down a side road after injuring his leg upon landing during the 82nd's D-Day drop. He's passing a sign post showing that he's headed for Sainte-Mère-Église, one of the 505th PIR's objectives, and-- well, would you look at that! I misspelled Eglise!!!!!!!!!!! Argh!!!! I quit this stupid hobby!!!

From Ravelin's Order of Battle Operation Overlord, Volume 4: Utah Beach & the US Airborne Divisions 6 June 1944:

Lacking information from Ste.-Mere-Eglise, the regimental commander ordered Vandervoort to go and capture that town...Although suffering a broken leg, Vandervoort continued in command using a hand-pulled cart as his headquarters.

I didn't realize this at the time, but Vandervoort was Lt. Turnbull's CO, the Flames of War warrior for the Airborne, which makes him especially appropriate!

Roadblock on Hell's Highway

2010-12-13T15:01:00.000-05:00

Roadblock!
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

We had a fun Flames of War game on Friday. We almost didn't, though! As we were determining the specifics of the scenario, I turned to the player that I had thought was bringing the Germans and asked, "How many platoons do you have?" At which point, he said, "I thought you said you had everything!" Well, that was a bit of a surprise, to say the least! Rather than punt to a board game, though, I whipped up as much as I could of my Gepanzerte Panzergrenadiers, and we had a 2,500 point game. That's not much less than the 3,000 point game I was expecting, so the evening turned out fine, despite the organizational hiccup.

The scenario was Mik's XXX Corps Irish Guards trying to get to Arnhem while we German's tried to cut them off. We played using the Roadblock scenario in the core Flames of War rulebook. Unfortunately, the unexpectedly lower point cost meant that Mik couldn't field some of his newly painted troops.

The game opened up with our 88 battery brewing up three out of four Shermans in one platoon. Even though the British artillery managed to destroy one gun, the other kept enough fear in the Brits that their second platoon on the board fled to cover and stayed there for most of the rest of the game.

The Germans rolled a PaK 40 battery up on the left to contest that objective as the Panzer IVs and the scouts, and eventually a Panzergrenadier squad, towards their target objective on the right. As the PaK 40s and artillery started to thin out the Sherman platoon on the left, a squad of Panzergrenadiers tried to make a last minute sprint towards that objective.

(Ignore the proxies in the picture! Those are all supposed to be Sd Kfz 251s. I thought I had just about enough Sd Kfz 251s for everything, but I hadn't counted on observers riding in half-tracks. The upside is they have Sd Kfz 250s, which means that recent mistaken purchase will work out better than expected. I'll just need to go buy a few more packs of 251s. Man, they're like American jeeps, you just apparently can't ever have enough of the things.)

The sudden appearance of reinforcements quickly put that plan out of action!

Despite their sudden stiffening of the German left, the Brits were spread too thinly in the end to contest both objectives, and the right was so thin and the night so late after turn six that we called the game for the Germans.

Paratrooper Objective

2010-12-07T01:40:00.003-05:00

FoW Objective Vandervoort
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

I've been threatening to do a Flames of War paratrooper objective of the officer being hauled around in a supply cart a la John Wayne in the Longest Day. Well, I finally got around to doing it! John Wayne played Lt. Col. Benjamin Vandervoort, commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 505th on D-Day when he broke his ankle landing. However, a similar incident occurred with the CO of the 502nd, Colonel George Van Horn Moseley-- in fact, that claims that John Wayne played a "composite character" in the Longest Day! Whoever he is, though, he's finally done. Looking at pictures of the M3A4 Utility Cart, I decided the FoW ones were too large. And since I was going to have to scratch build one anyway, as that appeared easier than removing the equipment bag, I made it smaller. I kept the wheels, though-- too tough to scratch build.

Setting up for Flames of War

2010-12-06T23:56:00.001-05:00

Flames of War table
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

We're prepping for a 3,000 point game of Flames of War this weekend. I went ahead and got the table ready. It's looking like we'll have five, maybe even six players. We'll be doing the Roadblock mission with Mik's Guards Armoured squadron reinforced by some of my US 101st paratroopers heading down the highway and getting cut off by some Germans of yet-to-be-discovered origin.

Used Books

2010-12-04T23:24:00.003-05:00

Used Books
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

Scored some interesting used books over the Thanksgiving holiday. The local book store there sells both new and used books, which I thought was a pretty clever way of cutting down on the competition. Anyway, I found these and got them at less than half the Amazon price. Combat Jump and Beyond the Beachhead both had very high reviews. I thought Combat Jump might be useful reading as I already had WW2 US Paratroopers, and didn't know a lot of the detail of their jumps into Sicily. I was particularly interested in Beyond the Beachhead, the story of the 29th Division in Normandy. I'm about halfway through it right now. It's very readable and I'm enjoying it. I never caught on that their blue and grey insignia was a reference to the American Civil War. The more you know...

Taking Stock of my German Forces

2010-12-02T08:27:00.003-05:00

German Forces
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

I wanted to take stock of my Flames of War Germans, much as I had my Paratroopers. Ostensibly Gepanzerte Panzergrenadiers, I haven't quite built as closely to the list with them as I have the Americans. Along the right hand side, I have the GPzG Company HQ with Panzerfausts and Anti-Tank Section (135 pts) and two Combat Platoons with Panzerfausts and three squads each and the Sd Kfz 251/10 (285 pts each). I have a third platoon I still haven't painted...they weren't much fun and I'm not looking forward to it. But I will do it soon. Ish.

Anyway...in front, we have a Motorized Scout Platoon (160 pts, all Old Glory Command Decision figures), followed by a Gepanzerte PaK 40 Anti-Tank Gun Platoon (200 pts) and a FlaK36 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Gun Platoon with two sections of eight crew (225 pts). In the center, you see four HMG stands, sixteen MG infantry stands, and ten command stands. This is the start of an Old Glory CD early war German force. It's on hold for now as I flesh out the late war forces, but I am using it to fill gaps such as the MG stands for the Scout Platoon. In the left rear, we have a Panzer IV H platoon (475 pts), a Jagdpanzer IV (was on sale, haven't bought the other one to get the necessary two yet), and a sIG33 Heavy Infantry Gun Platoon (160 pts). So, right now I have 1,925 points! More than I thought. Plus, with another Jagdpanzer IV and transport for the HMGs, I can add those units-- a two vehicle Jagdpanzer IV Tank Hunter Platoon (120 pts) and a Gepanzerte Heavy Platoon with no options (200 pts). That would be 2,245 points. Nice.

Speaking of transport, I just painted up three Old Glory Command Decision Sd Kfz 251/1s (CD-304). I also bought the Half Track Crews (44-45) (CDGC-02) and made little removable groups of figures to place in the half tracks when they are carrying troops. I'll label the bottoms and organize the infantry stands off the board.

The Command Decision vehicles are noticeably smaller than the Battlefront vehicles. I'm not sure if this bothers me or not. At $4.40 for Command Decision, versus $11.25 for Battlefront, I'm thinking it doesn't bother me that much.

One advantage Battlefront has is that it's easier to buy the correct thing. This is the second or third time I've gone to paint CD stuff and realized, hey, I bought the wrong thing! I obviously have a 251/1C when what I wanted was no doubt Sdkfz 251/1D late 1944/45 (CD-317)-- obvious to me now, but I never noticed that at the time I ordered! Gaaaaah!!

Memoir '44 Online Open Beta

2010-12-01T08:14:00.003-05:00

I have credible intel that a certain out-of-shape jolly commando will be airdropped on my position sometime near the end of December in an attempt to deliver a medium game box sized device of unknown origin to a reasonably well-behaved child. In entirely unrelated news, Days of Wonder has a free beta testing program for Memoir '44 Online! I downloaded it-- for freakin' Linux, no less-- and have played several games of it. It's my first experience with the game, and I have to say I've found it a little addictive. I've played Pegasus Bridge, Ste.-Mere-Eglisse and Pointe-du-Hoc scenarios so far, and there's a lot more of them. I've only played Solo so far, but it also includes head to head. Fun and easy!

Dirstside 2 Vehicle Generator Restored

2010-11-30T12:10:00.000-05:00

Random Giant Sci-Fi Tank!

It's taken...awhile, but my Dirtside 2 Vehicle builder is active again. I know several people have been waiting. Sorry to be such a slacker. You'd think I wasn't a technology professional, but the cobbler's children have no shoes...

Burn, baby, burn!

2010-11-29T11:15:00.002-05:00

Wool Roving
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

So I picked up some Felt Works Roving at a Hobby Lobby while on vacation. It's apparently used for some sort of needle felt whatever. Being actual wool, it's obviously not the same stuff as Battlefront's Smoke and Flames, but it's pretty close. I balled up some red and orange roving and piled some black on top, stuck a flasher underneath it, and got a pretty cool little burning vehicle marker!

I'm not sure exactly how I'll make them for production. I'll probably try to mix the red and orange roving better, maybe include some yellow, and try to grey up the smoke furthest up the column.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T17:32:00.001-05:00

Mega Miniatures 25mm Turkey

Dinner has been eaten, wine drunk and now we're watching the Saints murderize the Cowboys. Here's a link to the only 25mm turkey I know of, by Mega Miniatures. Scenario suggestion: your World War I game starts with Sergeant York at a Tennessee Turkey shoot. How well he does there determines how much of bonus he gets in the main game!

Flashers!

2010-11-24T22:54:00.002-05:00

Red/Yellow Blinking LED Pin. Mercifully not blinking.

Progress on my idea of flickering LED fire markers. I had originally purchased a number of LED tea lights. I had planned to rework them onto smaller battery holders, which seemed like time consuming work, but doable. However, Santa Clarita Wargamer has convinced me otherwise, and I just received 25 red/yellow blinking pins. I was afraid they would be too aggressive in their blinking, but I tossed one on a tank and covered it with white acrylic stuffing, and it looked pretty darn sweet.

The next step will be to figure out what to cover it with. I'd like black smoke, maybe mixed in with some red and yellows. My first thought was Flames of War's surprisingly effective Flame and Smoke material, but at $14 per pack, it seemed too expensive for 25 markers. Looking around on the Internet, I had a very hard time finding colored fibers like this. After an hour of poking, I googled "what is yarn made from?," and I think what I'm looking for is roving, or roving yarn. How did anybody get anything done before the Internet??? I'll try to track some down and see how it looks-- may be a couple of days, though, as I head out for the holidays. A nine to ten hour drive with the wife, three kids and the dog...but I will have D-Day: the Battle for Normandy to play on the radio...

Take It From a Professional

2010-11-23T07:58:00.003-05:00

Face First into Legos
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

You don't want to fall face first into anything. But if you have to fall face first into something, you don't want that something to be a Lego creation. Those precised edges can be painfully sharp with just a little force behind them! Number Two Son fell onto Number One Son's Lego boat. It was a pretty minor fall, so I wasn't to concerned at first, but the blood just kept coming! Not visible are a busted lower lip and a torn upper gum! At least he kept his teeth-- unlike Number One Son who knocked one out at about this age...

An Interesting Data Point About Stripping Miniatures

2010-11-22T08:52:00.003-05:00

It's Alive! IT'S ALIVE!
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

So, a long while back, I picked up some Wargames Foundry pirates and the Treasure Island characters. They were primed and painted pretty roughly, so I dropped them in a Mason jar full of Pine-Sol to strip the paint off. Not too much later, I decided to strip some Tau Pathfinders and Kryomek Talos units I had bouncing around, and dropped them in a Mason jar of Simple Green. Then I pretty much forgot about them. For, near as I can guess, two or three years.

Yeah. Pretty sad. So I was looking at them the other day, and got to wondering...what, exactly, happens when you leave a figure in Pine-Sol or Simple Green for two years? I mean, lead is pretty durable stuff, but it's not indestructible. I started having some ill thoughts that maybe these miniatures were ruined somehow sitting in these chemical solutions for so long. So, I decided to take them out.

How does a lead figure look after two years in Pine-Sol? Well, they seem just fine. They look like I just dropped them in. In fact, I can't even say they were stripped any better after two years in Pine-Sol than they were after two days in Pine-Sol. I still had to scrub paint and pick it out of crevasses with toothpicks. For the love of god, random eBay seller, what are you painting your figures with that your black paint was still solid after two years in Pine-Sol? Sheesh.

Flames of War Battle Report

2010-11-21T01:01:00.002-05:00

Paratroopers Hold the Line
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

Friday night we played a fairly large game of Flames of War. I put 2,500 points of US Parachute Company out vs. 2,500 point of German Grenadiers. I already detailed the paratrooper forces, bringing all of that thanks to a very few proxies for the rest of the Cavalry Recon platoon and an off-board M2A1 105mm battery. I'm not sure the breakdown of the Grenadier platoon, but it contained approximately eleventy billion Tiger tanks.

First and foremost, I was very pleased at my contributions to the game. I brought one entire force, the bocage and kind of co-ran the game with the guy who brought the Germans. That's pretty significant for me, who usually just shows up and lets somebody else run the game. I'm trying, slowly, to change that. Anyway, I thought the table looked pretty high class.

We went straight FoW for this, down to rolling randomly for the scenario from the book. In a way, we were kind of foundering-- our Flames of War crutch who used to show up with custom scenarios, all the markers, terrain, forces, etc... has unfortunately for us moved on, leaving us to our own devices. We rolled up Fighting Withdrawal. I was pleased with this, as I obviously had never read the scenarios in the book and at Fall-In! was asking the WWPD guys why they were removing objectives from the table! Egg on my face. The "Strategic Withdrawal" special rule is very interesting-- the defender must stay on the table a certain length of time, but eventually starts removing a platoon every turn, and near the end, even pulls objectives off with them. I thought this was a pretty clever way to use objectives that I hadn't seen before.

In my defense, I actually did read most of the FoW rules before this game-- but I only read the rules, I didn't have time to make it to the scenario special rules. I'll continue my reading, though, and be better prepared next time. We did alright-- we had some oversights, but caught and corrected ourselves.

In the above pictures, you can see the three parachute platoons arrayed in line across the board. Their objective was out in the bocage, and the Germans had laid theirs in the open terrain on the American right, where they planned on focusing their attack.

The Schwerpunkt of the German Blitzkrieg was to be the far German left, led by the Tigers, and rolling up American paratroopers who, in an Assault, actually had a 1 in 6 chance to Bail Out the Tigers. Yeah, not pretty. However, we had dispersed a lot of extra Bazooka stands to the combat platoons, hopefully one of them would get a good hit in. The Tigers roll in, a Stug and Grenadier Kampfgruppe on their left and their right secured by a PaK 40 platoon suffering under the American 105s.

This game marked the first time I'd seen snipers used. Here, a sharpshooter in a shelled house keeps the 155mm Infantry Gun under fire. However, with no significant threat facing them, the two German Stugs on the right roll forward and roll through the house, collapsing something on the sniper, no doubt, and removing him from the game.

The German left fist is approaching the American jaw...

Things settle down for a bit on the American left as the Germans bide their time, watching how things progress on the right.

Here we see Fall Dampfwalze in action. It was an educational experience, really. This linear deployment was absolutely the worst deployment we could have chosen. The Tiger and Kampfgruppe (with no Stugs, which bogged down) rolled into the end of the line, hitting a minimum number of American stands with a fairly tremendous force. This guaranteed they would wipe out the two to three stands they contacted, with the Americans getting no return fire. Sure, we had bazookas, which was our best chance against the Tigers in assault, but they never got a chance to strike. The Tigers could then do the same thing the next turn.

On the left, a paratrooper platoon breaks cover and moves to assault the Germans, hoping to relieve some pressure on their right. Unfortunately, it came time for us to withdraw a platoon, and they were the logical choice.

The Tiger and the Kampfgruppe have wiped out the far American right with little difficulty. Well, other than the fact that we kind of forgot that pinning an all armor platoon like the Tigers doesn't really have much effect. We eventually remembered that, though...after a couple of failed Motivation tests.

The Germans begin their advance on the weakened American left.

The center remains fairly static, but the Tigers aren't far away.

Even Tigers can suffer the ill effects of Frau Gluck.

The Tigers roll in, supported by the Kampfgruppe, and shatter the rest of the rightmost American platoon. It came down to the wire, though. Honestly, I can't remember who won...we Americans might have pulled both center objectives off before the Tigers got there and defended the last. If so, it was a poor win, as the Tigers had been held up with our forgetful pinning of that platoon. Clearly, the Germans should have won, no matter the actual result. Still, it was a fun, educational game. Having to pull our own weight running the game helps quite a bit. I'm looking forward to our next game of Flames of War.

A few things I took away from this game:

An almost Napoleonic trade-off between a linear formation, giving great firepower, versus a more columnar formation, allowing more teams to participate in Assault.
I need tokens! I printed off some basic markers as I figured we'd need them, but they were pretty weak sauce compared to some modeled markers. I'll need to get on that...
Objectives should be modeled on FoW large bases! Who knew? Probably somebody who had read the rules more closely...I think I may model Lt. Col. Vandervoort riding around in a cart with his broken ankle.
And, last but not least, my Paratroopers are allowed an M10 tank destroyer platoon and you bet your sweet bippy that will be my next purchase.

Wow! So, in the last week and a half, I have run a 5150 40k game, started a solo campaign and had a satisfactory first battle, finished the initial stage of a project with my son and run the first game, and now contributed significantly to a "club" multiplayer game. Whew! I feel like we should all celebrate now with some sort of national holiday where we all gorge ourselves on some of my favorite foods, turkey, dressing and pecan pie. Loosen your belt in celebration of my gaming achievements! Maybe I can find a major city to host a parade and a professional sports league willing to play a few games on television for everybody's enjoyment...

First Game of Tusk

2010-11-18T08:46:00.011-05:00

Intro Game of Tusk
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

The Number One Son and I sat down this last weekend and finished up our Neanderthals! Ten Primaeval Designs Neanderthal warriors, two Wooly Mammoths and a too large Reaper wolf/dog to serve as a hunting dog. As we sat at the dining room table, with the figures painted, I looked at their white unfinished bases and the white table covering and thought, "Hey. Snow!" So we threw down with a quick solo game of Tusk, my son pushing a band of Neanderthal hunters while I managed the rules and ran the Mammoth (whose actions are determined by a reaction table).

With ten points to build a war band and our figure selection, Number One Son took a hero for three points, the dog for one point, and three spear warriors for a six points. We placed a Mammoth in the center of the table and he surrounded it with his hunting band.

The fast moving dog went in first, directly opposite the hero and trying to drive the big Woolly towards him. The Mammoth had none of that, however, and promptly charged the dog and stomped him to death!

Next, the hero charged in! It was kill or be killed with this mightiest of Neanderthal hunter, and today, unfortunately, it was his lot to be killed!

After that bit of liveliness, the Mammoth went back to grazing, while the remaining three hunters gathered together and, in a burst of activity, sprang upon the Mammoth from behind! The first hunter missed anything vital with his flint spear, but the second struck home! This tribe has a new hero! And a new environmental hazard-- my two year old swinging that blue shoe horn at the table!!

Solo Theatre of War Campaign: the Aftermath

2010-11-17T09:03:00.004-05:00

Map After First Battle
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

So, what exactly happens to these poor Deutschen Volk after losing this battle? We need to figure out the Battle Points for both the American and the German sides. This is done by a formula using the Army Morale Points (see discussion below) and the Victory Points won during this battle.

Victory Points are only scored for the Objectives held when the battle ended. Obviously, since the poor Germans had NO TROOPS LEFT when the battle ended, they get a big fat goose egg. The Americans, however, held a 10 point hill, a 7 point hill (both on the German right, by American companies that hardly moved from set up), and the hard won 26 point bocage. Left on the table were the 8 point rough hill in the German left flank area, the 8 point crossroads, and the 3 point hill the Shermans left to finish off the last PaK 40 battery.

The Germans started with 18 Army Morale Points, and the Americans with 11. However, I used Piquet's Field of Battle: WW2. FoB uses a different morale point system than what ToW expects with Point of Attack: Blitzkrieg. ToW and POA:B have been around for ten years, while FoB is relatively new. Some adjustments have to be made. If this were a POA:B game, the traditional Piquet concept of "Morale Chips" would have been generated by draws from the Army Characterization Deck, one draw per three units. So the Americans would have had four draws, and the Germans six. The ACD is basically a poker deck, with the face cards indicating special stratagems in the battle. We'll ignore that, say the average draw is a 5, and the Americans would have had on the order of 20 chips, and the Germans 30. Looks like the FoB:WW2 AMPs are about half what ToW is expecting, and I will use that rule of thumb.

Giving the Americans an adjusted 22 chips, and the Germans 36 chips, when both ended with 0 chips, that gives us the following:

American Battle Points = (36 - 22) + (0 - 0) + 43 VPs = 56 BPs

German Battle Points = (22 - 36) + (0 - 0) + 0 VPs = -14 BPs

Doesn't sound very good for the Germans, does it? And they started the campaign with almost half the National Will Points of the Americans. They needed quite a different result.

There are three types of victory in ToW: Marginal, Decisive and Crushing. Since the Americans Battle Points (56) exceed their estimated starting chip count (36), they have won a Crushing Victory. They may 1) move their Battlegroup 1 territory on the campaign map in any direction, 2) 30% of the units in the next battle for this battlegroup will get a unit quality upgrade, and 3) they add the Campaign Point value of the territory (4) to their National Will Points. The American battlegroup stays where they are, since it is a four point territory, and battlegroup I was intended to be their striking force anyway.

The Germans suffer a Crushing Loss. They 1) retreat their battlegroup 2 territories as specified by the Americans, and all other battlegroups one territory of their choice, 2) 30% of the units in this battlegroup will suffer a quality penalty in their next battle, and 3) lose National Will Points according to a table: 30 points for a Crushing Loss + a d10 for having a 3 Strength battlegroup + a d12 for a 4 Value territory-- the Germans lose 30 + 6 + 4, or a whopping 40 points! Folks, that leaves the poor Germans with a grand total of 5 National Will Points! Yikes! The Yanks might just be home in time for Independence Day!

Solo Theatre of War Campaign: The Battle of Le Petite Bocageville

2010-11-16T11:44:00.000-05:00

The Battle Commences
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

With the forces laid out on the table, I now went ahead and rolled randomly for unit quality. There's no reason I couldn't have done it before, although populating stats for fourteen American units and eighteen German units in up to ten different battlegroups is a bit much-- better to do it once they are needed. The paratroopers got a veteran bonus and rolled up very nicely, even discounting the temporary hindrance of being out of supply. The Germans had a mix a green, regular and experienced infantry, although in general, they rolled fairly poorly for quality.

The Shermans perched on their VPs in the rough hill facing serious opposition with two Pz IV companies and two PaK 40 companies. The Greyhounds didn't even make it that far, cowering out of sight. The Germans must have been convinced there were more Shermans coming, as they were content to keep these two companies out of the battle for a while. In retrospect, I clearly should have advanced the panzers into the paratroopers while I had the chance, and let the PaK 40s keep the Shermans tied up. The chances were slim enough, though, as the Americans advanced faster than the Germans could.

The grenadiers advanced into the fields quickly, hoping to stake out a good defensive position before the American criminals reach them! The Pz IVs also put a quick hurt on the 57mm guns who raced to the edge of the bocage in an apparently unnecessary attempt to keep the Pz IVs at bay.

The Germans right was pretty sparse. The paratroopers were sitting on 17 VPs on two hills, but the Germans didn't have much chance of penetrating that deeply across the open unless things went exceptionally in the bocage.

The paratroopers endured two rounds of attack from the German 150mm artillery, passing through unscathed and deciding the quickest way to stay that way was to get in the face of the German infantry and take the hurt to them! Which they did, quite effectively.

Mein Gott! The fast moving paratroopers are already into the bocage, where it will be harder for the German infantry to spot them with their artillery and the fighting will be largely face to face-- something to the Americans' advantage.

The Germans start to lose companies on their right flank to extremely accurate and effective long range fire from the Americans.

The ferocity of the paratrooper attack in the fields has forced some of the Germans back, and the relentless Americans maintain the pressure!

Late in the morning, the Germans seem to recover from their initial shock at the ferocity of the American attack, and begin to deal casualties of their own...

The Shermans are driven behind the hill, but the panzers still don't advance.

...but good ol' American gumption (and some d12 battalion commanders) keeps the paratroopers fighting, and the entire German left is almost neutralized.

The Panzers finally roll into the American rear, rolling over the shot up 57s. As the PaK 40s engage in a long range duel with the Shermans, the Greyhounds, perhaps having heard one too many "Where is that chickensh*t armor!?" comments over the paratroopers' radio frequencies, sprint into the mouth of the PaK 40s and deliver some serious damage to one of the batteries.

The paratroopers clear out the bocage company by company-- not just driving them out, but decimating them entirely. A German rear unit is caught in the open before they could reach the bocage, attack die 12 to defense die 3. 9 strength point loss and an outright kill on the first shot. Scheiße!!

The Greyhounds show the Shermans how it's done, rolling over one of the PaK 40 batteries, while the paratroopers have firm control of the bocage.

An American time on target barrage between the regiment's 75mm guns and the divisions 105mm battery destroys the first panzer company, then, overnight, start destroying infantry companies threatening the bocage. The Americans have taken their share of casualties, though-- despite keeping most of their companies in the fight, whereas the Germans are shedding units every turn, both forces are at 0 Army Morale Points. Either unit could break and run, it's just a matter of whether or not the Gremans can hold out long enough until the Americans decide they must withdraw.

The night seems to pass quickly, and the German officers are back in the job in the morning, getting their few remaining companies back into the fight while the Americans start to take more casulties.

The Americans are the first to have to take a Morale test-- and they pass! The Germans best hope for victory slips through their grasp...

The Americans withdraw to defensive positions and let their effective artillery continue to chew up the German infantry.

Now it's the German's turn...and they pass Morale, too!! Is it possible they will manage to hold out long enough?

Not in the American artillery has anything to say about it!! The last functional company of the Grenadier regiment is wiped out!

The panzers are determined to extract their pound of flesh for this terrible battle! They find paratroopers in the open, and descend upon them, guns blazing...

...but apparently the paratroopers had their bazookas ready! Once the panzers get in close, they take casualties and are driven back in confusion! The paratroopers fire a destroy the last armor company!

American artillery rains down on the remaining PaK 40 battery, and the Shermans finally descend the hill and mop up. In the end, it could have swung the German's way, but it didn't. The Americans have decisively defeated this Germany regiment and have won the first battle of the campaign.

Solo Theatre of War Campaign: Eve of First Battle

2010-11-15T07:49:00.003-05:00

The Upcoming Battle
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

So now we move from the campaign map to the tabletop. Since both battlegroups used the Attack action, the battle will be a standard Encounter fight, as opposed to something like a Flank Attack vs. Defend. A Retire action would have avoided the fight altogether.

Theatre of War includes rules for setting up the tabletop based on the campaign map and forces involved. The tabletop is divided equally into sixteen sections, in a four by four grid. Cards from the force sequence decks are drawn for the eight grid sections on each side's half of the table, which gets translated to terrain. Since this battle took place in a Heavy terrain square, with movement cost five, it risked some pretty dense terrain. It wound up with some open areas in the end, though. Here is the battlefiend I drew:

German side

Flank: Heavy Water Feature and Heavy Wood	Deploy: Village	Deploy: Open	Flank: Heavy Hill
Flank: Heavy Water Feature	Combat: Impassible	Combat: Heavy Wood	Flank: Road
Flank: Road	Combat: Light Hill	Combat: Open	Flank: Player's Choice (Open)
Flank: Road	Deploy: Heavy Hill	Deploy: Road and Impassible	Flank: Heavy Hill and Road

American side

I grabbed various pieces of terrain and laid out the table as described. I opted to make the center "Heavy Wood" bocage fields next to the village. I also need to make some decent river pieces.

Cards were pulled for five American objectives and four German objectives. Each is worth 2-10 points, with nothing other than victory points drawn for them. Each objective is tied to a terrain feature dictated by a Sequence Deck card draw, and with the flanks of the table fairly open, the objectives were concentrated in the center. The bocage is worth a whopping twenty three points, and is right next to an eight point road junction. This looks like it will be the focus of both forces.

Now we need to figure out which actual units will be on the table. First of all, both forces draw one card from the Army Characterization Deck for each ten units they have on their roster or fraction thereof. That's two cards for the Germans with twenty units, and two cards for the Americans with fourteen, only their second card can't be higher than a four. Both forces played three cards in their battle hand, so that will be three more draws of the Army Characterization deck. And the Germans get one more draw for having a battlegroup one size larger than the Americans. Barring some special effects letting you select a specific unit, the units represented are selected randomly. The Germans got eighteen of their twenty units, choosing a Panzer IV company for certain and randomly leaving two infantry companies out. The Americans managed to bring their entire fourteen units to this battle.

With the table set up, the objectives all placed, and the army forces selected, they could now be set up. Again, this is accomplished through Sequence Deck draws. Each side draws simultaneously. Depending on the card drawn, a unit is placed on the table in either the Deploy zones, or given the option of the Deploy zone or the Flank zone. The Action cards in the players' Battle Hands determines the type of battle played; e.g., in this case, Attack vs. Attack, which in turns determines the layout of the zones on the board. A Flank Attack would have given me different Deploy zones, for example.

The Americans hit a streak and set up nearly their entire force before the Germans had to make any difficult choices. This left my poor hull down Sherman company anchoring my right flank facing two Panzer IV companies and two PaK 40 batteries!! Right across that wide open stretch of "Player's Choice" Open terrain, too! Way to go, HQ. Hopefully the higher American quality will tell, but the upcoming battle looks rough...

Solo Theatre of War Campaign

2010-11-14T00:04:00.013-05:00

The Campaign Map
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

I'm finally getting enough WW2 stuff painted to play with. Ideally, I'll play mostly with my favorite rules system, Piquet. I've been reading through the Theatre of War campaign book, and decided to sit down and play a solo campaign using my new troops.

Originally, I started browsing maps around Utah beach, trying to find something that showed enough geography to provide movement info yet not enough writing on it to make it difficult to use. I finally decided I was making it way too hard on myself and just made a random map. This is one row taller than the default map size suggested in ToW. Each map square has a large number in the middle indicating the movement cost to move into that square. Square with cost 6 have a random edge that is impassible. Each square has a smaller number which is the victory points for that square.

One of the interesting things about ToW is that it's designed to use around your collection, whatever it is. You create a roster of all your units. It works out that I have enough US Airborne painted up to field a parachute regiment reinforced by a couple of companies of armor. With the off-board artillery (the regiment's 75mm battery, and the division's 105mm battery), that's 14 units. The Americans in '44-45 tend to have better commanders and sequence decks, and are thus the smaller force. Using a little bit of math and the Point of Attack: Blitzkrieg book, ToW tells me I need about half again as many Germans. I scrape together 18 units of Germans which look like a regiment of infantry, the divisional AT battalion, an attached Panzer IV battalion, and the off-board artillery.

Each side may now assemble battlegroups on the map-- up to 10 groups with a minimum of one strength point each, or up to four strength points. There may also be three dummy markers. Each battlegroup has an individual command rating, but contains units from this same roster. When the unit is placed on the table for a battle, it gets a random selection of units from that roster based upon not just its size in strength points but also the tactical situation on the campaign map.

Each side also calculates National Will Points-- this is basically your will to fight and how you win or lose the campaign. The Americans drew an impress 76 points, while the Germans had a measly 44.

I split the Airborne up into six battlegroups-- unit I with strength four, F and H with strength two, and A and D with only strength one. The were set up in the bottom three rows. For the Germans, I threw out six battlegroups. Once I scouted them or got into a battle with them, I would roll to see if they were dummy markers or, if real battlegroups, what their relative strength was.

The campaign is played much like a standard Piquet wargame. Each side has a Sequence Deck tailored to their force which contains cards such as Campaign Movement (Light). Both sides roll for Initiative Points and use those points to draw and play cards from their deck. Unlike most other Piquet games, in ToW, you manage a hand. Since this was early-mid June 1944, or a Summer time period, the hand size was the largest at six cards (versus four for Winter campaigning). In the above example, it would cost one Initiative Point to draw the Campaign Movement card, then one point to play it. Once played, every battlegroup could act on it. Campaign Movement (Light) lets a battlegroup move into a map square with movement cost 1-2 by spending the same amount of Initiative. There are equivalent Medium (3-4) and Heavy (5-6) movement cards.

One opposing battlegroups are in the same map square, one or the other may initiate a tabletop battle by playing an Engage in Battle card. Both sides then assemble a Battle Hand from their current hand of cards. A Battle Hand contains an Actions card, Attack, Defend, Retire and Flank Attack, indicating their tactic for the upcoming battle. If the defend has no Action card in their hand, they default to Defend. The force can bolster their tactical position by playing extra copies of the same Action, or playing Strength cards.

Map with Movement
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

I played through the decks, or one entire turn, without making contact. At some point, I started misreading the map-- thinking the movement costs were victory points, I started running the battlegroups of both forces into the bad going! Typical upper echelon foul up!! Despite setting up some temporary supply depots (circled on the map) and having respectably short supply lines, the American group H was caught out of supply. Measuring the shortest path back to the American base of operations (the bottom row square with the asterisk) shows their supply length to be two. To remain in supply once a Supply card is played, he has to roll above that on a d20. He got a two. Since he was out of supply, 10% of his units will be slightly worse quality until he regains supply. He also may not advance.

The Americans played a couple of Scout cards, and determined that that the German battlegroup G was strength three, and battlegroup I was strength four! Clearly, the German schwerpunkt was rolling down the easy mobility center of the map, probably an undamaged road nexus, right between the two thrusts of the Airborne.

Early in the second turn, the Germans showed an Engage in Battle card, along with two Attacks and a Strength. They held onto it until they could throw strength three battlegroup G into the out of supply battlegroup H-- only a strength two unit. The odds looked good from the German perspective, but the odds wouldn't be overwhelming, as the American Battle Hand was an identical two Attacks and one Strength. Attack vs. Attack...the upcoming battle would be an Encounter battle...

Flames of War US Parachute Rifle Company

2010-11-13T12:43:00.003-05:00

Flames of War US Airborne
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

I'm taking stock of my completed US Parachute Rifle Company for a possible game of Flames of War next week. At the bottom, left to right, I have a Pathfinder marker, a Company HQ with three bazooka teams (95 pts), and three sniper teams (150 pts). In the middle are three Parachute Rifle Platoons with three rifle squads (Rifle/MG teams) each (365 pts each, for 1095 pts altogether). Behind them, I have a Parachute Machine-Gun Platoon with two sections and two bazooka teams (240 pts) and an M4 tank platoon (450 pts). In the rear is a Glider Anti-Tank Platoon with 57mm guns (85 pts). That's 2,115 points total, if my math is correct. I'm pretty close to having a Cavalry Recon Platoon completed-- just need three stands of 60mm mortars, which are on order.

Bugs, Mr. Rico!

2010-11-12T03:09:00.001-05:00

One hundred of 'em! As Nick Hawkins has noted, rubber cockroaches look surprisingly effective on the table, and are extremely cheap. I finally got around to ordering 100 of them off eBay, I really have no idea what I'll do with them, maybe 5150 with Nick's modifications. They just looked too cool not to have.

5150 40k game

2010-11-11T08:32:00.000-05:00

Coming out of playing an FNG game at Fall-In! and not having anything planned for gaming this week, I threw together a quick 5150 game using 40k figures last night. I found some QRSs online that looked reasonable, and had about 65 Tau infantry of various stripes up against 10 Space Marines. The Marines were all Rep 5. The Tau squad leaders were all Rep 5 and the troopers Rep 4. About halfway through the game, we decided that was too high given the odds I was going for, and dropped everybody on the Tau side by 1. Otherwise, I thought it played well. I thought the table looked pretty good, too. My trees are falling apart, though. I need to figure out what I'm going to do with them...

The kids are painting well

2010-11-09T19:14:00.000-05:00

I've been painting a fair bit with the kids lately. Here is a bunch of long out-of-print Harlequin Nightlings we've been painting. Once they're done, it's hard for me to tell which ones I've painted and which they have. As I've mentioned, we've used what I call the Velas Technique: stain painting over white primer, followed by a dip. It's very forgiving to beginning painters, and the GW Devlin Mud wash makes a non-toxic, water clean up dip that even the kids can apply. We still have several Nightlings to paint, although right now my son and I are painting Primaeval Designs Woolly Mammoths and Neanderthals. He's very much into prehistory, which is largely why I purchased them, and has repeatedly begged to paint for free, but I force him to take wages! "Son, if somebody offers you money to do something you really want to do, you say YES!"

Old Gallery Back

2010-11-07T16:04:00.000-05:00

The original LittleLeadHeroes.com gallery has been out of commission for a while. I finally got around to getting it back online. Ignore the errors and such; I'm not really looking to make it functional, just available. I've found myself trying to reference a few older blog posts, only to see that the pictures I needed weren't up. I just got tired of that.

Painting With the Kids

2010-11-05T05:13:00.000-04:00

Back before Fall-In!, I painted a little with the kids again. We haven't done it in a while and it was nice to get back into it. We've been painting up a bunch of old Harlequin Nightlings I got on closeout somewhere along the ages. We've painted 27 foot and 4 mounted now, and they really look great. I need to run a game with them for the kids. We choose a painting style really great for inexperienced painters (what I've dubbed the Velas technique after the Velas brothers who used it to great effect as a speed painting technique)-- I prime white, then the kids stain paint with thinned paint. I go back and wash the figures with Games Workshop's Devlin Mud (an easier to clean, non-toxic version of the Miracle Dip) and then flock the bases. I've seen worse looking figures at conventions! I'd be proud to run a game with the figures my kids have painted.

Flames of War On Deck

2010-11-04T04:08:00.000-04:00

Still working on my Flames of War stuff. I've got the rest of the jeeps for my Cavalry recon platoon primed and ready to paint. That's everything except the M2 60mm mortar stands, and with a clear distinction between the MG and transport jeeps. Thanks to Joe for showing me that the third jeep crewman could fit in back! I also have three M1 57mm guns, although when I picked them up second hand, I didn't realize there was a standard variant and an airborne variant, and now I have a mix of both. You learn a new thing every unit you paint! It's nothing I can't live with, and I've been filling out units further for Field of Battle WW2, so I might pick up at least one more down the road.

WindSword Accessories Terrain

2010-11-03T04:44:00.000-04:00

I picked up these dental plaster dinosaur bones/fossils terrain pieces at Fall-In. The packaging was labeled "WindSword Accessories," which I had never heard of. However, they were quite nicely priced, 3.50-4.00 for everything except the big piece, and I thought they would provide a lot of atmosphere to my new prehistoric big game hunt board. My son was very excited to see them and can't wait to paint them for me. I'm starting to think this was a very good idea...

Back From Fall-In!

2010-11-02T12:45:00.002-04:00

Mik and I are back from Fall-In! I had some concerns that, after having been to Historicons and Cold Wars, the smaller Fall-In! might not be worth the time and cost to get up to. We drove almost 600 miles to get there. Despite being somewhat smaller, it was definitely worth it, though. I can't go to more than one a year, and that one would tend to be Historicon, but Fall-In! was fun.

I went content in my hobbiness and not really looking for anything new, just hoping to pick up some bargains. Yet I started two new periods! Actually, I have been on the verge of "big game hunting" for prehistoric mammals or dinosaurs since Historicon 2009 when I picked up the Tooth and Claw rules. My nine year old son is a big prehistoric animal fan-- much more so than the WW2 games I've subjected him to. Plus Mik bought some Primaeval Designs Neanderthals and other figures. So, what the heck, I bought two packs of Neanderthal hunters and two woolly mammoths. Only on the drive home did I realize I now had just about everything I needed for Tusk!

My son has also been reading a lot about Romans. Plus, he and his older sister have been painting a bit for me. So I was already thinking about getting some plastic Romans for him to paint. However, in the flea market, I picked up something like 150 Wargames Factory ancient Germans and 40 or so Warlord Games Romans. I have no clue what I'm going to do with that many figures. Ah well. He will not run out of things to paint anytime soon, and hopefully it will be great practice for him.

One of the coolest things I saw at the con was the use of flickering LEDs for fire markers. They would be tucked away inside a rather traditional puff of cotton smoke, and really looked good. I ordered 12 from Amazon, determined to make my own. Only later did I realize how cool they would look as fire markers in a 25mm Tusk game!

I now have my Neanderthals glued and based, and my Woolly Mammoths assembled, waiting for time with the kids to get painting on them. Prehistoric big game hunting and ancient Romans will largely be "with kids" painting. This will allow me to continue to focus on 15mm WW2, while also giving me incentive to spend more time painting with the kids. At their current rate of $2.00/hr, it's cheaper than having Sri Lankan children paint!

Battlefront jeeps and M8 Greyhounds

2010-10-23T19:58:00.000-04:00

Got a Cavalry recon platoon started for my Airborne. I'll be glad to finally be able to use the Flames of War recon rules! I still need to pick up three stands of 60mm mortars to finish it off, and paint another three jeeps to carry them in. And decals. I did decals on the 88 vehicles and they turned out alright. I'm just not in any hurry for that.

Two Months. Two Units.

2010-10-20T12:57:00.000-04:00

Looking back through the blog, it looks like I started my Pak 40s back in August, around the 10th. It's taken me over two months to get them and my 88s done-- and, technically, I don't have movers for my Pak 40s. Man, no wonder I never get anything done.

Old Dog Learns New Tricks

2010-10-18T19:23:00.000-04:00

Got my German 88 battery finished. My late war Germans are based using static grass. It's not a technique I'm crazy about, but I got a big tub of it in trade so what the hell, right? I had them sealed with gloss sealer then Dullcote, just bought a new damn car today, and had 3/4 of a bottle of Four Roses left, so I thought, frell, let's finish these puppies. I flocked them as usually-- an irregular covering of Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement followed up by the static grass and gentle lateral blowing to get them to stand up. But. I had bookmarked a recent page describing making more realistic terrain-- thought I'd pull it back and and see what they had to say about it. Lo and behold, they have a page on realistic grass. It's basically static grass drybrushed tan, light orange or light blue? LOL! The only drybrushed static grass I recall are Keven Dallimore's Foundry figures-- I bought a catalog Askarai for $5 off eBay, just to examine his painting technique in person-- and it looked like paint slopped on static grass. But whatever, I'm drunk, let's do it. A light drybrushing of Delta Ceramcoat's Country Tan, and a very light (although not quite light enough) drybrushing of DC's Wedgeworth Blue and what do you know-- it does look better. The picture really highlights the flaws, but in the flesh, they do look better. I'll be keeping this up. With or without the bourbon. (probably with!)

In the Face of Adversity

2010-10-11T14:05:00.000-04:00

I triumph! Well, soon enough, at least. I have just about finished my 88 battery. I realized after washing it that I forgot to paint the windshield on the Kfz 15. Also, seems like I found something else that I forgot, but which I've already forgotten again! And I need to get some large FoW base magnets. But, it's almost there. Here you can see how I tend to paint figures. The figures themselves are white glued to craft sticks, primed, then rubber cemented to the tops of craft paint bottles for painting.

Eff Me

2010-10-10T15:22:00.000-04:00

Now my microwave has gone out!!!