76/100

 

Now where was I before being so rudely interrupted by dumb real-life problems?

Oh yes, painting miniatures for the Dark Ages.  The stuff that REALLY matters.

76 / 100

In the continuing journey of painting 100 dark age type miniatures before painting anything else just to see how long it takes me; I cross the 3 quarters marker with 76 painted miniatures today.   Hooray for 3/4s complete!

While there is no real deadline; I don't want it to take all year just because it'd  be really depressing if it took a year just to paint 100 miniatures.  Especially because I don't paint all that well and more especially because I am actually trying to have NOT take a year....

The year is 50% over and I am 75% done; so I have +25% happiness from a baseline of being sad.  

The mighty 10 this time around comprise of 4 random Viking hirdmen,
probably with generic Viking names like Erik and Sweyn,
and two command stands with 3 miniatures each (that adds up to10 right?)

Here is the Anglo Saxon Command stand.
I'm pretty sure the leader figure is Gripping Beast's 'Alfred the Great.'
I'm not sure because I just had it in a ziplock bag.  But I know he's a leader
because he's pointing his sword in the air.

Here is the Viking stand.
He defies convention and has his sword pointed down!  What a rebel!

He also has a strange Pagan power....
His hair is blowing to the left while the banner is flying to the right...

Aside comment:  Thanks Ray!

Speaking of banners: the banner for the Viking command stand is from the Blog 'Don't Roll a 1' written by Ray.  Turns out I didn't have a suitable raven/viking banner so did an online image search and the blog popped up.  I thought "hey, I know that guy!"  (well kinda, I read his blog and comment once in awhile).

Thanks Ray, appreciate the resource. 

No close ups of the 4 generic Viking hirdmen because who gives a damn.  No-body.

So instead, the new 4 new Vikings go onto a Big Battle Base (movement tray) that had 4 empty spots and the whole things gets lead by it's new hair flying leader into the storage tub.

To the Storage tub! For adventure and plunder!
"hey-ho, hey-ho,
off to storage we go."

24 More

24 more miniatures to go before the magical number of 100.  24 is nice because it divides so easily down the middle into 2 batches of 12 miniatures.  The next 12 are already up and waiting for their turn through the agonizing painting process.

What's it gonna be, more Vikings?!?!
You Betcha!!
Pics of unpainted miniatures are super exciting!!!!
I'm gonna use MORE exclamation marks!!!!!!
!!!
!

Public Service Announcement

DID YOU KNOW that there is a 3rd Bill and Ted movie called "Bill and Ted Face the Music"  ??!!!

I KNOW RIGHT??  How did we miss that?  

If you're like me then you will find it on Amazon and watch it immediately.  

If you have no idea about the Excellent franchise that is the Bill and Ted movies then you have a telephone booth hole in your heart.  

Party On Dudes!

Till next time.

Thanks for reading.

Double thanks for writing a comment.

ACW Diversion

 

Life can be a boring monotonous chore.  Let's have a short diversion in ACW gaming...as in a short post.

An ACW Game is Always Fun

Over the Memorial Day weekend there is Kublacon; one of the largest and best miniature conventions on the west coast.  I didn't go.  I'm too poor these days to go off spending nights in hotel rooms.  It's not so much the price of the hotel room as it is price of the cocaine and hookers that are mandatory purchases in any hotel scenario....plus gas is like $6 a gallon around here!

Anyway..

I did have some people over to play some ACW.  Other losers who also didn't go to Kublacon were Mr. AS, Mr MW, and Mr. CG (so 4 players including me).  I was tempted to try and find more players for a BIGGER game but I started thinking that 4 player games are kinda the Goldilocks of miniature games. 

Rules were (my favorite) Regimental Fire and Fury.  Scenario based on the 'Duncan Field' scenario out of the scenario book "This Bloody Field" by Brad Butkovich on Shiloh.  I have SO MANY regimental sceanrio books that sometimes I just pick one at random and find a scenario that works just so I cans ay that I've played a scenario from the book and therefore was NOT a waste of money. 

Each player has two brigades or 8-9 regiments.  That's another bonus of smaller games, players get to have bigger commands.  I like having bigger commands in my games.

And SO; the table is set:

Tried Out Something New

I tried out a new terrain technique for me because I've had a problem with ALL my previous ACW games.  The problem of terrain boundaries.  FOR EXAMPLE: The terrain for this scenario is that it's light woods everywhere; except where is open ground in fields and one region where it's heavy/dense woods (in this case the area is the famous "Hornet's Nest.").  Usually I mark the boundaries of woods and fields with fences or logs or whatever and it tends to still look good and be clear.

Until half way through the game; because fences get moved and logs roll and all the trees end up in bunches in out of the way places on the table. 

The idea:

Using one of my Cigar box mats as the base (and Cigar box mats always seem to photograph weird) I laid out all the boundary stuff, and then took some of the flocks I have for ground cover and spread these out in a light layer over the mat where needed.  

Like So!
The Hornets Nest area marked out by logs and filled in with a brighter green flock.
This area is heavy/dense woods.

Like So!
Duncan's Field (and all fields) marked out by fences and a light ground cover.
These areas are open ground.

Everywhere else is light woods.
Trees on the table are there just to look nice.
But not as nice as my Blue Moon ACW collection.

It seemed to work like a treat.  Provided clear boundaries that held up during gameplay and will be a versatile system to adapt to any shapes.  

Alternatively one could just make custom fields for each scenario and that would look awesome.  But did I mention I have a LOT of scenarios?  that would be a lot of work.

Here is the ONE picture I took during the game.

My good friend Mr PC came over during the game to talk and hang out.  Mr PC is my good gamer buddy from when I lived in the Bay Area 7 years ago and we did frequent games because we lived 20 mins apart.  And I only had one child back then. 

But now he recently moved from the Bay Area close to me again; so gaming shall be back on the table.  I'm not saying he moved over here JUST to play games with me again but I am saying it was likely 80% of the reason why...

Too bad that now I have even more children...

Speaking of Family: My Wife the Hero

The original plan was to play outside in the backyard.  This wasn't so much due to COVID concerns but to be out of the way of the children and wife who could stay in the house doing whatever.  And the weather was gonna be nice so it worked out.  

But kinda at the last minute my wife decided that she would take the kids to her parents house in the Bay Area and stay the night there 'to be out of the way and you can just have a good time.' 

I was gonna have a good time regardless, but answered "Well I don't want you to feel like you HAVE to do that...ButHereLetMeHelpYouPackSoYouCanGetOutOfHere."

So we got to play inside and in the evening I was able to do some extra painting and relax all by myself.  Thanks Sweets, you're a hero.

(My wife doesn't read this blog, it's been well proven, but maybe after I die she'll look at it from time to time and this will really get her in the ticker...)  

Now Get Back to Work

All right; Breaks over.  Back to the boring routine of work, woes, and whining.  

Till next time.

Hopefully soon.

66/100

Hello Again, 

Welcome back to the Terrible blog.  Today we have average painted miniatures and below average writing.

66 Out Of 100 

I've completed 16 miniatures to add to the growing umber of newly painted dark ages types, bringing the total now up to 66.  Only 34 (quickly checks his math) more to go to get to 100.

66 out of 100.  That's just about spitting distance from jumping distance to the end of this dark ages tunnel.

These guys are all the bad boys of the dark ages.  So bad they got a whole Age got named after them (you've heard of the Viking Age right?).  Guys whose idea of a good time was to hop into a boat, sail to a nice sunny place full of nice people, and steal their stuff and kidnap them.  Sounds like a fun bunch of guys.

That's right; These guys are ALL Vikings.

What a savage looking bunch of criminals

Here we have Hulk Hogan dressed up like a Viking Banner Bearer.

Thanks Mr. Hogan.

Now I'll do a small barrage of close ups so you can actually see what the miniatures look like.

then you can nod your head and say 'yep, that's a painted miniature alright." 

Do you like your men with beards?
Because Vikings do.  Lots of beards here.

Guy on right says to the Guy on the left:
"Dude, the stone ages called: they want their big tree branch back.
Go get a sword and for ODIN'S SAKE GET SOME SLEEVES.
It's embarrassing."

Lots of Foundry Vikings made their way into this batch.
They often have the best beards.

16 miniatures gives 1.7234689765 completed movement trays
(each holds 10, but DONT check that math)
or as I call them "Big Battle bases."

Obviously the next batch of miniatures will have to include at least 4 Viking Hirdmen to complete that last base. 

Then I need at least 10 more Bondi types and that will get me to 80 and then I'm not sure what I'll want to paint to round out to 100.  maybe some dark ages civilians like women and children or something.

The End is Near

That's all I got for now.  Time to start prepping the next figures in line. I gotta hurry; Summer is here and the kids only have two more weeks of school.  Then they won't need to go to bed on time so will slowly but inexorably start staying up later and later, because everyone can sleep in.

Everyone but ME, because I still have to go to work.  

The free time I have after everyone goes to bed but before I do is gonna shrink and shrink.

Such is the life.  No matter; staying up late and waking up early, that's what caffeine is for. 

Till next time.  Thanks for reading and writing a comment. 

More Star Trekkin'

 

Space, my final genre.

These are the online ramblings of the Blogger; Stewart

His continuing mission: To constantly lose at miniature wargames.

To seek out ways to barely paint but still have fully painted armies.

To boldly follow where others have lead before!

Tripping on Scales

AS mentioned in a previous post HERE; I've got a hankering to do some spaceship flying, laser firing, shield frying, Sci-fi space gaming and I'm gonna do it with Star trek as seen on the shows "Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine."   I am an absolute rookie in this genre so this is all experimentation.

WHY YES, I am happily watching Star trek Next Generation of Netflix while I paint my dark ages figures.  At least I was until the series suddenly left the catalog, but I happily switched over to DS9.  Don't tell anyone, but DS9 is kinda a better show anyways.  Plus, DS9 covers the Dominion War which is kinda a BIG deal and likely where this little genre will lead...

Anyways, last Trek post we talked briefly about rules and TNG vs TOS, and this post will discuss miniatures, which will lead to a discussion about scales.  Miniature wargamers LOVE to discuss which scale is the best.  Just google 15mm vs 28mm vs 6mm and you'll get TONS of results.  I can't tell you what the best scale is, but I can tell you it's definitely not 6mm.  

I also know that 28mm is not really a scale but a size, but we all know what I mean and using the wright wirds iz knot importent. 

First Difficulties in Size Matters (no matter what she says)

There is no dedicated range of Star Trek TNG/DS9 ships.  Which means you have to cobble your collection together and mix-n-match manufactures and do it all yourself.  So where to start?

First we'll consider the size of the ships, because they're actually pretty big.  Well not really because they're all made up, but you get the idea.  The Enterprise D, a Galaxy class starship, is supposed to be around 650m long.

Secondly we'll consider the size of the ships, because they actually pretty small.  Well not really because they're all made up, but you get the idea.  The Defiant, a Defiant class ship (go figure), is around 130m long. 

Basically, what I am saying is that the size of the ships is AAALLLL over the place...

Ship sizes in silhouette for comparison. 

I'm OBVIOUSLY gonna have a Defiant class and Galaxy class on the table (these are like, the mainstay ships of the TV series).  But it does lead to an interesting conundrum that's probably unique to spacehip/ sci-fy gaming: On the same table you have 2 objects and one is supposed to 5x the size of the other. 

I'm struggling to think of a historical miniature wargame where such a size difference would come into play.  I guess you could take a 6 gun schooner next to a 100 gun Ship of the Line but not many historical scenarios would call for that;  being based in, you know, reality.

Being Picky

You could just ignore this issue, which is basically what happens in the Wizkids ship ranges for the game Star Trek Attack Wing. (I think the game is out of print now but you can still find the ship blisters).  Which means you COULD just get all your ships from them and there are lots of youtube videos and blogs where people paint over the the extremely piss poor manufacture prepaint and make the model pretty.  It's kinda like when an average person gets hair and make up done by a professional in a make-over style show.

Some Star Trek Attack Wing ships.
The Galaxy class on the far left should be 5 times bigger
than the Defiant class on the far right.

But I'm gonna be picky and I want the ships to scale to each other.  If anything because I want players to be able to see that one ship is bigger than another just by looking at them.  Big ships will probably have lots of guns and be dangerous.  Small ships will likely be really fast and cute with Hello Kitty Stickers on them.

So it's obvious we need some sort of scale.  Common scales for ships are 1/7000, 1/5000, 1/4800, 1/3900 (the original FASA scale), 1/3125, 1/2500.....   you get the idea.  There's a wide variety to choose from.

At this point I should mention that I got a lot of help from posting on The Miniature Pages, my wargaming club email group, and Internet best friend David from Lazgunpacker Blog.

Thirdly we'll consider the size playing the table.  I'm gonna be using my standard 5x6 table (two folding tables pushed together).  So I want ships that are big enough to be seen and look cool, but small enough that they'll be able to swoosh about the table and do some maneuvers.  After watching videos of Full Thrust games on Youtube and playing my first game of Klingon Armada with David; I have the idea that ships ought to be around 3"for a big ship and around 1" for a small ship.  Ship miniatures bigger than that appear to only creep slowly about the table and ship miniatures smaller than that might as well be cardboard counters.  And cardboard chits are for board games and board games are boring.  

(that's a joke, I love board games, don't send hate-mail).

OK, so it was a BAD joke.
They all can't be gems.

Not to mention that really big ship miniatures will likely need really big flight bases to keep them from toppling over in a slight breeze and damaging the amazing paint jobs I'm gonna give em.  I want flight bases to to be under 2" so that I can use a space mat with 2" hexes to play Starmada.  When playing with hexes,  I don't want ships that are in hex C, to be spilling all over hexes A, B, D, and E as well.  

As can be seen from this pic from my 1 game with David;
Ships that are around 1-3" ish look good on a 2" hex

Doing some easy math using the Enterprise D (because the Galaxy class starship is one of the bigger ships in Star Trek, and as I said, required for Trek gaming); at 1/5000 a Galaxy ship miniature is 5" long.  Too big. 

But at 1/7000 the ship is around 3.5" big.  That seems right.  The Defiant would be a little more than 1".

So 1/7000 seems to be goldilocks of scale choice where ships will not be too big or too small. And there we have nice, well though out,  line of reasoning that makes perfect sense.  

To Boldly Go Where Others Have Gone Before (or TLDR that above bit)

In reality, while exploring ships and doing image searches I found the blog A Mere Matter of Painting who has an impressive gallery of 1/7000 Star trek miniatures and I just decided to copy what he did.  Why lead when I can follow?  Afterwards I convinced myself of the virtues of the 1/7000 scale.  

I tried a couple of times to leave a comment to thank him s but it never seems to go through, so just in case he stumbles across this:  "Thank You Sir.  You are a (Star Fleet) Officer and a gentlemen."

Getting on Board the Ships

Having chosen the best and proper scale, it's time to do some shopping. Shopping is the most fun part of miniature wargaming after actually playing the games with cool people.  Then comes designing scenarios, then making terrain, then talking about miniatures with your wife, and then lastly painting the miniatures. 

Obviously 3d printing is the first stop; but as I don't have a 3d printer nor do I want one because where the hell would I put it?  My hobby desk is almost constantly covered in crap I mean cool miniature projects in various stages of completion.  

That means Shapeways is my shopping center.  The search function for the Shapeways market place SUCKS. But eventually with time and effort you can find some good stuff.  There's actually not that many shops that are selling Star Trek ish ships (probably because no one has the license) and I really only found one that labels the miniature as what it is called from the universe and puts in the description of what episode or movie it comes from.  Most shops will have a pic of the ship miniature that is obviously a Trek ship but have it called "SF Hvy Cruiser Refit" or "exploration cruiser" or "Bob's Bigboy Pickle Battleship."   Again, this is because no one has a license to do these so most try to disguise it somewhat so Paramount can't come after them (though I wonder if they would really?) 

That's right, it's a Star Wars Meme in a post about Star Trek.
I cannot be contained by mere genres.

So it helps if you know what you are looking for.  So go on and get your trek-nerd hat on and get to know the the star ship classes.  Get to know the Star Trek timeline.  If you're like me, you'll enjoy it for the first couple of hours and then get annoyed at all the inconsistencies that arise from reading about a fictional universe written by too many people with too many timelines. 

Also; A Mere Matter of Painting blog (that I linked above) has links to where he got his ships which is super cool because you can see how the ships look after being painted.  

Here are a few shops to get you started, because they are where I started:

Armadillo Miniatures: This is the easiest shop to...shop from.  He calls the ships what they are called in the Trekverse, has scales, and a wide selection.  Because of this his shop seems much more personable and user friendly.

Halcyon Shipyards: Seems to have some nice ships and provides the scale of the ship in the label.  However, there are no descriptions of the ships and they have generic names.  You just have to know that the "SF Assault Cruiser" is a Sovereign Class (or the Enterprise E) just by looking at it.   

Robs3dModelShop:  this is an Etsy store and the ships LOOK like they're at the 1/7000 scale.  Much cheaper than shapeways stuff.

The hard thing about buying stuff online is that you don't really know what you're getting until it arrives in your grubby hands.  

If you're like me then you also have a hard time visualizing accurate sizes
(just ask my wife what I think is 6"....yukyukyuk).
In order to see it better, I took some graph paper with a 1" grid
and drew out the size of the ship.

I've seen that people also use models, toys, and board game pieces for their ships.  This might work fine if you can see it in person but most of the websites that sell such things don't list how big or small the actual ship is.  

First Plunge

Having decided on the scale it was time for test run; I bought some ships from Shapeways.   Also because after window shopping online for weeks I ran out of willpower to resist the urge to buy stuff.  I am not made of steel.  If anything I am made of soft couch stuffing.

I made a order for a small ship, a medium ship, and a large ship, with the idea being I can see how they rank up to each other.  I also made sure I got them in 'Fine Detail Plastic' as that seems to be the way to go with small miniatures like these.

Taking a picture of clear plastic ships was kinda hard.

These are 2 Saber Class ships (because 2 came in the file) as the small, and Excelsior class ship as the medium (in the middle), and the Galaxy class for the Large and because the whole point is to have a TNG Enterprise. 

A Saber class ship is supposed to be around 200m, so about a 1/3 the size of the Galaxy.

An Excelsior class ship is around 400m, so 2/3s the size of a Galaxy.

I'm pleased that these all seem to line up well next to each other. 

I'm waiting for some flight stands to show up in the mail before getting these primed and I just might be tempted to paint one or two.  Maaayyybe.

Thanks for Reading

Glad you stopped you by.  Hope the above was a fun read.  Feel free to have the replicator make you a hot drink for the road.

Till next time.

Trouble with Comments

EDIT:  All fixed now with wonderful tech support provided by JF.

Thanks Bud!

But we'll leave the post up just to prove that I am a computer dummy.

And Then There Was Trouble...

Hi all!

For some reason unknown to me, lately I am having trouble leaving comments on people's blogs.  I blame Mike, because it start happening after I read his blog post on having trouble with blogger, so obviously he infected me.  

When I view a blog on my iPhone, where the comment section usually is I see this:

Phone screen shot

Now I am already am signed into google, but whatever.

When I punch the button, the page reloads but nothing changes.

Lame.

I dunno what changed.  But it's frustrating.

My laptop still works fine, but I do 95% of my blog reading and comment writing on my phone, because I don't have a life where I can sit down in front of the laptop. 

If anyone has an idea how to fix this, I'm all ears.  

Till I can get it resolved, I might not be leaving comments regularly on your fabulous blogs for awhile (and they'll probably be the better for it).  

50/100 Half Way There

 Cue up the Bon Jovi song...

"I gotta hoooold on, to the simple plan I wrought,

It doesn't even matter those new miniatures I bought.

I got 50 done, and that's a lot (or not).

I'll give it a shot! 

Whooaaah, I'm Half Way there,
WhooAAAH, Painting on a prayer!

Brush in Hand, I'll make it I swear

WhooAAH, Painting on a prayer!

Paaaaiiiinting ooonnn a praaaayyyerrrr.

(doh doh doh)

That song came out in 1986.  Even I was young back then...

(Song was "Living on Prayer."  I'm sure you figured it out by my typing-singing).

Half Way There

Hey look at that, it's only April and I've managed to paint up 50 miniatures out of the 100 planned.  Which is kinda amazing for me for I am not known for being a speedy painter nor someone who enjoys painting in general.

Go me!

Or maybe painting miniatures to an acceptable tabletop standard isn't all that hard and I should just get over myself.  And its still gonna be October / another 4 months to finish all 100 at this rate of production. Not that impressive.  

Anyway, I finished up another batch of 11 miniatures to make an even 50.  Mostly Saxon Thegns this time around.

11 badasses

These two Thegns like to fight in flower patches.

Adding these new 11 to the previous painted men that were just standing around
is enough to fill up two of the Big Battle Bases

Speaking of Big Battle Bases

As 11 miniatures didn't feel like a big batch to paint (oh how things change over time.  I used to think it was), at the same time I did up some more of the Big Battle Bases so that more newly painted miniatures will have somewhere to go.  It's a bonus job.

Big Battle Bases is just a fancy term for Movement Trays

Piles of MDF and Shame

I mentioned in a previous post that I learned that the company 4Ground was going out of business this year; and since all my dark ages buildings are from 4Ground I thought I might pick up a few more while I still could. So that they all match and look consistent.  

No sooner then after I hit publish on the blog post did I travel over to Noble Knight games and check out what 4ground stuff they had...

This arrived the other day.  My wife told me that I had "a fun package from a gaming company" without the 'what did you order THIS TIME?' vibe.  So that must mean that I do a good job at intercepting and hiding the mail.  

Truth be told she never gives me that vibe.  She gets fun stuff in the mail too and we generally show each other so we can make ooh and awe sounds at each other's hobby  stuff.

I have no idea when I'll get around to actually putting those dark ages houses together.  Sometimes this hobby is strange; in that we spend our hard earned money on items that are just gonna sit around in boxes being useless.  Taking food from out of my children's mouths just for the possibility  of having it in the future.  

And I've done it SEVERAL TIMES.

Here's my pile of MDF kits for Dead Man's Hand.  A Western Town just waiting to be built
but has sat around for years.

Oh, and here's that church I got for my AWI terrain.
(Actually it's part of the same DMH range so could pull double duty.
I know a church in the AWI timeframe would not have a steeple.)

Not to mention these 8 or so 15mm MDF buildings for my ACW tables.
These are from a kickstarter campaign.
Long ago.

On the bright side; if the power goes out for an extended time I have plenty of firewood.  Course that means that I'll have to buy more MDF kits.   Course the power went out in the first place because I probably bought MDF kits instead of paying PG&E.  Kinda a viscous cycle.  

Bye

Bye!

Till next time.  Happy Easter.  I'll spending the rest of the week making a track out of cardboard and duct tape so we can do our traditional Easter Egg race down the stairs.  

Actual. Gaming.

 

Believe it or not; my fun hobby is NOT painting miniatures to an acceptable wargaming tabletop standard but is actually playing miniature wargames with said miniatures.  Go figure.

A Pic heavy post and kinda wordy.  Like ALL GOOD blog posts.  

Games Actually Played

I did good in March and actually got to play in 3 games.  Cup. Runneth. Over.  

Maybe this year I can redeem myself and actually get to call myself a miniature warGAMER.

The Old Standard

Early in the month I was able to attend a game at the club hosted by good friend Mr. AS of Brigade Fire and Fury with his 10mm troops.  ACW with Fire and Fury?  Playing almost all day on a Saturday while the wife is stuck at home with the kids?   Kinda my old Gold standard of a good time.

I was assigned as the Union CiC (as is only proper) who were attacking some CSA (who else?).  I took the largest force with 3 divisions stating that as the CiC it was required and because I know the rules really well I could handle it but really it was because I am GREEDY gamer and wanted a lot of troops to command.

My 3 divisions are tasked with pushing some CSA off the wooded ridgeline.
My cunning plan; to run right at them.
Though as seen by the arrows I would also use my extra men to wrap around the flank.

The DOOMED troops of the CSA lining the ridge.
I really like the look of BFF in 10mm.

I didn't take any more good pictures.  I was busy playing and talking, and also I tend to act as a second GM (with permission) so when I should be taking pictures when it's not my turn I'm actually helping the other guy run through the rules.  

I did have the classic Fire and Fury charge result, that some people loathe but I actually think is awesome.  Charge combat is an opposed roll off with D10s.  My roll is  +5, his roll is -3.  I look at him and say "just don't roll a 10."  He rolls a 10 and the whole table erupts in laughter (making his total 7).  I look at my die and say "anything but a 1."  I roll a 1 (making my total 6, he wins) and the whole table erupts again with added Rebel Yells.  It's awesome when that happens, even if it happens to me of all people.  

The Experiments

Later on in the month I was able to do some experimenting.  Not like the crazy experimenting I did in my youth with drugs and sex; so don't get too excited.  No, this is grown up serious wargaming experiments.  

First experiment- Meeting:  I had Mr. Lasgunpacker himself -David,  from the fun Lazgunpacker blog, over for a face-to-face game, meeting for the first time in person.  A very low risk experiment as David and I have been commenting on each others blogs for YEARS now and he didn't really feel like a stranger anymore, despite starting out as just some guy on the internet.  Perhaps some of you out there would feel the same about me?.....perhaps not but keep it to yourself.  

Second Experiment- Playing Outside:  I decided to host the game outside (bleh!) for 2 reasons.  COVID precautions being one of them of course but more because we were playing on a Sunday and the wife and kids would be around and I was trying to be considerate to the wife.  Not that the wife and kids can't come say hi which they did (a little too often in the case of the children).  More so that the wife wouldn't feel like she HAD to take the kids somewhere and if they all stayed home  the kids could run around the house being noisy and messy and destructive (as they usually are) and David and I would be safely out of the tornado's path in the backyard.  

My sneaky wife took this picture from the window.
The backyard set up.
That's David's handsome back and my average front.

The set up.  You can see that I was hogging all the snacks on my half of the table.

Third Experiment - SPACESHIP gaming!:   I recently had an interest in starting up some spaceship gaming in Star Trek and was eager to try it out (you can see this post HERE if so inclined).  David came over with a printed out hex mat and some painted ships we could play Klingon Armada.  

You can see better pictures of David's ships on his post HERE.

I took the Federation of Planets, otherwise known as 'The good guys' and David played the Klingons otherwise known as 'Alien scum lords.'  

My Constitution class starship (Ie, Enterprise) being chased by a missile.

Another one of my ships in BIG trouble.

Piloting and tracking damage and power of 4 ships was not too taxing.
We did have to tape the sheets down though so the wind wouldn't take them.

Experiments Results - Successful to Terrible:

Meeting David: brilliant success.  Nice man, very polite and rolls average dice.  Gonna do more gaming with him.  Seriously nice to meet you in  a real life face to face.

Gaming outside: tolerable success.  Despite my huge preference for being inside versus outside, it was a nice day and gaming outside was pleasant.  The set up to provide shade seemed was successful and wasn't too much work to set up.

Spaceship Gaming:  Terrible!  because I really liked it and now want all my own stuff! Yet another genre to pursue. 

Side Discussion: The SFU

Klingon Armada is an adaptation of the Starmada rules to be used in the Star Fleet Universe (SFU) which is best described as David puts it on his blog, as Star Trek Adjacent.  It's like it's own version of Star Trek with it's own timeline and such, and it's not the one we know from the TV shows.   It's the same universe that games of federation Commander and Star fleet Battles take place in.   Klingon Armada tries real hard to be like Federation commander.   In the SFU ships tend to fire a bunch of missiles at each other as well as the standard phasers / disruptors and photon torpedoes. The missiles by themselves are alright  but there's other stuff in there that's kinda wacky like loading up shuttle craft with explosives, setting the auto pilot, and launching it at the bad guys like a suicide shuttle. 

I did though like the game play and the core rules of Starmada are REALLY good.

 

The New Favorite

Finally, during the week I had Mr AS over again to play Clash of Spears, my new favorite skirmish game.  Playing inside this time as there were less children around.

The scene is a quiet Saxon village...

But the people are in distress...

...because a T-Rex has come to the village.

Son#2 wanted to put some of his toys on the table with my 'toys.'
He assured me that the T-Rex was friendly.
(and might even be pretty close to scale)

The REAL scenario is that some Normans have come creeping up in the dawn
to slug it out with the Saxons who are being churlish about who the new king of England is.
In the patrol phase above; Normans come in from the right corner
while Saxons spill out of the Great Hall entrance.

Side Discussion (another one??):  4ground

I heard that 4ground would be closing, specifically will stop taking orders June 30th.  As all my dark ages buildings are from 4ground, I decided for this game to get them all on the table to see how my collection was coming along (it consists of the Great Hall and 5 buildings).  I think it could use another 4 buildings, so I might have to order these just so that everything on the table will be consistent.  I mean I have too right? Even if it means the buildings will likely sit around unopened for weeks/months/years before I get around to putting them together.

Back to the game now.  By the way, the mat is my homemade wargaming matt that is 6x10.  The table is only 5x6 but the matt hasn't been unrolled in about 4 years so I wanted to see how it was holding up.  

Saxons line up to defend their homes

The Normans are confident with a mix of Spearmen, crossbows, and Cav

the mat seems to be doing alright.  A little wrinkled in places.
In any case, all my tokens for CoS continue to look the Biz-ness so I am pleased.

One of these days I'm gonna have to do a VERY detailed AAR of Clash of Spears game just to show you all how awesome it is.  I mean SUPER detailed, like the AARs that The Tactical Painter writes on his blog.  

Let's all hold our breathe until that happens;  shouldn't be too long given that I've never written a good AAR.

Fare Thee Well

Is how fancy people like me say goodbye.  Till next time.

Thanks for reading.  Double Thanks for writing a comment.