Domo Origato

The last minis of the year. I think. Two Infinity remotes, purchased only because they were marked down 75%. Couldn't let that kind of deal get past me, especially given my love for Corvus Belli's models. 

Be well y'all and have a safe happy New Year!

End of Year Post

2021 was a stinker, right? I think the icing on the cake was finding out that Rapier game con in Jacksonville has run its course and is no more. 

FUUUUUUUUUUU.......!

The Jacksonville Garrison is getting some other replacement event together and they're a pretty together band of gamers so there's hope. I really hope they select a good weekend. First weekend of February was very good for me.

2021 was all bad though. Southern Front in Raleigh was great and I look forward to next year. I wonder if their groups.io account will be abuzz with violent arguments about masking again or if they'll get over themselves?

Memorial Day's games were very good, even though participation wasn't quite what I'd hoped. Of course, it's not about quantity, it's quality and by that measure, Memorial Day was a real win.

I think I might have gained a rank in painting skills over the last 12 months. Small changes in technique, products and habits have combined to simply make me a better painter. I'm a big believer that bases make the model and I strive to keep the bases pretty; they are the frame and an ugly base  is such a distraction.

I think the biggest change for me this year is the addition of paper models for terrain. I did a few for the Italian Wars and added a few recently for WWII. They're fun, inexpensive and look very nice. I'm happy to have added them to the arsenal.

What do I hope to accomplish in 2022, gaming-wise? Well, let's see.

-   More early-1700's North Americans for Blood and Plunder. The last batch I painted up from Sash and Saber were a joy to paint up and they need an enemy.

-   More Naps. The forces I have now scratch the itch but an extra unit or two to the mix would be nice.

-  More Italian Wars units. Same reasons as the Naps above.

-   I forked over a little cash for a couple of Infinity droids recently and just painted them up. Pics later. A 75% discount is hard to pass up. They're for an army I wasn't collecting, but it appears that I am now. I'll do my best to keep additions to sale-only items and not to spend much money on what's clearly a flight of fancy. Those blasted Infinity models are so great to paint. 

-   I want to get in some Modern Spearhead. I haven't played in a while and it's such an excellent game system. While its competitors are OK, it's a bit like comparing O'Douls and Guinness.

-   Play a game or two of Force on Force. This might be with the WWII Partisans vs Germans or 15mm Moderns, but either way, the game needs to get some play. 

-   I may look at moving the Batman Minis. It was fun, but I might be done with it. If nothing else, I'll move the minis into long-term storage and out of my primary storage tier. I did the same with some of my beloved Firestorm Armada ships recently. Probably should look at moving some of the Dystopian Wars stuff too.

-   Find or develop a "holy grail" skirmish game suitable for moderns or sci-fi. I've had significant trouble finding a system I like with the right blend of simplicity and granularity. Blood and Plunder's mechanics are really close to what I'm looking for. Perhaps I shall poach some ideas of theirs and expand them to fit what I'm after. 

The Underground

 I finished up the Second World War Partisans last evening. Not a bad looking collection of men and women. Models are 1/72 Caesar Miniatures. They have some friends on the way; these are all SMG-armed, save the machinegunner and very cool Dick Tracy-type. The second set have some rifles and saboteurs as well as an anti-tank gun.

I hope you're having a nice holiday season!

Recent Hobbying

 Things have quiet on the old blog lately - I really haven't had tons to blog about. I've been working on some paper buildings over the last week or so. I shrunk them to 1/72 scale and had them printer on 110# cardstock up at Staples. They've turned out nicely and will provide a nice change of pace for my WW2 gaming which tends to be rather rural.

Not bad for $4 (pdfs) + $18 (printing) + labor. Easier than scratch-building and painting, that's for sure. The low building's got rather dubious door positions if you select doors on both a long and short side! The buildings with support columns we reinforced with a length of 1/8 inch wooden dowel inside the support to provide some real strength.

I'm working on some new fighters to accompany these ruins.

Caesar Miniatures WW2 Partisans. By a wide margin some of the best 1/72 plastics I've come across. Solid castings, no flash, no sprues. Only downside was there were five decidedly civilian models in the box, but that's peanuts. They've got some reinforcements on the way, particularly some heavier weapons to deal with Wehrmacht armor that will no doubt be present. 

I'm thinking of using Forcce on Force rather than my usual Rate of Fire with these guys, given the asymmetrical nature of their fighting against the German occupying forces. Force on Force is perfect for these sorts of engagements.

Of, we drive down to Jacksonville on Thursday evening to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Amazing as ever and if you have the chance, it's well worth attending.

Rock on.

Steal Away the Night(watch)

David came over Saturday for a couple games of Nightwatch. He was quite interested when I mentioned it to him a couple weeks ago so what better way to satisfy the curiosity? I put together a new Pact including an Alchemist, Tracker (with Longbow), Blade (1HW + Shield and Heavy Armor), and Mancer. Our Pact also included a d8 Melee Hireling.

I set up a "Recover" scenario in which the Pact had to search four locations for the target item. After locating it, we had to get it back to our table edge to succeed.

David chose the Mancer and Blade, I got the Alchemist and Tracker. We shared the Hireling (Mario).

Those yellow discs are the locations we need to search. The pact is lined up on the left edge.

The Blade makes haste towards the house, as quickly as his stumpy little legs could carry him.

A turn or two in... Johnnie Walker, the Alchemist, is beset by a pack of Ghouls!

The quiet one also has troubles of her own.

But the Mancer has located the target with the assistance of Mario. She takes a deep draught from the Potion of Swiftness in her handbag.

And that's a wrap! Average dice rolls and some bonus movement from the potion made it easy. 

In retrospect, we'd have done well to milk the clock and get a few extra kills because we didn't get much loot at all for that mission. Because it went so quickly, we played a second scenario. The tabletop was left as it was and we chose the Escort scenario.

The mission was simple - escort the princess from one corner of the battlefield to the other and keep her intact!

It wasn't long before we had hordes of ghouls coming at us from all directions.

And one portal had a double-spawn later into the proceedings! Fortunately for us, it was behind us and that lot wouldn't be blocking our travels.

Nevertheless, Johnnie Walker got some good results from a Stun grenade, putting the brakes on a group of attackers.

Our hireling Mario seemed to be pretty impressed with the light show.

A skeletal archer caught him napping!

It took no time for the unholy beasts to identify the weak and wounded; poor Mario was lost! Eighteen silver pieces, down the drain and there's no fixing his damaged armor. Dang.

The Dwarf warrior was still reveling in the joy of combat, though the odds were stacking up against him!

But escorting the princess / dancing girl was the important thing and Hermione had taken that in hand. Another successful mission!

Two more very enjoyable rounds of Nightwatch. We played two movement-based missions and found them to be pretty easy compared to the first one I played with my wife in which we had to hold tight and defend an item in the center of the table. A great afternoon of gaming. Thanks David!

Bubble Bubble... Toil and Trouble

Perhaps a bit off-season, but progress was slow.

I picked up these lovely Malifaux models just before Halloween for my bride who's quite the Samhainophile. Is that a word? She's a fan of all things spooky. The models were the Wyrd 2021 Halloween special and right up her alley.

The gang. It's essentially a re-release of another crew with entirely new models. I added most of the pumpkins and the plant on the base of the kettle that's gone off the rails.

The three weird sisters. Part with, part tree. One with the swamp.

Our leader, the animated kettle and an unlucky prince! I put that pumpkin under him in keeping with the Halloween theme.

And a close up up big stinky. I understand how disappointing the text in the tome is. Poor monster is reading an empty accounting ledger!

Some New Infinity Minis

 In addition to those refurbs below, I knocked out some new Infinity models over Thanksgiving week. These are reinforcements for my Combined Army group. 

First up, some Unidron Batdroids - robotic troops programmed to fight for the E.I. - the Evolved Intelligence. I went for dark colors reminiscent of Giger's Alien, given the head shapes.

Next up are Bit and KISS - a Hacker and her robotic assistant. Unusually, I left Bit with NO black paint at all. I tend to lean on black a lot as an easy default. With the very bright colors I chose, black seemed inappropriate. Her 'bot is a metallic blue, a bit different from the stylistically similar Batdroids above.

Without and with the flash. Bit's cloak was a bit of trouble for picture taking.

I'm quite happy with the results. Like all CB minis, they're gorgeous sculpts and a joy to paint. That orange and teal will be quite eye-catching on the table top.

Some Refurbs

 I was nosing around in the crap pile the other day and ran into these two old minis that had seen better days. I felt they were due for a fresh coat of paint and some TLC.

That's a first generation Warmachine mechanical zombie and unknown manufacturer cyclops. The cyclops was certainly intended for 25mm - he's positively puny next to that zombie! I also finished up some Infinity models that will be Christmas presents during the week but they're to remain undocumented for the time being.

Yeah Yeah Yeah, Nightwatchin'

 I picked up Nightwatch very early Tuesday morning during a major software upgrade at work. In all fairness, we were waiting for a backup to complete and 1:00AM has a funny way of encouraging impulse buys. Nightwatch is a cooperative fantasy skirmish game system from System7. A quick perusal of the rules and I was quite delighted with the pickup. My bride and I put together a Pact, a group of monster hunters, and Saturday gave it a go.

Our pact consisted of:

    Blondie - Tracker with a Crossbow and a One-handed melee weapon

    Griff - Blade with a Heavy Two Handed Axe and Throwing Axes

    Esmerelda - Alchemist with a One-handed melee weapon

    Greta - Mancer with a Long two-handed staff

We didn't hire any assistants in the interest of simplicity. We did learn how valuable they'd have been.

My wife's two witches

My high fantasy stereotypes

I set up the terrain before selecting a mission. It became clear that the destroy / defend mission would be suitable so the witches' cauldron was placed in the near center and became the item we needed to defend from the rampaging undead horde.

Today's battlefield. A graveyard is always cozy, right? Certainly suitable for the enemy we'd soon be facing.

Griff has taken an oath to desecrate twelve monster entry portals over the course of six games. He of course pauses to pass wind over this one.

And proceeds to engage some recently arrived ghouls!

Greta and Blondie take responsibility for the far side of the graveyard as more nasties begin to arrive.

Meanwhile, Esmerelda covers the kettle.

Griff and the ghouls come to blows. The ghouls prove to be very dangerous opponents as the fates hastily abandon our heroes and favor the forces of darkness.

The monstrous horde takes a strong interest in the cauldron. Sort of a mixed blessing, at least our heroes aren't being overwhelmed!

The ghouls continue their streak of successful defense rolls. Esmerelda heaves a Stun potion at the monsters nearest the cauldron to prevent them from attacking it on the next turn. At least it affects one of the beasts!

Griff was still struggling with one stinkin' ghoul when a real horde appeared.

Five more baddies on the north edge too! Things have officially gotten bad.

At least they rushed the cauldron and not the heroes!

And just in time, our dice woke up and the dice of darkness showed some hint or normality. Esmerelda and Greta went haywire and blasted the horde with arcane energies.

But there's more where those came from! Griff gets swamped.

As do Blondie and Greta. Esmerelda downed an invisibility potion at just the right time, ensuring she wouldn't be targeted by the monsters.

A healing potion and Griff's back up to fighting form, dispatching two assailants.

Blondie and the witches use all their available emergency gear to remove themselves from their jams. The horde damages the cauldron, but it holds. The sun begins to appear in the east and with that, the night watch ends.

Ooh, that was tense. That was a lot of fun. Simple mechanics, wonderful escalating tension. Yeah, we'll be playing this again for sure. We did a couple things wrong, some benefiting the heroes and some the bad guys so I'd say it evened out. A hireling or two would have been most useful.. next time. We didn't determine treasure or any of that and there is an advancement / campaign system so we have a little work to do before the next Nightwatch. This was a great buy for nine bucks on Wargamevault. I really recommend it. Be well!