Update. With holiday pics.

Been a while since I’ve posted… real life has been a bit hectic, stuff going on that took up my attention. That and I’ve been on my travels.

I spent a great week in Athens, nice food and company, saw a few of the sites.

The Archaeological Museum is facinating- well worth a day’s trip. The Antikythera mechanism is simply mind-blowing (but sadly being behind glass didn’t photograph well). The Cycladic art was another personal favourite. As my photography skills are pretty limited I’ve only added a few pics or the more military related things.

A monument taken from a grave yard:

A headstone for the ages.

Recovered items from the Thermopalye battlefield:

Go tell the Spartans stranger passing by that here, obedient to their laws we lie.

And finally Hadrian’s triumphant arch:

With your humble blogger for scale.

The Acropolis is a magnificent place, and the new support Museum most impressive too:

2500 years old and still standing despite many peoples best efforts.

Sadly the enjoyment of the trip was tempered by the death of my cat whilst I was away. She had had a good long life, but had started to suffer in her final few months. I had looked after her for the last 5 years, before that she spent 15 living with my parents.

Pudding. 1994-2013.

Gaming wise I’ve not been up to much. Been too cold for the shed (when the water for brush cleaning purposes freezes I tend to leave it). So instead I’ve been generating stats for the 2 Hour Wargames family of rules; this will allow us all to play more modern games using our toy collections.

Some of the reference material I’ve been using.

I’ll see how long it takes them, and with Ed’s permission I’ll see about uploading them here. Either way we should have fun playtesting the stats to make sure the balance is right.

Cheers,

Pete.

Fresh from the Shed.

A few things I’ve got finished recently.

First up a Farm house from Hovels.

From the front with one roof.

From the back with the other optional roof.

4 US guns from Under the Bed- 2 105mm Howitzers, 1 57mm ATG and 1 3″ ATG. The Howitzers will probably do extra duty in Korea and Vietnam.

Finally 24 British Cold War squaddies in full NBC kit, made by Elhiem. These compliment my Soviet troops from the same manufacturer.

Hopefully some of these will make it into Monday nights game….

Cheers,

Pete.

Fletcher Pratt Naval Game. AAR.

Just after Xmas, Brian and I headed across town to Evan for our first game of The Fletcher Pratt Naval Game. Evan had his nicely painted newly finished boards to try out too.

He rustled up a quick scenario- Battle of the river plate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_River_Plate.

Brian took on the role of Captain of Spee, Evan had the Essex while I had joint command of the smaller Ajax and Achilles.

For more details on the game see http://www.wargaming.co/books/pratt/homepage.htm . We used the small scale Featherstone rules but using cms not inches- also Evan came up with some extra rules given we were using 1/3000th ships. After a while we got the idea and they seemed to work well.

My two commands and a nice example of Evan’s player sheets.

All three of us enjoyed the game, especially the guesstimating ranges. Evan’s props which he made were just right for the job too.

I only had my camera phone with me so please excuse the paucity of pics and their low quality:

After initial heavy damage my 2 light cruisers try to close the distance.

Spee under heavy attack. Also not Evan’s nice firing arrows.

Trying to return fire. My smaller guns were less effective than hoped.

Brian’s ship under even heavier attack- five hits have been registered.

All in all a great afternoons gaming, even if it ended in something of a stalemate. We all want to play more Fletcher Pratt, I need to get my plastic kits made up; and I’m considering going back a few years to the Russo Japanese War too. As I guess watch this space.

Cheers,

Pete.

4th Quarter and Year end report.

A quiet quarter for various personal reasons.

Figures acquired: 137, Figures Painted: 71.
Kits acquired: 5, Kits finished: 11.
Books acquired: 54 (was a good xmas 🙂 ), Books read: 24.

So in 2012 I painted 576 20mm figures. Finished 66 20mm kits and read 108 books. I’ve not counted scenery and none 20mm wargames stuff (though that is only a handful of 1/600 aircraft).

I found keeping the list was a great motivation to get on with stuff. That coupled with my new policy of a modestly painted item on the table top is worth far more than unpainted stuff in storage in the shed, meant I got a fair bit done. Painting in blocks of 20 or so figures at a time speeds things up too. Let’s see what 2013 brings.

Happy New Year,

cheers,

Pete.