The shelf on the desk

This is all about the shelves I built about 4 months ago. Probably should have taken a picture before I filled up the shelves, but here it is in use. 

Again, all the wood I used was rescued from burn pile at the local dump. Most is 3/4" plywood. The outer frame and middle separator are 5 1/2" deep (the actual width of the 1 x 6 plank on the left-hand side) and held together with screws. I intentionally left enough room for my home-made cardboard spray booth to fit under. The three inner shelves on the right are 3 1/2" deep and are held in place with doweling and glue. The two inner shelves on the left are around 3" deep, maybe a bit more, and have a backing behind them (the rest of the shelves are open-backed). The tool holder on the bottom left is a 3/8" plywood and roughly 4" wide, installed at an angle with a parallel piece behind it to act as a stop for the ends of the tools so they don't end up behind the desk. Also left a bit of space under it to put things like small pliers, side cutters, rulers, etc. The unit is attached to the desk with some L-brackets left over from a different project. It's been very nice to have.

Looking at the picture, I can see at least 5 unfinished works in progress. Some of which have been in stasis for 5 and 6 months. That's how distracted I can be, though I'm hoping to work on things to be quicker at finishing.

One Hour Wargames: Surprise Attack

Since my last post, I felt driven to play something before too much time passed. While listening to a podcast, the speaker brought up One Hour Wargames, by Neil Thomas. They mentioned the thirty scenarios included in the latter portion of the book. I remembered reading the rules once and knew I shouldn't need a whole lot to get on the table. It sounded perfect for restarting after such a dead stretch. So I worked at getting enough of the table cleared off that I could play a quick. Got out the Junior General micro-scale American Civil War paper cutouts I built a couple years ago. Then I set up a play area before choosing a scenario.

Here is a fork in the road with some green splotches for forest stands, a few buildings, fenced areas, and a couple hills. The top right area is out of bounds as I realized I made more of a 3x4 foot board, maybe it's a lake or something.

With the terrain set up, I rolled a d100 to get a random scenario (1-30) and my first cast got me an 11: Surprise Attack. This scenario states that red controls a crossroads with two units and blue makes a surprise attack with six units. Red gets reinforcements at Turn 3 and Turn 9. Whoever is in control of the crossroads after 15 turns is the winner.

Each side gets 6 units. There is a set of tables in the book that one can roll on to get unit assignments. For the red team (Confederates), I got 4 infantry, 1 artillery, and 1 zouave. Blue (Union) got 3 infantry, 2 cavalry, and 1 zouave. I have no counters for zouaves, so I replaced them with cavalry.

So, trying to be a good general for red, I started the cannon on the hill by the intersection. I figured its range would allow them a shot or two before blue's infantry got into range. The red infantry I put between the road and a forest blob, in case I wanted to retreat them to cover.

Here come the blue troops. Also trying to be a good general for the blue team, I place the cavalry units off to the sides so they are positioned to get around the field obstructions and slower infantry; two on the west and one on the east.

Red artillery starts inflicting damage to the first line of blue infantry. The added distance for troops travelling on the road only allowed one unopposed shot from red. The red infantry slides over to the protection of the woods.

The lead blue infantry unit and the red cannon exchange shots while the following two blue lines try to get around them. The lead blue infantry also takes fire from the reds in the woods. 

The east blue cavalry come into range and start firing into the trees, not doing much damage, but one of the blue infantry gets into position to fire into the trees as well. 

Better rolls for blue see the cannon unit taken from the field, and the red unit in the trees eliminated as the first set of red reinforcements arrive. Blue only loses two stands.

The layout after turn 4. Two red infantry units are on the east side of the hill, but they are taking fire from the blue infantry to the north and cavalry in the south.

The first red reinforcements make a good fight of it until turn 9, when the rest come out from the west. However, they lose one full unit and they lose control of the intersection; the second unit retreating into the larger clump of woods to the southeast.

The layout at turn 12. Blue infantry on the hill and behind the fence to the north, as well as an almost destroyed infantry (1hp left) east of the hill. Blue cavalry in the road junction, behind a fence facing red infantry to the west and the other facing the reds in the trees. A greatly reduced red cavalry taking fire from the hill and in bad shape. I don't think red has a chance at this point to regain the junction in 3 turns, and I called the game a blue victory.

 Someone experienced with the book, One Hour Wargames, will know, the actual combat rules are quite simple. I go, you go turn order (blue always playing first in this scenario). Units may move or attack. Attacks always hit, roll for casualties (modifiers increase or decrease this number), 15 hp per unit.

I like that play and keeping track of hp is quick and easy (in this case I used a die to keep track of damage, removing a stand for every 5 hp lost). I like the very limited turns (move or shoot) since it reinforces the image that a unit has to move to a position, then ready itself to fire, taking time that an opposing unit already in position can take advantage of and fire upon them. This forces decisions like do I move to cover, giving up speed but saving hp, or get there fast and risk taking severe losses.

However, it still felt like something was missing in the end. I wonder if 15 hp per unit is too even. What about rolling for morale? But then I figure that casualties don't necessarily mean soldiers downed, but could also represent lost morale and the resulting fleeing from the field by affected troops. If this was a campaign, one could set up an aftermath generator to see how each unit was affected, otherwise what difference is it if the unit is removed because they were mowed down or ran away? So I guess that wasn't really my issue.

Maybe it's missing the ranking of units and assigning them with different hp values to represent variations in fighting strength/morale/staying power. I do like that kind of thing. There is a form of ranking in the attack roll modifiers assigned to some unit types, but I still think that while most units would likely perform similarly, there could be an accounting for some who might be of a reduced staying power, even at full strength.

Of course I also like the addition of command units, in so many other games, whose proximity to troops affects their ability to carry out orders and/or withstand hp(morale) loss, because it sounds like an aspect that would add some interesting twists to this game.

Well, I guess I can jus go with the knowledge that OHW has left me with some things to think about and that's a good thing, right? Will have to try another session soon.

Also, I should probably make up some zouave units to add a bit of variety to my forces.

Making a Comeback?

 A couple days ago, I posted something on a Facebook group I joined (Super Cheap Wargaming). It was some new ships I made for pre-dreadnaught era gaming and one of the other members asked for work-in-progress pictures. I did him one better and directed him to the post I made in this blog where I spelled it all out step-by-step. Then I got looking at some of my previous posts. I knew it had been a while since the last post, but was still kind of surprised to see that it's been over a year. Not only has it been a year since my last post, I think it's been even longer since the last time I had a game on my table.

Ack! My table. Which I never got around to cat-proofing and just let stuff pile up on over all that time. Well, we went on a three-week holiday in July (another story in and of itself involving a used RV, a suspension bridge, a moon snail, and getting pulled over by a state trooper at 2 in the morning) and when we got back, I found what I can only assume are pee stains on my table mat. Yaay... 

So I've started slowly organizing the stuff on the table. To help this endeavour, I built some shelves to sit on the back of my hobby desk and put up a larger shelf on the wall. All of it costing nothing as I used wood, reclaimed screws, and even shelf brackets found at the local dump.

While I may not have played on my table, I have played board games with family and friends and also stolen some moments here and there to paint or craft miniature related stuff. So, I think now I'll just perform a photo dump with captions.

The image that caused me to come back here.

A cheapo Halloween decoration spider. I beefed up the abdomen with layers of green stuff left over from other projects. Then I painted.

The motorhome being torn apart to get rid of the water damage.

Tyranid hatchlings(?). Then from Blacklist Fantasy: a dwarf druid, halfling bard, and an elf paladin

Some type of warrior from Wizkids Mage Knight miniatures. I removed some doo-dads from his helmet and armour before re-painting.

A church from Dave Graffam's line of paper models sitting atop the top shelf I made for the desk.

Blacklist Fantasy knolls. Because of how dark my wash ended up being, the photo doesn't show the slight variations I made to their skin colours. 

A cousin-in-law's son asked me to repaint his Plymouth Cuda. After the Trial and error that went into getting the last car I painted to look decent, I searched for a different thinning medium to dilute craft paint for use in an air brush and came across a guy who uses windshield washer fluid. It worked so much better!

An elf magic user from Blacklist Fantasy and above her in the blurry background, my hole board to hold paintbrushes and tiny files and whatever other slim-body tools I use.

If I did any more than what's pictured, I don't recall it and I don't have pictures of it anyway. Hoping to be able to take time enough for this wonderful hobby to post here more regularly again. Bye!

Mods and Painting

My first die-cast car mod 

Months before May, I was at my parents' place, looking through the old die-cast cars that served my siblings and I growing up. Picking up one of the first Hot Wheels cars that my younger brother received and noted all the scratches and the bent axles. I had been watching those videos on YouTube of people modifying their Hot Wheels cars. So naturally, I slipped the car in my pocket and took it home to do at least a repaint and present it to my brother, who's birthday is in May.

I took apart the car and stripped/scraped the paint off, sanding it with a very fine grit sand paper. Removed the axles. Took the axles and wheels from a Francesco car (from Cars 2) to do a wheel swap. The axles are too wide for a Hot Wheels, so I snipped them and stuck them into place with super glue and green stuff. Then I did it all over again, but using lengths of that plastic coating you sometimes find on paper clips to hold the clipped axels together and make them less prone to be de-glued and pushed through the green stuff lump. Painted the car with treated craft acrylics through my airbrush. had to repaint 4 times to get it looking half decent. Used a chrome pen on the parts I thought would be chromed in real life. Put it all together again and...

Not the greatest pic, but the only one I took before giving it to my brother.

The ongoing saga of me painting Blacklist Fantasy 1 minis

I painted the skeletons. I modified them a bunch as well, giving one a spear and a bow to another, clipping off some shoulder pad spikes, and shaving off a couple hoods. Made a pretty nice variety. Took a long time to get around to painting them.

The guys who kept their swords.

The guys who got other weapons.

And a Mage Knight mini

This guy was painted all black with a couple of grey and gold highlights, but it hid all the detail on the sculpt. He was also missing his left foot and clicky base when I got him. Stripped the paint. Molded a green stuff foot. Repaint and rebase (on the bottom half of a clicky base no less)...

One side...

...and the other.

Battle of Sadras... sort of

 We had a family over for dinner a week and a bit ago and the husband/father was interested in taking a look at my collection of miniatures. He'd never been to our place before, but we've talked about our projects and have exchanged pictures of things we've worked on. During this show-off session, I decided that the Pirates of the Spanish Main ships had been left too long in the drawer and some of them needed to come out and play. Then, looking through the rules for Wooden Ships and Iron Men, I came across the scenarios and the campaign highlighting the British (Hughs) and French (Suffren) actions in the Indian ocean during the 1770's.

First, I gathered enough ships to outfit both sides (making little flags out of bread tags to replace the pirate flags most of them have). Then I got a map of the battle to figure out starting positions.

Found on website threedecks.org, they cite The Royal Navy: A history from the earliest times to the present Vol 3

After setting up the fleets in position A, I realized the scale of miniatures and size of my table were not going to let the described maneuvers take place, so at this point, the resemblances to the scenario cease and my game, using Full Sail, commences.

Turn 1:

On both sides there was jockeying and speed changes as ships tried to set themselves up to make lines. Three of the mid-sized French ships opened up long-range fire on an English heavy, dealing some damage. The English ship responds, dealing enough damage to one of the Frenchies to trigger a threshold check, resulting in the loss of two starboard cannon.

I went to bed and during the night, a hurricane struck, upsetting and scattering all of the French ships and capsizing two English ships. Dang cat! Now to figure out how I can cat-proof my table.

Update: March 2024

As one might guess, the past few months have had me pretty busy and blogging is pretty low on my priority list. I think I'm realizing that I can't remember having played a miniatures wargame since October. While nothing happened game-wise, there was some other hobby progress made.

New Hobby Space

Until now, I've been building/painting at the kitchen table or on the couch with a 14"x14" wooden tray. This tray was getting quite filled up as I would have two or three little things going on it at a given time. After finishing the spaceships featured in the last post, I still had some half-painted fantasy minis, a die-cast car I had started a surgery on, and the beginnings of an idea for making Aeronef ships out of bread tags. Of course, the three projects going at the same time meant the board was also cluttered with cutting tools, paints, brushes, glue, and random bits of wood, metal, and plastic.

When getting the board down (ever so carefully so as not to spill anything) to work on something, I might stare at the three projects and fiddle with each for a couple of minutes, then sit and stare at it all. On top of that, because I had no real dedicated space for my stuff (except the paint, I had a place for the paint), it started getting dispersed throughout the house and I was losing track of things so that it was more difficult to actually do whatever it was in my mind to do. In other word, the negative inertia acting on me was mounting. I was also feeling a growing itch to try using my airbrush again, which had even more negative inertia attached to it than my board.

So it all went on hold as I devoted time to looking at peoples' hobby desks. About a week of that and I decided on a general plan, found useful stuff in my modest salvaged wood pile, and cut the main pieces. Then, on a night in late November, the wife and kids gone somewhere, I built a little hobby desk.

And here it is, all cluttered like every other one I saw:

Definitely needs something on the wall to help with organization, I think. The airbrush is now so much more accessible, I've used it more in the past couple months than all the years previous that I've owned it.

Painting of Blacklist: Fantasy Series 1

I got a bunch of these minis primed in the fall so that they'd be ready for painting at any time, but it took a long time to feel like I had the time to paint again. Only a few models got done, though some were done with the help of one of my daughters.

A dwarf warrior. Will probably put a wash on him still.

My daughter helped me paint these kobalds.

Giant spiders, too!

Aeronef Shipyard

We keep plastic bread tags for some reason or another and I've always had the thought I should do something with them, so I made an airship and plan to make more. I also made some using the handles of plastic forks.

Aeronef airships.

So that's been what I've been working on when given the chance, plus one other thing that will be posted about when it's done.

Guns into spaceships

As quite a few of my posts seem to begin, some time ago I bought a bag of random stuff at a thrift store. It contained little army men, sandbag piles, and a few large action figure-sized guns. Don't think I'd never use them in as they were. Well, I pulled a couple out to ponder what I could do with them and got the idea that if they were cut in strategic places, some of the resulting pieces - if painted up - would work quite well as spaceships. So here's some before and after:

Before. Though I did start sawing apart that big green one before thinking of a picture.

Pieces selected for transformation.

Three painted to match, perhaps to serve in the same faction or group.

Two more chosen to join one of my already existing painting themes.

And finally, the ones that I didn't really try to make fit anything.

Not too bad for simply cutting and painting, eh! Someday I'll play a game with these. Someday.