AWI buildings; From Bare Wood to...

 

Hello all; I've cobbled together my 28mm AWI buildings from Sarissa.  In this post I'll show what I did and pretend that I knew what I was doing and ya'll can nod your head and play along...

Let's begin, it'll be fun.

MDF Buildings need Love Too.  A Lot of Love it Turns Out

Alternative title: Set expectations to 'presentable.' 

I'm still procrastinating starting the lead pile of American AWI infantry so I tackled some more terrain. 

After all, I didn't buy these Sarissa North American houses for nothin. 

As I was putting these together I was struck by how very plain the MDF kits were; really just basic wood shells with very minor details.  The kits are fine in themselves, went together smoothly and are solid enough to withstand clumsy wargamer hands.  In these initial phases I kinda regretted not getting buildings from 4ground.  4ground buildings once built are done and ready to go (the only negative is that each one looks like every other 4ground building) and these Sarissa buildings once done still require effort to make them look pretty. 

It's like the difference between men and women; men get out of the shower and are ready to go and women have another 45mins of hair and make up.  Unless you're into man-scaping, I don't judge, I had a metrosexual phase too.  

So these buildings will need a little love before hitting the table; problem is that after loving Wife #1, The Kids, Select Members of my extended family, and strangers on the internet, I don't have a lot of love left to give... in other words I wanted them to look decent but not put in too much effort.  Let's see if I was able to thread the needle between being lazy and getting some presentable results. 

As a refresher, the buildings started out looking like this:

"Please love me" they say.

"Come Closer"

Were You Born in a Barn?

One time saving / lazy technique I tried was simply to spray paint the buildings the color that I wanted them, versus priming them white or black and spending a lot of time painting them.  This worked OK.  I learned that if you spray from far away the etched details (like seams in boards) are maintained.  

I also learned that you have to seal the spray paint with a varnish before you paint over it.  Otherwise the spray paint just sorta repels the hobby paint and it takes several coats.  There probably some cool science-y explanation for this. 

The Barn was spray painted red, and the windows and doors picked out in white.
I thought this looked suitably Barn-ish.  Aren't all barns red?

But I was bothered by how bare the inside appeared.
It just looks unfinished and like it's missing something.

It's the floor that is then most jarring and needs help.  What goes inside a barn?  Obviously hay and straw.  But I've never been in a real barn so what do I know? 

I found THIS helpful post from Pat over at the blog of Wargaming with a Silver Whistle, well known for his terrain, on how to make hay stacks from door mats.  Thought I would give it go..

Take a door mat and cut it into small strips.
I have lots of this door mat material lying around from my FoW days.
It's ubiquitous for fields in 15mm. 

Then using my manly strong hands I cut the material off the strips.
Slightly messy, but getting a pile of straw / hay raw materials.

Covering the floor of the barn with white glue, I suddenly thought:
"Wait! Maybe I ought to try this out with a spare base of something...eehh, too late now.
Fortune favors the bold and all that."

The "straw / hay" was then push into the glue along the floor and let dry.
When does straw become hay anyway?

After it was dry, I dry brushed it with a dark yellow and then a bright yellow.
Overall, came out looking pretty good.  A big improvement over the bare floor anyway.

Some troops in the Barn

And now for the roof.  Again, being lazy and not wanting to be crazy like Lazgun over on his blog making his own shingles (and buildings), I simply bought some premade ones.  I was alerted to the existence of these from hanging out on the TMP forum.  

These were very handy and easy to use.
Just glue them onto the roof in overlapping strips.

Completed Barn viewed from the outside.

Our House, is a Very Very Very Fine House

I have 4 of these Sarissa houses that all basically the same.  I don't know if that will be a good or bad thing once they're on the table because maybe it'll be too uniform.  But it's what I bought so it's what I got.  Maybe they all just belong to the same HOA.  (I don't like it when my house has an HOA, but I love it when your house does!)

During the process of building the houses I took pics at different times because I was not organized and was kinda finding my way, completing a step on one house influencing how I did the next...

First up I spray painted the houses like the barn, using off whites or whatever color and then sealed them with varnish.  When dry I painted the window and door frames and what not.. 

Work in progress shots, you get the idea.
Paint up the outside as you see fit.

Some of the houses had a stone pattern along the foundation and all the chimneys have stone etched detail, which I did NOT feel like painting.  Instead, I remembered this tip from The Tactical Painter (who is MUCH better at prettying up these Sarissa kits) of using embossed paper with a stone or brick  pattern.  

I picked this up from the same online store that I got the roof shingles.

It's a simple matter of cutting the paper to shape, and gluing it onto the model where you want it.

Instant foundation and chimney.
You can see another house in the background

BUT WAIT A SECOND!  Are those bricks in the chimney going vertical instead of horizontal?  What a silly mistake.  I'm sure no one will notice even though I just noticed and I'm sure I only did that once...

GAAAAH! Both of these.  I'm gonna have to fix it because it'll bug me.

That's better.  Actually looks more like a chimney.

The inside floors of the houses have some lines denoting floor boards so that is alright; enough detail for me.  Just paint it brown.  Everyone in the AWI has hardwood floors.  Which just leaves the inside walls and chimney looking a little out of place.  

Bricks can go in for the inside chimney, and I had the idea of using dollhouse wallpaper for the insides of the house.  These aren't log cabins after all, so a little finery is not out of place.  At first I was thinking of purchasing some in the appropriate scale, but then I found some printable designs on the wonderful internet.  Yes, wallpaper existed back then,  it's called the Federal Era.  Extra knowledge exploding all over your brain.

I printed the patterns on cardstock (I raided my wife's supply like a thief in the night) and just cut and glued it into place.  I used the parts of my 4th house kit as a template.  At first I tried to make it one sheet of paper per wall with the doors and windows cut out precisely but this turned out the be hard to do, and started to feel like effort, so in the end I just guess-ta-mated and just glued cut out strips around the windows.  

So far so good.
Wait! Are those chimney bricks VERTICAL again?
AND I forgot to leave a hole for the fire place.
What an Idiot I am.

Completed interior.
I think I'll leave the chinmey as is because I'm starting to get a bad case of the
"its-close-enough-itis."
Besides, don't I have infantry to be painting?

(I actually didn't steal any card stock, I told my wife I was gonna print out wallpaper and was told "That's the cutest thing I've heard."

I think this one came out better.
"Shoot out the windows guys!"

The roofs of the houses were done using the same premade shingles.  

Success? From Bare Wood to...Presentable

Largely a success.  While I was saying in the beginning of the post (you did read the text of the post right? not just skim through and look at the pictures?  I never do that..) that I had some buyers remorse with the Sarissa kits because of the extra effort.  However, now that they're done and each is a little unique building I like them a WHOLE lot better.   Each looks pretty good from the outside, and on those occasions when troops enter a building there's a little something extra inside to keep up the illusion.  There's something of a rabbit hole on how many details you can start to model, but on the whole I did what I wanted; the wargamer standard.  One thing I wanted to do was add some window sills and such to the insides but I seem to be out of balsa wood.  Though I didn't have any and it seemed like a small thing to go out and go shopping for during PANDEMIC...so that will have to wait.

Mind Games (and Final Presentation)

Because what I want in my terrain is that momentary trick of the brain; where we see the terrain items and not the material it's made from.  Our brains all know that these things are not the real thing, but it's more fun when our brains tell us "that is a house...made of paper" versus "that is paper..shaped like a house."  This momentary illusion is helped by having more stuff that around that set's the scene.  

Recent terrain projects with some old trees

Not too shabby for colored paper glued to wood.

I think the AWI project is coming along slowly but surely.  Thanks for reading today.  

Clash of Spears Review

A post where I tell you about a new set of rules called Clash of Spears (CoS) that I recently discovered.  I bought these rules as a PDF mostly on lark because I wanted something to read, they were on sale, and I'm always looking for rulesets to use for the Dark Ages and Lord of the Rings.  

I read the PDF, liked what I read enough that I ordered the rulebook.  Then was lucky enough to actually play it when my friend Mr. CG invited me over for a game and let me pick.  A fortunate series of events.

As you can tell by the tone, I liked these rules.  Just my opinion of course, but I am practically a genius and not to mention really good looking and very modest.  

I brought my Dark Ages miniatures, my terrain, and my Cigarbox mat.
While I love my homemade mat, it can be hard to transport sometimes.
Here we have the game in the beginning phases.
The 2 objectives to fight over are the large rocks near the middle of the table

But First: Gaming During COVID

I'm pretty happy to be getting in ANY sort of Face to Face gaming during these times of rising infections in the USA.  I need some gaming time because life can't always be about work, politics, pandemic, and house chores.  Especially house chores, I seem to have endless house chores.  I blame the children.  

The wife and I have established some ground rules for gaming.  1- I have to go to their place because she's not having anyone bring their germs into our house.  2- Mask needs to be worn all times. 3-Games need to be small affairs (not big 6 player ones). 4-When I get back the clothes go into the laundry and I go into the shower, just like I return from work.  I might have a shaggy head of hair after not getting a haircut for 4 months, but it's a clean shag.  

These little hoops are a small price to pay for some fun game time.  No problem.  

Clash of Spears Review 

I’m gonna give an overview of some of the mechanics and more importantly how it plays.  You can find some good game play videos on you tube as well.

Here is a 15 minute Vid that demonstrates a combat between two units.

Here is a long video of a game played by the two authors and they do some explaining along the way.

 

Scope

The game is a skirmish game that plays on a 4x4 and uses around 40 ish miniatures per side.  A standard game is 900 pts and the two forces that I used were 830 points and had around 36 miniatures.  The miniatures are grouped into units of 4-12.  So an army has around 4-5 units with some individual leader characters walking around looking bad ass, probably pointing a sword or raising it above his head or some such.  It plays in around 2 hours.  

The game is set in Ancients, which I don’t play because I could never understand the history and if it’s not a fight between a bunch of howling barbarian Gauls versus some silent stoic Romans then I don’t know what it is.   So I just ported it over to the Dark Ages.  Which was easy to do if you accept that a heavily armed soldier in the ancient times would be equivalent to a heavily armed soldier in the Dark Ages.   There is an official Dark Ages supplement in the works, and online they have some Dark Age beta testing army lists.   But more importantly online they have the point system so you can design your own units very easily.  In summary, it wasn't much work at all.

My Saxons stalking through the battlefield

Game Begins: Engagement Phase

I love it when games have a sort of mini game of deployment that more importantly, streamlines/ combines putting the armies on the table and the first couple of turns which are usually just moving the units to where you want them.  CoS begins with no miniatures on the table, but each unit assigned to a token and these tokens in the deployment area.  Which unit belongs to which token is a secret only you know (and how good are you at secrets?  very I hope).  Players take turns moving these tokens in an attempt to gain some advantage.  The further you move these tokens the more fatigue a unit will start with (more on fatigue later, it's an important concept).  Effectively your unit wills start the game proper around 16-20" from the enemy.  If you were clever you were able to put some units on the flank or have denied an import area from the enemy.  Then players reveal which tokenf are what units to cheers or guffaws, place leaders where they will be most effective, and the game begins. 

It's a really fun method of game set up.  Depending on your force organization you will be allowed to take some dummy tokens, to use to outwit the enemy, that simply vanish later on.  Overall it's very effective in speeding up the initial parts of the game so that when you get to the actual game play, you're executing your plan of attack versus spending a good amount of time setting up that plan.

Game Play and Core concepts

Core Concept Units: A Unit will have somewhere between 4 and 12 miniatures.  All of my units had 6-8, which seems to be the sweet spot.  Each unit has a handful of stats that you expect like melee, ranged combat, morale, armor save, etc..  and some traits that make them special.  I appreciate that the stats are all used consistently; in that a lower number stat is better and you always want to roll high (so if your combat stat is a 3+ then anything 3 or higher is a hit).  Units can move in Open order in little blobs or Close Order for better protection, like a small shield wall.  Range is measured from unit to unit which is always easier.  

Vikings coming down the side of the woods.

Game Play Activation and Reactions: Players take it in turns to be the active player.  When you're the active player you have 3 options: Spend a command point to activate a unit or character, rest a unit to reduce it's fatigue, or pass and do nothing.  A game turn is basically both players going through their activation until they're out of command points or both pass.  

During a game turn a unit/character can perform 3 actions total.  Here is the interesting bit: when you activate a unit it can do all of those 3 actions during this 1 activation (Unit does action x, then y, then z (unit moves up, unit shoots it's bows, unit moves back to safety and gives the bad guys the finger)).  Or you can activate a unit and it does 1 action and call it quits and let the other player go, then later in the turn activate the unit again (for another command point) to do it's 2 remaining actions.  

These actions are the usual stuff of move, shoot, throw something, change go into close order, attack, etc..   Characters/leaders behave the same way that units do; the only differences is that a character / leader is a unit of 1 guy and has a pool of command points attached to him. In general the leaders end up standing around right behind the lines looking impressive and getting the units to do the actual fighting for him.  Exactly how I would want to do it if I were a leader.  

However, if a unit is doing a second action, the other player gets a chance to react with one of his units.  There is a roll to do this.  It's an interruption that can take place after the first action but before the second, or after the second but before the third.  This means that even if you're not the active player you're always thinking / engaged in the game because it might be a good time to react to foil the enemy's plans.  

So: a unit can activate 1-3 times a turn and take up to 3 actions over a turn.  How you use these actions is a BIG part of the game.  Units use actions while activated but also to react, actions can also be used for a response to combat (more on that later), AND any unspent actions reduce fatigue at the end of the turn (I still haven't covered fatigue yet, I'm getting to it!)  

What this means is that during the game turn each player is constantly involved by making decisions. Not just to roll saves.  This gives you the feeling that you are always playing and not just waiting for your turn.  

Red dice mark the fatigue of the units.

Core Concept: Fatigue.   Ok, let's discuss fatigue because how you manage the fatigue of units is another key mechanism, if not the most important.  There are two things that cause defeat and kill your units; the spears of the enemy and fatigue.  

Fatigue represents hits to a units moral/stamina/motivation.  A unit can hold up to 6 fatigue (any more than that convert to wounds) and if fatigue is more than x2 the number of miniatures in the unit then the unit is removed from the table.  As fatigue adds up it inflicts negative modifiers to the unit making them harder to activate, worse as combat, etc... so even your most bad ass and blood thirsty unit can become ineffectual with a lot of fatigue on it.  

Fatigue is generated by doing actions and from fighting / getting shot at.  Let's talk about those separately:

Units get fatigue by doing actions, but the smart part is that the rates in which units get fatigue for doing anything is not the same.  That sounds like it's complicated but it actually works really smoothly in the game.  Basically units made up men in heavy armor, carrying heavy shields and scary axes will get tired  faster (generate fatigue) while running around the battlefield while units of men in nothing but tighty whiteys and carrying sling shots don;t get nearly as fatigued.  For example: a unit of skirmishey troops and a unit of heavy armored Huscarls both move for 3 actions covering the same distance; the skirmishers will accumulate no fatigue for this while the Huscarls will accumulate 2.  

Some actions always generate fatigue as well; mainly the combat ones that kill people.  Also, fatigue can be generated as the result of combat if your unit took hits / casualties from failed morale rolls. 

There is more to it than I'm saying of course.  And while it sounds little complicated and it is, the fatigue dynamics flow perfectly with the game mechanics and you get used to the concept pretty fast.  It is quite simply one of those 'elegant mechanics' that work so well.  

What the fatigue system also does is ensure that troops mostly do their roles; with light troops running around hither and thither throwing javelins while your heavy troops dutifully march slowly into place and slug it out.  And I say 'mostly' only because it's not set in stone, your heavy troops can do a sprint if they need to... probably once.  

Fatigue is removed by taking the Rest action, OR at the end of a turn any unit that did not spend 3 actions gets these left over actions converted into rest actions.  

My Saxons try to hold one of the rocky objectives while Vikings stalk the woods.
You'll have to trust me on that, it's the dark ages and everyone looks the same.

Game play: Combat: It's a game about melee combat, and CoS really has great combat system.  There are things we commonly see like the number of dice you roll is the number of guys in the unit...units with great combat skills hit easier and units in good armor have better saves.  

A unit has several options for actions for hurting the enemy; they can Attack, All Out Attack, Shoot, Throw stuff.  There is no need to go into each one, and there are modifiers of being in Close Order or Loose Order.  Combat is kept simple in that it's always one unit versus one unit; no gang ups.  

What is interesting and unique in the game is that the defender also has options.  The defender can Hold (sit there and take it), or Defend (actively defend themselves gaining the ability to cancel hits BUT this cost an action), or Counter Attack (fight back and hurt the enemy BUT this costs an action and will generate a fatigue).  Unsaved hits result in removing miniatures, and any unit that took a hit(s)  (either the attacking or defending) do a moral test with each failure earning a fatigue.  

So when you attack an enemy unit the goal is not just about removing miniatures (which is always nice) but also to inflict fatigue or to burn up the enemies actions if they do anything beside Hold.  And an Attack is just one action, so a unit can attack once, then attack again for the the second action, and even attack again for it's third (though enemy gets to react as described earlier).  Now that attacking unit itself is probably pretty blown  now burdened with fatigue, and will need to rest before becoming effective again.

Overall, Combat is more than just rolling for hits and saves, but a calculus of how far you can push a unit versus it's fatigue, according to your own plan of resource management.  Again, it just works so very well.

All that pretty terrain, and only the woods near the middle matters.
That's what happens when you play a meeting engagement.

Overall

I was REALLY impressed with these rules.  It's one of the better skirmish rules sets I have come across.  It's simple enough that you can teach it to someone whose never played it (CG picked it up pretty well and he even won the game if that means anything).  It's complex enough not get boring and it keeps you engaged throughout.  It's not a beer and pretzels game, it's like a step or two above that.  It is well written and nicely illustrated.  Another excellent feature is that you can use command points to influence rolls so if you really need that reaction or activation you can spend more resources to increase the odds.  

Just so that I don't sound overly enthusiastic here are some minor negatives:

Counter Heavy:  The game needs a lot of counters which are not my favorite thing.  Each unit and character needs to track it's fatigue 1-6, each unit and character needs to track it's actions 1-3.  Each Character needs to track it's command points 1-5.  You'll need to sometimes track if a unit is unloaded.  It's a lot a lot of counters.  I used dice to track fatigue and green, yellow, and red markers for the actions (provided in the book).  Command points were whit dice.   I'm gonna have to think of some pretty ways to do this because I don't love dice on the table.

Scenarios: The book comes with 5 scenarios which are well written but are all variations of the "meeting engagement."  Meeting engagements almost always mean fighting over the middle of the table.  I would of liked to see one or two attack and defense scenarios. 

Side Discussion /RANT

One of the scenarios is the classic meeting engagement scenario where each side must fight through the other to get off the board on the opposite side while at the same time prevent the other side from doing the same thing.  This scenario has always bothered me because it's so gamey and stupid.  I can;t think of one actual time in the history of war where this would of been the objective.  It's just some tourney scenario that just turns up over and over again.

Townspeople watch the game.  But who are they rooting for? 

My intention was just to give a brief overview of a game that I am excited about.  It's been awhile since I reviewed anything.  There's more cool stuff in these rules that I didn't touch on, but for something that I bought on an impulse I'm very pleased with my purchase.  Can't wait to play these rules again, though I will have to.  Stupid never ending house chores. 

Thanks for reading.  

AWI Progress; British Officers and some Terrain

I was lucky enough to have a childless weekend a short time ago, so had LOTS of time for painting.

Unfortunately, most of that painting was in the house taking care of a banister and stairway doing manly things like sanding, priming, painting, and staining.  It was a good time to do it since I wouldn't be interrupted and the kids wouldn't touch anything.  I accumulated a good quantity of hubby points. 

But it wasn't all chores and work, I managed to squeeze in some hobby stuff.  

AWI Progress: Officers and NCOs

Finishing up the British from my initial purchase,  here are the last 4 miniatures.

Here we have 2 NCOs.
I'm told their NCOs because they have fancy red sashes.
I really like the guy with his arm outstretched.

And here we have two officers that will lead the British forces.  Complete with fancy uniforms.

Two Officers.
I tried to give a little extra details to their coats and buttons.

I wish they had pistols

So that finished up my British for Muskets and Tomahawks.  The troops have been well photographed in previous posts so no need to retread that old road.  The total of the painted troops is:

2 Officers

2 NCOs

24 Regular Troops

12 Light Troops

Not too shabby.

Some Terrain

Taking a break from painting miniatures before I dive into the lead pile of Revolting Colonists, I decided to tackle some terrain projects.

I completed the stuff I ordered from Paul's Model Workshop.  First we have the two fields. 

The fields are nice resin pieces and were easy to do;
base coat, dry brush, cover with flock or shrubbery clumps.
72 clumps to be specific; I now because I used a whole pack from Army Painter 

I also painted up these wooden log piles that I ordered with  the fields.  4 come in the set and I seem to have lost one sadly.  I'll probably find it a year and half from now while looking for something else. 

Simple dry brush paint job but I like the way they came out.
Should help dress up the table some.

Putting Together the Buildings

I put together some of my AWI buildings that I ordered from Sarissa-Precision.   They went together pretty easily but overall they are pretty basic shells.  

WIP shot of the first house.
I added some shingles and some paint and now I'm deciding how to proceed.
 I stupidly glued it all together so that the roof doesn't come off.
Which makes it useless for skirmish games where troops can occupy buildings.
So it's now my Practice House, to try stuff out since it wont matter too much how it looks, 
because during games it will be placed somewhere away from the action.

Some more buildings waiting in the wings.
This is how they look before they get any love and attention. 

Be Safe Everyone

I now get tested for COVID every 2 weeks, where they shove a long hard swab down my throat. (You may insert you're own dirty joke here; I had several I was trying to make but couldn't decide on being rated PG-13 or R.).  I sincerely hope you are all doing well with minimal negative consequences from the impact of all this.  

Thanks for reading and looking at my mediocre paint jobs.  Keep safe and mentally healthy.  

Blog birthday; 3 years of Terrible Loss

Let's celebrate with some funky fresh beats..

"keep it going keep it going keep it going full STEAM

Stewie B (that's me) on the blogging SCENE

I'm not fat, but I'm not LEAN

I like to write about war-game-ING

Here I am with a brand new POST

Read it with some jam and TOAST

Not one to brag, not one to BOAST

3 years down and let's make the MOST...

...of it."  

I'm like a long lost Beastie Boy.  Really long lost...

3 Years of Blogging

That seemed to go fast, I must be getting older.  End of July is the blog birthday; 3 years is not a terribly long time compared to other blogs but I'm still new enough to the blogging world that it's a worthy benchmark to celebrate.  I imagine it's like being married; during the early years you celebrate each little anniversary but once you've been married for a decade or so you only celebrate the significant milestones.  But unlike marriage you can quit blogging as soon as it gets too fat and bossy, go find yourself a young new blog with enough energy to take care of the children so you can have more hobby time ......  I got distracted.  

As I have before, I like to spend the blog birthday talking my blogging experience. 

Blogging has become very much part of my routine now, and I have found that it really improves my enjoyment of the hobby.  Mainly because it provides a way to interact with others about miniature wargaming and share thoughts, projects, opinions, information, and etc.. It's that wargame club mentality that I talked about before.  For me it's a big tent and everyone is welcome.

It also helps me feel more engaged in my hobby.  There is a drive to actually get stuff painted and posted.  And during those periods where there isn't much time for painting due to work and family, there a fun opinion and review posts to write that help keep me motivated and feeling involved.  

I think that everyone who writes a blog wants people to read it.  I know I do, otherwise I would just write my little thoughts down in my secret diary that I keep under the bed.  So I am pleased that in 3 years the blog has 62 followers; that's about 60 more than I thought it would ever have.  Course I don't think that means 62 people actually read the blog (I mean there blogs on my follow list that I don't read much anymore....no, not you, not YOUR blog, I mean those other blogs).  

And I have no idea if 62 followers over 3 years is a respectable number or not. 

I’ve been periodically looking at the stats that blogger provides; and I’ve figured out that a new post reaches over 100 hits in about a week and a half.  I feel that is a fair number.  Older posts have higher numbers as time goes on.  The number also goes up if I link to forum like TMP which I do every once in a while if I think it’s especially interesting.  These numbers might be influenced by bots, but I like to think that 100 ish people check out the blog on a consistent basis.  Gives me the warm fuzzes. 

At the time of writing this blog of A Terrible Loss of Lead and Wealth has generated 63,691 views.  The top 3 posts are 

DIY Wargame mat

Hail Caesar Sheildwall Supplement Review

DIY wargame roads (and fields)

I just find that interesting, just goes to show what people are searching for in google. 

Of course, all these numbers are kinda meaningless overall since I could get all the traffic in the world and there’s no profit from it.  Because in the end, I’m all about them dollars. Least I still like the name of the blog.  It's kinda funny and kinda sad, just like me.  

But I am sincerely pleased that the number of comments that each post generates has gone up over the years; averaging these days at around 24 comments (well 12 comments, as the other 12 are me replying).  And the number of what I call “Symbiotic Blogging Relationships” has also increased.    This is the circle of bloggers that regularly leave comments on my blog and I return the favor by regularly leaving comments on their blog; creating a circle of mutual encouragement.  These I like best.  As Norm has pointed out correctly (and I usually take almost everything Norm says as correct); it’d be impossible to comment on everything and every post that you come across in the wild world of the internet.  It would just take too much time, and there is SO much stuff out there.  For free even.  So I take it as a real compliment when someone bothers to leave a comment here.  Even if just a short one, because time is what really matters in this life.  To the people who give me their time, it seems fair for me to give them mine.  I do enjoy reading other people's blogs and leaving comments.  And it doesn’t even really matter so much what the blog content is, as I kinda like all things miniature wargaming (and board gaming).  But what I love is the interaction and making online friendships.  So to all you Best Blogging Buddies out there, old and new, thank you for your encouragement.  It can be weird to think that some of you have been online friends for years now, and we’ve never met.  We might never meet, and it would be my loss.

The only (slightly) negative to blogging is that I feel a self imposed pressure in two areas:

1) That I want to post regularly.  When someone stumbles onto the blog I want them to see that the blog is active and being updated.  I think people are more likely to follow a blog if they see that it's still producing content.  2-3 times a month is not an onerous schedule (especially because more often than not it's two times) but it can be hard to keep up.  If too long goes by without a post I begin to feel neglectful.  It's kinda like exercise where if you skip it too much you get out of the habit.  Except blogging is better than exercise because it doesn't involve getting out of breath and sweaty.  It's not that I don;t have plenty of topics in my brain.  There are a ton of topics out there.  Which leads me to number 2..

2) That I want each post to be good.  "Good" is subjective of course.  After 3 years I'm still defining my winning formula for 'a good blog post but I got the basic format nailed down.  I like my posts to be a little longer than a typical post but not too long.  I want included some humor, some pretty pics, some format with a beginning, a middle and an end.  Sometimes include some personal information so that you see I'm human and you'll want to be my friend.  I want good editing and few typos.  I want a positive feel.  I would love it if each post was interesting and had something to say.  

I know I am over thinking it.  It's just a silly wargaming blog.  But that's part of the fun.  We're all responsible grown ups with a silly hobby and spending time talking about it together.  Especially during these stressful times of pandemic and unrest I hope this blog is a pleasant distraction.  

So...But No Wargaming Content in this Post Then? 

 

Course not, it's much too late for that.  Wargaming content shall resume shortly.  Thank you for celebrating 3 years of blogging with me.  I think I'm out of the rookie blogger phase and into the next, whatever that might be called.  

Thank you for your time and thanks for reading. 

 

AWI British progress; Regulars and Lights

I've completed more of the AWI miniatures.  But first..

Happy 4th of July!

Daughter #1 was disappointed that we couldn't do out usual habit of attending the downtown fireworks show because it was cancelled due to pandemic.  In truth, she was more upset about missing out on the inflatable bounce-y houses and junk food than the actual fireworks.   Still we soldiered on and did our other usual activities.  One of which was BREAKIN the LAW.  I drive over the the town next door where fireworks are legal, purchase a bunch, and dive them back to my house and set them off in the yard.  Daring, I know, but I don't fear breaking the law in minor ways because I'm white male. 

Oooooohhhh, topical humor during these days of unrest, now that is daring.  Better show some cute kid pics quick! 

Daughter #1

Son #2

I had to show the dark pics, otherwise the cuteness would be overwhelming.

So Hooray for America!  Suck it Brits! 

I'm sorry Brits.  I didn't mean that, you know I love all of you.  To make up for my crassness, how about some pics of AWI British troops that I painted up to an average standard? 

Yeah... I know....that feels more like an extra punishment.  

More AWI British

I've been doing a spot of painting.

8 more British regulars join the ranks.

These miniatures are the same sculpts featured in 2 post ago, just adding to the numbers of painted Redcoats.  

The real stars of the post with their fancy uniforms: here are 12 British Light infantry. 

British Light infantry are supposed to be really good.
And they get a fancy uniform.

These guys should have some sort of insignia on the front of their silly hats.  I tried painting one on there a couple times but it always looked terrible.  In the end I just left the hats black.  I told you it was an average paint job.

Example of the uniform stolen from the web

Here are some close ups.  I also found it tricky to paint the shoulder pads thingys. But overall, the miniatures came out rather nice.  

"let us load our guns shall we?"

These are the smart guys who decided to kneel and be smaller targets

Overall, this little project is coming along nicely.  Plus I am swelling with pride because I doing that thing that is sometimes elusive to miniature wargamers: buying a pile of miniatures AND painting them all.  

Well most of them...

Here we have what's left of the British lead pile.
12 miniatures consisting of two command packs.
Each pack has an officer, a redcoat in a cool pose, 2 flag bears and drummers.

Still to paint are the two officers and two more regulars that came in the command blister (the four on the left of the pic) who have unique poses.  I think I'll pass for now on the flag bearers and the drummers and leave them in their lead underwear.  Since the  skirmish rules that I'll be using  (Muskets and Tomahawks 2) don't use them for anything anyway.  If and when the forces get larger and I start to have whole regiments on the table, then I'll paint them up. Because regiments without flags or command stands can look rather silly.   So 8 miniatures get placed in the lead pile for future use, 4 more to paint and the initial British force is complete!

Until the inevitable purchase of more of them.  Not to mention the other lead pile of Americans and terrain.  Wargaming is a fun hobby isn't it.  

Thanks for reading. 

General hobbying...

Just a hodgepodge post of general hobbying goodness.  

That last sentence was almost a tongue twister. 

A Good Trade on Shipping

I know I missed the bus on starting a wargaming blog when blogging was in it's prime.  I can only imagine the hectic traffic even mediocre blogs like this one would of had.  Yet, one the biggest benefit to Blogging (Blogging with a capital B is a verb, and it includes writing your own and also participating in other's blogs) is creation of an online community.  In many ways, this blog has become my wargaming club; where I come together with like minded wargamers and we talk about how fun miniature wargames are and how other hobbies are dumb wastes of time.  Naturally I'm the power hungry Emperor of the club and ya'll are my corrupt counselors and nobles.  I'm sure you all feel like the emperor on your blog.  It's like we're all the Skekis of wargaming.

"AHHH  Ha-ha-ha HAH!"

Can we take a moment and acknowledge how awesome the Dark Crystal on Netflix was?
Course I grew up on that movie so the series hits all of my right nostalgia buttons. 

That's just a round about way of saying that I like making these online relationships.  Especially in these pandemic times. 

My latest online club interaction: Vol of the Sailing ship blog  and I recently did a trade.  He's embarking on some Black Seas Sailing ships and I had one of the Constitution miniatures just laying around that I was going to get around to putting together in the near NEVER.  It was destined for a flea market; so I offered to send it to him for the low low price of emailing me his address.  

But in his heart he was too proud to accept freebies so he traded me two Langton kits of 74 gun 3rd rates, which match my current Age of Sail ships.  

Thanks Vol!

Everyone else take note!:

I am not too proud to accept freebies.  

Can't Stop the Shop: More Purchases

While I wait for the freebies to come rolling in, I've been doing some shopping.

Fields

For 15/18mm I think you can get away with using fabrics and such as I often do, but I like resin ground pieces for 28mm. It's just a personal choice of aesthetics.  I wanted a few more crop looking fields for my future 28mm AWI games and found these from Paul's Models.

Miniature added for scale purposes.
I'm sure they'll look more like fields once painted.

Kickstarter: 15mm ACW Houses

I've pledged in my third kickstarter ever: 

It's still a weird experience to me put down money and wait a year till something arrives.  It's like medieval mail order.  But this looked like a good buy as I could use a bunch of 15mm ACW houses eventually.  I went all in to get everything.  Now it's a waiting game.  I'm sure that during the year it takes to arrive we'll get back to normal wargaming...

Oddly enough, it's my first miniature wargaming kickstarter pledge.  The first two were for board games.  The ACW board game "Antietam" I got from a kickstarter I now feel was kinda a waste; there is sits on the self having never being played.  The second board game I got was the new edition of "Britannia" which is a game I already know and love and own, the KS was just for a shinny new one.  It's on a boat somewhere; understandably delayed due to pandemic.  

Terrain Book

One of the things I enjoy doing the most in this hobby is making terrain.  Pity I don't do more of it.  

Maybe I should give up wargaming for doll houses or model trains?  And while you all think of me as a master terrain builder the real master is Pat over at the  Wargaming with a Silver Whistle.  Because I want to be just like him I picked up his book of terrain tutorials. 

Father's Day Loot

Speaking of freebies, I got some nice hobby loot for Father's Day.  We went down to San Jose to celebrate with my father in law, which marks the first time the kids and wife have left the house for months...

A painting handle, some more nice brushes, and the Opti-Visor

Completing my decent into complete and utter Nerdom, I told my wife I wanted to try out one of the magnifiers that you wear on your head while painting.  She obliged and got me the Opti-Visor.  I already use a magnifier that sits on the desk while painting so I doubt this will improve the painting much, it's more about exploring the ease of use.  

And as we all know; one of the rules of marriage is that you try to preserve the attraction as much as possible.  As it gets worn down through constant exposure.  So it's a good thing that I tend to paint alone in the hobby room, because I'm sure the sight of me wearing that thing is super attractive.

Unless maybe she had a secret dentist fetish I didn't know about...

A Small Return to Better Times

I was able to play a game face to face!  My friend Mr CG invited me over to play a board game.  After discussing it with management (the wife) we agreed that face to face gaming could begin again provided it was 1) only one other person  and  2) we wore masks.  

We played a game of Conan, some scenario where the players had to rescue Conan and a princess from a dungeon.   It was clear that first you free Conan and then use his swinging axe to get the princess.  

I forgot to take a picture, which is no loss, because pics of board games without a lot context are boring.  So here is a pic of a Conan Barbarian Princess

We never did actually rescue her,
so what she was actually wearing remains a mystery. 

Thanks for reading.  Thanks for comments.  

Continue to take care of yourself in these times of unrest.  

EDIT:  I put in the links to Vol's and Pat's blogs, because I was a chump and forgot to do it the first time.  I'm sure ya'll were just being polite and not wanting to hurt my feelings by pointing it out.