NHMGS Auction Reasonably Successful

Saturday was the NHMGS auction. We had to move the auction from the time and place we originally scheduled. This challenged the availability of many of our members. I think we had thirty six buyers and sellers, which meant there wasn't a lot of new cash available to take on some of the very interesting items.

We began with a silent auction at 10:00, which ran until about 12:30. There was some great stuff available. Kim Harris liquidated the late Bill Cooper's collection of unpainted stuff. There were some odds and ends from Company B, Jim Denberger had a Denberger-like collection of interesting stuff-lots of interesting Seven Years War books. Scott Murphy had the coolest item--a copy of WRG's Armies of the Ancient Middle East by the Two Nigels. This is a rare book that often goes for over a hundred dollars on eBay. Went for thirty bucks--a steal.

None of the lots went for passels of money. There were very few painted figures. We made only a hundred fifty dollars on the sales, but even so, it was still fun. It was fun to see Kim and Phil Williams as always. Dave Schueler and I did some more plotting on our scenario, and I was able to show off my missile boats.

Out of the Funk

Been in a funk lately. ConQuest just kind of wore me out. I've had a hard time focusing on any meaningful painting since February, and school stuff has kept me pretty busy and worn out. Even sitting down and painting for a couple hours in the evening was a chore, and I got very little done.

I enjoyed my trip to Salute in March. I played in the Gangsters game by the North Vancouver guys, and enjoyed my brief time there until my gang of hoods all seemed to immolate themselves in a surprise gunfight. I also had a blast with Doug Hamm, Andrew Ma and Rob LeCoq, playing in a War of 1812 scenario. We followed that with Doug's DBAish Seven Years War game, which had possibilities.

Unfortunately, I returned from Salute with a lot of stuff hanging over my head--report cards, 6th grade camp, and our vacation to Palm Springs. Not that any of that was terrible, but it has sapped a lot of my energy. In fact my return from vacation has energized me to begin work on a new and limited project--modern naval coastal stuff.

The always enjoyable Dave Schueler and I are doing this project together. Dave is the maestro of all things naval, and is the most wonderful scenario designer I've ever known. He has a lot of experience with 1/600th WWII coastal naval combat, and suggested the modern fast attack boats as a possible Enfilade project. PT Dockyards has a relatively new line of miniatures in 1/700, and David Manley has written a new set of rules called Bulldogs Away. We decided to focus on a hypothetical clash in the Persian Gulf, between Iranian and U.S. naval units.

I've finished building my ships, but the painting will probably take the rest of the week. I'll try to post some pictures of my ships soon. I've included some pics from the P.T. Dockyard site.