Xmas just kills hobby time

A huge work project, kid stuff, wife's new business, xmas travels and festivities, etc, etc, etc, all put a damper into any kind of hobby time. Go to any hobby blog and you'll see a similar kind of note. Not any different here.

When I came back to work on this post I realized that this first paragraph and blog title are quite negative. Not meant to be, just explaining why the large gap. In fact, despite the fact that I posted a long list of hobby to dos on the 6mm Yahoo group, 2012 is shaping up to be a fairly thin year. After posting the list and going over non-hobby related priorities, I realized that I will be hard pressed to do as much as I did this year. Though I would still like to get more games in.

However, for Xmas I did get a couple of gaming related gifts:

1. Black Powder rules - I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about and to see if I could adapt them for the ACW and Samurai time periods I want to try. I know they're designed for big battles. But being that I'm a miniature gamer, I won't stand by and let the rules as written stop me from changing a few things.  Actually, I'm going to use two supplements I've found written by fans for both time periods.  Gleaming Katanas (battle report/AAR can be found here and the rules can be found here).

From Blenheim to Berlin Blog

The ACW adaptation can be found here from the Contemptible Little Wargames Club.

From TCLWC

2. I used some Xmas money to buy some ACW troops from Gordon and Hague. He's having a special to move out his blisters to make way for the new sculpts and paints he wants to sell. So, it's a better deal than buying his army packs. (Except you can't get all the units on special that are included in the army packs as blisters.)

From Gordon & Hague Site

My armies will consist of the following (both armies will be the same exact OOB):
1 General Stand
2 Artillery Stands
6 Cavalry Packs
4 Infantry Command Packs
12 Infantry Packs
4 Militia Packs

Not sure this will do much in BP, but I've got to start somewhere. I'm not too concerned with paint quality etc. I want the miniatures to be worth it, but at 2.19 a base, I'm saving a lot of time and money not having to experiment, base, etc. I will lose some that satisfaction that I did it on my own. Obviously, at this point, I'm willing to suffer through that loss.

Hobby room update: I cut the raised table wood, legs, metal shelf support and moved it all downstairs. Slow progress, but progress.  - refer to the first paragraph of this post.

Johnny Reb III Battle for Oldtown Creek, May 10, 1864

From warweb.com

Played my first big game of Johnny Reb III at Jerry's. Same group that put on the Command Decision TOB games that I posted about awhile back: Duel at Barenton and Battle for Moselle.

From testofbattle.com

(Side note: The book that we were playtesting those scenarios for has been published. It is titled, "From Normandy to Lorraine: The American Drive to the Rhine," by Jack Strangeway. It is available at the Test of Battle Games website for sale. I still need to pick up my copy. Oh yeah, check out the credits page, my name is on there as a playtester. Send me your copies and I will sign them for $100 each...any takers?)

Back to the main topic, Johnny Reb III. Played with 8 other guys. That's a lot. I was a Union Commander, Wilstar. I handled a brigade, which in this game is 20 stands of soldiers. Each stand represents a "company" (4 men on each stand and some with 3 on a stand.)

From 2011 December Johnny Reb III

4 stands are grouped together to form a regiment and 5 regiments are grouped together to form a brigade. This era is all new to me and I'm still learning the terminology. Pat and I had the Union Right flank and we successfully managed to get more units on the hill (just one more) than our confederate foe (Ed) by game end. Though, our Union left failed to get more units on than the Confederates. Confederates won 21 stands to 12. It all came down to the last two turns of charges and testing for officer casualties. Just like at Command Con, I had more fun playing it than I thought I would.

Again, Jerry is an incredible host and all the guys: Pat, Ed, Bill, Jim, John, Rollie, and Dave (fellow noob at JRIII) were an incredible group to play with and against. Jerry's table was amazing and immersive.

Here are a few pics from the game and links to the Picasa web album.

From 2011 December Johnny Reb III

From 2011 December Johnny Reb III

From 2011 December Johnny Reb III

First Samurai Playtest

On the living room floor with some more nice paper models, similar to my ships. I got these 40x20 playing pieces from the Warmaster forum for their samurai variant. Cut some out and put Daimyo to the test.  Not too thrilled with the first 4 turns.  Something just didn't click for me.  Not sure what's next, Killer Katanas or the Warmaster Variant. I'm thinking Warmaster because I'm more familiar with the system through the BKCII and FWC games.

Some rules are like that, they just don't click (resonate) with me. Doesn't mean they're not good. I can only think of one set of rules that I thought weren't good. That was a boardgame, the new Panzerblitz. And the reason I think I had this impression - because of too high of expectations. I wanted it to have the same feel of the old Panzer Leader. And those feelings were based on my feelings as a 10 year old pulling out my dad's version of Panzer Leader and playing by the rules that I could figure out and rolling some dice. At that age it was more about setting up and dreaming of battles to come than actually fighting them.

I'm more of the camp that understands that some rules just aren't for me. For example, Firestorm Armada. Enjoyable game, nice models, etc. But after playing through them a few times I just didn't care for them. I don't have the focused energy to worry about some mechanics that may or may not be good or accurate. I just know if I'm not excited, even after a couple of playtests solo or not, then I'll move on.



I understand this isn't fair. Possibly I'm not getting enough understanding of the basics of a ruleset to let the mechanics take over. To the point where I'm not thinking about the rules and just playing the game. But that's okay. This is a big reason I don't make critical reviews. Well, one of the reasons. The biggest of which is that I'm not that great a writer. The second being that I don't have a lot of critical things to say about a game that I believe would help someone else choose or not choose it. I like reading those kinds of reviews. When I do read them, I pick out those areas that seem like the author and I agree/disagree and make a personal judgement.

From theviewfromtheturret.com

A site that reviews rules well is View From the Turret: here's their review of Naval Thunder Clash of the Dreadnaughts.

What was supposed to be a short entry has become a rambling session galore. I could still talk about games I don't play but enjoy very much, again, for lack of time. These would include, Nations at War, ASL, and Combat Commander.

Help Osprey out with their Campaign series

From Osprey

From Osprey

Osprey publishing is looking for help to fill in the gaps in their Campaign series of books. Head on over to their blog to learn more. I'm impressed in their customer outreach and marketing.

Click here to learn more how to help.

Register Now for Geekway to the West

Disclosure time: I'm on the board of a local boardgame convention called Geekway to the West. It takes place May 17-20, 2012 in the St Louis area at the Westport Sheraton. It's 4 days of 24 hour gaming with 350+ of your closest board game friends playing all the newest and old favorites. There are special rates at the hotel for those wanting to make a trip of it.

Register here:
http://www.geekway2west.com/