Too Far Down The Rabbit Hole

After considering the input over at TMP I decided that this one was too far in one direction to be "fixed" to look French. Thus I decided to finish it as the ship of an "interested neutral" the particular nation to be determined later. So here is the battleship in its final form, if not its final configuration (she still needs life boats and ventilators).  In the background you can see my next effort, hopefully this will turn out more "French"!

Ship Happens, now in color! With alternate turrets

My lovely wife bought me the Proxxon hot wire cutter that I wanted for Christmas and it is everything that I had hoped it would be! I have been playing around practicing cutting blue board and whipped this bit up by accident.I ended up going with a French-inspired look with this one.

I will do a step-by-step when I build the next one, 

I just got all excited and built this one so quickly I had no time for photos

54mm War of 1812

 

This game was on the table next to the Return of Ragnar, I got some good shots but wasn't able to follow the action. It looked fabulous and the players were enjoying themselves.

 

general stuff

Just a collection of pictures from the con, not a lot of notes but they are attractive all the same

 

 

the Housemartin's "All Quiet on the Martian Front" game, cool models, neat scenario,

I understand that it didn't go too well for the Martians due to a series of unfortunate die-rolling

B'Maso! - Tip-Toe Through the Biergarten

 

My apologies for this being stuck in "draft" for so long that I can't remember too much of the game. This was another one of R.U.P.'s lushly pretty B'Maso games that involved a multi-layered scenario with multiple twists in the plot. I led the FFL force in an attempt to free hostages from the brewery office  (the yellow building with a parking lot in the upper right of the picture below). Of course things turned pout differently. My notes are open to revision by any player that recalls this differently, please reply in the comments section.

 

what we upon arrival, just one blind at the sentry post,

a couple more further into the compound

Merrry Christmas Everybody

I hope the past year has been happy and fruitful for all of you and that next year will be the same.

There will be a game at my place 27DEC14 1900hrs

6mm acw at Battlefields

These sort of games always get me interested, they look so much like the old 3-D drawing in the Time-Life Civil War series that I start thinking about finally getting serious and painting the mountain of minis in my basement. A truly lovely game, Lowell Hamilton's games are always a delight for the eye. Once again I was busy elsewhere and unable to follow the action but it sure looked great!

 

Dead Man's Hand at Battlefields

Certainly one of the prettiest games at the Con but I was ties up and could only manage a few photos. One of these days I am going to a Con and just reporting instead of running/playing games. This was lovely; models figures and the material aspect of the games was of top quality as well. Everybody involved seemed to be having a blast so the rules and gamemaster were up to standard as well.

I particularly liked the unfinished structure,

before laser-cut MDF this would have been an insanely tedious and fragile model to build!

Thoughts on re-starting a VSF campaign

    My Daftrica campaign collapsed a few years ago after a good run, we were in campaign year seven but too many people had dropped out or were so slow that they were effectively not participating any more. It passed away quietly of apathy. What it also did was leave us with large collections of Victorian/VSF figures. Recently J&R, RUP and I have been discussing launching a new VSF campaign taking into account lessons learned from the previous campaign. Here are some of the primary points;

1. Massively simplified economic system
2. A map that only shows known areas, all the rest of our new "Dark Continent" will remain unknown to all but the gamemaster.
3. Reduced size armies and starting economies
4. Simplified map movement and campaign year

    With these objectives in mind we are considering inviting people to join. There will be hard and fast rules regarding participation and timeliness. You must possess your own army to play (Victorian/VSF only, sorry about being snobs but re-naming a WW1 army just doesn't cut it, and people with "skin in the game" seem to be a lot more committed than casual participants). Basic math skills a must (we will be checking your budgets) and the ability to play twice a month are also minimum requirements.

    This launch may not come off but I would like to see how much interest there is out there. Please reply in comments.

Ray Braemer's Sudan Game

loads of lovely figures, attractive terrain

unfortunately I didn't get a chance to find out about the scenario,

the players seemed to be having fun

The (brief) Return of Ragnar

   In the afternoon session of Battlefields I had the pleasure of playing in a Viking skirmish game based on the History Channel's "Vikings" series. The scenario was from the episode where Ragnar returns to find his home town over-run by his enemy's forces. I played on Ragnar's side. If the show had gone the way our game did there would be no further seasons. Again I apologize for not having the gamemaster's name, he was affable, erudite and kept the game moving along at a snapping pace. The rules were simple and straightforward and gave a satisfying result. Anybody with a copy of the program (or who simply knows who hosted this game) please respond in the comments so that I can give credit where it is due.

 

lovely terrain, beautiful figures neat scenario; this was a good game

 

Battlefields; an after action report

    So another Pro-or-Con Battlefields event has come and gone, I ran my FoW Great War game and took part in a Viking raid game later in the day. This report will be broken down into digestible sized chunks starting with the Great War game and moving along from there. Unfortunately I lost my schedule of events and am thus unable to credit some of the gamemasters that ran the games. I will try to do better next time.

the FoW Great War game went well, with a full group of great guys learning the rules