The Painted Thumb

I was reviewing my personal goals for 2012 and found my list of the painting projects which I hope to complete by EOY.  This is an ambitious list and probably won't be completed this year. Several other bloggers have posted their painting to-do's as well. Time management experts claim that you are more motivated to complete your list when you let others know your goals. Accountability creates the motivation. Here is my list. The asterisks '*' denotes the level of priority. Repaint the Warmaster High Elves, paint and base the new figs. This is a purchased army and needs to be stripped, painted and based. Broken spears issue needs a solution.*** Paint my new SoBaH warband, New figs have been purchased. New figs need painting. Existing elf archers need to be stripped, repainted. existing leader needs touch up, ** Touch up the 'Sons of Liberty', 15mm HotT army with AWI theme, Rhode Island regiment is purchased, needs painting, some existing units need touc...

Time now to revisit the Kobold warband for SoBaH and a brief recap of the recent skirmish. Unfortunately, I did not take any photos of this game. I was just too wrapped up in the excitement of the game to actually stop, pickup the camera and snap some pictures. I've substituted some photos from previous games involving the same warbands. This was a LSHM Tuesday night event and was coordinated by Chip. He planned a large six-player, battle royale on an enormous map. I should have expected problems for my Kobolds right from the beginning as most of my warband was made up of short movers and the battlefield was large. If that wasn’t bad enough, Chip decided to throw an extra wrinkle to the game. He required us to split up our warband into two groups, and deploy them separately on different quarters of the map.   For most warbands, this meant the leader was deployed with one group and the other group was leaderless. Separation from the leader was a major problem. At the c...

It’s time for me to catch up on my gaming reports. There have been many games played these past weeks. I just haven’t gotten the AAR typed up on the blog. There have been several LHSM game nights since my last post and there is something of interest to report for each session. Earlier this month, Dennis brought some beautifully painted minis with accompanying rules from two different historical genres for the group to enjoy.  One was the freebie download game called ‘Chosen Men’, a Napoleonic skirmish game loosely inspired by the ‘ Sharpe’s Rifles ’ movies and the other was ‘ Desperado ’, a quick-play Old West game. When I arrived, the group was setting up a game of Desperado .  I was told to grab two minis out of Dennis’ storage and whatever weapon was depicted in the figure’s hand would be the weapon used by the character in the game. I picked a lanky cowboy with a shotgun (I called him ‘Slim’) and a stout hombre with a sombrero and a pistola (called him ‘Flaco’)...

Alternate rules for placing terrain in HotT from the "The Stronghold" The Stronghold Rebuilt: Random Terrain For HOTT : Introduction Basic ideas for this variant are freely nicked from the 5 th December draft of DBA 3.0. They allow variation in terrain ...

Critical Mass Games put together an incredible miniature table for the Salute 2012 convention in the UK. It is an alien swamp world for a 15mm skirmish game.  Please click the link below for the posting on the Alien Dungeon blog. I would have loved to use this map for my GURPS: Prime Directive game .  Alien Dungeon: Alien Swamps : I often marvel at the amazing terrain and miniatures that people produce that never gets the recognition that they deserve. Along those line...

This week in Tuesday night action will be Song of Blades and Heroes night. I am considering what kind of warband I will bring to the table. I remembered that I had put together a Kobold-only warband using some paper counters downloaded off the interwebs. Using the pre-made Kobold profiles from the Song of Blades and Heroes rules, I created a huge (20+figures) warband. Most of the Kobold units were 15 points or less (300 pts total). I recalled that I used this warband in one battle against Johnny Rod. I don't recall if I won that battle but I do remember the Kobolds fared better than expected. So, today, I searched my storage cabinets again. I found the old paper figs, reorganized the warband a little, and mounted the figs on pennies. The new Kobold Paper Army of Death features 18 stands, one shaman for magical attacks, some shielded warriors who can take advantage of the shield wall formation, and some elite warriors with stealth ability. Some of you may scoff at the ide...

LSHM guys This past Tuesday was " Close Action, In the Age of Fighting Sail " night for LSHM . It was a massive battle with 10 players and 12 ships. The sides were drawn randomly. Half the players on the English side with HMS 'Victory' as the lead vessel. Half the players were on the French side with one allied Spanish 120 gun ship "Santa Ana" commanded by yours truly. Most of these battles include some kind of terrain like a chain of islands, a shoals, or perhaps a reef. This battle did not include terrain. It was a straight-up open ocean fight. The two lines converge The two lines of warships met up and attempted to cross each other's 'T'. The English ships reached the apex point first but shocked the French by turning starboard into the French line. The French line continued in a straight line which caused several collisions. Many ships fouled their rigging as bow met broadsides. Some the French captains decided to slow down and...