Happy Halloween!

Shutting things down for the night I just wanted to give a hearty "Happy Halloween" to everyone. The above pic is from the front of the garage this year. Good night!

The Bride and the Booty

We played a "big dang" Viking game last week that was a lot of fun. We were using a highly modified set of the Might of Arms rules (so modified it's actually a completely re-written and unpublished set to be called Clans and Companies). Bob was running and hosting the game and it's a test drive for one of the many games he'll be running at this year's Fall-In. So if you like what you see here, you can get in on the action there.


There are games I don't mind just showing up at and rolling dice, but there are other times where I really want to contribute. The latter was true for this game and my 39-strong Viking Warband made the trip and joined the fray.


This was a great scenario and the table was quite the spectacle. There were no fewer than five factions at play, each with their own objectives and secret agendas. Sure, you could ally with another player if you wanted, but would it last? The scenario, as the title states, dealt with the impending wedding in the region and those faction who wanted to stop it (or support it), or just plain wandered into the middle of all of this and haven't decided whose lot they'll throw in with. We played on a somewhat sparsely terrained twelve foot table with over a hundred figs running around and a river running through the center.

Fjord this!

There was a good mix of troops; mounted, foot, heroes, skirmishers...

The action came to a boiling point in the center of the table


My warband's primary objective was basically to steal the bride. If the wedding goes through, my clan's power in the region is going to be greatly diminished, and we can't have that. Maybe a little friendly princess-napping and subsequent ransoming will let the powers at be know that we aren't to be trifled with.


Near the end of the game we had a big, beautifully chaotic mess on our hands. The bride's wagon train moved fast across the table so all the sides were scrambling to keep up and defend, or snatch and grab. Other factions present could care less about the politics of the wedding and just wanted to nab some livestock or other treasure. Unfortunately for my warband, the bride was able to be whisked away to safety by her future husband's retinue.


Here are the player handouts with the factions on them. I think we got some solid playstesting of the scenario down and any tweaks that were needed fixed whatever small gaps that might have cropped up during play. Besides that, it was just plain fun, which is what it's all about. Like I said, Bob plans on running this same game at Fall-In, it might be in the events listing somewhere. Tell him Mik sent you since I can't attend this year!

Emptying the Game Room

Well the ball is finally rolling on getting the downstairs fixed after storm damage and flooding almost six months ago. I am lucky to have all of this square footage to claim for gaming, however its very nature means it often comes very low on the totem pole when it comes to household priorities. Case in point, we've lived in this house for a decade and this room has never had a coat of paint.


Thanks to Mother Nature's wrath however that is going to change. So we opted for a bit of a carpet upgrade, which will cover not just the game room but the rest of the downstairs. We figured while the old carpet was on the way out we might as well paint. No need for groundcloths or worrying about drips.

The shelves above are a bit of a debate however. They're homemade and I don't know if the "homemade" look is going to cut it anymore. Mind you, they serve their purpose, and frankly I don't know what I would use in their place but I'm still exploring options.



Of course all of that game room inventory (err, junk) has to be kept somewhere else. In this case it's my half of the garage! This will give me a great chance to filter everything before it goes back in however. So I haven't taken stuff off the walls or starting spackling or whatever, but like I said the ball is rolling.

LEGO Thursday: The Cult Arrives

My advance copy of The Cult of LEGO came in the mail this week, yay! I'm keeping this teaser light, a proper review will coincide with the book's release but I can tell you this by thumbing through it already...The Cult of LEGO is an awesome book. Even if you just have a passing interest in LEGO it is definitely worth picking up.

Firestorm Armada on the Horizon

I recently picked up Spartan Games' Firestorm Armada. This is something we've been talking about off and on for a while, so I figured, "What the heck?" and just got them. I also picked up the optional card deck to accompany them.

I've been sitting on a copy of Full Thrust (which are now free) for some time now, and rules such as Sunder the Stars (also free), and all give you great space battles but Firestorm grabbed me for some reason. I've already bought the rules, but I'm still interested in hearing any experience y'all may already have with these.

Ironically, it was the models that really grabbed me and even more ironically I'm in no position to plop down fifty bucks right now for said models. Problem solved, as suggested here at Mik's Minis already, why not use ships similar to the micro-scale builds shown here on LEGO Thursdays? Why not indeed? So it looks like I'll be building some new ships to run the first few games with, probably a pair of matched cruisers per side or something. Here's some past candidates in one place:

• Supply Fueler
• Large Cruiser
• Patrol Corvette

That's it for now, hopefully I'll be able to get all of these rules under my belt, run a few games, and the big catch is whether or not it will stick with my fickle gaming group. Enjoy!

Motivational Monday: That's a Lot of Lager

I had these particularly large cans of Yuengling at our last Viking game, coupled with the excellent sculpted pose of the wee Viking in the foreground and voila!

This is my humble tribute to Meatball's longstanding Motivational Mondays of My Dice Hate Me. I figured we needed at least one more to kick the week off right.

LEGO Thursday: Half-Mast

We're at half-mast this week in memory of BJ "Meatball" Dybus.

A Farewell to BJ Dybus

It is with a heavy heart that I post this. BJ Dybus, callsign "Meatball" and author of the blog My Dice Hate Me, passed away a week ago today. I was checking in with him via email since I had not heard from him in a few days and his wife broke the horrible news.

BJ has been around the 40k blogosphere for some time now, his own blog, originally titled Extremis Diabolus, hit dirtside in 2009. Like many here, BJ and I became friends through our blogs and mutual hobbies and interests. He would enthusiastically comment on post after post here. Here is his bio as posted in his Blogger profile:

"I have been playing miniature war games since 1998. I started off with Warhammer Fantasy Battles and about a year later I drifted into Warhammer 40K. Last year I expanded into playing Warmachine and Hordes as well as my first historical wargame, Flames of War. While I do try to play competitively, I enjoy the social and fluff aspects of the hobby more than anything. I also enjoy PnP RPGs mostly D&D but RIFTS is a close 2nd favorite for me and I am now getting into Dark Heresy. I play MMORPGs as well; currently I am playing EQ2 and RIFT." -BJ

Needless to say this news hit me pretty hard. It's weird the way social circles have evolved in these times, and though BJ and I never met in person he still carried the same weight any of my local gaming buddies would when it comes to hanging out.

My Dice Hate Me has about three hundred posts, all organized neatly, and clearly labeled by subject matter. There's all kinds of good stuff in there, and it's all solidly written and worthwhile. I encourage you to read through his entries, starting with his first post introduction. It can't possibly cover the vast scope of who BJ was, but it certainly does give you a window into his life.

I look back at that first post and smile that I had left a "welcome to the blog-world" comment. Funnily enough it would be me a year or so later giving him his new blog moniker "Meatball". BJ was a medic in the Air Force and lived in San Antonio, Texas. My condolences go out to the family he leaves behind, he leaves a void in our own family here.

EDIT: Thanks to Santa Cruz Warhammer's John for supplying a link to BJ's obituary. Its information is much more comprehensive than what I have here and worth looking at further.

Bunker Buster Burgers

Maybe I should change the name to belt busting burgers! These are not for the health-conscience, nor the feint of heart (literally), but they are delicious and as I tell my daughter, they make a great "sometimes" food. Like last time, I'll try to make this recipe easy to follow and even easier to execute.

Bunker Buster Burgers:

1. You're making burgers, so get some ground beef, ground chuck, or what have you. Don't go too lean, a little fat content in there goes a long way in the flavor department.
2. You're going to want some good Mozzarella cheese, the thick-sliced stuff like you get at the deli counter.
3. For veggies I went with onion, jalapeño peppers, and tomatoes. This can vary according to your own tastes.
4. An odd ingredient you don't normally see would be sliced pepperoni, a small package of these goes a long way.
5. Finally, gourmet burgers like this don't get slapped on a bun, while you're in the bakery/deli area getting your cheese, get some Ciabatta rolls too.

Let's get it all together:

1. Make your burger patties, I took a pound of ground beef and split it into thirds. For making patties I use an egg and a little Worcester sauce and just patty them up by hand.
2. Dice up the selected veggies you've picked out. How much? See below.
3. Also dice up the pepperoni, for quantity just make it equal parts with each veggies type. This will form a topping for each burger, so just eyeball it.
4. If your rolls aren't slice, do that now as well.
5. I'm assuming you've got ice somewhere, just make sure you've got half a glass full on hand for the cooking.
   

Let's cook 'em up:

1. First things first, sauté the diced veggies and pepperoni in olive oil. Set aside.
2. Warm up the oven to 350ºF degrees, you'll toast the rolls in here.
3. Get a large skillet with lid, big enough to cook all of your burgers at once and start pan frying them. This is no exact science, but I like to cook the first side a little longer (4-5 minutes) than the other side (2 minutes).
4. After the two minutes on the back side is done spoon on generous helpings of the saute´mixture on top of each burger, the more the merrier.
5. Next, cover the mixture with one thick slice or two thin slices of Mozzarella.
6. Immediately drop in a handful of ice into the frying pan and quickly cover with the lid. Caution: You've got hot grease that spatters with water, add these ice cubes carefully and cover quickly.
7. The ice in the covered pan creates a lot of steam, this trick will melt that thick cheese while locking in all the juiciness and flavor.
8. While everything is melting, toast the rolls in the oven.
9. After a minute or so, the rolls and the burgers should both be ready, serve and enjoy!

Even though a 'sometimes' food, I've cooked these up twice for company, and yeah they're a bit messy but they get very positive reviews. I usually cook burgers on a grill, so the pan frying is a big change up, but for this style burger I don't see it any other way. I try to connect these recipes to gaming, really I do, but I can't see how here. They're a bit too involved to whip out for game night, and they're not exactly appetizers or finger food. The clever title will have to be their only saving grace. Hey, it's no coincidence I posted this on a Saturday, and you probably have most of these ingredients already on hand, what are you waiting for?

Last of the 2011 Garden

It was a rather wet, rainy, and overall dreary mid-October day but I trudged down to the garden to see what I had in store. Since tearing my calf muscle, trips up and down the back stairs to the garden have been infrequent (though I'm healing just fine).

It's kind of a mess down there, no weeding has been done and I could tell far too much was left on the vine longer than it should've been. But just like in Jurassic Park, nature will find a way, and there was all kinds of good stuff waiting. Nothing like the photo above to remind you why you garden in the first place.


I'm trying something new this year. I had mentioned it earlier but here are the first pics of the winter crop; broccoli and Brussels sprouts. I don't know if its the same rabbits who ate my strawberries eating these, or the leaves just fell off, but I'm not holding my breath to see how they'll turn out. Hopefully they too will find a way, we'll see.


Finally are those dang mutated, illegally-smuggled squash plants. These four are the last of their kind, most of the others were given away. I stuck my foot in there for scale.

Well, as the title suggests, this is probably the last of the garden posting this year. This could change depending on the winter stuff, but the days grow short and the night cold so juicy tomatoes and peppers are coming to an end.

LEGO Thursday: Spear of Hades, Corvette

Still sticking with micro-scale ships I give you this corvette class vessel. Corvettes, historically, are small, maneuverable, lightly armed warships, smaller than a frigate but larger than a coastal patrol craft. If it had a little more meat on its bones it might have qualified for being a frigate. These are still great ships to serve on, especially if you crave action since they see the lion's share of small-scale combat in addition to larger fleet actions.





Top-down view, I like asymmetrical weapon arrays


What do our neighbors think? They see us outside spray-painting stuff, but they don't realize it's little tiny men or robots or monsters or whatever. We have a crowd of cars on any given Saturday night like we're having a party, or a poker night, but that couldn't be farther from what we're actually doing. Grown men holding up little spaceships made from LEGO blocks in the air to take artsy photos of them, its kind of humorous to me.




Here's a closeup of the Spear of Hades refueling from last week

Some Peppers...

Not a whole lot to report on the gardening front, here's a handful of peppers I picked the other day. Things aren't really cooling off even in mid-October, so my "fall crops" (broccoli and Brussels sprouts) are doing well and there's still tons of everything else which I don't see going anywhere until we get a few good morning of frost.

The Viking Horde

I was prepping my Vikings for game night (de-mothballing is more like it) and I realized I never had a true muster pic of them finished and all together. So here they are! It's a motley lot indeed with a real mix of figs in there including a certain seven foot tall barbarian more at home in the Forgotten Realms than on a historical tabletop (he's easy to find). I've also got more than a couple GW figs (can you spot them?) in there as well as a very dated Ral Partha fig (good luck with that one). I'm quite pleased with how they all turned out but there is one problem, there's only thirty nine of them, I think a nice round and even number like forty would be better suited! I'll let the rest of the pics do the talking, enjoy!

LEGO Thursday: Octan-6, Intersystem Fueler

It is a bit of joy that I get to post this MOC here again at Mik's Minis. Way back when, actually at the very beginning of this blog, this was the first post I ever did. Now, three years and eight hundred some odd posts later it has returned.


I spy...a non-Photoshopped lens flare!

Sticking with micro-scale, I wanted this thing to be massive. Not 'star destroyer' big, but big enough that if you saw it on your viewscreen you'd be like, "Whoa..."


The Octan-6 is a one-stop shop. It cruises around the system looking for space debris, asteroids, and the like, hauls them in, and reduces/refines the raw materials into fuel and other related goods. It's a space borne refinery, production plant, oil well, and more all rolled into one.


Corporate identity is important, even in space






Here the Octan-6 refuels a corvette, the latter of which posts next week

Shut 'em Down

Here's a sweet video made by my twelve year old nephew and his sister, my seven year old niece. This is the same nephew who starred in Main Versus Second that I showed here four years ago. If you haven't checked that one out you should. Enjoy!

Orphanage

Robert Buettner's Orphanage was exactly what I was looking for; it was a quick read that provided solid military sci-fi in a compact package. It had a very clever twist, taking place about forty years from now, humanity has reached a comfortable (albeit complacent) existence. Complicity doesn't allow for huge technological advances however and when Earth is bombed out of nowhere by an unfathomable foe, they realize they've got a lot of catching up to do.

Jason Wander is the protagonist and this first book details his story from before enlistment, through basic training, and finally off to war. The clever part is humanity has to rely on incredibly outdated technologies at first. Wander is given BDU's leftover from WWII for basic as an example. He trains on a Vietnam-era M16.

The source of the attack is discovered on one of Jupiter's moons, Ganymede. How the attackers got there and why they're attacking Earth is all in the details, so I won't spoil it here. Needless to say, the one criticism I have about the book is it seems an awful lot like the theatrical version of Starship Troopers. It has its obvious differences, but boil it all down and its basically a different take on the same plot. Mind you, I loved Starship Troopers, so I was fine with that.

Wander isn't a cookie-cutter, two-dimensional book hero either and the rest of the cast do their best to avoid stereotypes. The united Earth force of mixed nations is handled rather well, and the technology is suitably believable and "near future". At the same it doesn't beat you over the head with it either.

My used copy was a loaner but had a $2.50 pricetag on it, well worth picking up. There's a whole series that follows but the author wraps up this book with an epilogue well into the future that will satisfy any "what happened with this..." queries. I have a soft spot for this book as well because it closely resembles a memorable d20 Modern/Future campaign we played in which similar events took our heroes to one of Saturn's moons, Titan. If you like realistic military sci-fi, chances are you'll like Orphanage, I did.

Flames of War: Germans vs. British

Last week we were able to get in some Flames of War. I really like FoW, there's something about a historical miniatures game that's so huge in scope and so accessible to so many gamers. It's a great game for laid back, hanging out and rolling dice forays, or for fierce head-to-head competition (the latter which is not for me). Also, unlike other mainstream games, you've got lots of options for miniatures, you're not stuck buying one company's stuff.

Enough of my ooing and awwing though, we've got a game to report! I am very pleased to say I provided all of the forces for one side of the table, British XXX Corps, and my painted total to date equals 2065 points (mostly Shermans). We were playing late war, and the opponent was Tom's German forces which I can't elaborate anymore on, there were anti-tank guns and artillery guns, some infantry, and some other stuff.


The scenario was hasty assault, and the British were to engage the Germans on their half of the table, run up on some objectives, and hold said objectives. A bit unconventional, I still rolled to see which side I was on, and got Germans, so I would get to be one of the guys hammering my own models.


There were incoming reinforcements for both sides, and the British rolled extremely well every time, they got the most number of units on the table as fast as you possibly could. The main British force drove right up the middle while a platoon scooted around the flank.


German paratroopers were in the woods out on the flank, and their mere presence armed with Panzerfausts was enough to hold that whole flank. The British tanks preferred to keep their distance than get stuck in with these pesky troopers. A hailstorm of Sherman machine gun fire thinned the Panzerfaust ranks quickly enough, but the Germans had a 'hero' class stand, whose name I forget, that was able to save a destroyed stand of infantry each turn.


The British employed an interesting strategy that by the middle of the game seemed to not work out. They all rushed right up to the halfway point...then sat there, trying to trade turret fire with anti-tank fire. It was a good match-up, and all my British Shermans became little more than a burning steel wall. I don't know, if it was me, I would've advanced right on top of the Germans and, I don't know, tried to hold an objective. The name of the scenario was "hasty assault", that sounds pretty hasty to me. As it was, the British sat on the center line of the table, kept getting blasted, and we called the game early.

Afterwards, there was talk like, "How do the allies win this?" and the like. The answer is simple; smoke. Throw smoke at one row of artillery, then advance. I've got said answer in the form of a huge, eight strong unit of Sexton self-propelled artillery. I need to get cracking and build/paint them mind you, but I've got them at least. I've also got a recon unit of Stuarts I'd like to paint up, I just like the tank that's why I got them.

All in all it was good night of gaming and hanging out. Since we called the FoW battle early we managed to get in a couple of games of Dominion: Intrigue as a bonus. Oh, and please forgive my phone pics, I forgot to bring a real camera!