Games in a Box

Packing the car for Huzzah! reminded me that I would like to set up a couple of other easy to transport "game in a box" projects, suitable to take along on a trip by plane, or to tuck into some underutilized bit of cubic in the car on the way to a convention. This time around we took the "Big Box of Six" as a contingency item, and ended up improvising a Basic Impetus game. That would have looked a little nicer if we'd had a larger cloth, but the BBoS is usually used for DBA or Hordes of the Things, so a 2' by 2' (or 60cm square for the rest of the world) cloth is all that we usually need. The box is not yet full, so there is room for expansion.

The ideal game in a box would remain self-contained, so that it doesn't have to be reassembled from scattered pieces just before a convention, and occupy 2-6 players for 1-3 hrs to fill odd time gaps. An ambitious one would also be deployable as a convention game, which I'd call 6 players for 3-4 hours. In addition to the BBoS, I built a box with two 6mm Spanish Civil War intro army packs from Irregular Miniatures back in the mid-90s. When it was originally completed, each army had about five battalions of troops plus some support elements, as based for Command Decision. (2nd edition at the time...) That would provide a fairly satisfactory game for 6, perhaps just a little light, and a solid game for 2-4 players. I've also deployed it more recently for playtests with newer rules.

We've tossed around the idea of housing a game in a plastic shoebox. I've been considering ordering something like the Pegasus 1/32 scale gladiators, for which a shoebox should be plenty. Putting a 20mm battle game in a volume that size would be an interesting challenge...

Try this with Wikipedia!

In anticipation of hauling my 40mm Renaissance troops on a road trip, I finally got around to adding some magnetic sheet to the bottoms of some "Really Useful Boxes" (9 liter). As you can see here, I've weighted the magnetic sheets down with volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica while the E6000 contact cement cures. It's a little sad to see these once-prized volumes valued more for their mass than their content...

Optivisor trial

I finally had the opportunity to try out my new Optivisor lst night, finishing up a few Bronze Age Libyans. It looks to be a big help...if I can pry it away from Norman, who has been doing some bravura work, which I expect he'll be showcasing soon.

Time to learn something new

I got a new iPad2 last week, and was going to compose tonight's entry on it, but I find that I don't have a quick and painless way to upload a picture. So it turns out to be time to read the Blogger directions on emailing entries...pictures tomorrow in any case. Norman has been diligently at work on the trench pieces all week, and deserves to have his work displayed.

Unexpected Painting

The weather here was fine today, although I could tell from my allergies that we're well into spring.  I had been planning to go for a walk at lunch today, but the excessive pollen count convinced me that I would be better off spending my time doing something else.  Since I wasn't expecting to paint, I had not brought any of the Schoeffen-Buschhagen troops with me, and was limited to what I had in my travel paint kit.

I ended up finishing up another of Beowulf's retinue, from the Eureka set I've been idly working on for some time:

This brings me up to five of the fifteen figures completed.  I might note that my improvised studio backdrop is a notebook, and that the picture was taken with my phone, using a pocket magnifying glass as a supplementary close-up lens.  It occurred to me that I have mentioned my travel painting kit several times, and have been intending to say something about it.

It's packed into a tough plastic toolbox, shown here with a ruler for scale, so about 16" by 9" by 9".

The top opens onto a set of compartments I usually use for tools.  I've got some 1" washers for basing, some 40mm French and Indian War bits for a future project, a knife, and spare blades.  There should be a tube of Walthers Goo, a popular hobbyist contact cement, and some superglue; I think both of those items have made their way onto my painting table and need to be recovered.

Inside the main compartment is a removable tray, where I keep brushes and a small assortment of miniatures I could work on.  Today that included some Beowulf figures, some Prince August 25mm fantasy, a handful of Pulp Miniatures, and some 6mm cataphracts.  My ultra-close vision glasses should be here too, but have gotten separated.

The remainder of the main compartment is taken up by about 30 bottles of craft acrylics, plus a few old bottles of Ral Partha paints (steel and two caucasian flesh tones today) and a bottle of white glue.  I usually unfold a newspaper or something similar to protect my desk.

The tool kit is supplemented by a few things that just stay at the office; some yogurt containers for wash water, plastic coffee can lids for palettes, and a large bottle of Liquitex gloss varnish.  (Once the figures are based I spray them with a Krylon matte varnish; I don't really care for the look of gloss painted figures on 'realistic' bases.)  I can have it laid out in just a few minutes, and with five minutes allowed to clean up at the end, I can squeeze 45 minutes of painting into a one hour lunch.  That's about half a 28mm individual, or more if I can work in groups, averaged over several sessions.  It can add up, if done consistently.

Constructing Adelheim, Part I

I received some pictures from chief fortifications engineer Duncan Adams today.  On Ross's Battle Game of the Month blog, he's discussing rules development for our Historicon Charge!/Fire and Stone game.  The Maryland team, led by Duncan, will be building the fortress of Adelheim, the objective of our siege.

This view is a dimension check on our proposed fortress cross section.  The parapet and covered way are 1.5" in height; the fortress's gun platform area 2" off the table.  Looks good to me!

Here's a view with a field gun testing the look of the parapets and embrasures, the latter being cut into the foam pieces with a hot wire cutter.

I'm glad to have Duncan leading this operation; a hand waving description of why I thought we would need a hot wire cutter sent him to the workshop to create this cutting jig to ensure uniformity of the embrasures.

I'm looking forward to our work day on Saturday, and to getting some sections in my hands for the painting technique tests!

(Photos and foam work all by Duncan Adams.)

Recruits and Barracks

The Prince Palatine of Wachovia (aka the Student Prince) was home briefly today for a visit to his chirurgeon.  Discussing the current state of affairs within the Pragmatic Alliance inspired him to recruit a new artillery section.  We dug around the available stockpile of castings and he hastily filed and primed them so that he could take them back to school to work on as time permits:

I had time over the weekend to work on storage expansion for the NQSYW armies, so I was able to transfer the entirety of the Schoeffen-Buschhagen cavalry force into a new magnet lined box today, deep enough for all standards and swords:

The next squadron will necessitate a second box, however, or will go back into mixed storage with the foot.

At the desk

I finally had time to sit down at my painting desk for a little while this evening. While I don't really like to show things in progress, the fact that there is progress is worth a little celebration. I have two chariots to go to finish phase one of the Egyptian army. I find the horses take me longer than the other elements of the chariot, so I decided I'd do the horses first on these last two. I set the crews up for priming then slopped varnish on the horses, here seen still drying...

The team painting sticks have helped with these particular unbased figures; I haven't used special purpose painting jigs since I was doing 15mm cavalry back in the late '80's, but I will have to consider it again in the future. A revised chariot edition would include some sort of holder for the car.