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.

 

99 problems and a chic isn't one

        What do you do when you have zero to do while your kid does the remote bullshit? Its bullshit because she can do a whole day's work in 3 hours. Yet if you walk more than 4 feet away that shit take all dam day. Original question what does one do? Well you buy some poor bastards collection. Yes poor. Their dog is dying, or the rent is due, or meth is more expensive than initially thought.

        I had been thinking about Musketeer type pike and shot. Then this fool finds another fool, myself. Now a shit ton of unpainted 15mm eastern pike and shot is on its way. 

        Yo Bro, when are you going to exactly paint this shit up? Hmmmm Good question. Next year, the year after, never. Yo bro who exactly are you going to play with? Hmmmm didn't think of that. I will most likely have to host or run Con games. Not too likely to convert the guys I currently play with into playing a new game. Which then would side line the games I really like to play. 

        So ya'll sell it in two years at a loss and lie about coming out almost even!

Epic 3D Grim Dark "train cars"

 

        I never want to invest so much time in painting these dudes. They will be a once in a great while terrain feature. I want to rattle can and wash them and be done. 

        MIG rust and DKOK transfers were added in an attempt to delay painting ACW horses.

Warmaster Lizardmen part II

 

            At first I was thinking I would paint all the individual lizards different colors. Iguanas are all sorts of colors. The little lizards that run all over FL are different colors. Then reality came forward. If that were to happen they would take forever. I don't want it to take forever. 2 months at the most. And they would look horrible. So the units themselves will be one uniform color, like a tribe or family group, and every other unit will be a different lizard color. 

            Traditional GW or new GW blue lizards are first. The first 2 units of Saurus. There are 5 more on the painting table at work. One purple and one brown.

  

    Almost fucked up here. As I was attaching them to bases I quickly noticed the lizards lean forward. It would be near impossible to get the feet painted, flocked. Only the back row got attached. The front row has to wait unit they dry and get their feet painted and basing paste gets added.

        After the leaning lizards got straighten out, the first two units are based.

Kroxigors in the color testing phase.

Regimental Fire & Fury Wagons

 

Not much happening. I didn't bring anything to work. As for once we were busy. Then Mom went to the hospital. These were completed as I plow through the CSA Cav.

The first set of horses for the CSA. Awaiting wash and final highlight.

Epic 3D Grim Dark

 Painting in the hotel. All the easy stuff, dry brushing

All will get a number sticker.

More to train stuff coming. And now I think I will use some transfers and Mig rust.