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