War Room Tournament -- 2 May 2008

OK, so I'm just a little bit late putting pics up for this. Rickroll me. Anyway, its so long ago that I don't really remember many particulars of any given fight, and who cares -- I cheated big time on my one glorious victory of the day, anyhow. But I did get some nice pictures of cute little toy tanks, so here's a few of them.

I thought my objective looked spiffy sitting with its little bit of road right in line with the on-table road. As this was the exact spot it needed to be for the game, there it went.


And, naturally, there the American armored infantry tried to go...


Until I jumped out and schooled them!


He didn't like it, but I think he won:


Dave was so cool about getting cheated like this...


...and like this:

SANTA BORRACHA Campaign - Battle 3C

The other day a hand full of us got together up at the FLGS to run through a three-player match for one of the battle's in Caesar's SANTA BORRACHA Campaign. Set in a bizarro 1946 South America under chaotic and drunken civil war, so far its been an exercise in uncontrolled chaos. I love it -- none of that mamby-pamby campaign paper work around here! For details, check various threads here:

?REVOLUCION EN SANTA BORRACHA!: FoW Campaign
�SANTA BORRACHA BATTLES HERE!:
�QUESTIONS ABOUT SANTA BORRACHA!:


Anyway, on to the battle at hand...

I completed my objectives as I understood them.

I understand there have been claims to the contrary, no doubt from one of the nefarious dogs pictured below against whom I found myself opposed. Now that we have found our photographer and retrieved the film from the gin still he was running in his dark room I have the photographic proof I need to vindicate my men and justify the reimbursement we continue to demand for our incomparable services.

Paul, Walter, and Ian. Scheming, do doubt.




Everything started just as a man experienced in fighting in this part of the world would expect. The village of San Necio, mentioned in passing as a sort of land mark in my employer's instructions, was filled with the scum of this blighted country. Sitting as it does with its outskirts almost within the jungle, and a long clear field leading over a pond and up towards a factory protected by AT guns, approaching it would be no task for the blundering sort. Once inside the town, one would be forced to contend with the desperate swine holding its buildings and alleyways.



My scouts reported to me that a small force of tattered, battle-worn infantry were lurking in the dense undergrowth near the village. This was also anticipated by me. Indeed, only a fool would expect to fight in private in Santa Borracha. There was even a bit of air traffic -- some drunken American braggart, no doubt -- as an old Russian dive bomber circled the area, dropping bombs on anything his blood-shot eyes could make out on the ground. He made more of a racket than anything else, but he did have a way of making people pay attention.



Meanwhile, my own boys were lurking in the jungle. A small force of my armor -- small, because that's all the contract called for, you understand -- had joined up with a small scouting party I'd sent into the area previously. Obviously, they had found their own way to pass the time, but I do not find it useful to discourage this kind of resourcefulness in my men.



The day's action started as a man experienced in fighting in this god forsaken part of the world
might expect. First the threadbare infantry made for the town. They were in no rush to get
there, but they made a competent show of walking in the right direction.



Much noise was made by their supporting artillery, and they even managed to use their old Lend-Lease Sherman to take down that obnoxious bush pilot.





I had resolved to hold back my men, husbanding my strength for the proper moment, after our enemies had worn each other down. Cautiously, we moved forward, holding to the cover of the trees.



A funny thing happened then.

The peasants of San Neico got on their horses, rode out from the village, and charged my StuGs over an open field. No, seriously, they did.



To their good fortune, they managed to catch one of my tank crews who seem to have decided that it was time for some sort of break. They will never have a chance to learn from their mistake.



Enraged, I rushed my forces out of their hiding places in the woods and converged on the hapless horsemen.



So swift was our vengeance, so terrible our retribution, that the photographer was unable to capture the action on film.



The threadbare infantry lurking on the outskirts of the village had not been idle during our action with the so-called cavalry. They had moved. Indeed, their new positions bore a strong resemblance to an attack formation. Crude, yes. Amaturish, to be sure. But pointed at us, none the less. My lead tank reported hearing a banging sound against his hell that I can only assume were hits from their worthless, underpowered anti tank weapons.

I see that you remain unconvinced. Perhaps you think that I attacked these men for no good reason? Well then, take a look at this picture:



Go on, look at it! What does that look like to you, 'eh? What would you have done in my place, eh? Ask them to come by for drinks? I think not. My course was clear, my reaction immediate.



Our true adversary thus revealed, my men moved swiftly to counter this threat. Heavy fire was laid into their rear positions, destroying their anti tank weapons and light artillery. Twice the enemy accepted our bait and attempted to charge my tanks with crow bars and Molotov margaritas, and twice they were repulsed by a hail of machine gun fire. Oh, it was magnificent!



As their moral began to fail, my men moved in for the final blow. As the sun turned the sky a glorious shade of red -- no, seriously dude, you should have seen it. You would have loved a sky like that -- the last few survivors skulked off into the jungle, leaving us to take what we might of their abandoned baggage. I myself took possession of this fine horse team. And let me tell you, it may have been marked as mortar ammunition, but the contents of that cart wouldn't make it through customs, not even in this part of the world.



Having secured such loot, my men and I retired to our jungle camp to celebrate our victory and enjoy some well-earned spoils of battle. I knew that my men had fought hard for me, and that they would gladly do so again. This made me proud. And I knew also that I had completed my contracted task and killed everything I saw on my way to San Neico. A job well done also comes with a certain satisfaction, don't you think?

I don't care what anyone else says, now you and I know the truth: I, Don Utinez de la Villa Fumeta, was victorious.

Play On Con, Heroscape, and Stuff.

Very brief post, just to say that I went to Play On Con this weekend. Hay, it was local. It was also friggin' tiny. Like, maybe 150 people tiny. I had fun, but that was mostly because of all the running around I did back and forth to the con, and other comic shops, and to Sammys, a local gentleman's establishment. The con itself was sort of on the cusp between "con" and "nerd kegger." So, anyway, I was out there and supported the scene. I put my name on the list to maybe start helping out with security at these things, which might be interesting.

I got a bunch of new HorrorClix toys to play with in my new favorite game, Heroscape. Yes, it is simple, cheesy, and childish. Its also fun as all hell, and all made of plastic. Playing with that much plastic just sends some kind of low-level signal for "play time" to my brain. Big recent additions include all things Alien and Predator.

I'm still painting my ass off, too, even though I haven't played Flames of War in over a month. I've finished the painting on another platoon of paratroopers, and I'm going over all the pumas and random German trucks with decals and such.

Kamfgruppe Rasputsia - Army History

Man, I hate writing "Army Histories" for wargames. I love telling these stories with other gamers, but I think they are best when told verbally over the post-game bull session. Besides, I graduated from college so I wouldn't have to write stupid papers any more. Granted, ya, folks need to read the history and not everyone is doing that on their own, so I can see how they came up with the idea, it just ain't for me. However, event organizers require them, in preparation for the 2008 Flames of War National Tournament (in which I may or may not compete) I went ahead and put in the effort -- and a decent effort it was. Because of the way these things are scored, my painting competition will be affected by the inclusion of points for Army History, so I tried to write a good one.

Here it is:
(link is a download from Box.net.)
(if you download it, please leave a comment. Thanks.)

Kamfgruppe Rasputsia.pdf

I been workin' on stuff

Seriously, the total lack of new posts has been due to me workin' on too much stuff, and not stopping to make blog posts. I took some pictures, I was gonna post 'em... See there's this point where that whole more-efficient-to-paint-in-mass thing breaks down, and I think its when you stop trying to work on things a platoon at a time, and start thinking in terms of simultaneously produced companies.

The paratroopers have been back on center stage and getting painted in the last few weeks, but before that I was painting all the crap I made all winter. I'm talking a full late-war Panzer Company, more stuff to flesh out the mid-war Panzer Company, some stuff for the Panzer Grenadiers, and, oh ya, a Sherman tank company, plus a few buildings.

I'll get some pics up -- later. Right now I'm too busy putting off writing an army history for Nationals.

OmegaCon 2008

This weekend saw the first in what will hopefully prove to be an annual event, OmegaCon, Birmingham, AL's very own comics/ scifi/ costume/ gaming/ nerd con. So, lets do the run-down on the Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful.

The Good
Overall, I had a blast! Its about time Birmingham played host to its own con. Its been about 12 years since the last time anyone did anything like this, and it was a disaster, so the fact that they even got the thing off the ground was a little impressive. Now, it wasn't a big event, at least not if you're used to DragonCon. But no one was expecting a 30,000+ strong crowd. At one point, I described it was what DCon would look like if you nerve gassed the crowd and dropped 5/6 the people. But it had all the basics -- costumes, old genre stars doing autographs, dealers room (where I actually managed to keep spending within some kind of reason -- next time, bring a dealer with miniatures), and drunk nerds. Seriously, maybe its a side affect of such low expectations (hay, half the reason I went was so that if it was a train wreck I could say so with authority) but I was really impressed with the event over all. Lets hope they make it to Year 2.

A lot of the people I talked to before hand were all, "Ya, maybe I'll go, but I might skip it and if its cool I'll go next year." Well, it don't work like that bub -- if no one goes for Year 1 there won't be a Year 2! But there was a turn out -- word around the camp fire has it they made enough to break even, which is pretty good for a first-year event -- and I ran into a lot of folks I know, like my friend Val and his friend the leprechaun here:



And I met some new folks and made some new friends, like Dawn, John (I think that was your name, sorry if its not. But its always cool to meet another pipe smoker under the age of 60) and someone who's name I didn't get.



Here I am, enjoying the company of Dawn and her friend, Alice (I'm not even going to butcher her real name by misspelling the hell out of it...) who we'll see more of later...



I was also able to maintain my tradition of picking up new goth bands at scifi cons. This time, it was Mankind is Obscolete. Cool kids, I like the way they sound over all and the girl up front has an awesome voice. Thanks for coming to the show, guys. Maybe we can make a regular thing of it. For the record, I'm listening to their CD, Rise, as I type this, and I think I'll get the new one. (not my picture)



I'm not sure who these guys are, but they played like hell. And when it comes to on-stage gimics, its hard to top the guitar player in the electric chair, taking the juice for his solo:



This girl was attached to Cockfight Club. They sounded OK, but unless there was a problem with the sound board she was just eye candy -- I couldn't hear a single sound comming from her keyboard. But those boots are, in the words of MC Frontalot, "the kind to make a certain type of fetishist squeal."



I drug a few buddies off their couches and made 'em pop their con cherries. That's always fun, but they left too early. In other words, they saw the carnival and retail portions of the show, and missed the party. I ended up doing the con zombie thing, drifting from room party to room party. Me and the Bard went on a quest to retrieve his guitar before getting caught up in drunk girl control operations. You can see Alice in this shot, and that should be a hint where this is going...



For the sake of not being a giant dick I'm not going to share all the pics I've got -- and I put the camera down before she did any real damage, anyway. But we got her to a car and back home all safe and sound (thanks, Dawn!). So, for me, the party lasted until about 5:00 am.

I didn't go out Friday night (I gotta have SOME time on the workbench over a weekend...) and from the schedule nothing was going to happen Sunday, but I got there in the afternoon on Saturday and saw pretty much what there was to see. Like I said, I had a great time, and I've really needed something like this lately. I keep the emo shit off the blog, but ya, Utini needed to party.

The Bad
OK, despite how much fun I had it wasn't perfect so I'll mention something that sucked:

The Sheraton, host hotel, was utterly clueless about how to host something like this. Clueless to the tune of the in-hotel Starbucks closed at 11:00 AM on Saturday. No, seriously. No coffee, one hotdog stand, one restaurant/bar (who had the ONLY working coffee pot). Oh, well, they will either learn or we'll take the show elsewhere. It was a nice building, they were just clueless about how to handle 24-hour party people.

The Game Room was a total cluster fuck. There were supposed to be semi-organized (tournament, open, demo, whatever) games of Warhammer 40K, HeroClix, Magic, and Hammers Slammers. There wasn't any of that. The folks who were supposed to run them just didn't show. Losers. In the end, the game room was just a bunch of folks playing RPGs and Board Games. Which is fine, just not my thing and I would have liked to see some lead.

There really wasn't much else to bitch about, at least for me. I've heard about a lot of stuff being messed up in terms of guests, rooms, A/V and no one in charge to be found (kinda like last time they did this...) but I didn't see much of it myself, probably because I don't give a shit about guests or panels. In general the thing could be better organized (I'd wandered across the hotel twice before I figured out where to register and pay) but like I said, aside from the games and coffee (or lack of) I was pretty happy.

The Beautiful
And now comes the part of the post where I just slap up pictures of cute girls and funny costumes, maybe with a bit of commentary:

Eve will make ya feel welcome...


Sith Twi'lik


I'm not sure if this is from something, or if they just like bloody bunnies...












King Vader!




Everyone loved Fat Ranger.


His look is priceless...


Wolverine and the Irish Dancing Girls...


I thought this girl was cool when she was walking around all day in a full kimono with a boken. Then that night she shows off the body art...




I can do a lot of things with a sword, but I can't balance one like this...


This girl was dancing all damn night. Seriously, if there's a tune she's gonna groove.






Its hard to tell with his mask up, but this con had a Predator!




She got this done last Thursday...




EDIT: I wasn't going to do this, but I've had a slight change of heart and have removed the tiniest smidgen of material ever so slightly capable of, in the proper light, being seen as in poor taste. And I'm told she's a very sweet girl. So big up on you if you've already seen it and other wise, ya snooze ya looze, sucka!

So, ya, OmegaCon. Lets make this an annual thing, shall we?