End of the Year

With Christmas and New Years behind me, I was thinking back on the year that's just ended. The one constant in the universe is change, and a lot has changed since this time last year. So much so that I'm thinking that maybe I'm remembering things incorrectly. The biggest change is that I have 3 kids now instead of 2. That I'm pretty sure of.

It's hard to believe that at this time last year I had only played maybe 5 or 6 boardgames in the previous couple of years. Now, it's my primary gaming outlet, even more so than video/computer games (with the noble exception of Worldwide Soccer Manager). A quick count at BoardGameGeek has me having played 71 games in 2008. Maybe 5 of them were miniatures, the rest being boardgames. And it was probably more since I didn't start using that site until June.

I'm not necessarily singing the praises of boardgames though. I'm not saying that since I've discovered boardgames I've decided to give up miniatures, because I haven't. I think the main reasons I've been playing so many boardgames is that the people I live near now play them they don't require as big of a commitment as miniature gaming does.

Boardgames also look cool, as I've stated before.

Soccer (Football)

Recently the call went out to the Army of Central Maryland's Yahoo group for people to run games at Cold Wars 2009. I said I would run a game.

So I'm sitting here thinking that it's very easy to say you're going to run a game, something else entirely to actually do it. But it shouldn't be a big deal, since I'm going to put on a modern African game and I won't have to paint anything new. That doesn't mean that I won't paint anything new, but since I've got a fair amount of miniatures and scenery already I won't have to stress about it.

I'm also sitting here playing Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009. This is the US version of Football Manager 2009, a very popular computer game in England and my favorite computer game of all time. When I say game I mean all of the versions that I have played, which right now is probably around 5 or 6. Anyhow, in these games you manage a professional soccer team. Originally the game was all text-based. When your team played a game, the only feedback you got on how things were going came from text that flashed along the bottom of the screen. Later versions introduced a 2D representation of the game, with your players appearing as little circles on the field. This latest version has a 3D match engine, though it is pretty rudimentary and pales in comparison to video games like EA's Fifa series. But, looks are not what this game is all about. It's got a lot of depth and really makes you feel like your running the team.

That's all for now. Steven Gerrard just rang a shot off the post in the first minute against Manchester United. Gotta watch the game.

Too Many Games?

My cup runneth over. I expanded my recently played list to 10 games.

Anyhow, thought I'd post the 5 games that I haven't played that I want to play the most:

The Devil's Cauldron
Here I Stand
Twilight Imperium
Descent
The Napoleonic Wars

There's certainly no guarantee that I'll play any of these games in the near future. I'd guess that the game that is the farthest out would be The Devil's Cauldron, since it seems pretty complicated and there's a lot of counters to punch out. I imagine of the above games Twilight Imperium is the most likely to be played next, but we'll see.

My 5 most anticipated games that haven't come out yet:

Burger Joint
Unhappy King Charles
Le Havre
Republic of Rome (Valley Games reprint)
Wars of the Roses

Of these Republic of Rome has to be the furthest away from being played, since it might not be released in this decade, if at all.

And, my list for out of print games that I really want to play:

Kremlin
Kingmaker
Raid on St. Nazaire
This Accursed Civil War

Finally, my list of games that I only want because they look pretty:

War of the Ring Collector's Edition
Axis and Allies Anniversary Edition
Samurai
Race the Wind (I also think this game looks like it would be fun to play

Kids' Games

On Tuesdays and Thursdays my wife works and my younger children are at the babysitter's so in the afternoon it's just me and my 7 year old, Gabriel. After homework (boring) we play (fun). He beat me in checkers and we tied in Hey That's My Fish!, but I did get a win in NHL 08.






Maybe I can get him to try Battlelore again next week. This time I'm going to set the game up before I even ask him. Last time he was all set to play but by the time I was done setting up the game he'd lost interest.

And he has pajamas on because it was wear pajama day at school.

Too Many Eurogames?

I was checking my blog to see if there were any new comments (there werent') and I noticed my boardgamegeek game tracking thingy was filled with what I would call "Eurogames." And, the answer to the question in this post's title is yes.

The Great Board Game Crash of..?

On recommendation from my buddy Marshall, I checked out the Fortress Ameritrash site today.

Read the article about how the hobby game industry may crash like the video game one did long ago. I found this fascinating. For starters, the "video game crash" reminds me of the Reagan presidency. When Reagan was elected I was 9 years old and when he finished his second term I was 17, so I did a lot of growing up during that time. What I remember of those times was people making fun of him because he was an actor/old/Republican/etc... There were scandals like the Iran-Contra thing. But he talked a good game, had buckets of charisma, and everyone loved him.

Fast forward to the beginning of this century, and airports are being named after him. All of a sudden he's remembered as being one of the greatest presidents ever. Not how I remembered it at all.

Now, I'm not saying Reagan wasn't a great president, that's not my point. What I'm trying to say is that how history has looked back on those times is very different from what I remember experiencing during those times.

Just like the video game crash. People talk about that now and I'm like, "What video game crash?" I remember having the Atari 2600 and loving it. I remember really wanting a computer to play games on but my parents wouldn't buy one ("Them computers are a fad!"). I remember playing the Nintendo Entertainment System when I was in 11th or 12th grade. Somewhere in between the Atari and the NES was the fabled video game crash. I didn't notice.

Granted, if the hobby board game industry goes belly-up, I'll probably notice since I'm a lot older than I was back in the early 80's. But it wouldn't be that big of a deal. I'll just watch tv and play Dungeons and Dragons like I did back in those dark days between 1983 and 1987.

Books

Went to Ocean City, MD (my favorite place on Earth) this past weekend. Lousy time for the most part (cold, windy weather and had to take my oldest son to the ER), but, I started reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy Friday afternoon. I got the book as a gift from my mom last Christmas, but with all of the other dumb stuff that I do I hadn't read it. Actually, I also got Six Frigates from my Uncle, and I haven't read that yet either. AND, I got World War Z the Christmas BEFORE last, and I haven't read THAT yet either. But I will.

Anyway, I finished The Road Saturday afternoon. Granted, it's only 250 pages, but I just couldn't stop reading it. Obviously I did stop reading to do stuff like take care of my children, but even then the book occupied my mind.

A very disturbing and upsetting read. However, very touching too. I recommended it to a friend of mine who is Mormon, and he half-jokingly asked if it was uplifting to the spirit. I said it certainly was (and it is).

So now my most anticipated movie is The Road which is scheduled for limited release in November. I couldn't believe it when I searched the Web for the book title when I got home in order to read others' opinions of the book that there was a film version coming out. It's funny, but the last movie I saw was No Country for Old Men, based on another of McCarthy's books.

Anyway, highly recommended.

On the Beach

My family and I are taking a little vacation in Ocean City MD this weekend. Right now our youngest is asleep and the other two are in the room next door with their Grandmother. So, since it's nice and quiet I decided to write an entry.

In the past month I seem to have more free time. For one thing, the baby is steadily sleeping through the night. Also, school has started which means an early bed time for the oldest. For one reason or another, it just feels that the initial storm of activity that hit us after the baby was born is starting to subside and we are getting into a nice routine.

With this I've been able to do some things that I had put on hold since Spring. I've started to reduce the pile of unread comic books in my den. I also have picked back up with my subscriptions through Discount Comic Book Service (highly recommended). I even bought some back issues, namely all of the Secret Invasion books released so far.

Finally finished my terrain board. Right now I have a Zamundan village set up on it, and I'm pretty pleased with how it looks. I'm not so much proud of my modeling skills, I'm just glad I finally finished it.

As for gaming, I haven't played a miniatures game since Historicon. However, I have continued to play board games and Hammer of the Scots is our favorite. I've got a copy of the reprint of The Napoleonic Wars and I'm looking forward to giving that a try. I admit that I haven't felt like trying any new games lately. The other day we played Tannhauser, which seems like a pretty fun game and I love the setting, but my heart really wasn't in it. Then we played Robo Rally and I can see how it could be a really fun time, but again I just wasn't into it. Then we decided to play Hammer of the Scots and it was awesome as usual. I think since I've been stressed around the house lately I just don't feel like trying new things. Hammer feels both comfortable since I know the rules but intriguing since there's so many different strategies to implement.

As for painting miniatures I picked up my German tanks that I ordered through a friend of mine from Maryland. I'm going to experiment using the Army Painter spray paint and shade and see how they turn out using those. Plus I'll need more German infantry to support them.

I've even had time to play video/computer games, something I haven't done with any frequency since maybe last April or so. Unfortunately, my Xbox 360 broke and I had to send if off to Microsoft to be fixed. My wife gave me Spore for our anniversary and I'm looking forward to installing that when we get home. (In case you're wondering I got her a vintage Return of the Jedi Ewok Village playset)

Well, I'm wasted. I'll take some photos of my terrain board and post them next week.

Assembly Point

I attended Assembly Point in Glen Burnie, MD this past Saturday. This is a local con put on by my wargaming club, The Army of Central Maryland. It was a pretty fun time. My buddy and I brought some board games with us and at first it was just him and I playing Hammer of the Scots. After that though we got a 5 player game of Shadows Over Camelot going and it was a blast. I finally got to be the traitor and it was all I had anticiapted it to be.

There were some pretty nice looking miniatures games going on, and there was a very well supported Flames of War tourney as well.

Unfortunately we couldn't stay long and we headed home after we finished Shadows. Hopefully they will run this con again next year.

Terrain Board

After using nothing but cloths for years I decided to make a terrain board from polystyrene. Nothing fancy, I bought a 4X8 sheet of the stuff from Home Depot, and painted it with Kilz to start. Followed that with a coat of textured paint, and then painted brown over that. Finished it up by dry-brushing a very light tan over the brown. I have to say it looks pretty cool, and if definitely looks a lot better than using a piece of felt.

Next up I'm going to make some hills using the same technique, and after that I plan on making another terrain board. The new one will be made to look like grassland.

I'll post some pics later.

After Action Report

As promised months ago, here's a little description of my modern Africa game that I ran for the Army of Central Maryland.

To begin with, after some solo play-testing I modified the game as follows: I placed the Zamundan rebel compound closer to the center of the table and started all of the rebels inside the buildings. I found that if the American/British Humvee column had to travel from one end of the table to the other, and if some of the rebels were allowed to start the game outside the buildings behind their barricades the Humvees would just get shot up too much.

So at the beginning of the game one AH-6 Little Bird carrying 4 Delta operators and one UH-60 Blackhawk carrying 8 US Army paras flew towards the compound while the Humvees rolled up the road in the same direction. The Zamundans held their positions inside the buildings, wishing to avoid being targeted by the coalition's well-armed helos. The Little Bird landed on the roof of the target building (they were given intelligence before the game revealing the location of the rebel leader they were supposed to capture) while the airborne inside the Blackhawk roped down towards the deck. Unfortunately, one of them lost his grip on the rope and fell. At this time the Zamundans in the target building emerged and opened fire on the paras, which were hard pressed trying to form up and drag their wounded buddy to cover.

Things got worse for the Americans as they suffered another casualty and were out of the game for a few turns, unable to support the Delta on the roof. Said Delta were exchanging some fire with another group of Zamundans who had come out of the target building. Both sides got pinning results on the other, but the Deltas easily recovered while the Zamundans could not. However, disaster struck the coalition when another group of Zamandans who had been moving among some crates in the middle of the compound opened up on the Deltas with their AK-47's and wiped all of the American elite counter-terrorists!

From there on out it was a tough road for the coalition forces. While they still had their airborne troops and a number of British SAS who had ridden to battle in the Humvee column, they were out of position as by now the Russian APC had arrived to rescue the Zamundan rebel leader. The Deltas had been the only troops close enough to stop him from making a dash to his former communist saviors, but they were all casualties. So, Papa Booya escaped, victory to the Zamundans.

A pretty clear cut victory, I might add. The squad of Russians the Zamundan players had access to didn't even have to fire a shot.

Obviously I have to count this game as another play-test, but I won't take anything away from the Zamundans who played a good game. Maybe the other side should have gotten the airborne and SAS into position first before the Delta landed and assaulted the building. As it was they were exposed and paid for this mistake with their lead lives.

One thing I will change (maybe) is that I will allow the Delta guys to blow through the roof of the building they land on. We'll see.

Anyhow, everyone seemed to have fun and hopefully I will run the game again at Fall In.

Lead and Cardboard Volume 2

Attending Historicon + new baby sleeping through the night = return to gaming!

Actually I've been gaming a lot, what I haven't been doing is posting here or painting.

So obviously here's a post and in the basement I've got 20 WW 2 German 15mm figures being painted. Once finished they will join the ranks of the storied Herman Goring division.

But like I said I've been doing lots of gaming. My buddy and I have played about 6 games of Hammer of the Scots and it's become one of our favorite games. We also tried Columbia Games' Liberty but were less impressed with it. We've got a number of Columbia's block games waiting to be played, but we're the most excited about their new one Wars of the Roses.

I finally played one of my most anticipated games the other night: Die Macher. Loved it. Admittedly a game's theme is very important to me and there's something about trying to win German political elections that I find fascinating. Even if the theme doesn't excite you like it does me, I think this game has a lot to offer. It's got two auction phases! What more could you ask for! I'm going to try and set up a five player game in the near future. We only had three the other night.

My other future plans include painting up more German infantry and armor along with building some terrain boards. I also plan on collecting and painting a Skaven army for Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Warhammer was the first miniatures game I ever played, and for years the only one. I played Orcs and Goblins, mainly because the boxed set I bought came with them and the Elves, and my friend wanted to be the Elves. But I always thought the Skaven were the coolest army, but I was too poor to buy all those models. So after listening to the Podhammer podcast (highly recommended) I was itching to get back into Warhammer (haven't played in 10 years) and I decided to buy the Skaven army I always wanted. Ok, I've only bought one boxed set so far, but I figure that's a start.

Nice Pretty Boxes

I haven't had the time or inclination to post for awhile, but I have been gaming. Haven't done any miniature painting lately, though I have some 15mm German armor on the way.

I'm going to paste below an email I sent to some friends of mine on the topic of board games vs miniatures games.

"Obviously miniatures and board games have their respective pros and cons. I think what makes me have the opinion that board games are better than miniature games is that when I play a board game I am more likely to have fun than when playing a miniatures game. Of course now you all are saying no shit Sherlock! So let me explain."

"Both board games and miniature games have an equal potential for enjoyment. It's just easier for a board game to reach that potential. There's a lot more that can go wrong with playing a miniatures game. And a lot of what can go wrong is tied up in the fact that who you are playing with can make or break a game. I really like Command Decision, but I doubt I will play it at a convention anymore. I played in a CD game at the last Fall In, and the game as far as the scenario and miniatures went was fantastic. But I got stuck playing with someone who probably should be committed to an institution and it's one of the worst times I've ever had playing at a con. At the same Fall In I played in a Russian Civil War game that had beautiful miniatures and used a pretty cool set of rules that I had never heard of. Should have been a great game but I was sitting between two jackasses. The guy on the right kept doing dumb shit (which I didn't really mind) and the asshole on my left kept getting mad about it (which I did mind)."

"So great miniatures games can be ruined by the numbskulls you have to play with. It seems the best times I've had playing games is when we all play together. Case in point the Carnage and Glory game at the same Fall In when me and Kevin were on one side and John and Scott were on the other."

"Obviously a game where there are flaws in the rules/scenario/playtesting/figures/general preparation isn't going to be that good."

"Board games don't suffer from these problems since you generally don't play on the same side as any of the other players. And a good game has been playtested and refined before you play it."

"And they come in such nice pretty boxes."

Cardboard and cardboard?

Where's the lead? Still packed away in all those bins you can see in the photos of my basement.

Tonight I had every intention of preparing some 15mm German paras for painting, but I never went downstairs. Granted, the Stanley Cup Finals were on, but mainly I just didn't feel like messing with miniatures.

Well, I figure I'll get to them eventually. Or maybe just send them to Sri Lanka.

Actually, speaking of Sri Lanka, I'm sorta planning on doing a 28mm Russian Civil War game for Cold Wars 09. I figure I'll buy the figures at Historicon and ship them over to Sri Lanka (Fernando). My reasoning for having them painted is that it would be much faster and also look better than if I did the painting. I say sorta planning on doing this because it's possible that by the time I get to Historicon I will have changed my mind. Either way, I think it's a cool idea.

And it's Cardboard and Cardboard because I've been playing a lot of board games lately and I'm really enjoying it. More on that later.

Recap

Very busy this past weekend. Made a trip to Maryland on Friday for my wife's Aunt's 99th birthday. Saturday I took care of some chores around the house before heading up to West Virginia for a game of Twilight Struggle. Then Sunday it was back to Maryland to run my Zamunda game in the afternoon followed by a Dungeons and Dragons session. Got home around 1 am and spent Monday relaxing.

I can't praise Twilight Struggle enough. I love the theme for one thing. It's funny, I'm reading a book about Vietnam post WW2 through 1990, and I was just reading about the beginning of U.S. involvement there and what we were doing to de-stabilize the North and prop up the South, and I found myself picturing influence counters being placed on the Twilight Struggle map. But beyond the theme it's just so much fun to play. The back and forth between the two players is awesome. In the game we played Saturday, around turn 5 or so I was 1 victory point away from winning, but then Europe was scored and I was back down to like 12. By turn 8, I was at 10 or so points, but I was so far out of it in Europe that I realized that when the game ended and all of the regions would be scored, the Americans would have control of Europe which is an automatic victory. Then, I get dealt the Wargames card, which, when played as an event, allows the player to end the game as long as the Defcon level is at 2 and he gives his opponent 8 victory points. So basically I ended the game and won by two points. Great game.

I'll try and post an AAR of my Zamunda game later this week.

Packed Up

Tonight I packed up my modern Africa game for the trip to Maryland on Sunday. It's a few days early but my wife and I are going to her Aunt's 99th birthday party tomorrow night, and on Saturday I've got some chores to attend to and I'm planning on playing some boardgames up in West Virginia. So, I figured I might as well get it ready to go now.

While I was down in the basement getting everything together, I was thinking of what I was going to work on next. First off, I have several tree stands littering my one table that only need some dry-brushing to finish them off. They've been sitting there for a month now. So first off I'm going to finish them up and pack them away. Then, I'm going to do a general clean-up of my work area, since it's gotten pretty messy over the past couple of months.

When that's all finished, I think I'm going to do a mass painting of 15mm Germans for Command Decision.

I plan on posting some reviews on here of games and rules sets that I've played in the next few weeks.

The Wall

I've really hit the wall these past few weeks as far as miniature painting is concerned. For one thing I've been busy setting up my game and doing some playtesting, along with typing up some charts for the players. This has eaten into my wargaming time budget. But also I've been pretty wiped out from work and doing things around the house.

Tonight I packed up most of my game for the trip to Maryland on Sunday. This will be good because once it's all packed away I won't be able to fool with it and hopefully I'll get some painting done. I'd like to paint my Somali warlord on a cellphone, but if I don't get him done by Sunday I have other figures that can stand in for him.

As for gaming we had a pretty cool session at Your Hobby Place in Martinsburg, West Virginia this past Sunday. I think we had about a dozen people show up. The group I was in played Eketorp and Shogun. Eketorp was a lot of fun and it was definitely different. I'd call it a resource gathering game. Shogun was my game and I've been itching to play it for awhile now. Great game. The only thing I didn't like was I spent a lot of time and brain power explaining the rules instead of playing. At least that's my excuse for coming in dead last in the 5 player game we had of it.

Here are some pictures of the BMP-3.








It still needs some weathering effects and shading.

Update (mid-week)

Few days late with my update this week, not really sure what had me so busy.

The most significant thing from the past week has to be my new airbrush. I just love it. It atomizes the paint much better than my old one and I have a lot more control with this new one as well. I painted the camo on my BMP-3 and I was pretty pleased with the results.

Not much else painting wise, but I did so some gaming. Last Saturday my wife and I played Ticket to Ride (I won) and Scrabble (she won). That night some friends came over and we played Thurn and Taxis, Daytona 500, Colosseum, and Ave Caesar. I had a good time with all of them but I really liked Thurn and Taxis. Great game.

Looking ahead I'm going to do some playtesting with my Historicon game and paint up the Somali warlord on a cellphone that I got from The Assault Group.

Airbrush

My new airbrush arrived and I'm very pleased with it so far. I sprayed on a base coat on my BMP-3 and I really found this brush much easier to use than my old one. It's gravity fed, meaning the paint cup is on top of the brush. My old one sucked the paint up from the bottom and I always found the paint cup to be in the way.

The paint seems to be much more atomized with this new brush. My old one tended to splatter the paint, which wasn't too much of a problem with doing basic stuff but it made painting camo impossible.

Speaking of camo, hopefully I'll get to painting some camo on my BMP-3 Friday night.

Monday Update

This past week I finished up my 15mm Shermans and Stuarts for Command Decision, and I painted two 28mm mortars and one 28mm heavy machine gun for my Historicon game. What I was looking forward to painting the most was the 1/50th scale BMP-3 I got from Imprint Models. Unfortunately my airbrush went from being difficult to work with to not working at all. So, all I did was primer the BMP and now I'm waiting for my new Iwata to arrive.

As for gaming I played Fire and Axe and I believe I won, which is a first for me with that game. I also played Twilight Struggle, or at least 7 turns of it. Great game. Can't wait to play again.

Hopefully my airbrush will arrive soon. I'll post some pictures of the completed BMP-3 once I'm done. Other than that I haven't decided whether to start my 15mm Germans or go back to painting 15mm modern French Foreign Legion for Ak-47 Republic.

Disapointing Week

At least so far. A lot going on at home, a lot of BS at work that has me annoyed, so I haven't been painting much at all this week. And then when I did try to do some things tonight my airbrush breaks. Maybe broken isn't the best word but it certainly is no longer functioning correctly.

One thing I did do was finish assembling the BMP-3 that I have. It's a really nice resin and metal model. Can't wait to paint it. Hopefully I'll have an new airbrush soon so I can put some camo on it.

Recap

A pretty lousy week has finally come to an end. Hopefully there won't be any more sicknesses or injuries for awhile.

While I didn't finish anything this week, I've got 5 more 15mm British tanks (3 Shermans and 2 Stuarts) on the verge of completion. Should be able to wrap them up tomorrow night.

I started assembling the BMP-3 that I got from Imprint Models tonight. It's a great looking resin model. If you're looking for a modern vehicle to go with 28mm figures, check them out.

While I missed another AD&D session, I did get some gaming in. My son and I played Doom: The Boardgame and Marvel Heroscape. When we played Doom I left out a lot, mainly the cards since though he can read it would have taken him forever to read the cards and I don't think he would have understood how to use them.

When we played Heroscape we used the basic rules and he had no problem understanding what to do. He beat me in the first game and then I beat him in the second. Lots of fun.

Gabe rolling some dice.

The winner and his villains.

Gabe moving his demons. He always wants to be the bad guys!

Got a lot of goodies this week. The aforementioned BMP-3 arrived the day after some Ospreys concerning the Waffen SS and Herman Goring Division that I ordered off of Amazon.com. When I'm done these British I'm going to start on the Germans that I have. Also stopped by Your Hobby Place in Martinsburg West Virginia and picked up the Marvel Heroscape game and Battlelore.

Quick Post

It's been a tough week on the home front. Both of my kids have been sick, and one had to be taken to the emergency room after he got hit in the eye with a bungie cord. Long story there, suffice it to say that four kids jumping on a trampoline equals eye injury. Anyway, he's ok now, but my painting time has been limited this week.

Tonight I did airbrush the base coat onto my 28mm Land Rovers that I got from The Assault Group (TAG). I also assembled a Maxim machine gun and two mortars that I got from Bolt Action Miniatures. These will be used by the militia forces in my modern Africa game for Historicon. I have to say it was a real pain gluing them together.

The other thing I did tonight was take all of my TAG African militia/army figures out of storage so I can start organizing my Historicon game. Some of the figures need a little repair since they were damaged when we moved back in 06. I have used them since the move but only a small number of them. For Historicon I intend on using all 80 (estimated) of them, though I do think I'm making this game too big. We shall see.

Capitals Lose in Overtime

Well, all good things come to an end I suppose. The good news is I won't have to spend time watching them on TV anymore, so I'll have more time to paint!

I set up what I have for my Historicon game so far and took some pictures. It was quite fun doing so.



Green Berets deploy from a Little Bird while a Blackhawk hovers overhead.

Close-up of the Green Berets.

Humvee column preparing to move in.

Recap

Basically this week I finished up several things I had been working on over the past month or so. I finished my SAS and 15mm British infantry, and the flight stands for my 1/48th helicopters. I also assembled and primed two 15mm Stuart light tanks and three more Shermans, along with two 28mm Land Rovers for my SAS to ride in. Those are what I'll be painting this week.

Here are some pictures of the SAS and one of my helicopters.

Twilight Struggle

With my wife out of town and me up most of the night with a sick child I didn't feel much like painting anything today. However, once my son was feeling better and taking a nap, I opened up and punched my copy of Twilight Struggle and read through the rules and played a turn solo.





I can see why this game is so well received. Even though I was playing by myself I really enjoyed it. It probably helps that I like anything to do with the Cold War, but I think just about anybody would like this game.

In the game the US and USSR attempt to gain control of countries through "Influence." Influence markers are placed by spending operations points which are gained by playing cards. Cards are either played for operations points or as events, such as the Soviet blockade of West Berlin. These events usually result in one player gaining or losing influence in particular countries. One twist though is if you play a card for ops points but the event depicted is your opponents event (denoted by a white or red star) then the event happens as well. For example, when I was playing the Soviets' cards, I played Marshall Plan which gave me 4 ops points. However, the event also happened which resulted in the US gaining influence in all of the countries of Western Europe. However, the ops points spent resulted in the Soviets gaining control of France, a "battleground" state. Some countries are battlegrounds which come into play when scoring and effect the Defcon level (coup attempts in battlegrounds move the Defcon marker closer to nuclear war).

Anyhow, without going too much further into a detailed explanation of the rules, the Soviets were one country away from an automatic victory in the first turn.

Seems like a great game.

A Few Pictures

These are some of the 15mm British I've been working on. They are based for Command Decision: Test of Battle, the rules we are using for our Anzio campaign.



Medium machine gun and light mortar stands.



Forward observer.



Infantry armed with rifles and smg's.



Battalion commander.

3 Sherman M4's and a 105mm howitzer.

Been a long day. I'll try and post the 28mm stuff I've been working on tomorrow.

SAS Are "Done"

I put done in quotes because they're not quite completely done. Everything is finished except the eyes. I want to try a new eye painting method with them. Well, new for me at least. That is painting the socket area black, then painting the "white" of the eye white (obviously) over the black, and then black for the pupil. Before I would have just painted the white part and then put a black dot (roughly) in the center. But I've been looking at some photos of miniatures lately that have a black outline around the white area and I think it looks pretty good. Hopefully my attempt will turn out as well.

Spent a bit of time tonight working on my helicopter flight stands, and I'm pretty pleased with them. I glued poly-fill to the dowels and then spray painted it tan in order to give the appearance of dust being kicked up by the helicopter's rotors. It looks pretty cool, but I am concerned the poly-fill will come off quite easily. I'll have to tell the players to handle them with care.

Pictures coming soon.

Quick Update

Just a quick post tonight.

My SAS figures are practically finished. I spent a good two hours on them tonight, and all that's left to do is to finish up the bases and varnish them. I'll try to post some pictures by the end of the week.

I've discovered a new podcast. It's not really that new but it's new to me. It's called Meeples and Miniatures and it's done by an Englishman named Neil Shuck (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/neil.shuck/). He covers both boardgames and miniature wargames. I'm really enjoying it so far. I've gotten tired of all of the video/computer game podcasts I normally listen to. Must be getting to old.

Monday Night Quarterback

I was planning on posting tonight a recap of what I did over the weekend, and decided it would be cool to make Monday night posts a regular thing reviewing what I did gaming wise over the past week.

One thing I did was start this blog. Not sure if it's motivating me to paint figures since I've been pretty motivated ever since Cold Wars. But, I am pleased that I've made more than one post since the last time I started a blog one post is all I did.

As for painting, I finished basing around 16 stands of 15mm WW2 British for Command Decision. Most of these were two figure infantry stands with a couple of one figure command stands mixed in. I also finished up four 15mm Shermans and assembled and primered three more Shermans and two Stuarts. This is all for my club's Anzio campaign.

For my Historicon modern game, as I mentioned the other night I was hoping to get a lot done on Sunday. Well, I didn't quite get done what I wanted, but that was mainly due to besides painting up the SAS I have I also worked on flight stands for the game. All in all I'm pretty pleased since tonight I was able to complete all of the fleshy parts and basic uniforms for the 10 SAS figures. I'm considerably less pleased with the quality but I'll save my musings on that for another post.

As for gaming, I didn't play a single thing this past week. Actually, that's how most weeks are with me. I usually always make our bi-weekly Dungeons and Dragons game, but I just wasn't up for the two hour drive (more on that in another post) and I was eager to work on my figures anyway. This week doesn't look so good for gaming either since my wife is going out of town this weekend and I'll be looking after our two sons while she's gone. Maybe I'll break out Triumph of Chaos, a boardgame by Clash of Arms on the Russian Civil War, and start learning the rules.

Later.

Gardening

The weekend arrived and with it came expectations of doing a lot of painting. However, a trip to Home Depot with my 6 year old son to pick up gardening supplies lasted 3 times as long as I had anticipated. Couple that with my mom and aunt stopping by for dinner, and I didn't get down into the basement until 10 pm. Since I was tired the only painting I did was some flesh on my TAG British SAS. I also cleaned and assembled two Quality Castings Stuart tanks and two Battlefront Lloyd carriers.

Not much on the agenda for tomorrow, save for watching the Washington Capitals playoff game, so hopefully I'll make some headway with the SAS.

Added some stuff

Added some lists to the blog. This weekend I'll try to count up what I've painted this year.

As for miniatures tonight I cleaned and based 10 Assault Group (TAG) British SAS figures. By based I mean I super-glued them to 20mm Games Workshop slotta bases. I also cleaned and glued the wheels on the two (TAG) Land Rovers that I have.

Speaking of bases, I've had trouble deciding on and sticking to a particular base. I have a lot of 28mm TAG modern African minis based on washers. But with the figures I've done lately I've used the afore mentioned GW bases. I like both styles and I can't seem to stick with one or the other. Actually, I had decided to use the GW bases exclusively from now on and I was planning on re-basing the figures that are on washers. But, I was looking at some pictures of minis based on washers (or something similarly flat) and now I'm not so sure. For right now I'm sticking with the GW bases, though I doubt I'm going to re-base the other figures I have.

Later.

First post, why am I here?

The long and the short of why I started this blog is because I'm lazy. Specifically, I'm a lazy wargamer. I have too many figures that are unpainted and too many projects unfinished. I'm sure I'm not alone in this, and one of my friends has more unpainted figures in his basement than most of the vendors at HMGS cons have to sell. However, he has a lot of projects and games that are complete, and that's what I want to work on. Not just painting all of the figures I have laying around, but finishing projects and running games.

Here are some pictures of my unpainted lead.

The above bin holds all of the ships that fought at Tsushima. This is perhaps my biggest shame. I bought them at Historicon 06, and not a single one of them has been opened.

It may seem foolish for someone who has miniatures to paint to waste time writing a blog, but I feel that if I put this up on the Internets for anybody (or nobody) to see, I'll be motivated to get things done. Basically, my hope is that I will work more on my minis so I can post my progress here. That's the idea.

One more thing. I named this Lead and Cardboard since I've been getting into playing boardgames over the past year or so. Also, I didn't call it Lazy Mike or something like that since I want the blog to be about my wargaming hobby in general. And my main inspiration for starting it was Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog http://saskminigamer.blogspot.com/

Till next time...