Kids Today

Warning - Waaay off topic.

If you're close to my age, and especially if you grew up in the U.S. and in particular the rural Great Plains, this time of year always brought anticipation.  It was around now that the Sears and JC Penney Christmas Catalog, with pages and pages of wonderful toys to look at and dream about would arrive.

Well, both Sears and JC Penney are all but gone now.  And it's probably been close to 20 years or more since they sent out those massive 400+ page Christmas Catalogs.

But, there are still some companies that send out Christmas Catalogs.  I just recently received this years Cabela's catalog, and while I was  looking through it, I did thumb through the kids section.  And what caught my eye in the kids section?

A Spit Ball gun????  Fill a container with water, attach a roll of toilet paper, and shoot spitballs up to 30 feet.  

When I was a kid we had to make our spitballs the old fashioned way!  With real spit, and whatever paper we could find. If we were lucky we had a straw to shoot them through, if not, we had to throw them.  Kid's these days, they clearly don't know what it was like to rough it.  (does this mean I'm turning into one of those "get off my lawn you damn kids" old farts?). 

I guess it's nice to know we can still devote resources to this type of stuff with everything going on in the world.

And for the Pictures or it didn't happen crowd, here's a shot of page 76 of the BassPro/Cabela's catalog.

It does look pretty cool.  Good job to whoever designed it.

Something for those of you with grandkids to consider. Especially if you enjoy winding them up and then giving them back to their parents.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Eurica Campaign Update

 

While it may seem like it’s been forever since the last battle, in game terms 46 days have passed since the cease fire was declared ending the One Day War.  In that time both the Soviets and the American’s have been resupplying their proxies in the region.

 

In addition to receiving replacement vehicles for those lost in combat, Wilhelmsland has benefited from the ongoing replacement of the American M113’s with Bradley IFV in Europe, and recently received a shipment of 2 battalions worth of worn out, but functional M113’s allowing them to replace the last of the M3 ½ Tracks in service with their active units.  They have also received some much appreciated self-propelled 4.2” mortars, M113’s with TOWs  and Vulcan anti-aircraft vehicles.  They’ve also received some less than appreciated odd ball equipment like the M-56 Scorpion self-propelled anit-tank guns and a reinforced company of M551 Sheridan’s.   

 

Most importantly the last 46 days have allowed Wilhelmsland to complete the call up of their Reserve units. After the shock of the Rubishland invasion they have activated some old equipment that last saw service in the defense of Wilhelmsland during the 1954 Gardenstan invasion.  Most of the Reserve units and a considerable portion of the recently received new equipment has been deployed with the 4^th Brigade, which is now the only unit stationed on the border with Gardenstan. 4^th Brigade has reorganized into several Combat Teams of mixed forces to try to optimize their effectiveness.   The 1^st and 3^rd Brigade along with the battered 2^nd Brigade, which continues to replace lost personnel, are stationed on or near the Rubishland border as the Wilhelmsland leadership expects President for Life Sanford to break the cease fire at any moment.  Whether Big Daddy Fish will take this opportunity to launch another ‘navigational error’ into Wilhelmsland from Gardenstan remains to be seen.  

 

Rubishland has received several ship loads of T-72’s, T-55’s and BMP’s to replace their losses from their failed invasion.  Additionally, they have received enough equipment for another Tank Regiment, some air defense assets and counter battery radar.  

 

Gardenstan has also received replacements for their losses during the Marshland incident as well as some additional air defense and artillery assets.  And maybe a few other surprises?

 

The table is mostly laid out, there are still a few units that need painted.  I’m going to give the ‘night fighting’ rules a try, so we’ll see how that goes.   Hopefully real life will allow me to play it out and write it up before the end of the month – but you know no plan survives contact with the real world.  Now if the Czarina will just stop scheduling things for the long weekend I may be able to pull this off.

 

An undisclosed Wilhelmsland border crossing.  4 dug in infantry platoons and 2 guns guard the Wilhelmsland side.  The building is the customs/immigration office.  

 

To everyone in the US have a great Thanksgiving!  Enjoy the time with friends and family.

So much lead, so little time.

DAMMIT JIM!

I’m a gamer, not a model maker.

 

Wow, October is gone already, and without a single post – I suck.

 

That doesn’t mean that things haven’t been happening.  On the Eurica front,  all of the belligerents have been greedily accepting reinforcements sent from the various supporting super power.  Painting continues and with any luck a new offensive may kick off this month.

 

On the Outlandishain Chronicles front, I’m still trying to figure out a scenario (short of just faking the results) where the Earl can pull his lard out of the fire.  But with luck there should be some Renaissance action before the end of the month as well.

I guess 2 months ago now I played my first game of Stargrave and I found the game to be very enjoyable for a skirmish game.  It played fast, the outcome was clear, and the rules were  easy to pick up quickly.  

 

The other thing I’ve been working (slowly) on is more terrain. In anticipation of the Outlandishian Chronicles kicking off I’ve been busy building earthworks, that will also double nicely for Napoleonics.

 

A single battery emplacement, with flank cover.  

And what's up with the line on the background scenery?  Some sort of temporal rift?  Dimensional Portal?  I didn't notice it at the time.

And a ground eye view.

This one is a bit more ambitious and is only 1/2 completed.  So far I have one gun emplacement and one infantry section plus one of the end caps completed.  Terrain is a mood thing for me and I sort of ran out of the mood before I finished this.

Vulture's eye view

And ground eye view

And now, back to the title of the post for those of you that have been wondering what does any of this drivel have to do with the title?  I can do passable terrain, but models... nope.  As proven below.

The shuttle body was a block of styrofoam that came as packing with something I ordered. The size looked right, so I beveled the front.  The engine pods are old 'Marks-a-lot' felt tips markers with a coat of white paint.  

And finally, Project Z is still a ways off, but I'm trying to determine what figures I'll be using.  I found the below on Shapeway.  They're the Nightfury, (basically a starfury with a rear gunner.  I'm thinking of using them as a bomber. (bonus points if you recognize the TV show).  The 3D print is pretty good and has enough detail on it.  They're a bit brittle and I managed to snap one of the wings off when I was drilling the hole for the mounting wire, but it glued back on easily enough.

Scale wise, these are a little big, but let's be honest, a space fighter or bomber at true scale would be too small to see given the size of most of the warships.

For Project Z I plan on using the Full Thrust rules, which has fighter and bomber squadrons at 6 figures each.  Trying to fit 6 of these on a base was a bit of challenge.  I may need to either buy bigger bases or maybe only model 4 figures to a squadron.  Still debating that.  But then again, the 'swarm' vibe this gives is slowly growing on me.

That's it for now.

So much lead, so little time.