Wednesday, January 21, 2009

just an update

To keep my hand in, I suppose. I have been fighting with getting Ubuntu on an old puter and wireless for my Geek room. Finally succeeded yesterday, so that is nice. Now I have to find a spare hard drive, cause I can see I am gonna run out of space pretty quick on the 13 gig that was in this one. My thanks to whichever neighbor leaves an open network available, as it was very helpful in the process. When I needed to look up some step I could connect to open wireless networks and go online to look up the problems I was having with our WEP network. Personally, I would rather our wireless network were open, but wireless security is an issue for my wife, so we are WEPed.

On the topic of small victories, I also succeeded with the DIY table saw project, at least marginally. By cutting a steel plate that then sits on the tabletop, and restricts the blades lateral movement, I am managing to cut reasonable HOTT bases. They aren't perfect rectangles, but they will work. There is a problem with Heat, and the subsequent risk of fire. I stop often,and cool the plate and blade with a damp cloth. I will post some pics of this.

Otherwise on the HOTT project, I was notified yesterday that the second pack of Mage Knight figs I bought on Ebay has finally been shipped. I payed for it on the 12th, so this is a bit annoying. I have pretty much finalized my needs for figures, and I am waiting on this order to see what I am short before I contact a dealer in CA who, if I'm lucky, can supply me with everything in one shot - that's assuming his prices are reasonable..

I have been a bit distracted of late by an email I received out of the blue from a gamer we will call, for the moment, Spoon. He is a transplant to the area from a more civilized gamer Haven in the southern part of the state, and, as it turns out, he has a hankering to play some samurai games. He has his own collection of 28mm samurai. So we have been kinda chatting via email about what game system to use for Samurai Skirmish. We have talked about Lord of the Rings, and Songs of Blades and Heroes. I once ran an event using Savage Worlds Showdown, but it seemed too static. Song of Blades looks fun, but perhaps a bit too simplistic for rich genre of Samurai. I am waiting to see a copy of the LOTR rules, and looking at some freebies online.

If I find one that really impresses me I will link it in here somewhere..

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Home made table saw.. FAIL

I don't have room, or finances to buy a table saw. So, I have seen on the inter tubes where some enterprising DIYer built his own with a circular power saw through a board, inverted. My circular saw is battery operated, so I figured I would get better mileage out of a power jig saw. I mounted it to the underside of a cheap work bench I picked up some time ago from the Big Box Hardware store. Problem is, it won't cut a straight line, which is the reason for having a table saw. The blade has enough flex that it rides out as I push the board through, making a nice arc, if that's what I wanted. It's not, of course. This is a Game related fail, as I had intended this to be a convenient way to make bases for my HOTT armies. But the results aren't good enough for this purpose.

On a related note, I have been using the Wiz Kids Mage Knight figure Gallery to create army roster image maps. Basically, selecting figs I need to acquire to build each army. Last night I built one for a Dwarf army. It was nice. It was gone this AM, because I neglected to save the file. Not a good day for the gaming projects..

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Well, took some time during breaks to think about project priorities. I am thinking I should balance gaming with real life, so I will limit myself to one project at a time, gaming wise, while I select two projects from real life. Eventually, I am hoping to get down to one project in real life. But this Blog isn't about real life, and I doubt that is why anyone might read it.

So, next I got down to the task of choosing a gaming project. This was easy, really. I have invested a fair chunk in the Mage Knight Hordes of the Things project already, and it is the easiest to do. I sorted the 104 figures I bought on Ebay the other day, and can scratch out 4 armies. There are some issues on some figs that need attending, like some broken weapons, and some paint touch up. I need to make many Bases, and then figure out a good way to attach them. If I figure out a way to make them detatchable, I can use them for other things. Some of the figures are quite nice, really. Heroscapers seem to use them a lot. I have a fair pile of Heroscape stuff in my Board Games piles. And I have a friend whose child is a budding game geek in OK who might be interested in any I have left over.

Currently I am thinking of trying to use the snaps that seamstresses sew onto clothing. I will stop at the fabric store tomorrow after Bagpipes and look at options.

I am also looking at the Mage Knight galleries to see what is available to either flesh out the armies I have in the works, or create some new ones. The armies I have assembled from my current supply are

The Trolls
Wood Spirits
Elves/Centaur
Human Empire

I will post some pics as they start looking like HOTT armies and not piles of Mage Knight figures. I could see splitting the Elves/Centaur into two armies if I can track down appropriate figures to bulk up both halves. I would also love to build a Dwarf, Necro, and Orc/Gob army. Mage Knight has a fair number of Steam Punk figures as well, and an all Mech army is feasable. Mounted Units will be a challenge, I think. They will certainly add to the costs.

Enough for now. Staying up late thinking about these things is one reason I don't get them done during the day.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

First Entry

Well, I hope that I have not claimed a perfectly good Blog name in vain. This will be my first blog, probably my only blog, but, hopefully, not a short lived blog. Not sure why I suddenly felt the need to blog. It's not like I think others are going to want to read this.

This will be, primarily, a gaming blog. I am hoping to increase my gaming this year. By gaming, I mean Board, Miniature and RPG games. Computer games don't interest me. Most are really just mazes. A few are high tech lego sets. Most computer games are solitaire ventures, and even MMORPG's appear socially stunted. I like games because I like social interations. I am borderline between extrovert and introvert, and I find miniatures to be a perfect combination of solitary construction and social gaming.

My gaming interest are diverse. I have been described as a fart in a wind storm, and I admit there is some truth to that analogy. It would be easier to list the Genres that do not interest me than those that do. For now I am going to try to limit my focus and keep my focus. At that, I am pretty unfocused. A list of current "projects*".

1/72 Samurai for either Killer Katanas or perhaps HotT. I have a start on painting these, but the project stalled a bit when I got distracted by constructing terrain.

25/28 mm Samurai for skirmish games. I am ahead of the game on this as I bought my minis painted, but I haven't settled on a rule set. I will try to put pics up at some point. The paint work is beautiful. I would really like to show them off.

6mm O.G.R.E./G.E.V. minis. I now have a pretty good selection, but haven't begun painting them. OGRE/GEV miniature rules have just become available in PDF format from SJG. I may also use them with Dirtside or some other set. But I am pretty nostaligic, and like OGRE/GEV as a board game and want to have the same experience with little lead bits.

15mm ancients. I bought two painted DBM armies - Romans and Ostrogoths - to play DBM or DBMM or FOG or some such. The only impediment is finding interested parties and getting my GeekRoom finished.

25/28 + mm Hordes of the Things armies. Village Games in Anoka ( a bit too far off to visit regularly) set up some nice HOTT armies using D&D prepaints on slightly outsized bases. My friend George and I went down and tried them out, in order to learn a bit about HOTT. The idea seemed a natural. I am doing the same with Mage Knight figures. MK is cheaper at the moment. I bought 104 figs for 30 bucks shipped. They look like they will make me just short of 4 armies. I hope to use these figs to evangelize the Warhammer players locally. Perhaps to establish a good neighbored competition between our local game store (Dragon Port Games) and Village Games. I also purchased 5 copies of HOTT from the Keep in England (cheap, near wholesale, because they are relocating) which I plan to use as promotional material. I am currently cutting bases.

1/32 NUTS by Two Hour Wargames. I am a scotsman at heart, and cheap by nature. I bought NUTS and thought, why not use cheap plastic army men. I have a couple tubs of them I picked up last Christmas for a buck a tub. I am thinking of basing them and trying to host a game on our local Beach next summer. That is low priority right now.

Then I have RPG interests

Tekumel - a very old school setting from M.A.R. Barker. Probably the first published game world. It has a killer learning curve. M.A.R. Barker was a professor (retired) of linguistics at the University of MN. He was the faculty advisor for the gaming group that hosted many of the people who first created D&D. I know Arneson was tied in there somewhere. I was still in High school, perhaps Junior High, but I first gamed with people who came out of that environment. Tekumel is rich world, with a complex social order and history. If interested, peruse the link.

and of course, there are a host of board games that would suck me in if I could find some players.

But the big project is the Geek Room. It is an impediment to all my other projects and I will be posting on that in my next post I think. It is the Geek version of a Man Cave, I suppose. But I feel guilty working on the Geek Room when I have other home projects hanging out there.

That is the bulk of the minis interests at the moment. I realize the need to simplify my life if I want to get any of this done. I am hoping this blog will help me to prioritize some of it. So it may wander away from the topic of gaming. Often.