Monday, March 4, 2024

Firsts of the New Year


First Games


Doesn't everyone remember their first time? Or times?  Especially if you don't get it right the first time and have try it again.  I'm not thinking of anyone in specific....

The new year is off and running, and I've occasionally managed to escape the dungeon of my responsibilities to get in some FIRST games of the new year.   The thing about dungeons is that it can be hard to get out, but easy to get back in.

Like a lot of miniature wargame bloggers I spend most of my time painting, writing witty blog posts and even wittier comments on other blogs.  But that's not all.  Gaming is the thing that I like most, and I have some games I've played that I'd like to share in shotgun blast picture style.  



This post is kinda wordy, kinda long, has bad jokes, and full of pics.
The way I like'em.  It's the most fun on the internet you can have with your pants on.
But seriously, put your pants back on.  There are children in this post.


First Boardgame:


I went over to my friends Mr. PC house to play the best Starwars game EVER; StarWars Rebellion. 
Not only is it the best StarWars game, but it's also the best game of asymmetrical warfare EVER.
You can Trust me on this. I'm a stranger on the internet.  



What's on the board.
What's in our minds.

I actually didn't take pics of our game, that one is stolen from the internet.  Pics of boardgames are boring, unless there is a lot of context and providing that context takes time and talent that I don't have.  We all can't be Norm.  And recently Keith.

Just wanted to tell you about it since it's the best game EVER.  Especially if you like the three original movies. As the Rebel Alliance I saved the galaxy from the evil space empire.  

Speaking of space;


First Miniatures



As the Intergalactic Conquest convention is coming up and I'm gonna run my Star Trek using Starmada Unity rules; I though a refresher game was in order.  I invited myself over to the house of my buddy Mr. DJ of the elusive Lasgunpacker Blog cuz he is my Sci-Fi buddy.  And because my house was full of children and In-laws and a man can only take so much family togetherness before he fakes a head injury so he could be left alone for a while.  Mr. DJs very much biased and self-aggrandizing ARR (LOL) can be seen HERE.  he does have some better pics.  





There's not much to show except for my pretty Star trek ships swooping around the table.





Mr DJ provided the venue and the fun, all I had to do was bring the game.  Another good thing (besides getting together with Mr. DJ), was that I had redesigned all the ships and got a chance to test out the builds.  Mr. DJ and I thought they worked very well.  
I'd go more in depth about this but not everyone is a super space Starmada nerd like me.  

ok, FINE.

Previous Galaxy Class Starship Display


Updated Galaxy Class Starship Display


BIG differences huh?  Needs no further explanation.  Say Less Already.

Playing as the Federation I lost -badly- to the evil Empire and now the Galaxy belongs to Klingons.

That's one galaxy saved and one galaxy lost so far this year.  Luckily, they're not the same universe.  That joke works on many different levels.




First Game of Wooden Wars



One Sunday afternoon, after several days of the kids and the wife being sick, and finally starting to feel better; we were all lounging in our pajamas. I thought it was the perfect time to spring the Wooden Wars game on them, because they had enough energy to do 'something' but not enough energy to really argue with me about it.  

Oh, I didn't get sick, because I was sneaking cigarettes the whole time.  Smoking kills germs as everyone knows, it's one of its health benefits..  (don't worry, no one in my family reads this stupid blog, the secret is safe).

Refresher: Wooden Wars is a game played on the floor using wooden soldier flats.  Players can move and charge like any other miniature game, but shooting is done by throwing a rubber ball at the enemy and knocking them over.  Like a throwback to HG Wells.  
Primarily aimed for children, I invested into it as a game to play with my children and also thought it would be cool for family events, cub scouts, conventions with children, afternoon stuck at home, etc...


Introductory Bristish Force.
3 units of infantry, 1 3-gun battery, 1 mounted leader.
The French was the same.


Having completed an introductory force for both sides, I was anxious to have them play it.  I was also anxious about how it would be received.  After already investing a fair amount of time and money into the project I was hopeful that they would LOVE it, and I would feel justified.   

Also would feel better about the sacrifice I'm making on spending MY hobby time doing this project for them instead of miniatures for myself.  Fatherhood is a constant sacrifice.  
(which is unfair, especially in this case, because it's not like they asked for this).

At the very least I wanted them to like it and say it was fun. 

We split up into teams, the wife and daughter#1 (10 years old) on one team and Son #2 (5 years) and myself on another.  



Game took some time to set up
as Son#3 (3 years old) kept demonstrating his technique of how to deal with infantry;
Hit them with a Truck.
It was his nap time so luckily for us he fell asleep on the couch.





Son#2 wanted to play the 'the Blue guys."
because he thought the officer was cooler.
French force deployed at his feet.





You will excuse the mess the house is in.
We were in the middle of a sort through of old stuff when everyone got sick
and the project halted, and there it sat.
My wife will be mortified if she knew I posted pictures of it.
Luckily, she doesn't read the blog.  like ever.




Son throwing a ball at troops under his mother's command.




Action shots!
Blue ball starts in my wife's hand, and then streaks forward!
like a cannon ball. Like a wrecking ball.
But ill aimed as it bounced over.
Balls have to bounce at least once to be valid shots





Consensus: Lots of fun.  My wife, myself, and my son really liked it. Both children liked to fire the cannon battery as you get to throw 3 balls (one for each cannon) instead of 1.  
My daughter however, got more and more frustrated because she couldn't hit very much, and started to complain that "this isn't fun because I'm losing." as the boy kept making shots.  And I launched into a well thought out (some might say 'heated and annoyed') discussion (some might say lecture) on sportsmanship and how one can't complain just because they are losing and the trick to games is to have fun even while losing; and if if she's gonna be a bad sport then no one is gonna want to play with her.   FURTHERMORE; no one is going to be her friend if she whines and complains when something doesn't go her way.  This went over really well (some would say poorly) and was well received (some would say ignored) and ended with her quitting the game on an extended time out. 
And the long experiment of Nature versus Nurture continues.  So. Very. Long.**



First Game of Bolt Action

The even more elusive Dia of The Lost and the Damned and the Stunted blog came over to give me my fist ever game of Bolt Action.  Does every gamer have a blog these days?  Sometimes it feels less like a miniature game and more of a internet collaboration. 
This time I played host and provided the venue and food, while Dai brought everything for the game.
I took over the kids playroom.  Beat it children!  It's serious grown-up play time.

looks like we both wore the standard white guy uniform:
black t-shirt and blue jeans.
How to tell us apart?
One of us is a handsome charming man with a shaved head,
and the other one is ME.

Dai has been threatening me for a very long time to demo me a game of Bolt Action, and brought along his winter themed Russians versus Germans setup.  

Dai really nailed the Winter theme




It's very cold in Mother Russia.

I elected to be the Russians, the attacking force against a German position.  Since it was my first time playing the game, I figured Russians were a good choice because if I did something stupid and lost a unit that I'd probably have a spare.  


Soviets advance...



zoom out, a HT coming in behind them with another platoon



Soviets (on the right) about to take an objective.



Soviets (on the right) trying to take another one,
and dying to a man, like Soviets do.


There's no real AAR.  There were 3 objectives spread across the Germans table edge that Dai had to defend, I had to take two to win, 1 to draw.  I got one objective and had a reasonable chance to take another one at the end of the game if the rolls went right and then.....

This HT full of troops needed a 9 or less to advance and maybe win me the game.
It rolled a 11, so instead retreated ALL the way to it starting position.
Might as well call it a Backtrack instead of Halftrack.


It was great to see Dai after way too long and his stuff is always top production.  I also really liked the Bolt Action rules and can see why they're popular.  And as always the sign of a good game and an even better time, the next day I was looking 28mm WWII stuff online....

and lastly...


**First Dance

I realize that some of you might think I was a little harsh on the little girl.  And I was.
Rest assured that we made up and had a more civilized and meaningful conversation later.
Fatherhood is also constant repair work. 
And the next weekend we went to the Father-Daughter dance (Hawaiian Luau style) and had a grand ol' time.  I know all the Taylor Swift songs.  Afterwards we went out to dinner for super big hamburgers with her friend.


Daughter and I making funny faces,
in MATCHING clothes no less.

So I can't be a complete ogre.


Thanks for reading,
Double Thanks for writing a comment.
Till next time.

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Fistful of Lead (FFoL) Review

 

I've got a Fistful for ya,
A Fistful of Opinions! 

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this Terrible blog are made by an unqualified and self important person and are not to taken seriously.  While the writer is kinda clever and everyone always agrees is also good looking; he's a well meaning amateur at best and a crazy person with a computer at worse.




Fistful of Fun

Not least because you get to say "Fistful of (Blank)" over and over.
Fistful of Lead is by Wiley Games and has been around for awhile now, BUT! I only heard about it last year.  So just in case you haven't heard of it either, let me tell you that this is a FUN skirmish game.  I'm always on the look out for skirmish games that are simple enough to teach to people at a convention, have enough going on that they still require some thought, and good for around 4-6 players.  FFoL hits all those marks.  

Fistful of Lead started life as a cowboy / wild west game (hence the title. talk about a Fistful of cliches!) and then evolved into a generic skirmish game that can tweeked into this genre and that, and de-evolved into genre specific supplements.  More on that later. But the Core rules are the same across all the publications and once understood, can be used for fun in anything.


Fitful of Miniatures

A core force in FFoL is made up of 5 miniatures.  This of course can be moved up or down depending on your needs and desires. but I've found that the number of miniatures one payer can control tops out at around 10.  That because each miniature is an individual and activates by itself.  So in the core force you get one miniature who is the 'Leader" and is the most badass, one miniature is the second in command and less bad ass; sometimes called the specialist, sometimes called Number 1, and sometimes called Samatha.  And then the rest of the force is made up of 3 regulars / standard / mooks.  

A miniature then is an individual and its abilities during the game are made up from a combination of the equipment it's carrying plus it's traits / skills.  The rules call them Traits but could be thought of as skills and attributes.  This miniature is better at shooting so has the "deadeye' trait.  That miniature is especially strong so has the (wait for it) 'Strong' trait.  This other miniature is really good at needlepoint so has the 'girly' trait.  That other miniature has an encyclopedic memory of star wars trivia so has the 'super nerd' trait.  Some of those I made up.

The Leader gets the most traits, the second gets some, and the mooks get one each.  this is kinda cool because it allows for each character in the force to be unique.  for example; if building a little Viking raiding party you can have the Leader butt kicker; the second could be a crazy Berserker or maybe a skilled archer, the last three dudes with slightly different abilities.  


Fistful of Cards

The basic turn structure of the game uses a deck of cards.  Each player is dealt one card for each miniature in their force.  The cards are ranked King as highest with Ace as lowest (kinda, stay tuned).  After everyone has their hand of cards (and is either groaning or cheering), The cards ranks are called out starting with Kings, and going down through to the bottom.  (Kings, Queens, Jacks...).  When a card rank is called and you have one, you show it with a flourish and then activate a miniature of your choice to do 2 actions.  This is important; is NOT like Dead Mans Hand, where each miniature is assigned a card and activates when it comes up NO.  It's you use the card to activate the miniature you want to, which I really like because it means you can activate the one that needs to move NOW.  If more than one player has the same rank (say three players have Jacks) then the play is in suit order of Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs.  

Also, some cards have bonuses when used to activate.  For example, the Jack of Spades gives a +1 to shooting.  You don't need to use the Jack of Spades to shoot but if you do then the miniature gets a +1.  The 2 card allows the miniature to roll an extra die and pick the best.  there are a fair number of bonuses in the deck.  Aces are wild so can be any card. If you have 2 Aces they can even be the same card if need be...

Fistful of Actions

When a miniature activates it can take two actions.  Actions are what you think they are: move, shoot, fight, do a task, aim, pick his nose, reload, ponder the meaning of life knowing that we are brief specs of dust in an infinite void of space.  The standard move is 5".    There are the usual modifiers for range, terrain, cover, all the stuff you expect but there's not really that many of them; one could say only a Fistful.

The game uses D10s, though really skilled characters can use a D12, and really bad ones a D8.  When a character is hit, there is a roll on the wound table and can result in a shock (temp damage that can be removed) a wound (permanent damage), and a small chance to be killed outright.  Characters can take 3 wounds though this number can be changed with traits.  I really like that every time a character is hit there is a small chance that it gets killed outright, as I find that realistic as these are mortal men and even Kings can take an arrow in the eye.  


Clint Eastwood from Fistful of Dollars.
Also known as my identical twin.


Fistful of Observations and Suggestions:
(so that would be two fists then yes?)


The game is usually played on a smallish table; 3x3 or 4x4.  But as I've hinted at this thing scales pretty well so larger or smaller could be used.  Games benefit from a good amount of terrain.  Games of 2 players with 5 miniatures each take about an hour ish to about an hour and half.  Adding more players or miniatures will increase that time obviously, but one should remember that each miniature activates alone, which means everyone is standing around while that player is resolving those actions.  However, the activations are short and tend to be quick.  I think the game tops out at about 6 players and/or 30ish miniatures total.  

There are no points, and the game is very scenario dependent.  Each Genre supplement has a good number of scenarios included (more on that later).  A good scenario and this game is an awesome combination: Like pizza and ice cream.  What? my kids tell me that's a good combination and kids never lie about things that are yummy.  Just everything else.  

There are a whole lot of Traits in the game, I think there is over 100, and each trait has a different effect.  While no trait is game breaking, some traits are better than others.  For example, I don't see the trait "leaper' where the character can jump further than others being much use.  No, I didn't make that trait up.   Now if you design your own warband you'll be familiar with the traits you select but if you're handed a warband and each miniature is super unique it means that one has to become very familiar with 9 traits very fast and that can lead to trait overload; too many things to remember.  
To avoid this it's easier to give all the regular dudes the same trait and just make the leader and the Second special unique snow flakes.
A force roster is essential, but I think it's way cooler to make Character pokemon-like cards that summarize things in one pace.


Example of character cards I made for a Dark Ages game.
Just a clever use of text boxes in Powerpoint.

Just helpful in a convention or club setting where you might have many players new to the game.  



As mentioned above; the game uses a card deck for activations and many cards have special rules attached to them.  This is hard to remember.  One solution is to write the bonus on the actual card as a reminder, but that's a poor mans option.  Plus I have really bad handwriting.  Instead, I opted for one of the custom card decks from the website.  There are lots to choose from to match the genre of your choice; the attributes of the cards don't change just the pictures on them.  I opted for the generic fits all kinda plain card deck.  I'm well off sure; but I don't have 'get 4 different card decks that have the same information but different pictures on them' kind of money.  

Specialist card deck that I got.
Image taken from Wiley Games website.




There are lots of game play vidoes on Youtube if one in interested.  The cards and the combat sysem combine to create lots of dramtic die rolls and roll offs.  The activation system gives a player the right amount of decisions; enough for the player to feel like they have options and can pursue a strategy but not so many to invoke analysis paralysis.  While each figure only gets two actions, it's not really an action economy game.  


I've played about 4 games of FFoL and enjoyed them immensely.  During these games I noticed there was a higher amount of laughter and swearing, and that I thought was a good sign. But it was G rated swearing, my kids were in the house.



Fistful of Books (buying guide)

The Core rule book is pictured at the start of the post, and then there is a supplement for almost any genre you can think of (Old West, medieval, black powder, post apoc, far future, Star Wars..).  Now, each supplement is actually a standalone game.  So you don't need the core rules just to play a certain genre.  In fact, most of each supplement is a reprint of the core mechanics.  You also don't need any of the supplements to play any genre if you have the core rules.  What each supplement offers are a few little twists to the rules to make it fit the genre better, some new traits, and a bunch of scenarios.  
I tend to think of the core rulebook as the supplement for 20th century combat.  

PDFs of the book are pretty reasonably priced.  I did my usual thing where I buy the PDF for the instant gratification and if I really like it I then buy a printed copy.  So now I have a PDF of several books and a printed copy of my favs so far: Might and Melee (medieval / dark ages) and Black Powder.

A nice touch, is that there is an Ultimate trait list on the website for super cheap that has every trait from every book in it.  So you don't feel like you're missing out on anything.

So if you feel like checking out the game, I would suggest just picking up the supplement for your preferred genre for skirmish as that will be all you need to get started.  

So far I've used FFoL for games set in the Dark Ages (Viking versus Saxons) and Black Powder (AWI).  While the core rules were the same; just the fact that one genre was mainly hand to hand and the other was shooting made the games play very differently.  In a good way. 


I'm hosting a FFoL game at Conquest in April, and planning another project for FFoL later in the year. After I finish all these wooden soldiers.  better get back to that now.


Fistful of Tears

Because it's time to say goodbye.  

Thanks for reading
Double thanks for writing a comment.
Till next time.


Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Wooden Wars More

If a Stew-paint could paint wood,
how much wood could a Stew-paint paint?
A Stew-paint would paint as much wood as a stew-paint could paint,
if a Stew-paint could paint wood.


More Wooden Wars



Progress on the wooden Napoleonic soldiers continues.  It's somewhat embarrassing that others are painting actual Napoleonic miniatures, whole units in fact, faster than I am getting these done.  And I'm basically just coloring.  It's like Napoleonic shaming.  


The French


Marching onward:  I now have enough French miniatures 'painted' up for my planned introductory game with my two oldest kids. least I think so anyway.  I don't have much experience with this sort of game so it's kinda learn as I go as to what makes it fun.  

36 French Infantry are done. A unit can be between 10 and 24 figures, so I thought 3 units of 12.  But looking at it now 12 seems a little small.





Wait, where'd they go?
if flats were real soldiers, they would march sideways into battle.
Like an army of crabs.

Each infantry unit can fire with one ball.

Joining the infantry is some artillery support.

French Artillery Crew.
Got a flame dude, a bucket dude, a sword dude, and Q tip man.


from the rear.  



Each Cannon gets 4 crew members



Bam, bam, bam.
A 3-cannon battery.


The cannon barrels are not attached, so if a thrown rubber ball knocks it off the gun counts as destroyed.
Each cannon can fire with one ball, so this battery will throw 3 when it fires.  


Leading the French is this mounted officer.  He doesn't shoot.  His job to ride around the battlefield attaching to units to rally knocked over soldiers and increase movement.  



"Oui, Oui, Oui, mon ami,"

The officer is not attached to his horse, so he can be knocked off it, just like a real soldier.  

His job is also to look super suave.  Or as you say in in French "Suave-veh"  (that is not real French)

Beginning French force for Wooden Wars




The British are Coming!


(Wrong war, I know, but Paul Revere doesn't hold a patent) Not to be completely outdone by their cross channel rivals, the British have come a long way as well.  

British Foot soldier in the bare wood.
I'm trying to think of a 'bare wood' joke and failing.
Something about the size of his timber.


Painted up



rear view



More.


I actually have 30 of the British soldiers done but you don't need more pictures.  In hindsight these miniatures are actually being completed rather quickly.  So take that you Napoleonic shamers ya gosh dern dab nabbits!  



Plans



Peter F Drucker once said. "Unless commitment is made; there are only promises and hopes, but no plans."  Commitments have been made.  Soon I should be able to play a test game with my two oldest children this month.  And see if this whole exercise will be worth it.  
Working on stuff for use with your children is strange, because on days when they seriously misbehave, I'm like "why am I trying to spend MORE time with you?"  

Actually I am REALLY enjoying working on these wooden flats, it's easy, it's fun, and the result is very pleasing.  As a first foray into Naps it's going rather well.  I even got a book on Waterloo.  


THE BATTLE OF THE CUB SCOUTS is scheduled in March (which is just hosting a battle with kids in my son's Cub Scout den, but it gets capitalized because I kinda hyped it up (incidentally the Cub Scout den grew this month from 6 kids to 10, I might need more troops)). 




Lastly in April is The Intergalactic Conquest Convention.  I volunteered to run a game of Wooden Wars in the morning and some kid friendly board games in the afternoon (I have plenty), as part of the Young Players Program.  
So far I've been told by the convention management that I AM the young player program and they'll be sure to 'promote these games in future advertisements.'  
So, ah, I best deliver.  


Thanks for reading,
Double Thanks for writing a comment.
Till next time.

Monday, January 22, 2024

Hobby Budget

 

let's talk about something super uncomfortable: MONEY.

Oh, is that too uncomfortable?  Then let's talk about Sex.  Last night the wife and I....

Let's stick to money. It won't be that bad.



New Year, New Hobby


January is the month for new years resolutions.  Hobby resolutions are all the same; get more stuff painted, play more games, finish X project blah blah BLAH. 

Before I come off all snide (whaddya mean too late?) I should point out that I have all the same hobby resolutions. I'm no better.  I wanna get more stuff painted, I wanna play miniature games more often, I wanna finish that project that's been sitting around for too long.  I wanna feel like I'm actually enjoying my life from time to time.  

It's kinda like how all of us men in our late 40s have the same resolutions; lose weight, be healthier, be a better parent and husband.  I'm looking at you Dai.  You too David.  It's like looking in the mirror.  

We all got the same goals but we're gonna go about them in different ways.  To achieve my goals I'm gonna use the most powerful concept that man has ever invented: Budgeting.  And you thought the most powerful concept man ever invented was freedom. Pffffft. Freedom only works on a budget.


Hobby Dollars


For a long time now I haven't kept track of how much money I am spending on this silly hobby.  Perhaps that is an appalling thing to admit as I am a grown man, with a job, the sole provider for the family with other responsibilities.  So maybe it's important to know how much money is being wasted on plastic Vikings versus groceries.

Previously I've told myself that I can buy whatever I want when I want but 'don't go crazy because there is such a thing as too much.'  Because after all, I am a grown man, with a job, the sole provider for the family with other responsibilities.  So if I want a box of plastic Vikings who's to say no?  Not my family, because I'm not gonna tell them.  Not you guys, you're complicit.  

Yet money is the limited resource that will be used to achieve these hobby goals of mine.  Actually all hobby goals are achieved through the limited resources of money and time, usually in a reverse relationship.  Less money spent equals more time needed to completion; more money spent means less time needed.  

Because I recently turned a year older and wiser, and greyer and somehow more attractive; I've become suddenly very attentive to money and time.  But this is a hobby blog so we'll focus on that aspect of life over the serious stuff.  No need to get bummed out by the inevitability of death  (whaddya mean too late?) .

I'm fairly sure I have little more time to give.  I'm a fairly busy man (aren't we all).  The time that I do spend is already chiseled out of a fairly packed schedule.  Instead I'll focus on the money which will be easier to track, with the idea that by paying closer attention; any money spent will be more effective in completing goals.  

An effective budget needs a limit.  I decided to set my budget at $1000 for the whole year.  that will include everything for this hobby for the year; buying miniatures, paint supplies, Only Fans accounts, attending out of town conventions, everything.  Depending on your own Socio Economic Status a thousand dollars for luxury goods for 1 person either seems a pittance, the just right amount, or an extravagance.  Feel free to judge me.  I'm just a stranger on the internet and I don't have real feelings.

I'll be using the blog to track expenses.  I don't have any yet, it's only January and I have quite the backlog stored up... as I think it might be fun and somewhat interesting to track throughout the year.


CURRENT TOTAL: $1000


Side topic: Bonus Moneys: 

Work Overtime: Anytime that I work overtime; half of the extra income may be applied to the hobby budget.  I don't do overtime a lot because it's a pain in the ass and in my profession I do overtime by signing up to be 'On-call" for all hours for any Mental Health Emergencies.  It usually means working on weekends and stinks, but it does pay decently.



Time to Go


I bet you did not expect such a Cents -sational post about a budget.  I'm sure it's got a high Interest Rate.  It remains to be seen if this Investment will pay Dividends. 

Thanks for reading.
Double thanks for writing a comm.... wait!  I just wrote my second post of the year, and without any MEMES! 


Ha!  Proves that I don't need memes as a crutch.

wait, does that count as....?
/sigh.

Till next time.  Actual wargaming content next time.  

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Wooden Wars

 Alternative title: The Dad Dilemma

Alternative Alternative title: What to do with the damn kids?


I have 2 big projects that I want to tackle this year.  This is the first, and it involves the most fearsome beast known to mankind: CHILDREN.  
Turn back now if you are of faint of heart and nervous disposition.
disclaimer: there are no kids in this post, only snide comments about them


Child's Play


For reference, my remaining children are two boys ages 3 and 5, and a daughter age 10.
I'm lucky so far in that my children enjoy playing board games.  At this point I have more 'kid friendly / family' board games then I do grown up adult board games.  And I lean toward chucking the grown up board games because they never see action these days, or years. 

Of course, the board games are just the gateway to get them to eventually play miniature games.  This is a purely selfish desire;  I want guaranteed opponents in my old age for my vast miniatures collections that I'm going to have.  Get'em hooked while they are young; so much later in life  they don't have to say to each other "No, it's YOUR turn to play with dad, I did it last time."

I needed a miniature game that threads the needle for the 10 and 5 year old.  I've invited my 10 year girl to play a miniature wargame a few times as she's smart enough to get some games, but she's always declined stating that she "doesn't like toys with guns or weapons."  Pity, as most of my WARgaming miniatures have some sort of weapon.  Sometimes she wanders over to my hobby desk while I'm sitting there doing something from Lord knows where; I wasn't watching her, it wasn't my shift.  And then she's really interested in what I am doing, because it's bedtime.  She finds lots of things really interesting right before she should be going to bed.  


The game that I've settled on as my gateway drug is called Wooden Wars from Skull and Crown miniatures.





I saw this game being played at a convention a LOOOOOOOONG time ago, saw lots of kids and patents having a great time, so I'm glad that it's still around.  

The premise is simple and fun: armies are made of wooden flats and players shoot by tossing a rubber ball at them.  Solders that are knocked over are casualties.  It's a winning combination; miniatures for me, tossing stuff for the kids.  My kids love to toss stuff.  If there's a choice between placing something down and tossing it then tossing it wins every time with them.  


At the last convention that I attended, I sidled up next to Mr. TF who owns / runs / is Skull and Crown miniatures.  Reintroduced myself as we've met before but it has been a long while, and talked some shop.  Mr. TF is a very nice man with a winning smile and answered many of my stupid questions even after I placed an order.  

Before the year was over, I had a large box arrive: 

It was a very HEAVY Box.
Mr TF even threw in some extra goodies.
Because I am also a nice man with a winning smile
and we take care of our own.

 

My First Naps


The wooden soldiers are based on the Napoleonic wars which, my best blogging buddies will attest, I know nothing about.  Words like Hussar, Landwehr, Fusilier, and Cuirassier mean nothing to me, and could equally describe types of cheese or alien races in 40K because they sound like made up words.  

These being my first Naps, it only seemed right to start with the French.

The French soldier comes like this in bare form.
Includes an option for a fancy furry hat.



Needing to know what a Napoleonic French infantry uniform looked like, I took to the internet for a deep dive into Napoleonic uniforms.  Luckily for me, Napoleonic uniforms are fairly drab and consistent so little research was needed.  

We'll pause here for Naps players to recover their breath after hyperventilating, or to clean the screen perhaps after doing a spit take.

Actually, I just went to the Skull and Crown Blog and copied the pictures that I saw there.  

I'm also forgoing traditionally painting the flats with brushes; and am going for an easier option of using paint pens, so it's more like coloring in the spaces.  



After some experimentation I found that 'coloring' before assembling was easier
and looked better in the end..
After finalizing a color scheme I went into mass production. 


I feel some Pressure (like a drip, drip, drip, that'll never stop, whoa) as I would like to use these soon.  I think I ordered enough wooden troops for a game with 4-6 kids as I think this will be fun to play with my son's Cub Scout den.  Also; there's a convention in April that has a "young player" program and I think it'll be awesome to show off.  So April (really late March) is the DEADLINE.





One done.




After all the coloring.  Glue all the pieces together.
Here's the front and back of a French soldier.
I added the ruler to show that they're about 3.5 inches tall.



I decided to color the backs of the flats in a rudimentary fashion, as the bare wood looked odd.  It's a little extra time but with kids we all know that Time Spent  = Love.  I'm just getting lucky that the time sent is not actually with them.

Because I am a grown man in his late 40s, I'm a bit of an expert at coloring..  I cans stay in-between the lines and everything (mostly).  

This is from Peppa Pig
My youngest kids still like it.
Sometimes, I feel a lot like Daddy Pig.



As I said earlier, I feel the Pressure (that'll tip, tip, tip, 'til you just go pop, whoa-oh) to get this done quickly, but maybe I need not panic.  It's only been a week and I already have MANY done.

 
Looks Napoleonic to me,
because it looks like a high school marching band.
Which is what I secretly think to myself whenever I see a Naps Game.



Eisenhower said "Plans are useless, but planning is essential."  Right now I'm planning on making enough French and then enough British for a small 1vs1 game with my two oldest kids and seeing if they like it.  they BETTER!  Otherwise I'm gonna end up with a pile of painted miniatures that never see the game table.  What miniature wargamer has that??   Embarrassing.  

Thanks for reading.
Double thanks for writing a comment.
Till next time.