Heading to FlintCon 4FEB23, two open seats in my ride

        I will be leaving around 7:30am to head to FlintCon. I have two open seats if anyone wants to save a bit of gas they can report in at my place prior to 07:30 (but NOT prior to 07:15!!!) and I will be happy to give them a lift.

Flintcon 2023, February 4th

 

a Wild West shootout game from Flintcon '22

        Hot on the heels of Spartacon'23 we have the rapidly approaching Flintcon '23. Another great "small convention" hosted by the endlessly energetic Rod Cain at the St. Paul Lutheran Church & School at 402 S. Ballenger Highway, Flint, Michigan 48532. The Facebook page is here. They have a Google site as well

      I have always enjoyed trips to this convention and will be running games of 02 Hundred Hours. A great feature of this con is that it seems to always have the best Flea Market. Food is available on premises and there will be Pathfinder and Starfinder games in addition to historical miniature games. A partial list of games can be found below.

Ooh-Rah! 28mm Near-Future Space Marines from Wargames Atlantic

 

the front of the box

 

        OK, if you are a reader of my minis reviews you are well aware of the high esteem that I hold for Wargames Atlantic's recent work, and it is a regard that has been earned and deserved. But I have to say that this latest offering "Ooh-Rah!" doesn't fit that mold. It simply towers above all of the previous product from Wargames Atlantic; these are quite possibly the best 28mm figures that I have had the pleasure of seeing in the fifty years that I have been collecting and painting wargames minis. And I don't say that lightly because there are some damned fine minis out there. The proportion, positioning and detail is all top-notch, the reasonably-sized and realistic-looking weapons and vast selection of heads all add up to a tour-de-force of what is possible with digital design and CNC machining. Wargames Atlantic (and the rest of the other manufacturers out there) are going to have to work very hard to exceed this level of quality.

       But off to the real information rather than my hyperventilating! The box contains four identical sprues each holding six figures with associated arms, heads and weapons. These are flawlessly molded in a firm gray plastic that displays the sumptuous level of detail very clearly. The detail is crisply cast and clearly defined without being oversized or clumsy. These figures have the look of the Space Marines from "Aliens" in that they are wearing functional uniforms and carrying weapons that a man could reasonably pick up, no outlandish gigantic guns or absurdly huge swords, just a bunch of mean S.O.B.s here to get a job done. These are what GW's Catachans wanted to be but failed at (to risk the ire of 40K fan-boys). 

Gaming Update: My Place, Saturday 21JAN23 1900hrs

 I guess the title says it all

Not sure yet what we are playing

Spartacon 2023, A partial photo survey

        First off let me apologize to some of the fine Game Masters whose efforts didn't get recorded; I did get distracted chatting with old friends and new during the first session and in the second I ran my 02 Hundred Hours scenario twice which kept me pretty well occupied throughout the allotted time (in fact I was too busy to even take pictures of my games). Importantly turn-out was up considerably since last year; the weather was very kind and folks seem to have just decided to get over Covid and on with their lives. This bodes well for continued survival of this great little convention. 

 

Jeff Przybylo presented this very attractive naval game 

featuring "Form on Admiral's Wake" rules and some superbly finished 1/1200 scale ships 

The trouble with friends.......

         Having good friends is crucial in life. I have been blessed with a surfeit of kind, close and generous friends that have made my life richer and far more pleasant. But there is a darker side of friends, they know you so well they can get you involved in things that the little voice in the back of you head says "NO!!" to. The Housemartin long ago discovered that if he left cool minis at my place I am quite likely to paint them for him. OldSarge, on the other hand, simply likes 3-d printing really cool stuff and then leaving it with me, knowing full well that I REALLY don't need to get involved in more projects. He grins and tells me that he, "just thought you might like to take a look at these". His latest bit of mischief was giving me some Scottish Cattle (which I actually could use, my Viking raiders need something to steal) and a sampler of Native Americans from the Plains Wars era, which is a subject matter that I have been trying to avoid. See below for his latest offerings.

 

Scottish Cattle, darned fuzzy but quite contented looking

these are in 28mm but the file is scaleable 

 

some rather less than contented-looking Native Americans

 

 

these are also in 28mm and come in a wide variety of poses

 

as do the horses,

 I love horses, I just hate painting them

        This lot have been bumped up to next in the painting line-up, right behind the Partisans. OldSarge has the rights to print and sell all of these minis, contact him at his blog.

Happy New Year! Planning for SpartaCon

       I for one am glad to see the back of 2022. It has been a largely disastrous year and I'm hoping for better from 2023. Part of that is looking forward to participating in Spartacon 2023 on 7JAN23. I will be running a 02 Hundred Hours game in the second session. 

        A note to the regular gaming group, I will be leaving my place at about 0700hrs. I have three free spaces in my ride if anybody wants to hitch a ride with me. I will not be staying past the second session so we should return to my place around 1930hrs. Contact me if you are interested .

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!

 

Here is to hoping that everyone has a happy holiday season!

and a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year
 

Partisans, for REAL this time

        I have to confess that every time I open a box of plastic minis I have to over come the urge to modify, customize and remodel each and every mini in the box. Rather than fight it I decided to roll with this impulse. I not only got out the box of partisans I also brought forth the spares bits from the Wargames Atlantic WW1 Germans and the 02 Hundred Hours kits. I drew upon that jumbled pile of spares enough different parts to ensure that I built no two figures alike. 

 

here we find Indiana Jones and that famous "Hero of the Resistance" Rene Atios

 

and there they are looking the other direction 

Spartacon is closer than you think!

        

 

Just about three weeks in fact! 7JAN23 is the date set and it will be at the VFW hall like last year.

         I'm signed up to run 02 Hundred Hours and you can find the current state of things at Table Top Events (where you can also register to run a game or reserve a spot to participate in one). Always fun and a free Flea Market as well!   

And then the Partisans showed up.....

         Having become deeply enamored of the 02 Hundred Hours game system (and having painted all the minis provided with it) I was at a crossroads; do I build a dedicated board for the game, or do I assemble the Partisans that have been waiting patiently in the Pile of Regret for so very long? Purpose-built terrain can be quite satisfying; no fudges, no approximating; it is truly What You See Is What You Get. The Afghanistan boards that I built for Zhodani Commando are the product of that sort of narrow focus. 

 

         The problem is that even with considerable effort at making the boards "geomorphic" they end up being limited in a way that loose terrain is not. While I was thinking about this I wandered into The Vault and found the box of Partisans. I popped open the box and instantly decided it would be the minis instead of a dedicated board. I quickly sat myself down and started assembling the models, and almost as quickly I fell victim to the bane of speed; my habit of modifying plastic figures.....

 

the head had fallen off the sprue so it was a "volunteer"

a nice active pose.....where could this lead?

Gaming Update, 17DEC22 at my place 1900hrs UPDATE, IT'S AT PAT'S PLACE NOW

UPDATE, GAME HAS BEEN MOVED TO RICH UNCLE PAT'S PLACE    

 I don't have a clue what we are playing yet but play we will!

December 17th, 2022, 7p.m. my place

  As an aside I turn 64 today, in celebration of this my son, Rich Uncle Pat, 

gave me this wonderful gift

 

what is the purpose of a 3" tall "time-out" chair you ask 

 

 

so that you can punish dice that misbehave

(this is a vast improvement over the previous two methods)