My trip to Surrey

Doug Hamm lives in Surrey, B.C. and is my friend.  That's a long way from beautiful Puyallup.  Perhaps not as far as Virginia where Mike Pierce and Toby Barrett live, but Doug and I have been known to collaborate on projects and we genuinely enjoy one another's company.  I used to see Doug twice a year; once at Enfilade and another at Salute in Burnaby in March.  When I took my high school job I lost the opportunity to visit the guys at Salute because it's always the same weekend as the state student journalism convention.  Last summer Doug and his wife Susan bought a house in Surrey, just across the border, complete with a large game room.  He suggested that I come up for a visit.  I didn't have a vacation planned, or any classes I was taking so I took him up on his offer. I went up last Tuesday and came back on Thursday and had a thoroughly good time.

I went up to game, and that's pretty much what I did. That and scope out Doug's game space in the basement.  The Hamms have a full basement and it's all Dougland.  He's meticulous about almost everything he does.  His painted figures and unpainted stash are neatly organized.  He has carefully clipped magazine articles directly relating to his projects and organized them in file boxes.  His painting space is perfect with no space wasted, and indeed space available for expansion. He has a great gaming space that is comfortably suited for his 12' X 6' game table.  Doug's been very smart about his hobby.  I used to say the only aspect of my life that was organized was my game life.  Hah! Not close.  I've been organizing my stuff ever since I got home.

When I arrived and unloaded on Tuesday we began playing a series of four DBA games.  Doug had a Tuareg army he hadn't played with before.  Neither of us had a historical match so I threw out my Later Hebrews.  I may as well have thrown out an ant army.  He crushed me.  I often thought I was getting decent match-ups, trying to stay away from his camels with my chariots and using supported blades or aux to get the pluses.  No such luck.  I generally rolled poorly off and on throughout the time I was there.  Things have a habit of coming around, but I'm on about a three week jag of generally crappy die rolls. Twice the Tuaregs kicked the Hebrews all over the board. The Tuaregs are an all camelry  army, if you can imagine such a thing.  Doug was short a stand of figures so he substituted a cloud of dust for his missing nomads. In the photo he's getting ready to put paid to King Saul. Figures.  I did get my licks in later with a Welsh vs Woodland Indians match up.  First we mucked up the rules and the fact that spears are quick killed by warbands. (That's what happens when I don't engage in Barkerese for a couple of years.)  Anyway we started over and I managed to A) stick all the terrain in the corners, and B) have a much better set of die rolls to give me the win.

Wednesday was huge fun.  We played with Doug's adaptation of the Humberside DBX Rules  to the French and Indian War.  It worked very well.  Odd period to make happen with lots of Indians and irregular troops, but I really enjoyed it--even though I look a little bemused and befuddled in the picture below.

After a round or two of that we were off to navigate the Delta traffic and make our way to Imperial Hobbies.  It's a great shop.  Lots of off the shelf figures to look at.  I picked up a couple packs of GFI WWI figures that will some day go with my Peter Pig figures for Square Bashing.  Yes, it's probably down the road apiece for that project, but I liked the figures anyway.  Francis Munroe is the worthy proprietor of Imperial Hobbies in Richmond, B.C. He's a supporter of Enfilade, and his shop is a rarity these days as he tackles all aspects of gaming-role playing, board gaming, miniatures, keeps complete racks of magazines, nice selection of terrain as well as a great selection of plastic models.  We don't have anything that compares in the Puget Sound area.

After our return to Chez Hamm, Dennis Chin and Andrew Mah came over for a huge Hundred Years War game.  Loosely based on Poitiers, it was an ad hoc opportunity for Doug and I to drag out all our singly mounted figures.  It was one of those games in which the sky darkened with arrows but the French just kept on coming.  Eventually they washed over the English run by Doug and myself, and that was the name of that tune. We used my Arrowstorm rules which probably need more fiddling so that the French always lose ; ) Much fun. Great picture of Crusader miniature of King Jean II (the good) leading on his men-at-arms.  On this night he was John the Very Good.

Next morning we worked some more on the French and Indian War DBX games.  I learned to enjoy them even more.  good stuff.  By two o' clock I was on the road headed south for home.  No border crossing horror shows to tell about, though it seemed that all non-US returning cars were being sent to customs or immigration.

I would be remiss if I didn't thank Doug and his wife Susan for having me up.  It was fun, the dinner conversation was great.  It was a perfectly wonderful way to spend a few summer days.

Pics are all by Doug.

Truants 3: Closing Wilmington-ACW combined arms

In June I read Under the Blue Pennant by Grattan Schneller.  It' a memoir by a young man who served with the Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War.  He was a lieutenant in volunteer service with the Union navy and served on the USS Malvern, a converted blockade runner that also happened to be the Union flagship for the actions against Fort Fisher in 1864-65.  After the fall of that fort, the Malvern was also involved in actions to clear Confederate batteries and minefields on the Cape Fear River and ultimately capture the city of Wilmington. Grattan's account inspired me to try my own game on the topic and that was our third Truants activity.

The Union fleet had eight ships-the monitor Montauk, two double-end gunboats, three 90-day gunboats, the gunboat Pequot, and the flagship Malvern. They had many tasks they could undertake, from clearing minefields to salvaging a wrecked blockade runner.  But chief among their goals was capturing or silencing the forts that controlled the river.  In addition to the ships, the Yankees had a division of infantry marching west toward the city. The Confederates had less to work with.  Nine guns in fortifications, half of them Brooke rifles, were the chief defense.  They also had fewer and less effective infantry.  Later arrivals were the Cape Fear Defense Force, including, a Richmond class ironclad, two Maury gunboats, and a torpedo armed steam launch. The Confederate mission was simply to inflict as much damage as possible on the Union fleet and hold as many of the forts as possible.

Most of the ships were  Toby Barrett's excellent 1/600 Thoroughbred models.  I've had them for years and still love to drag them out. One of the 90-day gunboats came in a scratch-built haul I made from Larry Enoch some time ago and had never seen battle, so I was glad to pull it out of the box.  I run all my ACW naval games with the old Yaquinto Ironclad rules.  David Sullivan and I adapted these for tabletop years ago and I still like them compared to other rules sets that are out there.  Only David Manley's Iron and Fire has made a positive impression on me, but only for large fleet actions.  Toby Barrett owns the copyright to Ironclads and I sent him my annual bitch note (as he calls it) to beg for something new and updated.  He hedged as usual. Still a nice guy.

There are no rules for infantry in Ironclads.  Of course not, it was a board game.  However the Civil War is replete with examples of combined arms actions, from Fort Donelson to Wilmington.  I painted up some of my 20 year old passle of 6mm ROS figures and wrote up some simple DBAish rules.  I didn't have a copy of the Humberside extensions to DBA so I sort of made it up myself.  Kept it as simple as possible. 

Anyway, the Union entered the board sneakily to avoid the first Confederate battery.  This would be their strategy for most of the game.  Five of the Confederates nine guns were large smoothbores, so the Yankees would obligingly stay out of their range.  The other guns, however were three 6.4" and one 7" Brooke rifles designed to reach out and touch the Union vessels wherever they could. However, while the big rifles hit, none did any catastrophic damage to force Union vessels to drop out of the game-a chief factor in the scenario rules.  No telling hits from the first battery, and the fleet trashed Battery Johnston pretty rapidly, while the Union land forces quickly advanced up the road toward Fort Smith.

The Confederates didn't have much luck with their naval arm either.  On turn four the ironclad Wilmington entered the game with its tiny consorts.  The ram quickly duelled with the Montauk only to take a crushing blast to its front casemate that cost its forward firing Brooke rifle.  Things went even less well for the tiny Maury gunboats that received loving attention from Sassacus, Maratanza, and Pequot. It did not turn out well.  The end came quickly for the Confederates.  The forts were clearly outclassed by the Union vessels, and could not offer sufficient support to the tiny flotilla.  Though Wilmington did provide a bit of redemption when it inflicted a nasty critical flotation hit to Montauk and forced the monitor from the game, it was the only bright spot.  Even on the land side the Confederates were clearly thumped.

I enjoyed the game.  With the addition of land forces, it was clear, to me at least that it was possible to do a combined arms game.  I am looking forward to running the game again on August 20th with some additions to the Confederate side to balance things out.  Can you say Martello tower?

Photos once again by Adrian Nelson.  The first picture is a Richmond class ironclad by Thoroughbred miniatures.  Wilmington is a fictional vessel based on the Richmond.  The port of Wilmington was defended by two Richmond class ironclads, North Carolina and Raleigh.  Both met untimely ends: North Carolina sank at her berth, her hull eaten by worms, Raleigh ran aground and broke her back. The second photo shows the Yankee infantry preparing to engage the Confederates.  The Union had thousands of infantry available at Fort Fisher after its fall in January 1865.  Their advance was delayed more by the swampy conditions than Confederate resistance. The next photo shows Scott Murphy's 90-day gunboat observing the earthworks of Fort Smith.  This is my only large piece of terrain that I seem to drag out every five or six years.  Battery Johnson is burning in the foreground.  Finally, a view of most of the Union fleet maneuvering in the river.  A beached blockade runner is on the left, and two Confederate minefields are on the right.

Truants 2: The Great War in Africa

Back up and running again.  If only I'd seen the tab that said Compose and realized I was in the HTML editor.

Our second Truant game was hosted by Mark Waddington.  Mark has a wonderful collection of WWI in Africa miniatures that not only covers the war in Tanganyika, but also the Middle East.  He decided to thrill us with the exploits of Von Lettow-Vorbeck.

Adrian Nelson and I ran the British troops while Joe Waddington and Dean Motoyama pushed the Germans.  The Germans had to move their supply troops, a bunch of porters on foot across the table.  Adrian and I were to set up an ambush that could interdict that supply.  The difficulty for us was determining where the ambush was best sited to deal with the numerous exit sites possible for the Germans.

We Brits had six infantry units ranging from pretty good to pretty awful, as well as two medium machine guns and a pair of light Lewis guns. We also knew we'd receive a Rolls Royce armored car which meant another medium machine gun on wheels.

The busy terrain meant this was a line of sight game.  We set up our mgs as effectively as possible and then spread our troops around the board.  We also had counters to mark our position along with some dummy counters to dilute our possible set up.  The Germans weren't so lucky, most set up in our line of sight, so they had to reveal their positions.

I held our left flank with a medium machine gun and a poor quality Indian unit that immediately were revealed and came under attack by three German units and a medium machine gun.  The gun survived but the infantry were beaten to a pulp and both were forced off the ridge they were holding. On the right Adrian duked it out with superior forces, giving better than he got with some support from the Lewis gun and Indian troops in my center.

Just as things seemed to falling apart for the Brits on the Left and the Germans on the right, the Rolls Royce arrived to shore things up a bit.  As the game ended the question to be answered was: could the porters wander around the British right as reinforcements began to move to the center.  That was unclear and Mark declared the game a draw.

Photos are all courtesy of Adrian Nelson, who has become the official Truants photographer.  Thanks.

Blog issues

As some of you may have noticed, I've been having trouble with posting pictures. It went sideways a couple of months ago and I haven't done much about it, but it's been a frustration. I decided to make a quick fix and uploaded the new posting editor which promises a bit more ease posting images. It was quick 'n dirty, but when I saved it and tried to post this morning the image tool was gone altogether. So I'm kind of in blog no man's land at the moment trying to get the problem fixed.

Too bad, I was hoping to have the last two Truant entries done today as well an entry about my trip to Surrey, B.C. to visit Doug Hamm.

Truants Week 1: SCW

So all that painting and blather had to result in a Spanish Civil War game, right?

I hauled out a whole pile of figures. Many were freshly painted. I also made some new goodies. Instead of using poker chips or something else as order chits, I made up little cards and laminated them so players could place their orders without giving anything away.

I devised a scenario with a strong Republican force attacking a smaller entrenched fascist brigade. The Republicans outnumbered the defenders almost three to one and had air and artillery support for the first couple of turns. The Nationalists had reinforcements rolling on to the table in a fairly steady stream after turn three. My thinking was the Republicans would be able to occupy and hold the Nationalist entrenchments and defend against the massive counterattack coming in their direction.

I was wrong. The Republicans had a hard time getting anything to work very well. The Nationalists clung to their entrenchments pretty stubbornly and dang the rolled well, just chopping up some units. Adrian Nelson managed to get into one trench, and Mark Waddington eliminated a heavy machine gun battalion, but that's about as far as things got. The Nationalists funneled a brigade of Carlist infantry through one of the two towns, and they were mauled pretty badly by Al Rivers' militia brigade, but the ownership of the town was at best uncertain. Further Nationalist reinforcements could be sent freely through the the big city. It was all complicated by great die rolls by the Nationalists. Joe Waddington could not miss and he took it out on his dad. All the Repbublican armor was pretty shot up. Not a happy business, the attack was a failure.

I also learned about some minor changes to make to the rules. We play with Dick Larsen's home grown Non Pasaran that I've freely modified for my 15mm figures and in order to include more figures. Lots of positive comments, and we'll play again on July 31st at the summer meeting day at Metro Seattle gamers.

Pictures clockwise from the top left:
1. Mark Waddington advanced his T-26's to confront his son's Pz.1's. They will be slaughtered by heavy mg fire. 2. Adrian Nelson's International Brigade infantry prepare to assault the Fascist center while Al Rivers attacks the town of Ariadna on the left. 3. Turn 1 finds the advanced Fascist positions covered by bombardment chits. Not a happy time.
4. Adrian is ready to assault the center with his I.B. troops and Assault Guards. He's taken fire already and some of stands are pinned (white markers.) The flags are the order chits given to each unit.

Truants

I've really enjoyed my friendship with Mark Waddington. He's also a teacher so we share some common experiences. Mark's given me such great perspective on some of my own rules and scenarios over the years and that's such a huge bonus to me. I often get stuck on details and Mark helps me out with that.

Being an educator too, Mark also has significant time off during the summer. We've talked about a summer gaming group, but haven't quite acted on the impulse. This summer I contacted everyone I knew who might have some free days and suggested some Friday afternoon gaming at the Game Matrix. I was surprised and very pleased at the response. Al Rivers, Dean Motoyama, Adrian Nelson, Mark and Joe Waddington, Scott Murphy, Tom Bieker and I have all made one or more games.

We've given ourselves a name: The League of Extraordinary Truants.

The games have varied, and yesterday was our third week in a row. Adrian is our official staff photographer, and I'll share out some of his pics. We're going on hiatus for a couple of weeks as we deal with commitments elsewhere.

Just an overall review of the gaming, the first thing I'm struck by is how much we seem to enjoy each other. There's no lawyering or hard feelings. There's usually a lot of laughter and smiles. That's saying a lot because each week the period has been different and generally the rules have been new. Yesterday we played Ironclads, not an easy set to pick up and run with, but generally everyone got it and by midway through the game most of the players were working the charts themselves.

I'm hoping we can pick this up again in August because I've had a blast.

208 is a Magic Number: June Wrap up

It's been a while since my last post. I've actually written a couple but just haven't gotten around to taking photos and putting them up.

This will also be photo-free :( Yes, I know, it's a blog and it needs pictures. I've really enjoyed painting this month. Mostly 15mm Spanish Civil War stuff, a lot of Peter Pig figures. I'm getting ready for a Friday SCW game. It's a weekday afternoon game, sort of like a Mariners' businessman's special. Those of us who can get away on Friday are meeting at Game Matrix for a noon soiree. In any case I'm so busy trying to get ready that the 208 figures I've painted this month haven't been photographed.

Just for the record I have painted 208 figures, which is a huge number, especially when compared May and April and the paltry number I produced.

I still have a day to pull all the last of my painting, basing and rules fiddling together, but next week I promise pictures.

HYW Horsemen and Carlist militia

I'm wrapping up 12 figures of 28mm light horsemen for the Hundred Years War. This was part of HYW/WOTR bounty I bought from David Sullivan many years ago. They might be Foundry figures, though it seems there are a mix of manufacturers. Maybe a couple of Crusader miniatures too. There is a fully armored knight in charge of the show, and I figure they could be a unit of hobilars or some other irregular cavalry unit for either side. I can see them participating in an action involving routiers or something like that.

It's taken me forever to finish these figures. I've really been back on a painting routine since the weekend, so I'm actually able to get something done.

Next on the painting block are some 15mm Peter Pig Carlist militia for the Spanish Civil War. The Carlists or Requetes are the backbone of the Nationalist army after the war enters its second year. They wear the distinctive red beret and are solid troops. This will give me four 22 figure battalions. All the photos are of the Carlists from the SCW.

Enfilade and After

It's been a week since the convention, and I always use this time as an opportunity to take stock, and think about what I'm working on an what I hope to accomplish.

First, May was not much of month for painting things. I got my trenches done, and finished some buoys for hydroplane racing, but not much real painting. I picked at twelve light horsemen for the HYW, but have actually done more with them since the convention than I did before. May is a tough month for teachers. There's a lot to do at school and there's just not much energy there. It's June now and I can already begin to feel a bit more relaxed and energized to paint.

Enfilade purchases are always something I look forward to, but mine were carefully planned. I had some cash and sold about $140 worth of unpainted miniatures in the flea market. Everything I brought was priced to sell, and almost everything sold. Be that as it may, I didn't buy too much at the convention. All the money I spent was at the Reviresco booth. I bought a couple of planes for the Spanish Civil War, and a couple of the Acheson buildings John McEwan was closing out. I also bought a very nice Z-shaped trench from Company B for SCW.

The rest I saved for a Peter Pig order to begin wrapping up my SCW stuff. I ordered my last International Brigade unit and a couple of militia units, as well as enough figures to fill out my Civil Guards.

The Spanish Civil War will be my big summer painting project. I'd like to say I'll finish all my figures. Don't know if I'll make it, but they paint fairly quickly and I don't know why I shouldn't be able to finish them. I would like to play another game at least by third weekend in July.

I've also been reading Under the Blue Pennant, a memoir of naval operations in the Civil War. Lots of amphibious operations on the James River and in North Carolina. I'm intrigued with trying to do something with my plethora of 6mm ACW stuff and I've come up with two ideas. One is to do combined arms with my underused ACW naval vessels. The other is to develop rules to re-fight the Great Snowball Fight in Dalton Georgia in 1864. Oh c'mon, it would be fun.

Enfilade: The Games I Ran

I ran three games at Enfilade and managed to get pictures of two. Dopey me.

First, I ran our annual Enfilade Cup game. That's a game of Thunderboats played with standard rules. It's nice because anybody who has one can bring their own boat and play with it. It's always entertaining because it's always no holds barred. I always find myself laughing. In this year's Cup, Al Rivers brought his boat in University of West Virginia colors, and Doug Hamm brought a magnificently painted, if somewhat bereft of a tail fin Hamm's Beer boat. Doug also provided the real entertainment by purchasing a nitrous bottle and spectacularly setting himself on fire. One simply cannot have too much fun. Shawn McEvoy who casts our miniatures and I are watching the proceedings. I'm the guy in the Tacoma Rainiers hat.

Saturday night was The Alcalde's Daughter, my adventure in Mexico with Sword and the Flame. I've explained the game before, but Enfilade is great because it always attracts a different crowd. I immediately recruited Tim Weber and Mark Fortner to the game for comedy relief. They've played in almost all my Maxmillian games and usually leave me in hysterics with their fractured logic and bad Spanish accents.

As I mentioned in my March post, I did make changes to the victory conditions, but the French continued to pick on the poor Mexicans. The town was a bit closer to the French side of the board, though the Mexican types outnumbered them. The guerrillas did manage to inflict some casualties, but nothing catastrophic. It was fun and everyone had a good time, which is the most important thing.

Just as an aside, Phil Williams gave me a wonderful little campaign guide to Maxmillian's war that hope to use in the not too distant future. It uses smaller units for TSATF and since I have tons of extra command figures I shouldn't have much difficulty. I am short cavalry, and don't have Austrians, Belgians or Egyptians, so either I'll have to figure something out or just lump it for now.

My last game was the 1965 Gold Cup race. This was what I was most interested in running. It tweaks our Thunderboat rules and applies historical factors and conditions to the racing. Daveshoe and I had six great guys with boats including first-timer John Westra. We raced five heats, with some predictable tension. Chris Rivers seemed to be a natural, overcoming some real adversity in the game to place consistently in the top three. The fun moment was Al Rivers in Exide pushing the nitrous button, getting a die roll of 22, bursting into flame, but putting it out when his engine stalled with a wash of lake water on an event card draw. All that was missing was becoming airborne.

On the last heat three players had a real shot at winning, Chris, John, and Norris Hazelton. Chris was leading by a hundred points at the beginning of the race, and though he finished third, he still won the race on points easily. The game went six hours, and we didn't take breaks. I was concerned about the length of the race, but when I asked players they thought it was fine. Good news, because I loved it.

On the pics-At the top of the page, Al's Exide leads the parade. Exide had some great moments, but a couple of heats in which Al's boat DNF'ed kept him out of the money. The white boat is Notre Dame, a great boat with a great driver, that Norris rode to victory in at least one heat. It's holding its own against Savair's Mist,the dark boat that was not very good with a mediocre driver. Lots of driver re-rolls that a couple of players made good use of. The bottom boat is just a good look at Exide, Miss Madison and Gale's Roostertail coming down the backstretch. Gale's Roostertail is perhaps my prettiest boat, and I nearly entered her in the painting competition.

Enfilade: The Games I Played

I rarely have an opportunity to play in many (any) games at Enfilade. I'm not complaining, it's just a fact. I am a convention organizer and my responsibilities often keep me busy and I'm usually running a fistful of games. This year I cut back my games by one to three, and made some early decisions about the games I wanted to play in.

The first game was a Hundred Years War game hosted by Chris Craft. His troops are mounted like my own figures in my massed figure project. They're all Perry figures and very nicely painted. The scenario was very fun. I was an English player and the scenario was intended to be a prologue to Agincourt. Things didn't go very well for the English. There were no prepared positions, and we had to fight an overwhelming number of French knights. I commanded a longbow unit and small band of Irish kerns on the far flank. We just couldn't quite inflict enough damage on the frogs to slow them down or shake them before contact and eventually we just got squashed. Our center was broken, Henry V was killed rallying troops, and England was plunged back into a dynastic war. Gack! I have a copy of the rules and really wanted to play Chris's game and try out the rules. I enjoyed both and had a good time.

Saturday afternoon I played Lawrence Bateman's wonderful little Ambush on the White Rose game. It was a game modeling the Northwest Indian War fought on both sides of the state in the late 1850's. A four player game, there was enough for everyone to do without being overwhelming. It's also played with the Brother Against Brother rules, which I own, but have only played once.

I commanded Lt. August Kautz's squad of U.S. regulars campaigning up on the White River in 1855. Kautz was separated from the rest of his unit and was trapped in some deadfall along the river, badly outnumbered by Indians. While a relief force marched to his rescue, Kautz was forced to shoot it out with the natives. Lawrence noted that the Indians were reluctant to come to grips with the regulars, and chose to shoot it out instead with their indifferent trade muskets. While the regulars had percussion smoothbores and were better shots, it was still difficult to be outnumbered.

I liked how the rules handled shooting on a such a small scale. Either you move, shoot, or load and the firing was simple and straight forward. Not exceptionally bloody. Because the game was fought in the rain (what else?) we also had a chance of muskets fouling. In any case we shot a lot at each other, but I realized that I was going to have problems if I didn't start moving for safety. Supported by another company of regulars firing across the river, I gradually made my way to the ford across the White River. I lost scads of guys but had lots of fun doing it.

Unfortunately I only have pics taken of the White River game. You can see my little command surrounded on three sides by surly natives, surrounded by lots of gunsmoke. The picture on the far left shows my much smaller command hiding in some cover, ducking behind another unit, which very shortly will run away . . . leaving me alone again naturally.

Believe it or not all photos were taken with my iPhone.

Enfilade: An Overview

This is the first of several entries about Enfilade 2010. Just a quick, wordy snapshot.

First, it was a great weekend for the convention, because the weather was just crap. I can't imagine being a family that regularly camps over Memorial Day, because I think I would have been home by 5:00 on Friday. We had about 250 attendees make their way to Olympia through the rain and execrable traffic from various parts of the northwest.

There were lots of great games. I actually made time to play in a couple of them. I loved Chris Craft's wonderful Hundred Years War game using the Crusader Rules as well as Lawrence Bateman's equally great Northwest Indian War game that takes place on the White River near present day Buckley.

My own games went very well. The Friday Night Thunderboats! game was a hoot as always. Saturday night I re-ran the Alcalde's Daughter. I knew all the players and everyone seemed to have a good time. The Sunday Gold Cup Race I really liked, though it was pretty long. All the participants said it was worth it though.

More articles with pictures to follow.

Thank God it's Enfilade

This morning I head south for Enfilade. It's a perfect weekend for it. The weather is crappy with a capital crap. Lots of great things about this year. First, I have today, Friday off. No snow days, and the district usually reserves this as a snow make-up day. So, unlike last year, I didn't have to head down after school was out.

My job is to organize and manage the registration desk while still trying to run and play some games and have a good time. I've never been so organized as this year, though doubtless I've forgotten something. Nevertheless things look pretty good, so I'm hoping our set-up goes well.

Looking forward to seeing Doug. I'll try to talk him into walking the floor and deciding best of show tomorrow morning. I'm running three games, but two are hydroplane racing, so they aren't too stressful. The third is the Alcalde's Daughter game in Mexico I wrote about in March. Looking forward to that.

I'm dragging along my camera, but may just resort to using my phone.

Trenches Full of Figures

Just a quick entry to follow up my last. These are some quick photos of the finished trenches with figures. My intent was to provide the sense of "hey these are trenches!" on the cheap. I think they serve my purpose.

The two close ups are of the MacKenzie-Papineau battalion of the International Brigades. The shot of three trenches shows the Mac-Paps, the Abraham Lincoln Battalion on a regular Republican battalion.

They seem just right to me.

Entrenchments on the cheap

When I was a kid growing up I had some of the cool Who, Why Wonderbooks on various topics. I had one on rockets, another on dinosaurs, but my favorite was on World War II (of course.) The books were written for eight year olds with lots of pictures, big topic headers and writing easy enough for wee folk to read. My book mentioned the Spanish Civil War as a practice ground for WWII.

That was sort of true with more battlefield movement through the widespread use of tanks and aircraft. However there was also more than a little use of entrenchments. Though the war did not become the bloody stalemate of the Great War, no Spanish Civil War battlefield should be without trenches.

For the last year I've been promising myself some ways to come up with entrenchments. I've looked a the JR entrenchments. They are very nice and not super expensive. They have the advantage of being very flexible and expandable, but at $25 for eighteen inches of front, it was more than I wanted to spend. Company B has a real nice set of entrenchments, with great detail, though probably more for 28mm than my 15's, and pretty pricey.

No I decided I could do this myself. I am scratch building them. True confession--I hate making terrain. I'm not imaginative. I'm not good at it. It wastes valuable painting time. But in my new year of frugal gaming, it was the only way I was going to justify entrenchments for my 15mm battlefield.

I started with a simple trip to Michaels for 12" X 4" plywood and strips of basswood. The plywood was heavy enough to make a good base and thick enough not to warp. The basswood was dense enough not splinter when being cut.

I started by designing the dimensions of the entrenchment. I wanted something that could easily bear an 11 stand battalion of infantry on 1 X 1 bases, so I designed single battalion entrenchments with refused flanks. Orwell discusses these in Homage to Catalonia.

I drilled holes at the corners of each turn to sink corner posts. I also sank a post in the center (sort of) of each long straight section. I just used 3/16 " mini dowels, also available at Michaels.

Step three was to put together a framework for the trenches. No entrenchment for the game table quite looks like it's supposed to--trenches sunk into the ground. They have to fool the observer into believing the structure is a trench, even though it's above table level. I cut basswood into strips, and stacked them three high. Most entrenchments used some kind of timber to provide strength and structure to the fieldwork, so I wanted timberlike material that looked plausible. I assembled the structure with CA glue-that seemed to do the trick.

The hardest choice to make was the material to simulate the earth outside the trench structure. I've made similar earthworks before only to be disappointed when the base warped. I considered three substances. First was Celluclay, which is a form of papier mache. It looks earthiest, I've used it before, and I have some. However, it takes too long to dry, and the worst warping I've ever gotten in my efforts is with this stuff. Too wet. I also considered wood putty. Doug Hamm uses this for his basing and his stuff looks great. But Mark Waddington suggested modeling paste by Liquitex. It's an acrylic compound, and I've had lots of success with other Liquitex products. They dry fast, I can stir paint right in with the paste. So I tried that. I applied it with some artists tools and sprinkled some ballast and turf from Woodland Scenics over the top and voila.

I figured I paid about $12 for the three unit sized entrenchments. I finished three last night and hope to do three more today.

A Better May

April was a down month for painting. Things got out of control early with trial practice. Lorri and I took a little vacation early in the month. All my effort went in to finishing my hydroplanes. When I got those finished, there was more trial prep, closing arguments, all of which demanded my time. I spent most of the rest of the month just reading, and that was fine.

My figure count sits at 194 for the year. Not great, but I still have averaged 48 figures per month for the year for the year. That's enough to get me to my goals of 500-600 figures for the year. Production will go up during the summer too.

I also made my first purchase of the year. I bought 88 15mm Peter Pig Spanish Civil War figures. It's enough for me to complete two battalions of Requetes (Carlist) militia, and two battalions of Republican regulars as they were reorganized. I won't buy any more until these figures are done, but SCW really has my attention right now. It's an interesting period, the figures paint up fast and the game is fun. I've had lots of inquiries since I ran it last August.

On the painting table:
12 28mm HYW horse-sort of a loose agglomeration of routier types led by a knight. Foundry figures I believe
4 15mm SCW artillerists and two 65mm infantry guns. They're FOW Italians, but they're going to be Nationalists. Infantry guns were attached to the Tabor brigades (Spanish Foreign Legion and Moroccans) moved fast, and were very effective.

Gold Cup Playtest

Got together with a few friends to walk through a Thunderboats! modification to play the 1965 Gold Cup race. I'm pretty thrilled with the results. Dave Schueler and I agreed to violate the rules guidelines that essentially let players create their own boats. In this case, players choose boats and drivers from each heat. Boats and drivers are rated, so all are not equal.

The racers run their boats three laps, and choose boats for the next heat in the reverse order of finish. So there is always a little handicap for after each heat.

Dave also created a set up special cards for the race, that drivers receive at the beginning of each heat. These are in addition to the regular event cards. Generally the input was favorable, so I'm anxious for the real deal.

Why April is slow, and my life is better for it.

It's been a slow month. I've played a couple of games, but I haven't gotten much painted. I've completed exactly five hydroplanes and nothing else. Started on some Spanish Civil War vehicles, but I don't know if I'll finish them by the 30th. I actually polished off a few Pz Is, but the trucks and command vehicle are up in the air.

I don't really feel badly about all this. It's been a month. The long awaited JagWire trial is over. I spent six hours on the witness stand, and many more hours in trial prep. I also spent tons of stressed out evenings. What makes my life better is that the trial is over, the verdict is in, and found the paper, myself and the district were not guilty of invasion of privacy and negligence. It is a relief, and I am so much better for it.

I even bought figures this month. They haven't arrive yet, but I ordered 88 SCW figures from Brookhurst. I did follow through on my promise not to order figures until I was ready. I was out of figures, and I ordered enough to paint up two more battalions of Carlists, and two more battalions of regular infantry. They both formed the mainstays of their army, and my troop mix was pretty deficient. I'll wrap them up by the end of June, and then be ready for more. I've set out my perfect counter mix for SCW and then the project will be done.

The Seven Years War Campaign

I've been playing in Wes Rogers' Seven Years War campaign since September. It's interesting, played on a fictional continent. Our armies have been wandering around for a good long time now, without many encounters. My country is based on Spain and have happily been marching about grabbing land from whomever we can pilfer it.

However, in the last build year, the Russian based country intercepted one of my field armies at sea, after doing nothing to the Russians, destroyed my small fleet and captured an entire army. I was not a happy camper, and launched one of my field armies at the Russians, and attacked his cities in the south. I didn't do a lot of maneuver with the defending forces. No two steps. I went right at one of his main cities, and used it as a base to attack the Russian capital.

At the end of the turn, with my army facing the capital, I discovered the Russian strength-about half my own, with more troops sent to reinforce the defenders. I marched my cavalry off to intercept the all-foot army in the hopes I could defeat the relief force while preparing for what was likely to be a bloody storming of the city.

It could not have worked out any better. With about half of the relief force composed of militia, the cavalry had its way with the unsteady troops. Three units were driven back into the surrounding villages with loss, leaving the line troops to fend for themselves. The Royal Cuirassiers combined with a dragoon unit to break one square while the rest of the troops made their way into the city at a full rout. Another action broke out between my large infantry column and three Russian battalions. They only held me up for a turn as artillery and infantry fire drove them back into the city with loss.

A subsequent storming of the city was bloody but resulted in the loss of the Russian capital and the complete destruction of the Russian army. We reached terms favorable to both sides and things are looking up

Pictures were taken with my iPhone. Something different. The first shows Joe Waddington marching Russians worsted by cavalry being driven back into the villages outside the capital. The second picture shows Joe's troops marching out of the capital. The last pic is of the isolated square being overwhelmed by the brave Spanish cavalry.

March Madness and April Anxiety

It's the last day of March. It's time to take stock and make plans for April.

First, March was an extremely difficult month for me. I think I've mentioned my role in a legal action against the school district resulting from an issue of the school newspaper in 2008. It's all come to a head. I've had hours of trial prep. I testified for four hours on Monday. It was exhausting and I came away with a major headache. That also doesn't speak to the two years of anxiety and depression of suffered through for this trial. The really good news is that even though I know I'll have to testify one more time in the next couple of weeks, I'm feeling freedom I haven't had in two years.

Despite all this, it was a very productive month. I finished the last 21 figures I needed to complete and finish the 2nd Maryland. This was one of my target units for 2010. Two more to go.

I also completed 46 15mm Spanish Civil War figures. I know they're 15's and don't require a lot, but they are also the last complete infantry units I have to paint. Probably the first figures I'll actually buy this year are more Peter Pig figures to wrap up this project. That's another ten infantry battalions to give myself a suitable mix of infantry, but it's fine. I see the Spanish Civil War as one of my core projects now, and not that far from being complete.

Last, but not least, I also finished two hydroplanes. I'm always amazed at how much I enjoy painting up these boats. They look cool, despite the lack of information I usually need to paint them. I just give it my best shot. The results are pretty good despite painting numbers and script by hand.

I finished 69 figures this month, and my totals are just over 180 for the year thus far. Not an astronomical number, but definitely on a pace to meet my goal of 500-600 figures this year. Still no figures purchased.

For April, I have a handful of SCW weapons and vehicles to paint. I also would like to start building some battalion sized entrenchments too. In addition, I would like to paint all of my remaining hydroplanes. I've started painting Gale's Roostertail and Miss Madison, but I have three additional boats to paint for the '65 Gold Cup and three additional boats I'll paint up in fantasy colors for the Enfilade Cup. I have some ideas I'll share when they are complete.

Pics up this week. Lorri and I are away for the weekend for a much needed break. It's Spring Break week, and I'm enjoying what I can.

The Alcalde's Daughter

In January at Drumbeat, I chatted with old friend Darin Howard about getting together for a game. I mentioned my Maxmillian stuff, and Darin was interested. We made a date for the NHMGS game day in February. Unfortunately that was the week I started to come down with fluey, germiness, so we put off the game until the third weekend in March.

I dragged out a scenario I like. It doesn't use every figure I own, but it does allow me to play with a nice sampling of my toys. Each player basically has a company of French regulars or militia irregulars with varying victory conditions. So the players could all be working against one another and not for one's self. The scenario has a small unit of French trapped in a small Mexican village surrounded by militia. The French objective is to rescue the little unit of Contra Guerrillas, while inflicting maximum damage on the enemy. Each unit also had some minor goals to keep things interesting: sack the alcalde's hacienda, steal the sacramental wine, rescue the Alcalde's daughter. You name it.

Nice mix of guys, Darin and his brother George, Tom Bieker, Dale Mickel, Scott Abbott and Lawrence Bateman all played and I think everybody had a good time. Lots of death. The scenario is pretty unbalanced, but I think that's a pretty quick fix.

As I've stated before, this is my only completed project. That's a claim I hope I can match with other projects some day. All the French as well as my Mexican regulars are Wargames Foundry figures. I also have some Guernsey Foundry Mexicans (remember them?). Most of the Mexican militia figures I have are Old Glory from their Mexican American War range. The cavalry on both sides are the old Rich Houston range that are now homeless with the closure of London War Room (sigh)

On the photos-Mexican regulars march into San Hernandez to chase of the Frogs while militia man the walls of the old church. French regulars and Contra Guerrillas evacuate the large adobe just ahead of them. French Foreign Legionnaires face off against militia to their front and flank.

AWI: The Big Rules Quandry

I'm not really ready to play an AWI game yet. Well, I could, I have lots of figures in various stages of remounting and painting

I have my 1st and 2nd Maryland figures, tons of militia and riflemen, some cavalry and such. I have lots of Brits. Finally remounted my highlanders, some regular battalions, lights and provincial units. I'm still just working on some big American units that historically play throughout the period.

The big question, for me anyway, is rules. I have some basic rules requirements. The first and most important is they be suitable for AWI in the South. Except for a few battles, such as Green Springs or Yorktown, there aren't any real big battles. The rules need to accept a ground scale and figure scale of 1:10. That can lead to some big units, but it's doable. "British Grenadier" and "Fire and Fury Regimental" both fill the bill. I think "Loose Files and American Scramble" can be made to work too.

The rules also need to accommodate my mounting. I've just remounted my figures back to 40mm square bases. Each base is equal to 40 figures, though skirmishing units such as riflemen and jaegers are only mounted two to a stand. It appears I can make this work with all the foregoing mountings. I have questions about the scale for F and F Regimental, because I think they are designed for 15mm, but perhaps I can get some clarifications.

Feel for the period is also important. Could I actually refight Cowpens with all its retrograde movement? Are there allowances for the extended order the British units might have employed? That's a definite yes for British Grenadier and Fire and Fury Regimental. Not quite so clear for Loose Files.

I'd also like to host games at conventions or informal gatherings. Fire and Fury would probably work. British Grenadier might be a stretch for those who aren't real excited about the period. Rank and File by Crusader games would probably work too, but they lack a lot of period flavor.

Anyway, lots to think about.

Enervation, Ennui: Ma, I'm stuck

I am moving very far very fast. I'm still slogging through my 2nd Maryland figures. I confess, I'm taking a lot of extra time with them. They are Perry figs, and I really do love them. They are very crisp and have a fair amount of extra detail. However, they do have the most annoying mold marks--little tags of pewter that are very hard to see at times. I often find myself scraping them off as I apply paint because I didn't catch them as I was prepping the figures.

The figures in the 1779 regulations uniform are very nice, but the uniform for these boys is brown faced red. Not real exciting. A couple of the officer figures have voluminous jackets that I painted blue faced red, regulation for Maryland units. I've finished all the uniformed types, and a handful of figures in hunting shirts. I'm actually down to the last third of the unit: a dozen figures in shirtsleeves. I've just begun working on them, but I'm still really struggling with a germ and zillion anxieties associated with work and home. It's been a challenge getting painting time.

I've attached a couple pictures of the 2nd Maryland in progress. I've got a few of my finished figures in regimentals, the rest of the finished miniatures are piled behind them. The figures I have in progress are to the right. I actually committed a couple of hours tonight, and a couple more nights' work will wrap them up. Sunday by the latest.

2nd Maryland

These are my 2nd Maryland figures. They are a mix of Perry figures, with a couple of Old Glory guys thrown in to fill it out to 36 figures. I ordered figures in regulation uniforms, hunting shirts and shirt sleeves to show the varying attire of the unit. It's size represents the strength of the 2nd Maryland at Guilford Courthouse, the first of several engagements the regiment went on to fight in 1781. The unit was also at Hobkirk's Hill and Eutaw Springs. At each succeeding battle the unit got a bit smaller due to casualties and, no doubt, desertion.

At Guilford the 2nd Maryland was a green regiment. Unlike the veteran 1st Maryland, they didn't receive the blue regimentals, faced red. They drilled and trained under Nathaniel Greene as the light corps of his army maneuvered north through North Carolina, leading Cornawallis and his army a merry chase. However, the unit was drawn from the entire state of Maryland, rather than a particular locale, loosening those necessary bonds of unit attachment, and many of their officers were transferred to the First Maryland.

Their first action was at Guilford, where they formed part of Greene's third line of Continentals. Unfortunately, they broke under the British attack, which led to the counterattack by the 1st Maryland and Greene's withdrawal despite brilliant fighting on the day.

The Perry figures are mix of uniform types as I explained above. I chose to go with the firing line poses because of the nice mix of miniatures. It's pretty impressive in a large unit. Standards, as with all American units, were problematic. I went with a version of the stars and stripes based on the Jonathan Trumbull version at Yorktown. I also went with a divisional flag, just for something different.

This is the first of three large units for the American Revolution I want to complete by the end of the year. The first and second Virginia regiments are next in line. However, it's unlikely I'll begin working on them until school is out for summer.

My photography is, as always somewhere between crappy and execrable.

February finis

Well, February roared in like a lion and went out like a lamb. I got off to a great start in this second month of the year, finished some Spanish Civil War figures, some AWI figures, but got very little done after deadline began last week. I did complete a couple of hydroplanes yesterday. I really got stuck on the number 50 (completed figures.)

I didn't buy any additional figures this month, though I did invest in some paint and some brushes. My total painted figures for the year is 114. Not bad. It puts me on a pace for over 600 painted figures for the year. It also meets my range of 40-60 painted figures per month. It was a short month too, so, again, not bad.

It was a tough painting month too. I am in my third week of fighting a low level germ that sometime leaves me pretty tired. We were also on a very contentious deadline last week that kept me busy every evening except Friday.

In March I'll keep working on those 2nd Maryland figures. I expect I'll finish them. I'll keep working on hydroplanes. I have seven more to finish for my Gold Cup project, and they should be pretty doable. I'll also wrap up all my 15mm Italians for the SCW this month. These should pad my figure totals. There are 44 of them, half in the dark green European uniforms, and half in the light khaki African uniforms.