Wargames Illustrated Article

Some of you may recall my post about building scenarios.  I did write it up for Wargames Illustrated and low and behold the article has appeared in this months Wargames Illustrated (#358)!  Really happy that this got published, hooray!

Issue #358

Fighting Talk on page 34

In other news ... where to begin ...

I'm still extremely excited about getting Blood and Plunder on the tabletop.  So much so that I've contracted Artmaster Studio in the UK to paint all four of the existing factions (104 figures!).  I packaged these all up and shipped them via the United States Postal Service (USPS) on July 10th, with an expected delivery date of July 14th.  I paid extra to get it there quickly as Artmaster indicated they would be able to get them back to me before CabinCon (Sept. 1-3).  I promptly dove into terrain and other preparations ... until ...

Oh, the United States Postal Service ...

My package arrived in San Francisco and was sent to US Customs for clearance.  I live in Fremont, a 30 minute drive away.  My package should not have entered US Customs.  There my package sat.  I attempted to call USPS several times ... usually having to hang up while waiting for someone to answer.  I finally got an option to get called back ... and finally got a hold of someone who was very helpful.

Long story short, on August 1st they found my package (after 23 days in shipping purgatory) and as of August 2nd it had arrived in the UK.  Fingers crossed it gets through UK Customs (not gonna hold my breath!) quickly and then on to Artmaster Studio.

Admittedly, my motivation was ruffled ...

Ahhh ... poop!

So, I kept printing 3D fort parts but not much else.  Good news is I have enough fort parts now.

But what to do about CabinCon?  In a Wednesday night beer session with the lads the answers came forth ... an idea!

SAGA and Blood Bowl.  We'll host a mini (friendly) Blood Bowl tournament for the 6 of us on the Friday of the mini-convention and on Saturday we can do a mini SAGA tournament.  I very much use the term "tournament" here very loosely.  It is really just providing a structure around who is to play who for each game.

If you've never seen all the awesome ads for Blood Bowl ... do a Google search and prepare to giggle ...

Blood Bowl ads

Anyways ... I have several teams that I'm preparing so we can all play (I have my Orcs, but added Humans, Skaven, Dwarves, and Goblins).  Roy has his Chaos team now and my Chaos Dwarf team should be completed very soon.  Lot's to choose from.

Now, my current project is to attempt to build out 3 x custom Blood Bowl tables for CabinCon.  Then straight after that, back to Blood and Plunder because I want to play that ASAP after the convention.

General Update - HistoriCon, Blood & Plunder, and 3D Printer

Hello all!  Well, believe it or not, I've been very busy!  I'll have several updates posting after this one and through the weekend.

HistoriCon

HistoriCon 2017 happened this past weekend.  While I've always wanted to go it just have never worked out.  June is normally a very busy month for me so it is hard to get away to the east coast for an extended weekend (and KublaCon in the San Francisco bay area is at the end of May).

Now, while I didn't attend this year - my "brother from another mother" Mr. Ivor Evans (Saturday Mornings blog) was there running is awesome pulp game (pictures below with link).  Pictures are from the Lair of the Uber Geek blog ... check out his excellent HistoriCon reports here.

Ivor's game - picture from the Lair of the Uber Geek blog

Ivor's game - picture from the Lair of the Uber Geek blog

Ivor, being the most awesome dude on the planet - acted in abstentia on my behalf ... and picked up the special edition HistoriCon miniature for Blood and Plunder from the Firelock Games booth for me (miniature was free with purchase).  He also was super kind to pack me some more surprises - special edition HistoriCon figures!!  What a guy!!!

HistoriCon figures!

Convention special miniatures giveaway for Firelock
Games, with purchase of course!

David S. also has posted some excellent photos from the event as well ... I recommend check those out:  Wed photos, Thurs photos, Friday photos, and Saturday photos.

Blood & Plunder - No Peace Beyond the Line

First up - a big congratulations to Firelock Games on their outstanding and epic Blood and Plunder, No Peace Beyond the Line Kickstarter!  922 backers pledged $226,783!!

Every single stretch goal has been unlocked!  Personally I've pledged a small fortune as they kept adding things I wanted.  I'll have a ton of stuff coming in March (if they deliver on schedule).

Stretch goals ... all unlocked ... whoot!!

I'm really looking forward to getting everything from this Kickstarter.  Although my pirate collection has just begun, it is already progressing to completion of the first wave quickly.  My target is to run a game at CabinCon on the labour day weekend here in the US (first weekend of September).  Certainly an aggressive schedule, but I'll be pushing for that objective.  We'll see how far I get.  Fingers crossed!

3D Printer!

YES!!  I have a FireForge Creator Pro 3D printer ... oh man ... the possibilities!!!  Right now I'm busy printing on endless Vauban fort parts for a shore battery/fort position for my pirate games ... ooo ... sexy!  My next post will cover this is much more detail ... about half written at the moment.  I'll be giving you all an idea of what it takes to get into 3D printing of terrain for your miniature wargames ... hopefully for any of you looking to try it out it will save you some pain.

Print in progress ... next post will show completed prints.

That is it for the moment ... Wednesday is beer night ... so off to the pub to raise a glass or 20!

Man Overboard - Blood and Plunder

Yes, man overboard!  This has been a great week with almost everything I've ordered to get my pirate project underway having arrived.  I'm still waiting on:

- My buildings from Brigade Games (from their Caribbean line).
- My Unaligned dice set from Firelock Games - this was missed in one of my orders ... was supposed to be included in the last order that came, but alas, is still missing.

So, how about some pictures of my pirate booty?!!

Everything ... so far.

I've taken advantage of the set deals you can get from Firelock Games.  I've managed to end up with a healthy amount of stuff.  All four factions that are currently available (adding the new ones after March of 2017 when the new Kickstarter is supposed to ship).  4 frigates, 2 x Brigantines, 2 x Sloops and 3 longboats round out the current fleet.  I've already put the money forward in the Kickstarter for 2 x Galleons (along with 1 each of the other new ships).  Dice, templates, books, extra bits and cannon ... all making for a great new period of history to go game!

Some pictures of each of the current factions below ...

The English with their special character, dice and cards.

The Spanish with their special character, dice and cards.

The French with their special character, dice and cards.

The Unaligned with their cards.  No dice yet, still waiting
on those to arrive.  Also, since there is no special character
I've taken it upon myself to buy the "Captain Jack Sparrow"
miniature from Black Scorpion ... he'll serve as my
Unaligned faction commander.

So, many more posts to come as I make progress here.  I plan to share posts covering my assembly and painting of the ships as well as the terrain I'll be doing.  If all goes well today I'll pack up all four of the factions and ship them over to Artmaster Studio to get them painted and the crews done within the next couple of months.

Stay tuned, I'm still mulling over the table design/layout and approach ... but getting close.  I'll be taking a stab at getting a ship done here very soon.

Arrrgh Matey! Blood and Plunder!

Hey folks!  Well, I squarely blame Ivor Evans from the Saturday Mornings blog for having planted some latent seed in my brain about Blood and Plunder some time ago (around the time of the first Kickstarter for it).  At the time I saw some of the miniatures and would see posts about the game but I was firmly attempting to stay on track at the time and decided to actively bury my head in the sand and pretend I didn't see anything ...

Well ... that only worked for so long.

I've folded with the new Kickstarter and dove in head first ... and just in case you have not seen it, Firelock Games is running their second Blood and Plunder Kickstarter (no peace beyond the line) ...

Blood and Plunder
No peace beyond the line

I have also ordered the existing collection including all four factions and ships.  One thing I really looking forward to doing is a nice Caribbean sea table for which I am drawing inspiration from the absolutely stunning demo table that Firelock Games uses ...

I'll be going for a similar effect that shows the shallow "reflections" from the water.  I'm just trying to decide right now on how to build it out ... I could do 2x2 or 2x4 squares ... my ultimate goal is a 6x8 table ... with the last 2' or so being a shoreline with dock that goes into a Caribbean village with Spanish style buildings.

The four existing factions are below:  English, French, Spanish and Unaligned.  The new Kickstarter adds Dutch, Native Caribbeans, Pirates & Privateers, and European Land Forces.

In addition to the miniatures, the ships available are made of resin and having received my first batch of figures and ships I can say they are of extremely high quality ...

Frigate

Brigantine

Sloop

Longboat

The new Kickstarter adds even more ships, with the most awesome looking Galleon ... of which I'll be getting two!

I'm really excited about getting this game done and in play.  I'll be doing a lot of posting as I make progress here.  I've been busy (as usual) with work, but I'm dedicated to getting a lot of great progress done this summer.