A Little Housekeeping

Sorry about the lack of postings lately but August has been a bit of a shambles.

I will be getting back to the regular book, model and rules reviews as the Fall advances.

In-house there are a few things we need to address, the lagging players in the Gorka-Morka campaign need to get caught up (you know who you are) so that I can close out the campaign and we can award the trophy.

With current developments I will probably only be able to host games three weekends a month. I would like some specific and positive input as to what sort of games people would like to see. Time will be even further compressed as the Holidays approach so running games that everybody is interested in becomes all the more important.

I would like to set aside a Saturday (a long Saturday, say noon straight thru) to run a short SAGA campaign, I will need help from Gary and Mike in this regard, so get in touch with me about this you two.

Rich Uncle Pat's AK-47 campaign is still in the offing, perhaps this could fit into the Wednesday slot abandoned by the GoMo campaign.

Please respond in the Comments, I really want to know what you WANT to play; not what you don't want to play (you can always stay home if you don't want to play). Of course anyone wishing to put on a game, or host one at their home, is free to throw their hat in the ring.

28mm Victrix Spartans and Osprey Spartan Warrior

     OK, now they are ganging up on me! I walked into the local brick & mortar to find (prominently displayed) both the Victix 28mm plastic Spartans and the new Osprey Warrior Series #163 title "Spartan Warrior". Being a sucker for the heroes of Thermopylae and for any ancient subject from Osprey I took this as sign from the powers on high to indulge myself in a sample of both. As they only sold by the book or by the box I soon left with one of each.

Warlords 28mm Natal Native Contingent

      Hot on the heels of the Zulus (however unlikely that would be in reality) come Warlord Games Natal Native Contingent. Crisply cast in a medium gray plastic these represent the local troops recruited by the British for the Zulu War. Commanding them are two metal Officer figures that are equally well-done. This fills a large void in the plastic Zulu War realm as many thousands of these troops were employed during the war.

box art, evocative and illustrative at the same time

Some really good stuff

     Other than frothing about better than average wargaming figures I rarely do product endorsements of any kind, but, in this case, I am going to commit myself to a full-fledged, no-holds-barred, flat-out endorsement. Rustoleum has released a line of spray paint/primer; Painter's Touch Ultra Cover. This says it has twice as much coverage as regular paint, being the eternal skeptic I thought to myself "Yeah. Right" and bought a can of each to give it a try. Fully expecting to encounter a slightly better coverage and a bit of a sheen I was amazed and pleased to find FAR better coverage and an absolutely dead-flat finish (even when spraying the gray over fluorescent yellow poster-board). This stuff covers! So far I have seen it in black, white and gray, gloss and flat. If. like me, you use spray paint to prime your minis this is something you want to try. So far I have used it on wood, card, metal and plastic with uniformly good results. At US$6.00 a can this beats the pants off of most other spray primers and absolutely slays "hobby primers". The coverage is thin, consistent and ultra-fine (no lumpiness or graininess here) with little risk of runs, sags or drips (at least in the flat colors, I didn't try the gloss). Get Some!

Six Bitters completed (well two at least)

I have completed two of the eight Six-Bitters so far and (as they will all look alike) decided to give everybody a look at the new twins.

the Six-Bitters being almost full scale shows the level 

of foreshortening the Armored Cruiser experienced 

IDF vs. PLA, Refugee Camps near Tyre, July 1982

In our continuing Lebanese Civil War “campaign”, Rich Uncle Pat decided to put the Israelis through a wringer, giving them the densest urban terrain they had seen yet. Previously, the campaign had them in the wonderful orchards of rural Lebanon trying to push a column through, getting delayed and leading to a strategic SNAFU. This strategic SNAFU required Israeli forces to push into the nice suburbs of Tyre to secure a crossroads, allowing a Merkava I Platoon to successfully get to where they needed to be because they got "lost" trying to keep on schedule.

Well, did you wonder where they actually needed to get to? The real reason?

Six-Bitters and the Prohibition

     No, I am not talking about a type of beer. During the Prohibition the US Coast Guard needed to patrols the coastal waters around the US to try to stop the Rum-Runners from bring in illegal booze. They found themselves to be painfully short of vessels that could fulfill this requirement. To meet the need they placed bids for over 200 patrol vessels from a number of different boatyards on both coasts. The requirements were to be seventy-five feet overall length carry a crew of eight men for several days at sea, to have very good sea-keeping ability and be able to maintain a good head of speed in rough weather. The ships they had built served through the Prohibition and then through the Second World War. Some served into the 50's and a few are still sailing as private vessels.

one of the originals

28mm Torpedo Gunboat Completed

     It seems that either I am getting better at this stuff or the smaller models go a lot faster (probably a combination of both). Here is the completed Torpedo Gunboat. She is a sleek little boat compared to her larger, more powerful brethren, but make no mistake, she packs a lethal punch.  With one fixed bow tube and three more on flexible mounts this vessel has a deadly sting.

     The build was straightforward except for the turtleback deck forward. In retrospect I should have built a frame out of wood like a balsa airplane model, as it was I went through a lot of card trying to cut some to fit a conical section onto the front of the model. I made smaller guns to represent the 4" QF guns commonly found on such vessels, and I built the Vickers style torpedo tubes out of a used .22cal pistol cartridge and a paper tube and a wood turning. The smokestacks are rolls of card and the companionway is a block of balsa wrapped in card.

the family photo, it seems each new boat has less yellow in it

3/4 front view, the fixed above-water launch tube can be seen in the bow

Book Review, Amber Books Great War Series

     Being an avowed maven of the Great War I must admit that these books from Amber Books UK took me by surprise. I have spent the last twenty years collecting First War books, maps, and weapons but I had not encountered these items in the flesh until this past spring,. I do admit that I very much tend to shy away from "coffee table" books as they are usually collections of the same couple of hundred photos that have all been seen before, I found these while shopping at Half-Price Books in metro San Antonio (we have no such marvels here in Michigan) and only picked them up on account of their being on sale. Once I had looked inside I spent the next ten minutes looking for more.

28mm Torpedo gunboat nearly done

     I had a little free time this weekend and knocked together this Torpedo Gunboat. While it is not yet done I couldn't resist posting a picture or two.

with three 4" guns and four torpedo tubes this small vessel packs a punch

Schedule Change!!!!

The game for Saturday 14JUL12 has been cancelled due to changes in my work schedule.

You are free to play elsewhere of course, but don't show up at my place; I won't be there!

Perry's Mercenaries

     I had been contemplating picking up some more metal Middle Ages minis until I heard that the Perry Brothers were going into plastic. When this set was announced I knew I needed to get them. Cast in the same gray plastic as their other products, and with the same attention to quality as well, these are flash-free and nearly devoid of mold-lines. They provide a good mix of troop-types and weapons and have the easy, natural posing that one has come to expect from a Perry sculpt. A superb bit of work in all.

front box art