Crisis Managment

Time to clear the cobwebs and blow off the dust from this place... With last Saturday's Crisis 2013 wargames show in Antwerp, this seems a good moment to do that and restart the blog and the hobby in general. And rather than wait for New Year's Day and lots of resolutions, I'll be using the Crisis show as my gaming year start point from now on.

Crisis part 1: Planning

When it came to shopping, the plan was short, I haven't had that "I need to buy..." or "OOOH, shiny" feeling for quite a while (if you ignore any of the Mantic Kickstarter campaigns, but that's another story). Ever since last year's Crisis, figure buying has been at an all time low, while in the few periods I got behind the painting desk, I kept pretty focussed on my 15mm Russian WWII force. So before the show, I came up with this little list:

• The Event/Gadget card decks for 7ombieTV and 7TV from Crooked Dice
• Maybe some of their Blake's 7 figures, for old time's sake
• The "Fall of the Reich" expansion for Battlegroup Kursk
• Terrain items (pretty general)
  

Crisis part 2: Plans vs Reality

Were my memories of last year's show a bit  on the bright side? It seemed to me that last weekend the (same) venue was a lot more cramped than last year. More traders? More visitors? I don't know but I remembered more open space last year. Whatever the reason, it is still waaaaaay better than the previous location. And with the parking lot not being claimed by that Freestyle snowboard championship ramp like last year, getting rid of the car was a lot easier. To get an idea what the show looked like, go here.

So what did I drag away at the end of the day???

• The Crooked Dice card decks (no figures though)
• "Fall of the Reich" and the mini rulebook
• Terrain items: a 4Ground pair of ruined shops in 15mm,  in 28mm a  MicroArts three story SF building with interior wall set, and a fantasy/dark age building at the bring and buy (cost me a whole two euros) and a small buggy from Ainsty Castings (with literally the last pieces of change in my pocket)

Sounds good so far, now we get to the other stuff:

• "Of Gods and Monsters" rulebook
• The free figure given away at the door
• A free sprue of 2 Mantic Elf scouts
• A Zvezda KV-2
• After many years of resisting temptation, a box of Perry Miniatures Napoleonic Russians
• A pair of Foundry paint sets for those Russians
• Oh, and some laser cut casualty dials, nearly forgot those :-)
  

All in all a very modest harvest this year...

Crisis part 3: Aftermath, and beyond

Less than 72 hours later, both MDF buildings have been constructed, as is the KV-2. After opening the age old packaging of the bring and buy find, I discovered that the pieces were all severely bent ouf ot shape. They must have been stored somewhere pretty warm for a long time. But after a day or two on top of the radiator and with some weight piled on thay have now reverted to their original shape. And the Russians are now in my desk at work as my coffee break mold line removal project.

And where do I go from here? Continue working on those 15mm Russians for FoW, Bolt Action and Battlegroup Kursk... Start a new warband for Songs of Blades and Heroes using my Mantic Undead/general baddies that I got as part of the Kings of War kickstarter. Finish the assorted odds and ends that have been lingering on my painting desk for ages.

Wait for the unevitable thud of the Deadzone box to arrive next month. Yes, yet another Mantic kickstarter I couldn't resist...

Keep watching this space... You never know, I might be back with more... one day...

Happy gaming and painting everyone!

There's light at the end of the tunnel...

Or, more appropriately, at the end of the dungeon corridor. Part of the reason why I didn't get around to blogging is my 3D dungeon project. I have been painting/varnishing my tiles and walls quite feverishly over the last few weeks.

A pair of Mantic Elven scouts have found the exit, and I'm right behind them

After I finished the last stands and truck for my 15mm Russian infantry platoon, everything else was set aside and I'v been concentrating on my dungeon. Since then a steady stream of finished tiles and walls have made the move from the painting desk to the games table. Maybe another week or so and I should have completed this mega project and I hope to find a bit more time to spend on my blog.

Happy painting and gaming, make the most of your weekend!

Somewhere in Ookerzistan*

Once upon a time my friend and I had one of those "Ooh, shiny!" moments featuring modern skirmish gaming. Damn you Ambush Alley/Force on Force/Flying Lead/...

This lead to the purchase of some boxes of Ceasar 1/72 troops (lovely figures), some more in metal (SHQ and Combat Miniatures???) and an assortment of modern 1/72 vehicle kits...

Just part of a collection of plastic and metal figs, prepainted Dragon vehicles, Heller and Revell kits and some bring and buy finds

And then the project flatlined...

Code Blue in the wargames room, code blue!!!!

Stef had however scratchbuilt a rather large collection of buildings before this happened. And those have now changed hands as part of his clean up of the basement.

Guess I'll have to invest in a sand coloured cloth now :-)

And all I really need is a maximum 10 figures per side to get a game of Flying Lead underway... Hmmm...

Some Platoon 20's (another b&b find)  getting ready to ambush a humvee patrol

Happy gaming and painting!

* Ookerzistan: One of those Central Asian countries that always seems to be in one conflict or another, currently NATO led forces are deployed there to keep out yet another fundmentalist movement...

Week in Review 3: Where Do I Go From Here?

A rather nice week: after a short pause last week I finished the first half of the 120mm mortar battery in 6mm, the 15mm ZIS truck and several dungeon tiles and walls.

The Drakon riders are almost cleaned up and ready to be assembled. I'll be painting those as a diversion from the rather drab monotony of putting together a Russian army and varnishing a sprawling dungeon complex.

Because that dungeon is still a hard hat area, my friend and I had to use the carboard version for our game of Dwarf King's Hold at last Friday's club night. First game of the year, and I hope the first of many, and certainly more than last year.

A Forward Detachment in 15mm

Between writing the concept for this post and the photoshoot I started on the last of the infantry and their second truck, only the Commander's M3 is still missing (delivery is rumoured to be next month)

Over the last few months I have been painting some 15mm Russian figures without any real direction. Meaning I'm still not getting anywhere when it comes to a real army list. So time to sit down and plan my moves for the coming weeks and months.

I'l be using the Forward Detachment PDF army list that used to be on the Battlefront website. Did they remove it to put into the Red Bear book? Doesn't matter, it's on the hard drive anyway.
I've taken this list because although it is rated as a tank company, it is a mixed force of armour and infantry. That way I don't have to paint either a lot of tanks or infantry just to cover the two troop choices. Let's see what I need to get the minimal army list requierments:

Battalion Commander: two infantry command stands with vehicles or one tank and an infantry stand with a vehicle. I already have one command stand finished and to with two boxes of Plastic Soldier Company T34s half done, I'll be going for option two. It will also add more points, not to mention firepower to the basic list. So all I need here is a ride for the one infantry stand. I'll have to buy that.

First Company: minimum of five tanks. That'll be 5 T43/85. Got those, just need to finish them

Second Company: a minimum of a command stand and a platoon of 7 bases. The command stand is ready as are 4 bases. That leaves me with three more to paint, I'm not going to be bothered by the fact that they're a mixture of rifle and SMG teams. At the start of a battle I can always make clear what kind of a platoon they represent. And the optional two trucks as transport are pretty much covered: one is ready to roll and I have 4 more fully built.

In short, I need to paint 3 bases of infantry, 6 T34s, one truck and one M3 scout car. And only the scout car has to be bought.

Looks like a plan!

Happy gaming and painting, see you soon!

Off to the Front With You, Chaps!!!

After many years spent in a dark cupboard, the time has come for my skirmish sized force of WWI Brits from GreatWar Miniatures to be sent off to the front line and see some combat action in a not too far off future. And no, I'm not getting sidetracked (again), nor did I tire from painting an overdose of WWII Russians...

Trench raiders - Lewis gunners - Command - Riflemen - Trench mortar - Bombers
(Lesson learnt: take pics by daylight)

In a win-win-win-win-win-win situation, these chaps are leaving my collection to join my friend's one, where they will get all the paint and maybe even some flock (haha) they deserve, possibly even before the leaves fall (this year). So what are all those wins about?

-My unpainted pile drops by 40 figures.
-I don't have to spend any money on club fees this year, my friend will pay that for the figures.
-The figures will get painted.
-I'll still get to play with them.
-Somebody else will store them for me between battles

Should have thought about that ages ago :-)

Happy gaming and painting

Week in Review 2: Vintage Games

Painting

Not a lot happening on the painting table last week. The mortar teams have ground to a halt and all I have to show (though not in pictures) are a few more dungeon tiles that got their last coat of varnish.

Purchases

Even though I have bought hardly any figures since Crisis, that doesn't mean I'm not spending any less money on gaming. Oh no! Other than buying some magazines and brushes, I still look around on ebay quite a lot and in the last month or two picked up one or two (or a lot more) items. And a distinct theme seems to emerge: vintage games (and toys). We'll leave my intrest in 50s tinplate toy trains to the side and look at the games.

Every once in a while I check ebay for the old 28mm Star Wars figures from West End Games and my search string included copies of Star Warriors. This is mapbased dogfighting game set in the original trilogy (parts 1 to 3 were still in a far far away future) featuring all the known and well-loved spacecraft. And yes, this was one of those "Ooh shiny!" moments. So I entered a pretty low bid, more in a "you never know" frame of mind than in a "must have" one and won with a pretty big margin left. A bit to my own surprise, I must admit. I'm sure I spent more on shipping than the game itself cost me: £6.51.
After reading through the rules, it should be pretty easy to turn it into a miniatures game, and as I have enough Micro Machines, Fleet Battles and Pocket Models stuffed away, this won't cost me anything (extra).

With "The Hobbit" nearing release and rereading The Lords of the Rings trilogy and a simmering desire to do something with a solo RPG campaign it was of ebay again to look for MERP from Iron Crown Enterprises. At a little over £8 for a copy of the 2nd edition boxed set, this was a bargain compared to what the expansion books will cost me. They seem to be more sought after a lot more. I did manage to find a few cheaply here in Belgium, though they took a lot longer to get here from Bastogne than the one I got from the States (guess the Germans are encricling the town again) and got another couple at reaonable prices. So far I have books on the kingdom of Arthedain (home of Aragorn), Bree and the haunted barrows and Moria.
But there are looooooots more titles out there. Ah well, just one way to avoid spending money on additions to the unpainted pile, I guess :-)

And this week?

Get those mortar teams finished, and start the second half of the battery. Keep working on my dungeon. Prepare the Mantic Elves Drakon riders that have just arrived for painting and ponder a colour scheme. Grey mountain dragons like my Lord has, or go for bleu/whitish ice drakons? Decisions, decisions...

Happy gaming and painting and see you next week!

The Week in Review - Week 1

This post has spent waaaay too much time as a concept, waiting for some pictures to be taken and added. Better luck next week, you'll have to enjoy this post in all its plain text glory...



The week was a short one but still rather productive. Here's what I've been up to:

- Finished two 15mm 45mm (huh, confused?) AT guns
- Started AND finished two command and two observer stands in 6mm
- Started the first half of a 120mm mortar battery in 6mm
- Started to finish the first of my15mm Zvezda truck after months spent in limbo on a corner of my painting table
- Put on the last coat of varnish on a few dungeon tiles

Plans for the coming week(s):

- Keep working on the 120mm and then 82mm mortar batteries in 6mm
- Add the final touches to some 6mm tanks
- Dungeon tiles
- Finish the truck and get started on the other 15mm ZIS trucks

I have no idea what has happened to me, this seems to be a period of never before seen dedication and focus to a very limited part of my collection. Even more amazing is that I keep working on what I bought at the Crisis show two months ago. Rather than throwing it on the unpainted pile as previous years... an unpainted pile that is actually shrinking right now!!!
I guess that Maya calendar thingy was all about me: the end of the buying era and the start of the painting era :-)

Happy gaming and painting everyone!

Everybody Else is Doing it - the Year in Review

2012 in General

While real life was pretty crappy last year and has been draining away a lot of energy, I seem to have problems remembering most of the first part of last year. Only about the last quarter or so I have kept solid records. The main trends for the whole year are something like this:

- Not a lot games played, mostly confined to Dwarf's King Hold and 6mm Flames of War.
- "Normal" purchasing went down and was much more planned (exit butterfly syndrome???).
- Still spent a lot of cash on the two Mantic Kickstarters though :-)

- Started a huge project: my 3D dungeon

- And stuck with it!!!

- A burst of painting activity during the last months of the year.

Looks like the Crisis show at the start of November got the juices flowing a bit again and since then I have managed to finish painting about 45 15mm and 90 6mm Russians for my FoW armies in those scales. For me that is a blistering pace :-)
And even with the arrival last month of the Dreadball Kickstarter (52 figures) I managed, I guess for the first time ever, to end December with more figures painted than have arrived! Yes you are allowed to gasp for air and look shocked.

Outlook for 2013

Now that I seem to have the "butterfly" and "oooh shiny" problems under control, the time is ripe to keep chipping away at my unpainted mountain and finish a few projects.

- The dungeon project is nearing the home stretch, a few tiles need a second coat of paint, but most are done and waiting for the last coats of varnish.

- Continue painting 6mm Russians so I can finally come to the table with a fully painted army, with all options covered. I hope to do this during the next month or two and this would also mean that most of my Crisis purchases will be finished in what can only be called record time.

- Get Dreadball up and running, Veermyn seem to be first.

- Paint some more 15mm Russians/Afrika Korps/Brigade Piron (Belgians 1944), but more as a diversion from the main projects, just to keep fresh.

Happy gaming (and painting) in 2013

9 Days in November

Thanks to a few of free days next week I'm able to take the whole week off work for just three days of vaction. Giving me 9 days to spend on the things I like... and some I don't like...

Crunching some numbers

I added a little box to the left to remind me of how my Unpainted (Lead) Syndrome is developing. Hmmm... it doesn't look that good, but hey, with Crisis last weekend it was to be expected. And then again, most of that is 6mm stuff... You can hardly see it :-)

And the 15mm ZIS guns and  I bought last week are very close to getting finished, I hope to put those counters back to zero in a day or two.

On cruise in the Pacific...

Last week they were re-running Battlefield 360 on the History HD channel round dinner time and all that talk about the battles of the USS Enterprise reminded me that a loooooong time ago I bought a copy of Carrier from Victory Games which I'm pretty sure I didn't get around to playing yet.

I expect a lot of aircraft/AA/whistling bomb/explosion sounds being heard over the dinner table as I roll that D10...

Happy Gaming

Crisis 2012: the aftermath

Crisis – the Venue

After years spent in the dark, claustrophobic, hot and badly ventilated function room at the Metropolis cinema complex, TSOA moved their annual event to Hangar 29, a repurposed storage building on the banks of the Scheldt River. How did this turn out?

Parking: should have been no problem, but the city council decided that it was the perfect spot to build a megasized ramp for a snowboardcompetition… I managed to park my car at the site itself, but those that arrived a bit later had more trouble.

Getting in: arriving at 10.00 sharp there was a 50m or so line that was moving pretty briskly. The waiting area, while outdoors, is covered by a roof so when the weather is bad, you’ll keep dry. The entrance fee was 8€ and as every year you got a specially commissioned figure. This year it was Peter Minuit, the administrator of New Amsterdam who purchased Manhattan from the local Indians. His parents were religious refugees who came from what is now Belgium, as all Crisis figures are supposed to have some link to Belgian/Flemish history.

The show area (facebook link): this year saw a massive upgrade in available floorspace, and headroom as well. Moving the show here was a great idea. Weird thing was that even with the added space, it still looked very busy, especially in the trader aisles. My only fear an old warehouse would be pretty chilly didn’t come true. The massive building was heated to a very pleasant temperature, without leading to the wafts of gamer funk that were all too common at the Metropolis site.

Catering: was back under club control and a big improvement on the catering firm that had to be booked at the old site. I think prices were a bit lower, service was better and I had the impression consumption was up too. And while in previous years you got a reduction coupon for a burger menu at the cinema complex, here the club operated their own rolls and bratwurst stand. Quite a hit judging by the line at noon J

I can only say that this move was a good… errrm, move by the club. Hopefully they will keep Crisis here for a very long time to come. A serious improvement on the old venue!!!

Crisis – the Purchases

I have been a very, very good boy this year with very few “ooh shiny” impulse buying (and even that was kind of planned for).

Hobby supplies: I stocked up on Vallejo varnish so I can get back to my 3D dungeon project and bought a sheet of plastic rooftiles that I need to finish off a small shrine/chapel that has been in limbo for years.

6mm: I picked up my pre-order from Adler, filling the last gaps in my WW2 Russian army (mortars, AT rifles and engineers). At the bring and buy I stumbled across a blister of ZIS-3 guns and while checking out the traders I ran into a sale of GHQ scenery. Those metal buildings make look any other scenery like a resin turd… They were 50% off, but after picking out a collection of stuff worth 48€, I offered to pay 20€ for the lot. And got the extra discount, they really wanted to unload that stuff from their inventory.

(Huh??? Already getting painted???)

15mm: I also picked up a box of Plastic Soldier Company ZIS anti tank guns. This was somewhat more of an impuls purchase but my 15mm FoW army is a project in progress. The guns have already been built, so the box isn’t added to the unpainted pile. I must say that for PSC standards, these gun sets are pretty poor value for money when you compare it to their tanks sets. Then again that did get me a discount: they had forgotten to mark the price, so when I asked how much they were I must have looked rather shocked when the guy told me they were 22.5€. This led to an immediate “But I’ll settle for 20” from the seller. I’ll have to train that look for next year, hehe J

Ooh shiny: nothing from Crooked Dice as I expected before the show, but some stuff from the Perry twins. I never see myself getting into 28mm Nappy, unless maybe at the lower end of Sharpe’s Practice, but I always wanted to paint up something for the display cabinet. So I ended up with a command group of Russian cuirassiers and a 6lbs gun and crew. And I also picked up a Cossack cart, but more from a gaming point of view. It looks generic enough to be used as an objective or something like that in a (fantasy) skirmish game.

Freebies: I traded in a bunch of Mantic points for their “Thinking Elf” vignette, featuring an Elf (obviously) looking at a chess-like boardgame. And the Peter Minuit figure off course

  

I ended up with two of those Peter Minuit figures: when I was rummaging through my backpack in the bar area, someone told me I had dropped my figure. But back home I found two, so it was somebody else’s figure that had gotten lost. Because I don’t need two, I’m giving away the double to the first person who comments “I wants it!!!” . You just have to pay for the postage through paypal (or bank transfer if you’re in Euroland). So add your email adres so I can get in touch.

Happy Gaming!

Crisis 2012 Preview

(picture from the TSOA facebookpage)

Believe it or not, but tomorrow this old warehouse in the Antwerp harbour will be the Wargaming Walhalla of continental Europe. The guys from TSOA are hard at work (I hope) with setting up this year's convention.

I don't have any big "must buy" list prepared for tomorrow. If anything I'll be heading down there with a "don't need much at all" attitude. 

What's that you're saying? Heresy?

I seem to be at a point in my hobby that I seem to be have gotten the "Ooh Shiny" bug under some form of control. Could it be that I've finally found a focus?

So what are the few items that are a definite "must buy"?

- Vallejo paint and (lots of) varnish for my 3D dungeon project (currently on hold due to lack of supplies)

- Adler 6mm WW2 Russians (on pre-order): all the mortars, AT rifles and engineers that are missing for my FoW army

- Some scenery (buildings, hedges,...)

- Maybe a few blisters of support weapons for my Bolt Action Brits (Vickers, 3" mortar)

- Possibly a few "follies" from Crooked Dice like their Blake's 7, Space 1999 or Silent Running mini's

Come back on Sunday to see how I did :-)

Happy gaming everybody!