The End

I decided to end this blog. Going forward, I will post my gaming thoughts on War Without Minis.

An Update

Doldrums

I've hit a spell of gaming doldrums, primarily because I was preparing for a LARP. I usually have a pipeline of posts that I can schedule. However, the pipeline has run dry due to my LARP preparations.

Anyway, last weekend, my friend and I attended Mythic Adventures LARP in the Orlando area. Here's a picture of us. I'm on the right in the gold armor.

I enjoyed it and plan to go back.

The Naval Project

Is still stalled due to the lack of ships. I picked up a bunch of wood ovals to make some quick models, and I haven't gone any further.

The Next RPG Session

I sort of have a goal of completing one game of Napoleonic Knockout and one RPG session per month. I finished this month's Knockout. Next up is an RPG session. I'm not sure when I'll get around to it.

What's in Store for 2024?

 Time to check the crystal ball once again.

• The Slows - I suspect that 2024 will be another slow year for gaming. I don't have any period projects on the horizon and don't know what to expect. I'll probably muddle around some more.
• Summer Song - My LARP group proposed doing game days at the FLGS during the miserable Florida summers. We met a couple of times for some board games. This year, we may try some Song of Blades & Heroes.
• Print Progress - I hope to get a printer this year so I can print out more counters.
• LARP! - LARP has been my primary preoccupation in 2023. I expect that to continue in 2024 as I attend Mythic Adventures and work to expand Way of the Sword Combat Sports.

2023 in Review

Let's take a look back at my year for gaming.

2023's Trends

• It's been a slow year for blogging. Looks like it's my lowest year ever in terms of posts.
• All in on counters - I even sold off most of my miniatures.
• Napoleonics - I never really took up Napoleonics before, but in the first half of the year I completed a mini-campaign set in northern Italy.

French vs. Austrians

• I tried out some different counters. They look nicer than the top-downs, but I could never decide which side was the front.

• I toyed with a summer Song of Blades & Heroes campaign, but it never got off the ground.
• I made some new counters for a fantasy Imperials campaign. I still haven't printed them.

Fantasy Imperials

• Then I just kind of stumbled through the last few months of the year.

Not exactly a banner year for gaming.

Prognostication Review

Every year I try to guess what the year will hold. Let's see how I did this year.

1. Counters - I predicted I would go all-in with counters. That's pretty much correct.
2. Purge - accordingly, I figured I'd get rid of a bunch of figures. 2 for 2.
3. Finalize rules - I wanted to get my rules into final shape. Never happened.
4. Sci-Fi boxed set - I went on a very short-lived sci-fi kick in January. I wanted to put together a sci-fi set, but it never happened.

Score for the year - 50%, Actually not bad for me. ;)

Wasted Wednesday

Lately my wife has taken to watching a political podcast that airs on Wednesday nights. This gives me an opportunity to get in some gaming.

This past Wednesday, I planned to resume my Dragons of Icespire Keep campaign. I left off in February, with the party investigating Axeholm, an abandoned dwarven stronghold. But I could not find my latest RPG rules. As a result, I played nothing.

Despite this failure, I hope to make Wednesday gaming a regular occurrence.

The Dead Zone

That's what this blog has been lately.

A picture of me LARPing as a death knight

No Wargames

I've been directing most of my energy to planning for LARP. As a result, wargaming has fallen by the wayside.

• The Four Against Darkness campaign with my brother and friend has fizzled out for the moment.
• I received some 28mm miniatures for a Song of Blades and Heroes campaign, but they're just sitting on my painting desk.
• And I failed to play my traditional July 4th Revolutionary War game!

LARP Thoughts

In the interim, I've been debating ways to get more people involved in my LARP. I briefly toyed with a ranger campaign, but that fizzled out as well. I'm still pondering new approaches.

A Board Game!

On Saturday, I met with one of the few remaining members of my LARP group to discuss our future. While chatting, we also played a game of Castle Panic.

• Early on, I caused a spot of trouble when I drew the "Draw 3 Monsters" token. While picking the extra monsters, I got the "Draw 4 Monsters" token. So, in one turn, I brought 9 monsters onto the board!
• As a result, we struggled, losing some walls and a couple of towers.
• Late in the game, two trolls got into the castle and threatened our three remaining towers. But then I had a good turn. 
• I drew the Barbarian card, which auto kills a monster. One troll dead.
• I then traded with my partner to get the Scavenge card. This card allows me to pick a card from discard pile. I garb the Barbarian card and slay the second troll.
• The crisis past, we finished off the last of the monsters.

We Remember

Thank the Lord for the brave men and women who gave their all to preserve our freedom. God bless them.

Price Cut and Stuff

Price Cut

I haven't had any takers for my some of my recent miniature giveaways. I'd hate to just throw these away. Therefore I'm cutting the price. How can I cut the price on free items? I'll cover shipping costs up to $20.

Crazy Busy

There's a lot going on. Between LARP, home repairs, watching the Chosen, and an upcoming minor surgery, I haven't had time for gaming.

Counter Attack

Due to home repairs, I had to pack up my painting table. Therefore I have made no progress on my 2mm Napoleonic armies.

Instead, I worked on the latest iteration of my top-down counters. I like how they came out.

Each army consists of 7 bases of regular infantry, 3 bases each of light infantry, cavalry, and artillery, a pair of generals, and 6 casualty counters. Should be more than enough.

I have some brown Litko bases already, but I will probably order more in national colors. I think it may make it easier to identify the nationalities on the table.

So yes, it seems I am moving away from miniature gaming and becoming a home brew board gamer. 

Apologies

I just realized that I have a number of comments awaiting moderation. My apologies for not getting to them sooner. I have now accepted them all.

Not sure what happened. I was getting alerts in my email from Blogger when a comment got posted, but that stopped in mid-December. I thought I wasn't getting comments due to the holidays but I began to wonder what's going on. I checked this morning and found a glut!

Anyway, I'll be going through and responding over the next few days.

Whole Lotta Nothing

I have a few things to report.

• I played part of a dungeon from the D&D module Dragon of Icespire Peak
• I received Quick Play Warrior Heroes
• I played a couple of games of Battles of Medieval Britain
• and LARPing continues.

I just have not had the energy to blog about them.

Random Stuff

I haven't been doing much gaming lately, but I have a couple updates.

LARP

My recent attention has been on LARP.

Last weekend we ran what we call a "lore battle." Lore battles add to the ongoing lore of our fictional setting.

Here I am as a manticore.

Full write-up on my Annals of Elzwehn blog.

Rockets

As I mentioned in my predictions for 2023, I'm working on a boxed set for sci-fi gaming. I realized that I need some spaceships so I made some.

I had them out for a quick trial battle. It did not go well for Blue.

What's in Store for 2023?

Where do I think my gaming is going in the new year? Let's look into the crystal ball and find out.

• Counters - By year-end I'll probably go all-in on counters. I occasionally think about reverting back to 2mm, but then the thought of painting puts me off.

• The Purge - Whether I stick with counters or switch to 2mm, I'm going to have superfluous 3mm and 10mm figures lying around. While I did not purge last year, the odds are greater of it happening this year.

• Finalize Rules -  I've written the core for a bunch of rules sets, but they are all incomplete. I'd like to finish them. Here is what I have in the pipeline:

• MicroBattle - large-scale battles with small armies in the eras of massed units. Each unit represents approximately a division-sized force. Armies usually run 4 to 6 units.
• MicroQuest - fantasy RPG-style skirmishes. The player runs 2 to 4 heroes vs. several enemies.
• MicroSkies - fast play dogfights with 2 to 3 heroes vs. a similar number of enemies.

• The Sci Fi Boxed Set - inspired by Five Parsecs from Home, I've begun work on a boxed set for sci fi adventures. I plan for this to be my first project for 2023. The boxed set will have some battle boards, ship and character counters, terrain, and other accoutrements for gaming. So expect some sci fi adventures in the new year.

2022 in Review

Another year, another review. Let's take a look back at my gaming for the year.
 

2022's Trends

I began the year on a tear, with lots of projects.

• I ordered figures for a Byzantine project.
• I started a solo play through of Dragon of Icespire Keep with a new character, Ser Killian.
• I even dabbled with some sci fi skirmishes

Rescue attempt on Helos

In February, I got distracted by a new project - 1683 Battle of Vienna. After picking up The Silver Bayonet, this project morphed into a horror campaign set in 1666, with squad level games using my 3mm figures.

Fahnrich Hans Neimand leads a party against a troll

I then went on a baseball kick. I started a league of 1920s teams, but never completed the season.

Then I eschewed miniatures and started working up counters for generic armies,

ancient navies,

and even chariots.

Then I discovered Battles of Medieval Britain. I created counters for the game and played quite a few scenarios.

Disaster at Lewes, from BMB

Inspired by the 3 x 3 Portable Wargame phenomena, I experimented with a fast play version of MicroBattle. Here I use this version to play out part of the 1683 Battle of Vienna.

Then I went on an airplane kick. I developed rules for bombing runs, akin to B-17 Queen of the Skies. Then I created fast play dogfight rules inspired by THW's Aces Up and others.

Quick play dogfight - intercept the bombers

I finished the year by developing a new version of MicroQuest, my rules for fantasy adventures.

2022 Prognostication Review

Let's look back at my predictions for 2022 and see how I did.

• Return to 3mm - I expected to abandon my 10mm skirmish projects and focus on 3mm. Well, I did abandon 10mm, but I also abandoned 3mm. Instead, I've been playing around with counters. So I got this wrong.
• Genre-specific miniatures - I planned to abandon my generic armies and create armies specific to the genre or period. My first project was for Byzantine-Persian wars. This never got off the ground. Again, wrong.
• The Purge - I considered getting rid of my unused 10mm miniatures, but I never got around to it. Also wrong.

So I went 0 for 3 this year. Ah, the joys of GADD (Gaming Attention Deficit Disorder)

Thank You, Veterans

 Thank you, veterans. God bless you for your service to our nation.

Games and Stuff

 A lot going on during my vacation last week.

Surviving Orlando

We went to Orlando to visit Disney's Flower and Garden festival.

But first, we had to sit through a timeshare presentation. I thought it would be worth it for the hotel stay and other goodies they offered us. It wasn't.

Then I succumbed to heat exhaustion at Epcot. First time I ever left Disney in an ambulance. At least we had a nice dinner at the Nine Dragons (Chinese restaurant) the night before.

Roaring 20s League

I played another week of games for my dice baseball league.

In the American League, the Yankees won 2 out of 3 over Cleveland. Nevertheless, Cleveland's win was memorable. Down 1-0 late in the game, the Indians scored 7 in one crazy inning that included a grand slam. New York answered with its own grand slam, but they still fell short 7-5. In the other series, the Athletics swept the Senators, with all games being decided by a single run. The second game was especially heartbreaking for Washington. They gave up a 4-run lead late in the game.

In the National League, the Cubs swept the Pirates, with a two-run homer by Rogers Hornsby securing the victory in the first game. St Louis's Grover Alexander had a bad game, allowing 4 walks and 6 hits in an 8-run inning. He settled down after that but the damage was done and the Giants were victorious 8-3. Then the teams split the next two games.

Here are the current standings.

Counters

After some thought, I decided to continue with my counter experiment. I added to my counters with some ships for Byzantine naval battles. Each fleet has light galleys, heavy galleys, and merchant ships.

I also printed a bunch of the counters.

I put the naval counters in action. Here is a shot. Full report coming.

I recently acquired some bases from Litko. I just need to paste the counters onto the bases and my armies will be ready to go.

Bargain Buy

When I was working on my 1666 Campaign, I considered getting this book from Helion. But at 30 pounds, I considered the price too steep.

Now that I am making counters, I wanted to try some for this campaign. I was looking for some uniform references and again came across this volume. However, it was on sale for 11.98! I ordered it without a second thought.

Operation Last Train

Earlier this year, I dabbled with Operation Last Train, a set of free sci-fi rules. I had some free time one evening so ran a scenario. Sorry, no after action report. The star marines managed to save 3 bands of civilians at the loss of one squad.

Missed Comments

I just discovered a backlog of comments awaiting moderation. I approved and responded to them.

Sorry for missing them. I turned on moderation due to a glut of spam but I did not realize that I had notification off. It is now on so I should respond in a timely manner going forward.

Remember

On this Memorial Day, let us remember those who gave their all so that we might be free.

What's in Store for 2022?

Happy New Year! 

Once again, I'll see if I can predict what will happen with my gaming in the upcoming year. It seems unlikely I'll get it right considering that I jotted down some predictions a couple of weeks ago and they are already obsolete. So I bring some new, most likely wrong, predictions for this year.

• Return to 3mm - over the past couple of years I have been collecting 10mm miniatures for skirmish gaming. I painted a few, but most are just sitting around. The biggest hurdle is actually lack of terrain. I am just not motivated to put together enough for 10mm games. This has me looking back at 3mm. I tried a skirmish game (Operation Last Train) with a 3mm stand standing in for a 10mm figure. It seemed to work fine. I'm leaning toward that squad-based approach now.
• Genre-specific miniatures - my initial MicroBattle project featured generic 3mm miniatures that could stand in for multiple eras. However, I am now leaning toward some projects with figures painted for a specific genre. I plan on putting together a Byzantine army and an opponent (to be determined) and some sci-fi troops for Operation Last Train.
• The Purge - every now and then I do a purge of items I purchased for projects that eventually got abandoned. I sense that another purge is near. I mentioned my 10mm figures, and I have other miscellaneous stuff lying around that I don't plan to use.

2021 in Review

 As is tradition around here, I review my gaming experience during the year, Let's take a look.

2021's Top 5

These are my most viewed posts from 2021.

# 5 is the Tomb of An-Makeran, a Khamen & Candorra RPG adventure.

# 4 is Battle of Blastof Heath Using MicroBattle. wherein I play the classic scenario from Young and Lawford's CHARGE! or How to Play Wargames.

# 3 is Trouble at Threshold Station, wherein I adapt a Hero Kids adventure to my own RPG rules.

Technically, my second most viewed post this year was my assessment of Squad Hammer. It gets disqualified because I wrote it in 2018, so

# 2 goes to my analysis of determining to hit in RPGs and my application to my own RPG rules.

And # 1 is MicroBattle 2021, my quick-play rules for battles using very small figures in small spaces.

2021's Trends

In January, I was playing around with my MicroBattle rules and even applied them to an RPG (Trouble at Threshold Station as mentioned above.

I began a new horse & musket campaign in February. Once again, my imagi-nations of Bluderia and Redgrave battled for supremacy.

The campaign was interrupted when I got bit by the Byzantine bug. I managed a Byzantine scenario

But I spent a lot of time prepping for my resumption of LARPing and my establishing a Byzantine-themed unit.

My Byzantine garb.

And a new unit shield.

This new kick did lead to experiments with gladiator fights and chariot races. I still need to finish painting my chariots so here is a picture of two fantasy figures fighting in the arena.

In the summer, I was inspired by the new Osprey grand tactical Napoleonic rules, Absolute Emperor. I returned to my horse & musket imagi-nations and finished the campaign. Once again, Redgrave reigned supreme.

I then toyed with a Byzantine-themed skirmish project, but it never really went anywhere. Instead, I resumed an RPG campaign with my "heroes" Tweedle & Dunh. Most of their adventures were "theater of the mind," but I managed a few shots with miniatures.

Then, I briefly did a sci-fi scenario inspired by West End Games' Price of Freedom RPG, essentially an RPG version of Red Dawn. My cat, Cooper, watched over the battle.

For Halloween, I did a virtual RPG session with my wife and brothers (one lives in New York City and the other a few miles away in sunny South Florida). They unraveled the mystery of Caede Manor..

And then my gaming went into a major slump. I made a few posts about LARPing, but I didn't play any games for several weeks!

2021 Prognostication Review

I look back at my predictions for 2021 and see how badly I did.

• LARP posts - with vaccines coming out and COVID restrictions ending, I expected to post more about my LARPing hobby (call it 1 to 1 wargaming). I got that right as I returned to the LARP battlefield and posted about it 8 times during the year. What I did not expect was to go on a Byzantine kick and develop a unit and persona based on that theme (no pun intended).
• MicroBattle - I planned to expand MicroBattle to skirmish and RPG. I managed to use it for RPGs, such as my Tweedle & Dunh adventures from September and October. I never managed to work up a skirmish set, largely due to the lack of figures for skirmish game. No, I did not complete a final version by year's end.
• Settle on a Character - I kind of did this, focusing on Tweedle & Dunh this year.

OK, not horribly wrong.

What I did not expect was my horrible November - December slump. I went several weeks without a game, and did not even bother to post anything some weeks.

Thank You Veterans

 May God bless you for your service.

Week in Review - Aug 28

Slowly getting things done.

LARP Helmet

I finally got around to painting my helm

I ordered a chin strap and helmet liner kit from Medieval Collectibles. I got it Wednesday and attached it to the helmet. I just need to hit it with some clearcoat.

Painting

After a long hiatus, I got back to paining the chariots and galleys I ordered in May and June.

This picture shows my latest set-up. I ordered this painting station from Amazon. 

It was a pain to put together, but now it is paying off. It has most everything I need in easy reach when I paint. It is also very portable. I put it on a high shelf when I'm done so they cats don't get into it.

Arena Fights

I planned to test out a skirmish with half dozen figures a side. I pulled out my 10mm fantasy figures, but then got lazy.

I decided to do some arena fights instead. I paired off my figures. The towers represent obelisks in the arena. I used them for some cover.

In the first bout, Sly (in black) took on Armolas the elf. Armolas managed to wound Sly, but then Sly charged and cut down the elf.

In the second bout, Gimlet the dwarf faced Sir Loin. Alas, Sir Loin fell prey to a cat quake.

As per house rules, if the cat kills you, you're dead.

Speaking of cats, Onyx had a blast playing with the dice.

At this point, I gave up, much to Onyx's chagrin.