Another Year Older....

...but I'm not sure how much wiser!

Update

I have not done much since the last post. Last week, I had spring break. I spent the early part of the week visiting an old college friend who lives in Atlanta. His wife passed away a few months ago from cancer. It wasn't meant to be a "fun" visit but it turned out well. Basically he talked, I listened. This isn't meant to be a boast, but as another friend said, "truly listening to people is what you do best." 

The remainder of my vacation was taken up with my daughter's tennis tournament. I had planned on finishing the revisions on a paper to be published, but that didn't happen.

Since I've been back, I've been swamped with work, mostly grading and non-scholarly things. Much of the little free time has been spent cleaning the work area. I started to make a few more river hexes even though I didn't plan to make more. One of them is going to have a dock along the river, and maybe a little shack or hut on the bank. The other, I was going to make specifically for a bridge, but that is still up in the air on that. I'd prefer to be able to stick bridges anywhere along my river. I also toyed with the idea of taking the Mediterranean villa I bought from GameCraft Miniatures and set it high up on the side of the river. The hexes are not big enough to accommodate it. I'd have add an extension to the hex, and I think that would look funny. I might still do it, who knows?

I bought some stuff from Shapeways...sorry, no pictures.  I got some more various aircraft, including a 1/300 twin-engine Cessna (not cheap!) and some Pakistani JF-17 Thunder multirole fighters in 1/285. 1/300 and 1/600. The 1/285 looks a little more detailed than the 1/300...no surprise there, but the 1/600 looks awfully small even for that scale. I'll have to compare it to both Oddzial Osmy and Tumbling Dice, but it looks smaller than even Oddzial Osmy's planes. 

 In addition to the airplanes, I bought some 1/96 scale ship-building accessories. This included a 25mm gun and some bridge binoculars. Don't ask me how I got this in my head, but my plan is to build a 1/00 (15mm) small, modern patrol craft. It can be used for AK-47 games. 1/96 is a little big, but don't think it will be too obvious. The plan is to try to sell it. 

Last but not least, more rules! I'm not going into them in detail, but I got Brigade Commander from Five-Core Rules. Another set to be potentially used for modern armor combat. The biggie is that I splurged and got General Quarters III. I can't deny it, I've got naval fever! Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!

Making Rivers for 6mm, Part 3

I'm SLOWLY getting there on my rivers. Here is a small stretch:

Sorry about the crazy background. I took the picture on a chair because the rest of my work area is a major mess! That is also the reason why they are not fitting together that well. The river itself is done, or at least as good as its going to get. I am now working on the banks. I am not going to go all crazy here on this project. I'm still not sure that I will end up using them, but I've come this far, so I am going to complete them. I keep thinking about just laying down some caulk without any sort of base and be done with it. Currently, I am taking a forced break in order to attempt to clean up the messy workbench.

A few other thoughts as I do some housecleaning:
1. The siren song of naval wargaming once more is calling me. Back in the late 70s and into the 80s, I was a big naval wargamer. My friends and I used various rules, even a homemade one based on Avalon Hill's Midway, but we settled on Fletcher Pratt rules.

Some aspects IMHO were a little clunky, like how torpedoes worked (they almost never hit anything), but they seemed to have what we wanted. Anyway, lately, I've been wanting to go back to naval gaming. There is a naval gaming Facebook group that I joined, and that might be the culprit. I am thinking about pre-dreadnought era, but can't decide. What's holding me back, among many other things, is do I want to build my own or just buy them. One of these days, I will pull out and photograph my scratch-built fleets that I built in the early 80s.

2. Completing my own modern rules. I've been putting together little bits and pieces of it for some time now. It is a mash up of several published rules that I like. I take the best parts and put them together. I'll use them for solo purposes. I've noticed there seems to be a lot of game design posts on various blogs, and a lot of folks are coming up with their own rules. I figure, it they can do it, so can I.

3. Having another epic fantasy battle. Not much to comment on, except I am in the mood for one. It will give me an excuse to paint more of the pile. I still have to finish those rangers, and I have a big pile of Copplestone barbarians that I want to dig into and paint up.

OK, I think that is enough introspective cogitating for one night.