Gaming Update Saturday 9JAN21

 I will be hosting my first game of 2021 this Saturday, 9JAN21 at 7p.m.

Hopefully the first of many!

Returning to Quarterly production, the Turks.

 

I have had a long running idea for a short D&D campaign set in the midst of the Fall of Constantinople.  A couple of Years ago I took up ANton on his obscene desire to modify figures and had him "fix a few" Janissary for this project, he also cranked out a dozen Wallachians (Vlad the Impaler's boys), but I had the bulk of the force, and I decided it needed to get done, now that I had worked out the last details in my mind for the game aspect.  

2020 4th Quarter and year in review; and it's been a decade!

       It is hard to believe but  this thing that I started just to keep my wargaming group on a schedule has been around for ten years. It has expanded far beyond the original idea of being a notice-board for upcoming games and events (largely due to my inability to focus on any given task!). I thank all who have looked over the years as well as those of my friends that have contributed articles as well as all who have commented in reaction to my posts. Since that first post on 29DEC10 we have added 1148 posts, have had 741,896 individual pageviews and have received 2873 comments. There 213 fellow wargamers who follow this blog. Visitors have come to the blog from every continent except Antactica, citizens of the USA are the most frequent visitors with Merry Old England coming in second.

          The all-time most popular post is "More Silliness With Blueboard"  (8.25K views) with seven of the top twenty posts being of the D.I.Y. category (so you will continue to be peppered with my arts & crafts projects) with the balance being split evenly between Convention reports, figure reviews and After Action Reports. The most popular Page confirms the trend toward D.I.Y.  with "Adventures in Blueboard and Foamcore" (21.6K)  topping the other subjects by a significant margin, 28mm figure reviews follows in second place.

A 'Dreadful' danger

 So, having all of my kids home from college for a couple of weeks, I gave them what they wanted, which was an entire D&D campaign in the break, I also asked for one gaming night on my choice.  Based on an "outbreak" of Jane Austen among my kids this break (they binge watched two different entire series of Pride and Prejudice) I decided to have a go at Jane Austen Zombie Killer.  

1/72 Hasegawa HE51 Build and paint

       The HE-51 was one of the early German fighters of the newly-established Luftwaffe. Slow and under-gunned by later standards it was a sturdy and maneuverable aircraft that laid the foundations for the fighter pilot corps of WW2 fame. It first flew in 1933 and was rather long in the tooth when it was sent to Spain in 1936. It enjoyed a brief period of superiority until Soviet aircraft showed up on the Republican side. After 1938 it was used by the Luftwaffe as a trainer. This one qualifies under my "Spats/Fixed Undercarriage" and "What Were They Thinking" rules, it comes close to the "Too Cool" but it is a pretty transparent copy of the P6E Hawk so loses that distinction.

The Dead Arise!

 So, I am not Dead.  Just in case anyone wondered.  I have been "sequestered", but not expired.  I am sure that Anton will have a suitably amazing list of accomplishments for this past quarter, but I decided to break mine out into sections, because I have set a fairly blistering pace for this quarter.  

GAME ON 1/2/2021

 Come by RichUnclePat's for a Stargrunt game at the usual 7pm time!

New Israel

vs

Islamic Federation

20mm ACW figures from HaT Industrie

      Fresh off the presses at HaT comes a selection of ACW infantry and command figures. Represented are Union troops marching, Confederate troops marching a group of command figures that are usable for either side and a sampler box that has one sprue of each type in it. These are all cast in a soft shocking blue plastic that takes detail well and shows very little flash. The single-themed boxes come with standard HaT box art (which means well above average) and the sampler set has a childishly drawn scene and Spanish language labeling. The back of the box shows digital renders of the figures that are in the set. 

        All of the troops wear a mixture of uniforms but none are in greatcoats. The Union set features Hardee hats while the Confederate set has soft hats; in both boxes a fair number of the models are wearing kepis. The Command set has standard bearers, drummers, and officers one of whom is mounted, the equestrian sculpt is very well done. 

Back to the Spats! Building the Fiat C.R. 42 Falco in 1/72 from Revell

       This is a benchmark aircraft; Italy's last biplane fighter and the last biplane to score a kill in aerial combat; plus it is really cool looking!

 

ah, the good old days when box covers were real artwork

I always wondered what happened to the original paintings

 

       Italy brought the C.R 42 into service in May of 1939 eventually producing over 1800 of them. It served on every front where Italian forces were engaged (and a few where they weren't i.e. The Battle of Britain). It had a reputation for being a robust and agile fighter, despite being slower and under-armed. This model from Revell dates back over fifty years, closer to the time of the Fiat's last aerial victory than to today!

Revell 1/72 P-36 Build

 

 

       Another of the classic old Revell kits from my childhood, this little gem is one of my favorites. Sure, it has raised rivets and panel lines but they are very finely done. The parts fit is exemplary and the overall outline is spot on. Not bad for a kit that is over half a century old. This kit might just be a gate-way drug into yet another small air force; I have models of all the Polish combat aircraft, the Finns would be a bigger proposition as they lasted longer than the Poles but it still had a limited inventory.  As usual I'm building the kit "S.O.B." (Straight Outta the Box) which includes using the standard kit decals (which look pretty good in this case).

Spats, and all that.........

 

 

garish paint-jobs are a bonus

        For some time now I have had a side-hobby of collecting aircraft from the late 1930'-WW2 era that fit into a small number of focused areas of interest (unlike my wargaming which is almost traumatically unfocused!); Fixed undercarriage/Spats, The Polish Air Force 1939, WWTT (What Were They Thinking) and Too Cool (this last is hugely subjective).  Just how an aircraft earns a place on the lists is subject to an arcane thought-process that is unclear even to me (it seems to involve single-engine aircraft as an aspect), but having a few narrow fields keeps me from branching out too far into the weeds. 

Gaming Update 26DEC20

 I will be hosting a game at my place 7pm on December 26th 2020

I would love to see you here

P.S. I have tested Covid free twice now so I am out of the woods on that front!