Tekumel has slipped into a Bethorm again

I am hoping to conjure it back out, but, gaming time has been so limited of late. I am trying to sort and purge stuff to make room, which may also make time, as I won't have to climb over piles to get to things. But, while I do that, I am also expanding some areas of my collection.

I have been puttering about with terrain, primarily for Japan, because I have painted samurai that can be fielded to the the table, and because much of it is has an exotic feel that can fit in Tekumel. Mostly I am building simple, generic terrain pieces, hills and rock outcroppings and such. But, specifically for samurai, I started a bamboo thicket, based upon the tutorial here... which I found via the Ronin Skirmish rules forum here.  I started the project a while back, but stalled while trying to find the appropriate leaves for the bamboo stalks. Then I found this thread on the same forum.

Seemed a simple solution. So I ordered a pack of the kind that comes in four sizes, and accidentally ordered a second pack. Which, as it turned out, was fine. It is going to be one big field of bamboo. And got a few Woodsies cut outs for basing.

snip off the top close to the leaves.

A few quick holes and some glue, and I had a few of these...

snip the subsequent leaves close and at an angle

 But I didn't want the original bamboo project to go to waste, and, even the tallest of these isn't really tall. So, I took some left over from the smallest, and snipped and cut and glued. This gives all the bamboo the same generally look.

Scoring and painting the skewers is covered in the blog post I linked to above. The top bit of the plastic bamboo is cut off and hot glued to the top of the skewer. I probably should have painted the ends of the skewers, but they are mostly covered by the plastic tops.  Then cut the subsequent leaves each just flush with the top at as steep an angle as possible. This gives you a little pile of leaves with stems. I found it quickest to simply snip, spin the "plant 180" and snip. Careful not to loose the bits.

Bamboo can thow out short branches where it sprouts leaves. Some you will shorten to be flush with the leaves, some will end up with longer stems glued to the side of the skewer.

With a bit of work you end up with these. My original project had bases that were way too small, and the bamboo wouldn't stand up to a light breeze. So I glued them down to larger  bases and added a few of the plastic bamboo pieces to fill them out and tie the two bamboos together. I found this allowed me to get away with being fairly sparce with leaves on the skewers, as the shorter bamboo adds a good deal to the sense of Foliage.

I will update this post when I get the bases completed...

Minor progress this evening.. I got some vinyl spackle and a stirring stick and textured the bases.. waiting for them to dry..
If I do more, and I probably will, I will do this part first, then drill and place the bamboo. I had to be careful not to get spackle on the plants..

But it should give me a good earth texture that takes paint and protects the thin wood bases from warping, if all goes well.

This is a repost of a topic I posted in the Ronin Forum. Ronin is a ruleset from Osprey, set Feudal Japan.

well, I managed to pull it off, not entirely gracefully, but it looked good. I dropped all the factions to 100 pts, had three players so one ran 200 and 100 each for the other two. (I was one of the other two - running the bandits.)

My grand plan would be to have 4 players, two sides, but issues that could lead to internal fightin on both sides, but with three players, I simplified that, and allowed, for example, both the Sohai and the Bandits to gain pts looting bodies. It didn't matter, since they mostly ended up as the bodies.. but I get ahead of myself.

The  Sohai/Bandit, psuedo Ikko Ikki (we will use Ikko hence forth, now that it clear that this is not using the Ikko buntai rules) side had the goal of killing the Daimyos nephew. His side had to leave from a specific point on the map,  preferably with the hostess, to get back to the village where his troops were stationed.  They start at the Tea House.  I had  a house rule that they must complete the ceremony, or loose VP (honor) so each turn he would roll a die, and if he got a 6 the Bushou, Sensei and Hostess could leave. Add one to the roll each turn, so he would automatically get to leave on turn 6. He rolled a six right off.. 

The Ikko split his forces and tried to  defend the bridge with a Senior Sohai, Sohai and Initiate and the Hatamoto and one Senpai moved to take it and he sent his other two initiates to cross the river. 

My bandits worked on fording the fast moving early spring (very muddy) stream to meet his Bushou, Sensei, Senpai, and a Yumi samurai.  A lot had hung on the idea that he would be stuck in the tea house, so I need to mod that house rule some. 

I also ruled that my one Teppo Bandit could have a +1 on his first shot - a rule that shows up in a lot of civil war and Napoleonic. He didn't want to waste it. So he jockeyed for position to shoot at the only armoured enemy he could get into range, the Hatamoto on the bridge.  But before he could get a decent shot, the two sides met on the bridge, and a Ninja popped out on the opposing side and started making for the Teppoman.

Here is the battle on the bridge. After that I didn't get any pictures.

If i do this scenario again - and I probably will - I will drop the Bandit with the Yari in favour of another Teppo-man. One of our big problems was initiative.. the opposition would generally strike first, and toast our units before we could counter.. I need to see if I was doing that right.. (update- I wasn't)

It wasn't pretty anyway. The Bugai/Koryu combination toasted the Sohai/bandits. One Senpai dead, and not a man alive on my side. I admit this was partially our weak strategy. We split weak troops and faced strong troops.. I mis-judged how much weaker we were, despite our greater numbers. I may also have mis-played some rules.. I will be looking at that more closely.

Guilt

OK, over on Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog he was talking about statistics and the tendency to lose ground in the never ending battle between the unpainted lead and the painter. Now Tim is both more talented and more productive than I am. His blog is updated regularly with pretty pictures of both newly painted and based figures, and actual game sessions. The later often made even more beautiful by his lovely spouse, who actually humors him and plays. I am cheating and using prepaints, and I am not getting anywhere near the same levels of production or, obviously, quality. But one trait we share is a tendency to be distracted by

Squirrel....

distracted by opportunities to buy new shiny bits of metal. With his level of productivity he can probably be forgiven. He may one day catch up, and, if not, he will certainly increase his range of playable games. I, on the other hand, probably need an intervention.

To illustrate:
I am an avid thrift store shopper. 1 I have made great progress, and I mostly do not buy things I have no immediate use for, unless they seem unusually cool. I passed up a copy of Tumbl'in Dice at the local Good will the other day. I pat myself

SQUIRREL...

myself on the back. But, did you know there is a goodwill online. Addicts like me do. And it isn't like the things that sell there are necessarily thrifty. I mostly look at games. Last week Toledo Goodwill put up piles and piles of lead. Sold in X lb lots, mostly. Very little detail on what the lead was. But a box of War Gods of Ægyptus Asar stood out, and attracted my attention. On my foremost back burner, I have a dream of creating a decent set of Tekumel minis. Asar from this line make pretty good proxies for casual gaurds etc. And in another lot I found some Foundry Numidians. They could make good lower paid gaurds. And there were some Castle Parts from MageKnight. Ok, I figured if I could get these cheap, I would be doing OK. Buying them all would lower per unit shipping, and I would have a good set of generics for Tekumel Skirmish. I put a note in my calendar to look up the prices on the closing day.

Yesterday was closing day. Now, there were a lot of potentially great lots to be had on this sale. Most were simply listed by weight. A couple appeared to be 2 pounds of Greeks, of such. One lot was 7.5 pounds of - I think the phrase was Miniatures for a Rollplaying game. In the description they alluded that they "Might" be 40FnordK. Now I don't have any hankering to play 40FnordK, but 7.5 pounds of lead is a lot of figs. They were sitting around 20

Squirrel....

bucks. I had just bought a bag of OG pirates (I hadn't mentioned that indiscretion before, had I? Pretend I didn't now..) and the 30 or so in the bag were less than a pound.

So first I bid on the Asar. I take the lead for about 12 bucks. That is more than I usually like to pay, but far less than the Asar (a 10 pack) normally sell for, and there is also a 10 pack of their Greeks (Spartans?). OK, feeling lucky, I bid on the Numdians, and take the lead there. There are 5 blisters, with a fairly dense number of figs in each. Currently Foundry sells the Numdians in a 70 fig army pack

Squirrel...

army pack, so I could tell what their standard packing ratio was. I figure I should get about 40. Price 17 bucks. That seems a good deal. So, I go for the towers.. and take the lead bid at 5. Coolness. I start pushing my luck. I bid on some others, but can't take the lead. I start feeling skunked. I bid on the 7.5 pounds of maybe 40FnordK, cause it is cheap cheap cheap

Squirrel..

And I get a lead on that. Then some competitor comes along and outbids me. Now it is personal. Mind you, I don't really care about 40FnordK. But they are still cheap. Thrift disorder starts in, and I start looking for a better deal on a bunch of lead amongst these auctions, but it is hard to beat the 7.5 lbs of uncut Pb sitting out there. I bid on an Oriental Terraform Bridge, and take the lead at 10. OK, not terrible. I have a beautiful array of Samurai waiting for a place to play. This will go well with that, and can proxy into Tekumel nicely. I also take the lead in a lot of 1 lb of what I think are gladiators. GLADIATORS... I hadn't even been considering GLADIATORS. ( I justify it now. Gladiators might, possibly be proxied into a Hirilakte Arena. (this is a key indicator of my compulsion, I think. I hear Alcoholics use this kind of rationalization.) Still Gladiators could be fun, and I am ahead at 11 bucks. The Pb is coursing through me. But there are 10 minutes to wait. The bidding high won't last through that kind of

Squirrel...

temptation. I have time to place another bid. I go back and look at the Mega pile. It is a suitcase full of heroin to a dime bag junkie. I think the competition was at 32 bucks. What the hell, I will bid up a bit, and see. Most likely he has a proxy bid much higher. I bid 35. He doesn't. I am in the lead. Mind you I could care less about 40FnordK. And I have no idea what army, or armies, these bad boys come from. They are lead, my need is lead. It may ruin my home, my family, perhaps my job. But it is lead, and it is cheap.

So, about 100 dollars later (shipped), I have a pile of new lead on the way. The real irony; the Asar, my primary target, the thing that got me started in all this, fell victim to a more disciplined sniper during my lead lust 40FnordK shame. I still got the Numidians.. some Gladiators, some towers, a bridge and who knows for what besotted purpose 7.5 pounds of 40FnordK.2


1 Thrift store shopper is just a polite way of saying clinical hoarder.
2. Maybe. they could be something quite different. Won't know for a few days.

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..