B-Wing

As a late Christmas present from a friend, I got a B-wing miniature for the X wing game:

.

 

Aside from the miniature, this package supplies more tokens, as well as some system and weapon upgrade cards (including the useful autoblaster). It also has a rule card to explain how ion cannons work.  Since B-wings range in points from 21 (worst pilot, not upgraded) to 62 (best pilot, fully upgraded), they can be a challenge to fit into a list, but with a potential of nine combined shield and hull points, it seems like it can take a beating as well as dish one out.

 

Now I just need to actually PLAY the darn game...

GW bitz service

As you might recall, at one time Games Workshop had a massive bitz service, whereby one could buy old miniatures, parts of miniatures, and individual sprues from kits, as well as other ephemera related to the vast Games Workshop hobby.  In the US at least, this reached its peak in the early 00's when the massive "phone book" bitz catalogs were released in all their hardback glory.  This regularly caused me to go on mad buying sprees as I matched this arm with that body and this head to create (at least on paper) some amazing conversions or weird custom units.

However, Games Workshop decided to get out the bitz business right before they decided to get out of the metal business, and stopped the broad swath of what they had available, reducing it to just a few sprues and figures, now priced even higher. Gradually, this lack of available bitz from Games Workshop was replaced by eBay and other online bitz sellers, chopping up kits and selling the pieces.  This year, Games Workshop has decided that the terms of sale to merchants would not allow for this practice, and to a certain extent the availability of bitz has declined from some sellers (matched of course by the rise in price from the remaining).

Tangentially to this, Games Workshop has always had an excellent replacement service. When kits are incomplete, or miniatures are miscast, they quickly replace the missing pieces, often with complete new ones.  So when my new box of Tau Pathfinders was missing one of the muzzles for a rail rifle, I duly contacted Games Workshop for a replacement, visions of a whole new box, or at least that particular sprue dancing in my head. As the weeks wore on,

So I was a little surprised to get the following in the mail:

Faugh!  Exactly what I needed to complete the kit, and no more?  Which was perfectly fine of course, and ultimately amusing when I realized that GW is effectively supplying bitz in the same way as all those online chop shops...

FLASH - White Dwarf to end?

There are numerous rumors floating about that White Dwarf magazine, Games Workshop's house organ since 1977, will end in February.

White Dwarf is possibly being replaced by a weekly smaller magazine (?) and another magazine of much larger size.

Seems astounding if true, but I guess time will tell.  As someone who has been reading the magazine for... well, a long time, I would be pretty upset to see it go.

Brigade Models January Sale

I have mentioned my love for Brigade Models previously, when I missed their 25th anniversary sale, and I am going to do it again to mention their January New Year's sale, which is 15% off everything in the store that they make.  With the pound at $1.65 USD this is a great deal, particularly as Brigade Models is VAT listed.

I will not be able to take advantage of this sale, as I have other fish to fry so to speak, but you should.

Here are some of my painted Brigade castings (from long ago):

Hmm, I really should get back to 6mm sometime, and finish off these forces.

Settlers of America: Trails to Rails

Not a picture from our game

Right before Christmas, we visited my wife's cousins for a couple days, and we played Settlers of America: Trails to Rails, and shockingly I won!  We played with the maximum of four players on the default map, and all players were seasoned Catan veterans.

Trails to Rails is an interesting variant of the regular Settlers of Catan, wherein you have a fixed USA map, and have to spread across it and build a rail network to win. It introduces gold, settlers, trains, resource depletion, and a few other changes to the basic game to make it more thematic (and challenging).  Aside from changing the victory requirements from abstract points gained in a few different ways to delivery of fixed numbers of goods, the game also removes victory points gained from cards, which reduces the number of ways to win the game; you must deliver the correct number of goods.

The reduction in victory routes is somewhat of a drawback, and another is that the game is somewhat slower (partly due to being a larger map) particularly in the middle section of the game where every turn is "more of the same".  It took over 3 hours to play our first game, and we figured that it would not have been much faster for a second run though.  Coupled with the 3-4 game players, it may mean that this games does not get at much rotation as it might otherwise.  It was fun though, and felt more "strategic" as the rail race aspect meant that we were looking across the map to see which western territories would be key.

We also got a game and a half of 7 Wonders in, one where I was trounced, and one where we had to pick the game up after the first round.  Still an interesting game, and we gave it to the cousins for Christmas, so I am sure to never win again...

Burning Paradise

The last week or so I have been working my way through Burning Paradise by Robert Charles Wilson, an author previously unknown to me.  The premise of the book is the main draw here, as the actual story is more than a little depressing: The history of humanity has been shaped by an extra-terrestrial entity dwelling in the upper ranges of the atmosphere, which edits electronic signals to make humanity more peaceable.  Consequentially, there is no war after the Great War ends in a truce, technology stagnates, and the world slowly lurches its way along in a sort of quasi Edwardian/Progressive path of progress to 2015 where the story begins.  The characters are survivors of the correspondence society which figured out the existence of the ET, and was attacked by green goo filled human simulacrums driven by the ET in 2007, and now, it appears that the ET is sending the sims on attack again.

The book does have some interesting ideas on what it means to be hyper-aware but not conscious, and the book within the book, The Fisherman and the Spider, has some interesting thoughts on this, using the biological research of the in book author to draw some conclusions about the ET.

The world posited would also make for some interesting gaming scenarios, as you have 1914 map lines into the 1950s, and only low level conflict is allowed by the ET, so military development is highly retarded.  Consequently you could make great use of inter-war miniatures for battles in the Sudetenland, or the multi-decade Russian civil war etc. Empress miniatures has a great selection of figures for that sort of fighting, from both their own lines, and those they distribute.

Figure Fanatic Giveaway

Lief, over at the Figure Fanatic blog is giving away some miniatures and models in honor of his 200th post. Usual rule apply, must be a follower, comment on the post etc, so get on over and dilute my chances of winning... wait a tick, why am I telling you about this?

In other news, the holiday weekend is nearly upon us, and I will be away from the blog soon, but hope to have some great presents and hopefully some gaming to talk about when I return.  I have been too busy to paint lately, but hope to have some time for it soon.

Disturbing

Last night I had a most disturbing dream, part of which was the following: A young woman in a red dress was writing on a wooden floor in blood, using the nail of the big toe of her deformed right foot.  The blood, which is dripping down her leg, is marking out some sort of spell that she writes almost unconsciously as she moves about the room.

Seems like this would have use in a more creepy D&D game, or WFRP, as to me at least, it is the sort of image that sticks with you for a while.  Is she a witch?  Is she being used by dark forces?  Whence comes the blood (it was not hers)?  Is the spell something that needs to be interrupted, or would there be dire consequences if it is?

A Close Run Thing

Picture from Amazon

This weekend I finished reading A Close Run Thing, by Allan Mallison. Acquired thanks to the local library, it is a Napoleonic historical novel, which introduces the character of Coronet Mathew Hervey of the 6th Light Dragoons.  Hervey is a young man of somewhat limited means in the times of purchase (a system where officers bought their rank in the regiment).  The book opens in the waining days of the French Empire, as Wellington's army crosses into France, and the Emperor abdicates.  Hervey is then posted to Ireland, and returns to the Continent for the battle of Waterloo.

I was originally fairly taken by this book, and was preparing to write a positive review; however, I quickly realized that unlike, say Sharpe or Hornblower, Hervey has no flaws, other than a naive blindness to the motives of others.  In addition to processing no flaws, young Hervey marries into wealth, is the best horseman in his regiment, the best with a saber, knows horses better than the regimental vet, has the best batsman, the best sergeant, speaks French "like a native", has German, Latin, and Greek, can impressively debate strategy with Wellington, is an amazing shot with his amazing breach loading carbine, falls into money whenever required, and very fortuitous in his acquaintances.  There are more attributes, but you get the point. Hopefully this is rectified in later books (of which there are many), but by the end of this one I was ready for it to end, and have little to no desire to continue on with the rest.

In addition to flaws in writing, the book has a few factual errors. For example, much is made of a passage from Pride and Prejudice, and the book is attributed to Jane Austen, when in fact the book was published anonymously and Ms. Austen was not identified as the author until after her death in 1817.  Mr. Mallison also calls a flintlock "a firelock" many times in the book, when that term is usually reserved for a matchlock.

Flaws and annoyances aside, there are some interesting parts of this book, and there is certainly a lack of description of cavalry action in novels, so that aspect is welcome.  All in all though it is hard to recommend this book unless you really like your protagonists to be practically perfect in every way.

Here is a link to some reproduction light dragoon weapons, so you can get a feel for what the author tosses around.

Early Christmas Gift - Silhouette Cameo

The wife and I decided to buy ourselves an early joint Christmas present, and got a Silhouette Cameo, which is a computer controlled cutting tool.  The vector file driven tool can cut 12"x12" paper (or smaller) into as intricate a shape as you desire.  The idea is to use it for crafty stuff, as well as wargaming purposes. 

The image above is our first test cut, consisting of the obligatory "Hello World", and a complicated sled/pine branch image.  This was cut on ordinary printer paper, and took less than two minutes to complete, the blade leaping back and forth faster than you would imagine for the tiny cuts in the pine branch. There are some tears from moving too quickly, but you can see the potential.

Ideas I have had for this:

• Game Templates
• Counters
• Spray Paint Masking
• Card stock kits
• Terrain
• Labels
• Prototyping
• Geomorphic maps

I am also keen to try it on thicker material suck as cereal packet cardboard, chipboard, and styrene.  Some other users have had some good success with those, and once you move from 100lb card stock to thicker materials there is real potential for building completed models that can withstand the rigors of the table top. 

So lots of fun experimentation to come with this one, and if you have any ideas, let me know.