Friday, January 29, 2021

Saga Age of Hannibal - Carthage vs. Rome Game

 My friend Mike hosted a Saga Age of Hannibal game for my friend Greg and I yesterday as part of his 'virtual Saga campaign'. Mike is doing an amazing job of hosting the tabletop battle, supplying the miniatures and moving the figures while two players play virtually through his hands. 

Greg was a great opponent, and his Romans are tough and he plays them well. For a second game in a row I got more mileage out of my levy bowmen than they should get thanks to the Carthaginian 'Eagle Eye' ability. Greg had both of my Elephants near exhaustion multiple times, and easily dispatched my warlord, who recklessly chased away the much feared Cretan archer mercenaries.

Great to have a fulfilling tabletop experience thanks to Mike's great game mastering. This is unedited footage. There are some visitors watching along who comment from time to time.

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Hobby Room Construction - Part 2

Update #2 for the hobby room construction. The framing has been completed, including two storage closets and the wall to separate the finished space from the mechanical/utility room. Next up is the wiring, which I'll be doing myself.

#progress


Tuesday, January 19, 2021

New Hobby Room - Construction Begins

I've recently relocated to a new home now that I'm single again. When picking the home I prioritized getting something with an area I could dedicated to a painting studio and wargaming room. My old place had a finished basement family room and a 'bonus' room that I converted for this purpose. I wanted something similar. What I found was a nice home with a completely unfinished basement, but one with high ceilings and full-sized windows. This first photo is where the game table will be.

These are photos of the project after two days of work by the carpenters. The walls are lined with rigid foam insulation as a heat and vapor barrier. This is a necessary step here in New Hampshire where that concrete is below freezing part of the year. The room will eventually have a hung ceiling to allow for access to mechanical functions. 

The space will feature a generous area for a 6'x12' table, with a side area for my painting studio and display cases. I'm hoping to have it all finished in time for the flurry of gaming we all hope to do as vaccinations become the norm. This final photo looks into the painting studio area.




Wednesday, January 13, 2021

28mm 'Romanized' Samnites

Ten Old Glory 28mm Samnites. These will be artillery train guard 'soldier' stands in Hannibal At the Gates. Each stand will be five figure groups as shown. I've equipped these with Roman scutum shields and more uniform tunics while retaining their traditional Samnite helmets. 

I experimented with contrast paints on the tunics with results I'm not thrilled with. The helmet feathers are also contrast paints and I'm thrilled with how they look. The rest of the work on the figures used traditional techniques.  Ten figures, to start the year's painting progress off. Next up on the painting table are eight more Samnites. These next ones will be Samnite 'colorful legion' warriors to be used as mercenaries in Saga Age of Hannibal games.


One note: I'm still working on my new studio space, so my laser cutter/engraver is currently out of service, so basing many of the figures I've painted this year will be a big project for later this year.


Tuesday, January 12, 2021

2020 Year in Review

This post is criminally late. I apologize for that. What can I say about 2020 that hasn't been said thousands of times before? For me 2020 included, in addition to the pandemic, some personal challenges. I got divorced, had to buy a new home, move and start many parts of my life over. Through it all, my wargaming hobby, family and friends (many of them are wargamers) helped me get through the dark times. Here's hoping 2021 is as much as an improvement for all of you that I hope it will be for me.

Now on to the hobby content. My favorite unit of the year, pictured top left, was my Macedonian Hypaspists. Honorable mention go to my Finnish WWII Ski Patrol squad. A majority of the projects this year were 28mm Macedonians, with a smattering of Finnish WWII and even one science fiction project, some Fallout Wasteland Warfare miniatures that I painted for my friend Gordon. Due to being held up in isolation from the global pandemic, painting totals were up significantly over 2019, but games were way down. Much of what I painted is yet to be based, as I still haven't finished setting up the infrastructure for my laser cutter, so I am without means to cut bases. Hopefully that will be resolved soon.

This year's totals:

  • Painted 25/28mm Figures:235
  • Painted 28mm Vehicles: 2
  • Terrain/Misc Created: 8
  • Stands Re-based: 0
  • Puchased Painted 28mm Figures:133
  • Purchased Painted 28mm Vehicles:0
  • X-wing Mods & Re-paints: 4
  • Games Hosted: 1
  • Games Played: 8
 

Games played this year were primarily virtual games. The majority of these were one on one games of Chain of Command played via Zoom generously hosted by my friend Greg. The one game I hosted was an outdoor game open air in my garage.  

 

I paused painting completely for about four months while I was in transition between homes. Once my new home was purchased I set up a temporary studio in a spare bedroom in order to resume painting and streaming on my Twitch.tv channel. My new home has an unfinished basement that I've already begun finishing. This new space will hopefully be just as nice or maybe a little better than my previous game room and painting studio. Being single does have some advantages. When buying houses I looked more intently at the basements than any married man would have the luxury of doing. 

Here's hoping 2021 brings all of you a vaccine, and a return to face-to-face gaming. I know we all could use more of THAT.