Muster Convention 2019: Our First One.

      It was another trip back to Williamsburg, VA for us to experience the Old Dominion Military Society's Muster Wargaming Convention! Only this time, Kalissa and I were not being chased down by a major hurricane. There was a definite improvement when weather is not a factor. We were going up to this show for Kalissa to run some Bolt Action Tournaments. There were supposed to be two of them, but like before, the Team one fell through. I will come back to an idea on why the team ones are harder to do a little later. However, this convention was just as fun for me as the Call To Arms one. It may have had another 200 plus people to this one versus Call To Arms. It is hard to beat out a hurricane that brings all sorts of power outages.
     We went up on Valentine's Day in the evening so I could set up tables early. I did not want to find myself speed racing a clock to get things done. We also were not planning on going any where for Valentine's Day, since we have an engagement day on Feb. 5th. Plus, nothing beats a healthy Cheese Puffs dinner! Unfortunately, the Team Tournament was a bust. We had two players show for the affair. In a sense, it worked out, since we could venture out and play in other convention games. It was also during this time that Kalissa and I heard from other players about the differences in Team Tournaments. Apparently, our tournament should have been called a Doubles Tournament. The definition of a team tournament in Bolt Action at some other venues had the team as two people and trade out who is playing with what they brought versus the other team's opponent. A doubles tournament has both players of the team playing against the other team's players. Honestly, I am not sure how the two differences came about considering I had not heard of the first option being done. If it is that confusing in other locations, this might be the reason that the idea is not that popular. Plus, I think that it is hard getting a team together. It was a little easier back in the day where Flames of War was everywhere in full force. It seems that the East Coast along the 95 corridor does not have as many players for this to happen as say the middle of the country or up north.
   Despite the issues of a busted first tournament, the second one did go as plan with eight happy players. And for an even number, I did not have to play. One person forgot his army, so he ended up using my Romanians. After playing them for three game, he is convinced that they are terrible based on luck. I feel bad about that, since I receive the same love from them. I am looking into trying new Romanian options for game playing sake as well as mine. However, I will have even more options after gaining a large amount of Japanese for the near future.
   Since I did not get sucked into the tournament, I was able to check out more game options. I manage to learn and player the new Blood and Blunder rules. I only played one game on land where I really made my opponent work for his victory. The census I have is that I will get into this game on a later date. I am thinking of this happening more after Historicon. The second game I got to play was a Gangster game set in 1920's New York. I will have more of a write up about this and the other game. The last game I got to play was a WWI plane game: Aerodrome. I am not sure what version was exactly used, but I still had fun with it. I ran two planes and shot down two planes with one. I have always seen some form of Aerodrome playing at every convention, but this was the first time I had actually sat down for one. It is a game I might try to play more often.
    Muster 2019 as a whole, it was a wonderful little convention. Everyone was friendly, even if I talked some of their ears off. I was kind of a home body the week before, which is not very common. Also, it was really nice to see all of the encouragement given to the young kids at the convention. It was very open with kid friendly games. Kalissa and I watched some young boys build 15mm tanks after playing on the tank games. They even played whatever scenario there was in their imagination on some of our Bolt Action tables. If a convention takes the time with it's members to do this, they are winners in my book. I would encourage anyone to visit this convention if possible.

I had to get a photo of my wife playing Germans on purpose! This is a rare gem.

Purple dice and kitty tape measures are my wife's deadly combo.

There were tons of players for this game of Loin's Rampant.

Kid Friendly Game of Wings of Glory WW2 at Pearl Harbor.

Battlemaster's! This was my first wargame ever! I remember playing this on a rainy day in Georgia during the Super Bowl when I was ten.

Cruels Seas was another hit at this convention. Warlord is making a lot of money out of this one. This was one in eight random games I saw not including the all day demos.

Frostgrave.

AAR: Lord of the Rings: A Hobbit Stoned my Orc to Death!

         This was another round of playing Lord of the Rings. At this point, Kalissa and I have played five games of these Games Workshop rules. Originally, this was the plan for the day for a game, but the day before, I was speed terrain making. The previous post was my progress on making some rather large oak trees. I figured I would showcase how they came out finished while matching a mat. So I decided after the last post to speed make a mat. This game shows the results on that mission.
       Now, we did not play any particular scenario. Instead, we just made it a goal for the Good side to escort Frodo and Samwise across the table lengthwise to the other side. I, as the Evil side, was to stop them. I choose to run three eight-orc groups, 8 Warg riders, and a happy, super-friendly troll! Kalissa had more character heros, such as, Legolias, Gimili, Aragorn, Frodo, and Samwise plus a bunch of Riders of Rohan both mounted and dismounted. The points for these forces were a little in favor for the Good side. We found out that I could have added some more Orcs to even things out.
      The game went all over in hits and misses. I figured the only way to get anyway through to Frodo and the ring was to flank through with my Warg Riders. It almost worked, because I got to Frodo, I just could not kill him. The troll was taken on immediately by Aragorn mounted on a horse. The troll was quickly dispatched within two turns. Surprisingly, some of the Orcs were able to distract most of the heroes. The Orcs roaming through the woods managed to break through and also make it to Frodo. Well, there would have been two until the Frodo pegged one in the face killing him. Needless to say, I did not have the numbers to win against Frodo and Sam with having Rohan warriors shooting me in the back in the near future. But I still had fun! Anyway, these are the rest of the photographs of our game.

Terrain: Wire Trees for Lord of the Rings.

        Here are first wire trees I have ever made. I have been making trees for quite a while. I am sure that I have a post about tree making some where on this blog a few years back. Normally, the trees I made worked for what I needed. However, I have been playing some more Fantasy related games: notebly, Lord of the Rings. Since my wife bought a whole bunch a figures for an awesome deal, it only seems natural to make fantasy boards. Okay, there has been a secret challenge to make some more fantasy boards. I have interests that range everywhere.
      Since my wife likes Lord of the Rings, she likes the Elves and the Ents. In my mind, I figured I need to approach terrain much like I do with the historical work I do. I cannot see Ents being as tall as they are walking through  medium sized trees. However, the field problem I have is the way I make trees works up to a certain point with sizes. To make Fangorn Forrest, I have to make more Live Oak type trees and working with Woodland Scenics trees only get so wide. Plus, used larger bushes and sticks make for more fragile trees. I thought of using aquarium trees made of plastic for a base like some one did down below.

     The guy who made them did a great job. From what I understood, he made this with armatures you can buy from Scenic Express and plastic Bonsai plastic trees. This are pretty easy to make. The problem comes when you cannot find the plastic Bonsai trees with the right shape or just finding them at all. I looked around in my local shops of pet stores and craft stores. It is a amazing how you see things are the time, but cannot find them when you want them.
       So my failed hunt turned me to wire trees. I have seen many videos on wire trees. Mel from the Facebook group the Terrainiacs does a really nice job for them. I just never needed to make them before. After making the tree I have made featured on this blog, I learned  quite a lot about it. I might make a tutorial on my version in the near future, since I will be making more of these. I will most likely turn to this method for my wife's Ronin board. I will have to see how it goes.

The bases are not finished for these. I am making a board to better match for this trees.

This is to give you an idea of the size.