The Painted Thumb

Sometime in the early 2000's, my wife and I started collecting the ceramic village houses that would go on sale around the Christmas season. We purchased the various models such as shops, houses, office and government buildings. Back then we would have friends and family come over to our house and spend some time painting the stuff. We would spread out the houses on whatever flat surface we could find in our house as part of our Christmas decorating. After a few seasons, we had assembled a fairly large collection. I think it was Christmas of 2005 that we were too busy to setup the village and the models remained in storage. This was all done before I became interested in miniature figures and wargames. This year, we've decided to restart our tradition. I pulled the best looking houses and setup a small street on the mantle. I added some lighting, painted a backdrop and printed out some dungeon tiles for use as a cobblestone street. In case anyone was wondering ho...

This is the the continuation of my review. You can find part 1 here . ***SPOILERS after this point! You have been warned!**** *********************************************************** While the Men, Elves, and Dwarves assemble their forces, Azog the Orc General constructs a wooden signal tower on top of a nearby highpoint called Ravenhill. Somehow, no one from the other three armies notices this. The tower is installed with an elaborate system of pulleys and flags that can display several different commands to Azog's troops and is visible throughout the entire battle-space. Azog sends the signal to attack but his army is nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, several gigantic earthworms rise out of the earth like a scene from 'Dune'. They retreat back into the dirt leaving large tunnels from which the evil army emerges. Our fourth army has arrived. Game Discussion SBG: Yowza! I did not see that coming. Did anyone expect the giant worms from Dune to show up in Mid...

I am a fan of the first two Hobbit movies. So I got my ticket to see the last episode, "The Battle of Five Armies" as soon as I could. I saw the movie and thought it was a thoroughly entertaining movie. Specifically, it's a movie with plenty of juicy content for use in any fantasy themed game, whether it be miniatures, RPG's or other. BTW, I play several different games set in the Lord of the Rings world including Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit Strategy Battle Game , War of the Ring , and The Battle of Five armies 10mm box game . I believe that many fun game sessions can be played by drawing inspiration from this film. Possible spoilers are ahead but I'm not going to discuss the overall story line much in this review. My focus will be on the fight sequences and elements that would be of interest to the gamer or someone interested in developing scenarios in existing game systems or perhaps developing their own game. Many of my friends are not...

Whew! My life has been a whirlwind for the past 9 weeks. It started out at the end of September when my wife and I sold our house and moved into a 500 sq ft. guest house for a few weeks. We moved all our possessions into a storage unit, then moved it all out of storage into a new home. Just shortly after that, I was informed that our convention director was having problems with his heart and was rushed off to the hospital just a week before the convention. This meant that I would have to pick up the directorial duties for the entire convention! The whole weekend, we struggled with organizational problems. The convention started on Friday afternoon in Austin, TX, which is about a two-hour drive from my home in San Antonio. I was the single staff member present when the conventions started at noon. No registration materials, no operating cash, no t-shirts, no programs, no snack bar available at the time the convention began. It was the living definition of "winging it"! Fort...

My wife and I have decided to sell our house and move into a new one. Hopefully, a place with more space, easier commute to work, a better kitchen and, fingers crossed, an awesome Game Room!! Our house sold in just a few hours after we put it on the market. We will be closing at the end of this month. But, we haven't found a beautiful new house yet, so we'll be in an apartment for awhile. It's an inconvenience, but it is all in the process of moving to a better home. The sad part is I'll have to put all the miniatures and games in storage until further notice! That's disappointing because I am not sure how long we will be in an apartment situation. Gaming, painting, and modelling for the next few weeks will be limited. Instead, my focus will be on this year's MillenniumCon convention! In case I haven't mentioned, I'm on the staff for Millennium 17 , the premiere miniature wargaming convention in the state of Texas! We've had a change up in th...

One of my favorite ways to spend a lazy summer afternoon is by taking a quick trip to the local Half Price Books. I just never know what I might find there. On this most recent visit, I picked up a copy of Force on Force by Ambush Alley Games . It is a miniatures game designed to recreate modern era skirmish level battles from 1950's to the present. Typcial forces include, SAS commandos, Navy Seal Teams, Marine Recon, Spetznaz, Middle East Insurgents and so forth. I've only browsed through the rules so far but it appears to be promising.  The designer notes that the game puts an emphasis on the quality of the soldiers and not on the type of weaponry. This makes sense to me. I imagine any soldier from any modern army would be well trained and deadly at close range with just about any kind of slug throwing weapons in their possession.  Strangely, this game does not provide any army lists. There are no point systems to build an army. Everything is based on scenarios that de...

Our Tuesday night gaming group was looking for more games to add into the weekly rotation. I offered to host a session of BattleSworn - Bid for Victory from Ganesha Games . I had reviewed the game before but never actually played a game. So, this was a great opportunity to get some real player's reactions to the rules. Most miniature games resolve combat by assigning a probability based on the individual stats of the units and situational modifiers, and then rolling a die to determine success or failure. Initiative is often nothing more than a randomized die roll.  However, BattleSworn uses a bidding mechanic for initiative and combat. For initiative, the players secretly bid a number between 1 and 6. The players reveal this number and the player with the lowest bid wins the initiative. The initiative player gets as many actions as his bid.  The other player gets the difference of the two bids in re-actions. In combat, the players bid just like with initiative. Low bidde...