Sicily Project: Armor Test: Just Scratching Some Paint!

    There has now been some progress in the project at hand for Historicon 2017. I managed to mainly complete the board for the show as you will see here. Since the board is another 6 feet longer, I will not have a full picture of it until the show. But it only seemed natural to test it out to see how it runs.
And since everyone seems to be doing Summer activities, Kalissa and I were left to "give it a go"! This test game was pretty fun, but the honest truth is that most people at conventions are not as tactically aggressive as my wife is.
     The Canadians job in this scenario is to get as many units as they can in the third section of the board where Grammichele, Sicily is. They also get points for killing Germans, taking the orchard, and entering Grammichele while staying alive at the game, which is an automatic win for the Canadians. The Germans goals are to stop all of this. They get points for kills and holding the area.
Missing elements of this game are the infantry, recce units, and the AT Guns.
      After playing it out, the Germans had a clear victory despite my terrible shooting. Kalissa's did not fair much better. Since we were using Bolt Action Rules, Kalissa had rolled two Fubars that prevented an extra 4 points. She got 2 points for killing a German tank, and two points for every tank in the third section( second, based on the test). She had three making it 6 points with a total of 8. The Germans held off the Canadians and got one point for every kill (4 pts), five points for the Orchard, and 10 points for Grammichele. They totaled out at 19. It seems like  a lot of German tanks versus the Shermans coming at them. We might just place some Panzers in reserve to make things bolder in the game.

Sicily Project: Procrastination

This does not have anything to due with my Historicon 2017 scenario. However, there are similar terrain elements in this photo.

    Due to quite a few commission projects, I have found that my time table for my Historicon 2017 Project has been reduced to a month after a 9 month planning period. In a strange way, this is not a business mismanagement as much as a personal one. Though, if you connect the dots, Historicon will bring me more business. This was such a case with Nashcon 2017 recently. I do not need that much business, because I believe that once a hobby turns into a full time business, it stops being a hobby. However, after seeing a publication  of one of my commissions, it all seems worth it. If there was ever a goal with this wargaming hobby of mine, I would love to see people inspire to put forth the effort in terrain  in their hobby as well as take pride in the figures they painted. I think the hobby of wargaming would benefit from such feats!
     So about my current project at hand, I have a lot to due. Here is the official list in less than one month.

1.  Finish three mats to make a 6' x 18' board.
2.  Finish painting and making shrubs and trees.
3.  Finish painting British Infantry.
4.  Finish painting German Infantry,
5.  Finish painting German Armor,
6.  Repaint British Universal Carriers and  Dingos
7.  Finish painting Railroad tracks.
8.  Make signs for the game.
9.  Write historical reports and site them correctly for the game.
10.  Buy sign holders.
11.  Make signs for our supporter companies. 
12.  Win some awards at Historicon!

      Okay, honestly, it was nice to win any award at a convention. I won two at the last convention and was told I was cheated by not winning "Best In Show" last year. Hey, judges judge and like what they want. I won regardless based on happy gamers who played in my game. And that is the point of any convention game, to have a game that the players enjoy! 

     However, I would really love to be published in Wargames Illustrated just so  I can buy a copy for my dad. He is aware that I do a lot for my hobby and I want to show him that it is an important thing that Kalissa and I do for the community. It also justifies my Art Degree in Graphic Design, since I never found a entry level job after I graduated college. It was when the market dropped. Though, he does not hold this against me in anyway, I just thought it would be nice for him to see the art I produce with meaning. Plus, my father always promoted my interest in History. He bought tons of American Civil War books and WWII books for me. I think this combination is what drives me to make great games. 

  Either way, all I know is that I have a lot to do this month and the first half of July. If I get the time, I will finish a commission before Historicon 2017. It will be interesting to say the least!

AAR: WWII Wings of Glory: Shot Down in Flames!

        As I mentioned in an earlier blog post that Kalissa and I got some WWII planes for Wings of Glory at Nashcon. Well, the other day was the time to break them out into combat! So while other members of our gaming group discussed various rules systems and such, Danny and I did a test run for my new German foes. It was a disaster!
        I remember the mistake that Val Kilmer made in the movie "The Ghost in the Darkness" where his gun misfired facing a lion. He had went into battle with an unproven rifle! This was just about the case with these new planes. And I am sure field commanders in real war situations did have stats on weapons that looked great on paper, but preformed horribly. But it was my own fault, since I drew all of the damage I received in this game. We play Wings of Glory where we put the different damage tokens in their own cup. The person shot at draws their own damage. In my case, I seemed to have gravitated towards every gaming-changing token that could be had, such as, damaged engines, head shots, and other things that removed any, if not all, maneuverability. But the second  part is that they are new. This must translate to the "newly painted" issue where they automatically die in the first game. It works, because all of the new planes where shot down first! The rest were target practice for the British.
       Now, the only question I have for my next game of Wings of Glory is how it will play out. Danny got a bunch of new WWI fighters that my wife and I plan to play at his house on the weekend. If they are all new, will they balance out? We will see how that goes. Either way, despite my losses, I still shot down a plane and slightly expected the results. Here are the rest of the game shots. Enjoy!

Nashcon Bolt Action Tournament

    As you may know based on the previous post, my lovely wife, Kalissa ran the Nashcon 2017 Bolt Action Tournament. The whole affair came up with the director of Nashcon contacting Kalissa after our successful Siege of Augusta Bolt Action Tournament. Both, Kalissa and I made it a point to try to make it as enjoyable as possible for the players. After all, we want to promote the future of this game system we love to play. I tried to make the boards as close to our normal gaming terrain as we can to inspire the best games. I believe that you can lose with pleasure on a great board full of eye candy with well painted figures! If I had it my way, I would have tried to get by with the current standards of my terrain. The issue is a storage one, and would involve actually renting or buying a trailer based on my hedgerows. We will decided that when we do more tournaments and such.
   Anyway, we had at the beginning eleven players. Some of these were last minute ones that did not have their armies painted to standard. I have heard a couple of comments about standards that I had already responded to on posting to Facebook. We had asked that figures for the tournament be painted in at least three colors. It is not a great demand if knowing in advance. We had four other people sign up that did not show, but received several new players that winged it on the spot. If the other players had showed up, we would have had a 100% full tournament, which would be awesome for the first go round. So really, tournaments for us is about spreading the hobby, having fun, and inspiring. The hope is to want to improve or model on a high standard as a personal desire. Kalissa and I have experienced players who felt guilty for not having things painted well or finished while playing normal games on our terrain. I let them know that it is not that important to me as long as you try to paint your army in the future. And it does not have to be perfect!
      Anyway, below were the players:

1.    Don Blevins /German
2.  Charles McKeller /U.S.
3.  Mike Updike /U.S. Marines
4.  Annika Whittenberg/ Soviets
5.  Douglas Whittenberg/ U.S. Airborne
6.  Sal DiGennaro/ Soviet
7.  Paul Dempsey/ German
8.  Chris Maddox/ Japanese
9.  Alex Smith/ British
10.  Joseph Bija/ German
11.  Chris Vaught/ Italian
12.  Myself/ British Airborne

  I only played in two rounds as an alternate. One player unexpectedly left, so I did not have to play in the third. My scores did not count, though the players objected to that at first, since I would not win anything. My goal was to make sure all the players got to play all rounds. Besides, the prizes are to support the tournament, not me. This leads to our supporters. A special thanks to our friends in wargaming company:

1. NWS Wargaming Store
2. Crescent Root Studio
3. Impudent Mortal
4.  Warlord Games
5.  Miniature Building Authority

 The winners were:

1.  First Place: Alex Smith
2.  Second Place: Douglas Whittenberg
3.  Third Place: Don Blevins 
4.  Best Painted: Joseph Bija
5.  Best Sport: Annika Whittenberg

Congratulations! I hope names where not mispelled, and I hope to see all of these great gamers in future tournaments, if not just conventions in general!