Lazy Week...

So I didn't go to Recon this weekend. I sort of passed thru it like a breeze in the night, picking up a handful of Cigar Box cut-out-terrain mats from Raven Banner Games. I ordered a few other items from them, but those hadn't arrived, so I'll have them shipped. I drifted past the sale tables around the walls, but everyone wanted cash and I hadn't any, so I just said hi to a few people from the club and was off again. My aunt lives nearby so I was really there for an overnight visit. My eldest cat is at the point where I'm wary of leaving her alone for long, though she seems to be okay since I've returned. She's frantically hungry, or rather she really prefers to have me sit with her and watch her eat.

Four-hour drives are tiring, though, and next time I may try a train ride and Uber to and from the stations. So may try again in August, maybe two nights.

The only other thing I've done in the last couple weeks is assemble a handful of Paperboys units to stick on the walls of the new club.

Irish, Bavarians, and Hessian grenadiers.

Have been meaning to run a quick playtest of Pikeman's Lament on my bedroom table, but my constant procrastination gives Lex the opportunity to have her way with the setup:

The rules do say I should have an obstacle in each quarter.

Also been messing with Kerbal Space Program, for the first time in years. Last week was "National Dark Skies Week" and we always have a special event at the library; the local physicist who gives a well-attended talk couldn't make it, so as the staff space enthusiast I got volunteered. I considered running an Artemis II reenactment with the game as a demonstration, but there was too little time and in the event I just showed a few videos before we went outside and looked at Jupiter with telescopes. Usually we have 25 or so people, this time we only had five. My boss was still pretty happy. So I've been watching KSP videos on Youtube, desultorily playing the game, and thinking about how to wedge it into library programming. I never got into the sequel, KSP2, which was abandoned in preproduction on Steam but looks still pretty usable. I will wait until there's a sale before buying it. I also prefer using an autopilot (called MechJeb) and this doesn't seem to be available for KSP2, so I'll also want to hunt down a mod that reproduces it. I'm not that great at "controlling" video games, so I treat KSP as a "mission control" game rather than a "flying spaceships" game.

What next? No specific plans. Might paint a few of the Fife and Drum militia figures, cut out the terrain pieces I just bought, or consider my next vacation. Dad wants to visit Bermuda, I want to see (in order of distance and effort) Ft. Augustine, Boston, St. John's Newfoundland and Australia. (That last is on hold until my sister in New Zealand puts her own plans into action.) A summer Boston trip might not be a great idea, this year is likely to be pretty crowded. I'll let you know what I decided next post. Here's hoping for an uneventful week.

Pushing Myself (and Pike)

8am Eastern time: I've been working this week on building the For King and Country starter set for Pike and Shotte. As of right now, I have about thirty figures left to make. I'll finish them today, and the readers may learn a bit about how I procrastinate!

Doesn't help that Artemis II is on its way home with 240,000 miles to go at 1,200 miles an hour. Let's see how far it gets by the time I'm finished.

Step one, go get breakfast and groceries, cleaning the litterboxes as I leave.

See?

10am: Back, after breakfast at Starbucks, a few groceries, cat litter and filling the gas tank.

Then 25 minutes of leisurely putting stuff away and self-refreshing before getting down to work.

Finally, some painting videos to keep me from getting bored while my hands are busy. We'll try some Duncan Rhodes Empire (as close as Warhammer Fantasy gets to 17th century) and then some WWII and Konflict '47 as a reminder to get onto those kits after this one.

10:28am, and I'm off!

11am: First video done, also six musketeers without bases. A good start! But... nap time. Excuse? Morning meds cause drowsiness.

1pm: Up again. Read a bit of science fiction until...

1:30: When I start again with a second video. 

2:00: Total done so far - sixteen figures, four without bases and two hats.

Then a ten-minute break for blog-prep, restroom break, and cat-coaxing. (My flighty calico has been under the couch for 24 hours straight, since the three-hour visit of a patient but clearly absolutely terrifying pair of apartment cleaners.)

2:40: Four more musketeers assembled to accompaniment of a German Grenadier video, with four more bodies clipped, behatted and ready to arm. Where's Artemis? 232,000 miles out, good for them.

3:10: After a painting video for a US Ranger as played by Tom Hanks, I have twelve more figures done, complete with bases. Just six figures to go!

231,000 miles for Artemis. Time for a snack and reading break - more of a 1979 SF magazine.

There's a story and article in there about moon colonies, by Jerry Pournelle. I also just finished listening to the latest Warhammer 30K novel, which is largely about an invasion of the Moon. Good timing, huh?

4:15: Three command figures built - two musicians and a standard bearer.

The rest will need to be officers. The command sprue has three figures on it but enough leftover bitz to make a fourth out of one of the pikemen. Since there are four pikes on the infantry sprue, but five bodies in pike-carrying poses, this causes the leftover "sergeant" to end up in an odd pose:

The video this time was of a Konflict '47 "Firefly" US jump trooper. Next is a "Stahltruppen" - basically a Nazi in power armor.

4:45: One and a half more. (There are a LOT of left-over bits to pick from). Trying to convert a chap to hold a spear (or is it a partizan?) two handed. This is probably not a smart idea, a more officer-like type might be better.

Holding it straight-ish 'til dried.

Next painting video is a firelock figure by 7th Son.

By 5:20, I've watched three 7th Son videos, and built and based all 82 (!) figures. Just some hats to add - to fit them, all the heads on these guys look like Shakespeare in the Folio. OK, so we could have one or two balding gentlemen, but the rest need headgear.

Before doing that, I'll look up 0200 Hours, as one of the videos was for Wargames Atlantic German Sentries... also, I think my stomach is trying to tell me something.

Ooh, the Stalag Luft III escapees look like they'd make good character minis for VBCW... down another rabbit hole I go!

Had supper and watched a video. Looks a bit complex for my taste, and I don't like custom dice. Kill Team will work just fine for this scale. But the minis do look great.

6:33: Done! I think...

And (almost) everyone has hats.

Artemis and crew? Under 225,000 miles away as of 8pm. Safe flying to them. It has been a bouncy week in the news, and following the flight and building toy soldiers keeps me sane and happy. Good luck to all those reading this, hope your day was as peaceful as mine.

Five more blissful days off!

The cat is still under the couch.

*cough*cough*hack* Mk II (or is it III?)

Haven't had a great couple weeks. I took my entire course of antibiotics this time and still find myself sick now. On the other hand, my injured finger has recovered - while there's still a bit of pain I'm assured I can and should use it to strengthen.

• Finally obtained my second CS Grant scenario book, Scenarios for All Ages, after (like the other volume) it took three trips across the Atlantic. Shared with the late Stuart Asquith, there are a similar number of scenarios, mostly small and basic (only half a dozen units a side, most of them). To my delight, there is a version of Sittangbad from Charge!
• I've been a little more cautious with ebay stuff lately. I was looking for the OOP simple plastic trees from Merit that feature in The War Game, and while they're a bit expensive I found Zvezda trees which look similar. I received two boxes a couple days ago. They're a little fiddly to put together, but the smaller ones don't require glue and I've built about a dozen without pricking my fingers on the pointy edges too much. The larger ones seem looser. The very tops of the trees are easy to lose. Overall, they look like they'll go well with my Wofun 18mms. I found it easier to build them from the bottom up - largest layers first.

  

  Assembly.

  

  The tops of the trees would be just fine for very-small-scale games.

Completed. They seem hefty enough to stay in place without
basing, especially sitting on a cloth mat. We'll see.

• As of today, I've only got twelve of my 30 Wargames Atlantic BEF built; still hoping to finish them by August and then send them off to my brother to paint for me.
• Waiting on Victoria Miniatures' Space Aussies 2 pledge manager; I hope it and the 3dprint files might come in time to make a few on a YouMedia printer before August 9 (when I'll be visiting for game day).
• Speaking of which, still have my painting program to prep - will need to construct and undercoat the Warhammer Alliance minis before then. Another deadline.
• Reread the rules for Fistful of Lead, with the intent to try a couple solo skirmishes. I'm increasingly sure it'll work for Picacho Peak, if I ever get around to running it...

So that's it - another short post but with some hopeful progress. 'Til next time.

Reading Again

As usual of late, I haven't got much gaming done. There was a TSATF game at the club last Saturday that I missed. I might get something in during the Fourth of July weekend, if I can clear off my table:

Hey, at least it's full size now.

Been reading a lot instead. Just today, I received one of my Charles S. Grant books that has taken three trips across the Atlantic to reach me, an old classic:

I've only taken a quick glance through it, but there is plenty of food for thought. Two of my favorite scenarios, for one - Fontenoy and Sawmill Village. I hope to try them out at Das Krieg Haus one of these days. Sawmill Village and a couple others provide a choice of units to the player and the first, with about six units rather than the original four, would probably be enough for two players a side.

Several of the scenarios require map-moves - not quite mini-campaigns as they are over the course of a single day and lead up to a single battle. Others are for specific periods (mostly 20th-century, with airborne and one specifically Vietnam scenario), and there is at least one small-scale skirmish game, with a dozen guerrillas, 50 civilians, and a middling number of opposing troops. Charge! isn't quite designed for it, certainly not with my Wofuns, but there are enough minis in the club collection for a try. There are even a couple scenarios that would work in The Sword and the Flame. Rest assured I will take a closer look at this book and see what I can make of it. Playing the 52 scenarios at the rate of one a week is, while a tempting prospect, sadly not doable here.

A better choice for an "ongoing" project would be my 30 BEF plastics, of which I've still only assembled five, one of which I reassembled after its arms fell off. One a day, thus finishing them within the month, seems an achievable goal... though a plausible excuse for not finishing will be that I sprained a finger at work. Physical therapy is going well, but I suddenly wonder what the physiotherapist and gamer Donald Featherstone would have suggested for wargamers with injured hands... he seems to mostly have dealt with sports and dancing injuries, though (maybe he had early members of the Sealed Knot in to see him?).

Enough asides; what else have I been reading?

The Siege of Gibraltar, 1779-1782 by Tom Guffie - part of a "British Battles" series by Batsford. Fairly short, but comprehensive. I'm unfamiliar with the siege, but I've always wanted to visit the Rock and this scratches that itch. I'll look for more of this series.

The Boy Generals, by Adolfo Ovies - the first two volumes of a three-volume trilogy (the third appears to not yet be published) about George Custer and his rival Wesley Merritt during the American Civil War. The first volume covers events up to the end of Gettysburg, the second the beginning of Sheridan's Shenandoah campaign; the third will go to the end of the war. Merritt, who has been forgotten because, unlike Custer, he wasn't interested in publicity, was two years senior to Custer at West Point. They were both promoted to brigadier just before Gettysburg and emnity developed from there. While they're also absorbing biographies, the series is largely about the development of the cavalry from riders with swords (which Ovies characterizes as hussars), to mounted infantry with carbines (characterized as dragoons). Custer was basically the former sort and Merritt the latter, except that Custer seems to have used mounted action as a partner to Spencer carbines. Two of his regiments used firearms to pin the enemy while the other two got into position to charge. So while he was famous for his charges, he's shown to have more depth than is usually depicted.

Unsung Hero of Gettysburg, by Edward G. Longacre, is recommended by approving mentions of its subject in The Boy Generals. It's a biography of David McMurtrie Gregg, another Union cavalry general, which I haven't started yet but looks quite good. While he commanded Custer during Gettysburg, like Merritt he was unassuming and led an unrecognized if busy career. I look forward to reading it.

Queen Emma and the Vikings, by Harriet O'Brien - A biography of a Norman queen of Saxon England, betrothed to Aethelred the Unready and the mother of Edward the Confessor. Another period I'm not very familiar with, but looks very involved with a great deal of intrigue and interesting characters.

In "fantasy" news, my coworker who was going to GM Dungeons and Dragons at an August library event has had to beg off, which may put me on the spot. There is a meeting tomorrow to discuss plans which I hope to attend; at this point, while I am expecting to do a painting program in the background of the gaming, I don't yet know the space I'll have or the people who'll be backing me up. I like to think I've learned lessons from previous tries, so I will have plenty to say!

Thanks for reading. Until next time...

More Hobby Weariness

 Over the last couple months, I've entered a wargaming rut. Been reading some, but not much wargaming or military history, though I did obtain Charles Grant's Ancient War Game thru interlibrary loan. I enjoyed it, but it's not on a par with his original War Game. For one thing, it doesn't have much in the way of rules - it's not a ruleset along with an introduction, the way The War Game and Charge! are. Mostly battle reports, photos, a little information about historical cultures and armies, and comments on the Society of Ancients and their rules.

I think that might be it, actually - The Wargames Research Group, at least at the time, was the exception to the rule that there are no universal rules. It was so popular that, like Warhammer today, it was pretty much the only option for many people. Perhaps that's because it resembles Warhammer in that Ancients covers a huge variety of time, space, and culture, giving it something for everybody. Having discovered DBA (which our club is, unusually for them, still playing regularly), I'm a bit impressed at their scope.

So while I liked the book, it's not the sort I'll refer to or reread regularly like others.

I started setting up a Programmed Scenario for Charge! before deciding it took too much effort to throw down a ton of books to make hills. Then I considered the smaller Sawmill Village and realized I don't really have enough 18mm scale buildings and trees for it either. That put paid to trying it, especially after a cat jumped up and knocked everything down. Another problem with my terrain is that I haven't used heavy paper or good card bases, which means the buildings and trees fall over in a mild breeze from the air conditioner. I will try to do something soon though, even on a sparse table. If not tonight, though, it will likely be a week at best, as I will be working seven days straight from tomorrow.

My attempt at Sawmill Village. Perhaps I can get some
more solid buildings and a good-sized crop field
at the next convention.

What else have I been reading? Right now, I'm working through some Mercedes Lackey. Heralds of Valdemar has dozens of volumes, what TVTropes calls "archive panic," so I paused after the first trilogy and am partway through the second of four Bardic Voices novels. Both series have hints of science fiction "after the end" to them, Bardic Voices more direct about it, despite the fantasy trappings and magic. Also on to the final volume of Lone Wolf and Cub.

The South Florida Gamers, after around fifty years, are organizing. We now have bylaws, officers, dues on a less "as you feel like it" basis, and are working on a proper website and maybe Facebook group. Speaking of reading, I have to catch up on the catalog for the club library.

That said, a request from Jeff (SgtGuinness) during our latest meeting brought back to mind the assorted Fistful of Lead rules I bought and promised to run for my Picacho Pass scenario, oh, a year and a half ago! I must look into them and get them down ... and of course, that'll mean more distraction and less concentration.

Speaking of conventions, I am vaguely planning to go to the next, in the last week of September. I have not serious time off since last summer, and my work weariness is also creeping up on me. Elections at work don't help. I work Sunday (as a warm body to open the branch for early voting), so will have some time to think more about programming. I have two weeks at this point to get my upcoming Paperboys "terrain-building" class ready and - given experience, audience, and time available - will do as much "pre-construction" as possible.

Here's my "back to school" display as it was yesterday.
This photo will go on the flyer (unless I can find a better)
and the flyer will go into the display.

I'm cautiously optimistic about this, since all summer I've observed kids drooling over the last paper display. I even put out instructions for the origami whale that was in there. Another project that could reinforce the building program is a paper ship program for Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19). And the fact that it was popularized right here in Miami, by columnist Dave Barry, might be an excuse to run it, and maybe play a game with the ships afterward.

I have been reading wargame and RPG rules as part of my leisure, too, and finally made both Charge! and Bundok and Bayonet into Pocketmod booklets. I'm also working on Went the Day Well. Perhaps it's time to hunt down my Fistful of Lead books too? See you next time.

A Week of Unaccomplishment

After the self-recrimination in last post, I've decided to track what I get up to in a week of dancing around the fringes of gaming.

Friday:

• Read most of The Price of Admiralty, by John Keegan.
• Bought the Paperboys Buccaneers set (thinking of building pirates as a library craft, perhaps oversized, for skirmish games and take-home).
• Watched a Duncan Rhodes 40K painting videos (23 minutes)
• Read one White Dwarf (497). Had an interesting "hobby bingo" bit as well as a writeup of the latest version of Tale of Four Gamers, which might be a useful way to organize and plan a project.
• Browsed Wofun Games site and deliberated over ordering Seven Years War 10mms or Maratha 18mms.
  

Saturday:

• Listened to three more Duncan Rhodes videos whilst trying to get to sleep at 3am on a work day.
• Printed a dozen sheets of the Buccaneers set.
• Started cutting them out - just cutting away the wide white margins for now.
• Printed one sheet at 200% (giving me six figures) and experimented for summer craft project purposes. An interested parent built most of them for me!

Sunday:

• Watched another Duncan Rhodes video, and a Warhammer TV short painting video. I like ones that are basic (just a handful of colors) - they seem more achievable - but Duncan has a soothing voice, like Bob Ross for wargaming.
• Finished The Price of Admiralty. Like anything by Keegan, it's good. Resembles his The Face of Battle, in that it focuses on several battles separated by time to look for commonalities and differences.
• Started Marine Sniper. It feels more superficial than I expected, perhaps because it's written as a narrative rather than history or biography - more adventure story. The style is like fiction for younger readers, though clipped and straightforward. Hathcock calls the VC "hot dogs" and "hamburgers," slang terms I've never encountered. Excerpts from an official proposal are included, and have suggested further reading (from WWI).
  
• Finished trimming the Buccaneer sheets. Also assembled one leftover 18mm-scale crosstree. The bright yellow Maritime Regiment sheet reminds me of Every Bullet Has Its Billet; might reread that soon to work out what I can do with these figures. As the figures are individual, I thought about using Charge! for them - I was working at one point on a Pocketmod one-page version of the rules which I need to get back to. Whilst snipping, I watched part two of Oriskany Jim's Anzio Breakout report, and the movie Aliens on Youtube. Have never seen it before (and still haven't, given the bad pan-and-scan), though I'm familiar with the basic plot and memes. It in turn reminded me of my Space Hulk box, which I assembled but have never painted or played.

See how this works?

• Listened to one episode of Juggz, a Youtube podcast by a couple of my favorite ex-GW presenters. They talked a bit about how they choose titles, thumbnails, etc for Youtube videos (because Youtube has this annoying algorithm that relies entirely on clicks). Apparently it's even possible to buy views?! My own titles are rarely that interesting. Space Marines suck all the air out of the room when it comes to 40K topics, so in a way, historical gaming is a breath of fresh air (heh). While I still dabble in GW stuff, I'm happy I made it back to the historical stuff that initially attracted me to this hobby.

Monday:

• Finished Marine Sniper. Started on one of the books mentioned in it, A Rifleman Went to War.
• Watched a WarhammerTV video about painting the newest starter set for Age of Sigmar. Makes me want to go back to my 1st-edition pocket-size starter set, which I started on the gold and then left off when it looked a mess. Perhaps spray them gold and go from there?
• Listened to another two Juggz podcasts. In the first, they discussed Silver Bayonet, and for the first time actually interested me in it. (They had me at solo mechanics.) I could probably do it with Paperboys - will have to go ahead and read it. They also point out that other periods can fit - ECW, Victorian, etc. In the second, they discussed Blood Bowl, which I have unpainted sets of as well as the videogame (never got past the demo bits...)
• Made one (1) six-man Paperboys base for what I think is the Duke of York's Maritime Regiment. I really like this unit, and since it is all musketeers, once Wofun makes it I think I'll buy a set for my Imaginations - and a second with single bases to go with Limeys and Slimeys games at the club.

• Got out the Sisters of Battle I bought at Recon last year. I have a vague idea of playing 40K solo with the Charles Grant rules (though, given the smaller scale, this might need refinement). The Sisters are beautifully painted and based, but a mixed bag from at least three different orders, and I find it difficult to tell some of them apart. Might have to repaint the base rims at some point to differentiate units. Many have storm bolters, which didn't appear until the Hereticus Codex with faith-point mechanics I never really understood; I'd prefer to use the initial 3rd Edition "Black Book".

This squad is distinguished by its transfers - the Order of the
Valorous Heart. It's unfinished, as it should have white cloak linings.

• Watched several short guides on quickly-painting 40K Termagants, of which I've got over twenty. I experimented some time ago with Slap-Chop, but wasn't pleased with it and at some point (but when?) will use more conventional techniques on these figures.

Tuesday:

• At work, experimented with blowing up ACW Colored Infantry troops the same way as the pirates. Not nearly as good, probably due to older art and having been digitized by Helion rather than the way Peter's own website does it. I want something for the upcoming Juneteenth, but might have to stick to regular sizes. I've done that before, by stapling the figure sheet to an instruction sheet and providing it as a handout. 
• A short painting-and-discussion video by Louise Sugden, with some interesting commentary on how the right paint-job can redeem a middling miniature.
• Read two chapters of A Rifleman Went to War.

Wednesday:

• Read six and a half chapters of A Rifleman Went to War.
• Spent an hour talking with my brother about 18th-century miniatures. He's gotten into Blood and Plunder, so was looking for help with uniforms. So I introduced him to Kronoskaf and some of the basics - facings, reversed colors for musicians, grenadier caps, etc. He was especially impressed by a Bob Marrion painting of a very fancy French trumpeter.

Thursday:

• Was offered a place in one of Jon Freitag's remote games next week. Had to double-check my schedule, but I should be able to make it. Really looking forward to it, as the last one I did was remarkably fun.
• Read more of A Rifleman Went to War (over halfway thru now). It is not much about sniping, contrary to the impression given in Marine Sniper; it's a memoir by an American machine-gunner in the Canadian Army, though he also used a rifle when he could, seems to have been a crack shot, and knew some famous gunfighters. The classic .45 M1911 pistol also comes in for praise. There is some sardonic humor ("Heinie tried to rush our lines in one of his many charitable attempts to chase us out of our muddy muskrat holes and back on to the high and dry ground in our rear and we, with characteristic soldier perversity, declined to go,"). Quite good, in its way.
• Printed a sheet of Paperboys Armada ships. Summer reading is about to start and I have been hunting for decorations matching the "adventure" theme, as well as crafts like the pirate figures. I think a small squadron of "pirate" ships on the wall ought to help.
• Watched a new Duncan Rhodes video about desert-camo tanks, but another interesting bit he pointed out were rubber bits on the treads. I don't know how common that is on real tanks (this was a 40K vehicle). Watching the method of making shiny glass (steadily brightening one side, then adding a specular spot on the opposite corner), I'm reminded of the windows in the card houses from the Charles Grant books. Makes me want to try it on an a paper window too. Finally, he emphasizes recess-shading (with a fine brush - I've seen pens used too - rather than just a wash and highlight) on such a large model. I'll keep that in mind for any future tanks.

So! That's the sort of thing I get up to in a week. No serious progress towards any of my projects, but plenty of food for thought.

Three Years a Blogger

Huh.

I don't feel like I've accomplished as much this last year - gaming as well as blogging.

Year 1: 61 posts.

Year 2: 71 posts.

Year 3: 48 posts.

While the club has become more active, especially this year, I still haven't gotten there as often as I like. They are doing more weekday games now, which provides more opportunities, which I haven't always taken advantage of. I also hoped to go to Recon again, but an aging and picky cat has prevented me from being away from home for more than 24 hours. One member is planning a The Longest Day extravaganza - watch the movie, then play an epic game. Whether I'm willing to spend all afternoon on it, I dunno yet. I'm somewhere between depression and laziness at present, or maybe Executive Dysfunction, which is why I've been reading and picking away at my projects rather than anything more productive.

I did get to a local con last week, but not, strictly speaking, for gaming. I was helping man the library presence. In addition to a booth on the "floor", we were given an activity room to do as we liked, which meant crafts and board games. I hoped to demonstrate some one-page RPGs and Paperboys figure-building, but failed to prepare properly (under the assumption that a: it would be easy to find dice at a geek convention and b: that my coworkers would bring plenty of scissors). Will do better next time - another local con comes up in July, then Hurricon in September. (I won't be able to get away in August.)

The chess club at work is going well; since chess doesn't really appeal to me, I've been experimenting with variants and a few other games. My Scottish Museum version of Tafl -

- has actually seen some play, and I've been reading Discworld and thus tempted by Thud. I learned Peter Dennis of Paperboys has even does some work on Discworld products.

Speaking of Peter, a lot of new stuff has come out recently, but it's inspired more reading than playing. A "pirate" series, some late 17th-century figures, and new large ships are tempting, especially the ships which could be used in the club's regular Limeys and Slimeys games. But they will be intimidating to build! Another thing I was looking forward to was the 10mm Seven Years War series in Wofun plastic, which have just come out this week but at 500USD for the full pack. Again, tempting, but is it really a good idea? I held off on the paper ones because I wanted to try the plastic 10s, but I may put them off for a bit. The 17th-century types are designed for the Monmouth rebellion, so I read up on it. Interviewing a glider veteran of Operation Varsity - and finally getting hold of Featherstone's Tackle Model Soldiers This Way - got me building some US troops, but that too has paused.

I intended to try the Mike Lambo solo ECW rules with my Memoir '44 tiles. Haven't.

I've been wanting to paint up my two-past-editions Warhammer and 40K starter sets. Haven't.

Wanted to play some more Charles Grant solo scenarios. Nope.

Wanted to play more Charge! ...

I have managed to amass quite a bit of VCBW stuff and even terrain to go with it. But no serious play. Misplaced a couple of the (hard-to-obtain) books, too - will probably find them minutes after I've bought new ones, heh.

Also built up and organized quite a collection of 18th Century 18mm Wofuns. One big solo game.

I've built a lot of Paperboys, but aside from that one big game, without direction.

It's an odd combination of Asperger's and what I suspect is executive dysfunction. Together, they are a project-killer, when it comes down to it. I edge towards building/painting something, but would rather procrastinate (read, watch, design) than do it.

That's not to say I'm not enjoying myself, sometimes immensely. I'm proud of what little I have achieved this year, in particular having finished a gaming painting project (two units) for the first time in, oh, around a decade.

What next? Given past events, more reading and more watching painting videos, inching towards doing some work.

I don't mean to feel sorry for myself here. It sounds like it, I know, and I'm having a hard time convincing myself otherwise. But there is more to gaming than play, or emptying the Closet of Shame. Just gotta remember that. The play's [not] the [only] thing, and one thing I've been trying to get across with this blog, besides just tracking my projects and encouraging myself, is to demonstrate that it's just part of the whole "hobby." As Featherstone pointed out more than once. I've just done more of the research and planning side of things, or at least it feels that way.

Friendship is a thing too, which is why I've forced myself to go to the club a little more often than usual.

Whatever happens in the next year, I'll still enjoy it. And I hope you will too. Thanks for your support.

New Year's Gaming Resolutions

Yeah, maybe a little late. Starting up a new(ish) job has been a bit distracting, in the sense that after I come home I haven't been thinking much about gaming, beyond my usual heavy reading - largely Napoleonics at present.

I am trying here to pick things that I think I'm actually capable of doing (and posting about) in the near future.

1. Rationalize and organize my Wofun 18mms into proper "Imagi-nations" armies. I have a lot more units now than when I first posted about them, and they are scattered in stackable toolboxes and one or two less effective containers. I've also found it would be a good idea to label them, as at 18mm some are not easily distinguishable. I'll leave them at their full strengths (usually 5-6 bases) in the box, drawing out the number appropriate to the ruleset as needed. I'm not sure how to label them, with the bases 20x30mm and low in height as well. I'd rather not have tags, since that'll make arranging columns a bit unwieldy. Some sort of very small sticky labels might be best. Suggestions?

2. Organize my solo gaming and do it on a more regular basis. I have two books of solo scenarios - Mike Lambo's English Civil War and Charles S. Grant's Programmed Wargame Scenarios. The ECWs already have a ruleset, while after all my '45 tests I'm leaning towards a reduced version of Charge! for the Grant scenarios. I've done the first ECW and the first two Programmed scenarios for this blog already, and I'd like to simply work my way through them. Given my other gaming commitments, I think one per month, perhaps alternating, is the best way to do this.

3. Do a little actual painting. At a minimum, I'd like to paint my 8th Edition 40K starter set to the standards in the booklet, which require just six paints apiece and do not include things like highlighting. I've spent so much of my effort on Wofun and Paperboys that my coloring skills are atrophying - and despite my love for Youtube painting videos, I've never tried many of their techniques. This is more of a challenge I'm setting myself, but I think I can get fifteen basic 40K minis to "tabletop standard" in twelve months! Anything more, like following along with a proper video, will be a bonus.

4. Library gaming (and gaming-adjacent activities). Not the fairly random things I've been doing, but something better planned and perhaps even promoted. My new branch seems a little more easy-going about that sort of stuff, and my bosses have expressed interest. I'd like to run a plan by them with specific dates and projects. I don't think I have time to prep a 180th-anniversary refight of Olustee, but at a minimum I ought to be able to do:

- 54mm Paperboys suffragettes for March.

- Paper pirate ships and a round of Limeys and Slimeys for Talk Like a Pirate Day.

- DnD-esque games for summer (Summer Reading Theme this year: Adventure).

- A Christmas Carnage-style snowball fight in December. 

Nice to have:

- Paperboys US Colored Infantry for February.

- A refight of Trenton around Christmas.

- A jousting game taken from White Dwarf 215, using either 54mm Paperboys knights (easy for kids to color) or painted plastics (requires more planning). Perhaps during Renfest time.

- Some activities with the Warhammer Alliance set. Might also work for summer.

The system has also emphasized skygazing, so paper or other crafting of spacecraft models might be possible in between attempts to spot the International Space Station and watching an eclipse - particularly in April, Dark Skies Month.

So that's what I think I can achieve this year. A few other things I'd like to do if I can find the time:

5. Some colonial campaigning, either Darkest Africa or Northwest Frontier. I've been talking about these for a while, but I have the terrain for both now and it would be nice to get something together with them.

6. Something to do with Very British Civil War - I have most of the books now, and enough painted minis to run a game.

7. Going to another convention. I ought to get to one of the Orlando ones.

8. Running that dang Picacho Pass scenario. I have the appropriate rules and minis, just need to absorb the former, figure out a scenario and source proper terrain.

9. Another remote game, or more. Jon Freitag kindly offered me a slot recently, so I hope to get that one in soon.

Hope your gaming this year goes as well or better. Until next time!

Paperboys for Featherstone and Other Such Things.

I've always been enamored of Donald Featherstone's 1963 rules, as shown on Man of Tin's blog:

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/15/featherstone-simple-ww2-rules/

Three simple sets, for Ancients (a la Tony Bath), 18th/19th century, and Modern (which at the time meant WWII).

While 18th Century is my first love, I have a heaping handful of basic WWII stuff now that will work alright for the "modern" rules.

My first effort at an M4 - appears to be overarmed!

The tank didn't last long - partly because I made it out of regular "20lb" paper, it is easy to accidentally indent the "box" of the hull, and once it's closed, you can't pop it back out. I also had to use glue to stick the turret to the hull, which didn't last. The intent is to use an exacto-knife to cut a hole in the top of the hull and bottom of the turret, then connect them with a "straw" of paper. Finally, there are many accessories to add on - machine guns, markings, armor and so on, which I left out in this test model.

Two twelve-man US infantry squads.

On the gaming side of things, you'll notice I've based the infantry in three-man teams. This is because those 1963 WWII rules are among the first to have multibases, three figures apiece. These may be riflemen, machine-gunners, mortar sections, etc, but each is effectively a singular element that can be killed by a single die roll (usually a five or six to hit). I look forward to trying this, but tanks and artillery are important to the game too - infantry alone plinking at each other would not be so interesting.

For this reason, I'm considering also using plastics. I've had a canister of toy WWII types for ages, and - in part to provide some armor to use bazookas and panzerschrecks against - I also added a few 54mm scale toy tanks. I'm having the same dilemma between Little Wars Paperboys and Armies in Plastic toys for playing two 54mm-scale games - HG Wells' Little Wars and Howard Whitehouse's A Gentleman's War. I'll discuss that in a future post.

Instead, here's a few more Paperboys types I'm working on:

A third squad of US WWII infantry

A few Sioux and buffalo for Native American Heritage Month.
Not shown - an Aztec house and a couple Tipis.

The newest Paperboys are tricky to assemble because they do not have tabs - they must be stuck edge-on to the base. White glue is best for this, but I've found it helps to add the drop of glue, then leave it several minutes to set before sticking the figure into it. It also helps if you can vertically bend or "kink" the figure, and while you can achieve the same effect by cutting out the legs and giving them a "step out" pose, it works better on rows of figures than on individuals, as you can see. So in future I may leave the space under their legs uncut.

Something else gamewise I need to plan: a Dungeons and Dragons encounter for tomorrow. The Youmedia manager wants me to run it properly, in place of the generic games and puzzles, so, ah well, I'll try it. So I'm reading the basic rules, listening to a couple how-to-gamemaster books, and prepping dice sets.

I also have a few things to try to paint: 8th edition 40K starter Space Marines, and 10th edition starter set Tyranids.

And a couple things to game - that test Dragon Rampant game, and a round of Minceheim.

Oh, and a job interview.

I think I'm under a certain Chinese curse...

Slowly, Slowly, Catchy Something

The title has a dual meaning. I've been working sick for a week (too much going on to take time off, and can't for another two weeks at least). I've also gotten nothing gaming done, including the stuff in my previous post.

I have, however, latched on to something else. (The curse of being easily distractable.) Exhaustion has led to a lot of reading, among which has been Games Workshop's The War of the Ring, a "mass battle" version of their skirmish LOTR game, and Warmaster, the mass battle version of Warhammer Fantasy and a forerunner to Black Powder.

I have the old Mines of Moria starter set somewhere and have always dreamed of using it at work. Given its literary inspirations, I could probably get away with it easier than other wargames. War of the Ring would have to be done at home, and the intent would be to do it with Paperboys. The catch is the base sizes, which are drastically different, and also differ between infantry and cavalry. Hits are managed by removing figures, though the cardboard counters I've been making would work as well.

The other option is Warmaster, which I've found uses the same base sizes as Paperboys, 20x40mm. Handy! There is also an Ancients version, which would enable me to use Roman, Greek, elephants, etc. that Peter Dennis has made - his fantasy figures are, thus far, limited. So far I'm leaning toward Warmaster.

Of course there's also Dragon Rampant, which would be a LOT simpler to use. Except that units come in sets of six or twelve. This is useful for cavalry, but maybe not infantry, unless I make stands of three or four... or just get around to buying and painting plastic, of course!

Whichever way I turn, I've printed several sheets of Paperboys Fantasy and will be cutting them to relax. It's been a long week, and I have a surprise three-day weekend before five days of work. I'll need it.

Stuff I'm not getting done

Alan of the Duchy of Tradgardland has been discussing the "Black Dog," a euphemism for hobby depression. Hadn't heard the expression before, but it's caught my interest as I've got the same thing - exhausted after work, I haven't been doing anything at all despite at least three tentative projects to work on. A little reading, a little watching of Youtube painting videos in a desperate effort to inspire me to paint something of my own. In between going to work, I've been imitating my sleepy cats! Haven't even eaten much, which at least has lost me a little weight. So in an effort to get past that, I'm listing my projects here.

I've taken most of the week off due to having to "use or lose" some of my leave hours. Let's see if I can achieve anything at all...

• Building and painting some Warlord Games French partisans, for my vague Very British Civil War project. Bought on the spur of the moment, these were fairly expensive so I really do need to do something with them, but have never painted anything civilian or WWII-ish so am not sure how to color them. Suggestions welcomed.

A squad of rifles, a couple heavy weapon teams, and a
"French 75" with crew.

• Trying another round of either Charge! or the One Hour Wargame variation by Grid-Based Wargaming. Both would use eight-wound elements, so I've made a handful of cardboard counters also inspired by GBW. I should probably use another scenario of Programmed Wargames Scenarios, as I've only tried the first so far. I'd like to go through them all in progression, but really should settle on a ruleset first.

20mm a side, these will denote casualties or hit points.

• Testing "slap chop" painting, that is progressively lighter drybrushing before using Contrast paints. This makes them very quick to show impressive results, which would make for a useful painting program at work, and luckily I have nineteen of the new plastic Termagants to work with. I need to try one to start with to see how it looks, and have collected bone, red and black Contrast paints to try with. If it works out, I'll pre-drybrush the rest, take them to work next week, and use them in my effort to restart a weekly gaming program for teens. I'm also considering recording a painting video in the same vein as Games Workshop ones, using the electronic gizmos in Youmedia to promote the teen space and interest kids in my own programming.

Painted black - mostly.

Will I actually achieve anything? Time will tell.

Slow going

Work and home have taken up a lot of my time lately. A sudden parental visit coinciding with a week-off and some urgent tasks at work have led to not much time to game. A few things I'm desultorily working on:

I do witter on a lot about books on this blog, but I discovered something useful today. The popular ebook app Libby (until recently known as Overdrive) has free access to two well-known wargaming magazines:

Screenshot from my library's catalog.

Miniature Wargames and Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy are two journals I haven't seen much of because, unlike the other big sellers of the industry White Dwarf and Wargames Illustrated, they haven't much web presence. A few issues are available on the semi-legal Scribd, a handy place for finding some out-of-print stuff like Airfix magazines. My library (or perhaps the app) are limited to about a year's back issues, but that'll take me a while to get through and enjoy, and they can be checked out for three weeks. Hey, they're worth the few pennies of my local tax dollars that paid for them!

The other gaming thing I've done is start in to painting the classic 3rd Edition Warhammer 40K ruin I bought at Recon:

Thus far, I've undercoated it in Chaos Black and based it in Army Painter Castle Grey, damaging a large basecoating brush in the process while trying to get inside all the windows. I may do another thinner coat; then I intend to shade it with Agrax Earthshade and highlight with Ash Grey for an aged, stony look. I'm undecided whether to layer, edge or drybrush the highlight, though; any suggestions? Maybe layer, then edge with an even lighter color. I've also just noticed that there are wooden slats at the edge of the broken floor, which should probably be in some sort of brown... I've been watching too many Youtube painting videos.

Finally, I reread Return of the Twelves. I never get tired of that one.

More Miscellaneous Stuff

Been a long and exhausting week. I have a lot of personal appointments and home improvement to catch up on. Haven't got much done gaming-wise done at all; my plan for a Battery Wagner game at work was shot down, so won't have a chance to use it at work anytime soon. This week is Fourth of July, though, so I'm hoping to get away with a "patriotic" game of some sort. I'm torn between a reenactment of North Point using Junior General and Paperboys I built during the pandemic, and a round of the Perry's TravelBattle (its Napoleonic style works just as well for War of 1812). I'm leaning towards the latter, as it's more "game-like."

So this weekend was spent working on personal stuff a bit, and a few books and hobby bitz.

I read the first volume online, and hunted
the second down on Ebay. A very interesting
biography of a perhaps over-maligned commander.

Not specifically gaming-related, but by a well-known
game designer I've gotten to know on Facebook. The
first volume's quite good so far - a fun series with
the style of a classic.

Completed the 3rd Edition 40K ruin I bought at Recon.
Very easy to build, and solid even without much glue.
May try painting it one of these days.

Another Recon purchase - Mark 6 Heresy Marines.
Each slot contains the parts for one model, in the
unlikely event I do a build-n-take at work. I'd need
inexpensive plastic glue, though.

Spent some tiring time in the heat today collecting a 
6x4 piece of light plywood. Laid atop my 2x4 plastic
table, I'm hoping this will enable me to play more
conventionally-sized games.

This week? Mostly work and a little job-searching, as usual. I hope to use the larger table to play some mid-18th century games on a more conventional scale; I'd like to work my way through all the Charles S. Grant solo scenarios.

Hope your weekend has been as productive!

More Bits and Pieces

 Found some of my unbased Zulus. Many are missing shields - anyone know if the Zulu, or any African spear-armed natives, ever fought without shields? They may be in another box somewhere, but I still haven't got any plastic glue...!

Enough for an internal skirmish here.

48 Sikhs - a bit bigger than a TSATF company.
Will probably count as a battalion.

Had an extremely successful, but chaotic and tiring, skygazing program this week. I was going to have a paint-and-take, but my coworkers and boss said kids couldn't do it, and in the event it was too crowded to do more than some basic coloring and pasting anyway.

The Apollo astronauts are 3D-printed, approx 54mm, in silver. A rough drybrush of white, which one of my interns is learning below, makes them a dirty white as in photos from the lunar surface. During the actual program, which I hope to do with the teens at some point, all that's required is a gold faceplate, blue-grey gloves and boots, and blue or red stripes and hose-connectors. Which in theory should take minutes for even kids to paint (I like to tell them, "if you can write with a pencil you can paint with a brush."), but in practice will take half an hour or more. I'll hold them aside as an alternate activity for my Wednesday gaming group.

Bits and Pieces

 I've been so exhausted (lazy?) lately, that I haven't gotten much gaming or even modeling done. 

• I've done one layer of gold on a handful of Warhammer minis - weeks ago. 
• I've read eight books from Tanya Huff's Confederation series. Not useful unless a futuristic-marine vs. lizard version of Rorke's Drift might make a useful scenario for Xenos Rampant. Which I need to order, having read of it being used for more historical conflicts.
• I bought about ten mats of aquarium plants for counting as jungle in The Sword in Africa. 
• And I've signed up for a TSIA game at Recon 2023 in Orlando next weekend. Hopefully that'll give me some inspiration and ideas for modeling; I've been meaning to run it for ages, and even have a player or two at the club willing to play as soon as I get around to it.
• Tonight, I finished the first two chapters of Ian J. Knight's Warrior Chiefs of Southern Africa, which made me want to base some of my Zulu...
• Instead, I based twenty-eight colonial redcoats. Where basing means simply gluing to pennies with PVA. I'll probably do some more tonight - just working my way through the collection. I've considered using pennies with my 20mm Napoleonics, but then they don't seem to stand close enough.

A Month of Reading

I've actually avoided tabletop this month. Stayed home two Saturdays that Tactical Combat was on at Das Krieg Haus because this has really been an exhausting month that I am glad is over (though I still need to finish my monthly report for work). I'm hoping to get off work February 18th for a mini-convention at the club, but it doesn't look likely. When I get home at the end of the day, I mostly just want to rest and read. So I've gone through quite a bit.

One of the games I've missed, from Sitrep Podcast:

Anyway - reading.

Mark Bowden is best known for Black Hawk Down. Hue 1968 is broader in scope but just as gripping - if you're interested in city-fighting (plenty of ideas for scenarios here) or in the Tet Offensive, check this one out. There are actually three or four other books already on the topic, but none where the author interviewed participants (civilian and military) from both sides and delved into what it was like on the ground. The smell and desperation of civilians and soldiers alike comes through in these pages. Hue was the longest and heaviest battle of Tet, because it was the only one where the initial Communist objectives were met. This is a very intense story, particularly for the Vietnamese civilians who were trapped between the Communists and American-South-Vietnamese. The Communists had lists of enemies to round up and kill (they shot thousands and even buried some alive), and were disappointed when those they left alone did not rise to support them as expected. Unfortunately, those civilians who escaped to Allied lines were crammed into badly kept refugee camps, and those who didn't were shot at by the Americans as assumed VC. We learn what it was like to smuggle weapons in and people out of the city, and what it was like to survive among the rats and rubble.

The American civilian perspective is well-represented, particularly by the press, many of whom were present and a few trapped in VC-taken territory. The "turning point" of political discourse is clearly visible here, and when Walter Cronkite turned up the writing was very much on the wall. There is also an undercurrent of American frustration that they seemed to be doing all the fighting for the South Vietnamese; an elite ARVN "tiger" unit actually stemmed the initial assault and held its own throughout the battle, but was not publicized and not in sight of the Marines who were grinding their way through Hue.

The urban combat was fatiguing. One of the interviewees was a woman VC who started out singing and looking forward to liberation, then spent several weeks hiding in trenches from bombing runs, watching friends dismembered. American and French civilians caught in the area also had harrowing stories to tell; some captured and sent North, others making it to American lines. Attacking Hue by air was at first outlawed, because it was an ancient cultural touchstone - but its own fortress construction made it a perfect defensive position, so restrictions were gradually lifted and the city was pounded into rubble.

The battle, despite actually being the largest and with the heaviest casualties of the Tet offensive (most of them civilian), was relatively small, with only a few US battalions fighting at any one time, and a mere handful of tanks and Ontos vehicles. Barring the cultural and political aspects, there is plenty of inspiration for small-scale city-fighting scenarios here. A worthy successor to Black Hawk Down.

The Vietnam Experience is a series I've always wanted to read, and Hue made me go hunting for it. Only a couple volumes were available online, so this was a taster. It is not, despite my initial impression, a Time-Life series, but by Boston Publishing Company. There is more text and fewer images - primarily photographs with a few maps and graphs. Appropriately given my most recent reading on the war, I found Nineteen Sixty-Eight. This was, of course, the watershed year, both in America's time in Vietnam and on American politics, both of which this volume spends equal time on. There are volumes specifically on North and South Vietnam, so I expect the emphasis on the "home front" is not typical. Plenty of space is given to protests, assassinations, and "flower children;" almost none to my favorite, tactics and equipment. No real gaming interest here. It's more an overview of society (in Vietnam as well as the US) as they recognized the weakness of South Vietnam. We tend to talk a lot about how Tet made the US recognize the futility of the war, but (to a greater if more general amount than Bowden's book), the South Vietnamese perspective is also shown. Its citizens increasingly lost confidence in the capacity of their government to protect them, and the NVA and VC deliberately targeted civilians to engender this.

Just as important to this period is the South Vietnamese government. There was still plenty of factionalism and corruption, despite a brutal crackdown on the latter. The initial peace negotiations are also discussed, and put into context the memetic claim that they foundered over the shape of the table. There really was difficulty over that table, because North Vietnam wanted the southern insurgency represented, while South Vietnam did not want to give the impression that it recognized that insurgency in any way. Given its political struggles, this seems entirely understandable under the circumstances!

Less enjoyable in some ways than the Time-Life Civil War series I'm also working through, mostly due to a simpler graphical style, but still a good read. I will order more of the series.

Peter C. Smith is a very prolific writer on the topic of dive-bombers, as I discovered when I looked up the Blackburn Skua. Since I discovered it in a book on WWII naval aviation in childhood, it's been one of my favorites. I'm not sure why, though it might be owing to my Anglophilia. It also appeared in a propaganda-adventure series my dad introduced me to, the adventures of Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer, red-blooded teenagers who join the RAF. In the third volume, they serve in the Western Desert shortly after Operation Compass, and fly a Skua up against six Italian and German planes, shooting four of them down.

The Skua, sadly, turns out to have not been that impressive as a fighter plane. If any Skua crew had shot down more than one plane in a single action, it would have been prominent in this book, and the crew would have gotten Distinguished Flying Crosses. It was designed as a dual fighter/dive bomber, a bit like the better known Dauntless, but wasn't especially good at either role as a result. It wasn't a terrible interceptor, but could not in any way hold its own against genuine fighters. However, it was innovative as a dive bomber, in particular equipped with the first "swing-out" device to push the bomb away so that it didn't strike the propellor when dropped during a steep dive.

The British - particularly the air force - were very resistant to dive-bombing. Smith provides plenty of detail on the Skua's fraught gestation immediately before WWII. One problem was that the standard dive before the war was only of 45 degrees - not nearly as accurate and safe from flak as the steeper 70-75 degree dive the Skua was capable of, or the 90-degree dive true dive-bombers could make.

Smith delves deeply into engineering specifications, construction details and testing phases, as I've discovered while starting his equally comprehensive volume on the Vultee Vengeance. He writes not just about combat histories, but about the design aspects that make a dive-bomber good at its job ... or not. So I learned more than I thought possible about wing-folding, self-sealing fuel tanks, and safety equipment. The Skua, as a naval aircraft, included watertight compartments and an integral dinghy. As a carrier plane, it required folding wings and tough landing gear, but most of its combat operations were from land - it had the range to fly from Scotland to Norway, although a couple squadrons also operated from Norway itself. This is why the only extant Skuas remaining have been recovered from there - also because one of them was buried under ice for a while.

Every single combat sortie of a Skua and Roc (the turreted-fighter version of the Skua) is covered, complete with crew names and aircraft serial numbers. (X, Y, and Z flew to Narvik on this day, etc.) This builds up a comprehensive look at the ongoing routine of a combat squadron, which is interesting in itself. A couple chapters are devoted to the Skua's one real success - sinking the German light cruiser Konigsberg in harbor. Only a couple of direct hits were scored, and I was interested to learn that the worst damage was from a near miss that exploded in the water and buckled the ship's hull. The Skua, however, had a short combat life, being used only as target tugs from late 1941 on. Almost nothing is said of the Roc, like the Boulton-Paul Defiant an ineffective turret fighter that also saw primary duty as a tug.

There are copious photos and diagrams. Smith's books are much wordier and more technical than Squadron/Signal volumes - an engineer's dream but a book to make a more casual reader's eyes glaze over with specifications and statistics. Still quite good - there is plenty of operational info, and the technical detail, though complex, provides a history of development and its difficulties that you don't often get in "lighter" volumes. I enjoyed it, but admit that it is for a specialist interest. I've started reading his volume on the Vultee Vengeance, another aircraft that isn't as famous as it probably should be.

A last volume I almost forgot:

An excellent volume on the Muslim-Christian struggle for the Mediterranean, the story is packed with character and, dare I say, adventure. Starting in 1520 with the siege of Rhodes that drove the Knights of St. John to Malta, and ending with the tremendous clash of galleys at Lepanto, the tale is tensely told. Slavery was, for both sides, both a means and a purpose of battle, but religion - vicious in its hatreds - played the greatest role. Here are the emperors Philip and Suleiman, the pirate Barbarossa, the admirals Don Juan and Andrea Doria, and Pope Pius V. For them, the Mediterranean was just that, the center of the world, where if it could be taken all roads of conquest were open. It's illustrated with period etchings, vistas and maps. There is plenty of inspiration for a gamer here - it makes me want to break out the galleys and fortifications. Especially at Malta, there is scope for ambushes, betrayals and forlorn hopes. I did learn that Lepanto was not actually all that decisive - it was not quite a disaster for the Turkish fleet. There are many points, both there and at Malta, where chance (or perhaps the will of God) changed the fate of many, or, as the author would have it, the fate of Christian Europe. Highly recommended.

Finally, I received the Games Workshop "Warhammer Alliance" school/library kit. I hope to try building some of the figures tomorrow with the teens at work; will post pictures if I do. Happy February.