Impudent Mortal: A Loss of a Friend.

   
      Life has a way to remind us that it is shorter than it seems. In this case, it left a dark cloudy ending to a fun Siege of Augusta Convention. Our friend, Walter Langhans, Jr. passed away in at the hotel it was held at by an accident. We knew him as Walt and by his wife, Michelle that Kalissa and I would hang out with at conventions. We would share ideas and brainstorm how their business could make more money and just cool designs in general. Walt would support all of our Bolt Action Tournaments by giving us prize support, plus he designed some of the only MDF buildings I like. I don't them in a normal sense. That day he gave support for my Historicon 2020 game that I am running. In normal fashion, I usually try to advertise my support as a counter offer. I just did not expect to have to a more a memorial for a game. Kalissa and I found out about the accident after we got to my sister's house in Savannah, GA. The only blessing we found is that his wife, Michelle did not find him first. We discovered this at the funeral when Kalissa and I travelling to Atlanta for it the next week.
      Even though, this is a sad post I could not have posted earlier, this is a "Hats off" moment for a great all-around guy. I hope that some comfort will come quickly for his wife, Michelle. Though, there were not many gamers at the funeral, we were informed that she was going to head up to Cold Wars 2020 for a wargaming "Viking Funeral" He would have really liked that. Below are some of the designs we have that made gaming that more. He will be greatly missed by us and our hobby.

If you have seen this Barn, this was one of my favorite buildings we use at tournaments. We rule it that you can drive through it, if you vehicle can fit! Players got a kick out of that!

This board was made to showcase Impudent Mortal Buildings.

The Historical Line he created.

 

One of Walt's historical designs in action for an ACW Game. They were really nice and easy to build!

Southern Front 2019 Photos

     For the second year in a row, Kalissa and I managed to make it to another Southern Front Wargaming Convention. It is the closest one to us held in Raleigh, NC, which is about an hour from us. Last year, we made it for the first time after Hurricane Florence pasted us by. One road heading north out of Fayetteville, NC happened to open that morning of the show. Since we liked it, we went up for this year's for a couple of hours. I did not get to play anything, but it was more to hang out with fellow wargamers. Plus, I managed to shop a little for one of my Historicon 2020 projects with Sash and Saber. And I bought some terrain from Battlefield Terrain Concepts. Despite knowing how to make my own terrain, I still like to support our hobby vendors. Anyway, these are some of the photos of the mid-afternoon games. Enjoy!

AAR: Battlegroup: First Games.

When you have nearly everything really for a game, it does not take longer for me to jump right into a game and play. That was exactly what we did when we went to Hobbytown, USA. Kalissa and I brought our newly acquired 20mm to the store to test out the game, even though, she did not play it. For the following tow games I played, I had two opponent who had also never played. And for those few that had experienced my lovely wife, I somehow did not die in the process. She was nice enough to help run us through the Battlegroup while not ever reading them in advance. How I still have fingers to type after these games is still a miracle! I still have to make it through the night! Organized people tend to like to be prepared!

For the first game, I played against a newer player in our area, Chris. He chose to play the Germans leaving me with the British. Not normally my cup of tea! (See what I did there!) Anyway, Germans had four squads of Germans, two MG42's, one Forward HQ, and a Panther tank. To make things fair for the British, they had four squads of infantry, a forward observer for artillery with 1st Priority, a Vicker Machine Gun, and three off-table 17 pdr. shots. I thought that would balance out nicely. It is even better for the Germans when I roll the most amazing amount of "ones" on my D6's. I was pinned down the first half of the game. My first shots were on turn 5. I think we made it to ten turns until my morale failed.

The second game against Richard, I ran my Germans. This game ran faster, since he watched the first game. We had more of a slugfest. One of the three 17 pdr. shots killed my Panther tank. It did not get to shoot! However, the amount of death was all over. We decided to call the game when I had one MG42 in a house left out of the force, spite have some morale left. The British, I discovered were two off from their breaking point, but I am sure more artillery would have been called in.

As for the rules themselves, I really enjoyed playing them. There was a lot more strategy when you are not pinned down as much. I think this game will even be more interesting when we have more units to mess with. My only real issues is that the game speed breaks down when dealing with the artillery steps. They can bog things down. However, when I saw there is a possibly to get hit by two 240mm guns, I thought "Awesome!" So below are the rest of the photos! Enjoy!