Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you had a great one. Things are good here.

This week has seen many, many BLOGS posting that I follow. Too many to write about.. It's good to see. My favorite is Din of Battle has good stuff on building a 15mm trench system. (http://dinofbattle.blogspot.com/2010/12/making-wwi-trench-system.html) I like this very much. This has always been a goal to build something like this in 15mm. I think I would also like to build a small diorama like piece in 28mm for use in a true skirmish of trench raiding--in winter, naturally for something truly different. For me, WW1 is 15mm with the old set of rules called Over There by Nick Yankowsky (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/61945/over-there-miniatures-rules-for-warfare-1900-to). Having played them they give a great fast and fun game of WW1 on all the fronts. I even played a bunch of SCW in 10mm with this years ago. Every time there is a 15mm or 10mm release in this scale, I run the risk of jumping in...I like the 10's for the speed of painting, the look and the price. I like the 15's because they have just a bit more to them. Now if someone did a piece of foam terrain, then there would be a new period...well, not really new as I have always had plans to play this one. When I am doing this one, you will know that I have about finished my list. By the way, this group did two other rules sets that were good also: People's War and Chippewa (no BGG references, sorry). Strangely enough those rules are in my library and the periods are either under construction or on the list.

There have been some neat discussions, books and the like on the War of 1812. That's another one of my "Finishing Up" periods. 1812, WW1, the Chaco, The Great Paraguayan and the Schleswig-Holstein War finish my LONG list of periods I would like to have painted and played some day...I won't bore you with the list.

Speaking of finishing up, or NOT in the case of 15mm SciFi which exploded in 2010. That is both awesome and annoying. I have long collected small units or a vehicle or two of this and that over the years. All this hearkens back to Mark McLaughlin's great set of rules Princess Ryan's Space Marines (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24814/princess-ryans-space-marines). This is one of my all time favorite games. Oh, and contrary to the BGG listing above, the game was written for 15 mm SciFi. Mark's collection was massive and varied. Scotia issued the one shown with their line of 6mm figures. Serious enough to reward tactics but crazy enough to not take it seriously--kind of a battle game in the spirit of Rogue Trader skirmish. Eclectic, fast and versatile we used to play it in Vermont. Some games were stupid and goofy. Others were were serious and fun. I used to play this at Historicon in Harrisburg a hundred years ago when it was the excellent adults and kids game for Sunday. Long have I added a unit or vehicle to my 15mm collection. Now, I am seeing so much 15mm SciFi out there I run the risk of losing everything and jumping back onto the collection cycle. My all time favorite unit: a squad of the Voorhees' 666th Halloween Raiders (the Psychopaths) a unit that is equipped for futuristic combat that has a penchant for melee using the powerdrill and paint their power armor face masks white...yes, there are power drills in the melee chart. If you like this type of game, buy a copy if you ever see it. GW killed this one with cash; they tried to Cease and Desist it to death, even sued, lost and ended up buying it out. Yea for Mark who sent his kids to college and then some on the proceeds (a never divulged amount or settlement by Mark as he honored the release but noticed and estimated by the peanut gallery). And no, I am not a GW basher but this was a disappointment to me as PRSM disappeared and RT became a battle game. If you have ever played it, you know what I mean. Boo! for gamers as GW moved away from the Rogue Trader style of SciFi quickly and thus left a hole in the genre. If you have never played, I owe you a game. The price of admission--a unit or vehicle(s) in the spirit of the game.

Card and Boardgames Played:

Four of us played a vicious game of The Red Dragon Inn (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24310/the-red-dragon-inn) on Christmas evening. This is a great card game where each player takes the role of an adventurer partying it up in a tavern after the dungeon. The goal is to be the last man/being standing by out drinking, out gambling and out-lasting the other party members. Each character has a number of special cards with a standard mix which gives them strengths and weakness. My Bard character succumbed early very inebriated and passed out right before I almost had fleeced the other characters of their money through cheating at gambling and composing rousing ballads. My fate was sealed by a Dragonsbreath Ale with an Elven Wine Chaser in the drinking contest--I won, passed out and the party split my loot. The final battle of wits continued between Fiona the Fighter and Zott the Wizard. Fiona quickly tired of Zott's pet bunny Pooky and the annoying wizard and thumped him into unconsciousness through various blows and drinking contests. This is a great game. The expansion adds more characters and is worth having. Hopefully, they will add another expansion.

Boxing Day witnessed two games played in the spirit of the season. The board game game was a brutal race of Roadkill Rally. As per usual, the race was not over until the last possible moment with a very close finish. This time around the players seemed unable to hit a pedestrian. There were very few people run over. We did do a good job battering each other mercilessly. The kill of the game was when I miraculously survived a fusillade of shots only to fantastically lose control of my car on the penultimate tile.

Miniature Games:

With our Spirt of love and charity soaring, we followed the Christmas Death Race 2010 with a Frag match. Our hope is to play out a tournament of ten games over the next few days. We'll see if we make it but the game was full of mayhem and spite. People were mercilessly using personal nukes; Laser rifles, MG-42's, shotguns and mass driver cannons. Spencer art-fullly and joyously plastered us all into Kingdom-come with his BFG as the day of giving ended. My only regret was that I never got to experience the joy of giving with a newly acquired over-under MG42/Laser Carbine before the game ended.

Terrain:

See the aforementioned http://dinofbattle.blogspot.com/2010/12/making-wwi-trench-system.html

I received two buildings from MBA: the Customs House and the Governor's Quarters. I also was given the new Zuzzy Mat for urban fighting (http://www.zuzzy.com/wc-bb-001-terra-flex-gaming-mat.html). Lastly, MBA sent me a Trojan Bunny figure...I feel a Monty Python meets the Trojan War scenario coming on.

As for board game terrain, I did receive the terrain Expansion for Memoir '44.

Projects:

American Civil War.

Carlist Wars:

Colonialism/VSF:

Deadlands:

Doctor Who:

Fantasy/Dungeon Crawls:

French & Indian War:

French Revolution:

Lace Wars:

Modern:

Pulp:

Pony Wars:

Post-Apoc:

South American Wars of Liberation:

Seminole War:

Science Fiction/40K/Rogue Trader (not the RPG):

Spanish Civil War:

Trojan War:

Vietnam:

War in Pacific (1879):

Wildland Firefighting:

World War One: The aforementioned Din of Battle got my creative ideas flowing. I actually pulled out my black loose-leaf binder on this one and looked through my plans. I have been planning this one for 17 years. The question is which is scarier, the plans or the time...Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!

World War Two:

Painting and Painters:

I was too busy to paint; but, Christmas saw a great box of CSA troops from Evil Bob land under the tree.

Magazines:

Too busy to read the new ones but hopefully next week...

BLOGS:

Din of Battle has good stuff on building a 15mm trench system. (http://dinofbattle.blogspot.com/2010/12/making-wwi-trench-system.html) I like this very much...

PodCasts:

Fear the Boot's Christmas Bonus episode was entertaining.

Mark

Week 50 of 2010

The run up to Christmas has been interesting and quite taxing.

1) I am on call for a fire crew? Where? I was not aware that my crew is on the hook for Australia this winter. Deployment over Christmas could be an explosive situation if I get called...Stacey would "love" that one.

2) Lots of things are breaking around the house (the furnace, the hot tub, the alarm, windows, latches, solar christmas lights, etc.); but all are fixed now.

3) My wife has successfully looted some of her presents and sent them to her Mom!?! Now, what do I do?

4) My son's Bearded Dragon is loose in the house and we cannot find him.

Here are some awesome post-Apocalyptic terrain websites:

1) http://captainapathy.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/dots-diner-and-the-jury-street-metro-station/

2) http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662890/lori-nixs-stunning-tiny-dioramas-depict-an-abandoned-world-slideshow#1

John the OFM posted some good folk music (if you like folk music) called Bonaparte's Retreat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNigFpaBBf8) on The Miniatures Page.

Hopefully things will quiet down so I can paint and play before Christmas...

Card and Boardgames Played:

I played some more Memoir '44. One game was face to face with Mike after the weekly wargame at his house. I chose the First Wave at Omaha as I only have a 17% chance of winning (according to Days of Wonder). Unfortunately, I had the "perfect storm" of cards and pushed inland. I felt bad crushing him but there was no much else I could do. Good cards and good dice. The other games were played online ad tracked the system a bit better.

Miniature Games:

Mike had me come over and run two games of Space Hulk. He had set up Scenario #4, Cleanse & Burn for his gaming group. Each game was set up for two Marine players and one genestealer player. Both games saw a Genestealer win. Both games were close. I think everyone had a good time.

Terrain:

MBA sent me two tents. It was a nice surprise. Great stuff.

Projects:

American Civil War.

Carlist Wars:

Colonialism/VSF:

Deadlands:

Doctor Who:

Fantasy/Dungeon Crawls:

French & Indian War:

French Revolution: I began working on some Levee en Masse/Mobs, Four Demibrigades(One Blanc & two Bleu w/2 Bttn guns per); various cavalry and dragoons plus artillery & wagons. Battalions will be 48 figures and cavalry will be 16 figures. This sets me up to play out all of the various skirmishes and battles for the Vendee on a sliding scale from true skirmish up to 1:20 per figure. Need limbers and caissons to match the magister militum? Also let me know if you have any particular units that "NEED" to be done. Prussians, Austrians and Russians to follow in the future. I suspect this current phase will be done sometime mid-2011.

Lace Wars:

Modern:

Pulp:

Pony Wars:

Post-Apoc:

South American Wars of Liberation:

Seminole War:

Science Fiction/40K/Rogue Trader (not the RPG):

Spanish Civil War:

Trojan War:

Vietnam:

War in Pacific (1879):

Wildland Firefighting:

World War One:

World War Two:

Painting and Painters:

Evil Bob sent me a box. It was taken for Christmas. I'll let you know.

Have you seen John Leahy's painted figures (http://johnleahy.wordpress.com/)? He is selling Old Glory 15's for $1.60 (painted & based) per figure. Very tempting.

I have been working on my 28mm Cthulu figures and 15mm French Revolution getting ready for a big paint.

Magazines:

Battlegames and two issues of Wargames Illustrated showed up. I hope to read them next (this) week.

BLOGS:

PodCasts:

Fear the Boot was funny. I listened to that while replacing window panes. I actually laughed out loud.

Mark

Week 49 of 2010:

It was a a strange week. I have been busy with the house, Christmas shopping and the logistics of a thirteen persons of the Ryan clan coming for Christmas.

Want to play me at Memoir '44? Go here (http://www.daysofwonder.com/memoir44-online/en/download/) and sign up for the Memoir 44 beta. It's a great game of WW2 combat that has come to the computer. And it's free. Last time I checked they are still accepting beta testers. See below.

On the other hand if you like Weird WW2, or What-If the war kept going, check http://whattheminiatures.com/axis-store.html. I thought Herr Flammender Schadel was the most interestingly bizarre. Although, I am sure John Henry would like the German and American zombies to play out his Call of Duty scenario. The superhero fans would probably like the not-Red Skull. Check http://mongoswafflehouse.blogspot.com/ for a paint up and scale comparison.

Card and Boardgames Played this week:

I played seven different players in nine games of Memoir 44. Four players were in NYC, one was in central Africa, one in Holland and one was in Montreal. How? I managed to get included into the Memoir 44 beta. It still may be open. I played nine games against real opponents in less than four hours and did not count the games I played against the computer. It is very good and emulates the game perfectly. All but one of my opponents were great. Most people play very fast so you can get a game done in twenty minutes. One player was a total butt-head. He asked me to play a scenario that is wildly unbalanced (First Wave at Omaha), said I could be the Germans who are 83% likely to win as he had 155 games under his belt and it would be a challenge. When I said OK and came onto the board, he had changed himself back to the Germans. Rather than get branded (and possibly clipped from the beta) as a quitter or have my honor score effected, I played it out. Needless to say, I won't be playing him again. And no, he was not from NYC or Montreal...

All in all, Memoir '44 is a great game. I probably should classify as a miniature game as it is in many ways. I think this system may be the way that I play my microarmor in the future. I will have to try it with some figures on a Hotz mat some time. It's good fun game with lots o.

Miniature Games this week:

No miniature game this week as my sitter flaked last minute and Stacey was out of town. I had to cancel on the OGRE game...and I was supposed to introduce the following rules: Hull Down, Hulks, Indirect Fire and Stacking (High Density Targets) in a hex. I was also bringing my 15mm SciFi units for inspection (Earth Force, Greys, Mercenaries, Space Pirates, Sahadeen, Terminators and Titan Marines. I did brief mike on the rules we were adding and I hope that it went well. Hopefully everyone will still be able to game to meet next week. Instead of face to face OGRE I played Memoir '44 online (mentioned above) after the kids settled in for the night.

Terrain:

The building necessary to play Armageddon Hour is still not here. Delivery on 2 December came and went. This is five or so months overdue. Maybe next month...

I started work on a bunch of leaky nuclear waste barrels. The green sludge came out quite well by partially mixing paints and inks of varying hues. Now I am detailing and gluing rushes to the water's edge. A box arrived from Dwarven Forge but got scooped by my wife. We'll see what she ordered in 13 days...stay posted. When paying the bills, I also saw a credit card charge to Zuzzy, so Stacey is cool.

Another box arrived from the Miniature Building Authority. I can guess that there are some 28mm Spanish Colonial buildings, 15mm Russian Front or 15mm Desert dwellings...another Christmas present. Another wait.

Barry Scarlett from http://www.freewebs.com/mbtandt/index.htm shipped me a great 15mm Pulp pilot he sculpted. In and around the figure as packing were some 15mm terrain (ladders, tents, jungle plants and some abates). The postal goblins stuck their fingers through the box and grabbed one abatis--the hole looks just like a two fingered rip. Thankfully, nothing was damaged and only one abatis went awry. Barry's work is fantastic and very affordable for some of the best work I have ever seen in the hobby. His buildings are unrivalled. They are as good as model train buildings. Refer back to previous posts over the year and you will see a varied reference to the products he builds, paints and sculpts.

Lastly, I finally "knuckeled under" and ordered from HotzMats (http://www.hotzmats.com/). I have wanted to get a a double-sided Green mat with 6" and 12"squares (for Peter Pig games) made for me but other folks I talked to never seemed to get to it. So I ordered one from Eric Hotz. Then in the spirit of overspending, I also ordered a double-sided Star Mat with hexagons on one side, and a double-sided Dirt Planet with hexes on one side for OGRE. In the past HM has always been lightening fast and great stuff. Hotz was fast to respond. It would be awesome if I had it by Christmas but that would be truly exceptional.

Projects Underway(This is a list of things in-progress throughout 2010 with a weekly update):

American Civil War: Evil Bob is threatening delivery of some CSA forces...Stacey is threatening to take them for Christmas. My Credit Card is threatening to overheat.

Carlist Wars: I ordered eight French Foreign Grenadiers and two mountain guns I need for a scenario that I hope to play in 2011. I got one mountain gun and the wrong one (Carlist and not Isabelino). Not a problem as I can use it but a bother nonetheless as I wanted the guns to do double duty in a South American scenario.

Colonialism/VSF: I finished the repairs on three vehicles so I am ready for some for fighting.

Deadlands:

Doctor Who: If you like the newest of these, check out Crooked Dice (http://www.crooked-dice.co.uk/). They are doing some great casts of the 11th Doctor, companions and a variety of villains and baddies from the past few shows. I traded for some of the cybermats to go with my Cybermen.

Fantasy/Dungeon Crawls:

French & Indian War:

French Revolution: This baby is on hold for the moment. See the South American Wars of Liberation down below to see where the funding went for the Sans Culottes. I am eager to get back to this as I have a hankering to paint Prussians and Austrians to whack on my French...

Lace Wars:

Modern: I have been lured by all the Modern Warfare goodness out there in 15mm; but promised myself I would not get anymore until the Black Hawks and the Rangers are finished from before the move to LV. I did unpack them and was pleased to see no damage.

Pulp:

Pony Wars:

Post-Apoc:

South American Wars of Liberation: I will be bringing figures and terrain to Cold Wars for a friend (John Fletcher) to use in putting on a scenario from his Liberators book. The battle is Vilcapugio which pits and Argentine Patriot army under command of General Belgrano against the Royalist forces of . John planned it out and organized it. Evil Bob is going to paint it. The Flag Dude is going to do the flags if I can get my fnger out and send him the details. The scenario was supposed to be one from John's forthcoming book about British mercenaries in the wars; but, I was worried the specialty terrain would not get done on time as my woodshop is still not finshed in the basement and the other sources of terrain don't have the right "off-the-shelf" pieces or the time to complete...so John and I discussed doing a set piece battle from his first book. John mentioned someone else will take on the task of trying to represent the Laguna Salada.

Seminole War:

Science Fiction/40K/Rogue Trader (not the RPG): I dug out my Battlestations by Gorilla Games () to see about running this for some of the local gamers. I have always thought this is a great system. It comes with tons of scenarios, so the time challenged GM can just plug-n-play. Last year the figures were all painted and based. This Christmas, I have my nephews here so maybe I will force them to play...force is not the right word as they enjoy wargaming.

Spanish Civil War:

Trojan War:

Vietnam:

War in Pacific (1879):

Wildland Firefighting:

World War One:

World War Two:

Painting and Painters (a weekly update of my Painting and anything I commissioned):

Work continues on a bunch of partially painted figures too long and varied to list in a slew of scales and genres.

I dug out a pile of Cthulu-esque figures as John Henry expressed some interest in playing Strange Aeons...it is great that he reads so well that now he grabs rule and source books and expresses interest. Unfortunately, he never seems to find the time to play when I have the time...but the interest is there.

John Fletcher delivered a pile of South American Wars of Liberation figures to Evil Bob. This will be another army for my collection of those wars. It's been almost 11 years since I started painting units off and on for the various battles and campaigns. Hopefully, this will provide the impetus to get the other portions organized and completed.

Magazines read this week:

WI is still AWOL. The most recent Battlegames arrived so I will read that today or tonight if I finish some Christmas decorating on time.

BLOGS:

I will add detail here as I follow a number of these...

PodCasts:

"All quiet on the Podcast Front" as I have not listened to my usual ones...

Thanks for reading,

Mark

First Attempt

Welcome!

This BLOG harkens my enterance into the 21st Century...up until now, I have been emailing a group of friends my weekly wargaming, modeling and general life observations.

The name comes from two of my preferred activities: wildland firefighting and wargaming. 2010 was very slim on the former; hence, I played a lot of games. Enough said.

On Sunday (or latest Monday), I will post a weekly summary of the past seven days of modeling, planning, gaming and other items of interest. I also plan to start adding photographs ASAP.

I hope you enjoy,

Mark Ryan