Birthday Post

Well, I've got just enough time left in today before Lights Out to mention what has or has not been going on here in the Duchy. 

Most important, to me anyway, is my completion of my 56th trip around Sol Prime. This was achieved by doing what a Service friend suggested to me many moons ago as a young Soldier...."don't die...". 

Right. Sage advice. 

On other fronts, work has been busy, graduate school has been just a little bonkers, and yet one more weekend in uniform looms.... I jokingly refer to this as "playing 1800mm Moderns".

What else? 

Bought from TMP

I have a completely irrational interest in the Franco-Prussian War, as it was a game in this period that brought me back into the hobby. I was in college and a friend and I went to a local wargame show, HAVOC, on a whim. A gentleman, the late Jim Parcella, was running a FPW game with his Falcon Miniatures and a set of rules called "They Died For Glory". 

Fast forward some decades and a fella had a job lot he was selling for a friend. Painted French! I now have all the French artillery I need, plus a good chunk of (somewhat badly) painted infantry and sufficient mounted officers that I am in the process of rebasing them. And I have plenty of unpainted figures to go with them. 

White Army troops from the Russian Civil War

Another knock on the head from The Good Idea Fairy a year ago was the RCW in 1/72nd scale plastics. I figured I use The Portable Wargame or something like that. One batch of 24 figures is based and this lot will get based in the next week or so. I've another four to six similar groups in the process of being cleaned, glues, primed, etc. 

And finally, my new bestest friend, an Art de la Guerre army starting to form. In this case, Italian Condotta. Why? Because they are rubbish. And I do loves me some rubbish armies. 

With my purchase of the ADLG rules, I dragged out of...somewhere...an old DBA Italian Condotta army and now I have a nice start. If I can find another DBA pack to match it, I'll be able to field the requisite 200pts of vanilla flavoured wandering mercenaries for hire on the Italian peninsula. Perhaps and early version of my Duchy of Arancia project for the Napoleonic Wars. 

Well, that's it then. Too many projects. Too little time. 

More anon. 

For and By A Friend

One of the great games at OttoCon was a homemade set of rules for the Wars of the Roses. The figures, as well, were converted from various Dollar Store figures by my friend Eric Ackermann. Eric does lots of great artistic work on figures. Last year he created two Barsoom armies for a HoTT game set on Mars. 

But enough. Here are some pictures of his work for the War of the Roses. 

One of the things I really enjoy about the hobby, is the opportunity to show off modelling skills and Eric has certainly demonstrated some amazing hobby chops here. 

Folks who say they "can't" in the hobby should take a moment and try to flip that into "can" and maybe they might find a fun group to have a giggle and a good time. 

Weekend Update - OttoCon 2025 is in The Books

This past weekend was OttoCon 2025, the Society of Daisy's annual show. For the last several years, we've held it at the Comfort Suites in Carlisle, PA. 

Attendance was reasonable. We made the number required to pay off the venue. We had several good games and Walt Leach ran an ADLG tournament. We don't have vendors or a flea market, but I think that's going to change for next year. 

 

Keith Wyttenbach ran a big Battle of Navarino Bay from 1827 using "Form On The Admiral's Wake"

Gunfighter Royale was played several times and was one of the most hysterical games I've ever played

Eric Ackermann lent his creative genius to convert Dollar Store figures into War of the Roses miniatures for the Battle of Mortimer's Cross

Paul Kaster ran a playtest of the Battle of Maida with Napoleonic LEGOs 

(I played in this game and it was fun)

Phil Jones put a thousand ECW figures on the table and ran the Battle of Edgehill

Marvin the Martian made his 2.0 AQMF appearance

A game of JUNTA where Tracy was a River Unto His People... 

Finally, Tim, Josh, and Jim ran a "Save the Montcalm" game, set in Tonkin in 1882

Overall, it was a good show. I do appreciate everyone's effort, GMs, players, and Road Crew. Can't wait for next year. 

Letting the Cat out of the Bag...and a Weekend Update

Well, I'm almost completely finished with a project. 

I know. Shocking. But what project could that be? 

Time to let the cat out of the bag....

Okay, maybe not THIS cat, but Miss Fiddles is just oozing cuteness, so I couldn't resist

How about this cat instead? HMS Leopard from the Cod Wars

My friend Willz served aboard her during the Cod Wars as a young matelot, before going to epic career in bouncing HM's submarines off underwater objects and as a junior PO, planning and executing a pre-deployment party for the ratings that landed some in hospital unfit for the trip. 

Anyway, I wanted to paint up a model of his ship. Sadly the stern is all wrong, but it was printed up at work on a new 3D printer the IT boys just got and wanted to run some test prints on. They were more than happy to oblige. The STL files came from Decapod on Thingyverse. 

But being the Cod Wars pitting trawlers against the Icelandic version of the Garda Costas, I needed a way to represent the trawl portion of the fishing vessel. Numerous searches and such later, I came up with these...

I snipped the heads of pins off and glued them to bits of wood, the same paint stirring battens I used for the ships' bases. A bit of paint and a coating of glossy Mod Podge and Bob's your uncle. 

Trawl stands in action. Side trawler on the left, stern trawler on the right. 

Where I grew up, we used to call stern trawlers "draggers", due to the way the trawls were hauled through the water and a couple of college classmates of mine were working on them during college breaks and such. 

Anyway, I've got three trawl markers and another three in the work queue. The last of the vessels, HMS Gurkha, HMS Exmouth, and HMS Scylla are finished and just need to have their bases painted and the Mod Podge applied. 

The completed fleets, less the three RN warships and the three trawl markers mentioned above. 

I am looking forward to maybe doing a trial run of David Manley's fine rules "Cod Wars" at OttoCon. This will be one of the "reserve" games to play if we need an extra game. And if not, well, I'll be playing it when we get back from Carlisle. 

"There's something wrong with out bloody fish today!" 

OttoCon 2025

 

Coming soon!!!

Very soon. As in, next weekend soon...

Next weekend will be the Society of Daisy's now mostly annual convention, known as OttoCon.

 

Originally, it was called "The Weekend". When Otto Schmidt, our Grand Poohbah, began the show, it was designed as a big game day like you would have at a friend's house. It expanded to two days and we started to include things like a "bring and buy" and the infamous Munchie Pit, which are snacks and beverages provided by the attendees. 

We don't have any vendors, like most shows, because we always felt kind of sorry for the poor vendors that had to watch people rush off to games whilst they had to man their booths. 

And Otto deliberately kept everything low tech and low maintenance, because we are lazy administrators at heart. No Book of Faces, No websites. No Social Media presence, except for numpties like me who'd wax and whinge about things on our blogs or forums or whatever. 

Anyway, our "theme", which no one ever pays attention to, is Naval Gaming, which I do enjoy. 

I am pretty much the entire Volunteer Staff. I help take in the receipts, set up tables, move things around, and generally help Tracy, our Grand Poobah since Otto's passing. In fact, it was Tracy who recommended we re-name The Weekend after Otto. Otto probably would have stomped his feet and wagged his finger against it. But he's dead. So he didn't get a vote. 

So next weekend, I'll probably do a post from OttoCon. A fun, quirky show for some fun quirky gamers. Some miniatures, some board games, and of course....Military Science Theatre 2000. 

Battle of the Denmark Straits

Last night saw Morgan trek out from Philadelphia to spend the night with us. We are going to the Iron Pigs game tonight in Allentown, assuming it's not rained out. And we'll be meeting the "new" boyfriend in the process. They've been dating for a few months, but our schedules just have not aligned. Anyway, I asked Morgan if they'd help me play a game with my new naval rules, Find, Fix & Strike by David Manley. 

Always willing to help Dad embarrass himself with dice, they readily agreed. 

I took the part of the Dastardly Germans, Morgan had the RN ships. 

We used 1:1200 scale ships, but retained the movement and ranges from the rules rather than doubling them. This made for a bit of an awkward visual look of the game, but it works in my mind. Next time I'll try it using the larger distances. I also made small ship cards to help keep some ship data handy. 

My Prinz Eugen sunk by Turn 4

I won't go into a deep dive of the rules, but they do promise a fairly quick game, once you've mastered some of the concepts. I can see why. There are no damage points, or anything like that. Damage is graded by levels. And damage is inflicted by rolling a single D6, checking a small list of modifiers, adding in your Attack Factor, and comparing to your opponent's roll on their Defence Factor. 

Once you get into a rhythm, it's not bad. It's just finding that rhythm was a bit choppy for our very first game with FFS. 

My Bismarck trying to escape...it didn't

End game. Bismarck keeps taking hits. No escaping the Royal Navy! 

So, we played 12 turns before calling the game. Bismarck suffering Heavy Damage and still being shot at by Hood and Prince of Wales. Prinz Eugen sunk. I'm sure there will be a carrier or two on the way with Swordfish torpedo bombers and RN submarines to deal the final blow... And HMS Hood did not replicate a Roman Candle. 

It was a fun game. Always great to have my kiddo as an opponent. I will get these ships painted up, hopefully soon. XP Forge ships are really beautiful models. I'm impressed by the quality of the printing. And I think in FFS, I have my set of go-to WW2 naval rules. 

Father's Day, Naval Gazing, and a 250th Birthday

It's a chilly and drizzly day here in the Duchy. A most un-June like day. A good day for looking at blogs, hobby things, and drinking coffee. 

Today being Father's Day, I'll be calling my father here in a bit. He turned 82 last week. Despite his health issues, including Alzheimer's, he's always happy to hear from me and his wife Laurie says he visibly perks up when I call. As a side note, when my mother passed away, I did not think my father would ever re-marry, but he found the most wonderful helpmate in Laurie. 

Anyway. Back to gaming. 

I pick up FFS (Find, Fix & Strike) on Wargame Vault recently and I decided after reading through the rules, I would re-start my long neglected 1:1200 scale WW2 naval collection. The problem being that the ships in question are not cheap... 

XP Forge, however, offered some 1:1200 scale 3D printed ships in either FDM plastic or in resin. I went with the slightly cheaper FDM versions, and I was very happy with what I received. 

One Hipper-class heavy cruiser and a pair of Narvik type destroyers for the Kriegsmarine 

Had I really been thinking about it, I would have bought a Bismarck, since the one I have from Triang Minic is somewhat broken, and I have a Prinz Eugen in metal from ALNAVCO. 

Some RN ships. A KGV battleship in the rear, HMS Renown, HMS Hood, and a pair of J Class destroyers in front. I may get another pair of J Class, these are lovely models. 

A closer view of HMS Hood. 

What I like about the XP Forge ships are the level of detail is excellent for the value and there is nothing to glue together. Excellent models for a wargamer. Service was reasonably fast. Shipping was not expensive. 

I highly recommend XP Forge. I will order more ships from them in the future, especially as I expand into the Med and the Pacific. They also make Norwegian ships, so smaller nations are also represented. 

Yesterday, I was at Valley Forge National Park participating in a military history timeline to celebrate the United States Army's 250th birthday. I chose to represent the Civil War, as a corporal of the 28th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, which is my home re-enactment unit. 

There were period presentations from the AWI to the current day. And we even had cake! 

At the end of the day, the Rangers and the re-enactors we all marched over to the Von Steuben statue where we held a short ceremony to thank the public and recognize the Army. As a still serving Army National Guardsman, I think the NPS folks and the Valley Forge Park Alliance did a very nice job with this event and it was a pleasure to help out. 

The NPS Ranger in charge of the program said he didn't have any challenge coins to give out, but he did give each of us an award... 

It's a nice little wooden token badge and a nice gesture by the park. 

Now, to get the game room and ships ready for a trial run of FFS...