Retail therapy and what I won.

As you all may have noticed I have not been as timely as I would like in updating the blog and reading and commenting on all of your blogs. Part of it is that I am actually somewhat busier than usual and part is that a little of the wind has been taken out of my sails after my latest blood work. Although I feel more or less fine, and my kidney function is approaching normal, my Creatine Kinase levels are off the charts. I'm talking more than 10 times the normal upper limit. So I have been asked not to exercise for another 3 months. This has caused a fair amount of stress in the family as we don't really know what is going on and reading about it on the internet doesn't have much of bright side. But as far as I know I haven't had a heart attack or a crushing injury and don't have muscular dystrophy. I go back for more tests next week.

End sob story.

So I figured I would do the rounds of the local hobby shops for some retail therapy. For me right now that is the Hobby Bench. I went to the one on Bell Rd and 43rd Ave here in Phoenix. As per usual I spent way too much time drooling over kit. I had intended to buy some green stuff, but all they had was putty in a tube, and bought some Tamiya Clear Red and some Model Master matte varnish. I then went to Hobby Lobby, because I thought I had seen green stuff there before. Of course I couldn't find any, so I bought some Vallejo matte varnish and some more Anita's Earth Brown, since I use that for basing. The last stop was Best Buy to see if they had flash diffusers similar to what Dave D showed on his blog here. They didn't, so when I got home I ordered what I couldn't find from Amazon. I could have saved myself  a lot of time but I guess it distracted me from my worries.

The reason I'm buying all this varnish and photo accessories is that I'm trying to figure out my shiny figure issue and work towards taking better pictures.

And to wrap up my rambling, what I won from Joakim at the Miniatures Man.

The squares are 1" (25.4mm)

The whole Chainmail thing from Wizards of the Coast passed me by. When you say Chainmail I think of the old mass battle rules in the little brown book. The figures are pretty cool and seem to scale well with my other 28mm figures. The female Paladin is pretty huge, giving me a Brienne from Game of Thrones vibe.

I hope you all are well, and that I'll have something of interest to post again soon.

Promoting a giveaway, my son's presents and wash woes

Hi All,

Just want to quickly promote Joakim's giveaway over at The Miniatures Man. He's celebrating passing 50K views and giving away some cool stuff.

As for my son's swag, first we have the snap together A-10 we put together.

A nice little mode, my son cut most of the model off the sprue. He also put together the large peices. the little stuff he needed me for. No glue or painting needed, a great kit for an aspiring little modeler. The bombs were a little fiddly for him.

Next up, Darth Vader. This dude is about 3 feet tall and awesome. Push a button on his chest and he says stuff. Not a lot, but enough.

Last thing you see before he chokes the life out of you.

I'm trying to get those plastic GW orcs done, but the GW Orc flesh wash worked terribly. It basically colored the high points and completely evaporated from the nooks and crannies. In the old days I used Winsor Newton Green ink, but that dried up long ago. I put in an order for  some acrylic inks through Dick Blick art supplies, following Les Bursley's suggestion in his wash guide.

Hopefully I can get this sorted. I've also decided that I need to finish painting up the forces of Treyine and Stygustan to fight my next battle. Many of these were started before the challenge so will be either ineligible or for less than full points. Either way they need to be painted.

Annual Acquisitiveness

While I had meant to read "And a Bottle of Rum" and give you updates as we wound down the giveaway, I have been consumed by trying to get back into working out, practicing martial arts, and home projects that I have been putting off for too long.

As it was Father's day and my birthday two weeks ago, I indulged myself in several books. From John Curry I bought Naval Wargaming and Practical Wargaming through Amazon and Operation Warboard through Lulu.

From lulu.com

I also ordered Wargaming World War Two from Amazon. Written by Justin Tonna from The Wargaming Addict. He also has done a bunch of video walk throughs of a couple of THW rule sets on his site.

From The Wargaming Addict

I found a source from England on ebay for this book and I'm happy to add it to my library, finally

From Trouble at T'Mill

And after reading about it on the Solo Wargaming Yahoo Group I ponied up $6.95 for the PDF of this book. You can never have too many ideas for solo gaming.

From Purple Pawn

I wish I could say that I will now knuckle down and read but I have a new pressing issue to deal with. My son tearily reported last night that kids are spanking him in the bathroom at the robot camp I signed him up for. I'm going to talk to the instructor about it today. Wondering if I'm gonna have to go all Bad Santa on a kid (or his parents).

Amended :

I forgot to welcome two new followers.

Smapdi Ness, you don't seem to have a blog. When and if you do just let me know and I'll post a link.

Andras Szilvasy is on Deviant Art, as well as writing Random Creative and an 18th C. Imagi-nation blog Schultze-boehnstadt.

Talomir Tales post and Xmas swag

I finally finished my battle report for Talomir tales here.

I'll also share some of the Christmas swag I received.

Really for my son.

The back of the box.

Funny cookie cutters.

The Football Dice Game.

So not too bad. I also finally took the plunge and bought myself a Nikon D5100. After the initial "what have i done" feeling has worn off, I'm getting into taking some pictures. Hopefully I will abandon my reliance on my cell phone for pictures.

I will also be preparing a Year in Review and Goals for 2013 in some upcoming posts.

Nicholas Has Chosen

It took a few days, but I made contact with Nicholas and he chose Long Rifle.

The description starts "Long Rifle is the black powder period immersion game centered on the French and Indian War."


There are some good posts about it on the Two Hour Wargames Blog starting with the Story of Thomas Howard here.


So I'm sure we all hope, after he gets comfortable with the rules of course, that Nicholas will share an AAR or two from his games at his site http://colony13.blogspot.com/.

Also Welcome to Mats Lintonson of Mono Desire, a nice gaming blog with some interesting projects. I like the painting station he made.

Oh and somehow when I wasn't looking, I passed 3000 views. It's the little blog that could.

Have a great rest of whatever time of day it is where you are.

The Glorious Winner is...

Nicholas Caldwell

***Google friend connect is being annoying right now and I can't seem to contact you, I'll try your blog and hopefully you will check here. Just drop me an email with your choice and your particulars and I'll get the ball rolling to get it to you.*** (Hmm no contact on the blog either.)

So we started with a list of the entrants ordered by their posting of comments to the prize drawing as follows:

1. Chuck
2. Dan
3. Martian Banshee
4. Ding Duck
5. Ray Rousell
6. Mathyoo
7. Rodger
8. The Angry Lurker
9. Tim
10. Nicholas Caldwell
11. Lee Hadley

I had hoped for a simple die roll, but there is never an 11 sided die around when you need one. I have been using the Dice Bag app for my android phone a bit and thought I could make an 11 sided die but “no dice” as they say.

One solution would be to make a random number generator using excel (I actually use Open Office Calc, but more or less same difference). The Old Dessauer had a nice post on it here. But I didn't want to do that.

So I decided, why not make another Inspiration Pad file to randomly return the winner? Why do that and not just write the names on paper and put them in a hat? I have no idea, I guess because I can. These are the kinds of things that get that look from the wife. You know, the “I can't believe I'm still married to such a dork” look. To which I reply, mostly in my own mind “Yeah, but I'm King of the dorks baby!”

So I hope the rest of you aren't too disappointed. I must say it feels kind of nice to do something for a fellow gamer.

Cheers.

There can be only...

I won!!!!

Ray over at Don't Throw a One had recently made the purchase of a rule set he already had so he was kind enough to raffle it off.

Blatantly lifted from Don't Throw a One

I have to say I'm very happy as I love Lord of the Rings, like most of us who cut our teeth on AD&D, and would probably have never bought it for myself.

Now, following in the footsteps of Big Lee here, I feel the need to pay it forward. I'll have to think hard on it however. Being the compulsive hoarder that I am, they tell me admitting it is the first step in recovery, I'm not sure what I could offer that would be desirable. My initial thoughts are either a map commission or maybe a THW ruleset since I am something of an evangelist for them.

Any thoughts?

And a big thanks again to Ray for his generosity.