Holiday Wargaming Updates

Those of you watching the Grand Duchy of Stollen blog will see that we're finally getting underway again on finishing move 8. If all goes well, we should be through with move 8 tonight, and starting move 9 perhaps tomorrow.

My birthday brought me a couple of items of wargaming significance, namely a styrofoam cutting tool and a batch of styrofoam to cut with it in order to form some hills for my gaming. If I get good with the tool, attempts at bunkers or other shapes may be forthcoming, we shall see.

Having waited till after Christmas to be sure it was not purchased off my wish list, I have also now ordered a bottle of Liquitex black acrylic gesso. The white has worked well for me so far, in terms of the gesso's properties, but having watched Stokes' work I've decided to try the black shade to see if that makes a difference in my painting. My hope is that it will alleviate some of the need to attempt to hunt down tiny specks of white that manage to evade paint by leaving tiny specks of black instead, which are hopefully less glaring a mistake.

I also took the opportunity to acquire a bit of extra paint on my last trip to Wal-Mart. I've added Apple Barrel 20526 Country Grey, and three colors from Folk Art: 425 Medium Gray, 419 Teddy Bear Tan, and 420 Linen. I actually have my ACW and WW2 figures more in mind with these colors, though they may find some use with the ImagiNations as well. I am particularly interested to see how the Linen color turns out.

I also received an Amazon gift certificate for my birthday, as well as winning a smaller one in a prize drawing, so I've spent the past few days pondering different Amazon order possibilities. Today I finally committed to a final list and submitted. Of wargaming interest on the list are "Wargames Tactics" by Charles Grant and "German Generals Speak" by B.H. Liddell Hart, the latter being postwar interviews with WW2 German Generals which I hope will be very interesting. One item that will probably not have wargaming implications.....but could....is a fiction novel. "Uncle Target" by Gavin Lyall. I'm looking forward to seeing what it's like, as I've not read any of his fiction before. Hopefully it's as well written as his wargaming book.

My birthday also brought me the computer game Medal of Honor: Airborne. So far, I botched all three training landings, died landing on my first combat jump, face-planted into a firefight but didn't die on my second, and actually managed to land on a roof within a few yards of my landing zone on the third. It's a race whether I figure out how to jump before I finish the game.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to each of my readers, and may God richly bless you and your families both in this holiday and in the coming year. Thank you for your support.

Increasing the Fleet

Because I have a tendency to bounce around from thing to thing (not that you'll have noticed that ;> ), I've had a craving for a bit of naval gaming recently. I thought perhaps to get some 1/6000 scale ships and do some WWI naval gaming, with Barry Carter's rules, but the pricing on them was disheartening at present. It would take at least $100 to really get good in on them, I think.

Instead, I'm looking at the age of sail using the ships and rules from the Wizkids Pirates line. I've been doing Ebay buying, courtesy in part to a coupon or two and finding a vendor with very reasonable prices. I had some of these already, but I'd damaged two of them by breaking a mast during assembly. Since masts are critical to the game engine, this was a bit of a hindrance. But once I found a very cheap vendor, I decided I might as well just buy a replacement copy of each ship.

Altogether, once the latest purchases arrive, I should have about 30 ships and a sea monster. Because I've watched 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (several versions) too many times not to get a giant squid. I expect to see a Hesse-Engelburg fleet engage an enemy (but probably not a squid) perhaps as early as this weekend, depending how fast the new ships arrive.

Thus the dilemma...whom should they fight? Bad Nachtschwein is the obvious choice, but I'm tempted to mount another sea expedition of some sort. I might even talk myself into acquiring a few ships from the Barbary Coast line and dropping in a small battle line to attack the Ottoman-allied vessels currently making depradations on the Mediterranean coast. We'll see.

The Spoon Theory

This has nothing to do with wargaming. But if you've got a person in your life who's elderly or living with illness, or if you're that person, you need to read this. The Spoon Theory. Even if you're not that person and don't know any, there's something worthwhile in there.