Sunday, February 19, 2012

A Busy Day

View of the computer at the conclusion of our second Skype game
My work schedule and the federal holiday schedule have combined to give me a four day weekend this week, so there has been some time to devote to hobby pursuits.  In fact, today has been quite a busy day across the household.

I reported recently on a playtest of the latest revision of the Rough Wooing simple Renaissance rules that Ross hosted over Skype.  We came back for a second try today, with a scenario built from the "black book", Programmed Wargames Scenarios, by C. S. Grant.  Ross graciously agreed to host the game again earlier in the week, when it was uncertain as to whether we would have the time to set the gaming table back up at this end.  The situation (#10 from the black book) involved up to four players with individual interests, so both of my sons agreed to take a hand.  As it turned out, I ran the attackers against a defending coalition of Norman, William and Ross.  Today was the day for my luck to turn; most of my rolls, for a change, approached the expected value, and the kids were unusually cold, so I managed a rare victory in about two and a half hours.  Ross and I hope that we will be putting on some Renaissance games at Huzzah in Maine in a couple of months, so it was good to feel that the rules were working more or less as intended.  I hope that he'll have a battle report with some pictures shortly...

William's new personal Medieval Mayhem figure

William working on a mounted standard bearer, composited from two Accurate figures
William has working on a personal figure for Medieval Mayhem, which was finally finished today.  He's following it up with a standard bearer, hoping to have it finished by Cold Wars, now just three weeks away.  Personally, I like these low pressure projects: it'd be nice to have, but it won't break the scenario if it hasn't been finished in time.  High pressure projects tend to make me freeze up.


After a couple of months without the table, it's good to have it back.  We got it set up Friday, cleared it enough to lay the ground cloth back on it yesterday, and then re-cleared it today.
Somewhere in France, a quiet village is blissfully unaware of the approaching storm
Having gotten that far, it wasn't hard to find the inspiration to put down the scenery for what I hope will be tomorrow's game.

Here are a few more detail shots from the layout.  I didn't dig out my close-up supplemental lenses or a tripod, so they are all still rather broad.  Perhaps tomorrow ...


The scenery, mostly assembled in haste in 2003, seems to be holding up.  A scenery upgrade is on the agenda as a possible emphasis for this year.




3 comments:

  1. Quite impressive, Rob. I especially like the great big trees, for some reason. The road appears to be gravel, right? Nice stuff.

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  2. I do like Duke William! Very well done.

    2003, as in 10 years next year in November? Yikes! They have held up well. Remmber that any painting of buildings has to be done in natural, overcast light only.

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  3. Will: Thanks for the vote of confidence on the trees. :) I'm not entirely satisfied with them, but my goal in putting the original project together was to find some way to get some trees that was more in scale with the 54s. Even the G-gauge model railroaders don't seem to have commercial trees big enough...

    The roads are simply sand scattered on the cloth. We vacuum it up or take the cloth outside to shake it when we need to remodel them. Finding sand that wasn't too yellow (as most it is around here) was the hard part. Ross ended up bringing me a large bag from Nova Scotia.

    Ross: Yes, painting those buildings at the last minute during the power failure was definitely an experience. :) Hard to believe about the time...

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