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