Ivan the Idiot

Well, not all Russians, the legitimate visitors are welcome and appreciated.  But 209 visits in one month from Russia - well, we all know what that means.  Dostva-prick-ya.

Otherwise, I'm still here and finally getting time to get moving on miniatures again.  Hope it stays that way for a while.

One Step Closer

Sent off today what is likely to be my last 'large' order for miniatures, an Irregular order.  Okay, a couple of smallish orders to do yet - and then, maybe, some commissioned figures.  But with the two anticipated smaller orders, one more likely one maybe-ish, I will have finished ordering figures.  Feels good.  And getting to this point, I find myself spending more time working on the various and sundry elements of the collection.  Hope the pace keeps up.

The recently acquired Stone Mountain Star Fort dries after getting cleaned up.  The mountain passes got 'cut down to size' yesterday - as in literally getting cut shorter almost three inches.  I think that will work better.

Enough for now.

Conquest Sacramento 2016

Okay, first a variety of games at Sacramento's ConQuest Sacramento - I did not play in these, just took some photos.  And, no, I don't know what they all were but you can probably sort it out from the visuals.  A larger image just by clicking on it per normal.

 The following images were from Dave's Napoleonic game using Rank and File rules with his modifications.  It was a good game, a corps level action and I enjoyed.  Would have been nice if we'd had a few more players but such is the way of con games.

 And here are some shots of a game I ran using the same rules but with different modifications.  It is a French and Indian War game where each unit equates to a company at one-to-one and each company gets two manuever units.  Lots of native units.  Didn't quite get two new units into the game, finished painting them but they weren't textured.  Around 800 figures in the game.

I did have the good fortune to start the game with a full complement of 8 players but a couple dropped out, one to attend to convention duties and one that apparently took umbrage at something another player did.  Or maybe they just didn't like the game - but others joined in along the way.

Hope the players enjoyed the game.  I am on the look-out for an even easier and faster playing game since I will be doubling the number of foot units used - twenty-eight eventually, with the two on the painting table sixteen will be done and two more are 'almost' there, less there command - sort of.

Almost and Finally

As in almost to the convention.  Haven't gotten many of the figures I'd hoped finished but I have gotten all but a small handful of 120 deciduous trees foliated - or added foliage if you prefer.  And I've gotten a river and a bit of a lake (or ocean) matched to the terrain similar to the figure basing.  Still a few figures to work on and some bases to texture - and those last trees to finish.

So, I'm hoping I'll have a visually appealing game to a higher level than before, with everything matching up to a pretty nice degree: ground cloth, tree bases, water features, and figure bases.  I did take some photos with my new phone - but still learning how to use it - of a practice setup to make sure things will work.

Modified the rules, Rank and File, a bit to adjust based on previous FIW games.  Nothing earth shaking  for the most part.  Though I did get my charge token system up and running and will see how that goes - more on that later.  Have the scenario and troop types and quantities all sorted out.  Just that little bit more to get done, most of it should be finished tonight or tomorrow (and I have the next four days off so I have almost two full days to finish things before playing a Friday game and a Saturday morning game before my Sunday afternoon/evening game, and then play another on Sunday, or so is the plan).

Yesterday I received an order from Peter Pig so I can 'finally' return to my railroad project for the Old West - worked out a special order to get three tenders only so now I can put three flat cars back into use as freight cars instead of converting to tenders - probably one each gondola, tank car, and keeping the last as another flat car.  Unless I come up with some other car type I want to do.  I think that will bring me to 57 pieces of locomotive and rolling stock items to put on the rails.  That is a lot!

Awaiting balance of an order from Stone Mountain and a new order from Blue Moon/Old Glory and then one more to place with Irregular Miniatures - and then I will blog about an important milestone.

Of course, now that it is spring time, a lot of the hobby stuff will be shunted aside while getting the yard in shape but progress will be made.  Next post after the convention - with photos.

Progress on figures

Okay, so it is only texturing bases - so far.  But I should finish tonight on the texturing of all my fully painted French and Indian War figures in preparation for a convention game in about six weeks from now.  I do have some additional figures to finish painting and then those will need to be based and textured to match.  And the cool part is that the basing - along with a little dry brushing is a good match for the terrain canvas, not perfect but still looks like they were designed to work together.  That has me jazzed.  So, back to work to make more forward progress.

Photos in good time - still need to seal and dull cote before reaching that step.  And I might wait and get photos from the actual game rather than staged photos - or possibly a little bit of both.

"Training" Day

The last of the 'raw' cars arrived today and now I can start working on building my motive power and rolling stock.  Eight more flat cars arrived and most of them will be transformed into other types of cars than flat cars.  Now it is just a matter of having the time.

The Season

Okay, now that we are full into the holiday season there is the distraction of my wife's quite large Lemax (and more) village that needs to be set up and operated until after the new year.  This is something of a distraction from my own hobby work but it keeps her happy and it is also fun since it is miniatures of a sort.  And I've hatched a plot to get some military figures into the mix by buying some 1/35th scale figures to 'sneak' in somewhere.  Now, I have to decide if I want to go Victorian and fit in better with what she has going or get some 18th century figures to 'push back time'.

I await the last back order rolling stock items prior to launching the steam train project.  And I've still two orders to place for the wagons to further that project which I've gotten started on.

I will try and take progress photos along the way to publish.

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If all went well, I've added back in the ability to gain followers for this blog.  Had closed it off because of some untoward and unwanted joiners a while back.