Chain of Command 2

I got in a couple of Chain of Command 2 games in July. The first was a 2 on 2 battle of Canadians vs Germans in 15mm. I was doing well on my flank but progress was slow because of all of the open ground I would happen to cross. But my team mate on my right completely collapsed and that ended the game. He had not been in the greatest of positions but a run of 4 straight phases against him sealed the deal.

My position on the left getting ready to attack to the left.

Frank on the right just before the collapse occurred.

The second game was a 3 on 2 battle with the Germans holding two objectives. I took a tank platoon for something different. We were slow getting going so action was just heating when we had to call it. I could not make the second half so I do not know how it went.

Position at the end of the session. The Firefly had just done a reaction shot to the Pz IV that rolled into the woods at the very top of the screen. The Firefly missed. It is now our turn but the Germans have a COC die that they were going to use on our turn. It is likely that they will use it on my rapidly charging Sherman near the top of the screen.

To the Limit

 I've added AMS Lite to my 3D printer. AMS Lite is an attachment (not literally) for the A1 Mini and it allows you to print in up to four colours. I also ordered a spool of black, dark blue, light blue, and a sort of fleshy colour. Also in my order was a 0.2mm nozzle. Naturally, I wanted to see how tiny I could go. Pretty tiny, as it turned out, using the smallest layer height (0.6mm).

I decided I would also try my hand at designing some figures. I worked in Tinkercad creating 8mm American Civil War figures, which I knew I would scale down by 25% in Bambu Studio. I sort of knew beforehand that the figures would be too skinny, but I also wanted to see if I can get "realistic" and "proportional". Here's a more close up photo with a 15mm Zulu mounted on a penny.

I'm pretty impressed by how these turned out. Yes, there's some fuzz between the kepis, the flag didn't survive removal from the plate, and it is extremely wasteful of filament, but it was a worthwhile experiment.

I'm already working on 2.0. I'll make it much sturdier by having the figures slightly overlap, thicken up the flag a bit, and make the base thicker. 

Hot Lead 2025

 I have been looking forward to Hot Lead for some time. It's a chance to see some people that I used to play with. As it turned out, David was the only one but it was really good to see him.

I got into two games. The first was run by David and was a Japanese civil war game. Each player had two clans of varying strengths and composition. It was fun with both our flanks winning but our centre collapsed, resulting in a narrow loss.

The next game was an English civil war game featuring the Parlimentarians trying to hold off the Royalist attack. The objective of the Royalist was to exit three cavalry units off the far edge by turn 15. Due to plucky resistance, the Royalists didn't come close to these victory conditions.

1st Project With a 3D Printer

 So I got a 3D printer for Christmas. It's a Bambu Lab A1 Mini and it has been great. 

I've printed the obligatory Benchy (that's what it was doing above) and some accessories (printer poop basket, toolbox, and scraper). It's now time to put it to its true purpose: printing stuff for my miniatures.

I've had 300 15mm Zulus for a while and I've stagnated in painting them. I also recently (relatively) aquired The Men Who Would Be Kings rules. These rules use individual figures for casualties, so the obvious solution is to create movement trays for them, because why move 12-16 inividual figures when you can move just a couple of trays?

I've started with an artillery tray because it only have 4 figures on it. I have quite a few figure bases saved (courtesy of the Canadian government) and so I designed the stands to fit them. I should have enough to base all of my Zulus and British, but then I will have to look for alternatives for other periods.

 In TMWWBK, every unit has a leader, so I wanted to have a specific spot for him. I experimented with pausing printing and swapping from the grey filament to a white filament, and it worked reasonably well. The text a little smudgy, but it should look OK after I apply some flock and other terrain.

The leader also has a rating. But because the leader rating can vary from unit to unit, I didn't want to make it a permanent feature of the stand. Instead, I will be creating some labels and an area on the stand to put them. To keep the labels in place, I'm using mini magnets.

These pictures are showing my prototypes. I think I've got them pretty much dialed in to how I want them, so now I'll start cranking them out. I'll be  swapping out the grey filament for brown, and if I'm lucky I may not even need to prime the trays.

Any way, here's a more close up of the trays with some Zulus to show what the trays look like with figures in them. You can see the white letters aren't perfect, but they are definitely good enough.

Neglected Blog

 Wow, it's been basically a whole year since I last posted.

Basically 2024 was mostly a write-off as far as gaming. I did go to KEGSCon, which was very enjoyable, and there's a group of local gamers, who I joined for the occasional game. I did a little painting of some 15mm Zulus.

But really I've spent the year either not being able to game or haven't had the time or energy. A rambuctious puppy and two family medical incidents will really sap away gaming time.

But December and January have seen a renewed intest in miniatures. That's been helped by the acquisition of a 3D printer.

I'll post more about that next time.

Review: Project Paint Station from Army Painter

 So, for Christmas, I got this:

What do I think? Looks good on the box, but not so much in real life. The big issue is in the construction. Being MDF, I was expecting it to use slots and tabs to hold itself together while the glue dries. The only slots and tabs hold the horizontal pieces to the back piece. There are no slots and tabs on any of the vertical pieces. There are grooved areas, which are necessary because no glue will stick nicely to the white melomine surface. 

From the top

I don't recall whether the assembly instructions call for clamps, but they are absolutely necessary because of the lack of slots and tabs. In particular, you need them to hold that piece with the Army Painter label, because you need to bend the piece to fit it into the groove. Not the best experience because I had to assemble it over a couple of nights to allow the glue to dry and I didn't have enough small clamps to do it in one shot.

Tip: They mention a specific glue, but I'm not buying it just for this. I used Carpenter's Glue, but really any PVA-based glue should work fine, as long as it dries clear or white. Don't use Carpenter's Glue though, because it has a yellowish colour that you can see. 

You can see the lack of tabs and slots on the sides. Note the grooves for gluing the pieces together.

Once assembled, it seems solid enough, but I'm definitely not going to deliberately test it because I have no faith it will stick together if I drop it any distance at all.

It will hold dropper bottle style paint pots, but not those Citidel paint pots. Fortunately 90% of my paints are Vallejo or other dropper style paint pots. 

It seems OK, and I will use it, but I'm sure there are sturdier and easier to assemble options.

Puppy!

 As I mentioned in my previous post, something has been consuming my time. And her she is, Éloise:

We got her shortly after my February post. She's an adorable dog and very affectionate. She's also incredibly stubborn and highly needy. 

As an 8 week old puppy

Once spring happened, I found I had to take her for a walk three times a day just to tire her out. Fortunately, now that she is a "teenager", I've found that one walk a day is good provided that walk is to the dog park and there's lots of activity happening. All that walking is helping my waistline but it is killing my hobby time.

We put on Surie's old flapper dress. It just barely fit Eloise and she has grown considerably since then

She loves playing with other dogs. I think she's actually a thouroughbred trapped in a shetland's body. Her favourite game is to chase after running dogs. Her second favourite game is to goad other dogs into chasing after her. Usually, the other dogs are much larger than her, but she is fearless. She'll get bowled over and get right back up again.