Home Again, Home Again

We arrived safely back home last night, but I was too tired from travelling to do much of anything, so I put all of this off until today.

The Haul

15 mm

4 x Scif Fi plants [QRF, SF-10]

1 x Zulu War British Supply Wagon w/ Driver and Oxen (painted) [Flea Market, but I think Old Glory]

6 x Horkuns [Splintered Light Minis]

4 x Lizard dogs [Splintered Light Minis, from the Lizardman Army deal]

8 x Pigs [East Riding Miniatures]

6 x Werewolves [ATH (?) - at Syr Hobbs booth]

25/28mm

1 x Wraith Golgoth [AT-43 Damocles set]

1 x Fire Toad [AT-43]

9 x UNA Steel Troopers [AT-43]

8 x Therian Storm Golems [AT_43]

5 x X-Squad with Jetpacks [Jeff Valent Studios, Great Rail Wars]

10 x Prussian Infantry [Parroom Station]

4 x Masked Minion Crew [Parroom Station]

1 x Smoke Launcher [Parroom Station]

7 x Russo-Turkish War Turks [Outpost Wargames Service]

11 x Colonial Japanese Infantry [Falcon Miniatures]

4 x Colonial Japanese Cavalry [Falcon Miniatures]

20 x Zulu War British (including officers) [Empress Miniatures]

2 x Zulu War British Rocket battery crew (including rocket launcher) [Empress Miniatures]

20 x ECW Pikemen, including command [Foundry]

2 x Owlbears [flea market]

1 x War Ape [Chainmail]

2 x Skeletal Dogs [Chainmail]

5 x Sailors [Paint N Take]

20 x High Martians [RAFM, for GDW Space 1889]

4 x Plastic Romans [Warlord giveaway]

2 x Plastic Napoleonic British Riflemen [Warlord Giveaway]

1 x Plastic ECW Firleock [Warlord giveaway]

1 x Dwarf Gyrocopter

3 x Space Marine [GW]

1 x Chaos Marine

1 x Skink

1 x Dead Sun gladiator

1 x Kzhag Ork

1 x Space pirate [?]

1 x Nepharite

1 x swordsman [Paint N take]

1 x Ork pirate

10 x Turtles (5 2-turtle sniper teams) [Eureka Miniatures]

20 x Frog Infantry, various sorts [Eureka Miniatures]

3 x Frog Cavalry [Eureka Miniatures]

1 x Frog Cannon (with 6 crew) [Eureka Miniatures]

1 x Mage Knight Mortar

1 x Mage knight Cannon

1 x Mage Knight Catapult

Plus a bunch of miscellaneous stuff that I won't detail here, but including terrain, some Napoleonic ships, dice, card games, etc., etc.

By my count, that's about 227 miniatures of various scales, if you include artillery pieces as seperate, but not mounts or vehicles. About 20 are already painted and ready for the table. The rest vary from bare lead/plastic to partially finished. And at least 7 (the Warlord giveaways) are probably not counting against the Pledge, as they were not bought and not planned. So only about 200 minis to add to the Pledge! Plus 60 or so more Old Glory 15mm colonials that arrived in the mail while I was out, a gift from a friend (THANKS DAN! YOU ROCK!). Oh, and all the frogs and turtles are my sons's, as are the Space Marines and some other things. So take another 40 away there, I suppose.

I better get painting...

Historicon Day Two, in Photos...

As promised, here are a few photos from Day Two. Enjoy.

The boys in the Wild West, early in the morning.

A buzzard alights next to the first victim of hot lead poisoning. What a great idea!


A shot of some of the terrain for the FOW Tournament - very nice! This was Savio River, I think.


My Game at setup... a lot more figures at the beginning than were left at the bloody end.

March to the Sound of a Heatray - Valor Steel and Flesh Rules.
In the center, the Prussians advance, flanked on right by the British and the left by the French.

Historicon, Day Two...

Reports from the front coming in... pictures to follow...

So, it's early (ish) on Saturday morning. Last night was a bit late, so I put off blogging until now. Sorry about that. The Yuengling may have had something to do with it. That's my excuse, anyway.

Day 2 started early with an 0800 game. The boys tried out a new (to them) set of Western rules called "High Noon." The folks putting it on had a HUGE (200+ square feet!!!) table set up, with towns, ranches, deserts, Indian villages and mesas. Unfortunately, the boys lost (they were on a team together), but they did have a couple of very dramatic moments, including one point in which Dane dove a character through a window, came up with guns blazing, and killed one of the cowboys.

Next up was my game, "After the Unobtainite". Happily, I had all six players show up, so I had a full game. I think everyone had a good time, and I made no major mistakes. HMLS Prince Charles burned down about ten Martians before succumbing to multiple hits from the Martian artillery. Another high point of the game was when one of the Soldaten went rogue and charged into the unsuspecting back of a squad of Maton's Masked Minions! The British force was virtually annihilated in the end, and the automatons were plagued with mechanical difficulties, leading the Martians in good position to destroy the pack animals which were carting off their unobtainite for the wetland devils. Colonel Sir Harlan Sanders, KFC, will have a hard time explaining his losses once he returns to the Crown Colony!

The boys hit the painting table while I was running my game, and Dane even got a class in painting for beginners in. They continued to practice painting at the Paint N Take Event. You will see that mentioned again, as they have spent a lot of time there! Thankfully, I have checked with the ladies in charge (Heather is the best!), and I am proud to say they have gotten glowing reports on model behavior. I suspect bribery...

Next up was a trip through the dealer's area, and the flea market. I picked up a couple of things for a friend of mine back in Houston, and the boys found a new copy of a game called AT-43 (science fiction) for half off, and pooled together to buy it. It's nice because the minis are pre-painted and neat looking, so you can pretty much play as soon as you open the box. Dane also bought a few minis at the flea market, while Grey and I went looking (unsuccessfully, so far) for some Reaper brand paints. Those may just have to wait until we get back home to order some for him.

My 1900 game - the one I was probably most looking forward to, Airfleet Battles by GASLIGHT, was cancelled as Chris was very ill. I did manage to get into another game that I had wanted to try which was run using the rules "Valor, Steel and Flesh." That was fun, and the minis (by Parroom Station - the game was run by the sculptor, Bob Charette, incidentally) were fantastic. I wish I had taken a few more closeup shots of the tanks, especially. I played the Prussians in an Earth Alliance attack on a pass held by Martians. The infantry did well for me, but neither of my tanks could hit anything. I think it must have been Oktober, and the tank crews were celebrating a bit much the night before. Hangovers are not good for accurate gunnery. Honestly, I don't know if it was possible for us to take the pass, but we gave it a good solid try, and the sands of Mars are a bit more red as a result!

Grey and Dane had a game at 2000, in which they each took command of a 25mm scale buccaneer ship. They didn't win their game (we have had some rotten luck this weekend!), but did have fun. Dane blamed a couple of his allies for getting in his way so that he couldn't come to grips with the enemy, as he ended up the game essentially unharmed, but frustrated in most of his attempts to blast the British ships he was raiding.

So, once my game was finished I checked in on the boys (who still had an hour to go) and then I hit the free beer line. Yes, you heard me: Free. Beer. Yuengling Lager, no less, which I am rather fond of but have a hard time getting my hands on in Texas! Got my beer, called up my friend Patrick (Gallowglass of TMP fame), and went to hang out for a bit. He was just starting to run a Moderns game (Ambush Alley, I think), so he was busy, but I chatted with a few other players while there.

Anyway, except for the cancelled game, which I luckily replaced with another game I wanted, Day Two was another good day of fun for us all at Historicon.

I'll post Day Two photos later. Promise!

Historicon, Day 1

Actually, it's kind of Day Two, as we got our registration stuff last night after we arrived in Lancaster, PA. But as we had our first full day here, we'll go with it. Speaking of registration, we had one major problem there: the boys' registrations were lost somewhere in the Internet. Mine came through just fine but theirs just went poof. So they sort of lost their pre-registered games. However, the convention staff is trying their best to help get them into their original games and letting them into the usual one sign-up per day as well.

We started the day at 12, with both boys playing in Monster Island II, each of them taking a giant monster and trying to become King of Monsters. Greyson was Godzilla, and Dane was Gamera. Grey was eliminated pretty early, but Dane came in third! Right after that, Dane had another game, this one based loosely on the Lord of the Rings. His side (the Good Guys) lost badly. He had rotten luck with his dice rolls and his allies were not much help either. Oh well...

Greyson, moving Godzilla against the military base!

Dane, planning Gamera's first move...

General Dane preparing to order his subordinates into battle against the Trolls and Uruk-Hai!

We all hit the Paint N Take for about an hour, then off to the Dealer Room, which is HUGE! Greyson got some of the new Eureka Frog Cavalry mounted on giant toads, and some frog infantry as well. Dane hasn't spent anything yet, but I think tomorrow may be his day - he's waiting for the flea market!

After supper, the boys played some Battletech for a little while and I went to my game for the day, a big Spy Game extravaganza hosted by Howard Whitehouse (aka Mexican Jack Squint on TMP). I played John Shaft - you got that right!

Random photo, but check out the dust columns under the choppers!

300th Issue!

Journal Reaches 300th Article!

Yes, good friends and readers, it is time to break 0ut the champagne (only thing the Froggies have gotten right, what?) and toast the milestone achievement of 300 articles of varying sorts and quality posted into this telephonic differencing engine journal!

Stay with us for the next three hundred or so. Your humble correspondent hopes to continue to entertain and enlighten you all with tales of battle, reports of nefarious intrigues, the mysteries of Venus, and educated articles on the people, places, flora and fauna of the Solar System.