I picked up something at a Con

       And, no, it isn't contagious! On second thought it might be; behold displayed below, some excellent building models from the firm 4Ground Ltd and assembled and finished by the talented (and very affordable) hand of John Vincent of Quality Miniatures. I hadn't gone looking for Dark Ages buildings but once I saw them I knew that I NEEDED them. You know how that goes, right?

      The fit and finish of the kits is simply superb, the detail is crisp and clear and the size and shape are just right for 28mm gaming. John's assembly and finishing really topped them off. I was sold on them before I knew that they came with a basic, finished, interior.

the group

Monster Game sometime this summer

I have access to a pretty large space that we can use to run a truly huge game sometime during the summer. I will cover the cost of the space so there will be no cost to the players.

The space will accommodate two tables 6'x30' or some permutation thereof. This leads to the next questions;
1. what period/scale to play.
2. what rules to use,
3. how do I round up enough minis/terrain/serious players to bring the whole thing off?

Uprising Miniatures 15mm figures

      To my delight and surprise I encountered a new line of Napoleonic miniatures while attending Battlefields Wargaming Convention over the weekend. And no boring "French Line Infantry" or "Stalwart British Lads" nonsense here, Uprising Miniatures produces a line of Polish, Lithuanian and Russian infantry for the revolt led by Tadeusz Kościuszko in 1794 against the Russians and the Second Partition of Poland. The figures are simply brilliant, with a slim, elegant line and crisp detail.

     In speaking with the proprietor of Uprising Miniatures I found out that artillery and some personalities are next, with cavalry to follow. At last some one has had the nerve to tackle something fully outside the mainstream. These are lovely figures and fully deserve your attention. I do not expect that they will end up on everyone's Christmas List but they certainly are worthy of a look, particularly if you want to run a Napoleonic Army that has a flair all its own.

     Very Highly Recommended

Battlefields coming soon 29MAR14

One of my favorite local conventions, Battlefields, is coming up at the end of this month. This year there has been a change of venue from the U of M Dearborn campus to Lutheran High School Westland.

NOTE, as of now 13MAR14 at 23:05 local they have not updated the game schedule from last time......hopefully they will take care of that pretty soon.

I will be helping a friend run a massive 15mm Flames of War 1939 Russians vs Japanese game (hopefully in the AM session), I will also be bringing a ton of surplus stuff to give away to interested gamers: minis, some terrain and rules, all the sort of stuff that piles up after decades of unfinished projects.

Hope to see you there!

Dead Sexy and seen in Lansing

I seem to have appalling luck when it comes to scheduling games. I ran a game in the afternoon session at Spartacon, and missed the previously shown Congo game as well as the Russo-Japanese game featuring these breathtakingly beautiful models.  I didn't even get a chance to speak with the GM as to the source of the models, I understood from others that a good many were the old Houston's Ships products but I cannot say for sure. All I can do is give credit to the gentleman that spent the hours making these so very lovely! Kudos!!!

Congo 1963 as seen at Spartacon 2014

     I saw this game in passing only as I was busy running a game at the same time, it looked so extraordinarily nice that I almost cancelled my game to join in (but that would have been exceedingly poor form!), Rich Uncle Pat and Kris both played and hopefully they can provide some commentary. There clearly was a LOT going on in the game. The terrain and models were lovely and I understand that the game was presented by the redoubtable pair of Bob Beattie and Son. I would hope that R.U.P.  or Kris will be able to provide commentary to go with the photos.

Perry Brothers American Revolutionary War figs with paint

    A while back a buddy of mine asked me to build some of the Perry Bros AWI figures for him, he has sent me a photo of them in paint. I must say they look very nice.



Something that I picked up at Spartacon

Old-timers like me can remember when you could fit a copy of Steve Jackson's "Ogre" game in your shirt pocket; not so with this little beauty. weighing in at about thirty pounds and a couple of feet on a side the latest iteration of the classic game takes things to a whole new level. I will have more later we get around to opening it up and playing it (that is if we don't decide to sell it on eBay).



Spartacon 2014 Part I

For the second year in a row the weekend of Spartacon was not the winter storm of the year. This sort of thing makes me worry. Anyways I attended with some of my buddies and we had a blast. The venue was the same as last year, Lansing center in the "small room", well lit, comfortable and warm. The games were up to the usual high standard, visually sumptuous and well-run.

I ran my Wild West Shootout game and had a jolly good time playing in a delightful ironclads game. This little gem was presented by Doug Johnson and involved rules of such staggering complexity that they all fit on one half of a standard sheet of paper (see photos) and vast fleets of scratch-built models.

My brave squadron heads off to battle,

the small gray vessels are monitors, the larger ones are battleships

 

Notice to all of my Wargamming Buddies

I need all my books back, yep all the books you have borrowed, plus all the gaming mags, rule books , firearms etc. I am going to do my annual inventory and I need to have them back by 1FEB14.

Failure to do so will result in the suspension of your borrowing privileges for at least a year (and in the case of borrowed firearms will probably end up with me kicking in your door and taking them back!).

Remember; I have lists.

Don't make me angry, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

Building the Perry Brothers American Revolutionary War British Infantry in 28mm

 

 

           A little while ago a friend of mine asked that I assemble some of his plastic minis for him. He didn't mind painting them but found assembling the plastic minis a bother, I on the other hand have come to wargaming from a plastic modeling background and enjoy assembling models rather more than painting them, I readily agreed. I have seen articles in the British glossies complaining about the bother of building plastics, this always seemed odd to me as even the very best metal figures need cleaning up before priming so it seemed a trade-off in my mind. I have built many plastic figures before, even customized the poses and figures,  but never paid any mind to the time and work involved, it was just me spending a bit of hobby time. To see of there is a significant trade-off in time I decided to keep track of the amount of time I spent assembling the figures so that I could compare that to the period of time that would be spent filing off mold lines, straightening rifles and smoothing bases on metal figures.

 

      The models in question were the British Center Company from the Perry Brothers series. These are superlative models with the classic attention to proportion and pose that is the hallmark of a Perry product. The figures were cleanly cast in a medium hardness glossy gray plastic that cuts cleanly and easily and takes plastic model cement happily (I used Testors tube and liquid for this experiment). I have heard of people using Super Glue to build plastics, this I have never understood as the plastic cement dissolves the surface of the plastic and, when it evaporates. creates a "weld" so that the joint is now a solid chuck of plastic, it will also not bond skin like Super Glue. These are all factors that favor plastic cement in my mind.

 

the box with contents

MDG Wintercon Gamefest 7DEC13

     Dave Durocher et al are once again hosting the Metro Detroit Gamer's Wintercon on 7DEC13 at Oakland University's Oakland Center in Rochester Michigan. The events list is here and the link for other info is here. They usually have a pretty good show and this year they are collecting items for Toys for Tots, so drop by and support them if you can!