Kimangela

 I found this 15mm at the bottom of the pile. I have no idea who makes her, but folks on the 15mm fantasy Facebook page think it might be Battle Valor games. She was painted by committee, namely two of my colleagues at school, Kim and Angela, who decided on the colors including the hair color. 

For some reason, she has a mask on top of her head. It reminded me of the Loki mask from Jim Carey's movie The Mask. I painted it gold and then gave it a green wash. Hopefully, it will not have the same effect on Kimangela that it did on Jim Carey when he put it on over his face.

My Birthday Present

Its my birthday and I wants it.

Saturday was my birthday. I decided a week before that I would buy myself a present. Its not often that you turn 64 and have a song about it. What I wanted was a foam cutting table. What I needed was an ultrasonic cleaner. It is not often, but there are times when I need to clean minis. Occasionally, it is when I buy another person's figures and I want to repaint them, but more often, it is due to a catastrophic painting disaster, usually involving bad primer. A voice inside of me said, "no, don't do it!", but I had a can of almost full automotive primer that was sitting far in the back of the shelf in the garage. I don't know if it was the primer itself, or that the temperature in the garage was suboptimal, but the result was at least 50+ guys coated with a very grainy primer. I soaked them for a week in turpentine and then for about five days in Simple Green. Even with an old tooth brush it did not get much of the primer off. So, I went to a local discount tool store called Harbor Freight and got an ultrasonic cleaner. 

  

These used to be very expensive, but are now more affordable. It was well rated by the miniatures community. I did a test run and it definitely sped up the cleaning process. I still needed to go over a few with the tooth brush again, but for the most part, I am pretty happy with how well they got cleaned. I think there seems to be a correlation between the type metal and the ease of cleaning. Essex miniatures, which are of a softer metal, seemed to resist cleaning more than compared to either Museum Miniatures or Khurasan Miniatures. Both have harder metal. For my next cleaning project I bought a whole bunch of 3mm WWII and modern miniatures awhile ago, and want to repaint those.

 

It's Already March!

 Its not like I have not been completely inactive in terms of the hobby, I just have not had all that much time to put anything up on the old blog. Most of what I have been doing is painting, as usual, so I didn't feel what I have done warranted posting. Life also seems to get in the way. My 94-year-old mother broke her ankle back in early December. She had surgery on it, but its been a struggle to get her to do physical therapy. At least now she is home, though still in bed. I feel bad for my sister who is in charge of care giving, including dealing with our "wonderful" healthcare system. 

For the past several months, my thoughts have veered back to my modern ImagiNation world, and also naval wargaming. I've always been a fan of naval wargaming. My friends and I back in high school played a lot of naval games using homemade ship models.  In an earlier post, I talked about some possible projects. What has really sparked nautical gaming interests lately is the posts over at Archduke Piccolo's blog and at Bob Cordrey's blog. They have been designing some simple but effective naval rules. I have been looking in to their rules as well as potential rules used in boardgames. 

I have purchased several of the various War at Sea series by Avalanche Press, including this one: 

I have yet to play any of them, but have read over the rules several times. They all have the same core rules with tweaks for different time periods. 

Another, even simpler set of rules is the classic Avalon Hill Midway. I have the original set and recently, purchased on eBay some supplemental ships and rules. 

The number of ships are greatly expanded beyond those in the original. I think with some tweaking of the rules, they can make for a quick and playable set of rules. 

There a a number of other rules to explore including Cordrey's Gridded Naval Wargames and David Manley's various naval rules. 

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.