Here's to uplifting spirits (some pun intended)

Hi All,

I've been in a slight funk the last few days, mostly of my own making and not too serious. I was talking to my neighbor this morning and he showed me this:

If that doesn't brighten your day, I don't know what will. Anyway wait till at least 1:00 for the full effect.

So I'm going to make new counters and game out the Tereken vs. Mirholme Battle and go buy a ton of candy and beer and enjoy the nice weather were having here and give out candy on the sidewalk in front of our house. The Beer is for me, candy for the kids.

Of Imagi-Nations, Maps and Fonts

So while I was trying to find things to fix various broken plumbing and appliances, I took a few moments to flesh out some ideas for the 18th Century Imagi-Nation project.

First off we need a map. Since I have a soft spot for hex maps I revisited the Welshpiper and revisited his hex map templates.

So a little finagling, a rotation of the brain graphic and I give you the base for Cerebria.

I'm also getting the idea for the colonial areas of Liverica and Splenia, with perhaps the Stomach and Pancreas thrown in.

I then started thinking about fonts. While looking for Autorealm fonts I found this post.


http://prometheusinaspic.blogspot.com/2012/02/fonts-for-flags.html

In the comments to this post were a couple of good link recommendations:

http://www.google.com.au/search?aq=f&gcx=w&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=18th+century+fonts

and this one, which also had a guide on how to use ligatures.

http://www.orbitals.com/self/ligature/ligature.htm

The only issue for me now is I can't figure out how to use the macros. I've never used them in word and I apparently can't use them in Open Office as the Word ones are in a different scripting language.

But I did end up downloading a few 18th Century fonts from dafont and also re-acquainted myself with abstract fonts. Speaking of which (okay it's really only tenuously related) you can find fonts similar to your favorite D & D editions here (or rather the names of fonts that are close approximations).

Precious little done on the Talomir project, I hope to fix that this weekend.

Reinforcements

Well my figure order arrived sometime last night. I've been puttering around prepping figures here and there while running errands and doing chores.

First up the Ancient Germans and Celts.

These Germanic warriors have a little flash but are much nicer than the Revell Saxons. I think that they could proxy for Vikings or Saxons. The Celts have a lot of character and detail. I haven't put them up side by side with the Italeri Celtic Cavalry but because they are different arms a size difference shouldn't be as obvious.

Next the 18th century stuff.

The Billy V set I bought is the same as what's in each of these boxes, so I may have over bought  AWI. The Indian Warriors are very nice, 16 individual poses. The Swedish Artillery looks cool, but I see now that their uniforms are totally different from the AWI stuff. I'll look more carefully at the Swedish and Russian sets from Zvezda for inafantry to match and then I have to source some more artillerymen. But should be good to get a start. I'll have some more thoughts on that project later.

I also finally mixed up some flow aid.

I poured out 30mL of distilled water and then used an old antibiotics oral dosing syringe to measure out 1.4mL of flow aid. This should make a 20/1 dilution, I think.

I've been trying to get painting but my paints are somewhat separated and may need a device such as Kasper built at WarmasterDK here.

But now I seem to have also broken my washing machine, so that's got my attention.

Bugs, Rabbits and Chickens oh my!

From Interloper Miniatures - Cast in Ruin

Saw this posted on the Grumpy Grognard it's an Indiegogo for Gamma World figures here.

The concept art looks cool and the first mutated chicken green looks pretty awesome. These, coupled with those Lead Adventure post apocalypse figures could be fun.

And  note about Grumpy. He (I'm assuming Grumpy is a he) set up his blog to vent about stuff on various OSR rpg forums. To quote A Christmas Story: Grumpy "worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay. It was his true medium, a master." 

I find it humorous because I can relate somewhat and I just marvel at how even in games people can take an us versus them attitude rather than accepting that some people like to game another way.

Scatter Brained

What do you do when you're lagging behind on a project? Why surf the internet for hours and purchase things for a completely different project of course.

This week has seemed to be more hectic than usual. I've been volunteering at my kids school for a running/ walking program they are doing and it's amazing how 4 hours a week has really got me hopping to get my usual routine done.

So aside from rumination on ACW and campaigns a tad I went ahead and placed an order for several Seven Years War (SYW), Great Northern War (GNW), French and Indian War( FIW), American War of Independence (AWI) figures.

I know you all are like "really!? he hasn't even finished one project!" but bear with me. A while back, in one of my unrestrained rules purchase binges, I got the THW titles Muskets and Mohawks and Long Rifle. Basically sets for gaming unit actions and RPG fur trader type stuff around the FIW.

There are quite a few good 1/72 sets for this period and since I needed to order one box for Talomir I figured why not make the most of shipping and just buy this stuff now. After having taken it in the shorts buying one pack here or there for lead, I thought this would be slightly more intelligent.

So my thought is to game an Imagination style 18th century game and throw in some early colonial warfare aspects, possibly discovering Lemuria for a good campaign.

Billy V (Imex) sets from Hobby Lobby.

I also have some more thoughts on photography and mapping. Hopefully I can hold onto them for a few moments so I can put them down.

Speaking of maps, you must check this one out (http://mapofmetal.com/#/home). I don't think they had the videos last time I looked. Starts with Black Sabbath, so how can you go wrong?

Welcome to two new followers, both of whom don't have their blogs listed in their Google friend profiles but I recognize their avatars and or names.

Prufrock of Here's no Great Matter, an enjoyable blog about gaming. Right now he's on about map and chit wargames. Gave me some great tips about making a battle mat and then I went a completely different direction.

The Convenient Skill of That's what you get for living in a cul-de-sac (hopefully I will never have to type that out ever again in full). But seriously, if you like solo rpg play he has literally a ton of ideas. A lot of good reads and quirky rule sets reviewed.

Of to a double header of 5-6 year old flag football. Can my son's team rebound from a tough one point loss last weekend? We shall see. Go Panthers!

This week in Talomir

Well, Spring 992 has begun in Talomir and what better way to start than with having to paint up two new armies.

As we may recall from the "Bold Plan" series, I was unsuccessful in trying to get just over 100 (was it 107) miniatures painted up to fight the Treyine vs. Naz-Goth battle. I did get all of the the Orcs cleaned up and based on washers, except Hogash should have been mounted. But I did not even get them all base coated. For the Treyine forces I got them all off the sprue but only the Foot Knights, Infantry, Hero and Mage were cleaned of mold lines. Again the hero should have been mounted but I didn't read the list carefully. And here are a few shots of the Orcs, showing the different primers and the flesh base coat.

Sorry, focused on the background. But shiny and not shiny are obvious.

Wish I had a non shiny base to compare. Fig on the right is the Dark Alliance set 2, others are Caesar.

Treyine Infantry with spear ala Paul's Bods. And special clamping device to help it stay put while glue dried.

Of course this month sees me signed on to fight two different battles with four completely different armies. I will be fighting the North Tropilium invasion of Hykar with card counters as I already have the Hykar forces printed out from my failed attempt to play their battle against the Dragon. Looks like I'm short one unit, but I can probably borrow one from the Treyine or Seniiran armies that was printed earlier.

Hykar minus one, and only two I can use from Tropilium sheet for N. Tropilium. Doh!

The big one for me this month will be the Tereken invasion of Mirholme. This is one I hope to game with figures and fortunately I have already gotten a start on these. For Tereken I will be using Imex and Revell Saxons with a couple of Italeri Celtic cavalry converted into Saxon cavalry. The Tereken Forces should be 35 figures, the Mirholme should also be 35 figures and I already have 13 based and primed, yeehaw! ( I know it's not a very dark-agey expression).

Vikings of Mirholme, primed in black and on the paper.

Tereken. Top left are Skirmishers, most lying down are fyrd. Standing and front left lying are Huscarls. Mounted are mounted huscarls.

So there you have it. I'm not sure just yet how to go about converting the Italeri celts to Saxon cavalry. There are parts on each figure that seem like they would be a bear to whittle off to fit with saxon upper bodies. I may re-think this and order the Miniart Germanic Cavalry as a conversion free proxy. I also need to figue out how to make a shield for the lone unprimed viking in the last picture. Perhaps just an arm swap for now. And please forgive the midden heap that is my painting area.

Lastly, welcome to Ivor Cogdell. Sorry you didn't get a chance to get in on the giveaway, hopefully there will be something useful and/or interesting for you here on the blog.

10K Views prize winner is..

Ray of Don't Throw a One. I just need to work out how to get them to send you the PDF as well as the printed version.

Bill won the second prize, a map to his specifications.

Thanks to all who entered and became new followers of the blog as a consequence. Now I have a glimpse of what it must be like to be Ray and Fran.

Viewed by many, followed by some, loved by all!

I'll be emailing the Lucky winners and will get things sorted out.

Cheers.