Little Wars 2021 "aftermath"

            The caulk mat held up well. There are a few places that need touching up. The same with the hills. Which in part is my fault. That and the weather prior to leaving. I was never able the seal the whole lot in PVA. If I get a sunny day this weekend I will touch it up and soak everything.

            All the ACW needs to be sorted and ready for storage. Lucky none were damaged. There are house keeping things that must be done. Many command stands need flags or flags replaced. I was shocked that 30% still need to be rebased.

            These tasks are those completed at home. Now that the new guy is getting some seasoning in. I won't be on the road so much. Then maybe all this shit will get done by the end of June.

            The final dudes to be painted remain the Cavalry for both North and South.

            The rules have taken the best mechanics of Epic, Warmaster, Kill team, FOG, and Lasalle, and Napoleon. With experience playing all, it should be easy to pick up. As I read thought the rules, I can see them reflecting the Warring Period in Japan. 

          The purchased collection is getting sorted. After ACW I will start to chip away. Firstly touching up, sealing, rebasing and reflocking those painted. 

           Once everything is counted up and I have an idea of the total forces available and some research completed, I want to do historic battles. I won't be kitting out the bulk forces from BFAS. They are 3x more than Old Glory. 

            I would like to have a skirmish level tourney army also.

            Never fear the Lizards are moving along. I need to paint bases and added some filler. Some quick highlights here and there. Then 5 more units will be finished. I have one more Saurus and then it is on to supporting units and heros. This should be done by June also.

AdeptiCon 2022 dates released

             AdeptiCon will be 23-27 March 2022. Same venue. There will be a Warmaster tourney. I don't know if there will be an epic tourney or 3 events. Manzey at By Fire and Sword said there will be events and a tourney.

Regimental Fire and Fury "GMing at a Con" Little Wars 2021 part IV

 

            I am running an addition slot for the RF&F game. The "By Fire and Sword guys wanted to get in. Both are wicked cool. Karl is a no shit doc. Manzey freely shared their kickstarter experience, getting fucked by china production/covid, and general operational business bullshit. Very interesting to see the darker side of miniature and game production. They gave the By Fire and Sword Polish movie now in English! 

            (The Warlord dudes said they have sold, sold 8 million sprues of the ACW game) They had no fences. Plenty of brigade boxes and game sets. Asked about my fences and were shocked at Pendraken's price, 20% of what they charge for that length.

Awarded the show Game Master dude for running 7 events.

Saturday

Oriental Naval combat

54+mm Western game.

Belfest game

Sudan

French Foreign Legion

Battle of Stones River 12/31/1862

            Karl wanted to get in on the RF&F game but with the vendor schedule the Friday games were not going to work. Also as a vendor he couldn't get a spot as a player.  I had saved him a spot for today's game. It was going to be only us. Then I had 6 players! HMGS supplied prize support and a metal for best gamer. Karl won the prize and John took the metal for capture/destroying the most guns.

        I got 2 back to back pick up games of Epic in. One with James dude, Orks, from some where. He had about 1k points with me. Then a 2k game with Matt, IG, from the AdeptiCon tourneys. Both games were refreshers. They said they were luck to get one game in a year. 

                I played a demo of 1666. I wasn't going or interested, but this dude that play in my game Tony was like hey dude. So, well, shit. It fun and quick and I understood jack all by the end of it. Best part was the minis and artwork on the cards. If you have watched the BBC 3 Musketeers or the spanish series El Capitan, the characters are in it. I was El Capitan and 2 other extras.

Regimental Fire and Fury "GMing at a Con" Little Wars 2021 part III

            Chicago is one dirty half broken city. The streets have as much trash and random shit kicking around to rival Cairo, Egypt. Even the parks look like you’ll get AIDs just driving past. So many houses are boarded up. It reminds me of New Orleans. There is security inside the hotel to keep fuckers out, but no security in the parking lots. Even in San Jose there is parking lot security. And the nation wonders why Chicago is a shooting gallery? There are places in Africa nicer and cleaner than Chicago. Why would anyone stay?

            HMGS Mid West had 12 staff bouncing about. There was maybe 50-70 dudes including GMs. That ration of staff to players could be one of the reasons everything ran so smoothly. There IT guy was onsite and available. They had their shit together. The HMGS never has their shit together to start. 

Gettysburg 6mm

Black Powder ACW

15mm Nam

Sub Polar Ice game

            The venue is terrific. Clean, fully functioning, and maintain as such throughout the day. There is no lake of piss to wade through after noon in the bathroom. The noise is suppressed by carpet and the wall materials. The floor is hard to stand up on for greater than 4 hours. Food is not cheap. 35 for a cheeseburger and a beer. Fuck me! I got blasted at hooters for 43 and ate my face off. Not hooters quality hooters, average talent at best, Even blasted.

Friday

            On Friday half the tables had games going. 16 vendors in attendance. Warlord and the plastic soldier dude were the only big little dude suppliers. Warlord had a little of this and that. Mostly their new bullshit miniature war game/bird hybrids. By the flame and sword was here with limited stock. Most shit in old art for 10% off. They didn’t bring all the books. A couple of dudes selling all the shit they have collect since childhood.

            Sadly the group over all is not getting younger. After all the shot talking and effort to drag younger players in, steal 40k players, and the YouTube/warlord effort. My wife might as well bury me with this shit. There were 12 chics. All younger than us old men. 3 in there 20s. Young men were less than the chics, 10-15 teen boys. At 46, I would say that was the mid ground. There more dudes younger than me than my age. Yet still a butt load of older bros.

 The battle of Stones Rivers 31 December 1862

            After last nights Epic demos, I laid down most the terrain for tomorrow. The hall opens at 7, but with all the fences I did not wanting to get there at 7.

            My 9 o’clock was full with +5 on the waiting list. (I will run an additional game on Saturday.) one wicked old dude that needed hand holding, two that knew what to do, and the 4th needed little to no coaching. We called it in 4 hours just as the south started to drive back the Union. The 7pm was full plus 2 players. South smashed and drove the North back. All from one player, Ian.

        The newly minted game mat set up

        1st game of the day;

        2nd game of the day;

            HMGS prize support went to Jim.

"GMing at a Con" Little Wars 2021 part II

 

        Its 11hrs hard. 12 and a half taking your time. It took me 13 after the 2nd shot. I was leaving one destroyed toilet after another. (This was the only and same side effect I had on the 1st shot) Then there was an accident, dead stopped for 2 hours. (not counted.) I almost shit myself stuck in traffic. I also took the longer way. PA tolls alone are 50 bucks! The Youngstown route is the one I took. Total tolls = 38.70

        I am not staying at the venue. They are not a chain nor one that I have points with. Marriott is 100 yds away. There I have points and they were only 15k a night.

And the god dam Westin is now a Marriott. I could have stayed at the venue on points!

    BONUS: The Japanese Collectables and Sword Show is in town. Fri - Sun. Maybe I can find a repro Menpo!

        Thursday

Same old, same old. Ah man I used to have all this stuff. Ah my bro’s play it, I’ll tell them to come.            

        Everything started at 6. They were prepared and smooth. The wait for badging was zero. GMs got a swag bag. Nothing extra over the top worth a 5er. As soon as I walk into the hall, I about ran Pat over. Pat always joined us at AdeptiCon for the tourneys. He bought my 40k IG years ago. He said he has been converting the local St Louis group to epic. The St Louis group is around 8 players now.

        I was running 2 back to back demos of NetEA. These are mirrored matched lists, all Space Marine, and limited to 4 detachments a piece. All for done for quick mini games just to teach the rules. The list are mirrored to assist the players in learning the rules Vs the detachment stats. 

            No problem finding the table. I got the same table all weekend. No moving and changing spots, all the while dragging the cooler around. I had 8 numbers of players. Two of which were assisting individuals that were a little fucked up. One old dude who could have been high as hell and a kid who had some OCD issues. 6 games all went well, everyone one had fun, 3 were downloading from taccmds. 

        Matt the ork player from AdeptiCon was kicking about. We have a pick up game schedule for tomorrow in between the 2 RF&F games.

North and South II

        The old North and South ACW  magazine is back. Who knew right? Not me. Until I found Mr. Pratt (PhD). He is doing a 6mm Gettysburg game all weekend. And he has an article in the latest issue of the new North and South all about everything you could ever want to know about Artillery of the day. This issue will easily be a collectors item!

Regimental Fire and Fury "GMing at a Con" part 1

 

             I have never run RF&F at a Con. I have done other games and TO-ed a tourney. I will be running two games at Little Wars. I have hosted the game 3 times at my house. Both games will be the same scenario. In running the same scenario I can cut down on the amount of dudes, and terrain I have to drive out.

            Originally I was going to bring my in house set up. The more I think about it, I want to do a foam table for it. I remember Bill running one of his 10mm RF&F games on a foam layout of Vicksburg. I think I should do the same. I have about a month to get the tools and source the materials. If it all fails, I can use the layout I have used in the hosted games.

            All the minis, and markers/tokens done. All the labels are done. I need to restore the flags. Lastly pack them up in gem trays per brigades.

            Then I was sourcing materials. All this shit has to fit in my car. That would be 3, 5 by 2 foot boards. Not a lot of room left. So I am going with a mat. Using an old drop cloth I had sprayed up as as table cover years ago, I draw out the battle map from the main rule book.

        I used the DAP caulk from Lowies and flock I had sitting around. Which I then had to resource as there was no way I had enough flock. I did the flock order twice. I have used a butt ton of caulk. I bought 6 tubes originally. That turned into, what, 13 tubes total at 5ish a pop. I could have had the dam thing custom printed at this rate.

        If you don't use a tube of caulk to assist in pressing the flock into the caulk, the above will happen. This will also occur if you go too thin with the caulk. It is easily fixed with the traditional method of white glue. White glue is also flexible when dry.

         I was doing all this on the floor on one half of the tables's toppers. My gaming table was set for gaming. It was a terrible idea. My knees where killing me and shaking off the excess on to another cloth was a mess. I end up gaming on the dining room table and putting the toppers on my gaming table and moving it up there. That made life wicked easier. All the hills were cut from 1 inch insulation foam. I should have made the hills to slide under the matt. Instead they rest on top and its ok.

        I had to get another 25 trees from the Wargaming Company. They arrived a little smashed. The kid did them for me.

        I had to put in a lot of time to get close to finishing. Almost 3 days. The caulk takes longer than the stated 2 hours to dry. I was seriously worried I would not finish in time. This project was 5 times more expensive than I thought, 3 weekends more than I wanted to invest, and kind of extra messy. There is no way I would ever do this again!

With the last hill done. Everything is loaded up and I am leaving in 3 hours for Chicago.