Sunday, July 25, 2010

Convention scenario Playtest.

Friday night saw the first play test of a scenario I'm planning to put on at MIGSCON in October here in Hamilton, Ontario.

one of the things I wanted to try out was a slightly modified concept for the  sequence deck. I decided this because I've recently read a few articles and blog posts about how to run the ideal convention game. The central points were similar in all of them:
  1. Try to keep as many people occupied in the game as possible.
  2. Try whenever possible to have everything pre-deployed on-table, and keep off-board reinforcements to an absolute minimum.

To fulfill #1, I decided that instead of having a card for every single Big Men, I'd  have individual cards for all the big men of Initiative 2+, but a single card for all the initiative 1 Big men in each force. This seemed to work, but I think I'll go one further, and have a card for all Level 2 Big Men, and a card for all Level 1 Big Men in a force.

 British artillery unlimbers and 
begins bombardment.

Having done that, I completely forgot idea #2, and had a lot of the forces coming from off board. It made sense with the scenario, but practically speaking, it really slowed the game down. next time i will deploy all forces on table, even if it's on the edge. this should drastically speed up the game pace. Now that I have worked the basic kinks out of this scenario, I'll start planning the 2nd one i intend to run at MIGSCON.. 

 A colonial ranger picks an odd time to clean 
his musket barrel.

I probably won't be posting much over the next 3-4 weeks.  I'll be driving out west to Edmonton to visit my family. It will be a much needed break from painting.

Friday, July 23, 2010

More Goodies from Historicon

I painted a few more goodies i picked up at Historicon since last friday.

The first is a foot bridge I picked from from Acheson Creations. Now the end peices were on a base taht was a little thick for me, so i sanded the edges down a bit, glued them to MDF, and then used wood filler to smooth out the slope.  The whole thing is about 13 inches long( 10 inches without MDF) and the can be used on rivers 4" wide or less.  the width of the bridge is about 3.75".   I also picked up a few of their $0.50 pieces, most notably horizontal log barriers and a pair of stone-lined camp fires.  I have to say, the more i see if Acheson Creations, the more i like! hopefully they get their 28mm Grizzly bears molded soon.

the 2nd set of items are More miniatures From Eric at Conquest Miniatures.  This time, it's 2 more units of 8 Compagnies Franches de la Marine.  If you haven't heard, Conquest miniatures are absolutely fantastic.  Especially the Native Americans.  I own almost 100 conquest miniatures now(plus 3 of his longhouses), and when I can afford it, I'll be grabbing 3 or 4 packs each of his  marching French and British Regulars.

And finally, I thought I'd show a picture of my  full Native American  collection with the village as well. 48 Indians and 5 big men total.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Historicon & goodies

Well I had an excellent Historicon.  The venue was much better this year, and I could actually find games. I sold a bunch of terrain and funded my purchases, which included more Conquest miniatures and Crusader WW2 Russians, and a few small terrain pieces from Architects of War and Acheson Designs. As usual, i took a camera and totally forgot to use it.

This morning I painted about half my new Conquest Indians, along with the newer "combat ready" version of Magua. I tried a new technique for Native American Skin.  I don't really like some of the overly dark or overly red Native skin tones often used.  To me, they just seem wrong. I think this scheme strikes the balance of different, but not extreme in it's difference from my regular Caucasian skin tone. I went back and touched up the skin on a few of my older perry Natives to match.  I'll spend some time in a few weeks doing a major update. in the meantime, I plan on  finishing the other half of the new ones tonight, and basing the whole lot tomorrow.

The conquest natives are superb. They are very easy to paint, and their physique jump out when a simple wash is applied. I especially like the new Magua figure.  it's just spectacular. They blend very well with the small band of perry AWI natives I already have. I've show some comparison of similarly posed miniatures. I'm using new GF9 magnetic bases(also bought at Historicon), which are thinner so I've placed them on pennies, which level out the bases.  The unfinished bases are the Conquest ones and the finished bases are my Perry natives with updated skin tone.

Conquest 'Magua' and Perry 'Redcoat', and 2 kneeling firing bow poses.

2 natives with bow at the ready, and 2 standing firing

Starting next week I'll paint up my last18 more Conquest Compagnies Franches de la Marine to finish off my french. I'm also going to paint up some of the terrain I bought. I'm looking forward to the Architects of War Roast pig on a spit, and the Well.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Off to Historicon After all!

I got a call today form a fellow at my gaming club. it seems  he and his friend were going to be going off to Historicon this year, but his friend dropped out. now he was looking for someone local that would go on short notice, so he called me.

Now, I'm currently Unemployed, so i was not able to go this year. but this fellow gamer offered to take me down for $75 CDN. this gets me a room for 3 nights and transportation there and back(which is about 450 miles/8 hours).  Basically, he wants someone to ride down there with him so he's not alone.  I actually have enough money to cover that and admission to Historicon, plus a little extra for food.

That said, you can't go to historicon and not buy anything(at least I can't). So I'm taking a good lot of the 28mm terrain I've been working on. I'll have some of the rock outcroppings  I've been working on. I'll have 6 of them, and they will be selling for $30 USD (give or take, depending on the size). I'll also have a bunch of fields and an orchard:

1x 8x8" base with stone wall corner ($20USD)
5x 8x12" bases (various rail fence, stone wall and hedges, $25USD)
1x  12x12" base w Hedges($30)
1x  12x12" base with hand-made rail fencing all around ($40USD)
1x 12x12 orchard w/4 trees and stone wall ($40)

I'll be selling these in the Flea market on Friday and Saturday, but it you want to get the drop and arrange to met sometime on Thursday after 4pm, just email me HERE  Before midnight tonight.

Steve

Friday, July 2, 2010

Lord Brookes Regiment of Foote

I'm just about to head off to the Club for (hopefully) a night of gaming.  I just finished the latest Stands of Lord Brooke's Musketeers and thought i would post some pics.



32 figures strong at this point. Over the weekend I plan to finish the last 8 musketeers and bring the regiment up to it's final strength of 40 figures.