Metal and plastic toy soldiers dug out from a mountain of unpainted bits with terrain and other wargaming staples. An occassional bit of art. But mainly "broken" dice and attempts at keeping my girls from painting pink camouflage, and my son from amassing too many dragons!...and convincing them that history is rather cool!
Monday, June 10, 2013
summer vacation
Funny pair of words that, "summer vacation". When I was a kid, that was a promise of fun filled days with bike riding, swimming, camping, and setting up Marx toy soldiers in the backyard. Now as an adult, I have training both military and professional, overtime at work to cover the vacation of the other nightshift, and household projects and chores that are better suited to warmer and hopefully drier days! I also have to occupy my kids in nonelectronic activities. They seem to gravitate to gameboys when I'm not around!
Vacation!? I can't even use that word as my vacation days are used to ease the days I have to take off of work for military training. I'm not really complaining though as seven more years will be all I'll have to suffer for. Then I may get to take an actual vacation while someone else takes overtime to cover my absence!
For a summary of hobbydom, work is progressing on my British foot. I hope to have them up later this month..at least the Perry troops if not them and the Victrix. I really like the pop the red jackets get over the white undercoat. In the future, I am going to fall back to my trusty black primer and give the jackets a white layer of brush and see how that goes.
I am very close to finishing the cardstock pinzgauer shuttle. This beastie needs to get finished real soon as it keeps missing deadlines for games!
I also have a batch of Stotzels Structures that need to be cut, mounted, and assembled.
I'm out of ink at the moment and low on cardstock. Household-6 says that I need to wrap up those projects that are printed before she will authorize budget expenditures on ink.
It's not all bad though! If I'm a good boy, eat my veggies, weed the garden veggies and paint repair the house exterior; well, I'll get a new rulebook! I just got the chainreaction ruleset that is available free at wargames vault. I really like this set and it is the base set of rules( as I'm told) for most of 2hr wargames sets.
I'm looking at ATZ better dead than zed or final fade out. The other choice is 5150 star army or new beginings. To be clear, I'm really more of a scifi skirmish type wargamer so I'm leaning 5150 with a thought of 5th Element/ Bladerunner type games. The Zombie stuff and Superheroes are the games my kids want to play. But muskets and mohawks or longrifle have me a bit interested for some FIW gaming.
There can be only one..per my wife! ;)
PS: Ever notice how in the summer we have all these events and gatherings perhaps induced by longer days!? I'm out and about lamenting the costs in gas( petrol for my European friends)
I may be absent from my blog a bit, but I do have my nook and smartphone to keep up with the blogs from everyone else. So if little activity is seen, just know the old grunt is probably running, shooting, or at a family party trying to snatch a beer!
On that note, Vampifan is in the hospital. I have no details, but I encourage all of you to visit his blog and leave an email. He may not have email or net access at the hospital, but I'm certain he will enjoy reading all the well wishes once he gets home. I know that I really appreciated the volumes of mail/email that I got overseas after missions...esp after the really bad ones.
Labels:
into the woods,
Musings,
summer
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Sounds the same as my holidays, I call them my Kids entertainer breaks. I do try and get a little hobby time for myself but it never works out. By the time the brats are in bed I'm knackered! We played our first game of M&T the other week, they're really a great set of rules, I can't recommend them enough!!!
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DeleteMy kids keep looking at me and asking if I am going to work! When not running or exercising with me, or helping my wife in the garden; they are eating my work snacks, playing with MY minis, riding bikes, and watching movies!
I think my kids are getting spoiled rotten! Campfire and tents in the backyard tonight!
Muskets and Mohawks is on the short list! I really like the PEF rules and reaction tables in Chain Reaction. Since most of my friends live up to two hours away, are not nightshifters, and are equally busy in summer get togethers...well, the promise of solo play is really appealing! I'll just have to aqquire some British and French forces for my Conquest Natives to rough up!