Blue board madness

         There are times when I don't seem sane (even to myself). One particular form of madness that afflicts me from time to time is a desire to build a model of my favorite fortification in the world: the Castillo de San Marcos in Saint Augustine Florida.

        So, there I was, sitting in my basement looking at a big pile of Blue Board and giving my trusty Proxxon hot wire cutter the side-eye. I had some time to burn and no particular plans. So I decided to try a little free-hand cutting.

      Then this happened.

 

not too bad for free hand work

Games at Spartacon 2016

I didn't take my usual round of photos but I did manage to snap some shots of a couple of games. One that was so pretty I was sad that the sign-up was full, another that wasn't scheduled but I was lucky enough to get into by happenstance and was every bit as good looking, but in a different way

Click on the pictures to get the full effect of how well done these figures and models are, don't waste time fiddling with your phone, get to a real computer with a big Hi Def monitor, it is worth it!

I managed to lose the bit of paper that I had written all the game-master info down on so please forgive me for not telling you who is responsible for this feast for the eyes

FoW The Great War at Michigan Toy Soldier

I am running a demo game of Flames of War, The Great War at Michigan Toy Soldier at 1pm on 23JAN16. If you want to give it a try, watch a game or just chat about things regarding the First World War drop on by, you will be more than welcome.

28mm VSF Pre-Dreadnoughts at SpartaCon

The good people that host Spartacon each year were kind enough to allow me to run a game using my 28mm Victorian Science Fiction Pre-Dreadnoughts. The Lansing Center where SpartaCon is hosted has a very generous-sized room. This allowed me to run my 28mm Pre-Dreadnought game at the convention in a much larger space than even the dance studio had permitted. The scenario for this action was an all-out fleet engagement, a fight to the finish if you would.

I ran this game differently than most other naval games, the effect of fire was known only to the ship Captain of the vessel that was fired upon. The opposing captain was only told that his shells missed or that strikes were seen on the target vessel. Other players had to surmise what was going on by the appearance of splash markers on the playing surface.Players had to write movement orders in advance and the gamemasters moved the models (many thanks to J&R for his assistance in this matter). This kept an air of suspense as no player was certain of the results of his fire.

The French fleet: the Dupuy de Lome, the Charles Martel and the Nemesis (left to right).

The numerically larger, but rather more old-fashioned, German Fleet: 
the Panther and the Thor (the colonial squadron) in the foreground, 
the Seydlitz, the Blitz, the Gneisenau and the Donner in the distance, once again left to right.