Modern 20mm Gamer Interview with timmy!

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As I've recently posted, I've virtually met a local gamer (within 2 miles) that plays mainly in 20mm, but also dabbles in 6mm and others. He's know as timmy! on various forums around the webs and  He's considered starting his own blog.  Until he's ready to do that, I've invited him to contribute stories here.  We're still working through how this might work. 

As before: Click It.

In the meantime I've asked him some questions about his work on 20mm modern miniatures for Force on Force!, by Ambush Alley Games. He's worked pretty closely with Sean, the creator of Force on Force. In fact, these first two pics are in preparation for an upcoming Force on Force supplement on Fallujah. 

Here's the forum where timmy! goes into a few more details.

Here you go, the first official interview for The Itinerant Hobbyist:

From Ambush Alley Forum

Q. What scale are these models? 

A. 20mm

Q.  Force on Force, correct?

A.  These pictures were taken for the set of rules called Force on Force by Ambush Alley. It is a supplement book strictly on Fallujah Iraq. Title unknown to me at this time. This is the third book where my models will be pictured. The first supplement book is titled Day of the Rangers:Somalia 1993.   The second book is called Bush Wars:Africa 1967-2010. 

Ambush Alley Forum - WIP

Q.  Did you create any of the terrain yourself or did you buy it all? - if you made it yourself, which parts?  

A.  The buildings and roads are done by Gamecraft miniatures. (Side note from TIH: Gamecraft posts some interesting videos. Being from the marketing world, this technique is great. Show the customer how to assemble and paint your product - tremendous. Especially in video form. Don't wait for your customers to do it.) The figures are done by Elhiem Miniatures. Various terrain pieces were scratch built.

Q.  What materials were used?  

A.  Color and black and white print outs shrunk down for signs and newspapers/trash. These were glued on clear plastic sheats that I cut. I sculpted trash bags and built the fruit stand.  The trash bags will be available for sale along with refrigerators and dumpsters on Combatwombatminiatures.com.  All scratch built by myself.

Ambush Alley Forum

Q.  Do you have a particular scenario/game you're preparing for or is this general terrain building?  

A.  Again this is for Fallujah. It is in no way finished. It will be highly detailed with several blocks for house to house fighting.

Q.  How long have you played Force on force? 

A.  I would say almost two years.

Q.  Why modern? As opposed to any other era? Why Fallujah?  

 

 A.  Fallujah has always been an area of interest of mine. I was planning on building a section anyway so it worked out well. I do a lot of modern gaming, especially in Iraq. I in 04 and 05 I was a contractor providing PSD/ executive protection for several companies. So I try to take my experience and put it in a game.

Ambush Alley Forums

Q.  What's your history with miniature wargaming? 

A.  At the age of four I started watching my father paint Airfix plastic figures.I stood there for hours!  The bug has always been there. I really got into official gaming when I was 15. A store called Epic Gallery moved close to my house. There is where I spent most of my teen years. Though I always did some sort of gaming with home rules with buddies of mine. Ive been playing with toy soldiers since I can remember.

Q.  What era and scale did you start with? 

A.  At the age of 15 I really didn't have a lot of money for things. I was very very fortunate to have a friend who would buy me armies for GW Fantasy.  I also played WW2, Napoleonics and Civil war.  Heck I play anything but my time is now devoted to painting and playing with 20mm and scratch building.

Ambush Alley Forums

Q.  Your GMing at Recruits, correct? 

A.  The founder of Ambush Alley (Sean) and myself will be running a Somalia scenario for the debut of their new supplement book Day of the Rangers.

Recruits Game Convention looks like an awesome Midwest convention in Kansas City/ Lee's Summit, Missouri. Just $5 to get in and it looks like a great time with lots of vendors and games being played. I was planning to go this year, but most travel plans had to be cancelled. We'll shoot for next year.

Readers, let me know if you like this format and what other questions I should be asking gamers, etc. What do you want to know about? 

Another way to make hills

From Mark's Blog Post

Was looking at a new blog, to me, "Mark's Legends and Legions," and saw this post on making hills for miniature gaming. I like how he shows the photos that inspired him to make them as he did. Also, any post that shows the colors used and the final product is good by me.

Thanks Mark for the post.

I hope it's cool to link to posts like this. One, I want to send people to these other blogs because I find them helpful. And two, it's a way for me to catalog good tips I've seen around the webs. Also, I need to find the etiquette for posting others' pics on my blog. I know there's a problem when it's a commercial venture. And I suppose this photo is copyright to Mark on the day he posts them...hmmm. What to do. I don't mind if people post mine, but I shouldn't assume it's okay with others.

Thoughts?

Another take BKCII Bulge Scenario

Back in June, 2011, I played the BKCII Scenario, "If You Go Down to The Woods Today," and did this blog post about the game.

Big Dave, one of the bloggers I follow replayed it with a different set of troops and vehicles. Interesting to see how it plays out with different stuff, different players' perspective, etc. His blog post on the Bulge  BKCII scenario replay is here.

Big

Help Make some Roads

I was excited to see that HotzMats was asking a questionnaire about the roads needs of gamers. His first questionnaire he's taken down today. I believe he received over 200 replies! The first survey asked about scales played, types of roads needed and basic size questions.

He still has open a survey on the needs of gamers for the width of roads. Go take it here:

Hotz Mats Road Survey

Btw, I received no compensation from Hotz - just supporting a company I like and want to see stick around for awhile.

Inspiration Part 3 of 2

Some other Quick links that I didn't squeeze in because I'm too tired:

Some miniatures on sale on eBay by a blogger I follow - 6mm GHQ and CinC stuff - amazing:

I've shown this guy's work before, but he's just posted more that are incredible:

And this guy, mainly for how he seems to run his business and his prolific YouTubing:
BlueTable Painting out of Utah.

Inspiration and Other Things Part 2

Right now, the Daft Punk playing on the Electronic Station on Spotify is inspiring me...this kind of music does this to me all the time. As I was looking for some pic to show on here about Daft Punk I ran across this video. And, no, I don't like it for the reasons that may seem obvious. I love the creativity of it all - so, here, in a major diversion for the blog is Daft Bodies (the "original" hands version is good/better - to the tune of 40,000,000 more views!):



Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled program:
I've spoke about terrain inspiration and now a few others:

From the TableTop Tacticians blog

The TableTop Tacticians:
I started watching their videos for inspiration and some WWII gaming (Their flames of war games)...Their first videos of their games were of unpainted models and modest boards (I started watching at the beginning of 2011. Slowly but surely, more models were painted, they seemed to have a better understanding of the rules and usually had a new face fighting their battles.
In a little over the year, they seemed to have grown a significant FOW community locally around them.

Inspiring to see a community grow.

btw, I like the objective marker with the C-47 airdropping the guys - this is what I mean by inspiration.

CommandCombat on YouTube.  He's coming up with this John Madden style of reporting his wargames which is fascinating and fun. I also like how he discusses the stats, has videos of tanks, and give analysis. Some of this will be copied/imitated/adapted at a YouTube/Blog post near you. Should note that not all of his videos have the video drawings, but the ones that do are fun.

Model Dads Flames of War blog - for their layout and their great tutorials. I envy their layout and their tone. Go check 'em out.

Their AARs are creative in their story telling approach.  Marketing and graphic design are interests of mine and they've nailed the Graphic Design - 10/10.


WWPD - What Would Patton Do - Again, I started listening to their podcast just to get some WWII mini gaming inspiration. Then watched some of their videos and reading their AARs. This is another community that has built up in a couple years time (seems to me anyway) It's been since I've been mini gaming anyway. They even created an AAR creator, called BatRepper, to help bloggers create consistent looking battle reports. They have an impressive 285 followers right now.


Last one for the night (it's getting late and I'm notoriously slow at writing...): The Two Half Squads. These two guys in a round about way got me into mini gaming. I started listening to them  when their podcast was fairly new and I was somewhat interested in ASL, or Advanced Squad Leader. I listened and commented on their blog (even to the point where they read one of my email comments/questions before I was even playing). And then...started playing ASLSK. Met some local ASLers and played for a short while. ASL and a one year long DnD campaign (my one and only) combined to show me the fun of rules and miniatures. With the detail of ASL rules, miniatures rules (some of them anyway) are a piece of cake. Also, playing with the DnD minis piqued my interest in seeing my games in 3D and not just on some chits.

These guys are inspiring because they're sticking to it. They're on episode 62 and still producing good stuff. I also like them because they're into it, but also very laid back with good senses of humor. ASL is such a small niche that they won't get the followers like WWPD, but they deserve it because they contribute a great and light-hearted asset to that community.

And that's it for inspiration for the night - except for one-100+ more. All the blogs I follow as well as the 42 followers. Many of the 42 have their own sites and their different ideas are an inspiration to keep upping my game...and terrain...and writing...and

Inspiration and some other random things

Table Designed by 9yr old son

New Hills Under Construction

New JR Miniatures House Under Construction

Okay, this could be long and rambling, but I've been sitting on it for some time, just trying to find the time to update what's happening and then to talk about some inspirational things I've seen.

My 9 year-old talked to me for the longest time about laying out one of my tables. Finally, the time was right and he did it - pic to the right. I will be playing a Blitzkrieg Commander II game on the table to try it out. He liked the roads. He also picked the armies. US troops in September 1944, trying to capture a bridge and rescue a captured US prisoner in one of the towns. The US also has a captured German Prisoner that the Germans want to rescue. This will be tough for the Germans because their force is half the size of the US force. However, they do have a King Tiger in a tank pit and an 88 in a gun pit.

A few rules I'm running through to try out for the first time:
Scheduled Artillery
Engineers
Wire
Prisoners - wait, there aren't rules for that - I'll figure something out.

There will be an AAR of this game - once it finally happens.

One last thing on this - 9yr old just wants to set up the table. He has no desire to play because, "playing is kind of boring."

Part of my to-dos - get more terrain complete. Thus the next two pics. I'm creating more hills. This will be made out of blue foam and not the free, cheap white stuff I used before. These will be a couple mm thicker, more oval with less big jogs and bends, and generally larger in area.

Next, I'm painting up the two Manor houses I bought from JR Miniatures back in August.

Also, I'm working on completing the Polemus fences I bought ages ago. The GSC8 from Baccus.

I'm pushed on terrain because I want to give participants a similar feeling I get when I'm playing on one of Jerry's tables or see the incredible Mluther's tables.

One of MLuther's tables:


And now, one of Jerry's tables:

So, you can some differences between these two and mine, pictured above. And I want to say that when I talk about the look of the table, I don't mean that because my 9 yr old designed it. Whether I'd set it up or my dog had set it up, it would have the same "look". This look is defined by the materials and products you choose...for sure.

Also, these two have more experience than me and, in the case of Jerry, has been collecting just a tad longer than me. So, I'm certainly not trying to compete with them. But what I'm trying to do is be proud of the tables that I'm presenting based on the limitations I've partially set for myself: how much I'm spending on it, my skill level, and the time I'm willing to put in.
Jerry fills his tables. But it appears that MLuther also fills his, but not so much with terrain as with the way he colors his tables with shades and colors to look more natural. MLuther can get away with this because he's gaming at 6mm and Jerry at 15mm.

Just hit me that MLuther's roads, scenery is more to the scale of the minis than mine. 

As I'm typing this and looking at these two sets of boards, I'm just awed by how good they look.


Links to some other pics:
MLuthers Flickr albums

Jerry's:

I'll have to continue this on a part 2

Pics of Fallujah and Priorities

These are from a gamer I've recently met, via email and phone, "Timmy!" (as he's known on the Ambush Alley forums)

Another local gamer, Dave, introduced 'cause we live a couple miles apart and could possibly find some time to game or model. His terrain skills outshine mine by far, so I'm afraid it will be a one way street on that front.

But the conversation (via email) between Dave, Timmy! and I have included topics like paint/model nights, British gaming groups and how to replicate, sharing blog posts, etc. One of the topics was the importance of focus in gaming. To that end I answered this way to the guys, which was echoing some of their sentiments and then a list of to-dos:

Focus on a scale or two

An era or two

A game or two.

Also, I was going to put up a quick post on getting focused for 2012:

1.  Finishing my WWII US 6mm - which for me means - finishing first the units to complete my armored infantry battalion and a full tank battalion and support.

2. Finishing units that are needed for some of the scenarios I already own.

3. Flesh out the terrain I have and what else I can do to make a quick, yet great looking table. Frankly, I'm using Jerry's tables as the inspiration for this - which I've mentioned before.

3. Flesh out a small scenario(s) so I can put on some games at the two local cons.

5.  Finish the naval I started.

5a. Play a couple games to see if I want to Gm a scenario at a con.

5b if yes - then buy the appropriate ships to play the given scenarios I have.

6. Work on the 20mm I have (WWII)

6a try a couple sets of rules. I already have free Rate of Fire. And ?

7. Expand the blog to include guest posts? (I'm hoping to get Timmy! and Dave to send me some info to include in future posts. They've both been doing this longer than me and can offer the newer gamer some great tips.)

 

What's interesting is that I'm beginning to wonder what's most important to me - is it the actual gaming, the modeling, the reporting, the history, GMing? I'm working through this. 

To follow on that last point. We were discussing the real reason we're doing all of this. For the others, spending time blogging or other side pursuits potentially could be a distraction from their main focus which is gaming, or terrain, or GMing, or, or, or... Again, more to come.

Published Pics in Charge!

 First time I've seen this small magazine that comes out called, "Charge!". It's the journal of the Johnny Reb Gaming Society. Jerry who hosts the Command Decision games and Johny Reb III wrote up an AAR after the Oldtown Creek game we played and had me send some photos to the editor of the magazine. Very cool, they chose to use 4 of the pictures I took. You can see two of them above.

Also, I'm up to 40 members! Thank you all for following.

Blitzkrieg Commander II Walk-through Video

I've been wanting to do this for some time: a walk-through/tutorial of Blitzkrieg Commander II. This long video takes you through the initiative phase and one command roll of a command phase.

It's amazing how long this sort of thing takes to make. And how much work it would take to make it really good. Transitions, titles, words to help guide someone through the things I'm saying, etc.

I look forward to comments and hope it encourages someone to either: buy the rules or try the rules that they bought a long time ago and just haven't got round to playing.

I filmed it on my iphone and ran out of disk space. In fact, I ran out of room on my macbook as well. I couldn't even back up my phone. So, after a lot of deleting, shuffling, etc, I was able to upload it. Now, I can clean off my phone and take a picture of the table my 9 year laid out for me. He's wanted to do this for some time.

Future post material.

Command Decision TOB WWI

Went to Jerry's house and watched him put in a game of Command Decision Test of Battle. It was an ahistorical game between France and Germany.

Unfortunately, I didn't get too many photos of the troops, especially the French.

I didn't play the game and just watched and left before it was over. However, the German right was crumbling. The center and left were about to engage in two turns.

Video here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWTao2TFP3U&sns=em

Rate of Fire read through and test

I received my first ever review copy of some rules! I've definitely hit the big time.

Okay, back to reality. Crusader Miniatures was kind enough to give me a copy of their WWII Skirmish rules, "Rate of Fire" so I want to give, at some point, an overview of the rules at some point. But tonight I glued some 1:72 or 1:76 scale plastic minis that I've had sitting around the house for years. Way before I was into miniature gaming.

I've got British Airborne and German Falschimjager. The Germans are probably early/mid war. But I'm not too concerned with that.

I've read through the rules now and wanted to roll some dice. I set my guys up 6-10" apart, with everyone in the open except for one element (the leader and 4 rifles.). They were taking some light cover behind my iPhone.

iPhone provided no help. The Germans rolled like crazy and took out 3 rifles and the leader. Another element, consisting of 3 sub-machine guns was also eliminated.

The stationary firing is simultaneous , which for the Brits was a good thing because this allowed them to shoot back before losing all those men. Alas, it did no good, the Brits only killed 2 vs the Germans killing 6+ the main Co.

I started to look over the morale rules but bedtime was/is calling. I'll come back to it.

Bloody action.

http://www.crusaderpublishing.com/shop/home.php

Drydock part 4 or 5 - Italian Ships

Zara

Trento

Italian ships are fun because they have the red and white recognition stripes. I don't know if they all had them, but they look cool, help differentiate the ships and aren't too hard to paint. Easier than a flag.

Drydock pt 3 - More Progress

HMS Dorsetshire

KMS Hipper