Pledge update

January
Purchased: 0
Painted :
- 10 15mm Haystacks
-10 28mm Spiders

The Pledge

Happy New Year everyone. I hope you had a good New Years.

It's now 2012 and I have to stop wasting time with my Hobby. I spend a ridiculous amount of money on stuff that never gets painted or played with. This year I'm gonna start making a dent in that pile of unpainted lead/plastic/resin.

I'm taking "the pledge". The pledge is a New Year's Resolution or a commitment to paint more figures than you buy. Some people are very aggressive about it, like painting 10 for everyone they buy. Or more casual about it say 2 for 1. I don't want to go crazy here, and over commit, but I pledge to paint in total more figures than I buy.

Just achieving that goal will be an improvement over 2011. I have some other New Year's resolutions better manage my time/eat healthy/exercise/ lose weight, but who doesn't have a few of those.

So lets start a tally:

January 2012
Bought: 0 (thankfully my last minute purchases in Dec made it in before New Years :P )
Painted: 10 Resin 15mm haystacks. (Really only counts as 1, they are very easy)

Cheers, Xin

Some D&D Terrain

I am dipping my toe back into the Dungeons and Dragons pond after about a 20 year break. I'm trying 4 edition. It's a big change from 2nd ed when I last played, but I like it. I've been wargaming since I last played D&D and one thing that held me back from D&D was going back to drawing terrain on an erasable mat.

I love making terrain and the modeling aspect of wargaming almost as much as wargaming. So I didn't want to give up playing on nice looking tabletops. At first I tried a few skirmishes using no battlemat. Just replaced squares with inches. It works to a degree that you can make a go of it but not without issues. But I was gonna also try using the battlemat.

Last night I was putting together an adventure for my friends and I thought I'd print out some Dungeon tiles or something. I couldn't find anything I liked and was about to toss in the towel when inspiration struck. I could scratch out a grid on pink foam board, slap on some gray paint and I would be in business. Shouldn't take any time at all.....

Well it was much easier than I thought, looked much better than I hoped, but that led to....Mission Creep. Once I got going, my project kept getting more elaborate and elaborate. I didn't make my 12 midnight bed time, but 2 is not bad, right? Sigh. Well the results are below.

This is the entrance to the dead Wizards Lair that has been taken over by forces unknown. The stalwart PC's have been hired to clean it out. We are just going thru an adventure to learn the mechanics with minimal roleplay. 4e is a lot to learn. This is the ledge on the side of a cliff entrance to the wizards lair. Next week I will build interior boards.





Cheers, Xin

The Mighty Eighth Airforce

This past April for spring break I drove the family to Florida. We've done this before and I've seen this huge B-47 Bomber right off 95 in Savanah GA. I always wanted to stop but you know it's a long drive from NJ to FL. Anyway we were making really good time, so I saw the bomber and pulled off.

That's when I found the 8th Airforce Museum, and what a great find! Outside in the parking lot they had an F-4 Phantom and a Mig-17

I parked and went in since we had the time. I said to my kids, who groaned a bit, "It's Daddy's vacation too, sometimes we will do boring stuff".
This place is great and well worth the stop. The front section has lots of displays about the lead up to the war and our entry into the war. Once past that you get to the "airfield". They have the main room sort of like a airfield from Britain. Concret floor with oil stains, tire marks. Walls painted with scenes of the airfield. There's a quasent hut for the flight brief which is actually the begining of a Multimedia Flight exprience, From brief to bomb run and back to England.

Also in the big room is a B-17 that is being restored. I think it's about 85% done. This thing is big and awesome.
Lots of other cool stuff in the room. There's this huge diorama of an Airfield. This thing is cool and big. About 20x30 feet.Another diorama on a bomb run.
There's a lot of other things here, but we ran out of time, and a reason to go back. If you have the time, please stop, you won't regret it.

Here's all the pictures I took, enjoy.

Cheers, Xin

Historicon 2010 Day 0

It's late(almost 2am) and everyone is asleep, but me. I thought I'd share some of Day 0, (convention starts tomorrow, Thursday).

First Impression:
The Radisson is ok. Some would say a step up from the host, but not a big step, but up, none the less. Waiting for the elevators is annoying, 1 of the 3 seems out of order.

Parking I think will be an issue as the lot doesn't seem big. Maybe there is a side lot I haven't seen yet.

The pool, while nice, is not as good as the Host. It is sort of in the middle of a parking lot. It has a fence around it, but not as integral to the hotel as the host is.

The other hotel is the Scanticon(odd name) and I haven't seen a room but was told they were decent.

In both hotels/convention center. the A/C is struggling to compete with the heat. If you were looking for better A/C than the host, I haven't seen it. But I free admit it is hot as hell outside and any A/C would be hard pressed to keep up. In my room I have it cranked and its nice, but I will not be spending much time here.

Food, expensive hotel food only so far. I assume there will be food vendors about, but not sure. Went to Chili's, not cheap either.

The convention center is under the Scanticon, 1st floor down is a cavernous open area where there will be tournament and regular gaming. It's a really big room.

Registration was a pain in the ass. I did not pre-register but am scheduled to run a game. At 7pm they had Pre-Reg/ GameMasters/ Walkup Registration windows open. Kudos to them for that. Lots of people on these lines very crowded for a "night before". That's when the party ends.

I asked 2 different "staff" before I got on line at the GameMasters Desk, could I get a flea market table, and badges for my kids at the GM desk. Both said yes. Waited in line, and when I got to the counter, of course they couldn't do that. I would have to go back on line to the Walk up window. Very annoying, I could have been on that line already. If your standing there to direct people, know what you are talking about or don't guess.

So I get on that line and it took about an hour to process the 12 people in front of me. Unacceptable. I don't fault the workers, it was their system. Why do they have computers if it slows the process down. It was maddening. Their registration system has to go. It is un-usable in it's current state if it takes 10-15 minutes to process one person.

All in all, it was a very unpleasant experience. I really can't say enough bad things about the whole process. They need to fix this.

Ok, enough about that, how about some pictures. Click on pictures for bigger views.

The Radisson

The Scanticon and convention center.

Right side of main hall, I think Flames of War tables.
Back Right of main hall. Ancients I think.
Back left of hall. There seems to be regulare event tables to the front of the hall and front right side.View towards the front. Registration is on the otherside of that white wall/flag. Below the flag is stairs going down the the Vendor level.

Board game Warlords of Europe, our pre-convention entertainment. Great game, bad choice for a wed night. Takes way too long to play. Was fun though.
I hope this shed some light on Historicon for those of you who could not make it. I am optimistic about this been a good convention.

Cheers, Xin

Hunter Killer Pics

There was a request on TMP for a pic of the Hunter Killer with other figures for scale. Here ya go. Click on pics for larger images.

Left to right: New Revell Republic Gunship, Hunter Killer, GW Valkyrie.
Figures are Star Wars Prepaints, New Space Hulk Termmie, Wargames Factory Germans(thank you free Fall In give aways) and SST Mobile Infantry.
Same figures, lower angle.

My Pirate ships have been pirated.

I was kit bashing some toy pirate ships for gaming use awhile back. I took a break and was letting the glue set on some parts when I came back my ships were gone. Then over in the gaming area I find my little 12 year old pirates had nicked my ships and taken on a new crew.
Not only had they found my ships, they found my recent ebay purchase of about 100 clone troopers. Pirate ships and clone troopers, what could be better together?
The good guys lead by Ahsano and Lando against...
Ventress and Mara Jade. They had a lot of fun. I'm not sure who won as usually when they play together it's more of a story than a wargame. But they do like to gang up on Daddy.

Cheers, Xin