Goodbye 2024...

There was a great line in Ken Burns' The Civil War that George Plimpton read as George Templeton Strong where he said goodbye and good riddance to 1861 but wasn't too sure about 1862..  

So. What then for 2025? 

Good question. 

I'd say that my continued studies on the early US Navy during the Quasi War with France will probably lead to something involving naval wargames. 

The Cod Wars ships have been cleaned and I'll be washing them up tomorrow. 

The "theme" this year for OttoCon is going to be Naval Wargames and I'm running two ACW Naval games at Cold Wars at the end of February, so I suspect priorities shall shift from what I'm painting now. 

Hmmm. 

I still have my 25mm WAS/SYW Spanish I'm plugging away at, and my Riel Rebellion collection, too. A sneaking suspicion tells me the Riel project has a better chance of getting finished this year. 

And then there is the complete reorganization of the 25mm AWI collection, both the part for Sharp Practice and the part for Volley and Bayonet. 

The game room needs to be cleaned and sorted. Storage reorganized. 

Well only time will tell. In any event, I wish you the best for this coming year. 

Happy New Year from the Duchy of Saxe-Appeal!

The USS Constitution and the USRC Eagle in convoy 1799

Evening Trip to Longwood Gardens

 Last night Sandy and I were invited by a very dear friend of Sandy's to join her and her husband on a stroll around Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square. Susan used her membership there to get a reservation and pay for tickets, since tickets sell out quickly and it's a very popular place to wander and see some amazing lights and botanical gardens. 

The Italian Fountain with lights set to music

Lights were entwinned with many different trees and sculptures both outside and inside

Inside one of the buildings on the property

The world-famous pipe organ in the old conservatory (there is a new conservatory as well)

A sadly blurry picture of the fountain light show. Wonderful lights set to music and water movement

And, er.... there MIGHT be some model trains in an outdoor garden railway...G Scale, I think

It was a lovely evening catching up with long-time friends who also never seem to get to spend any quiet time with friends. Longwood is a very lovely place, particularly in the summertime, during the day for a stroll. Sandy grew up a stone's throw from there in Pocopson Township. The weather last night wasn't very cold, so it was excellent for a nice meander. 

There's Something Wrong With Our Bloody Fish, Today!

I am often drawn to oddball periods or one-off games because of the unique circumstances surrounding the event. A number of years ago, I first learned about the Cod Wars, which were a series of commercial trade wars between Iceland and Great Britain about fishing rights off the coast of Iceland and the extension by Iceland of their exclusive economic zone to 50NM. 

There was exactly one death, an Icelandic engineer, who was electrocuted whilst making a repair. But several ships were damaged, some severely. It strained NATO relations to the point where Iceland was ready to leave the alliance (not a Good Thing, as far as ASW is concerned). And it had a negative impact on the economy of the UK. 

The great naval rules author, David Manley, wrote up a set of rules for the "conflict". And Shapeways had 3D printed vessels for sale....until they shut down.

Then roaming around the InterWebs, I found that "Decapod", the person who created the STL files for the ship models for the Cod Wars, had put them on Thingiverse. So....I downloaded them. And bought David Manley's rules from Wargames Vault. 

 The ships: 

Above, from closest to farthest: Two Icelandic Coast Guard Vessels, three side trawlers, and then a large support tugboat 

More ships:

From left-ish to right-ish: Two more ICGV patrol vessels (Aegin or Odinn) and three stern trawlers

And yet more ships:

Two Support Vessels, then an HMS Exmouth, then an ICGV modelled after the Baldur or Tyr

Finally, a Leander Class frigate:

I plan to paint this up as HMS Leopard. A friend of mine served on her as a Junior Seaman during the last Cod War, so as a tribute to him (and as a focus for some games) I'll make her the Leopard. 

Well, time to get these cleaned up and then primed. I'll probably do grey primer, then go from there. 

Belated BatRep

 Last weekend I trekked up to Kingston, PA for a meeting of the PAWM. Our Host, Mike S and his wife Kathy put on a holiday meal for us, as I previously posted. But our game that night was a "Somewhere In Africa" 15mm Modern game using the AK47 rules and GM'ed by Darrell. 

The game table as shown above. I wound up on the left of the near side of the table. Dark green spots are woods, the brown areas are boulder fields. There' a river with the requisite bridge, three villages of declining worth and increasing poverty, and an army camp for Da Gub'Mint men wayyyyy over yonder in the far corner of the table opposite me... Gee? I wonder what could possibly be hidden there? 

There were eight players split between Da Gub'Mint Forces and The Rebel Militia. On the Militia side it was myself, Jim K (elected leader since he arrived last, a very democratic way of choosing a general), James, and Mike. Da Gub'Mint Men were Jim B, Mark, Roger and John the OFM. 

 

Dem Dastardly Gub'Mint Men (Roger hiding off camera)

Der Plan, for the Militia, if we chose to adhere to one, was to capture the three villages. And hold them. There was that one little caveat...capture AND hold.... And we didn't know the strength or composition of the opposition. Of course, neither did THEY. But we do know that everyone had at least two units. And that Militia in AK47 are a "minus one" on pretty much everything. 

A map filched from the Rebel Archives and the unit cards showing my two units. One of truck mounted militia with RPGs. The other a fun loving, rollicking land pirate group of machine guns mounted on Toyota Hi-Lux trucks. Kind of like a modern-day version cavalry. No cowboy hats, though. 

Things started off well. And then they stopped going well, about the time we started having to follow the rules and roll dice for stuff and things. 

Start yer engines, boys! 

Jim K's Fearless Militia with two Mortars and Cranky Clanky Tanky support from James

Mike advancing on the right flank against Roger. John the OFM stubbornly defends the village. 

Somehow, we were unable to convince the Gub'Mint Men to just go home and call it a day. They actually wanted to fight. Lo and behold! We found out their victory condition was to destroy all our vehicles. How ungenerous of them! Don't they know how far it is to walk back through the Arfica wilderness to our villages? Why, we could get eaten by a hippopotamus! 

Either way, every time we hit them, they made their saving throws, thus negating our militia bog standard dice rolls. And believe me, we did bog standard die rolls for militia. The Rebel Alliance was not pleased. 

 Roger coming form off camera to off more Rebel militia with his hot dice rolling. 

In the end, even though we occupied the three villages, well, two and then the less desirable bits of a third, they managed to kill off almost all our vehicles. Why, do you ask? 

Oh well, let me show you the surprise I found as I motored down the road to see what was lurking in the Gub'Mint Army Camp after securing my objective. 

Gub'Mint Camp with stuff and things 

And then....

Surprise! Mark sallies forth out of the woods to try to take the village I secured.

But wait there's more! 

Annnnnnnnd, there you go. A battery of gun hidden in the woods. And if you guessed that it was ME that found them the hard way, you would be correct. 

Three dead bongo trucks and one pinned, which is really kind of the same thing as being dead when you are playing Rebel Militia. 

And there is stood. I was on my objective, but the fast moving, zippy zip zip unit of bongo trucks was obliterated. That was my contribution to the Gub'Mint victory. 

All in all, a great game. Always good to see my fellow PAWM crew. Definitely worth the drive. AK47 is a fun set of rules for our group and Darrell always runs a great game. 

Merry Christmas from the Duchy

The tree is up and trimmed. The various bits and bobs are laid out. The Christmas holidays are upon us here in the Duchy. 

Lest I forget to say so, I wish you all a Happy Christmas and a hope for peace and joy for all. 

And if some small tin men happen to fall into your stocking hung by the chimney with care, so much the better...

"Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree..."

Weekend Update

Things have been extremely busy here in the Duchy. I turned around and suddenly November had slipped into December. I am reliably informed that time does have a way of slipping away from you as you get older, but I was suspecting it would happen to MOI! 

Anyway, I have a battle report to post, but not just yet. Maybe later today. 

Last Thursday, a friend had asked if I would like to go to a NHL hockey game. He is a scout, so naturally I jumped at the chance. We were joined by a mutual friend and his son and Scott also invited a friend of his who was originally from Detroit. 

Scott volunteered to drive and since it was at the end of my work day and I wasn't keen to drive into Philadelphia, I was more than happy to let him. 

It has been some time since I was at the Wells Fargo Center, and a lot of work had been done on the inside. After a quick burger and Coke Zero, our mutual friend asked if we wanted to go up and see a friend of his in the broadcast booth.... 

And that's the view from a certain radio station's sportscast booth in the Wells Fargo Center. The colour analysts for the television side were literally a couple of booths down and I have a rather bad picture of them. 

We went back down to our seats and watched a pretty good game. Scott likes to get there for the warm-up and at his point in life he has a hard rule that with ten minutes to go in the 3rd period, we leave, no matter what. 

The view from our seats. They were very good seats. Close enough to the action, that's for sure. Philadelphia was up 2-0, when we left. On the drive home I heard on the radio they won the game 4-1. 

Through the generosity of my friends, I had an excellent night out, with wonderful conversation, and it cost me zero. Many thanks Scott, Zeyn, and Big Erik! 

And then on Saturday morning, the Duchy was visited by Father Christmas, himself...

The local volunteer fire company does this every year, in conjunction with getting donations of canned goods. 

Finally, after another great meeting of the Virtual Wargames Club, I trekked up to Kingston, PA for a game with the PAWM crew. I shall leave the BatRep for another post. But what I will show is more generosity, since out host Mike and his dear wife Kathy cooked up a proper meal for us to celebrate the holidays. 

Mike on the left, preparing to give his toast to the group, Roger pouring fizzy grape juice, and Mark on the right. 

Kathy cooked up baked chicken, carrots and bowtie pasta in Alfredo sauce for nine wargamers (well, including Mike, but I suppose she would have cooked for him, anyway). 

Thank you to Mike and Kathy! 

So, the first semester of graduate school is over. Both research papers are in the bin. I went to a pro hockey game at the invitation of some friends, saw the Man in Red himself, and went to a wargame and ate like a king and had a glorious time with more friends. 

Pretty good week, I'd say. 

BatRep to follow on the game. AK47 rules and a "Government versus Militia" scenario. All painted, built, and run by Darrell, our man for all things AK47.