Final assembly

That's it.  I'm calling it a year.  No more hobby will happen before the 1st.  I accomplished most of what I was aiming for the last few days though.  The pile waiting for priming has grown.

Auxiliary Command from Warlord.  Very nice models.

Fanticide minis

I received my Fanticide Kickstarter rewards awhile back.  It was definitely good value for my money.  The book is beautiful.  The rules are interesting and fun.  The ability to build your own warbands is brilliant and the models are characterful and well made.

Flying monkeys from the Kingdom of Odd.  Awesome!

Hail Caesar Battle Report - EIR vs Carthage

A month ago (I know, I'm a slacker), Jonathan and I played our first game of Hail Caesar.  We've been working up to this for about seven months, so it was much anticipated and long over due.  We each brought three units, what we had assembled and ready to go.  We did not play with any mods, or terrain on the table, aiming simply to figure out the rules.  There was a lot of flipping through the book.

The Carthaginians form a line.

End of year frenzy

I've been out of action for the last two months.  The blog's been quiet because I have not done anything hobby-wise.  My shoulder is starting to feel better, at the same time that I have a week off of work.  I'm trying to get a whole bunch assembled so that if the weather gets nice enough, I can get it primed.  I have a fair bit primed already, but most of it is not for any current project; rather they are artifacts of past attempts to paint armies.

Several of my kickstarters have come home to roost in the last two weeks.  First through the door was Fanticide.  This was the rules, cards and a Liberi war band, as well as a sample pack and the unicorn.

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas Everyone!  I hope that you are all with family, friends or associates of your choice and that you all get some gaming goodness as well as the recharge of the soul that a great Christmas can bring.

Five Worthy Blogs

I have been given the Liebster Award by Jonathan over at The Inevitable Spark.  So Thank You Jonathan.  This is a meme, started I know not where, that has been making the rounds the last few weeks.

This award is a way for our community to share, by picking five of your favorite blogs to pass the award to.  I find it a little ironic that I received it after not really managing any hobby for a month, but I'm grateful.

In the end this is nothing more than a chance for us to share some of the blogs we enjoy.  That's a worthwhile goal and well worth the effort.

The five blogs I'm going to showcase below are the ones that I look forward to reading the most.  Some that I might have chosen have already received this, very, prestigious award.  If you are not one of these five, know that every blog on my blog roll is there because I consider reading it worth my time and I gain something I value from it.

First up is Rear Guard Action.  J. de Jong is all about board games.  I have quite a collection of board games, but nothing like him.  This is a part of my hobby that was critical during my formative years, but that I don't get to spend much time on these days.  This blog has been helping me to get back in touch with the world of board gaming.

Tim K. Actually wrote this.  I've actually played games with him.  That's pretty awesome.

Next up is Cursed Treasures by Tim Kulinski.  I've met Tim a few times; played several games of Lord of the Rings against him, one of which is even covered on this blog, back in the mists of time.  Tim is the author of Legends of the High Seas.  His blog is an eclectic blend of genres, along with a fair amount of disenchantment with a certain company that used to give him joy.  I'm in touch with that emotion, so this blog resonates with me on several levels.

Roundwood's World is a blog by the very talented Sidney Roundwood.  While there are a lot of interesting posts on this gem of a blog I'll sum it all up in one word; TERRAIN.  Sidney's terrain boards have inspired me.  I'm just working up the courage to get started on some of my own, though the step into WWI gaming will have to wait.  Incidentally, I can't believe I'm the first one to put him up.

The next blog is Analogue Hobbies.  This one just blows me away.  The WWI in grey scale is one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my life.  The sheer insanity of it is an inspiration.  Curt also posts up a periodic series of scenarios, which we should all appreciate, as gamers.

The final blog is The British Army at Waterloo.  Following my theme, which seems to revolve around a certain level of insanity, even for we hobbyists, this blog is documenting the effort to collect and paint the British army at Waterloo at 1-1.  I find the concept beyond imagining.  I'm not certain I could even contemplate such a project, but it does make me feel a little bit saner.

As I said above, I enjoy and value each blog in my blog roll, but each of these is something different and unique, for either personal reasons or just the content of the blog.

I hope you all check them out and enjoy them as much as I do.

Bring the Pain

I finally had my follow up appointment this week.  I won't bore you with details, but it turned out they had to rebuild the entire front of my shoulder.  The good news is that it should be good as new, in about three months.  The bad news is that It's going to take awhile to get better; about three months.  I'm hoping to be able to hold a paintbrush long before then, but right now I guess I'll be reading rules and surfing blogs.

When the hobby hurts

I haven't posted much this month.  It's really come down to health issues.  My shoulder has been bothering me for years but has gotten really bad in the last few months.  I finally had surgery last week.  What does all of this have to do with anything?

Sometimes the hobby hurts.  Physically hurts.  For the last month, and especially, the last week, almost all hobby activity has been painful to perform.  I can game, which may be part of why I'm so excited about X-Wing right now.  I can't hold a brush, or a file.  I can't hold two little pieces of plastic together while the glue sets.  Most of the hobby is outside my reach, both figuratively and literally.

I spent a couple of days staring forlornly at the models on my desk.  There's so much to do and I'm not accomplishing any of it.  Then I started to consider how I would adjust if my temporary disability were permanent.  What could I do to allow me to paint and assemble models?  How would my collecting change if everything became harder?  This was purely an exercise in "what if" since I am expecting to recover fully.  It was really something to keep my mind occupied while I sat here and drooled on myself.

One result of all of this thought is a new found appreciation for all that I take for granted.  It's good to have things taken away from us sometimes; it helps us realize what we have and what we value.  The prospect of re-gaining full use of my right arm is something that fills me with great pleasure, above and beyond the hope of living without pain.  I definitely find that I am a person who wants what they can't have.  I'm surprised at the sense of loss I feel right now.

I am obsessive about miniatures and gaming.  I think about them way more than I should.  They have helped to keep me sane through many military deployments.  I need to keep my brain actively engaged.  I haven't watched TV in years and have a hard time sitting through a movie.  Miniatures are the balm that soothes the savage beast, so to speak.

I'm going to wrap it up here, both because I'm sure this is rambling (stupid pain killers) and because typing hurts too.  But I do have a question.  What disabilities do you guys suffer from and how do you compensate? It could be as simple as failing eyesight or as difficult as a certain sculptor's missing hand.  I'd be fascinated to hear all about it.  Or are we all insufferably healthy?

Battle Report - Isengard vs Gray Company

I am planning on running a campaign for the club come January. In preparation I've come up with 21 new scenarios.  A couple are based on some from the book but most are new, and therefore in need of testing.  A couple of weeks ago Tony and Jonathan kindly agreed to help me test one out.

The flanking force arrives

Mumak on the loose

With the Lord of the Rings campaign coming up, in January, I need to expand my army a bit, to give myself some more options.  This is nice because it is giving me motivation to complete models that I've had sitting around but that don't have a place in my normal armies.

I'll prime and paint him like this and do the howdah separately.

Painted Romans

For Valentine's day my wife bought me five boxes of Warlord Games' Early Imperial Romans.  Great woman.  I finished off one of the boxes here.  The second box are not much different, to be honest.  I now have two Cohorts of Rome's finest.  One more unit and I'll be ready to try out Hail Caesar with Jonathan in November.

Command.

Battle Report - Lego Wars

Last weekend Rhys and I tried out Lego Wars.  This is a much simplified version of wargaming, based on rules found here.  The beauty of the system is that we can play with any toys that Rhys wants to.  We, of course, played with Legos.

My fierce army, lined up and ready to go.  Shooters on the right, fighters on the left.

Sci-Fi Monday - Battle Report - X-Wing

The other night I arrived for our Thursday night game and Tony was running Jonathan through an introductory game of X-Wing.  They both had bought starter sets, and I had brought mine with me.  After the intro game we decided to play a big game of X-Wing instead of the scheduled LotR.  100 points each side, and nine ships on the table later, we were ready to go.

The brave and scrappy Rebel line prepares for battle.

15mm Wind Energy

Sci-Fi games need scenery.  Some needs to be playable, some needs to block line of sight (LoS) and some is just there to make the table look great.  I started the year with not a single piece of 15mm terrain.  This made perfect sense as I didn't have a single 15mm model or any intention to collect any.

Finished Wind Chargers.  Mechs and infantry sold separately.

X-Wing Follow up

I've had X-Wing for a week now.  It has been a huge success.  Not only has Rhys been asking to play but Owyn has played a couple of games.  They both love the models and understand the mechanics.  They are a little hazy on the maneuvering part but they love rolling dice and moving their ships.  They smoked me in one game and much rejoicing, and dancing, ensued.

Rhys still wants to learn Lord of the Rings, but he is in love with X-Wing.

This one is definitely going in the Win column.

Star Wars X-Wing

This is not a game that I had any interest in playing.  I have not been looking forward to the release.  It has not been on my radar at all.  Lots of the guys were excited about it.  Not me.

A box of pure gaming fun.

Boy was I wrong ...

Halo Terrain

Walking through Target the other day I ran across the latest toy in the Halo franchise.  I've never played Halo.  I'm not a console gamer.  It has some awesome vehicles in it though.  This caught my eye because it is scaled at 15mm.  Brilliant!  Says I.  Pre-painted 15mm sci-fi terrain for $25.  I'm in.

The doors open and close.  There's a tower that fits on the left side (picture side that is).

Mini gaming with the Wee

I was recently directed to this post about gaming with small children.  I have had three posts on my search for games to play with Rhys.  In the first one I talked about a home grown dungeon crawl game.  It quickly lost its appeal.  Owyn got bored after the first session, Rhys stuck with it for a few more but was, obviously, not really interested.

My second go around was Lego Castle Fortrann.  This never got played.  Rhys has discovered the online version on the lego web site and he plays that from time to time.  When last reported, we were planning on playing the following weekend.  The boys decided to take all of the pieces and mix them in with the rest of their legos.  That didn't work out so well, then.


The third go around saw me buying one of the Dungeons and Dragons board games.  While this game doesn't scale very well with two players, a couple of modifications have us playing it successfully.  This game was a hit and Rhys loves his "Dungeon Game".  Every couple of weeks we pull it out and have a go at it.

Incidentally, in the post above, I mentioned that we were going to see a 3/4 scale X-Wing.  That did happen and it seems churlish of me not to include a picture.

This thing lives at the local airplane museum, Wings over the Rockies.

So.... to make a short story long and interminable, while Rhys is enjoying his Dungeon Game, it is not the ultimate answer because it is not playing Lord of the Rings, which is what he really wants to do.  In addition to the complexity of the rules I am reluctant because of the way he plays with the models.  They tend to end up getting banged together in combat.  This is fine with squinkies or lego guys, but not with my painfully painted minis.

The post that started this whole story off has a good answer.  A miniature game using any and all miniatures, with simple rules and very little math.  Army size is determined by number of dice.  "We're playing a twenty dice game tonight".  Each troop/dinosaur/robot/whatever is one dice.  Each General is two.  Vehicles or large monsters are more, up to four.

Movement is in inches and every unit gets a free reform; this gets rid of fiddly maneuvers that little boys would not dig at all.  Shooters move 2", fighters 4" and cavalry/vehicles 8".  Fighters hit on 3+ and wound on 4+.  Shooters and vehicles/monsters hit on 4+ and wound on 5+.

Once you've bought your troops you divide them into units, though we may play it as a skirmish game with single models.  Models are either fighters or shooters.  Fighters hit and wound better, shooters can shoot from a distance but have a harder time hitting and wounding.  Vehicles can't fight.  Terrain is simple.  Roll dice and move around until one army is destroyed.  "Ferb, I know what we're going to do today".

This is going to be a winner.  We'll pull out the lego guys and build some armies and start fighting.  I can hardly wait.  The inventor of the game calls it Tourna.  While that is a grand name and all, I'm going to Rhysicize it right now and call it Lego-War.

By the way, there are at least two other Lego wargames out there that I am aware of, though neither is appropriate to my target audience.

The first is BrikWars, which has been around for a long time.  The key thing with this game is that anything goes and if you are thinking about it too hard then you are missing the point.  I highly recommend a read through the rules.  This is how Legos should be played with.

The second is Mobile Frame Zero.  This is a lego mech game.  The rules will run you about $20.  They sell kits for the mechs, though anyone with a Lego collection should be able to build their own.  Rhys and I will be checking this one out a bit down the line.

Sci-Fi Monday - Firestorm Invasion

Studio Sparta is preparing to release three games set in the Firestorm Armada universe.  Spartan has spent the last few years developing the background for this system, and there is plenty of scope for them to add to it.  There has been speculation about what scale their long promised ground game would be in.  The two most common scales discussed were 28mm and 15mm with 10mm and 6mm thrown out as ideas from time to time.  The surprising thing is not the choice they made but, rather, that they didn't choose...

Dindrenzi and Terrans face off in a tank knife fight.

Studio Sparta

Spartan Games has started a new design studio within their larger organization.  This production house is called Studio Sparta.  The plan is for Studio Sparta to be the means to release some boutique lines or one off models that don't really fit the mass production model.