The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy

I finished up my PT Dockyard vessels this morning.  These are pictures of the vessels.  I have several more that I've already painted and I'm tempted to redo them to match the color and detailing.  I must say I like these much better.  The smallest vessels, the Boghammers are new castings and much superior to the old ones.

Thondar missile boats are among the nastiest of the Iranian vessels. Chinese built with Chinese missiles

Comparison shot with my original model.  It's getting a face lift.

Four "China Cats", another Chinese missile boat with a catamaran hull.

The last picture is the LCS-1 Freedom by PT. Dockyards.  As you can see, it is a much larger miniature than the Iranian vessels.  It will feature prominently in our Straits of Hormuz game.  Hope to have it finished Sunday. However in doing research for the detailing, which will have to be painted in, I've discovered I need to re-paint the hull that same USN brownish gray I primed the model with.  I've included a couple of pictures of a finished model that inspired my thinking, as well as as photos from the U.S. navy that show the contrasting grays.  Not a big deal.  Will probably lose about a half hour in painting and touch up.

Boghammers.  The first three are the new models.  The outside two are the old miniatures. 

Tir torpedo boats

US Navy photos of LCS-1 Freedom clearly show the upper works a lighter gray than the Gull Gray hull. 

USS Freedom (LCS-1) is a work in progress.  There is a Thondar below and a Boghammer above as a size comparison.

That same USN gray is clearly visible in this photo of LCS-2 Independence.  My miniature of this vessel is a styrene model kit by Dragon.  I'll be spray painting this vessel because I smell disaster when I think of using brush acrylics on a mini this big made of styrene.  A big bunch of bad.

LCS-2 Independence with its distinct trimaran shape and gull gray coloring.

PT Dockyards and the Straits of Hormuz

Side view of Iranian Thondar class missile boat. 

I have a lot of resin coastal vessels from PT Dockyards.  David Gregory runs a fine niche business.  Though PT Dockyards vessels take some work (and I don't work hard enough on them) I like them better than the metals from Skytrex.  Though they have the virtue of being metal, and the detail is sometimes a bit finer, the Skytrex WWII coastals and moderns seem just a little too large and solid.  And when they have flaws they really stick out.  I generally feel PT's flaws can be massaged a bit and hidden.  I do kind of wish David would go with photo-etched guns and fiddly bits which would raise the price considerably, but they would be a bit tidier than digging them out of the resin "wafer."

Daveshoe and I are working on our piles of Iranian vessels for our Straits of Hormuz game at Enfilade.  The game allows the Iranian player to select from a large number of vessel types.  Small vessels to be sure, from the speedy Boghammers armed with multiple rocket launchers, RPG's and automatic weapons, to the nasty Thondar missile boats with Chinese anti ship missiles and automatic cannon.

Nearly completed Thondar class.  My little kits didn't have complete auto-cannon, so comparison with picture may be weird. Mounted on 2 1/2 inch bases.

Boghammer fast patrol boats with China Cat missile boats in background.  Mounted on one inch square bases.

Tir stealthy torpedo boats on 1 1/2 inch bases.  Minis are done, but bases aren't finished.

I'm always at a loss when it comes to painting these little ships.  Though there are lots of photographs and even some nice color line drawings of the Iranian Navy and Revolutionary Guard Navy (the most likely early combatants in the Strait,) getting a workable paint scheme going can be a challenge.  I started with a simple spray coat of Testor's USN light gray-available at Michaels.  Then I dug deep into my paint drawers and managed to pull out some Floquil Polly S paints that still had legs.  This was great stuff, and that it is no longer available is a crime against hobbyists every where.  (Hear that Testors-fascist paint monopolists!!) I grabbed a Dark Ghost Gray and IJN Light gray.  Combined with Vallejo Neutral Gray for the decks, I had colors for my Iranian fleet. 

As you can see the vessels are all assembled and most are in various stages of painting.  I'm hoping to have them finished by the weekend and will update this post.  As I said, this is for Enfilade, and when they are done, I'll have only two large American vessels to complete for the convention.

The Chickasaw Bluffs playtest

The Chickasaw Bluffs playtest finally happened. Sort of. No it really did.  I say sort of because on Friday I had an epiphany.  The original plan for the scenario was basically a game on a 10' X 8' table or two 5' X 8' separated by walking space between the two halves.  On one half an American amphibious assault landing aimed at capturing a Spanish battery overlooking the Mississippi.  On the other half a punitive expedition against Spain's Chickasaw allies.  On Friday I determined running both actions simultaneously would be at least a monumental headache, if not a disaster, so I decided to split them into separate scenarios and separate game periods. 

Yesterday Al Rivers, Steve Ghan, Dale Mickel, Gary Griess, David Sullivan and Lawrence Bateman got together at Game Matrix and played  the "Just a Big Indian Fight" scenario.  The Americans, tasked with capturing or destroying the Chickasaw village had one company of militia composed of four ten figure squads. The Americans also had two six pounders.   They also had two companies of regular infantry composed of three twelve man squads.  They were opposed by three warbands of Chickasaws, each composed of three ten man squads.

American troops advancing to the creek.  Militia is in the foreground and about to be roughly handled by the Indians

All seems quiet in the Chickasaw village

Lawrence Bateman's command advancing across the river.

Lawrence has already taken fire and dispatched one band of Chickasaw to his front.  More to his right front.

The Indians set up in cover, and with the exception of one unit of Indians, the Americans contented themselves with crossing the little creek flowing across the board.  The militia stumbled into an Indian ambush and quickly found itself outmatched when the Chickasaw took to the tomahawk and war club.  Two squads were annihilated and the rest were driven back across the creek. 

Dale's regulars did a slow dance with the one advanced Indian unit visible on the left, but the American regulars showed themselves to be formidable, advancing methodically on the left and in the center, using their superior command ability to their advantage.  Eventually they advanced toward the cornfield where David's Indians dosed them with fire and charged.  Formed troops with bayonets proved not nearly so brittle as the militia, and they gave at least as good as they got in melee. One of the regular squads was eliminated in the advance, but eventually David's Indians were cleared. 

On the right, Al's Indians continued to be difficult as Gary regrouped his Indians.  Steve's remaining bands retired from the cornfield to the safety of the fort, while Lawrence and Dale advanced with their regulars and began burning the cornfield.  It's a slow process, and required a bit of good luck to make rapid progress, but eventually the victory points began piling in.  When Lawrence worked a squad into the village and burned one of the houses, we called it a game. 

No playtest is ever perfect, but it seemed to go well.  We discussed some simple tweaks and an option for the Indians, but nothing major.  We played just over three hours and seemed to reach a conclusion. 

Chickasaw Bluffs: River assault boats

Boat 1 with 6 pound boat gun.  Strictly gunfire support material

Yes, it's been a while since my last post.  I'm truly sorry.  I seem to have hit some sort of blogger wall.  It's not that I'm doing nothing, I'm painting almost every night.  I haven't been playing many games and that does lighten the number of posts I can make, unless I devote myself to boring navel gazing.

A look further astern.  That's a Lewis and Clark figure on the stern.  Makes a good squad leader.

I'm still working on units for Chickasaw Bluffs and I'm nearly done with them. I sixty Perry militia figures and I'm down to the last twenty to wrap up.  I'd hoped to have them done over Spring Break last week, but no such luck.  Soon.  Unfortunately, tomorrow I leave for the National Student Journalism convention.  This year it's just up the road in Seattle, so I don't lose a day to travel.

A nice shot down the stem of the boat.

While I was doing some tedious blacklining on my figures I decided to take a break and paint up a couple of the small boats needed for my river landing at Chickasaw Bluffs.  I'm using four of the Merrimac shipyards boats.  These come two to a box.  I bought them about four years ago as a member of the Old Glory Army.  They were very inexpensive, I wanna say ten dollars for two with the discount.  The boats come with a ton of goodies-oars and oarlocks, boat howitzers and swivel guns.  A great value for the price.

A shot at boat two with the three swivels

I chose to make the swivel guns of iron rather than brass.  Thought that might be more the norm on the frontier.

 For the game, these are simply assault vessels, landing craft.  They'll join the keelboat and my two Lewis and Clark as landing craft, dropping troops on to the shore.  I decided to army these two vessels differently, going for a 6 lb. boat gun on one with a bunch of blunderbuss armed swivels on the other. I just added some masts out of plastruct and away we go.

A quick comparison shot of the two boats.

The Chickasaw Bluffs terrain bits appearing together

I thought about trying to lay out my Chickasaw Bluffs game on my game table, er, my dining room table.  There is one serious defect in this plan--my dining room table is much, much smaller than the 8' X 5' table I'll be working with next Saturday.  So, through out my cornfields and my palisade and my houses, just so's I could show them off together.  I'm actually really pleased with all of the pieces together and separately.  They're handmade, they cost very little, and, most importantly, they are finished.

Mark Waddington graciously sent me his Brother Against Brother rules, and I've been reading and tinkering with them.  I cannot thank him enough; he's a great friend.

When too much is too much

If you happen to see my copy of these rules floatin' around, please drop me a line.

Last Saturday I was supposed to host a playtest of my Chickasaw Bluffs game at the Game Matrix.  Because I am frequently forgetful, I always start laying out everything I need for my games a couple of days early.  Figures, check. Terrain bits, check.  Rules and scenario information, erm, shit!!. I almost always write up scenario details in the day or so before a game, but I usually need the rules to help me with it. 

Brother Against Brother is the rules I will use with Chickasaw Bluffs.  Unfortunately, my set has gone missing.  I tore apart my den, went through my boxes of figures, couldn't find them.  Friday, I swallowed my embarassment and canceled my game.  The rules, of course, were last printed in 2008 and are nowhere to be found, but my friend Mark Waddington has offered to provide me with his.  I've rescheduled the game for the 31st. 

Like many gamers, I have a lot of stuff. I don't intend to list all the miniatures I have, but it's probably 5-10,000 painted miniatures for lots of historical and fantasy periods in 6mm, 15mm and 28mm. To go with that I have many terrain pieces, including table sized (and table plus sized) felts, rivers, roads, buildings, etc. I have a couple hundred painted aircraft, 70 or so painted ACW ships.  Then there is all the unpainted lead-again, more than I'd like to count, the books and rules sets-you're a gamer you know what I'm talking about.  It's a lot of stuff. 

I like to think of this as fairly well-managed, but part of my problem is I live in a relatively small house, with limited storage space.  The space I have is full and there is not likely to be more.  I have a ton of stuff I don't use-rules I bought and looked at, maybe even tried and decided, these are not the ones. I am not a magazine person, but somehow I've managed to acquire buckets of mags--Campaigns and Tradition, the Courier, MWAN, Miniature Wargraming and Wargames Illustrated. In addition I have terrain pieces that have never left their boxes, unbuilt ships from Merrimack Shipyards, a pile of non-necessaries. 

With all this pointless chaff taking up space, it's easy to misplace the important stuff.  Losing my BaB rules is not the first important set I've lost.  I use a handful of rules sets:  Regimental Fire and Fury, Medieval Tactica Siege, The Sword and the Flame, Action Stations, and a few sets of home grown rules.  Why do I have five sets of AWI rules I gave up on years ago?  While I'm a sucker for nostalgia, my life would simply be better if I did a big purge and parted with the rest in the Enfilade Bring and Buy.

Field trip to Card Kingdom and Cafe Mox

Dave Schueler suggested we visit a board game shop in Ballard last summer, Card Kingdom on Leary Way.  After batting the idea to and fro over the months, we finally agreed on last Saturday.  I picked up Dave and son Casey in West Seattle and we arrived at the shop about 11:00 AM.  Our timing was perfect.  There was dedicated parking across the street. 

We walked in the door and things were just getting started.  We did a lot of looking.  Card Kingdom has lots of games, but nothing terribly hardcore historical.  Lots of Eurogames, lots of card systems.  They even had a nice selection of Games Workshop miniatures, Reaper paints and brushes.  There wasn't anything that really lured me in, but great stuff to look at.

There are some real amenities Card Kingdom offers.  First, they have a really nice tournament space.  Nobody seemed to be using it on Saturday, and it seems best set up for card games--though I think it would also work well for DBA.  They also offer some very comfortable private game spaces.  I'm not sure what the cost of using the space would be, but it was quite nice for a group of 6-8 playing board games.

Card Kingdom has joined another game shop in the area, Blue Highway Games on Magnolia Hill in Seattle, that offers a game library.  Want to try out a game, just borrow it and play it--in the little cafe that's basically part of the store.  Whoa.  Cafe Mox is not fast food, nor is it a dive.  Very nice place, awesome sandwiches, and they have micro-brews and wine.  I had  a vegetarian sandwich, but Dave had a great looking Caesar chicken wrap, and Casey had your basic grilled cheese.  The prices were reasonable. Cafe Mox is a great stop whether you're gaming or just grabbing coffee or lunch.

We set up Revolution! by Steve Jackson Games and played around lunch.  We enjoyed it.  The game requires you to build support for your faction in a town during a revolution.  The rules were easy and in a relatively close game, Casey won.  When we left the cafe to return the game, every table was full of games and gamers.  There was some kind of Warhammerish tournament going on (everybody used unpainted and semi-painted figures--ick!)

We left at about 2:00 and I dropped off Dave and Casey and headed for home about 2:30.  It was a great trip I hope to make again.

Chickasaw Village WIP

I'm moving ahead toward the first playtest of my Chickasaw Bluffs game on March 17th.  Yes, St. Patrick's Day.  I'm likely to lose a lot of good gamers to the suds that day.  In any case, I'm interested in focusing on the American attack on the Chickasaw village for that game.  I need a lot of terrain bits.  Some, like the Chickasaw fort and the big cornfield are done.  I've got a bunch of trees I'm working on, but I really need some houses for the village.

I decided to do the best I could building the Chickasaw summer house.  Note the planking and the open door and eaves that kept it cool during the sweaty Mississippi and Louisiana summers.

I just didn't think I could pull off the round winter dwellings.

I have some beautiful long houses by Acheson Creations.  Unfortunately the Chickasaw didn't live in long houses.  In looking at a few pictures, they lived in a couple of different types of buildings, different for the summer and winter.  The winter houses are round with circular thatched roofs.  I thought carefully about these and gave up the idea.  I just thought they'd be a mess.  Too many circles.

During the summer they lived in plank houses with thatched roofs, the houses cooled with open eaves.  I kind of dorked around with concepts.  I thought I'd build a frame with 1/8 inch dowels and use bass wood strips to do the planking.  I tried making a fairly busy frame, but I just couldn't make it work very well.  Instead, I built a simple skeleton using the dowels and drilling them into a chunk of craft plywood.  I bought a 12 inch square by 1/8 inch piece of craft plywood at JoAnn Fabrics.  I bought my doweling there, as well as strips of 24" X 1/8" X 1/16" bass wood.  I cut the dowels into lengths of 2" and 2 1/2 "  The 2" dowels would form the frame skeleton of the outside walls, while the longer dowels became the roof supports.

I stared by drilling the holes to sink the dowels.  I had to use my big ol' cordless drill, because my Dremel tool can't sink 1/8" holes.  After drilling all the holes I glued in my dowels.

Then I took my basswood strips, measured off 2" lengths and cut them with my scroll saw.  They are quite thin and fragile so it's important to hold them carefully from both ends.

I was really at a loss as to how I might glue my planks together.  I finally began gluing them to the plywood base and to each other.  The first building actually went together quite well and the planks were very uniform with no gaps and no major leaning episodes.  I can tell you, as I assemble, the rest of the houses (there are four), that it hasn't been quite so tidy. 

After all the planking was completed, leaving a gap for the door, I used my Dremel tool to sand down the uneven plank lengths to even or pretty close. 

My last challenge was to come up with something for a thatched roof.  I was really at a loss.  I considered using Woodland Scenics Field Grass over a tagboard roof.  The Chickasaw used a fairly sharply pitched roof that would lend itself to a lot of detailing and would take a long time.  Also, with Field Grass spendy at $4.49 a bag, it would add a lot to the cost.  While I was at JoAnn's I ran across a sale item, an off season planter liner.  I thought it would be cheap, would suit the purpose and look pretty good.  I couldn't reproduce the nice pitch of the roof, however, it's easily removed and replaced, and seems to do the trick.

At this point, I've finished one of the buildings, but should be finished with the remaining three by tomorrow night.  It's really taken three days of hard work.  After I finish the buildings, I'll need to figure out how I want to finish the wood pieces and complete the landscaping.  The finishing up may not be completed in time for my March 17th game, and the houses will have to appear naked (oh my!)

New Osprey: The Fall of English France 1449-53

Ever wonder how the English managed to lose the Hundred Years War?  I mean there's all those wretched French defeats at Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt.  French soldiers drown at Sluys and are shot to pieces at the less well known Verneuilles.  Why don't those silly Frenchmen speak English and eat bangers and mash instead of snails?

In his last Osprey Campaigns book on the Battle of Orleans in 1430, David Nicolle began to tell the story of how the tide began to turn against the English in France.  Nicolle wraps up the story of the English in France with this volume.  Nicolle primarily focuses on the Battle of Formigny and the fall of Normandy in 1450, and the collapse of English Gascony after the battle of Castillon in 1453. Nicolle has a fine narrative style and tells the story well, within the constraints of his limited space.  Would love to see an accompanying Men-at-Arms book on the evolution of the French army from a feudal force to a royal army, with emphasis on the development of the Bureaus' mobile artillery arm.

The book is good and useful for the wargamer for a number of reasons.  To the degree possible, Nicolle provides details about forces present.  There are a few good color plates of the battles, but not a lot. There are accounts of the battles and maps as well.  There are also a lot of contemporary photos of the location, some in color, which are nice if one is able to visit the battlefields.

If I have a complaint, it isn't the diminishing number of color plates in the Campaign series, it is the maps.  They are much better at showing movements of bodies of troops, rather than showing the battlefield itself.  Both Formigny and Castillon are relatively small.  The former likely had less than 5,000 men total.  Why not a battlefield map rather than a campaign map which really shows very little.

Chickasaw Fort Complete

Front view. I used Woodland Scenics Deciduous foliage and their clump bushes. I also added coarse turf in places.  Affixed with Woodland Scenics Hob e Tac.

Same view from above.  As you can see the palings aren't perfect.  The cost, about four bucks, however, was.

A top view.  I feel I got a nice mix of green area and bare earth. 

A back view.

I finished landscaping the Chickasaw Fort on Thursday, but am just getting around to pictures today.  I'm really pleased with the way this turned out, even if the landscaping just sort of looks stuck on.  I still have more scratchbuilding to do for Mississippi.  The houses and grain storage is next on my list, but probably not something I'll take on immediately.

Treading cautiously: modern naval war in the Straits of Hormuz

I've written about Dave Schueler many times in the past.  He is a good friend and a great gamer.  Daveshoe recently had one of his board games, U-Boat Leader on submarine warfare published, and that is huge news.  Congrats to him.  He is also one of my favorite co-conspirators.  We got to know each other well through our early dabblings with the WWII air game Mustangs, our work on the Golden Age Air Racing, Thunderboats and many other naval and air projects. Dave is a great teammate, he understands game systems, and there is no better designer of scenarios.

Cyber-Hobby LCS-4 is a highly detailed 1/700 model of a mine warfare version of the U.S. Navy's Littoral Combat Ship

In any case, Dave and I have been chatting up an Enfilade naval scenario.  We originally thought we'd rerun a WWII naval game we'd hosted at ConQuest several years ago.   We've been reconsidering this, however as the crisis with Iran becomes ever more topical.  While we've done an interesting Strait of Hormuz game in the past, we're considering another.  With the new Littoral Combat Ships entering service and miniatures available from P.T. Dockyard and Cyber-hobby models, the period is available to be gamed.  We'll offer a menu of ship choices to the United States and probably a combination of Revolutionary Guard and Iranian Navy vessels to the Iranian players.  There will likely be objectives beyond reducing one or the other side to splinters.

Throndor class missile boat test firing new Iranian missile

Frankly, I find the entire Iran/Straits issue quite troubling.  By the time of Enfilade, the advanced sanctions and potential boycott of Iranian oil will be nearing implementation by the European Union and the United States.  Threats of war and rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran are likely to be regular features in the print and electronic media.  Is this a topic we should avoid for a convention game, or is a good game just a good game?

Chickasaw Fort WIP 3

The fort or palisade or whatever you want to call it is moving toward it's terminal phases.

I started by painting the palings Ceramcoat brown-gray and then washing them with Ceramcoat Walnut.  That made them look pretty weathered, maybe a little too weathered, and also gave the color just a little more depth.  I also used the Walnut wash over the built up areas to provide some shading to the earthen areas.

 After that it was patiently putting down the Woodland Scenics turf.  It's really tempting to rush through this, but that just creates holes in your work.  I use a big brush to apply Woodland Scenics cement and then just scatter it over the glue and try to recover whatever is left over.  Then I let it sit for 15 minutes before moving on to the next area.  When it's all applied, I Dullcoat it to more effectively hold it in place.

 Next, it's on to the finishing landscape pieces.

SNOW DAY!! The Revenge

Snow days are always a mixture of elation and frustration for me.  As a teacher, I know these are days I'll need to make up in June.  They're not freebies off with pay.  Unlike my wife, I can't work them off from home.  They have some real consequences for me.  The first snow day of the year is made up on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend.  That's the first day of Enfilade.  No snow days means I can easily make the Friday sessions.  Snow days mean I have to leave from school at 2:30 and fight traffic down to Olympia.  Bleah.

 The snow days of this week, however, had a new set of challenges.  We knew the Wednesday snow fall was going to be big.  Just how big wasn't clear.  I thought I'd be out of school Wednesday and Thursday and back to work on Friday.  I envisioned lots of painting and finishing the Chickasaw palisade.  It certainly started out that way.

 Wednesday we got the snow.  Thursday morning we got freezing rain.  Dum, dum, dum.  In an area with lots of trees and above ground electrical wires, freezing rain is the weather equivalent of nuclear war.

At 9:00 we heard from my son a few miles away, he'd lost power.  At 11:00 I walked out to the arterial near our development to check on road conditions, came home to figure out how to best de-ice our frozen cars, walked in the door and we lost our power.  It was out for nearly 60 hours, coming on last night at 8:00ish.

As with all disasters, the first thing you have to do is assess your resources.  We knew we'd have light for a while-good.  We also had an electric lantern-rechargeable variety-so light-for a while.  We had plenty of food.  A few years ago we installed a gas fireplace in the living room and a small standing gas fireplace in the bedroom for just these occasions.  We wouldn't freeze or be forced to leave the house with our ridiculous dogs.No entertainment to speak of, but I did have a battery powered radio that could also be hand cranked and lots of batteries. I had my Kindle, with a nice back light, so I could read in the dark until . . .A couple of working flashlights and Lorri is the candle queen.

We also checked our problems.  The fireplaces would keep our bedroom warm if we closed the door, but the electric blower in the living room was off so the immediate effect of the living room fireplace was to camp us right in front of it.  No computer, limited light, no television.     Phones are all-electric, so no phones.  Cell phone service went down with the nearby cell towers, so service was terrible. Text messaging was okay, but no internet, e-mail, or calls from my iPhone.

 Bottom line, we were prepared for a short power outage, the kind we always have, say 24-36 hours.  We survived Thursday and Friday just fine.  It still got chilly in the house unless in the bedroom or sitting by the fireplace. There was never enough light paint by, and one can only listen to so much radio.  The lantern died after about 12 hours and no way to recharge.  We didn't complain, however.  We drove all around, to charge our phones, and could see the outage was massive.  18,000 customers in Puyallup lost power; 280,000 in the Puget Sound area were out-we'd get by. 

Thursday we checked on family, and drove to survey the extent of the outage.  We went to the movies and saw We Bought a Zoo and I liked it. Cameron Crowe movie with Matt Damon, what's not to like.  This was easy.

 Friday I drove around and surveyed the extent of the damage.  Weyerhaeuser, Lorri's employer, lost power, so I drove her around in search of fabric stores.  No luck, all closed.  Came home.  No power.  The lantern died.  I finished building the Chickasaw fort by firelight. Not fun. A last drive on Friday night to recharge the cell phones showed a little progress in repairing the power.  We were optimistic.

 By Saturday morning, it was clear the repairs were fully underway.  The neighborhoods with power were creeping closer to us.  We had an errand to run to Issaquah, forty miles away, and were confident when we returned we too would have power.  My son Pat got his power back within six hours of his outage.  My mother in law had hers back within eighteen hours, and my brother-in-law Paul had his back early Saturday morning. Our errand, to pick up forty pounds of chicken, which would go in our freezer, required power.

When we returned home at 4:00 to no power it was devastating. (We ran the meat over to my vegan son and daughter in law's freezer.  They must have been so pleased.) I was looking forward to who know's how much longer of time wasted-no heat, no light, no painting gah!  Lorri went out with a friend at 6:00 and sent me a text that some houses in our development-"Fuck those guys, I want power." I sent off several Facebook posts reporting similar, if somewhat more G rated views. My brother-in-law dropped off a working lantern, some hot water for coffee and tea.  Ingrate that I am, I continued reading my Kindle by firelight and finished my Diet Coke, but I did truly appreciate the effort. Finally at 8:30 the power came on to cheers and hosannas. 

I know we're fortunate.  It could have been worse and for many folks out there that live on isolated lots or small communities, it will be.  Puget Sound Energy always focuses on the biggest bang for their buck first-bring on as many customers at one time as possible.  Some time mid-week they'll have their power back on.

Top view of completed fort.  I used wood putty around the base of the palings and created some slight ground irregularities.

A comparison with figure size.  The minis are OG Woodland indians.

Another shot with Indians from a different angle.  Seems weird to have Indians defending a frontier fortification.

The beginnings of landscaping.  I painted the green areas with an artist's acrylic.  I just can't make Ceramcoat's Forest Green cover anything so I'm using Artist's Advantage Hooker Green from Fred Meyer.  It works.

Another aerial shot.

 So my snow days are gone, and it's time to move on.  I've included a couple of photos of the few things I was able to get done.  The Chickasaw fort is still in progress.  The palings are all in, and now I'm beginning to landscape.

One can't have too many trees, and I have a bajillion armatures for fairly smallish trees and the clump foliage to stick on 'em.  They'll be mounted on washers to weigh the little darlin's down.

I started working on trees from Woodland Scenics.  I have a lot of the smaller armatures, and I want to be sure I have plenty for the Chickasaw game.  I'm weighting them with 5/16" washers flat cut washers so I can use them individually.  I probably have about 60 or so armatures, so I've got a lot of work to do.