AAR: Black Seas: First Contact British vs. Spanish.

 

    Kalissa and I tried out our first Black Seas game the other night, since flooding was interrupting travel to our local game store. We both had three ships and duked it out against each. It was a great learning game. And I am not just saying that, because I won! Kalissa had great fun. She was rather sad that one of her ships passed a fire test instead of an exploding ship. Also, I like that my bad rolling of "ones" is a good thing in this game. I rolled a lot of "ones"! Any, enjoy the photos of our game.

Naval Combat Games and the Board I Made For Demos.

 

   It just happened that before the year of 2020, my wife, Kalissa has been getting more into being an unofficial/official Warlord Games Raider. I am not sure what her title was or is, but this means we would be demonstrating other games. In this case, we have looked into the naval games of Warlord. Now, it is not a secret that I am not that much of a fan of most naval games. I think I have more or less been burned by bad rule sets or ones that just seem like work. There was one naval WW2 game I saw at Historicon that I decided to watch a turn play out. Kalissa left before the turn was other to see more interesting stuff. While I am sure the players ate up what they were playing and were having a blast I can see why she left. One round of shooting took 30 minutes to resolve. The one battleship fired a volley to the other side of the table at 20 feet long with ships the size of my finger. At the point of hitting, the receiving player open a 3" three ring binder with pages of information that he rolled on. Each page was sections of the ship form the kitchen to the bathroom to the engine room where he rolled for damage and fires. After all that rolling, the player said I am good. I still have no idea what happened in that round of shooting. 

   Now, grant it, I know there are way less complex naval games. I had played two games of Warlord's Cruel Seas game when it came out. I, thought, it was an interesting game, but I did not buy into with the exception of the German Faction, because I thought of maybe doing an aerial game for Dunkirk. It did not help that Kalissa was not into naval games, so I did not have much invested. Having a game we can play together makes things easier.  

   Because we have a little more commitment to Warlord Games as volunteers, I figure we should demo games on our terms. I needed make an ocean board. That is what this post was about anyway. Blood and Plunder may have given me some ideas, because that is a dangerous topic for myself I will not talk about. So I made this board with my so-far knowledge of terrain making. 

   This project did turn out rather when despite many mistakes. They are not much for anyone to care about other that I was going for a little more North Atlantic than Sub-tropical. It is not like I am not going to make another one! Anyway, enjoy!

 

First Game of Bolt Action in Forever! Warsaw Poles vs. Germans.

 

   This is from a game that was in mid-October. Since we have been so busy, Kalissa and I took the opportunity to travel and visit my In-laws. Of course, that was not the originally reason. We were actually going to a Bolt Action Tournament at the Hobbytown, USA near Kennesaw, GA. This was the same store that my wife and I started wargaming together at. What started it all! More important, this was a tournament that was not cancelled due to Covid-19. The players decided to be adults and take the normal risks that have always been around since the beginning of time. Sure, we took measures that were still under the guide of local state rules. It was nice to gather with a group of gamers again. Grant it, if this event was cancelled, I would have been able to meet up my local gamers. 

    Anyway, I was there for support with terrain and to be an alternate player. As it turned out, I was need for a game. One of the players showed up late, so we played more of a demo game. He was a new player who happened to have German forces with all of the equipment they would have had for the Warsaw Uprising. This gave me a chance to try out how my Polish would fair. I made them out of interest for a force and an escalation league that I was suppose to have started playing already. I have quite a few games to catch up in. However, the Polish had a great first game. The game ended as a "Draw", but it was interesting to see how the AK Militia fair in squads of 20 riflemen. Assaults and close combat are what my list seem to fair well with. I just need a lot of terrain to pull it off. Here are the few shots I had taken from the game. Enjoy!

I Am Still Alive!

 

     The last time I left my blog alone, it would have seemed that I was devoured my cats. That could still very well happen, since they still exist! However, the truth that is I am still really busy at work, despite lacking things to sell. The firearms industry has not slowed down, despite the shortage of everything. I find it rather strange that I am working more based on the lack of products than when I have normal stocks. Either way, I have been working, often that, I have not played a game in two months. Days off seem to be commission projects and as before, cats. 

    Fear not, though! I expect to go back to playing games and going to conventions. And I have made some time for figures. Recently, a friend of my was running a Bolt Action Escalation League. I decided to use this as an easy excuse to make another force. In this case, I decided to make my Warsaw Uprising Polish. It is one of the areas of WWII history that people do not talk much about and is a true "underdog" force. Plus, I had still a bunch of leftover Germans that my wife bought a couple of years ago that I could use for this purpose. I think I have a good start at the moment. I have another 40 figures to paint. Now, I am just going to have to create a natural habitat for my figures and a matching force. It smells like a future convention game. I would never think of doing such things! 

     

June 2020 Sucks! But We Now Have A Cat 5 House!

 
  June has been terrible for our wargaming world for Kalissa and I. In May, our house had roof damage from a storm that caused leaks in our kitchen and our game room. These means that we have had little gaming this month in general. It took a few weeks for our insurance to fix said problem. Now, when they did the job at hand, they did a pretty good job. If things work out, we should have a home game, despite the Covid-19 second wave. At this point, I just want to contract the damn thing to get it over with. However, that still will not stop the cancelling of all of the conventions I would have been going to. All I know it that I am going to outlaw any talk of 2020 after this year in the household.
    But there was a positive to Kalissa and I's life! We have gained kittens. That is four of them at the tail end of April. Last year, Kalissa was talking to her mom outside when she was greeted by a small male cat. This cat is still currently the chilliest cat I have ever met. It seems strange that he is a stray based on his behavior. Kalissa named him Nimbus; and he would show up daily. We tried to allow him into the house, but Izzy, our cat, refused to allow it. She would chase him out the door with blind rage outdoors, despite being terrified of outside. She would run inside and hide afterwards! I was calling him an "HWC", because he was definitely been fed by multiply neighbors. HWC stands for Homicidal Welfare Cat. After a rather large cat fight with several other cats, Nimbus came out on top ruling our intersection. And then, he found a girlfriend, Kalissa named Calypso, which is a Calico Cat. She has been hard to catch and have been living under our house.
    Anyway, they seemed to have gotten along great, because we now have four of their children in our house. We have two boys and two girls. The boys are named Kinko and Peach. The girls are named Jupiter and Oreo. I am sure with the pictures, you might be able to guess which ones are which. And as for Izzy, she is not a fan of this! She could dominate these Nimbus kids, but she runs when Jupiter walks up and licks her nose! Things are calming down in the household. I am aware that the kittens will be a challenge to wargaming. They, already, really want to help with my commission projects. Maybe, I can get them trained to paint?

This is Nimbus: the chilliest outdoor cat!

Jupiter and Oreo.

Oreo.

Peach.

Left to Right: Oreo, Kinko, Peach, and Jupiter.

Kinko.

Nap time!