Ghosts From My Past - Part 2 (25mm Figures)

Here is some more stuff that I had unearthed in my cleaning up the basement.  They were all painted by me.

The figure to the left was a mini that I used in a RPG game to represent my character in a modern supernatural detective type game.  It is from Foundry's Street Level Violence line.  The figure to the right is one of my favorites!  It was from the long Out of Production line, Macho Women With Guns line for the RPG with the same name.  It was one of the monsters from the game called "The Congressional Subcommittee".  Somewhere, I hope that I still have my other favorite miniature from that line, a crow with bowler hat, cigar, and a M60 machine gun!

Here is another RPG miniature that I used from many, many moons ago.  It is a Games Workshop dwarf miner.

This figure was to used for Pulp Action or Gangster games.  It is from Brigade Games.  I really like the pose of this figure.  The lonely deck hand tries to keep warm with a cigarette on a deck of a Black Ship while watching for pirates, rival rumrunners, or the Coast Guard with his slung Tommy gun.

"Who knows the evil that lurks in the hearts of men?  The Shadow knows!"  He is from Pulp Figures.  I was really happy with the eyes, but after taking this photo, I noticed some red on his cape that I am going to have to fix.

Ghosts From My Past - Pt 1 (The Fenians)

Well, I have been on holiday for a week and have been cleaning up the basement.  As part of that, I also have been bagging up miniatures to sell off and reorganizing my storage of my stuff to keep.  While doing that, I have unearthed some of my older projects and decided to add them up on the blog for review.  First is my Battle of Ridgeway, 1866.  I only got the Fenians finished, but I have figures to do the Canadians.  Originally they were all mounted on individual bases, I have since decided to based them three to an 1"x1" base.  That is why you will notice that they have flocking around their feet, but the base is not done.  I am planning to revisit my Fenian Raids, 1866, project using Regimental Fire & Fury.

The storage case with the Fenian forces

General O'Neill and the standard bearer carrying the flag presented to Thomas Meager in 1848

The IRA Regt'l command stands - since then, I found descriptions of the actual flags used at Ridgeway and plan to replace these with them

More Irish Volunteers

Even more Irish Volunteers!

Paddy and Sean expressing themselves towards the English Crown!

150th Anniversary of the Battle of Wilson's Creek, MO, and more!

Hello!


I have been working some really long hours at work and have been neglecting my blog and my travel website. 


I went to the 150th Anniversary reenactment of the Battle of Wilson's Creek last month with my friend Steve.  We also visited the Wilson's Creek National Park, the National WWI Museum in Kansas City, MO; the Battle of Lexington State Park and Visitor Center, and finally stopping at the Missouri Confederate Memorial and Cemetery.  It was pretty much a full weekend of activities.


I have photos from the reenactment and the other sites up soon after I do some cropping and resizing. I will place some up on this blog, but all of the pictures for Wilson's Creek, Lexington, and the cemetery will be placed on my ACW website.  The WWI museum pictures will be placed on my travels' website.


Since then, I also visited several more ACW sites or museums.  I visited in the Atlanta area the Atlanta Cyclorama which is a mural painting and display of the battle of Atlanta that was commissioned by the former Union general John Logan after the war.  Also located there is one of the two locomotive engines involved in the 'Great Locomotive Chase', the Texas.  There is also a Medal of Honor medal located there.  Just outside of Atlanta, I also visited the Southern History and Locomotive Museum.  At this museum is the other locomotive engine involved in the 'Great Locomotive Chase', the General.  There is also one of the raider's Medal of Honor medals is also located there.  Finally, also in the Atlanta area, I visited the Kerrshaw Mountain battlefield, but my camera's battery died shortly after getting there.  I also visited three more Civil War sites in Tennessee, Fort Donelson, Stones River, and Lookout Mountain.

I also finally finished several books, but still have to do write up for them.  The first book was "Nine Battles To Stanley" by Nicholas van der Bijl.   I had a hard time finding the free time to read it, but enjoyed it. While it did not add much to description of battles for the Falklands, it did cover a lot of "extra" details that I found very useful for my future Falklands games. The next book was, "Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History" by Yunte Huang.  It is about how the real life Honolulu detective, Chang Apana, became the role model for the character, Charlie Chan.  Also it covers how the novels, movies, and radio shows came about to become one of America's great icons of the 20th Century and how the character influenced America and Chinese relations. The last book was "The Lost Patrol: The Mounties' Yukon Tragedy" by Dick North.  It is the about the 1903 RNWMP overland dog patrol from Dawson City to Fort McPherson by Inspector Francis Fitzgerald and two other Mounties and one former Mountie that got lost and eventually perished in the wilderness.  


I got to go for now, but be expecting the travel photographs soon.


Cheers

We Are Coming Father Abraham

Well, since my last posting, I refigured out what I will need for figures from Blue Moon.  So now, I will not have four RGTs of 880 men (22 stands), but 10 small RGTs of 9 stands or 12 stands (360 or 480 men for RF&F.)  But combining the small RGTs, minus a few stands, I can field three 760 man and two 840 man RGTs for the generic Union troops. With the Zouaves and Wisconsin RGTs, I will be able to field either one 800 man RGT or two smaller RGTs with 440 & 480 men each.  All I will have left will be four spare generic Union troops, one spare Zouave and two Wisconsin figures.  Excellent!

So with these recalculations, I made my order to Blue Moon for the first half of my Union force.  But I will still need artillery and cavalry figures.  Any of the unique RGTs with specialized uniforms, I will have to look into for the future.  Also, if I want to do a bunch of different RGTs for flags, I can pick up a pack of officers & a couple packs of standard bearers and that will get me another 10 stands to for different RGT’L flags!

Now, I should have enough to do all of the bigger battles that I want to do using a 1:100/1:125/1:200/1:250 ratio for TCHAE or F&F with all of the above for the infantry RGTs. But like above, I will need to order artillery and cavalry.

Now, all I need is to get the catalog and address for a guy that Steve H. knows that does the flag research and makes 15mm paper flags.  I plan to help him do some research on the flags for the Missouri and other Trans-Mississippi RGTs, since that is one of my interests and one of the main key things that I always get photographs at any museum that I visit.

The next blog entry should be about my trip to the 150^th Anniversary of the Battle of Wilson’s Creek with some pictures of the reenactment.  After that, I plan to get an entry on the following things (but not necessary in this order):  A review of my current book that I reading, “Nine Battles to Stanley” by van der Bijl on the Falklands Conflict; A review of a painting service that I used to paint up a bunch of 20mm figures for the Falklands with pictures;  A generic scenario for the shoot-out with the police with Bonnie & Clyde at the Red Crown Travel Court in Platte City, MO, 1933; and finally, an ‘Order of Battle’ for the Battle of Carthage, MO, July 5, 1861, with notes.

To Fight for Abraham's Daughter

Well, my American Attention Span Disorder finally kicked in...yet again.   While I am still driving forward with the 10mm Vietnam and 20mm Falklands/UK Anarchy, I am shelving my 15mm WWI project.  In it's place I am starting a new project that I have resisting up to now for the last 20+ years...the American Civil War in 15/18mm.



I have been sucked into this project for several reasons, besides my normal interest in military history.  I have always love the history of the ACW, especially west of the Mississippi River.  As a kid, I pretty much did an annual trip to the Pilot Knob battlefield for many years. On vacations with my grandparents, we always stopped at any ACW battlefields and museums.  My first unit in the National Guard carried the linage for the 1st Missouri Infantry (CSA) - (Ok, I had some trouble with that, but at least I was not serving in the Confederate army.)  When I was in college, I attend the burial of William Quantrill (I wanted to make sure the $*~#@ was dead!)  In the last 6 years, I have read a lot of ACW books.  The last two years I have been visiting a lot of ACW battlefields, museums, or monuments.  With this year being the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the ACW...I was pretty much doomed.  But the killing blows came from discussions of 15mm ACW for Regimental Fire &Fury with my follow gamers and various emails about the ACW in Missouri to a friend in the UK. 



So, here I am starting a new project!    Ok, so what are the details of this new project?



Rules:  I have ordered Regimental Fire & Fury, plus I already have Fire & Fury and Too Fat Lardies, "They Couldn't Hit An Elephant".  RF&F will be the main rules, but I would like try out TCHAE for bigger battles.  The rules all have the same frontage of 1".  So, there will be no need for different bases.  RF&F is one stand  for 40 men and TCHAE is one for 100 men or 200 men depending on  what scale you choose.



Figures:  As mentioned earlier, I will be doing this in 15/18mm.  I have some Old Glory already, but the bulk of my force will be Blue Moon, which is really 18mm.  Some units might also include Peter Pig, or Battle Honours.



Units:  I am first starting off with an Union Brigade of four 880 men regiments (22 stands with 3 figures.).   I know that 880 man RGTs for the Union are extremely rare, but due to the way that Blue Moon package their miniatures, I might might as well use them all up which will get 22 stands with 2 packs of infantry, and one pack of each of the officers, Non-Coms, flag bearers, and drummers.



This  Union BDE will not be a historical Brigade, but a grouping of some historical regiments that I like for various reasons.  Two RGTs will be generic sack coat & kepi units so I can switch out the flag stands to be another RGT.  Depending on the availability of flags, I want to make them Missouri RGTs or failing that, Illinois RGTs.  The next RGT will be the 8th Wisconsin with Old Abe on the flag stand.  I can also later switch out this flag stand and make it into another Wisconsin RGT from the "Iron Brigade."  The final RGT will be a Zouave RGT.  I have to do a little research on uniforms, but I plan for it to be the 8th Missouri.  If I am lucky, they will have the same uniform as the 11th New York so that they can double for them.  Also, I plan to do two more generic RGTs so I can re-flag all four generic RGTs to be the "Irish Brigade."



I currently have about 100 painted up Old Glory Union in mixed uniforms & civilian clothes, plus tailored green uniforms for the Fenian army for Ridgeway in 1866.  The figures wearing the green uniforms will be grouped as one or two Fenian units.  The ones in Union uniforms and mixed civilians clothing will do double duty as Fenians in 1866 and the Missouri Home Guard or the Enrolled Missouri Militia.  I am going to try to do research on the flag for the 1st Northeast Missouri Home Guard as that is the unit that I want them to mainly represent. 



Later, I want to do several other RGTs with unique uniforms, like the 3rd Missouri (3 Months), or the African-Americans, like the 1st Kansas or the 62nd USCT.



Between completing the various Union RGTs, I plan to start up some rebel units:  1st Missouri CSA and the Missouri State Guard.  I will also get the flags so eventually I can do the Bowen's Brigade.



After the infantry is complete, the cavalry will come next.  I only plan to do a RGT per side.  Any battle requiring more then one RGT of cavalry, will be done using F&F or TCHAE rules.  Artillery will be done throughout all of this.



With this, I give you two YouTube videos in the spirit of this new project...

Book Review: “Ozark Gunfights and Other Notorious Events” by Larry Wood

General Information

This book is a collection of twenty-five short chapters (5-13 pages each) about various gunfights, outlaws, and crimes in the Ozark area (SW Missouri, NW Arkansas, NE Oklahoma, and SE Kansas). Each chapter is on a specific event or person. The book covers the period from post - Civil War (starting with “Wild Bill” Hickok’s shoot out in Springfield, MO, in 1865) to the mid-1930’s (with Bonnie & Clyde’s shoot out in Joplin, MO, 1933), and one chapter about a 1950’s crime. There are quite a few B&W pictures scattered throughout the book, including pictures from the time and contemporary pictures of areas, buildings, or graves as they look like today. The chapters are actually different magazine articles written by the author (but one was co-written by the author) for various Western magazines.

The Good

I enjoy this book for a couple of reasons, besides the obvious interest in the topic. First is that the chapters are fairly short and secondly, they are fairly straight to the point with details. This makes for an easy and fast read for each chapter. Since each chapter is a completely separate event/person, one can choose to read one chapter and not another if they choose to do so. 

The Bad

In some ways, I wish that there were more details, but with this being a collection of articles for magazines instead a continuously flowing book, some details had to be dropped.

Stuff of Interest for Gamers

There are some chapters that could work out for a tabletop Western era bank robberies, but generally they are pretty one sided or fairly small and would work for a solo or two person game only. Most of the more detailed bank robberies discussed take place in the 1890’s to 1920’s. While this is out of the period, as well as regionally, to what most people considered to be the “Wild West”, there were a lot of infamous gangs or outlaws that are associated with this area and period: the Daltons, the Doolin’s “Wild Bunch”, and Roy “Arkansas Tom” Daugherty for examples. 

In some of the very earlier issues of “Miniature Wargames”, there were articles about three of the events or outlaws covered in this book. If you are interested more into this, I highly encourage you to look up those magazine articles for more details on how to table top those events. I would consider writing something up, but I don’t want to plagiarize any of these articles, plus I am lacking the free time to take that task to hand.

“Miniature Wargames” Issue #41 covers the Dalton’s raid on the Coffeyville, KS, banks. Issue #42 covers the Doolin’s “Wild Bunch” hold-up in Ingalls, OK. Issue #46 covers the Doolin’s “Wild Bunch” robbery of a bank in Southwest City, MO.

Wargames Illustrated Issue number 127 also covers the Dalton’s raid at Coffeyville, KS.

Next Review

It is back to the islands with “Nine Battles to Stanley” by Nicolas van der Bijl. I decided to read this book for two reasons. First, I read his book on the British army in Northern Ireland and enjoyed it. Secondly, he was the sole Intelligence staff officer for the 3 Commando Brigade on the liberating of the Falklands in 1982. I figured with his background as an intelligence officer, he should be able to provide some good insight into the operations done by 3 Commando Bde and the Falklands as a hold. I plan to read Thompson’s “No Picnic” immediately after this one, since Thompson was the commander of 3 Commando Bde.

Book Review: “Slow Boat on Rum Row” by Fraser Miles

General Information
 

This is an autobiography of a Canadian rum runner on the Pacific coast line. The author was 18 years old when he went to sea and spent two years as a short wave wireless operator and 2^nd Engineer on the rum runners, Ruth B and Ryou II. His career ended with the abolishment of Prohibition. The book is broken down into two main sections, the story of his life from childhood leading up to becoming a rum runner and his years as a rum runner. There are several appendices that cover other items related to Canadian rum runners, which will be discussed below. The book is 221 pages long, including 40 more pages for the appendices. There are many B&W pictures scattered throughout the book of actual rum running ships, their crews, and a few pictures of Fraser Miles childhood.

The Good

I will admit that I had some reservations about this book after I got it when I saw that 81 of the 221 pages was about his personal life a kid. I am now glad that I read it as the author was very good at keeping the stories interesting. One of the most interesting parts of the book is the author states that he took to rum running for the money, but was only making about sixteen cents per case during his years running rum! That was a very insignificant payment when one considers that the average case probably sold up to $200 depending on the label. But the amount of cases that his ship handled, still gave him roughly $125 a month for his pay. So one can do some quick math to figure out how many cases his ship handled in a month!

The author was a short wave wireless operator for a shipping company that was a front for a rum running operation out of Vancouver, Canada. He landed the job quite by accident, without going into a lot of it, basically he showed up in place of another friend, who was asked to show up because the regular operator did not show up. While serving on the rum runners, he kept a diary of his trips which allowed the author to have a fairly clear memory of what happen when he wrote this book much later. The author’s service was pretty much uneventful, but as with his childhood, the author is very entertaining with his telling.

The Bad

I enjoyed it, but I can see where some will found this very boring. If you think that the life of a rum runner was filled with shoot out with the Coast Guard, pirates, or rival rum runners…then you will be very disappointed in this book.

Stuff of Interest for Gamers

There really is not much for miniature gamers other then the description of the paint jobs of the type of ships. The “fireboats”, which was the high speed boats that took the case of alcohol to the beach, were painted dark grey. The delivery ship, which is what the author served on, would transport the alcohol from the “Mother ships” located on ‘Rum Row’ to the 12-mile limit to meet up with the “fireboats.” The delivery ships were painted light grey.

But for the role-player, there is tons of useful information about the daily life on the rum runners. One of the things that I thought is a great tool is the author gives an example of what a typical rum runner signal code matrix looks like and this could a layer of interesting game resource. Also in the appendices, is a USCG’s report on how they were able to triangulate the Ryou II’s location by listening to the Ryou II’s wireless transmissions.

There is a ton of information in the appendix on the various rum running ships or ships that thought were involved in rum running. This section is 17 pages long and has various information like who owned the ship, the length of the ship, when it was built, and a sentence or two about it history if know.

Next Review

“Ozark Gunfights and Other Notorious Events” by Larry Wood, is a collection of chapters about different gunfights, criminals, and lawmen in the post Civil War southwest Missouri, up to the 1930’s, and including on 1950’s event.

Book Review: “Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition” by David Okrent

General Information

The book is 398 pages long, including the appendices, but excluding the cited material, index, and pages with the pictures. The book is broken into four main sections, each containing four or seven chapters. The first main section cover the history of alcohol in the US prior to Prohibition, to include the rise of the various anti-alcohol societies and individuals, various court cases involving alcohol, and the political scene leading to the vote for the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. The section main section covers the Volstead Act, or the methods to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment, and the histories of the various legal alcohols allowed under the Volstead Act (pre-Prohibition personal stocks, wine/cider making, religious wines, medical alcohol, industrial alcohol, and near beers) and how the legal alcohol clauses were abused. The third section covers the illegal alcohol and the rise of various criminal powers. The final section is the rise of the rise of the anti-Prohibition movements and the end of Prohibition. There are three sections of B&W photographs with 61 pictures combined. Finally, this book is to be made into a Ken Burn’s documentary for PBS.

The Good

This is a very good book, period! It reads very well and the author does a great job in the flow of information from one subject to another. The author covers a lot of ground and gives a lot of information, but it never seems rushed, incomplete, or overwhelming to me while reading it. I think that this will make a great Ken Burn’s documentary.

The author did a great job discussing the various ‘dry’ and ‘wet’ factions and leaders and some of their reasons for why they were either for or against the Prohibition. Some of these groups or individuals are sort of surprising. For example, the Ku Klux Klan were a ‘dry’ faction because they viewed the power behind the alcohol industries where foreigners and that by keeping alcohol way from African-Americans, that they will not get ‘out-of-hand’. Whereas some of the more powerful ‘wet’ leaders included Pierre du Pont, the owner of DuPont Chemicals, because he was against the income tax laws. He believed that by repealing Prohibition, that the need for income taxes will cease since prior to Prohibition the alcohol taxes was so great, that there was no need for income taxes!

What is so amazing is the absolute amount of hypocrisy by the ‘dry’ leaders and organizations. The amount of corruption, ineptitude, and just out right insane logic is just amazing by the various ‘dry’ leaders. That is not to say that the ‘wet’ were plaster saints by any means, but they were not the ones claiming to be morally good either. Also, I was not aware of the Jones Law before this book. The Jones Law was passed in 1929 and it made alcohol related offences have far more severe punishments, including life imprisonment for a fourth alcohol conviction!

This book also has one of my favor titles for a chapter, “The Hummingbird That Went to Mars”. I don’t know why I really like it, but I do. The title is a reply to the remark made by the author of the Eighteenth Amendment, Morris Sheppard in 1930. When asked what he thought the chances of the Eighteenth Amendment being repealed were, he replied back, “There is as much chance of repealing the Eighteenth Amendment as there is for a hummingbird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tailed to its tail.” Needless to say, that this chapter deals with the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. Thank goodness for that hummingbird!

The Bad

I have nothing. The author was very well informed on the history of Prohibition and is a good writer. I really enjoyed it all.

Stuff of Interest for Gamers

Really, there is nothing that will be useful for a miniature gamer, like specific shootouts that can be gamed on the table. But for role-players with games set in the 1920’s, like Call of Cthulhu from Chaosium, this book is an invaluable resource for understanding the total aspects of the Prohibition. It covers the loopholes of the Volstead Act, what individuals and groups supported the “Dry’s” or the “Wets”, and key events in Prohibition.

There is one event that is talked about in the book which could make a great plot for a scenario for a detective RPG game (and could be done as a Cthulhu horror as well.) The incident happened in September, 1923, off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. A 107’ Canadian steam trawler, the John Dwight, was captured and scuttled by an opposing gang. Eight of the crew’s bloated bodies were found on washed up on the beach, with three of them having their faces skinned off and the others with their eyes gouged out and their fingertips burned away by acid so they could not be recognized. The captain of the John Dwight was founded adrift in a dinghy with his skull fractured and shoved underneath the bench. This could make for an interesting game of investigating some of the upper society for bootleg / criminal ties or possibly some horrid evil cult!

It could also be a great resource for an abstract matrix game on Prohibition in the US with the players representing various factions (like the Anti-Saloon League or Pierre du Pont) on either keeping Prohibition or ending Prohibition and still getting their primary / secondary goals (such as women’s equal rights or to end the income tax laws) in as well by dealing with the other players.

Next Review

“Slow Boat on Rum Row” by Fraser Miles; it is an autobiography of a Canadian rum runner.

General Update on my gaming and the blog

I am still working 80 to 100+ hours a week, so even though I am posting entries on my blog, I am still considering myself to be on a long hiatus since I am not able to do any gaming or working on my gaming projects. Plus, it may take me a week or even a month to type up another blog entry.

Besides the book reviews and my article on getting organized, I am still trying to do some research on the Platte City, MO, shootout with Bonnie & Clyde to create a skirmish scenario for that shootout. I just don’t have much time to do any Google-Fu on more information about the armored car and armored shields used during the shootout. I also have to play around on coming up with more information on the individual policemen involved. If nothing else, I hope to have it finalized and up on my blog by July 19^th, for the 78^th anniversary of the shootout.

My current gaming projects are (if I ever get the time):

10mm 2^nd Indochina War (US involvement in South Vietnam): Most of this project is finished and I have played a few games with the figures in the past few years as you may have seen from my previously blog entries on After Action Reviews of the games, which are now located on my Vietnam gaming website (https://sites.google.com/site/sapperjoesvietnamwargames/ ). I had previously used “Cold War Commander” (CWC) rules for my Vietnam games, but I plan to use “Charlie Don’t Surf” (CDS), by Too Fat Lardies, for future Vietnam games. I do want to get a game off some time this year, but everything is up in the air with my work load and working out of town. Plus, the days of having a game shop to run it at are pretty much over in St. Louis, so I have to clean out my basement for gaming or do some backyard gaming.

One of the first things that I need to do with the switching of rules is make some more “Big Men”, or leaders in Lardies’ talk, for the US side and possibly the VC side. I already have enough command stands that will work for the minimum required number of US “Big Men”, but now I need to get some more for the possible extra “Big Men” that the US might get. I will also need to increase the number of VC stands that I have. Other than that, I still have my unfinished “Snoopy” gun truck, M48’s, trucks, artillery, and other odds and ends for the US, but those are support units and what is required for the basic force. Since these are scenario specific items, I will work on them off and on.

The next thing that I need to do is start buying more terrain, like rice paddies, roads, hills, etc. I got some stuff, but I just need to get enough to do this right. I plan to start buying a bunch of stuff over the next few weekends for terrain.

I do plan to rebase my US troops to 40mm x 20mm bases for the infantry and vehicles instead of their current 50mm hex / circle base (yes, oddly enough that means actually basing them off of the CWC basing sizes instead of my original hex bases!) The reason for this is three things: 1) Reduce the size of their ‘footprint’ for less foliage and other terrain on be mounted on the base; 2) I plan to repaint some of the figures and replace some of my ANZAC miniatures that were posing as US troops with maybe some head swapping, and; 3) by reducing the base size, I should take up less room in my storage trays allowing me to carrying less boxes. I will not rebase the VC stands, as those were done by Steve H. Steve did such a wonderful job on the bases, that I cannot bring myself to rebase them.

Finally, my US force is a mix of the ANZAC and US figures from Pendraken to give more different poses. I still have several ANZAC figures left over, so I am also going to make an ANZAC forces as well (hmm…do you think reading about Long Tan has something to do with this!) I just ordered the figures with the SLR’s and that should be everything for a company of ANZACs for CDS. I am also planning to do a NVA force in their green uniforms for Long Tan and the later war. I am not sure if I really want to try to do an ARVN force. Not because I don’t want them, but in 10mm, I am not sure if they would really stand out vs. US figures, so I just might use my US figures as imposters for ARVN. I will probably still pick up a few vehicles and paint them up as ARVN though.

15mm WWI, Turkish Front skirmish and tactical: I have already bought some Minifigs Turks and British to start working on this project. I actually got about 17 Turks finish! I just got to do some minor details, flocking, and a sealer. That will be my first battalion for “If the Lord Spares Us” (ITLSU) by Too Fat Lardies. I am using an individual figure to equal one platoon for ITLSU, so that by having figures mounted separately, I can then also use them to equal one man for Too Fat Lardies’, “Through the Mud & the Blood”, (M&B). I did this so I can either fight brigade size battles with ITLSU or a platoon or weak company size skirmish with M&B. This is a low priority project that I am doing so I have something other than green uniforms to paint, plus I have been interested in WWI in the Middle East lately.

20mm ’Anarchy in the UK’ skirmish: This is the second highest priority for projects with me right now. Originally this was project was going to cover the low intensity warfare in Northern Ireland during ‘The Troubles’ for the period of the 1970’s and early 1980’s when the British Army were still using SLR and not the bullpup SA80’s rifles. After seeing the blogs, “Winter of ‘79” and “England Prevails…”, plus many emails with Mark & Math from “Winter of ‘79”, I decided that the route that I am going to follow instead of games on Operation Banner. Basically, I am pretty much going to parallel the “Winter of ‘79” blogs’ events of the breakdown of the UK in the 1970’s & early ‘80’s leading into a civil war. I am not going to worry too much about a back story, I just want to players to be at a little bit more at ease about the games with fictional Welsh Nationalist militants fighting off the conservative military coup forces from Salisbury, instead of PIRA and SAS trying to ambush each other. This will be an expanding project as the buildings, vehicles, and miniatures will be doing double duty for other future projects, like London zombies, ‘Red Dawn’ in Cornwall, and ‘Mad Max’ in Somerset. But right now, I just don’t have the time to be building my cardboard buildings for the project, but hope to start up again soon.

20mm Falklands skirmish: This is the project that has the highest priority. I sent off miniatures to be painted for most of a platoon of Brits and Argentines. I have gotten them back in the first week of June, but they are at home and I am working away from home and have not seen them yet. I probably will not get back to look at them for a while still. I also have some British figures that I painted up as well are on this blog. The British forces will double duty for the ‘Anarchy in the UK’ project, so there is more happiness there! I plan to do platoon size actions and some small section patrols. I need to get cracking on terrain and some buildings…and penguins! I plan to start buying some large hills over the next few weeks.

I made some orders during the month of June that are game related. First I made an order to Liberation miniatures for some more 1970’s/Falklands UK figures that I need (like a Milan team and SAS) and more squaddies with helmets to create a second platoon for Falklands or a rebel platoon for the UK meltdown. I also have some British vehicles, armed civilians, and ANZAC SAS (Vietnam line) for ragged militia types for the UK meltdown. Plus, I have some US figures with ranger caps and M1 steel helmets, along with a Ford MUTT for the US intervention forces for the UK meltdown and for shooting zombies along with my Hotspurs’ 1970’s SWAT team in 1978 Philadelphia.

I then order a few packs of 10mm ANZACs for Vietnam from Pendraken, so that should complete what I need there for an ANZAC company.

Next, I order some used books on the Falklands and on the 1920’s from Amazon. The Falklands books are: “No Picnic: 3 Commando Brigade in the Falklands” by Gen. Julian Thompson (the commander of 3 Commando Bde); “Above All, Courage: Personal Stories from the Falklands War” by Max Arthur; and a DVD from the History Channel, “The Greatest Raids from the Falklands Campaign”. The books covering the 1920’s are: “Alcohol, Boat Chases, and Shootouts!: How the US Coast Guard and the Customs Fought Rum Smugglers and Pirates, Part I: 1919-1924” by James Morrison; and “When Miners March – The Battle of Blair Mountain” (audio book, including 16 musical tracks) by William Blizzard.

To go along with the book on the USCG during the Rum War, I found an interesting download that is free on the internet, Intelligence In The Rum War At Sea: 1920-1933, by LT Eric S Ensign, USCG. I have not read it yet, but sounds like a very interesting topic. (www.ndic.edu/press/pdf/38038.pdf)

I plan to order some more used books in July which will cover more on the Falklands and some more books on the Rum War. In addition, I will start picking up terrain for the 10mm Vietnam and hills for the Falklands.

Anyway, that is basically what is going on in my life besides working my life away for the “The Man” as my youth fads away.

“Gamers of the world, organize!”

“To horse, Proletariat!”

 

Err…sorry, I was getting carried away this blog entry’s title. As you might have guess, this blog entry has something to do with getting organized...not against “The Man”, but organizing your gaming paints and materials instead. I am going to discuss some things that I have done in the attempt to get organize for gaming. While everything in this write up is available in the USA, the equivalent should also be available in other countries.

Organizing your paints

I mainly use Vallejo and Reaper paints, which both come in a similar size dropper bottle. Over the years, I had to continuously move from job to job, which also meant that I moved from city to city. So I had to make my painting cases easy to transport and keep some type of order so I could find the various colors without dumping out everything out to find one bottle of paint. I played around with different boxes until I finally found the best box to keep everything organized. I use the Plano’s extra deep tackle tray box which can be bought just about in any fishing & hunting store or department. The depth of the box is the right height to hold the paint dropper bottles up right. With the semi-clear plastic, you can see the bottles tops and even read the labels on the bottles that are along the outer edges. I can easily get over 100 dropper paint bottles in one box. Also as an added bonus is that since it is a fishing tackle box, that means that there are various carrying cases designed to carry more than one box from Plano if you got hundreds of paints – like me.

T: Paint Storage Box 

B: Paint Bottles with paint blob and ID number

What I did next is to place a drop of paint on the top of the bottle’s cap which has a little depression that allows the paint sample to have some protection from being rubbed off. This allows me to quickly identify where my different colors are located in the box. Next I take a permanent marker and mark on the cap the paint manufacturer’s product code so it can be reference to a manufacturer’s color chart or listing to see if I have a bottle of that paint, especially when someone provides a list of what color paints that they use to match a specific uniform, etc. 

The Gamers’ Box

I have played around on various methods of organizing stuff for gamers, like dice, markers, reference sheets, etc, so when I run games (unfortunately, which is not often enough), the player has everything that they would need for a game. I use to keep everything in one or two banker boxes. Then when I showed up at a game, especially if I would run something at a convention, I would have to dig everything out and separate it which takes away from the time limited time available, especially at conventions. 

Over this Memorial Day weekend, I had a vision on how I could speed up the process and keep things more prepared than before this. I created “The Gamers’ Box”. I am using boxes from the ‘Really Useful Boxes’ manufacturer, which are available at most of the major office supply stores in the US, and being an UK company, I would assume also in Europe. These boxes are molded in several colors, clear, black, blue, red, green, etc. But my local office supply store doesn’t have everything available, but has enough that I can make it color coded for three different players or sides: Red (Aggressors), Blue (Defenders), Green (3^rd Force – for a three-way scenario). I will use a similar idea to create a “Game Master’s Box” using either black or clear boxes, but more on that later.

T: The "Gamers' Box" unopened

B: Inside the "Gamers' Box"

The premise is that at the beginning of a game, I will give each side one of these ‘Gamers’ Boxes”, which will contain everything that the player(s) will need for the game for their side (Aggressor, Defender, or 3^rd Party.) As the boxes are color coded, I can make sure that any scenario sensitive information is in the right box before the game and not have to hunt for it later or worry that the opposing player might have the information for the other side in their box.

The Clipboard for Reference sheets & other papers

 

The main box to hold everything is the 4 Liter box which will work for both the US 8-1/2”x11” page size and the UK A4 paper size material. At the top of the box will be a clipboard of that side’s color for the player to keep track of any paper work that would be need for the game, like reference sheets, unit organizations, maps, scenario outline and victory conditions, etc. I will create a cover sheet that will cover the top of the paperwork for privacy that will probably be the game systems cover page, like in the example photograph below for Too Fat Lardies’ “Terrible Sharpe Sword”. Since the clipboards will be the color of one of the sides, that side will be able to keep track of their clipboard and not grab the wrong one. But if they don’t care to keep track of it, then the other side can use their lack of “security measures” and break their enemies’ “code” and gather intelligence!

Inside the 4L box

Also inside the 4L box will be a flexible 12” ruler in the proper sides’ color laying loose for measuring movements and shooting, but I will properly pick up another flexible ruler so that there will be two available for multiple players sides. I am going to see if I can find a 36” cloth tape measure or a clothing size tape to add for any measurements requiring distances over 12”. I don’t want any tape measures or rulers made of metal in my boxes as they have a possibility of damaging paint jobs on miniatures when accidentally used carelessly. While I did not put them in the box for the photographs, I also use special ‘Blinds’ markers to identify hidden troops and dummy markers for the various games, especially for the Too Fat Lardies games. These “blinds” will also go in the various boxes.

0.2L, 0.35L, and 0.55L Boxes in the 4L Box

Besides the rulers, clipboard, and other loose items like blind markers, the 4L box will also have at the minimum a 0,55L pencil box and at least one dice box of one of two sizes, 0.2L or 0.35L. There might more boxes depending on the game system or additional items that I might want to add, like status counters, blast templates, or smoke markers. For now, let’s just discuss these three smaller boxes from the biggest to smallest and how they will be used with the ‘Gamers’ Box.’

0.55L Box 

  

The 0.55L box, unlike the other boxes, has a double duty. First it is a pencil box that will contain a couple of mechanical pencils, an eraser, and a 6” ruler for keeping notes and updating a scenario map if there is one. I will pick up some grease pencils to add to the box for drawing on a scenario map, if one is needed. I will probably also add a small note pad for passing notes or making notes to oneself. The box’s next duty is to be used to roll dice in so they don’t go bouncing all over the table and possibly damage miniatures or knock over miniatures. As you can see from the pictures, one can easily roll up to 10 dice within the box and not have them bouncing out. Again the box is the same color as the side so it can easily be identified which side the box’s dice rolls are for when needing to make comparison rolls (like in the rules ‘Force on Force’). A second 0.55L box could be added to the 4L box if there is a desire to have a second dice rolling box for multi-player sided games, but if that is the case, you might want to consider using the 2^nd 0.55L box for carrying your dice instead of one of the next two sizes that are discussed below, due to the limited size of the of the 4L box.

0.35L Box

The next size box in my ‘Gamers’ Box’ is the 0.35L box. This is a great box for a large number of different size dice. In the picture, in the box I have ten dice of each of the following sizes: d6, d8, d10, and d12. I still have enough room for probably another 10 x d4’s and 10x d20’s. What you might have noticed in the picture is that each die type is a specific color. That is because in games like ‘Force on Force’ where the two opposing players roll off and then compare the dice to beat the opposing player’s individual dice, it is a lot easier to tell one player to roll their red dice and the other to roll their blue dice as the only d8’s in your game are the red and blue dice! So this should help to prevent the accidental rolling of a d12 with the d8 because all of the dice are different colors. I have not created a separate pool of dice for my Green box yet, but I don’t plan to do many three-way games. So I can take my time getting those dice.

0.2L Box

Finally, the 0.2L box is the smallest that I have for my ‘Gamers’ Box’, but they do make smaller boxes. The 0.2L box can hold up to 48 ‘Flames of War’ size dice or a deck of normal size playing cards (Poker deck size). While I don’t like “Flames of War”, personally, I do like the themed dice and use them for various games that are d6 based, like the Too Fat Lardies systems and the Blitzkrieg Commander system. In this photo, you can see the FOW Soviet dice which I use for any Communist forces, like Soviets, Viet Cong, etc.
 

Game Masters’ Box 

I did not have time to really start working on this box yet, but this will be the box that I will carry everything that I will need as a Game Master, minus miniatures and terrain (unless I have room). Currently, I am thinking that the 9L box might work, but some of the rules that I have are in 3-ring blinders from PDF files, and the 3-ring binders might not fit in that size box. So I might have to look into getting a different size box, but I will have to follow up on that on a different date. But, here is what I am planning to be packed in it.

• Clipboard for paperwork
• 0.55L box for pencils and dice rolling box
• 0.2L box for a deck of playing cards or a 0.3L box that can hold two playing card decks (some games of the Too Fat Lardies games, like ‘Charlie Don’t Surf’, has enough cards for two decks when all of the optional cards are added in to the count.)
• 0.2L box for some dice that might be needed for the GM
• Note pad for taking and passing notes if needed
• Boxes for spare counters, markers, and templates
• Copy of the rules and scenario notes/maps/etc
• Some cheap name tag stickers for convention games, if they don’t have name tags
• For conventions, a display stand with the different game segments (i.e., Player A moves, Player B shoots) that can be seen by everyone so everyone knows what turn is on in the game. It should help in keeping the game moving and not missing any steps, especially when having a bunch of new players.
• A display stand for convention games so a sheet can be put in it giving the scenario’s name, the game system used, a brief description of the game, the GM(s) name(s), Club name, and website or blog site address for passer-by and the players – especially if you have a website or blog since you spend all of that time to have on, announce it!
• Players’ awards or manufacturer’s support if available at conventions – Consider if nothing else, a simple paper award for the “Most Humorous Moment”, “Most Heroic Action”, “The Best Kill” etc, can go a long way to make your game more remembered to the players and encourages future return gamers at conventions
• Possible additional books or collection of photos to allow the players to look at regards to an actual battle the game is based off, or even other game books for the same game system. Sometimes a simple game might spark an interest in a new period with players, so encourage it!
• Camera, spare batteries and film/memory cards for memories and blogs