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.

What A Cowboy!

 Wow, it's been a while since I last posted. I'll have a follow-up post in a bit to explain why, but let's say that I haven't touched the Zulus or even gamed since my last post.

However, that changed recently as Stephen held a gaming day at his house. 

We played What A Cowboy with 3 players a side controlling 2 characters each, a gunslinger and a shootist. My gunslinger I named William Kidd ("Don't you dare call me 'Billy'") and he had lightning reflexes. My shootist was a native who I named Johnny Whitefeather. As I rolled poorly for money, I equipped both of them with a single 6 shooter each.

The scenario was that one side were Mexicans who gained control of one side of town. I was on the other side with the objective of forcing the Mexicans to leave town.

Mid game with a view from the Mexican side. The dance hall is on the upper right and the church yard is on the lower right.

The game started out a bit slow with both sides being a bit cautious. Early on, the Mexicans took a commanding presence in the centre of town. Then Stephen's Mexicans had a brief foray into the dance hall, which ended badly for his Mexican shootist. 

I had the centre right, but I decided that a headlong charge against 2 Mexicans in the grey Cantina and 1 Mexican in the building next door was not a good idea, so eventually my two characters went to the right to try their luck against Richard's Mexicans in the church yard.

Richard's two cowboys are guarding the church yard entrances. Note where the stage coach is.

Richard's gunslinger went on the attack and charged. He rolled poorly, and was stuck in the middle of the road. It got worse, as the gunslinger was then run over by a stage coach. Johnny Whitefeather went on the attack while the gunslinger recovered. 

Richard's two characters fall back to the yard walls. Johnny Whitefeather dodges the coach and reaches the corner.

After several rounds of ineffective gunfire and brawling (and interrupted by rampaging Indians), Johnny found his aim and gunned down Richard's gunslinger and shootist.

Blam! Blam! David's gunfighter looks on, before taking out rampaging Indians emerging from the church yard.

While that was happening, on the other side of town, things were going badly for our side as Justin's two characters were eliminated. This left the two sides dead even in characters and skill, so we called it a draw.

It was an enjoyable day. We were hoping to get in some other gaming, but we ran out of time.

 

Progress on Zulus

 I've completed the first steps, which was the preparation for colour.

And I've learned a few things:

• Slapchop is likely harder to do on 15mm than 28mm.
• I overdid the zenathal spray so that there was too much of it. This meant that there wasn't actually too much left of the black. In my defense, I was trying to do it quickly because I was spraying in a garage that was only just above freezing and poorly lit.
• I went with a brown (actually a bit more of a red-brown than brown) but it is likely far to dark. I chose the brown because I thought it would work nicely as an undercoating tone for the skin of the Zulus, but I think I'm not going to get a lot of the benefits of the mid-tone zenithal spray.
• The paint I chose as the highlight colour is probably knackered. I had to thin it out to get it flowing and, as a result, I didn't get a nice consistent dry brush. My intention was originally to just highlight the top surfaces but I changed plan and just went for highlights everywhere.
  

Here's the results from the zenithal spray showing that I was too heavy handed:

But the drybrushing really pops the details. I particularly wanted the faces to pop so that they will show nicely when I paint them.

Even though I didn't end up using it for the dry brushing, I bought a cheap makeup brush from the dollar store. I hacked it down to a quarter of its length using a pair of scissors at about 2mm or so for each trim. So now I have a drybrush ready to go and, as a bonus, some brush fibers I might be able to use as static grass.  I didn't use the brush for this initial highlighting because it was a little big for picking out some of the details on the body and my paint was misbehaving.

Next Project: Zulus!

 When Stephen offered me a bunch of Zulu and British figures a while back, I quickly said "Yes!". I don't have any rules for them and no matching terrain, but Zulus!

I got them shortly after I moved to Windsor, but they've been on ice for a while. But now that my hobby space is a little more organized and I got a bunch of hobby-related items, I decided it was time to crack on with them.

I've also decided to change my style up so that I can finish these a bit quicker. I'm going to try the slap-chop method of speed painting. To that end, I got rid of flashing and mold lines and glued them to stir sticks. 

That's where we are right now. 296-ish Zulus and their shields.

The next steps are:

1. Rattle can black primer all over.
2. Rattle can red-brown primer just from the top.
3. Dry brush off-white on the high spots.

Memorium

A little while back, our little fur baby crossed over the Rainbow Bridge. I miss Surie and I wanted to post a tribute to her.

	As a puppy maybe 3 months old.
	Surie at 6 months with her half-sister Milou.
	Surie was a child-certified St Johns Ambulance therapy dog for 9 years. Here she is taking a well deserved rest after meeting so many teenagers at a technology camp. Most therapy dog sessions are under an hour in length. Meeting people is very draining and one of our duties as a handler is recognizing when our dogs have had enough.
	Surie would visit regularly visit residents at a nursing home and special needs students at a high school. She would also attend fund raising events and other special events.
	We attended a number of Remembrance Day parades. Surie hated the cold so these weren't her favourite events. But she enjoyed the afterparty in the Legion Hall.
	Surie's favourite game was Fetch. Or rather putting the toy down, waiting for me to reach down for it, and then snatching it away. After some wrestling time, she would let go so that I could throw it again.
	Surie was an amazing traveller. She had her own booster chair so that she could look out, but most of the time, she just slept. Here we are on our drive from Ontario to BC, stopping in Winnipeg for this picture.
	When we picked up Surie as a puppy, she was accompanied by a plush pink rabbit. This was her constant companion and she used it as pacifier/comforter every day of her life. As a puppy, she quickly shredded the tennis ball body that bunny had, but otherwise left Baby intact. One squeaker in a leg was still working to the end.
	Me carrying Surie carrying Baby.
	One of our last pictures of Surie. She couldn't see me but she knew I was there.

KEGSCon 2022

 Wow, it's been a long time since I posted.

In terms of gaming, it has been pretty quiet. I went to Hot Lead. I started to create a post for it but never got around to finishing it. I unpacked a couple more gaming boxes into my hobby area but that is far as I got.

But I did go to KEGSCon last weekend in Chatham. I ran a game of Chain of Command, which went fairly well. I find that most CoC gamers in conventions tend to be cautious, and this game was no exception. While the Russians were getting pretty shot up, since we were playing the Probe scenario, they did have a chance for a win if they got some good movement rolls and resolutely pushed on.

After the initial deployments, with Russians on the right and Germans on the left.

The Russians at the top have been massacred to ineffectiveness while the Russian pressure at the bottom is taking effect

Near the end of the game, the Germans advanced at the bottom as did the Russians at the top.

In the afternoon, I played in a game of late medieval Swiss against Burgundians. The Swiss really need to close quickly and get stuck in, but were doomed by poor morale rolls at inopportune times.

Swiss advancing against the steady Burgundians and then failing morale rolls. Only half the Swiss units are still on the board

Other games included an IABSM featuring a British assault on a German fortified hill late D-Day.

A Charlie Company game with the Viet Cong assaulting a US position.

Finally, a Mexican Revolution game (using Sharp Practice 2 rules)

Borodino: Practice for Hot Lead

Right flank French are repulsed from the redoubt and capturing Borodino on the other side of the river.

On Family Day, a group of us gathered to try out a scenario for Hot Lead. The scenario was a refight of Borodino on a grand scale using Sam Mustafa's Blucher rules.

The game is intended for 6 players at Hot Lead but we had to make do with two players a side. The set up had the Russians defending with scattered bits of corps, which were generally smaller in size to the French corps.

(Unfortunately, we forgot to take pictures until half way through)

The game started with a general advance by the French across all fronts. The one difference was that a French corps on the other side of the river changed direction to cross back over the river, leaving one division and artillery to try to take Borodino, which was held by a Russian division.

Russian left where things were going well,until they weren't. French corps in middle being worn down

The Russian response was to advance and take a village on the left and generally get ready to receive the French. As the French closed, they suffered a couple of devastating cannonades followed by a couple of cavalry charges. This action disrupted the French attack on the centre-left, but didn't slow them down much on the centre-right.

The arrival of the French reserves made a huge difference on the far left, where the combined impact of French infantry, artillery, and cavalry began pounding the Russian forces. It was looking decidedly grim for the Russians by the time I left to return home. In the center-left, the Russians were doing well and were more than holding their own. The only real concern was the emergence of French cavalry from the woods and onto the left flank. I think the Russians could hold out with the arrival of a fresh division of cavalry and Russian guard. 

Just before the Grand Battery wipes out the French garrison in Borodino and the Russian cavalry charged

On the centre-right, the Russians hold the town and ridge were suffering from French bombardments and several divisions had to retire. However, the troops in the redoubt in front of the town managed to fend off two charges and looked to be able to hold for another attack or two. 

On the far right, the French managed to take Borodino, but suffered the loss of their artillery to marauding cossacks. The division that took Borodino was then wiped out by a couple of massive bombardments from a massed grand battery. The grand battery also hammered at the French hordes that were flanking the redoubt. A cavaly charge vapourized one French division and caused some of the horde to beat a hasty retreat.

When I left, the Russian left was in real trouble, the centre-left was holding out but there was cause for concern. In the centre-right, the Russians were being thinned down but still holding out. The real question was whether Kutusov's fresh infantry and the grand battery could deliver the hammer blow before the Russians gave out in the centre and far left. I'm not sure they could because there were still a lot of French troops there.

I had a lot of fun with this and we learned a few things about how to run the scenario in Hot Lead, so that is a bonus.