Countdown to Vimy – 10 weeks to go!

Again, I’d meant to post this last night , but ended up staying up way too late (watching the first three episodes of True Detective season one and painting German staff and casualties) and was too tired to post it (even though it was mostly written, I just needed to download pictures of the workbench…). I guess I'd also I'd done two other posts yesterday... so...

Whew! What a week… I did get a fair bit done, but not everything I’d hoped… and some changes to THE PLAN will have to be made…

The Plan for last week was to:

#1 Paint a regiment (three battalions) of Germans

CHECK! 48 Great War Germans were painted this week completing the 262 Reserve Infantry Regiment.

I had a bit of a roller coaster of emotions earlier today. All week I thought I was working on the 261st Reserve Infantry Regiment, only to discover last night I ‘d already painted the 261st!? WOOO! I was super excited thinking I only had ONE more regiment to paint instead of two… ten doubt started to creep in and I began to think; “no… that CAN’T be right…” and sure enough it wasn’t. I’d forgotten about two regiments of Bavarians I need to do… so I went from thinking I had two to do… to thinking I only had ONE… to realizing I actually have THREE MORE REGIMENTS to complete…

I ws just about ready to throw in the towel…

Then I got to thinking. When I originally planned this I did not make the German battalions the same size as the Canadian ones, and before game even rolled for losses during the “Week of Suffering” (the week of harassing bombardment previous to the assault) and I got thinking, if I’m not going to field entire full-strength battalions… and I’m going to remove a bunch more right away before the game starts… WHY THE HELL AM I PAINTING FULL-STRENGTH BATTALIONS for the Germans!?

So I started to think about reorganizing and realized if I went with 10 man battalions – saying their smaller than the Canadian ones because a) the aforementioned “Week of Suffering” has depleted the units in the line, and b) the Canadians have all received fresh drafts of recruits to bring them to (or above!) strength! This way I will need only 45 more to finish the stuff I’d originally planned to for sure get done AND I could paint another 40 or so to do the assorted battalions that were rushed forward from the reserves to make counter attacks on the day. Which means I’ll end up painting about the same as I’d been thinking I’d have to do over the next few weeks.

#2 Base and prep three more battalions to paint the following week.

Totally didn’t get to this yet… Hopefully today I’ll get to casting up the next batch.

#3 Finalize plans for terrain.

Too busy painting and organizing other things, didn’t get to this. I’ll definitely get to it this week.

#4 FINISH CLEANING THE TABLE!!!

CHECK! The table all cleared off! Well… mostly…

4^th Division Terrain – ready for some refurbishing.

Detail of the 4^th division terrain.

This Week…

#1 Cast, base, prime and goop remaining Germans.

#2 Cast, base, prime and goop British 5th Brigade

#3 Base, prime and goop remaining 6th Canadian Brigade (miniatures should be arriving on Tuesday)

#4 Finalize Terrain Plans (and maybe start in on refurbishing 4th Division terrain...? That might be a bit much with all the miniature prepping and painting going on...)

#5 Reorganize Germans – repaint collars on old 261 Reserve Infantry Regiment to match collars on 11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment reorganize those two regiments to form 11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment, Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 1, and Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 3.

Next Week:

#1 Paint 45 Great War Germans to add to those painted last week and reorganize into 10 figure battalions to form the 3 regiments of the 79th Infantry Division.

#2 Refurbish rest of 4th Division’s Terrain

Rest of February

Finish Germans – 4-5 more battalions of units in reserve plus machine Guns and mortars

Build Terrain for 2nd and 3rd Division.

March

Finish British and Canadians 2 battalions

Build Terrain for 1st Divison

April

Make more wire and barrage markers

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Ummm…? Maybe a round up of boardgames we played through the second half of January…? Hopefully updates of plans for terrain building and pictures of some other Great War odds and ends (I have some german casualties on the workbench at the moment)

Book Golem, the King in Yellow, and a GREAT BIG POILUS!

A few odd and sundry items getting finished up in between batches of Great War Germans…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

Book Golem from Black Cat Bases. It will hopefully see use in some horror game (Fear and Faith?) and/or Frostgrave

The King in Yellow! Well… maybe… Bruce, who DMs our (every other) Friday night Primeval Thule D&D 5E game asked if I had some cultists and a priest in yellow robes… I have loads of these generic cultists that I made ages ago, but none in yellow robes, so I thought I’d knock one off in yellow. I have a bad feeling this is going to end up being The King in Yellow!

Another of my friend John’s Toy Soldiers - a 40mm Great War French infantryman. I actually painted a whole battalion of 1914 French in 40mm for John a few years back – in an earlier, less animated pose. This guy looks like he’s ready to stick to the hun!

Here’s a picture with a 28mm Great War Miniatures for comparison.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Vimy Countdown – 10 weeks to go…

262 Reserve Infantry Regiment

As promised a German regiment, all painted in one week- Whew! Well.. the infantry, at least. I will have mortars and machine-guns to add at some point. I’m not sure I can keep this pace up for too much longer! Luckily I don’t have too many more weeks like this planned.

This is the second regiment in the 79th Reserve Infantry Division. I have already completed one of the other regiments in the division: 261st Reserve Infantry Regiment.

All of the figures used in this regiment were homemade. I madolled the masters, made moulds, and cast them myself – and, of course, painted them! (at least all the infantry figures presented here – the Mortars and Machine guns I will add will be commercially produced minis).

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

262 Reserve Infantry Regiment – 79th Reserve Infantry Division.

262 Reserve Infantry Regiment Headquarters

I/262 Reserve Infantry Regiment

II/262 Reserve Infantry Regiment

III/262 Reserve Infantry Regiment

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Vimy Countdown and some other odd and assorted things… 

Street Zulus (and ONE BIG GERMAN!)

I finished a second battalion of Great War Germans the other night and while I was apinting for finish layers of base colours to dry, I knocked off these “Street Zulus”

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

“Street Zulus” from Casting Room Miniatures.

I picked these up some time last year thinking they might be fun to throw into a unit of regular Zulus (for the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879) just to see if anyone notices… or possibly use them in with  my modern African Militia or use them as a group of survivors in Mutants and Death Ray Guns or in some other sci-fi/timetravelling adventure…

I originally started painting these back in October when I was finishing up Zulu units to hopefully play The Men Who Would Be Kings. They were about 90% completed when I lost interest in them/go busy with other things – but they were so close to being complete I couldn’t bring myself to put them back into storage any time I was clearing off the workbench.

Actually when I grabbed these and decided to finish them up I realized one (the crouching fellow) was actually DONE – except for his base – I just hadn’t put on finish or did his base because I was waiting to do it along with the others. The others simply needed a feather or an ammo pouch to be finished up.

This is a 40mm Great War German that my firend John made. He was casting a bunch at my place as he’s in gypsy mode as all his casting supplies are locked away in a container somewhere and left a few for me to paint.

Backside of German.

I probably should have put a 28mm figure in there for size comparison... 

Maybe someday I should get back to finishing MY OWN 40mm figures!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I hope I’ll get to finish up the 3rd battalion of (28mm) Great War Germans this evening… or maybe tomorrow… 

Deniable Assets

I did get the three battalions I hope to paint this week based, and primed and gooped. While I was waiting for the goop to dry (or set…? Whatever…) I knocked off these thre modern operators from Spectre Miniatures…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

Three Operators from Spectre Miniatures.

I just picked these up last week from a local fellow that posted them on the Saskatoon Miniatures buy and sell facebook page. He apparently got them and some others and the Spectre Ops rules in a kickstarter. I’d seen Spectre Miniatures and thought I’d definitely like to check them out when I get back to working on modern subjects, so when these (and the others) showed up I couldn’t pass them up.

The proportions are very naturalistic – which makes them a lot slighter than most 28mm miniatures these days – and their poses are very dynamic. They look like they mean business. Unfortunately their gun barrels are very thin and probably won’t last – that long suppressor on the marksmans rifle has been bent 90° twice already – I’m sure the only thing holding on at this point is the layers of paint, primer, and finish… broken rifle barrels drive me CrAzY!? Especially ones that are so slight they simply cannot be repaired. I also got some SAS Jungle Operators and some GRU Spetznaz with these guys. (at least one of their rifle barrels is broken already! GRRRRRRR!!!)

Here they are next to some of the other modern figures I have…

From left to right: Wargames Foundry, Spectre Miniatures, The Assault Group, Spectre Miniatures, Eureka Miniatures, Empress Miniatures, Hasslefree Miniatures, Spectre Miniatures, Eureka Miniatures

I also got the Spectre Ops rule book with the figure lot. I don't know that I'll ever play them, but it's a fabulous book to look through - just for all the full-colour photos of all their pretty miniatures!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I’ve actually finished up the first of the three battalions of Germans for this week. I may or may not post them in the next day or two (I may just wait until the entire regiment is done and post them all together on the weekend…?).

More Sci-Fi Distractions

I had a couple of evenings this week where I finished up what I needed to paint and was waiting on other stuff (glue to dry, coats of primer to dry, an opportunity to get out and cast some more miniatures, etc.), and I was feeling pretty secure having finished the 21st Battalion and all the other stuff planned for last week, so I knocked off a few things that were hovering around the edges of the painting table, partly painted…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

28mm Sci-fi guys from Copplestone Castings. I’ve had them for a while, but dragged them out of the drawer shortly after Rogue Stars arrived… and interested in painting them faded as interest in playing Rogue Stars faded… but they were so close  to being done, I thought it would be better just to finish them off than to just put them back in the drawer NEARLY complete…

I was kind of going with a “lost patrol” theme and using elements of both my Valhallan and Cadian Imperial Guard paint schemes.

Micro scale Falcon Grav IFVs (and a jet bike HQ Element) for my Fire Dragons

Micro scale Warp Spiders (and HQ element)

The Micro Eldar War Host so far… Currently I figured this out to be about 4000 points – not including the harlequins (which I don’t have stats or points for just yet…). That should be enough to play a small game against a few of my Marines.

At some point last year I ordered a few Celtos Elves from Brigade Models to finish up my “Elves of the Southern Isles” Warband for Dragon Rampant at the same time I ordered a few of their micro SF infantry figures (to see if they would go with my GW “epic” stuff) and at that time I also ordered this single M2A4 Blower Tank from their Hammer’s Slammers line. I painted it a few weeks ago, actually, but didn’t really have a post I could really slip it into – and didn’t really want to do and entire post on a single, micro scale tank…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

German Regiment!? 

21st Battalion (Eastern Ontario), CEF

As mentioned in the Weekly Vimy Countdown post here is the final battalion for the 4th Brigade (2nd Canadian Division). As with the other battalions in the 4th Brigade (18th, 19th, and 20th battalions), all the miniatures are from 1st Corps. 

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

21st Battalion (Eastern Ontario), CEF

The formation patch for the 21st Battalion was a green square surmounting a blue patch – the blue patch was for the 2nd Division, the square indicated the junior battalion within the brigade and the green indicated the senior brigade within the division. 

I also have two stretcher-bearers I need to finish up from 1st Corps. I thought I could use them as casualty/morale failure markers for the 4th Brigade… (I just hope more than two don’t fail morale at once!). Once I get those done I’ll do a picture of the entire Brigade.

I just need to finish up the 6th Brigade to complete the Division, but for that I have to wait for my order from Irregular Miniatures (I am told it should ship shortly!). In the meantime I shall get cracking on some of the GERMANS!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More Sci-Fi Distractions, maybe a post about other recent games, and, hopefully by the end of the week, a regiment of GERMANS! 

Countdown to Vimy – 11 Weeks!

I had hoped to post this little update last night, but Game of Thrones Season Six arrived at the local library for me and so Amanda and I watched the first four… or five… maybe six...? episodes last night…. and it was just to late to sit up and crank this out..

The Plan for this past week was to:

#1 Paint the last battalion of  1st Corps figures to finish off the 4th Brigade.

CHECK! Here they are having just gotten their grass last night. I haven’t had a chance to get out and take pictures of the battalion and properly post them, but they’re done, and I should be posting them later today or tomorrow.

#2 Order the last brigade of miniatures I’m going to use as Canadians.

CHECK! Ordered and I was informed this morning by email that they shall be shiping via courier, shortly.

#3 Start casting Germans 

CHECK! Got out and cast up a bunch Friday evening.

#3 Base and prep 3 battalions of Germans

CHECK! Well… almost… I got one battalion prepped and glued to bases Friday and realized I didn’t have enough washers. So Sunday afternoon I nipped out to get some more and while “watching” Game of Thrones last night I prepped and based the other two battalions and primed the first.

Today I hope to prime the rest and maybe get the bases gooped. And be able to get cracking on painting by Tuesday or Wednesday…

#4 FIND MY MAPS (the PLANS for the terrain!)!!!

CHECK! Maps located… whether I’ll be able to figure out WHICH ones I used for the original four terrain squares and exactly how I was originally planning.

#5 Clear off the giant Hobby table in the basement – so I have some SPACE to make some terrain!

Ummmmm… Well, if you’re anything like Amanda you’ll probably be going “WTF Tim!? It’s STILL a MESS!?” So I’ll just go ahead and point out that a) I HAVE made a fair bit of headway here - it WAS a LOT messier (if that can be believed) last week, and b) I did a lot of organizeing ELSEWHERE in the room and throughout the basement so I’ll have a place to PUT all of this stuff still on the table…

I might have gotten a bit more done this week if I hadn’t been at FreezerBurn VII all day Saturday… Not blaming, just saying. No FreezerBurn this week, so hopefully I should get a bit more done. Also I get a lot of painting done while "watching" movies/TV - so with the arrival Game of Thrones Season Six - that's a minimum of ten hours of prepping, basing, gooping and painting right there... 

This Week:

#1 Paint a regiment (three battalions) of Germans

#2 Base and prep three more battalions to paint the following week.

#2 Finalize plans for terrain.

#4 FINISH CLEANING THE TABLE!!!

Plans for February remain the same as planned last week…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

21st Battalion (Eastern Ontario), CEF  (and some other stuff I did last week…) 

FreezerBurn VII

This weekend I attended FreezerBurn VII. FreezerBurn is a small one day invitational game day hosted by my friend John - ToonCon organizer guy. Most of those invited are ToonCon organizers and volunteers. I went to the very first FreezerBurn seven years ago and haven’t been able to make it since. (I had planned on going to FreezerBurn V – two years ago – but ended up in hospital and missed it…).

Games started early (they were supposed to start at 8:30am, but ended up starting closer to 8:30

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

The first game was Small World, which I ended up playing with John, Iain, and Darrin. I thought I was doing pretty good, but ended up coming in third. Good fun! I had underworld Wizards and Bivouacking Humans and Tritons and Orcs at different times in the game… It’s been a while since I’ve played Small World.

The next game we played was Roll for the Galaxy. Again I was playing with Darrin and Iain. I felt like I the game had barely even started and it was OVER!? Dead last with 33 points…? Maybe…? I would have had 8 more if it’d gone another turn! Ah well…

One of the other tables of Roll for the Galaxy with John, Brent, Mike and Zack.

The Third game we played (after some lunch!) was Age of Industry. I had not played this before, but I did play Brass once – another Martain Wallace game which this game was based on… I’m familiar enough with Martain Wallace games that I was able to fudge my way through. I really like this game – so many things to do! Dead last again… but a LOT of fun.

The fourth game we played was Viticulture. I played this for the first time a few weeks ago at John’s. Another fun game, but both times I’ve played I felt like I was just getting started…. and it was over… The game plays until someone gests 20 victory points. I was dead last for most of the game and then in the very last turn went from 5 victory points to 18! Which was a pretty spectacular move, if I do say so myself, but not good enough to catch up -  I ended up fourth…

The Final game of the evening (after supper) was Power Grid Deluxe. My best game of the day – I ended up in third place… or maybe fourth… I don’t know. I had fun and it was probably my best game of Power Grid ever – I think we all powered the same number of cities in the final round, so it went down to how much cash we had in hand at the end…

John kept track of everyone’s overall standing through out the day- and kept them posted on his big screen tv – points were awarded based on everyone’s placement in the game they played. I was dead last all day – until the final round which brought me up to 9th… out of 11….

Everyone brought a game to put on the prize table and then in order of over standings everyone got to pick a game off the table. I ended up with a copy of Nautilus, which I’m pretty excited to try out.

Absolutely fantastic day! Hope I get invited (and can make it out!) again next year!!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

21st Battalion (Eastern Ontario), CEF – I finished painting them up yesterday. Hopefully later today I’ll get to put some grass on their bases and get some pictures taken to post.

Countdown to Vimy – an update on this weeks progress.

This Week’s Games – a brief note about other games I played this past week. 

Countdown to Vimy - 12 Weeks to go

I meant to post this on Sunday, but just didn’t get to it. Sunday was exactly 12 weeks to 9 April 2017 – the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Corps assault on Vimy Ridge, I thought post a status report on the project and a list of things to do and then for the next eleven weeks I’d post weekly updates on how things are going.

I have come a long way…

I have completed 39 battalions of Canadians and six battalions Germans. That’s 675 figtures right there – plus most of the Canadian machine-gun teams – at least 10 of the 16, and a few German ones as well - puts us well over 700. I’ve tried to keep the Great War Gallery up to date – so you can see most of them there (though I STILL haven’t gotten to taking pictures of any of the 4th Division.

I still have a fair bit to do…

Of course I need 48 battalions of Canadians – which leaves 9 still to do and another 9 battalions of Germans… and a fair few German machine-gunners and mortars and such.

I memory serves me I need 18 2’x2’ terrain boards to complete the ridge – only four of those are (sort of) done at the moment.

I also need to make a lot more wire… and maybe some barrage markers...? 

So… this week…

The Plan for this week is to:

a) Paint the last battalion of  1st Corps figures to finish off the 4th Brigade.

b) Order the last brigade of miniatures I’m going to use as Canadians.

c) Start casting Germans (conveniently it has warmed up considerably in the last week – to daytime High temperatures ABOVE 0°C – as this all takes place in my unheated shop)

d) Base and prep 3 battalions of Germans

e) FIND MY MAPS (the PLANS for the terrain!)!!!

f) Clear off the giant Hobby table in the basement – so I have some SPACE to make some terrain!

Next Week:

a) Paint three battalions of Germans (this is do-able – all the details on my home made figures are pretty chunky and quick and easy to paint!)

b) Base and prep three more battalions to paint the following week.

c) Finalize plans for terrain.

February:

Refurbish 4th Division Terrain area

Build 2nd and 3rd Division Tarrain

Paint 3 battalions of Germans/ week for the first two weeks.

Paint two battalions of British the second two weeks to finish British brigade  

March:

Terrain for 1st Division’s area of operation

Paint final battalion of Canadians and any extra MG and Mortar teams left to paint.

Make more wire and barrage markers

Lot to do, but doable… I hope… Might need to recruit the kids to help out with the terrain making. The Girl is at least excited to help out with that sort of thing.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

21st Battalion (Eastern Ontario), CEF

Micro Distractions

Back with a few “Epic scale” Eldar I finished knocked off Saturday evening. (I also worked on some great war stuff and was waiting for green stuff to cure before painting, so I cranked out a few of these guys.

I had been freaking out a few weeks back wondering where my Future War Commander book had gotten to and finally asked Other Tim if he had a copy (or if maybe I’d loaned him mine…?) and it turned out I had. H returned it to me this week and I’ve been a little distracted reading through that again and trying to remember how it worked and how units were organized and did some costing out of things.

Apparently I have WAY more Marines than I could ever hope to have opponents to fiend the entire force against!? Remember that unit of Terminators I finished last month? Yeah those four elements of Terminators and an HQ are over 1000 points – not including their Land Raiders!? Granted that is probably the most pricey unit in the force… but still, I have a LOT more Marines… Not so much of anything else.

I thought when I had pare moments I might finish up a few Eldar things – here and there. I do have Orks, but I have to paint SO MANY to be any match for the Marines. I figured the Eldar are closer to being able to going toe-to-toe with them.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

Stinging Scorpions

Actually only two of these elements are newly painted. The other four elements were painted when I got them and I decided they were painted well enough I’d leave them and just rebased them. I had two other elements of Stinging Scorpions that I recently tried to paint to match them – can you tell which are mine?

Old School Falcon Grav… Tanks…? I always think of the Falcon as a “Tank” but it’s really more of an IFV, isn’t it?  I thought I’d paint the tanks to sort of match the colour scheme of the infantry they’ll carry.

I also have a fair few Grav bikes (or where they Jet bikes..?) I though I’d use them as HQ elements and have likewise painted it to match the general scheme.

The Eldar Force so far…

Should Stinging Scorpions all be deployed in one big force like this…? Or should they be tasked out as single elements in various different war hosts. I have to admit, I don’t know enough of the fluff about Eldar Tactical doctrine. That’s what I both love and hate about the 40K universe – it has such a rich and fleshed out background that there probably IS some book with detailed fluff describing Eldar tactical doctrine… and that makes me worry that some know-it-all could come along and tell me I’m not organizing MY purely fantastical toys right…

Among the other elements painted so far are four elements of Fire Dragons, 3 Elements of Harlequins (sadly there seems to be no stat line for Harlequins in FWC…), and 12 more Falcon IFVs. The Fire Dragons and Harlequins weren't painted by me - I got them with the Striking Scorpions - and they were nice enough that I just re-based them.

I see now I've changed how I painted the Falcons. I'm going to have to do some touch-ups on them - including the ones I just did! the one unit with the gold canopies I'll re-do to match the red ones of the other units, and I just realized that there's a gold bit on the shooty-laser-blaster-stick-thingie that I missed  on the ones I just painted. 

Not that I'm going to do any more work on these right away, I'm wondering if I should do some Falcons to match the Fire Dragons next, or some infantry to go in the other Falcons I have painted. Guardians or Dire Avengers...? 

I need to find something to use as a command element for the entire force... 

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

A brief update on the status of the Vimy Project. 

This Week's Games

I just noticed the BGG widget on my blog doesn't seem to be working anymore - rather than showing the lasted games played it's currently showing a smattering of games played over the last few weeks...? Weird.

Anyway... I finally got the kids to start some lists of games they want to play this year. So far Finnegan has 25 on his list (which means he'll probably add a few or play a few on the list multiple times). The girl has 37, but a lot of them are shorter games that I didn't even consider. Amanda agreed to pick out at least one game a month for us to play -it's not that she isn't interested in playing games, she'll play just about anything and is happy just to play whatever we set up and doesn't want to have to put too much thought into the games... I post my list of 50 games a week or so ago in my Game Plan 2017 post



Last Sunday we tried out Five Tribes. Finnegan got the game for his birthday last week. actually we've all played the game before. Finnegan and i played it as ToonCon 2015 and everyone played at the last ToonCon. We'd singed up for it in 2015 because we'd seen it on Tabletop. We came home from ToonCon 2015 and told Amanda it was a great game and maybe we should get it. Of course we bought a LOT of games in 2015 and Amanda wasn't going for it. After she actually played it last September it suddenly went on the "Games to Get" list...

SO many different ways to score points in this game - it's a little overwhelming trying to figure out where to even start. I thought I was doing well, but I think Amanda won in the end with a HUGE amount of points from having a near complete set of market goods and the second most number of viziers and a couple of really high point tiles (15?).

Finnegan and I came down with colds on Sunday and were sick all week - still sick actually. Keira and Amanda finally picked up the colds later in the week. You'd think being sick and not going anywhere we'd have played more games... but we didn't... we did get a bit of reading and movie watching done!



Wednesday we started in on our Game Lists - One of the Girl's choices was For Sale. It's a quick game so we played it twice.



On Friday we played Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game - Finnegan's pick for the week. There isn't a lot of thought or strategy to the game, but I actually don't mind it. It's a fun time-filler and usually presents enough of a challenge that there's enough tension to make it interesting. 



In the evening while I was making pizza we played Dominion: Intrigue. SOMEONE was taking forever doing their turns and so the pizza was finished before we finished the game and because the pizza was... er... a bit late, Finnegan ended up having some pretty low blood-sugar and had to just start eating.... and Amanda started eating... and despite them having a napkin to wipe their hands on after each munch I couldn't help getting a little upset imagining my BRAND NEW Dominion cards being slathered with pizza grease!?

Intrigue was fun. I've played with others copies of Intrigue (at the last two ToonCons) but ended up uaing a lot of new cards we hadn't used before and so it was a lot of fun figuring out how they worked.

This wasn't anyone's "pick" for the week - as I'd originally hoped, we played MORE than just each person's pick in a week and thus get to play lots of "filler" games like this each week -which is why I didn't even put any of our gaming staples on the list - Dominion, Race for the Galaxy, 7 Wonders, etc...

(This Friday should have been our biweekly D&D game, but with us all sick we told the crew not to come over!)



On Saturday - for the third Saturday in a row - we played Firefly: The Game. This was my pick for the week. Originally Finnegan and I were going to play it with our friend Brent while Amanda and The Girl were out at dance classes all day (as we usually do). But being all sick and stuff we called it off so as not to get Brent sick. Then Amanda and The Girl played hooky from Saturday dance classes (being sick and all) so we decided to go ahead and play with the four of us together - gurgling and coughing and blowing snot out of our heads. 

This time we played the "'Respectable' Persons of Business" scenario - which was more or less, the first person to 12000 credits with no active or jobs in hand would win. (Actually it's once you get to 12000 credits you can take a goal token and once you have a goal token, on your turn, as an action, you may declare "last call" - after which everyone gets one last turn and then you count up your money and minus the cash value of any jobs you have in hand and who ever has the mostest wins). Amanda won. Finnegan had over 14000 credits, but had 7000 in jobs in his hand, so The Girl came in second with about 10000. 



I was, once again, dead freaking last - with only about 4000 credits... but I had a great ship and crew with a lot of toys... If we'd played a few more hours, I would have crushed it... or not...

This afternoon we'd planned to play Olympus (Amanda's pick of the month) and kick off Skirmish Sunday Night (it was decided that on Saturdays we'd go climbing at Grip It - because it's open on Saturday evenings and those are really the only evenings we had free as a family - so climbing Saturday, skirmish/role-playing games on Sunday...). But Amanda looks like she wants to sleep all afternoon - hopefully we'll all play Olympus this evening and maybe kick off Skirmish Sundays NEXT week... That's okay, because i didn't really have anything concrete planned yet... I'm kind of torn between a few options.

If all goes according to plan we'll play Big Book of Madness on Wednesday (The Girl's pick for the week) and Rave for the Galaxy on Friday (Finnegan's pick for the week).

Saturday I am at my friend John's all day playing at Freezerburn - his annual invitational game day. I went to the first Freezerburn back in 2011, before I was really into playing board games. I was supposed to go and play in 2015, but the ended up spending five days in hospital with crazy high blood pressure. Last year John forgot to send me an invite and it filled up before I got around to asking him when he was going to send out invites... so... HOpefully I'll have seen the back end of this cold by Saturday and be in on the action this year!!


Coming Soon To Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog: 

Countdown to Vimy - an update on the status of the project.

Some pictures of the latest "micro-distractions".