Festivus: the airing of grievances

  Welcome, newcomers. The tradition of Festivus begins with the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people! And now you're gonna hear about it! -- Frank Constanza

Two things have been stewing in my head for a bit, though one is a little more recent than the other. Let's start with the recent one. Alert: this is a long post, but you should be used to that from me by now.

Grievance #1: Quality of Service

I am not sure if this is a Covid thing or just something I can blame on post-Covid shifting in our human psyche, but I have found that the quality of service among various game-related companies has gotten bad. I am not going to name names, but I have had several issues where I placed an order, paid for the goods, and never got the product. These are not the heavy hitters like Games Workshop or Reaper Miniatures, these are the little guys. In one case, I placed an order in early September and waited, and waited... I did get a prompt email response that my order had been received and my PayPal account was billed. Finally, at the beginning of November, I emailed to check the status of my order...nothing. I did again in about the first week of December....again nothing. So, I called my credit card company and sicked them on the issue. It was funny because when the customer service rep asked me what kind of company it was I hesitantly said it makes wargame miniatures. I'm sorry, I know nowadays it's cool to be a nerd, but I come from an earlier time where at least in the USA, wargaming was looked down upon. I carry that baggage still today. She was very positive and said her brother is a gamer and plays D&D. She asked if I wanted my money back or to resolve the situation where the order is expedited and I get the minis. I chose the later.  A week later, I got an email from the company saying I was going to get a refund on my credit card. That was it. No apologies for nonexistent service. Nothing. 

In another case, I placed an order with a company that 3D prints their miniatures. Again, I got a confirmation that my order was received and I paid for the miniatures. I realize that 3D printing can take time. A Shapeways order would sometimes take up to five months, but they always sent update emails on the progress of their printing. After four months, I contacted this company on the status of the order. The person completely forgot my order. Yes, take my money, please. 

You are probably saying, "gee Chris, you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater. These are only two companies." Yes, that is true, but I noticed a deterioration of service from a number of companies I regularly order from. Companies that had excellent service in the past seem to be slipping. Orders seem to be very slow (I find myself sending more emails lately to enquire on the status of an order than in the past); they screw up the order multiple times and send me the wrong things; I get a pack of figures that are supposed to have multiple poses and get all of the same pose; or I email a company and never get a response. 

I am not an expert on business or business economics, but it seems that small, niche companies live or die by customer satisfaction. They need repeat customers. I get they are small maybe even one man operations, but at least keep your customers in the loop. And when your company does screw up, offer a small token to make up for the screw up. Will I order from these companies again? No way for the first case study and not likely for the second. The owner did say he will print the order but I won't get them until the new year.

Grievance #2: Historical Revision regarding Rules

This one has been really been bugging me for several years now. I blame it on the rise of Games Workshop and all the big box companies that adopted their business model such as Warlord Games. This may seem silly but it is as if table top wargaming with miniatures never existed prior to the 1980s or whenever Games Workshop went full corporate. Its almost Orwellian. 

I am not necessarily talking about where I went into an official, stand alone Games Workshop store and they stare at me blankly after I answer their question of if I have ever played Warhammer 40K, and I reply no, but I have played lots of other rulesets. Then, they condescendingly proceed to explain it all to me as if I had never picked up a miniature and some dice before. Yes, this happened to me several times. 

Its not so much that, but the ardent followers of these various games. I have had conversations with many younger gamers and have watched many YouTube videos on wargame rules. They seem to think nothing existed prior to the rise of these big companies, particularly with regards to rules. These YouTube experts go on and on about rule mechanics not bothering to do a little research of the past. The state that the latest edition of game X introduced this new mechanic innovative mechanic. Bullsh*t!! That "new" mechanic has been around for years and I can cite the rules where they are found. A number of times I have or wanted to say something along the lines of, "you do realize that rule mechanic X is not an invention of [insert big name company here]. It can be found in rules A, B, and C that were published in the 70s and early 80s." They give you a puzzled look. 

These are the same folks that if you criticize some aspect of a rule, they get all ballistic. I remember recently stating a game was over that there was a mechanism to resolve a hit didn't make sense and that another rule set did it better. My opponent didn't seem to realize that there were actually other rules of this genre out there and that this was how its done and that is that. I even dared to suggest it could be modified...nope, can't happen! I guess when you plunk down $100+ for a set of rules (hence, Big Box), they are perfect whether you really believe that or not. When I was in college the first time around (a whole separate story), one of my gaming buddy's (math and history double major) absolute joy was to dissect a rules and try to come up with a better mechanic that made more sense to him. Then, we'd play test it to see if his tinkering held up. Even back in high school, my high school buddies and I found the infantry rules for Angriff! the WWII rules awful and came up with our own that we thought were better. Were they better? I don't know but at least we didn't have this blind loyalty to the rules. 

I'm not saying that Games Workshop rules or any other big box company rules bad. I really like Warmaster and Lord of the Rings Big Battles rules. I think X-Wing Miniatures game by Fantasy Flight Games has a really neat mechanic. I just feel that there have been rules going back far earlier than when I hooked a ride, and this should be acknowledged or at least superficially "studied" before making bold, expert pronouncements and pontifications. 

Somewhat related, is sad to see that so many folks, particularly younger ones, are so hooked on the big box games that they won't even think about playing games using non-big box rules. Last spring, I attended a small local convention. The miniature wargames section consisted almost all Warhammer 40K except for one guy who put on a zombie vs alien vs rednecks invasion game using some rule set I can't remember the name of. NOBODY signed up for his game, except for me. It ended up that his older son and wife played to make up for the two other factions in the game. It wasn't the greatest game, but it was fun and entertaining and there were no arguing over rules minutiae.  

I guess I am old.

Battle with a Beast

 

A Hornblower shield maiden confronts an Andrewsarchus from Khurasan Miniatures. Boulder scenic made from dried up Play-Doh.

More Barbarians to Rage With

 A new line of fantasy barbarians came out from Mace Face Miniatures. It is their Hornblower shield maidens. I am not sure why they are called hornblower. You do get a lot of horn blowers in the command pack. 

This is a sample from the mixed weapons, archers, and command packs

I suppose that shield maidens is a good description. They have a nordic vibe to them as they are dress for cold weather. They appear to be ever so slightly smaller than Copplestone's barbarians. They are very well sculpted with a lot of detail. I have no idea who sculpted them, but they do resemble the style of the Copplestone barbarians. My only issue with them is they have a lot of flash or the little bits and squiggles of metal attached to them. I spent a hour or so last night cleaning up some of the figures. 

Other news

Ion of Archduke Piccolo put out some neat, easy to use rules for WWII naval battles. Ion's rules and the ships that he made triggered a major sense of nostalgia. Back in my high school days, my best friend Mark and I would have these epic naval battles using slightly modified rules from Avalon Hill's Midway game. Mark even built fleets of very simple but effective ship models out of mostly balsa wood and cardboard. Using the various paper ships that I have made, I might have me a battle using these rules. I may even get back into the ship building business. 

Finally

A picture of an imperial knight from Ral Partha Europe (DemonWorld)

Updates

Time has passed since the last post. 

First, no International Naval Wargaming Day game happened. Wow, be surprise coming from me. There was actually a good reason why, but over a month has passed and with it the reason. I'm sure it was a good reason though. 

Second, I have been mostly painting of 15mm fantasy/medieval for Dragon/Lion Rampant gaming. Robert over at Shogun Miniatures has been very busy with my orders. A great guy to do business with and his prices are pretty reasonable. If you need custom-made metal bases, suggest you check him out. On the other hand, I had some big issues with another vendor of 15mm fantasy figures who shall remain nameless. I know that with the exception of some huge corporate entities like Games Workshop, most businesses we deal with are "mom & pop" affairs. Still, I should not have to sick the credit card company on them after three months and repeated ignored emails. I liked there minis but they are "dead to me" as they say in organized crime movies.

I've also done some work building structures for 3mm-1/600 gaming. For some reason, I cannot seem to get the scale right. The buildings always seem to fit better with 1/300 miniatures. 

Much of what has been occupying my time is all my son's extracurricular activities. We won't go there, but my wife is not very involved in much of my son's activities except for tennis. Even there, I am the one who does most of the driving to and from lessons. Between tennis, Boy Scouts (sorry now known as just Scouts), and church youth group activities, I don't have a lot of time for my self except late at night. Even then, I am grading exams or papers, or going over the next day's lectures. Man, I miss the days long ago when I worked 9 to 5 at some relatively mindless job and then had the rest of ,my day free!

The last thing I want to mention is my current state of being. I live in northeastern Tennessee right on the border with southwest Virginia. Its is about an hour drive from the North Carolina border. Other than a day's power outage and a few days of no cell or internet service, my town survived Hurricane Helene intact. No so in other towns nearby, especially those that are nestled in mountain valleys. So far, 227 people are dead and a number are still missing. A lot of stories of people I know suffered from this. My wife, son, and I have done volunteer work to help out, but it is still devastating on the psyche. And to add to this, like everything else now in the USA, its become politicized. It is hard to focus on hobby things when events like this hit close to home. 

Shalom.

International Naval Wargaming Day

 So, this Tuesday, August 6th, is International Naval Wargaming Day. As you all know, I spend a lot of time talking about having game, but rarely actually having one. This year, I will. Part of my motivation is that for the foreseeable future, I have a 6' x 4' table! Bottom line is that my wife got two 6' x 4' folding tables. These things have become pretty darn expensive over the past 5 or 6 years and I can't get myself to buy one. Its not clear if this is a permanent acquisition, but she said that I can use it. I just need to move it into the garage. Not the best place to game in terms of both climate control and lighting, but it will have to do. 

The question is what to game? The thing is, that I will have to have the game either Saturday or Sunday. Monday both the boy and I start school and Tuesday evening he has Boy Scouts Honor Court. This is where everyone in his troop gets the various merit badges they've earned since the last one. I'm pretty sure he will get at least three badges. Because of this, I have to set up something somewhat quick and dirty. Its unlikely I will have time past the weekend. 

Here are my possible choices:

1. Pre-dreadnought game using cardboard top view ship counters. I was planning on building some scratch built ships made out of popsicle sticks and such, but I have been too deep into painting fantasy figures to switch gears. The rules I will use is Gridded Naval Wargames by Bob Cordery. I really like these rules despite have to be on a grid (sorry, not a huge fan). I've played a few games before with them and they capture the flavor of the period. I will employ my 6' x 4' hex games mat. 

2. Modern game. Again, I will use cardboard ship counters. I already made a bunch of them for my modern ImagiNation universe. For the rules, I will probably use Bulldogs Away!

3. WWII. I have amassed a whole bunch of  Figurehead 1/6000 ships. Some of them have been painted and based. It will be very a-historic, maybe the German navy battles it out with the Japanese navy. Who knows? I might either use Find, Fix, and Strike naval rules by David Manley or Nimitz by Sam A. Mustafa. I also have the latest edition of Victory at Sea, but that might take longer to set up than I have time for. 

15mm Watch Tower

 I've been working on this thing off and on for probably three years...mostly off. I took the advice of a crafter on YouTube to build it out of cardboard. I won't be doing that again. While very inexpensive, it was very time consuming and boring. I used a dollar store Christmas gift box as the base as it were. The battlement was made by gluing the lid to the main part of the box and then cutting out chunks to make the merlons and the crenels. The part that took forever was cutting out and gluing the stones to the sides of the walls. I used pulp paper egg cartons. They have a nice bumpy texture. I ran out of egg cartons and used regular cardboard for the outside and inside of the battlement wall. I should have made the floor of the battlement out of stone, but for some reason, I made it to look like wood planks. I used strips of card board. 

I sealed it all with a mixture of Mod Podge and black craft paint and then kept dry brushing it with lighter and lighter grays. For the wood, I painted it with a honey brown craft paint and then used made a wash of Future floor wax and burnt umber paint. 

I think it turned out OK. The stones are not to scale, but I don't really care. It isn't meant for diorama purposes. 

Recently, I bought a sheet of pink insulation foam. I plan to use that for my next terrain project. 

Shapeways Out of Business

 This is probably old news to a number of you, but Shapeways is officially out of business. It filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last week, which means there is no restructuring. I don't know the details of what happened to cause this. I have to wonder what the vendors are going to now do, especially those in the table top gaming business is going to do. In this day and age, they can probably set up their own machines to print out figures. 

I am glad I managed to get some of the models that I did. Many of these vendors had a niche market for aircraft, AFVs, and ships that are not found elsewhere. There are a whole bunch of companies that make F-16s or MIG-21s, but nobody I know of in the "mainstream" makes a Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano in 1/600 scale. 

This news brought back a memory I had several years ago. I struck up a conversation of sorts with one of the vendors who made aircraft. He was seriously considering parting ways with Shapeways due to some policies that had with the vendors. I can't remember what the issues were, but he was pretty unhappy. 

Well, despite your ridiculously high shipping prices and shipping times measured in geologic time periods, I will miss you as a company that offered unique miniatures to the hobby. 

More Test Shots

I did some more test shots using my light ring on 15mm fantasy figures. They are better lit, but still look like crap in close up. They seem to loose their depth and three-dimensionality and look like they are poorly painted pictures. 

I look a picture of Baron Henri of Emoree awhile ago, but I thought I'd add a few more. For entertainment purposes, the barony of Emoree is a large county in the kingdom of Zarnagol. After the king of Zarnagol was killed in a final climatic battle, Zarnagol was plunged into civil war as many of the lords of the land did not recognize the king's infant bastard son as the legitimate heir to the throne. They were more against the child's mother, a powerful sorceress, who declared herself the royal regent. Conflict has died down over the years with little resolution as to who is to be king. Those who opposed the illegitimate heir pretty much do what they wanted and pay little, if any, lip service to the regent. The child is now 16, and with is mother's urging is trying to unite those loyal to him and make him the true king. Baron Henri fully supports the young heir, but many of his neighbors to the east, oppose him.

Baron Henri and his entourage. All are
Demonworld minis expect the knight on
the baron's right who is a Khurasan mini.

His household men-at-arms.

Slightly different angle.

The Baron's court wizard Zandu. Flanking him
are the Baron's battle champions. 

I threw up a brown background for the fourth picture. It seemed to have darkened them a little without hiding parts of the figures in shadows, which is what often happens without a light on them.

 

Test Shots With New Phone Light

 In one of my many endless quests for perfection, I recently purchased a ring light for my phone. My photos of figures always look like crap, and its often due to poor lighting. It was all of about $9 at Walmart, so I though why not take a chance. There are my results:

The first test shot. This was done using the light and natural daylight. 

 In the evening, I did two comparison shots. First shot is my normal way which is to adjust my Ott light to light up the figures. The second is Ott light + phone ring light.

Typical workbench light

With the phone ring light attached

I sent the pictures to a friend of mine and asked which he thought was better. He preferred the one with the ring light attached. He thought the other looked more garish. Of course, he didn't have the actual minis in front of him, which could bias his opinion. Also, I didn't tell him which was which in terms of the lighting used. He did say that the mounted elf and the orcs where I used the ring light were very shiny looking and wondered if I had used gloss paints. For the elf, yes; I had not sprayed it flat yet and a lot of washes dry glossy. For the orcs, I had already deglossed them. They seemed shinier than the elf especially the banner.

The quest will continue. 

Plastic Solider Battle

 When my son was about five, I bought him a big bucket of cheap plastic soldiers. I was hoping my son would enjoy playing with them both alone and with his dad, that by now he would be an ardent gamer. Well, it never really happened, but once in awhile, he will have a game with me. In the past, the rule was to either line them up and throw them at each other, or we'd make "phew-phew" noises and designate who lives and who dies. In this latest battle, we used a D20 and rolled for who lived and who died. Why a D20? Why not. 

Movement and weapon ranges were rather fluid. Everything moved about 3 to 5 inches. Aircraft got unlimited range but could only be in the air for a turn. Ranges were about 6" though tank gun ranges were slightly longer.

A roll of 10 or higher hits unless the target is behind cover, in which case its 15 or higher. A hit automatically kills infantry, but tanks get a saving roll of 15 or higher to be destroyed. 

Machine guns and grenades get three rolls to hit and can target up to three infantry so long as they are next to each other. Bazookas act like machine guns against infantry. Against tanks, a bazooka get one chance to hit but gets a +2 on the saving throw die roll. Tanks firing get same as machine guns against infantry; but against tanks, it gets one chance to hit with a +3 against the opponent's tank's saving throw die roll. Aircraft could drop bombs that could kill five infantry but had to roll a 12 or higher. Against a single tank, it was 12 or higher to hit, but got a +4 against their saving throw.

The battle

Pre-battle singing of the Red Dot national anthem,
accompanied by bagpipes.

My left flank

My right flank. Infantry bolstered by some tiny tanks.

My squadron at the ready.

Enemy armored spearhead lumbers forward.

Notable cowboy mercenary Buck Sheboygan
joins the right flank. He's a crack shot with is
sawed off lever-action rifle.

The battle begins. Already in these early stages,
my troops are taking casualties. Two of my 
tanks have been destroyed.

An Ace up my sleeve? Rambo the Commando

begins to sneak round the napkin holder.

The darring plan was for him to take out 

the enemy's aircraft.

I launch one of my jets to even the score
from above, but it failed to score any hits!

Rambo the Commando is halfway around
the napkin holder........

............only to be cut down by enemy snipers!
It was almost as if they knew he was coming.

Carnage on both sides continues. Unfortunately
form me, the enemy still had some troops in reserve.

I try for another air strike. I managed to 
kill some of his troops but couldn't 
damage the tank.

My fighter bomber was attacked by
two enemy jets on his way back to base

My pilot was able to shake one of them off,
but not the other.

The enemy started moving in their reinforcements

Little did I know that the enemy had their
own cowboy. It was mano a mano shootout.

For a brief moment, a hush settled over the battlefield.
When the smoke cleared, only one man
was left standing.

But in a cruel twist, Buck Sheboygan 
gets taken down by an enemy machine gun.

In the end, only a few of my troops were left
along with my bag pipers. The enemy had won
the battle but paid a heavy price in men.

Another Victory At Sea Battle

This game pitted the Japanese with three heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and three destroyers. Will had three Fletcher class destroyers, and one Iowa class battleship. Guess who one? I did manage to sink all his destroyers, but he annihilated all of my ships mostly with the battleship. Trying to damage the Iowa was like trying to kill Superman using a pellet gun. Even my long lance torpedoes could not penetrate the Iowa's anti-torpedo belt. It didn't help that he got the initiative for all but one turn. Initiative not only determines who moves, but also who shoots. Some pictures:

Sinister grin on Will's face

My cruisers valiantly engage the Iowa

Float plane view shortly before the carnage

Couple of things:

First, Will failed to tell me that if I launched my torpedos at his battleship at an angle to its broadside, there were lower odds of hitting, but I could have bypassed the Iowa's torpedo belt if they hit.

Torpedoes are crap in this game. The Japanese really weren't all that effective, but the American's are even worse. You have to be point blank to hit anything with a torpedo. In a duel between my destroyer and his, we only hit each other when we used our guns.

As I said above, initiative also determines who shoots first. I don't think I would have had a chance anyway, but at least one of my cruisers was quickly sunk before it had a chance to fire back at the battleship.  

I had a good time anyway. I had just given a final exam earlier that morning, and there was some drama regarding a student who failed to show up for it. This entire semester has been, as my son calls it, "scibbiddy." Due to financial issues, not of the faculty's doing, we have been bearing the brunt of things, which has culminated in a whole lot of calamity, including the resignation of my department chair in anger.  Any time I can get away from work issues and dive into something fun, I am a happy camper. 

Once Again Great Service from The Last Square

Playing Victory At Sea two weeks ago at Will's gaming store got the naval warfare juices pumping. Me being me, I have been slowing accumulating 1/6000 ships mostly Figurehead with a few Shapeways models thrown in. In the US, the place to order Figurehead ships is from The Last Square in the great state of Wisconsin. Their server is rather slow, but they have always provided prompt service and quickly respond to any emails sent.  A while ago, I had ordered some naval rules from them, and for some reason it never got to me. Even thought they stated that they had sent it, they sent me a new copy. 

This time, I put in an order for a bunch of ships. One of the packs was supposed to have four WWII South Dakota class battleship in it. When I looked at them, two were South Dakotas but the other two were North Carolina class battleships. There is separate pack for the North Carolinas. It wasn't a big deal and I didn't want a replacement, but I thought I'd let The Last Square know for quality control purposes.  Sure enough, even though I stated that they didn't need to send me a replacement, I got two South Dakotas in the mail!

In this day and age, its nice that at least with our hobby, companies are willing to go the extra mile for their customers.

Homemade Game Tokens

Being burned out on the fantasy stuff, I turned my attention back to my imagiNation campaigns and started to take stock in where I'm at for those. I really need some sort of markers or tokens to denote the status of vehicles and units. I know a lot of people use different color beads, but for some things, I think the marker needs to have either something written on it or a clear symbol of what it represents. A long time ago, I had bought some blank wooden dice to use as markers, but they are too big. So, I turned to these 3/8" steel circular discs I got off of Amazon.com for basing really small 1/600 miniatures like jeeps or small MANPAD or ATGM teams. I really have not used that many, so I thought they'd look like a good size for both 1/300 and 1/600 miniatures. I have a whole mess of small washers, they they seem a bit too large. Here's my test run of them.

I glued them onto a piece of paper. They look like those old dot candies that were stuck on paper! Once dried on one side, I cut them out and glued the other side down on paper.

I then painted both sides and lettered them. For my first batch, I made targeting markers. The green with black number is the unit firing. The corresponding red with white number is the firing unit's intended target. I tried making it fancy with the cross hair design around the number. 

On the back of every target marker, I painted yellow and wrote "hit" on it to indicated if it is hit (I'll bet you didn't see that explanation coming). I'm still deciding if I should write down the firing unit's number below hit. It might be useful if I have different weapons shooting at the same time. 

For all the tokens, I hit them with a clear spray to seal them. I can't decide what put on the back of the firing unit. I also plan to make some that indicate being pinned or suppressed.

Victory At Sea

I got to play a test Warlord Games' Victory at Sea naval rules at Will's gaming shop. It was SO nice to have a game and interact with others. It was a quickie set up. I had a Japanese heavy cruiser and two destroyers. My opponent, a friend of Will's, had the USS Northampton heavy cruiser and three Fletcher class DDs. Will acted as umpire. 

It was a pretty crazy battle. Ships were constantly circling each other, particularly the destroyers to get a torpedo launch in. Torpedoes have a very short effective range. Only my cruiser had the Japanese long lance torpedoes. Bottom line, the Americans sunk all my destroyers and heavily damaged my cruiser. I badly damaged his destroyers and sunk the Northampton with my cruiser's torpedoes. It  was decided that it was a minor victory for the Japanese in terms of points. I suppose the American destroyers could have pursued, but all of them had already launched their torpedoes. I had a reload of torpedoes ready to go, and probably would have taken down at least two of the destroyers before their guns got close enough.

The rules seem ok. I would need to play a few more games. It seemed like torpedoes are not at all effective particularly in terms of ranges. I'd have to compare it to other rules. I'm not sure if I want to buy the models. They aren't bad, but frankly, at 1/1800 scale, they could have better detail. I think GHQ's 1/2400 figures have a lot more detail to them. 

Fantasy Painting Challenge VI: Orcs, Part 1

 This is the only post of the latest fantasy painting challenge. Its not a work in progress post because they are done. 

It was a last minute challenge. Even though my friend proposed another challenge, neither of us seemed overly enthusiastic about it and it almost seemed like it didn't matter what we painted. I was still in the armored warrior mood after painting those fighters, so I picked orcs. A whole bunch presented themselves on the Reaper website, but a set of two stood out (those are the two in the middle of the pictures). I then fell in love with a rather fetching female half orc, so she had to be included. In my order, Reaper threw in a freebie plastic orc archer. So, my buddy is getting four orcs. Here they are:

The creative juices really got flowing once I got them from Reaper. It took me about a week to get them done even with my usual limited amount of free time. 

My challenge was to try to make the armor and weapons rusty. I was somewhat timid and didn't heap on the rust colors, but between using a brown wash on top of the usual one I use for iron-based metals and sparingly adding tiny dots of various shades of red-brown did the trick. 

The part 2 of this challenge will be my friend's interpretation of the orcs.