The Chesapeake calls

My lovely niece Katie is getting married to her Dan next weekend, and Lorri and I are heading to the wedding.  The only downside is that the wedding is in Virginia.  The last couple days we've been trying to get the house in order which is always a bit like preparing for a moon landing. Our friend  Allison will be here to take care of the pets while we're gone, and we don't want to appear quite as messy as we actually are.

In any case, our itinerary has us flying in to Baltimore tomorrow, and spending a few days there.  I've never been to Baltimore.  I think Wednesday is my day to have the rental car to myself and an entire day to see stuff. I hope to make the most of it.  I'd like to get to the Bladensburg battlefield right outside the District. Drive to North Point State Park and wander the battlefield there.  That's about ten miles from our hotel near the inner harbor.  If there is time left, I'd really like to see the naval academy at Annapolis.

It's all pretty timely with my projects.  I hope to take lots of pictures.  I do own the mobile blogger ap for my iPhone, but I'm not really hopeful of being able to make it work properly.  I'll try, but this entry may be it for a while.  We'll return home on July 6th.

SNOW DAY!!

It's snowing.  It's snowing a lot.  It's 6:39 AM, been snowing for hours.  We've been flirting with snow stuff for days, but it's really coming down, enough so the Puyallup School District announced today's closure at 5:30 last night. So, while Snowpocalypse 2012 roils on, I am going to be painting and working on my Chickasaw stockade.  I hope to have a few new posts too.  Will put some pictures up of today's winter wonderland when it is light enough.

Useful Blogs--or at least I think so.

I have a couple of blogs I'd like to plug.  First is the Quindia Studios blog by Clarence Harrison.  Harrison has great pics of his work, and keeps us up to date on his League of Augsburg project.  But I confess I got there for only one reason.  Flag Mondays. Each Monday Harrison posts a useful flag for the American War of Independence.  Though he has plans to do British flags, he's mostly sticking with American banners.  American flags are tough because little is know about them for certain.  He's created beautiful flags for those units he is certain about, as well as those he's hypothesized for.  He also has some gorgeous national banners.  Every Monday.  I've downloaded 21 of them, and now all I have to do is make use of them.

Clare Harrison's Stars and Stripes variants.

Another blog I've taken to following belongs to Doug Hamm.  I've written a little about Doug before.  He is my good friend from Surrey, B.C. who often prods me about my lack of blog posts.  Doug has recently introduced his own blog, Dots of Paint.  Doug is a wonderful painter, certainly the fastest painter I've ever known and he is a master of the black primer paint system.  He has some fabulous projects he's created--a mammoth War of 1812 collection, a very nice pile of figures for the First Jacobite Rebellion, some very nice French and Indian War figures and many other explorations in other periods.  I'm sure he'll have some interesting things to say and share. Yes the Battle of Smythville does seem to have borrowed my name, which I'll try to understand at a later date.

These aren't French Napoloeonics, they are Plauche's New Orleans militia battalion from the Battle of New Orleans.  Doug Hamm has cornered the market on War of 1812, the interesting and the uninteresting.

WIP: Video and Indians on Mars

One of my Christmas gifts was a flash video camera from Lorri.  It was something I didn't need, but she thought it would be nice to include video with my blogging. I did include one video with my Lepanto entry.  It's funny, I thought there would be more excitement in miniature wargame to shoot, but I'll have to work at it a bit more to get it figured out.

The camera is a Panasonic, and so far I highly recommend it.  Lorri got it on a Groupon for about a hundred dollars and it shoots stills as well as video.  If you watched, the picture quality is decent and the audio is embarrassingly good. Between my iPhone and my flash camera, I think my imaging is covered.

 I've had this bag of OG colonial Indians for a couple of years now.  They're intended to be Indian troops on Mars.  I've got them organized into three ten man units plus one white officer.  I'm enjoying the painting, and they go fairly quickly.  The unit of Madras infantry with the red turbans is finished, while the other two are on their way.  It would be nice if they sold them separately as Sikhs, Bengal infantry, Baluchis etc because their headdresses are different.  Maybe nobody will notice--but I doubt it.

Coffin's Light Dragoons: WIP

Not a lot new to report.  Haven't played any games or finished much.  I'm hoping to have Coffin's Light Dragoons, a provincial cavalry unit of some unclear origin, affiliation and dress finished by this weekend. Through some discussion on TMP I have them in light dragoon uniforms with yellow facings.  I dare anyone to find data to dispute this, and if you do, so what!  Major Coffin had his dragoons at Hobkirk's Hill where they accomplished little, and at Eutaw Springs where they captured William Washington when his cavalry's charge failed.

A couple of other quick items I've linked to Dave Schueler's Naval Gazing page.  On December 27th he'll host our annual DANG game (Dave's Annual Naval Game.)  This year it is Lepanto.  Long on my list of to do's.

Front Rank British Light Dragoon figures in yellow facings form William Coffin' light dragoons

Coffin's troopers may have been mounted infantry from the South Carolina Royalists

 I've also added my other non-gaming blog, From the Upper Left Hand Corner, to my list.  Long neglected, this blog includes a variety of topics, but mostly Mariners baseball stuff.  I recently blogged a review of The Wall by Roger Waters which I was fortunate to see in Tacoma last Saturday.  Amazing stuff.

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.

Yes, I am still here

Can you tell it's summer? Even though I have the summer off, it seems as though I've devoted even less time than usual to painting and gaming. There's lots of reasons why, including an early July excursion to Kent State University for a couple of weeks, but that's not the point. It's time to get back on the blog.

Not much historical gaming since June. I've painted a little bit and I'll share that in just a moment. I don't know whether I'm just sort of out of gas, or I'm going through a phase, but it hasn't been a very productive six or so weeks. I'm also staring at school starting three weeks from Monday, so the clock is ticking on having some fun. With J-camp most of next week, things seem to be getting away from me.

I have painted some Martians this summer. Ho-hum. They were the last of my militia figures for our campaign. Check out the Shastapsh blog for an update.

However, I've also been working on some Hundred Years War figures. In late June I'd kind of made up my mind that I was going to live with Warhammer Ancient Battles and the Armies of Chivalry supplement. I made contact with Adrian Nelson, and hopefully we'll play a little AoC before the summer is out.

However, Chris Craft also contacted me about The Crusader Rules and Medieval Warfare. I learned that we have similar basing for my multi-figure mountings and thus my dual projects can continue living.

In any case, I've been painting my Perry Agincourt to Orleans figures as French. They sure are nice figures, though I'm not making very rapid progress on them. Despite their loveliness, I still have a zillion OG dismounted French to paint (okay, not a zillion, it just seems that way.) Not only that but the Crusader Rules seem very doable for a larger game, and it may be my answer to a convention-style Poitiers game.

2009

Gosh, it's the first post of the New Year and time to set some goals.

My first goal is to stay on task. No new projects, regular blog posts, at least one game to write about per month. That's not always easy, but I'll do my best.

Stick to the projects I am really interested in:

1. Space 1889-in terms of projects supported by a bunch of folk, this is by far my most active project. I also cover this with my other blog, The Shastapsh Chronicles, so I'll try not to belabor that here. I've ordered my last figures for this project, and hope to wrap it up this year.
2. War of 1812-this is a project that I've done with Doug Hamm, but I really only have Americans and a few Brits painted. I have a lot of unpainted figures, including unpainted Brits, I'd I like to have enough painted figures to host my own games when Doug isn't in town or I'm not in Canada.
   
3. Lewis and Clark and a hypothetical war with Spain 1794-1807/Anthony Wayne's Legion. These go together because American regulars wore the same uniform during this period. I have a lot of semi-militia looking figures for this period, I also have lots of woodland Indians painted-surely I can paint what I have, decide on a set of rules and host a game or two. This period has the most potential for figure growth during the year. I'll try to keep it to something that isn't willy-nilly.
   
4. AWI-I still have some unpainted figures and I would very much like to build on the success of Cowpens. There are a couple of brand new books on the war in the South that I'll blather on about in a future blog post that directly relate to this game project and the future of Tarleton's Quarter.
   
5. The Hundred Years War-I've taken a respectful little break from these and I anticipate painting more of the hundreds and hundreds of unpainted knights and etc., toward my Medieval Warfare/FOG and Arrowstorm armies.
   

There-stay on message as the political campaigns say. I've also reset my painting log for the year.

Oh, and one more thing. I'd like to thank each and every one of you who have stopped by to read these posts. I don't think this blog is anything particularly special. It's an opportunity for me to blather on about my little part in this fairly odd and wonderful hobby. But I thank you for taking the time to check in.

Added: Painting Log

I used to be fastidious about keeping a painting log and participating in the PLEDGE feature on TMP. Now I don't visit TMP very often and haven't kept up with a painting log in over a year. So I figured, what the heck. I can keep it here on my blog with handy little format feature. I'm keeping it simple with some very basic categories. We'll see if they change over time.

The NHMGS calendar

It's another rainy weekend, with a great deal more time spent painting the family room than little men. I've begun this blog as a live update for the NHMGS website. As many of you know, our website, which is a great resource, has not been updated recently, and there are many important upcoming events. Think of this as your calendar of events:

February 18th-19th Harborstorm. This is Bruce Meyer's annual DBA tournament. This year it is hosted at ConQuest, a new multi-genre convention, and is held at the Sea-Tac Marriott February 17-20. Their address is: http://avalonconventions.com/conquestnw/index.php?center=coninfo.php

3201 South 176th Street
Seattle, Washington 98188

Expect some other NHMGS members to host events. Paul Hannah is hosting DBA on Friday night and Saturday. Ian Croxall will be hosting one of his excellent Red Shadow games on Sunday.

We're not sure what to expect at ConQuest, but consider taking a shot and spending some time there. This could be a valuable winter event for us. For further information go to:


February 25th NHMGS Auction
This is the date for our annual fund raiser. This year we are American Eagles in Tacoma. This is the information for the auction:

The auction will be mostly silent. The rules are as follows:

· Sellers are limited to a maximum of ten lots.

· Live auction is limited to A) painted miniatures and B) silent auctions that receive bids of at least $50.

· Sellers pay NHMGS 10% of their proceeds.

· Sellers may make donation items available to NHMGS

Sellers must first focus on setting up their auctions. The silent auction will last from 10:00-2:30. At this time auction staff will wrap up silent auction items, have buyers and sellers complete their transactions. My goal is to have silent auction items wrapped up by 4:00, so we can have a short but lively live auction session.

The format will feature a time for morning gaming from 10:00-1:00. If there is enough interest, we can have a second game period from 1:00-4:00 We can host games on two large tables (6’ X 10’.) If you are interested in hosting a game, please contact me—first come first served. We are mostly looking for something fun and low stress that handle a fair number of people.

March 10-12th Trumpeter Salute

This is the annual Trumpeter hoo-hah game fest in Burnaby, B.C. I go nearly every year and always have a good time. There is a huge variety of games: usually a DBM tournament, 40K tournament, and tons of good looking displays and friendly dealers happy to take your American dollars at a reasonable exchange. I often take my wife, who also takes my American dollars, and disappears into neighboring Metrotown, a mondo shopping mall. It's a good thing the convention is reasonably priced. For more information, consult the Trumpeter web page: http://www.trumpeterclub.com/

June 9-11 Enfilade

Yes, it's true, we try to schedule our flagship event for Memorial Day weekend, but we couldn't make it work this year. We have a couple of big events scheduled for this year, including a 300th anniversary Battle of Ramillies, and Little Big Horn. It will be great. We return to the Olympia Red Lion. I will be sure to post more information as it becomes available.