Saturday, December 31, 2016

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2017!!!!



I thought I would do a little year in review for 2016.  First off let me say that this year has been very good for my family.  We were able to take a nice big family vacation (16 of us) to Alaska on Princess Cruise Lines and then we spent 18 lovely days back on the east coast visiting friends and family.

One of the many beautiful nights on board the ship.  This by the way is about 11pm. :-)

Looking out over a section of the Gettysburg battlefield.

Miniature and gaming wise the start of the year was very good.  I rolled into 2016 with a full head of steam painting up my Spanish troops for the Great Italian Wars and then busied myself with getting ready for Enfilade in May. Enfilade is always a wonderful weekend. It's great to see friends from the Seattle area and game.
 Once the summer came around my production eased off with the trips and my daughter being home all day from school.
We stilled gamed every other week or so during the summer.  By the fall my desire to paint anything hit rock bottom.  In fact for about 2 months or so I didn't even want to game.
I was still planning though. I had hit upon the idea for next years Enfilade to run the last gunfight from the movie "The Magnificent Seven".  I spend a few weeks asking questions about figures, how to build the town and so on.  I bought all of the figures I needed and bought a couple of the buildings.  Again, the steam wasn't there to paint any of it.  I have one group of bad guys primed but that is about as far as I have gotten.  I better get my mojo back soon or I wont be putting on this game at all.

Towards the end of the year I did participate in Chris Stoesen's Santa Clause event.  That is always fun and I look forward to it every year.

Also in our area we had a fun 1 day convention called Ambuscade which was the first Saturday in December.  I ran a Check Your 6 battle.  We had a great time and I was able to participate in a "In Her Majesty's Name" game as well.  I really like that set of rules.





Some photos from the Check Your 6 game.
That's me in the blue participating in the "In Her Majesty's Name" game.  The table was fantastic!

Because of my lack of painting I did send out some figures to be painted by DJD Minis and I am awaiting their return which should be shortly.  If you are in need a good painting service, I highly recommend them.

At some point I noticed (a little late) that I had surpassed 100K views to this blog. I'm rather surprised really. I never thought I would get that far.  Thank You to all of you that drop by here. I hope I have provided some helpful information or at least been entertaining.

I am not a big video gamer at all, I tend to get bored with them very easily.  So I don't own a wii or xbox nor do I have games on my computer.  Having said all of that I will have to say that I've been enjoying World of Tanks Blitz.
While this game isn't historically accurate at all it has been fun running around in different tanks and blowing stuff up and also being blown up. Which happens a lot really. :-)

So I will close out this last blog entry for 2016 with saying "Happy New Year!!"  I want to wish you all a safe, happy and prosperous 2017.









Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Santa Clause Arrived!

Golly old Saint Nick visited the Cina Household this weekend and left my daughter a bunch of new things but he also deposited some new gaming stuff for me and some wonderful crocheting items for wife and her many sewing projects.

My secret Santa left me 3 wonderfully painted 28mm Pulp style figures which will go nicely with my growing group.  Eventually I will have to settle on a set of rules and get them all out on the table for a game.





Also Santa delivered 2 new Osprey books on the Thirty Years War, which is a new direction the group is taking and will be running a few games in 2017.


My last item which isn't related at all to gaming but will provide hours of entertainment is the Blue Ray box set of Mel Brooks films!!!  While I can probably recite all of these films by heart they are still fun to watch!


Merry Christmas everyone!!! I hope you all had a happy holiday and were able to enjoy with your loved ones.

Saturday, December 24, 2016

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!



From Kathy, Charlotte and I we want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!!  May you all enjoy a peaceful day with family and friends!!

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Two Check Your 6 Battles!

So Saturday night I ran 2 Check Your 6 battles. I had planned on only one but it finished so fast we ran a second.  The first outing was just a simple 4 on 4 battle with 2 Spitfires and 2 Kittyhawks going up against 2 MC.202s and 2 BF 109s.
This game was a refresher for me (and the group) as I am running a battle on 12/5 at our local one day convention. I also taught the game to 2 new people so it was an excellent primer for the convention.



Andy had control of the two Kittyhawks.

Kevin had the Spitfires.

Jeff (new player to the rules) controlled the Germans.

Jeff's planes closed in quickly on Andy.

They caused Airframe damage!

Justin (the other new guy) had the Italians. Here they are closing in on the Spitfires. Surprisingly both sides missed their targets the first time.

One last picture of the Italians and Brits.  The game ended so quickly I didn't get any other photos. The Axis players came out on top which isn't bad for 2 new players.  I think they enjoyed themselves.

For the second game Andy decided to pull out all of the Bettys I had and put them on table and said "Give them 3 Wildcats each and I'll try to survive getting across the board!"  The above and below picture are the starting positions. Again, Andy chose this folks!


Kevin's Wildcats circle around the Bettys.

Jeff's Wildcats fly through the middle.

One Betty is smoking already.

A Betty goes down!

Another Betty has gone down in Flames!

The lead Betty also goes down in Flames!

And then there were 4 Bettys.

Now there are two Bettys.  That didn't last long. The last two went down on the next turn and we called it a night.  The Wildcats only suffered 1 damaged plane in this attack.  
Don't worry folks I won't be doing this for the convention. I will come up with something a little more even. :-)  We had fun and thats all that matters.


Saturday, October 8, 2016

Battle of Abigail's Farm, 1777

So tonight we ran a 10mm AWI game using Eric Burgess' rules Guns of Liberty. These have become my go to set of rules for this period.  This was a fictitious battle where the British and Hessian troops were out on a foraging party when they came across advancing Continentals.  I based the battle in the year 1777.  We had 4 players tonight with me being one of them. :-)  I was rather happy to be able to roll dice and push lead tonight.


The table layout is as follows: the road down the middle is a dirt path and clear of trees.  The only other section that isn't woods is where the little farm house and field are situated.  

The Continentals started on the North side of the table with one brigade in road column and the other 3 brigades marching through the woods. Jesse played the role of the CinC for the Continentals and I had told him that spies had told them about the British foraging in the area. The Continental forces had 3 brigades of Continental troops (3 units of 4 stands each) and brigade of militia (3 units of 4 stands).


Gabe (right side of the picture) and Andy (left side) played the British with Gabe being the CinC.  The British forces consisted of 3 brigades.  One was Hessian with 4 units with 3 stands each and the British had 2 brigades of 3 units, each with 4 stands.  There was no artillery or cavalry for this game.


The Continentals all started to move forward making their way through the woods.

The British formed up in column along the road marched quickly to establish a defensive line by the farm house.

The Rebel Scum, as Andy called them, continued to move forward.

The British and Hessians set up to receive the rebels.  The Hessian brigade took the field with the rail fence to their front protected by Foot Jaegers.

They are getting closer.

The armies closed and shots were fired. Both sides proved to accurate with their aim as numerous men fell on both sides.


The lines inch closer to again take aim and fire!

The British start to break their defensive line and move forward with cold steel.


Some close ups of the Continental troops.

The Hessians push forward and with cold steel crush the rebels and break left wing.

The right flank of the rebels takes a beating from fire and melee but manages to hold on.

The center however goes to the Continentals as the British fall back from repeated fire and a failed melee attempt.

The Hessians continue to push their advantage pushing the left flank back.

The center still holds but now the right flank starts to give way.

The overhead view from the Continental side.

The British center gets decimated but it will have no effect on the outcome.

The left flank of the Continentals continues to fall back.


We called the game as the two flanks for the continentals became unstable and with a relatively untouched Hessian units still waiting to roll up the flank of the center units Jesse decided the battle couldn't be won.

Over all everyone had a great time.  We started the game at 5pm and were down by 730pm.  Not bad to have a game run to a fairly distinct conclusion in 2.5 hours.