A quick dash home during the PAUSEX to do see Herself and do some laundry, also found some recents buys waiting for me. Some of them are related to my graduate courses, but two were not.
Brown Spread And Yellow Fruit
Sunday, February 2, 2025
Weekend Update
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Moving On...
Last year I decided to run a couple of games of "What A Tanker" at Historicon with "Hollywood Goes To Historicon" or some such being the theme. I chose to run the tank battle in North Africa from the movie "Patton" and the part of that dog of a movie "Battle of the Bulge" where Telly Savalas and his troop of Chaffee light tanks find themselves fighting with Tigers.
For the Bulge, I went with a simple flat cloth. But there were some ridges in the battle in "Patton" which were kind of important and distinctive. I needed hills, but the cost of buying pre-made terrain was prohibitive.
And then I saw an article somewhere on using foam rubber, like the type used in seat cushions...
A trip to Wally World found me with four pieces of the right size and thickness (about an inch thick) to make into hills.
Some few cuts later with a pair of scissors and I had the basic pieces I needed. A trip to Home Depot for a sample pot of a terra cotta yellowish-brown yielded the colour I wanted.
The foam soaked up a large amount of paint and when I did my corner pieces, I had to buy a second pot. But the effect was wonderful. I did a tan dry brush on the slopes just to break up the outline a bit.
Simple and fairly cheap. The process has potential for other colours, like green and for adding flock or sand if I really wanted to jazz it up. I am rather pleased with the simple effect, though.
As a friend of mine likes to say "Works for me..."
Monday, January 20, 2025
Inauguration Day
Der Tag kommen.
All Hail Herr Pumpkinfuhrer.
I shall say no more on the subject, as I am a serving Warrant Officer, albeit in the National Guard. But no cretin will call me a "sucker and a loser".
I should think my obvious snark and contempt should be sufficient. But I still have a career and a clearance to consider.
Finis.
Friday, January 10, 2025
Various and Sundry
A good friend of mine recently posted on his blog that I had created a persona of him in miniature for my wargames. I do like to honour friends that way, by including them in my games, particularly if they cannot be there or the period is one they enjoy.
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
The Cod Wars Going Hot!
The Bent Rivet Shipyard here in the Duchy has been busy as of late getting vessels ready for the table top. The Cod Wars project has been coming along, slowly, but steadily. Last night I was able to put a finishing wash on a number of ships, including all five of my ICGV vessels. I also managed to finish painting the support tug and a couple of trawlers.
Sunday, January 5, 2025
Cod Wars Ship Update
I managed to get some work done on the 3D printed vessels for the Cod Wars. As they were printed with PLA, the ships needed a small bit of clean up with a hobby knife. I had to take some care around the trawl portion of the vessels, though.
A bit of a wash up last week and then last night I mounted them on bottle caps for priming and painting.
Currently, two coats of grey Gesso later, this is where we are at.
Some of the trawlers and one of the OSVs
One of the ocean-going support tugs
One of the ICGV patrol boats
HMS Leopard
I am hoping to get some paint on a few of these ships this week. Next weekend is my drill weekend in Vermont, so I'll have to find some time this week to work on them. Now, time to look for some colour pictures of said ships...
Saturday, January 4, 2025
New Year, New Post
The new year finds me using The Portable Wargame (TPW) and Volley and Bayonet as an impetus to rebase and rejuvenate my 25mm AWI collection. Some of these figures are near on 25-30 years old and haven't seen the table-top in far too long.
Rather than sell them, I thought about rebasing them for either Sharp Practice or VnB. But then, I took a good, long look at TPW.
I do like gridded boards, although I think I'll do a new one with an offset grid. But here's the game table as it's currently set...
Kindly ignore all the ancillary clutter...<ahem>
In this particular episode, three units (stands) of Continentals and three of Militia are entering from the left hand side of the board. The Hessians (four units) arrived on the road from the bottom of the board.
Currently I'm in between Turn 5 and Turn 6. I pulled the card (using an old technique that Ross Macfarlane uses) for Turn 6 before I came downstairs and it was a Red card, which means the Continentals shall have the initiative.
As an example of what the new units look like:
Four stands could be four individual regiments, or it could be two regiments or brigades, each of two stands.
Weekend Update
A quick dash home during the PAUSEX to do see Herself and do some laundry, also found some recents buys waiting for me. Some of them are rel...

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