Gone baby gone

     The girls have left. Noe and the baby are off to Boston. Just me and the dog for 4 days. No one talking or asking question or breaking stuff. Tomas the dog and me reading history and drinking scotch. SWEET!

So much progress.

               I finished Richard Gabriel's "Scipio Africanus." Fun read, large type set with the usual amount of pictures.

            What would one read next, but "Hannibal's Last Battle" by Brian Carey. I completely blew through this one. It is just under 200 pages, large type set, troop movement diagrams, and lots of pictures. It is not by any means a book of great depth. It is a wargamer's book. Troop size, type, deployment, and movements prior.

           Last night I just started "The Tyrants of Syracuse" Vol I 480- 367 by Jeff Champion. This book I love already. I finally put it down just after midnight. The type set is small making it a tough read while in bed. More to come as I plow deeper in to it over the weekend.

          We have been stuck in a high humidity weather cycle. I can not prime. On what appeared to be lower humidity days, I tried priming test junk miniatures. Exactly what I feared. The primer was drying in air and creating those little bumps all over the surface.
           I am way far behind schedule with the Roman Auxilia. Depressed from not being able to prime up the next lot, I have been finding anything to do but paint. Last night I finally forced myself to sit down and get going. I did make some head way and even started on the command group.

My cave, work space

When we first bought the house, I was hoping to get a book and a gaming room. That didn’t happen and I was forced into the basement. Well the house sits on a slab, so it’s not really the basement. I did get a room. It is the size of a large closet. All my toys, tools, and house hold repair items are jammed in. It was the original owner’s tool room. Bastard left me a work bench.

Paint brands are Vallejo, foundry, old GW, and P3. I am falling for the foundry and P3 more and more over the others. There are the large crap paint bottles from craft stores. Those are used for bases and terrain. The brushes are craft store junk and a few nice ones from game store closings. I scored another from HM1.  

As you can see I got war gamer’s A.D.D. I need to clean and organize, but then I could find everything I bought over the year. All my tools are stolen from work or work purchased them as consumables. Thanks work.

Next 4 months project, Punic war's mountain of lead.

Lighting blows. No natural light. Once I upgrade my electrical box and straighten out the mess, the overhead lights will be replaced.

Lesson of the day

Listen to audio books while driving. Audio books are free at the library or via NKO.

           I drive two hours every day to and from work. Wasted time, same songs, retards running their mouths, NPR. I never have time to read the current best sellers or classics. Audio books. I finished I am Legend and The Road this week.
          

Thursday night gaming

We had a solid group and we would throw down every week.  Summer is a rough time.

            Tonight, I have a coworker over for some Net AE. The fan maintained version of GW’s Epic Armageddon. The rules are free and most everything can be picked up cheap on ebay.

He is new to table top wargaming. I choose to break him in with AE because has lots of dice, is easy to learn, and plays fast. We have completed the demo games. (I have removed the Flyers and War engines.) We will be using SM armies in a mirror match. Mirror armies, I hope will reduce the what is this and that bit we seem to go thru in every game. Also to reduce any surprises until he gets use to the units and capabilities.

Step one we reviewed the units and stats, went over the turn sequence, and the 5 objectives. We stuffed our faces and grab a cold one as we set up on the back porch. 

 Why you say? Man it is crazy hot tonight. The porch is screened, there is a large heavy stable table already there, and the baby can’t steal things. Nor will I get bitched at because she thinks dice are food.

 Fred's set right to left

                                  Whirlwind Det, Speeder Det, and a Tac Det

    Land Raider Det, Assault Det, Tac Det, Bike Det, and Devastator Det with dread

                    Devastator Det with Razorbacks, Tac Det, and Predator Det

My deployment right to left

                                     Land Raider Det, Bike Det, and Tac Det

                          Tac det with dread, Assault Det, Tac Det, and Whirlwinds

            Predator Det, Speeder Det, Devastator Det with Razorbacks and Dread

The plan was to take pictures and a detail account of the action. But the amount of beer consumed is inversely proportional to the amount of pictures taken. So, no pictures from the first turn to the finish. In the end  both Fred and I had a unit fail to activate in the last activations. If either popped tall, the end would have been very different. Time was running out and we still had to go back in at work. Fred had 2 objectives, 1 contested and me with 1 objective and  2 contested.

The two rules questions we had to look up were;

1)      What happens to troops in a transport that was killed?

Answer:  The units must make an Armor Save or a 6+ Cover Save to survive.

2)      Can a Whirlwind move and shoot? Trick question!

Answer:  Yes. An Advance, Double, or Hold action is taken. Target must be in range and LOS.

Answer:  No. A Sustained Fire action is taken and the Indirect Fire rule used. Target must between 30 and 90cm, no LOS required, and a there is +1 to hit.

All answers were found in the ” EPIC ARMAGEDDON COMPENDIUM V2.0” available to download on http://www.taccmd.tacticalwargames.net/

28mm Roman Auxilia

Currently up on the painting table 28mm roman auxilia. Most are from Black Tree Designs. Then some Foundry and Warlord command dudes mixed in.  I always prime white, it is just me. Also like like paying way too much for primer so I use GW's.

The first run thru was just about finished, around the same time I drained a bottle of Glenrothers.  The initial 9 got the wrong wash and thick as icing. 

Example of the first group completed with the proper wash.

 Next up, they will all get a more Med skin tone, like the dude on the right. Than those on the left in the the first set with the North Africian skin.

I am still thinking on base size? How to base them? In the past everything was on FOG’s system. But since "Cold Wars," I have been liking Hail Caesar more and more. With Hail Caesar the basing options become more flexible and less static.

Lesson of the day

When dudes watch a war or super hero movie, we do not automatically apply the events in that movie to events in our lives.

When a chic watches a romantic movie or chic flick, any satire no matter how remote in said movie is a direct reflection of their daily life. WTF? Magically some how that movie now becomes my life for the next 2 days, week, whatever.

Lesson; Chicken heads are no longer allowed to watch said movies. Due to the the fact that like a child they can not differentiate the real and unreal.

Lesson of the day

While painting it is best to listen to books or podcasts. Whenever I watch Hulu or Netflixs I get jack all nothing done.