Happy Memorial Day

While I am not sure if "happy" is the proper word to use, may you all have a good day and enjoy the company of your loved ones.  And thank those who no longer have that option, but insured that we do.

Well, Phouc Mi.

Got home from the family vacation and have been reading "Nam Sense" and painting up 15mm stuff for Vietnam.  I really want to run a Tour of Duty campaign using Charlie Don't Surf this summer, and I think we are going to have a play test for the lads on Monday.  A US rifle company vs a company or so of Charlie, or Mr. Charles as it might very well turn out.  I think I will set the scenario as well as the future campaign in 1966, the VC were still trying some big unit battles that might work out better on the tabletop.

So far I've only got one helicopter done, a gunship, UH-1B.  Its one of the older Battlefront models.  The older ones had two different sets of blades, "parked" and moving.  The parked blades were metal and kind of heavy, the "flying" ones were cut from an acrylic.  The problem is the new releases only have the parked blades, but they are plastic now and appear easier to work with.  So hooray for that.

I'll keep you posted as to how this goes...

Blogging will be light(er)

Blogging will be lighter for the next ten days as I am heading out on a family vacation.  With the grace of God we'll hit a Civil War battlefield or two.  We've played a couple of games of Black Powder set in the ACW, and it works nicely.

On a BP note, what a schlachtfest last night, we played SYW and started having units destroyed on turn one.  Shiva was riding with our dice to make sure everyone died....

See you in a week or so!

Funny how that works....

So I got the new edition of Ambush Alley, which is much glossier than the free download version, and I was flipping through it thinking about the ethics of wargaming wars that are still be fought, like Afghanistan.  Not that it would stop me.

Then I get the news that Bin Laden has Bin Killeden.  So the war is over and its okay to game?  Am I right?

Trying to stay focused.

About a decade or so ago I belonged to a wargaming group that called itself, SASWG, an acronym for short attention span wargamers.  It seems we were changing projects every couple of weeks and not really getting anything done. 

Nothing has really changed except some of the faces I game with.

I've got the Vietnam bug, again, and having sold off all my 20mm stuff years ago and I am busy rebuilding those armies in 15mm.  Luckily, I am not spending any money as its stuff I bought back in 2007-2008 when the bug had bit yet again, but passed quickly.  (SASWG)  Well, there are a couple of exceptions, like some FOW stuff I got in the initial release last year...but hey, I'm only human.

I think what really got me going this time round was a good set of wargaming rules, Charlie Don't Surf, from Too Fat Lardies.  That, and I was teaching 20th century American history and got really into my Vietnam lecture.  I don't use powerpoint often, but when I figured out I could embed Barry McGuire singing Eve of Destruction into my lecture, and inflict it on my students, I was hooked.  Also, a good bottle of pinot noir and a viewing of "The Green Berets" and off I went...  Best lecture ever, by the way, I wore my jungle fatigues and went all "Gunnery Sgt. Hartman" on their asses.  Well, not quite, but it was fun.

Well, its coming along despite it being the end of the semester and me needing to grade term papers and other assorted odds and ends.  However, the 19th century is calling to me in the form of a couple of wars, and Black Powders' ancients version, Hail Caeser is sitting on my desk, whispering that I should play with my Late Imperial Romans and Goths.  (not the emo slashy kind of goths, proper Goths, like the kind who fought at Adrianople)  I think I might just be avoiding grading, after all, I'm typing this instead of looking over analytical book reviews and what not.

I'll keep you posted as to how things turn out.

Black Powder at Little Wars

Barcephus and I ran a Seven Years War game at the local wargaming convention, basically it was refight of the Battle of Krefeld.  Instead of the French trying to hold off a Hanoverian led assault, we had the Austrians trying to deal with the Prussians.  I guess thats what comes from not having a Hanoverian army lying around.  (We could have easily put out the French!)  I know this comes as a surprise to friends who think I have every wargaming army out there, sorry, no redcoats.  But maybe soon.  (I did buy some flags...its a start)

The game itself went very well, especially for a convention game.  We were fortunate to have one player who had used the rules before, so he had a clue.  The Prussians could have gotten lucky, but they got bogged down in the same situation we had the first couple of dry runs.  The guy commanding the Prussian flanking force got distracted by Austrian light troops holding a couple of built up areas, and he sacrificed a brigade of grenadiers, the best troops he had, to dig them out.  He did however, destroy the Bavarians and Wurttemburgers fighting alongside the Austrians, but they were enough of a speed bump to allow the Austrians to reposition and win the game.

Our group has been playing with these rules now for just over a year, and I have to say they are really popular with the lads.  We've used them for a couple of other periods, American Civil War as well as Zulu War, and we always get a good result.  I'm hoping by later this summer to have enough of my stuff for the mid-19th century reorganized to run either an Austro-Prussian War of 1866 or Franco-Prussian War of 1870 game.  I'll keep you posted.

Sorry about the light blogging

It's been a very busy couple of weeks, coupled with death of a friend, Brandon Kutka.  Brandon was the owner of Black Sun Games, the game shop we play at every week.  He lost a battle with leukemia, that oddly enough he never knew he was fighting.  Very supportive of our interest in the ruleset Black Powder, he will be missed.