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.