Free Parking

Many years ago my friend Dave gave me a bunch of toys and bits when he left for the Marine Corps. We moved the boxes of stuff twice, Dave served six years in the USMC and has returned to northern Illinois. This Fisher Price garage has been waiting patiently to be finished.

It was sprayed black before I got it (I found the picture above on Ebay). Over the last few weeks I took it apart resprayed it gray and painted it as below.

We play a couple of games using a city layout I have using Lionel and Plasticville O scale buildings.

We play a near future gangers game using Shockforce and we play All Things Zombie. I think the O scale buildings work well with 28mm figures. You can get a glimpse of the city layout in my earlier post showing the basement. I will post more pictures of the city when we next play those games.

VSF Part 1 or An Extraordinary Undertaking, First Act

I am thinking of running a VSF (Victorian Science Fiction) game at the HMGS Midwest convention Little Wars in April. I need to decide soon if I want to make it into the program. This dovetails with my goal of organizing my VSF collection and I find that an impending game deadline is a great motivator.

Here are a few photos of my collection.

There are about 350 figures there that I bought five or six years ago that hadn't even been out of the boxes since I bought them. The figures are mainly Zulus, Egyptians and a fair number of British.

These boxes contain another 150 or so figures. The box in the center is filled with Ex-Confederates, the wooden tray contains African tribesmen, the box on the right has about a third of my painted Martians and the other more British.

These shelves contain the parts of my collection most recently used. There must be about 150-200 figures per shelf. From top to bottom: more Ex-Confederates including Dr. Xavier McGillicuddy and several of his infernal machines; Egyptians, Zulus and other Africans; Mostly British; and finally, mainly Schutztruppen and a few more Zulus (there is no such thing as too many Zulus in a game).

This pile of boxes and bits are the unpainted parts of the collection. There are at least a thousand miniatures in the boxes. In the back are the fun parts that will be the inspiration and motivation for getting this project moving. VSF, at least for me, is all about the contraptions, improbable science and steam power. There is a British Gunboat (from Merrimack Miniatures), a Parroom Aeroscaph, a toy dirigible, a Wright Flyer model and other odds and bobs.

As you can see I gladly mix "eras" and manufacturers. Red coated Brits can easliy serve next to Spanish-American War Americans (if that doesn't mean anythin to you that's okay). Of course there is less historical wrangling over which uniform is appropriate for soldier on a Martian campaign (whichever is most servicable of course, supply lines are very extended). I am less concerned about historical accuracy than visual and visceral appeal.

Most of my games have focused around the machinations of one Dr. Xavier McGillicuddy (from Eureka Miniatures). An Ex-Confederate who is using his considerable fortune and scientific talent to orchestrate a rebirth of the CSA. He escaped to a hidden lair in the Sudan where he set about building his steam motivated fighting automatons (robots). In our first battle British agents in Egypt had heard about his arms trading with Sudanese slavers and sent a force out to locate him. In that encounter Dr. X drove away the attackers with his automatons but the Egyptian/British force were able to capture a few of the machines for later study. A number of months later the British government (with the advise and support of the USA) sent a raiding force to capture Dr. X. The attackers found Dr. X attempting to evacuate his "plantation" and move his workshops to a new location. Ultimately, Dr. X narrowly escaped on a Nile steamboat. Most recently, Dr. X was found out trying to rendevous with his brothers at a Red Sea port. British forces spoiled the reunion and drove Dr. X back into the desert and scattered his mercenary forces.

More to come...

A Look Around

This view is looking from my "board game" table toward the wargaming area proper. There are two 4' x 6' tables back there. We live in an old church so the basement is about 2000 square feet. See what I meant about an indulging spouse?

This is looking across the two 4' x 6' tables. There is a 4' gap between them to set another piece of plywood to create a 6' x 12' surface. I just recently did this as I found that we rarely used the entire area and it was hard to reach. Now we can play two games at once!

This is a look at my work area. The game tables are on the other side of the shelves on the left. I usually use the table on the left to build terrain and such. The table along the wall is my painting desk.

Behind my work area is this storage space. The shelves are filled with mostly unpainted figures and bits for terrain.

Let's see how it looks again at the end of the year. Hopefully it will be much more organized.

Welcome to my basement

Inspired by Matakishis' Teahouse I created this blog to document my wargaming projects. Hopefully it will serve to motivate me to finish a number of projects that have languished, some for years now. It will also serve to document some of the battles that take place.

I have been a tabletop wargamer for a little more than two decades. Like many my age I played AD&D and other RPG's as a Junior and Senior High student. In the late 80's my friends and I discovered Games Workshop's Space Hulk. It wasn't long before we started playing Warhammer 40,000 and Space Marine. After high school I discovered Warhammer Fantasy Battles and fell in love. Eventually I started playing other games and began playing more historical battles with a group of new friends in a neighboring city.

Lucky for me in college I started dating a girl who would indulge my hobby. She was familiar with AD&D and had painted a few fantasy minatures before we met. We've been married for more than 11 years now and she still tolerates my hobby fairly patiently.

My interests these days are very eclectic. I still love Warhmmer Fantasy, but have given up 40K. In no particular order some of the other games I play are Flames of War, Victorian Science Fiction (mostly with The Sword and The Flame with house rules) and All Things Zombie. There are more but I will document them as they resurface in my game playing.

I want to set four "project" goals for this year and try to complete at least one each quarter. This years hobby projects are:

1) Inventory and organize my VSF collection.
I have, literally, thousands of 25mm and 28mm Victorian era figures. After determining exactly what is piled and boxed up around the basement I want to cull the herd, as it were, and sell off the unneeded figures.

2) Finish my Flames of War Late War Grenadier force.
I started them last summer and I want to get a 1500 point force battle worthy.

3) Reorganize and finish one Warhammer Army.
I finally played a game with the new rules recently and want to get a 2000 point army finished. I haven't decided which army to work on yet. It will be High Elves, Tomb Kings or Brettonians.

4) Rebase and get battle ready my 12mm American War of Indepence collection.
I bought a 12mm painted AWI collection on Ebay two or three years ago and need to reorganize and rebase them to start playing some battles.

Well, that's enough to get me started. Next I'll post some pictures of the current condition of the basement and get started on the VSF collection.