The Mission, by Larry Hunter

 Devin Hester, a great player,  is off the Bears for 2014, Sad to see him go
Well, it has been another season, and now the Bears besides letting Urlacher go at middle linebacker last year, now they have also let Devin Hester slip away. He's the guy who on special teams was tied for the most kickoff return touchdowns, ever. Those are spectacular because it is right when the other team is just starting play off by doing the kickoff to put the ball in play, and they are not expecting the first guy who touches it to come charging right back and get a touchdown. But Devin did. Just to tick off the Green Bay fans, I some time ago had my lady friend who was living in Wisconsin start wearing a Devin Hester Chicago Bears jersey, right in front of all the Packers fans. So I hope they think they know what they are doing, the Bears I mean. This happens when they don't want to pay a player a certain rate for the next year, maybe thinking he's too old now or something, even though he's half my age.

Overtime
I have actually been working steady overtime in the 50s and 60s hours a week range ever since the last post about Urlacher, that is almost a year straight, and have not had even one day off since the sogenannte polar vortex rendered my car unable to start due to extreme cold, that was back January 7. I had no choice but to not work that day, but try to get the car to start. It was something like 45 below zero wind chill factor, with an actual reading 14 below as if it were out of the wind, which it wasn't. No dice till it got to 12 below. I have no idea what that would be in Celsius, but it is colder than a ^%$# 's (*&.

Accident, Their Fault
A week earlier on New Years' morning I was going from an overnight job New Years Eve directly to  the morning job in another town 16 miles away, yes that is a holiday double shift, that is my life, when some Bulgarian partiers from a New Years Eve party crashed into me, having run through a red light, while we were experiencing a blizzard which later turned out to have dropped 10-12 inches of snow on us. I managed to win the case, since they were at fault, and got thousands in repairs quite reasonably. I did not think I was particularly hurt, but with some things you can't really be sure right away, but have to wait and see. Also we now know for sure, a Smart car can defeat an SUV, and the wreck is survivable after all, at least with snow below to slide on.

Civil War
So since then, whatever I said I was doing before, I forgot about (it was Kolin) and have been reading heavily this year about the Civil War, which means that I should post on the other blog sometime soon. Trouble is I was still in the process there when I left off, of working on 1861, and what I have been reading about the most actually is for 1864. And last year the reading kick was on for 1862, even though by then it was 2013, so my 150th anniversary thing is all thrown out of gear, even though it is still now shortly before the anniversary of the final long showdown between Grant and Lee, which kicks off in May 2014.

Amazon Came Back On
After moaning and groaning for three years about how the governor had got us all kicked off Amazon, stymying my efforts to make very reasonable sales of books and so on that I talk about available here, as well as playing he-- with my raison d'etre. shortly before Christmas the Supreme Court ruled the governor's deal void, and we all were able to get back in after all, not that anyone was ready any more. A number of us gave up and died since then, or various other things happened. And then they finally decide it's been void all along. Very good, now ya tell us.

 So I was waiting for them to reply, when the accident happened, and it turns out they let me back in three months ago, but then said if I didn't sell anything for three months, I'd get kicked out again, anyway, for that now. And by the time they mentioned that, it was almost too late. By the time I read their email, maybe it already is too late.

And in any event I can't remember if I had put Amazon.com anywhere, or was still thinking about it, in which case the amazon through skimlinks.com should still be working. I think it still is, so no wonder I hadn't sold anything, since I not only didn't tell anyone, but also hadn't even read it myself. I think I actually am still thinking about it, and had not taken any real action before forgetting about it again.

And I just read that after it may be too late, so I'll see if I can get something myself off here, and also off the other one. It always turns out to be an excellent deal and quick too, and with me I always see several other things I also could use.

The Mission, by Larry Hunter.

Now this past week I have been reading a novel titled The Mission, by Larry Hunter, who I have met personally, and I have had some discussions with him. He is a new reader over on the Civil War blog, Headquarters in the Saddle.blogspot.com

He wrote a novel a few years ago which is the one I have been reading. I read one page from the middle a couple weeks ago, then set it aside, but I could tell it sounded good, in fact real good, from that particular page I had opened it to, since it had the bagman run off with the money from  the hotel room above Lee Harvey Oswald, shortly before the Kennedy assassination occurred.

But I have been really busy. These 65 hour weeks and 52 or 56 hour ones are partly daytime, partly nighttime, and an afternoon evening, so that for several days straight I have only eight hours to get from job A to job B, with little rest in between. That's bad enough to do that once, but I am doing it fully half the time, 3-4 times a week.

I see Larry on Sunday afternoon. We were discussing things like whether McClellan was really as bad as they say, etc, which is really more geared towards the other blog.

So finally I got started with pages one and two, and could tell he had succeeded in hooking me into the story from there. That was a good sign, but after all I had to be up to go to work like seven hours later, so I went to sleep anyway. I just finally got a chance to read yesterday, and I did not put the book down for a good six or seven hours, and again then only to sleep for work and also to save a little for later.  So in that marathon session, I read from page 3 to 165.

Yes, it is good. I'm not saying he is right about everything, necessarily, but it is certainly plausible enough, and some of it happens right on my very route home from work! And like with a movie, it is the story that pulls you in with a novel, it isn't set up as a documentary.

The whole book only runs 219 pages, so I still have about 55-60 more pages to read  to finish it. I have passed up the bagman part, and also now I understand what Larry's wife meant when she had asked him "Why did you do that?" about one certain part, but read on to where okay I understand. So check out his novel, The Mission, by Larry Hunter, and I think you'll enjoy it. There's plenty of action.

The shootout in Chapter II occurs about a mile from my house, in front of a church where I pass through the supposed line of fire five times a week! I have never had a shootemup action novel hit that quite close to home before, and also the author is a reader here now, so you can talk to him here. He's working on another one, this one came out in 2010 and is available through Amazon.


So anyway, I'll be finishing this book up soon, and see if any of my links will work for it or what. I'll also have to see about mentioning it on headquarters in the saddle, because I couldn't get Larry to remember Tabakskollegiummekelnborg, he just kept on asking what? What? I can't remember that, how do you speel that--what's the other one called then?

I probably would too.

*                 *                *

Chicago Bears Middle Linebacker Brian Urlacher Retires Today

Brian Urlacher has announced his retirement today in Chicago after 13 brilliant seasons with the Chicago Bears as the middle linebacker. His birthday is coming up this Saturday the 25th.

This is a great player, worthy of the many tributes going on today around here.

Photo: Off English wikipedia, q.v. (which see) Brian_Urlacher.jpg: Jauerback

Jeff Joniak is interviewing everybody he can find



I have been listening to sound bites gathered by Jeff Joniak on WBBM radio who is running around trying to talk to everybody.  At first Jeff was saying he had 11 forced fumbles, but has latterly corrected that to 12.

Charles Tillman just said he was a "great player, and a great friend,...a great leader, an awesome leader, and great guy." That's a lot of greats.

 Roosevelt Colvin just said he "always went to bat, never threw anybody under the bus, class act."

Other people are saying stuff too.

Here is an excerpt from the already updated wikipedia page including a quote from Devin Hester, where Devin was talking about the 2006 game with the Arizona Cardinals with an Incredible Hulk performance, by Urlacher, after that was the Super Bowl. 

 I had to work the day of the Super Bowl, even though it was my day off, but some lady from New York needed to be escorted and I had to get called in to do that just when the Super Bowl was about to start. She didn't even know it was the day of the Super Bowl. With the Bears in it!!!!!  It was so cold that day my moustaches froze solid, and the jets going into O'Hare sounded different in the sub-zero air, it has to be really cold to sound different like that. My truck barely started too. My day off. I blame my Civil War Correspondent for calling me in, I never should have answered the phone. Ah who cares, the TVs are better at work anyway. Je ne regrette rien.

Go to the link for more with highlights, stats and pics.

"The team continued their resurgence into the 2006 season, finishing with a record of 13–3. During the season, Urlacher had one of the best performances of his professional career against the Arizona Cardinals.[32] He helped the Bears overcome a 20-point deficit by recording 25 tackles and a forced fumble that was returned for a touchdown.[32] Teammate Devin Hester commented on Urlacher's performance, stating, "We watched the film and everybody was saying that he just turned into the Incredible Hulk the last four minutes of the game, just killing people and running over and tackling whoever had the ball."[33] The Bears won the NFC Championship against the New Orleans Saints, 39–14, but lost Super Bowl XLI to the Indianapolis Colts, 29–17. Urlacher finished the season with 93 tackles and three forced fumbles. He was elected to the 2006 All-Pro Team and 2007 Pro Bowl, while also earning consideration for the League's Defensive Player of the Year award.[34]"

Here's the link to read more.    So hit it.


And Brian himself said, among other things, "I don't regret anything I've ever said or done, I know that much."

Well I haven't forgotten about that one Friday night date with Paris Hilton, wasn't that Las Vegas, about probably eleven or twelve years ago, and then on Sunday at high noon the Bears lost that day. I haven't forgotten, but I forgave it, even that day, I understand. I wouldn't really regret either. Probably just scurrilous rumors anyway.

If you want to hoot with the owls, you better be able to soar with the eagles in the morning.


So an Era has ended...
 It's a New Era Now and Time for Reflection and Renewed Resolution of Our Goals

That's great, he can say that along with Edith Piaf, l'incomparable.

Here are her lyrics with English alongside, I think they are worth reading. The Spanish translation transduccion en espanol is in the Uploader Comments.

I am reflecting on these past thirteen seasons, one of the main highlights has been seeing him up there in the middle of that Defense. In my world, it has mainly been thirteen years and in fact more than that  basically down the toilet slaving with Gee Four Ess, which was wacky. My only goal was to survive, and so far I'll give it that, although several times that looked dicey. And to see my gf naked. So I win.

But my achievements pale in comparison to Urlacher's. Even Oprah Winfrey has his jersey along with thousands of other people around here. My gf to be different has a Devin Hester one, in an orange, authentic of course. You could get NFL jerseys from nfl.com or maybe someplace else. I think the Brent Farvra ones are still in the bargain bin, after everybody had to repurchase the Rogers ones a couple years ago.

*                  *                 *                   *                   *                    *                *                 *



 

Austerlitz 1805 207th Anniversary Project

 207th Anniversary of the Battle of Austerlitz 1805

Today is the 207th Anniversary of the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, December 2. This was considered one of Napoleon's best in any list of his bloody masterpieces.

I have been working towards a new project because of the anniversary to use the small shipment of some 1500 new 3mm Napoleonic figures I ordered about a month ago, to make a very small miniature setup based on Austerlitz, as near as can be ascertained with the books I have on hand.

I don't intend to use more than about ten percent of those figures on this project, which is meant to be extremely compact, if not minimalist.

This post is only to update readers; I don't have really dramatic progress such as pics this time, for viewing, but have done the preparation research so I could start now, if I weren't writing this. To me that part is the more important part and always has been. The rest of the hobby is a good way to use the information. Other gamers I know are content to let someone else figure it all out, but I prefer to do that myself.

About Those 3mm Figures

They are very quick to paint up. The artillery I showed last time only had a few swipes of the brush and were pretty much ready to use, in maybe three minutes' work plus modest drying time, and the same applies to the other types. After just a few colors are applied they are about as good as they are going to get, except for any obvious slop-overs.

They are kind of tricky because they are so very small, on the one hand a very quick few strokes makes them more or less ready to go, but when you look closely especially with magnification you actually can see more details, that you are then tempted to try to paint. But the trouble is your finest brush will then look like a baseball bat under the magnification and it will appear to move ten feet when you try to even make the slightest move.

And then after all sorts of delays for corrections of seemingly massive slop-over, where even 1 millimeter equals two feet on the man, it turns out that when you set them on the table 1 foot from your eyes they are so small that you can hardly tell which are blue and which are gray. You also cannot see the slopovers that seemed so bad a minute ago.

Over at the 3mm group some have started to be posted as enthusiasts have been getting their pieces painted over the past couple of weeks, and I don't think their standard is much better than mine. People so far have been skipping details such as cuffs. If there is any way to get them on, they would look better with them, so I will soon see about that. On a 6mm figure that is what makes the uniform come to life in periods when they were used, but this is rather smaller than that, and is a very tiny area. I am curious to see whether tey will be visible even if done.



Painting has not been the holdup. Rules have been. And specifically which scale of representation to commit to before painting. I was talking about using 1 figure = 312.5 men a month ago. Now I have gone even further towards the far out there scale by going to 1 figure = 500 men.

At this scale a battalion of 500 men would be just one figure, and a whole army could easily deploy on an area the size of a mousepad. The ground scale is 1:50,000, which directly corresponds with military and other topographical maps, notably those used by NATO and others.

I have talked about this sort of arrangement before. I don't think anyone actually does it but me, as far as I can tell. If anyone else does try to play at a scale like this I would love to hear about it.

Talking About Austerlitz Books in This Section

There are two sets of rules that lend themselves to the army level of play that I have referred to here before.
One is Napoleonic Wargaming for Fun, by Paddy Griffith.


The next one is Charlie Wesencraft's Practical Wargaming.

Griffith has Army level rules in that book among other sets of rules, and Wesencraft has what he calls the Army Corps in Action rules. These last ones predate and resemble the systems of DBA closely.

Both of these books have been recently republished by John Curry, who is at johncurryevents.co.uk

The problem I am having with these is that they are element-based, where the elements are all of some uniform size, so as to compare with one another one-on-one, whereas I am making units of the correct size, within the nearest 500 at least.So I can't just say a brigade is 2000 men; some may be but many are not. Uniform elements are not good enough for me, they'd seem a ghastly abstraction.

So I am probably going to see what I can use from these rules, once the figures are painted up, but at the same time I am about halfway through just making my own rules anyway, since the scale is radically different from what we normally see. At 1:50,000 scale, 20mm is 1000 meters. The huge expanse of Leipzig would be only about 20 inches of battlefield, and other battles would be smaller still.

But Austerlitz takes up a wide expanse, if one includes Brno (Bruenn) the nearby fortress town, and the map I am looking at takes in 24 km by 18 km, which is a pretty large area. That translates to about 14 by 19 inches, a foot to a foot and a half, and could easily be played on a coffee table sized area.

Also the armies are quite small at this scale, only around 150 figures or so on each side. They could all be assembled on the same mouse pad. So I think they will be ready soon, sometime this season. I have been figuring out how many to use,

Then another influence is the famous game with the greats of British and American wargaming who did Borodino at 1 figure = 500 men. That can be read about on the Vintage Wargaming blog (see Blogroll.)

So far I have been reading in Robert Goetz, 1805 Austerlitz: Napoleon and the Destruction of the Third Coalition, Greenhill Books, 2005. This book came out after the earlier Scott Bowden book on Austerlitz, that there was some controversy over because some critics were accusing Bowden of making citations he had not really researched properly. The consensus IIRC among the critics, if there was any consensus that is, was that he did read the French sources, and analyzed well from them, but probably not the Austrian and Russian ones, even though he cited them, so that was the basis of the criticism.

You could find these type arguments at TMP and at Amazon reviews, and maybe some of the other specifically Napoleonic sites, if you wanted to follow up on that.

And the Goetz book came out later, with another adjustment to the OB, which Bowden himself had been correcting in his book, from the received wisdom one quoted in Christopher Duffy's Austerlitz 1805 book much earlier, that one came out in 1977. Goetz comes up with about 82,000.

The idea is that Napoleon's Bulletin lied like a bulletin, and exaggerated the Allied army to 90,000, and did this to make the victory look even more amazing and great than it was, for propaganda value. So the modern revisionist might doubt that they were all present, and say there were many less than we thought, due to attrition, etc, and surely so many less that it is easier to see why they would lose.  But Goetz seems not quite so ready as some others to take away all the strength of the Allies, and gives some back, in a process of applying what is known and projected and guessed at.

I find this kind of adjustment to the OB fascinating to follow through different authors and books.

There is also an Osprey title, Campaign 101, by Ian Castle, Austerlitz 1805: The Fate of Empires, 2002, which I have been using. That one has some parts written by David Chandler. Now this is a replacement at Osprey for an earlier number actually written  by David Chandler, which I would like to get, even if some parts of the analysis may seem to be dated.

Another book I have here is a thicker one, not just on the battle but the whole war situation of 1805, in 700 pages, talking about the overall situation for 500 pages before arriving at the battle of Austerlitz. This one is by Frederick W. Kagan, The End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe 1801-1805. So it takes in a wider picture and isn't only about the battle and military aspects. It puts a perspective on the situation though. There are readers' impressions of these books at TMP as well as at places like Amazon reviews.

Kagan has several unflattering footnotes aimed at Bowden and some at Duffy.

Trying Out Skimlinks on the Blog
Besides the fact that I have been using these books to come up with a painting plan, I am trying to do something completely different at the same time by citing their titles. With the Christmas season well underway I am trying to launch skimlinks on the blog as a belated replacement for amazon links, which I used to have here.

The governor of this state made a highly misguided tax deal (extreme increase) that caused all 9,000 amazon associates in Illinois to be kicked out, and become unemployed, over a year ago, reducing our income to zero. We have been near destitute since then, eating beans and rice sometimes to eke out an existence. Even my figures are now the size of rice grains themselves.

Skimlinks is a British-based, London, UK,  middleman company who themselves would serve as a non-Illinois amazon associate, that would allow me to resume the sales through them back to amazon, at least until I can get to a better state. They have a lot more than just amazon however, about 12,000 retailers, so it could be that if I mention things they may pop into links whether I planned it or not. So this post is also an experiment to see whether I can get the links working, and if not I will try making adjustments later, so the scene may change a bit, and that explains why. For example it may change much earlier links from a couple years ago. I don't know yet what it'll look like; if it gets too carried away I can reduce it.

When someone follows a link for a certain book, they are not committed to buying that or any book or other item, but can get whatever they then decide they do want after all. For instance once when I was talking about Wesencraft's book, the best customer was buying Civil War books unrelated to what I was talking about, but it was good anyway. I have also followed those links and found forty dollar books for two dollars, or even less, sometimes. It turns out to be a better deal than I could have imagined.

I might also consider adding google affiliate ads as well, the ones currently displayed off on the corners are called adsense, this would expand on that program.

************************************************
Join skimlinks here:   skimlinks.com 
************************************************

3mm Napoleonics Arrived In 2 Days

Quick and Accurate Service From PicoArmor

I sat around thinking about the Napoleonics for a week, and how I might use them, and then placed an order over the Internet on Saturday the 27th, so for them to arrive by noon today the 30th already was quicker than I had expected. In fact I was still thinking about how I was going to use them.

It was already afternoon when I ordered on Saturday, about 72 hours ago, and I have not even checked my email yet to see if they had confirmed receiving the order. By ordering over 25 dollars' worth, domestic US, I qualified for the free shipping, which cost them $3.65, but because I am in the worst state of the Union,  and so are they, being within the distance I would drive to work at the Salt Mines, I was subject to the tax which was about 25 percent more than what I saved there. No doubt the governor's cronies already spent my money last year anyway, plus everybody else's.

Look at These Babies

I ordered fifteen packs. Altogether with the governor getting his vigorish it just goes over $64 US for that many.

There are over 1500 between the troops and the sixty pieces of artillery. There are closer-up pictures on the links already  provided, and I'll put up some more; I meant to do one particularly for the UK and Euro people last time but I'll just put it here.


The whole line so far has only ten packs, so I got one of each and a few extras in certain types strategically selected. That way I can see the entire range right here, and still expand in certain ones before ordering again.

Now when you check what the Fighting 15s guy said, here, you'll see he is a bit concerned he might run low on the bearskins Grenadiers first, but mine came from PicoArmor just that quick. Where it says 'here' leads to him talking about it on TMP, and where it says Fighting 15s it goes directly to their site, where the figures are pictured for all ten packs closer up, and priced at 3 GBP each. You can do the math, the rates change a little daily. I can't tell who's in worse shape between US and UK from such a rate, considering in the US they are $4, maybe free shipping. Time is a factor, though, too.

I don't know how Australia is doing for these, but they are probably coming right along, it isn't really that far anyway depending on your means of transportation.  On the Fighting 15 page they have a blue flag with a circle of stars. I think that means the Euro flag, but in any event  both of the sites linked take PayPal, etc, and can handle the conversions of currencies in a click.

From what I have seen so far, it looks like the bearskins could pass easily enough for an 18th Century Grenadier mitre with a different swipe of the brush. The infantry with helmets might be a better choice to do 18C fusiliers, until better ones come along. The guns could also be used earlier well enough. And the shakos themselves could possibly resemble the headgear of the Croats or Grenz troops from a generation earlier.

So we'll see whether the Napoleonic bicornes come in first before the tricornes we are waiting for. For the time being I will be using those Irregular 2mm wagons and tents I think as a substitute since no one has done them in 3mm yet. After all they are just game tokens, aren't they?

And Another Comparable Range From Inkbiz, Getting Closer to Fruition?

Inkbiz has been talking about his 4mm he sculpted, and teasing us with pictures, for a few years now. He picked this week to do it again, and there's an interesting discussion about that here, along with pics including painted.. He says he has a number of sculpts and is about to make some molds. So how compatible these would be next to the others is a very interesting question. No one has seen how much larger of smaller they will be side by side yet.

To me the frontage question is as important as the height and girth question, but there may be ways to work around whatever the result turns out to be. If he puts them closer together because some want to do 1:1 ratios, and he can by half a millimeter, then to my way of doing things there would be too many figures on a given frontage, unless something is done about it.

But let's say he does 1.5mm and the other are 2mm apart. Then the workaround is to use the narrower frontage ones for columns and that sort of thing. Also in some armies a 2- or 4-rank line is used instead of 3-ranks, and one way to express that on the table is with a different frontage for x number of troops. So whatever he does, there may be workarounds, unless they are absurdly out of scale. That remains to be seen when someone does see them.

For the moment, I am thinking about a one-meter square Leipzig 1813, where each tiny figure would be 312 men and a vivandiere, counted mathematically as a half man to even out the math. This would mean eight figures at this scale would stand for 2500 men, and small units would be divisions, half or a third of the small unit a brigade, and Corps have a few of the divisions.

This is about as far from the 1:1 idea as anything, but it does put Leipzig on a dining room table even though it is sixteen miles by thirteen and a half.

I already tried this scale for Gettysburg with the ACW, and it seemed it would work, but because the field there is only maybe six miles or less across I could see I could do that on a somewhat more intimate scale too, then was distracted by other battles, work, etc. Also I have so many more figures than that scale calls for, I thought then I would try having larger units and a larger field.

But a one meter Leipzig is now right here in my hands, and the only trouble is, these 1500 figures still won't be enough for such a massive battle. They would already come close to what I have in mind, but I will probably need more shako men. 1500 x 312.5 comes to 468,750 men, but because I wanted the whole variety that would mean some 46,000 Austrians would have helmets in 1813 unless I order more figures. So I think I will.

Also the cavalry are still limited to heavy cavalry in the French-style helmets for right now, so I look forward to fresh releases. I could make do with ACW cavalry for other types for the time being, while we are waiting.

 http://test.skimlinks.com

*                                   *                                        *                            *

New Oddzial Ozmy Napoleonic 3mm Now Available, 18th Century May Be Next

Exciting News
The big news came out at the end of last week:  the new range of 3mm Napoleonic figures have finally been made available and orders are being placed. It is okay to order now. We have been hearing since last spring that these figures would be released in September, so some fans were getting impatient, but the word is that 9 out of 10 types were ready then, and two more weeks were needed for processing the production, and now they are all ready to order. Ten out of ten are now shipping, a few weeks later. More will be released some time.

The types now out include infantry with shakos, the same but with plumes also, skirmishers, infantry with helmets close enough in this scale for either the Austrian or Bavarian or Wuerttemberg ones, heavy cavalry with French helmets such as the dragoons, cuirassiers, carabiniers, there are foot grenadiers with bearskins suitable for la creme de la creme, and so far 6-pounder medium guns and gunners with shakos.

So it's not a complete line, yet, but it's complete enough to get started for sure, and there will be more later. Shakos don't need to be Belgic and stovetop and bells so much in this scale 3mm, so the same sets could be French, Austrian, Russian, or others. Once they are in your hands you can make decisions what will be good enough, and what might work better. Oblong hats would suffice, and when you see them you'll see they actually do have brims, and other tiny details, smaller than your finest brush. Also details you see and try to paint turn out to be too small to actually see on table without using a jeweler's loupe.

It may not be clear to the viewer just how hard it is to get the paintbrush to pick out the details which are present. When you see them in a photo, they are enlarged considerably from the actual size. Depending on your computer, the whole figure may not be bigger than the number 8 right here on your screen.

These here in this pic are most of a pack of ACW Artillery. This isn't the new Napoleonic but I just thought the readers seem to like pictures, so here's one we took several months ago, showing four colors of paint so far I think. The 15 "pieces" for $4.00 USD consist of two cannon each piece, cast nose to nose, which you can snap apart with your fingers, so fifteen pieces means 30 cannon, for four dollars. Crews, limbers, etc sold separately, which is 75 crew for four more dollars, or 15 limbers with 30 horses, etc. Of the two guns, if you look carefully one is banded like a Parrott Rifle, and the other is more like a smoothbore Napoleon 12 pounder.


"They Look Like Ants!"
When I showed them to people, they said, "they look like ants!"

There is a 3mm Yahoo Group also called 1/600, where the latest news and talk is actually going on, and then next we will hear about it in places like the forum TMP, etc. It won't be long before some people will hurry to get their pics posted to show off their paint and base jobs. It's just out since Thursday so give it a week or so, and someone will have them up somewhere.

I have not ordered any yet, but I will soon. 

This year I have been collecting something above 8,000 of the ACW figures. I have pictures somewhere, taken last March, of the Civil War and also who knows how many World War Two, British, German and Russian but I can't be arsed to dig them out right now from the files, just because I happen to be talking about this. We were using one of the Nemesis' cameras since I don't have one.

Note, I changed my mind since writing that line, and pulled up the artillery picture from that set of pictures after all, just to have a picture of something very similar. I can show more later.

It is occurring to me too that I have a set of Vietnam era stuff as well, in 3mm, now that I think about it. So that's what I have been working on all this time. They also have modern, meaning right up to date, and a set aimed at Yom Kippur War, which was October 1973 in the Middle East. The difference of course is the models of tanks and vehicles are different over the years.

Sometime later in the spring of 2012 there was a set of TMP threads here about people's ACW 3mm in which Marcin, the designer of the figures, stepped in and showed a picture of the Napoleonics, and predicted September as the release time.I think that's the right thread, there were a couple of them. Yes, there it is, for Marcin's post with the first picture, which are ten shako infantry on a 2cm front (2mm frontage each file) scroll down the TMP thread to May 1, it starts with April 28. There are some very interesting ACW ideas and pics there too.

That was the first glimpse anyone outside the Yahoo Group had of the Napoleonics, and it sparked some enthusiasm. There are over 500 members in this Yahoo Group. The excitement there is palpable right now, since they are the very ones who have been waiting. The ACW line has been out for a while now, along with 20/21 century stuff.

Even More Exciting News --  Nearly Exclusive to Here So Far:  18th Century Next!
There was also some discussion back then when we had Marcin paying attention of some desire for 18th Century troops types, as well as wagons which are lacking so far. At that time he showed the Naps.

The latest news this weekend, even later than the Napoleonic release is that Marcin has now said YES there may be Seven Years War types, maybe next after the Napoleonics. He did not confirm nor deny a time frame of 18 months, although to be fair that was just the poster's words and not his to be accurate. He just said next, and a couple maybes, and nothing about the time frame except 'next.'  That's good, because I could not wait and already did it myself, I started to look at the ACW as substitute 18th Century,  but to have dedicated figures would be better.

We should get on the group and fora and press for tricornes, mitres and all that. The fact that we already did has had an effect, he did listen, this will push him over the edge.

PICTURES ARE HERE, and you can also order there too click on title link

This link in the title above is John's site at PicoArmor.
Okay, so there is a link to one place the figures can be ordered now, and at this same link you can see photos of all ten currently released Napoleonic packs. They are priced at $4.00 at this site and come with 150 infantry, or 45 cavalry, or 30 pieces of artillery. This shop is here near Chicago, Illinois, USA. The boss there, John, said go ahead and place orders although his site still says coming soon; they are on the way and pretty fast, this is only Sunday of the first weekend right now. Free shipping deal may apply depending where you are, see his site for his details.

I will add a link for another shop that Marcin mentioned also where they are available too. I checked it out, this is Assault Publishing and that is Marcin Gerkowitz' own site, which has online store, so this would be right from the horse's mouth, no wonder he recommended it. The site is in English, but he I think is in Poland, check his ordering details to see about his shipping and all that.

"which has online store," now he has me writing with Polish accent, from reading so much of it! At least I didn't put a u in color this time.

Then a third place I saw mentioned was Fighting 15's, that is someone on the Yahoo Group 3mm miniatures said they are ordering from there. Not sure where they are but some of you might know.

Just pick whichever one sounds most convenient for wherever you are. For myself I will probably go to a store down the street mostly, although they keep running out of figures right after I go there,  but would go to the PicoArmor site if I have to order online, since they are right in my own vicinity.

The ACW have 120 infantry, 45 cavalry, 30 guns. Some specialized types are different as far as numbers, because he is counting it as 15 pieces either way, and the difference is how many figures are on a 'piece.' So 8 ACW infantry, ten Napoleonic infantry, three cavalry, 2 guns, all of these times 15 pieces give the varying totals.

A good way to experiment and see different types in different periods is to order the Sample Packs, as they pack in maybe three pieces  of several different sets all in one, usually for around 8 dollars, instead of buying full packs of ten different items. This way you can get a few of many items all at once. The Battle of Britain Sample set for instance has Hurricanes, Spitfires, Dorniers, Heinkels and Junkers as well as Messerschmitts, just like three each or so instead of fifteen of one type.

The Yahoo Group I have been talking about is called 3mm miniatures, and there is also another one called 1/600 which specializes more in aircraft, whether World War I, World War II, or more modern types.

Tumbling Dice also carries a very nice range of compatible pieces for those.
*                 *                     *                    *                    *

A Great Time To Visit Catalonia

 But Not For Me, Just More Overtime Work

One of my Kollegas went there for these past couple of weeks, visiting Barcelona in particular. Not sure what else he did yet.  He is a Mexican-American by family heritage and switches from English to Spanish and back pretty easily. He thought he was going to Spain. He never even heard of Catalan, unlike the people around these blogs, who know something about the history of the places.

Just like they say, youth is wasted on the young, so too are good vacations wasted on ignoramuses sometimes, er wait is that ignorami, uhh.  He had never even heard of Catalonia, nor their language, until I gave him a quick rundown on what was going on around there this past couple of weeks. While he was there.

It was a quick rundown, too, since there is only so much he was going to remember to look for, but it helps to have at least a little basic stuff in your head before it's too late to even notice it, and you're already back to the Salt Mines again.Which he now is, and it's all used up for the year. They don't let us out very much.

So I suggested he try listening to this song first, before he goes there, to help with the right attitude.
He was going to be cut off from the Internet the whole time, cold turkey, and he is a big Apple fan normally.

Here is a basic version of what I think the lyrics are about, and the attitude is something like a cross between Jimmy Buffett and a Cave Man at the same time. I thought that would help him enjoy his trip to have that in mind before he got there.

A Ti A Ti,   Gypsy Kings

In passing along the Rampla
At the Rampla in Barcelona-o
I found a nice little chick
And I carried her to my house

I love you, to you to you, bam bam bam
Only to you to you, bam bam bam 
 **************************

*Some of those words might not be quite right, for instance the book says it is usually spelled Las Ramblas, a good place to walk (Ramble) around and see people, a little bit like Michigan Avenue can be, but better. Better, because look who is there.  I used a little license on the vem vem vem, or ven ven ven, but so did the artist, I think. They don't have vem in Mexico, but ven could fit. I like the bam for effect.
 
That lucky pendejo probably didn't find any chiquita nada, since he's probably a maricon, anyway, but I am probably just jealous since I would have tried to find battlefield stuff, if only I could go there, but no vacation for me since 2004 and not any sick days either since even before that by a couple years. And then I wasn't sick, either, in April 2002, I just woke up late with a headache, and called in with a 'sick voice.' That was over 10 years ago. All I got out of this trip was to work the overtime to fill in his place.

In fact now that I look at this, I think it went to my imagination almost as much as his, and cost me less. I would still like to go some day. Maybe Almanza too.
*******************************************

Incoming--a Good WW2 Shooter Game

Incoming Review

This is a fun little game for WW2 shooting, that you can play right out of your browser right now.

Incoming just came out this month over on addicting games dot com. On Thursday it had 250 plays and now has hit 62,000 just over this weekend, so I am not alone in getting hooked on this thing.

The Nemesis has been trying for years to get me to finish plugging in his old X-Box and playing some of the games but I have been fighting the temptation to become addicted to these types of games - only to succumb to this one.

And you don't need any special machines or downloads, this you can play right now in your browser by clicking on that link up above. Just be sure you don't have any appointments for the next half hour or so when you do, because you won't want to stop shooting.

You are dug in to a bunker and waves and waves of German infantry come at you. They look like 10mm figures, in motion and with sound effects. You have a .45 caliber pistol to start out with seven rounds. When you hit them you will hear a thud, see blood, and they will grunt, before they fall. If they are scared they will go prone and are somewhat harder to hit. In bunches you can throw grenades, in range, or drop mortar rounds on them if you have it.

Once you have shot down enough Germans, you get dollars to buy an M1903 Springfield rifle, and can switch weapons when those five rounds or the seven Colt ACP rounds are used up. Then you save for an M1 Garand, a BAR, Boys Anti-Tank Rifle, Mortar, Bazooka and the fifty-caliber machine gun. You can use up to four weapons at a time and the lesser ones drop away as you upgrade.

Next rounds you will try to get enough dollars to buy a Tommy gun, then some grenades. These make it a lot easier to kill Germans, in the ever-larger waves that are coming at you.

Among them there are riflemen, Machine Pistol men, and worst of all for you are those with the Panzerschreck, because when they launch their rockets at your fort they cause damage until either you lose the round or else you kill them all.

Each of these are worth the dollar points you need to keep getting better weapons, and my advice is to buy each weapon as soon as you can, because you will need them desperately as you level up. The Germans get stronger and stronger, no longer just squads but whole companies.

These companies are reinforced by a few different kinds of armoured cars, halftracks,  and eventually tanks. There will be Pantera tanks, which must mean Panthers, and then there will be Tiger tanks. Each higher level of vehicle is harder and harder for you to kill, even when you get better weapons.

It is designed so that you have all you can handle, and since your weapons are constantly running out of ammo, the trick is to train your left hand fingers to efficiently switch weapons as each one is reloaded, while using the right hand to aim and squeeze the trigger.

Your eye is selecting targets while the corner of your eye tries to see when the Mortar is reloaded, or the Bazooka, or the Boys Anti-Tank Rifle, or the BAR, or ultimately the Ma Deuce, fifty-caliber machine gun.

That baby is fun to fire but when a 200-round belt needs to be changed, you need to switch back to the Mortar or the Bazooka, because it takes longer to reload than the BAR did, although it blasts even harder when it does.

At the higher levels you will have to shoot everything you can at those Tiger tanks because you have to hit them three or four times with the big stuff to bring them down, and tank guns shooting at you may be more damaging than even the pesky Panzerschreck rockets--I'm not sure because I was under too much pressure to study that at the time.

The rounds are set up as an 18-day campaign which you can finish in an hour or so, as you get better at efficiently blasting the highest priority targets at the fastest speed you can, before they overrun you and destroy you. If they do, you just continue at that level until you level up.

Day 18, the Whole Panzer Division

On Day 18 the highest level, if you are able to destroy all the last Tiger tanks and all the hundreds of infantry, then when you see four Tigers at once followed by four more and four more, the reward comes that you see the shadows of four-engine heavy bombers coming to obliterate everything on the field. That is the sign of Victory.

Try it, it's fun. Buy the best weapons you can, and learn to switch from one to the next with hotkeys 1,2,3,4.

They have 3000 other games there too but this is the one.

Okay Back Open Again

 Everybody can read here again, they have backed off on the SOPA for now

Working Overtime
I had to work a twelver at the Salt Mines because of the Civil War Correspondent mentioned last summer having leg and foot problems that went from bad to worse. Now it's crutches and then his gf stepped on a nail or something and had to get it removed. Meanwhile I worked my job and covered half of his.

This doesn't leave much time.

He was mumbling that I didn't get his Virginia pics up yet. The trouble was partly not understanding pictures, since I have not acquired a proper camera yet, and partly being overwhelmed at trying to explain actions of 1861 at the same time.

At the time when that happened I was having a hard time running the computer in the 96 degree heat since it kept overheating, and photos make that problem worse.We have snow now and so it is just inertia now holding it back, but the fact it's Robert E. Lee's Birthday has raised my awareness.

Site Closures, PIPA, SOPA, NDAA
The site closures worked; over 7,000 good websites are said to have joined in, and something like 30 Senators changed their minds Wednesday alone.

Plenty more where that came from.

Also the President made some encouraging noises, so SOPA from the House and PIPA from the Senate have taken a big step back.They should, since they would give absurdly too much power to the wrong people in the wrong way, supposedly to protect copyright holders. I write my own articles and have spoken disparagingly of pirates a couple times, but don't want this.

Counting also that time when the president called Kanye West a "Jackass" after the music awards that one time we now have a clock that has been right twice, thus proving up the old adage about broken clocks.

Don't want to be too specific there since the NDAA signed while everyone partied on New Years' Eve is still out there. Dr Paul has introduced legislation today in the House to get rid of the threatening provision of that, although the 93-7 thing makes for an uphill fight on that one. Amazingly one of my Senators was in the 7. I am still looking for the other time he was right about something, and there may be something, I just haven't noticed it, that was Senator Durbin.

Among the other 40,000 new laws we got for New Years' there was one good one I noticed, that is that in Illinois now Hunters can now harvest road kill legally, although you'd still have to show your hunting license papers are up to date with the Sheriff of Nottingham.

In another hour I and the Nemesis should have our Ron Paul bumper stickers attached, I to the smart car and he to the pickup truck.They arrived today.

Yesterday the five pounds of Ethiopian Yergacheffe coffee arrived, so I can set aside that nasty generic stuff for a while.

Just got my 100th Win in Chess yesterday too, it was the Nemesis, who finally fell to my two Queen Checkmate after 93 grueling moves. I don't think I had beat him since April so it was very good. Our record now stands at me 16, and him 27 wins out of 43 games, so I am chipping away at his lead. Against all the rest of the world I'm in the 70.5 percentile, and with 122 losses, and three draws, the 100 wins makes for 22 under .500, but now only 11 are because of the Nemesis, and 11 the rest of the world combined.

93 moves is quite a few moves for chess, it is usually over in 20-40, but I dragged him down, and so the 100th Win was even more special for being a win over him. He is on my team against the rest of the world, the Capone Outfit out of Chicago, but our in-team sparring partner matches are some of the toughest we do, for practice.

Closed Today for SOPA Protest

We are closed today in solidarity with the SOPA protest along with other great sites from the erstwhile Internet.

If you don't know what that is, try wikipedia.com for the Cliff's Notes explanation. They are already closed, but do have an explanation posted in the English language section. Google.com has announced they will not close their entire search engine today, but will alter the search page in solidarity.

If you do know what that is, and you'd like to help, educational commentary is free and does not take very long.

On the other hand, if you know what it is and don't want to help, then continue merrily about your way.

*                        *                             *                                   *                            *

This site will reopen for Robert E. Lee's Birthday. The closure is expected to last but one day at this time.

Some Sample 2mm Irregular Horse and Musket Figures

 December 5 is Leuthen-Tag, ever since 1757

It is Leuthen-Tag again Monday the 5th of December.The old video from last year with the dramatization of the speech of Frederick to his generals, the Parchwitz Address, given in German, is no longer available.

  The battle on 5 Dec 1757 has been traditionally remembered by the Seven Years' War Association with a game. The Alte Fritz traditionally ran a wargame at the weekend for the occasion, and he is talking about one over on his blog now (see blogroll).

 Smaller Scale Figures Convention in the Slick Wargames Press

For my part,  the 2mm Blog (see also Blogroll) has a link to an article about smaller figures, in the slick UK media, not sure if that would count as Fleet Street or not, but it is our equivalent for hobby purposes. I am going to talk about that, although it has nothing to do with Leuthen. It's quite unusual, even newsworthy in itself.

This article is on the occasion of the Angel Barracks man's convention for the scales 10mm and less, so including 5/6mm, 3mm and 2mm and others even less frequently seen than those. There are some good pics of well-done setups in the short article, a few pages, from Wargames Illustrated. You'd have to click to the 2mm blog, then on his link, then that opens a 1.25 meg PDF with the article and the colour pics.

I especially liked the ancient city of Alexandria on the sea with both land and naval elements for a 2mm game with Julius Caesar and Cleopatra and the rest, a creative terrain setup. There are some terrain pieces made for the scale, but there is plenty of room for the creative work of inspired individuals too, and off the beaten path.

A Rant


I disliked the journalist spending his whole lede pretending that the magazine covers smaller scales evenly and that there is no need for enthusiasts to go and hold their own convention.

The reason is that it made me see that now we have crossed a line, which upon the realization of it, is deplorable. I didn't know the slick press for the hobby really counted as Fleet Street. I was used to photocopied and amateurish publications before these slick ones came along, with higher prices too.And I liked the simpler ones.

Previously I have understood that you can tell when a politician is lying, by seeing if his or her lips are moving. It is sad but true, I don't like cynicism but in a number of instances it is the only way to be accurate.

And I've learned that professionals are generally spinning things a certain way in every situation, favorably to their points of view, as well as salesmen, and the mainstream media--in fact about everyone you meet in everyday life including half the amateurs too, are at least spinning if not twisting the truth, with misdirection, misinformation, and misleading spins, for whatever reason, and after a long time of doing that, they themselves may lose sight of the reason for it and just do it out of bad habit. Because it becomes normal.

But now I am to believe that all those issues of WI have full, even coverage of 2mm? That must be the spin habit talking, not to call it hogwash. I think they have none whatsoever, and am annoyed that I have spent hundreds of dollars on their magazines for decades hoping just once they would.

But they didn't. It's 99 percent 28mm, with an emphasis on gorilla arms, banana bunch hands, and goggle-eyes, on heads like large pumpkins. And these distortions are justified for practical reasons understood by the insiders, but they look garish to outsiders, not at all like humans. Around 1986 one could at least see a tiny picture in the classified area, way back when the Knight Designs existed, of 2mm but there was no way to make out any detail from that.

The Bright Side

On the bright side it did give me something to put in the blog, plus stirred me just enough to do it. Here are a couple pics I took of some of Irregular Miniatures 2mm figures. These are from their Horse and Musket Range. They also have Ancient, which might be visible in the aforementioned PDF of the WI article.

Irregular also has a Renaissance range for the pike and shot period, and by all accounts those have the better sculpting, and then there are WW2 with vehicles smaller than the familiar GHQ or Scotia microscale. They also have some nice terrain pieces, railroad trains, guns, and wagons.

The board I am holding up as a base is about the size of a clipboard, and I have put in a Bic pen and some half inch (12.7 mm) cardboard boardgame counters on the side to help show the scale. The traditional coins used are actually unfamiliar across international borders, but that pen should be ubiquitous. I usually use that board under a netbook size computer, 10.1 inch, clipboard size.

These figs are not completed, they are just a couple 2mm photos I have here to show what they look like in the process. There are some horse,  foot and guns from the Horse and Musket range, on the one pic, and then the other shows a Logistics Pack, which includes various sizes of tents, and wagons. A few are pontoon wagons, a few covered and most uncovered. The sort of rules I favor think supplies, wagons and lines of communication matter a lot. So in this scale you can have 72 wagons pretty easily, and still not have that vast an array serve as the centerpiece, which it would have to do in any larger scale.

You can see how the infantry and to a lesser extent the cavalry are cast in blocks of various lengths. They are usually either two or three actual ranks deep, giving an appearance of mass. The smallest pieces would fit on those half inch boardgame counters, although a number of larger unit blocks are too long for that, and the limbers are too big with teams.

The artillery are 8mm square, those are three guns up front right. The taller ones further back near the pen cap are cavalry, those are apart so individuals or pairs or threes could be trimmed off easily to vary the unit sizes. The infantry blocks can be cut but would leave an ugly(er) side if you did, if you wanted different sized units.

Even with the jewelers' loupe I cannot tell the split trail from the single trail guns, and in the Horse and Musket period that is the only choice. It is OK because you could not distinguish types anyway. These same figures are Civil War, Napoleonic or Seven Years' War as needed. I mean you can repaint them during the game, if using the quickly drying acrylics. It's just a few dabs.

None of these shown here are the Renaissance, which do show more detail and several pieces are suitable for working into the Horse and Musket period.

I'll probably pick up a copy of the Wargames Illustrated at my newsagent's today, anyway, now they finally put what I wanted in it.

11-11-11

Armistice Day later called Veterans' Day

In the USA we started to commemorate this day as Armistice Day in 1918 when the guns fell silent to end the Great War, which we now call either the First World War or else World War One. The reason was that the guns were scheduled to stop all across the fronts at 11:11 that day, the 11th day of the eleventh month.

Now today we even have an eleventh year to add to the numerology of it.

Meanwhile the ten million dead of that war, which they rightly thought was bad, have been outnumbered by the dead of many more wars since then. That one was hyped over here as the War to End All Wars, but it hardly worked out that way after all.

Here in the USA, the name of the day eventually was changed to Veterans' Day, but the date will always hearken us back to the Armistice of World War I.

World War One Scenes Today, in Pics

So I have here a set of about twenty-two pictures, on another site, that show the landscapes in France and Belgium, Gallipoli on the European Turkish coast, and places like that from significant events of World War I and showing them as they look now.

You can still see the earth churned badly at places like Verdun. A whole village disappeared. A wall of a chapel where the British Guards fought in 1914. Take a look, it only takes a few minutes and it's well worth remembering these things. Just scroll down a couple inches from the ad on there.

We have so many war dead that we were compelled to have two days in the year for them, so at the end of May we also have Memorial Day, more specifically aimed to commemorate the dead, whereas this day also encompasses honoring the veterans still living, so I have seen several restaurants, a furniture store and the like, offering free meals or just deals for veterans alive but hungry.  In some cases it can be really crass commercialism, but not always entirely.

WARNING
Ordinary People Stop Reading Here, the Hard-Core Read a Little More

The November 9 Washington Post had an article about mistreatment of the bodies of the returning veterans from 2003 to 2008, but unfortunately I cannot link to the article itself because they are already returning an error message, that it has been hidden away in the past two days apparently. They have hauled parts to landfills, this is specifically at Dover AFB in Delaware, and came out as the result of aa federal investigation. Sorry the link I intended comes up short only two days after the story appeared.

Because of that, the best I can do is show you a blog talking about it, with quotes from the article, but the article itself at the Washington Post is not coming up. You can try it yourself and search for further information if interested. Disgusting though it is, it is better to know than to cover up and pretend it isn't there.

No, go ahead and try that, this link above did work for me, the story is by Whitlock and Jaffe. The one that says 'article itself at the Washington Post.

Then here's the blog, he was talking about the Marine Corps Birthday Nov 9 and reacting to the story referenced.

*                                 *                                      *

Christmas in September

The Package Arrived

Some months ago I sent some rare figures over to Peter from Peter's Cave (see Blogroll) and now he has sent a bunch of figures back my way. The package arrived today, and I have been sorting these figures out like a happy wargamer's jigsaw puzzle.

There are about a hundred of them, infantry, cavalry, Nassau Grenadiers, men with Baker Rifles and sword-bayonets, Old Guard Grenadiers, the Dutch or Belgian Jaeger bugler, cuirassiers and carabiniers--it is a bunch of them. It is very enjoyable just sorting them out by their colors and characteristics to try to figure out (pun intended) what they all are.

Well that pic emphasizes the bottoms of the bases, where they were cut from the sprues.

So here's a view flipped around.

There must be elements of between seven and ten sets here at least, and it feels like a kid at Christmas. These are figures I have never seen before in person, only in pictures, and I did not pick them out myself as I usually do, so there's a feeling of surprise and wonder that is beyond what usually happens when you open your new figs.I can recognize them, but at first glance I can only see--they are Napoleonic.

There are Zvezda, Italeri, Hat, who knows what, all mixed to be sorted.

To save on postage, they are cut apart, and so the sorting is based on colors, and then off clues in the uniforms, like the Baker rifles, or the shape of the shakos or other headgear, and even from counting the buttons.

More Bloggers Should Try This

This is great, and other wargamers should try this. Send some other blogger a mystery pack of figures and let them figure out what they are.

The rare figures are from the American Revolution, where Imex took over a line from Accurate, and changed several figures so there would be Cavalry and a few others, and sold them for several years...but then they changed their minds and changed the figures back to the first design with no Cavalry.  So now you cannot get them any more.

Even if you follow Plastic Soldier Review's advice and try to know what you're getting, that won't work They forgot to change the boxes, which still say there are cavalry, but there are not. You just can't get them any more.


"Es Suyo!"

When Peter commented about them saying he hoped one day he would find them, I went into the Es Suyo mode. That is Spanish for 'It's Yours!"

In some of the Latin American countries, if you pick up and/or admire an object, even in another Caballero's home, he may stun you by announcing Es Suyo, and now it is yours. The only way out is to immediately and insistently refuse in an increasingly firm voice three times at least, and even that may not work. To get out of what?

Dramatization of Chivalry

I will slightly exaggerate to explain the interplay of Honour that the Host has launched here, and remember that this occurs silently, inside the recipient's conscience. He realizes all this, and then has the feeling that he must get back to an even keel. That he must now do something in return, every bit as equally dramatic, every last bit or it is still not enough to equal the original grand gesture. Unless, of course, he is a Pirate. But for the Chivalrous it is not so easy.

Women never understand this, either.

This gesture demonstrates silently that the object itself, regardless of its value or how precious, even one's grandfather's watch or anything, is not nearly so important as your pleasure right now. Also the tremendous magnanimity of the host, in seeing that what you said you would like, you will have and you will have it right now. Because the Host has it in his power to see to it that you shall have it, as fast as you can clap your hands twice, it is done.

Of course this doesn't usually happen in my country because it would be seen as an exaggeration, even a caricature of Honour, to a degree that regular guys do not carry it. Just get the beer next time, they would say, or else Don't worry about it.

That was why I said at the time, along with the Es Suyo, that all I need back is that Peter paint the figures that I sent him, and let me use the picture as a Header picture for this blog, since I don't have one. Most of the good pictures out there are copyrighted to someone else, unless you make your own, so I thought that was good enough compensation. Anyway he would paint them better than I would.

That would be completely satisfactory.

But I recognize the interplay of the Es Suyo thing, since it has happened to me many times in other situations, and that Conscience and Honour demand something dramatic, so I have added some imitation Belgian Lace to the backdrop.

When I let my brother stay in my place, I refused to charge him rent, and he almost went crazy from it. But what's even worse is that when it happens to me, I almost can go crazy from it too, so I have had to eliminate most of my social life except with confirmed and known cheapskates, just to be able to keep up. It's a crazy thing, the Es Suyo thing. Be careful with it; it can cause madness when carried to extremes.

*                     *                    *

There used to be another Imex figure considered rare, that is no longer rare. This was the General George Armstrong Custer figure. He was added to the ACW  Union Cavalry but sold only in a large boxed set of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. There was no other way to get it, and regular US Cavalry sets did not have the special figure. But then when people were scrambling around   trying to get the rare figure, they changed it so now all the
US Cavalry sets have one, so now every eleventh figure is a Custer. I have a bunch of them.

We never know when the American Revolution Dragoons may reappear like that.

Many thanks to Peter, and do go check out his 'Happy  Wargamer' post.

*                           *                             *

Saxon Artillery in the 18th Century

 Link Over to Scheck's Blog (or See Blogroll)

Anyone interested in the Saxon artillery of the 18th Century should probably go have a look at the post on Scheck's blog. He has repainted his Saxon artillery on the basis of what he found in the book, published in the old DDR about the Army of Augustus the Strong, he of the 365 children including Marshal Saxe.It is in German and the pictures are multilingual.

Too bad they do not sell it here, since this is where their customer is, but maybe there is a way after all.

He found the book at the fair in Kulmbach that I was trying to find some months ago when I was posting about the tremendous battle at Kesselsdorf just before Christmas of 1745, which was also just before Frederick, about to be called 'the Great,' went to the Opera in Dresden to see the performance by the incomparable Faustina Bordoni.

If I remember correctly in my articles on that subject mostly December 2010 I also link out to some other Saxon uniform pictures, and other information such as OB and narratives, for infantry and cavalry also.

The Saxon artillery was responsible for blasting apart the pre-planned combined arms divisional attack that started the winter battle, and Frederick was not present. The remarkable attack, which was blasted by this artillery,  was set up by the Alte Dessauer, and the king showed up after it was over.

We do not know exactly how much he ate his impatient words from the week before, trying to rush the AD, nor how jealous he was, when he saw what happened before he could get there in person.

*               *                    *

Pounding a Pirate

I Win More as Black Than as White

Actually I lose more than I win by about seven percent but those are left over from several crazy-risky Danish Gambits I had the nerve to try against the Nemesis, and I am still trying to make up the difference against the good players of the world. He put me below .500 as mentioned in February or March, and since he is hiding, I am having a hard time making up for it.


It's not easy, because I give myself a disadvantage almost every time by using one Gambit or another.
 
The reason for that is because most players use the e4 move to start, that is to advance the King's Pawn two steps, the classic way. I think the late great Bobby Fischer did it all but one game famously. Some go first with the Queen's Pawn, and  some hate when they do as it slows the game and makes it more intricate generally.

I do that usually if I have White, leading off with a Queen's Gambit most times, unless they show fianchetto immediately. It's as much from familiarity as anything else.

 And  Here is Why--the Icelandic Gambit--it throws them off

But the reason I win more with Black, bucking the statistical trend of maybe 5 to 8 percent better results for White from that first-move advantage, is because when I have Black, and they do the King Pawn first, which is most of the time, I go into an Icelandic Gambit and many opponents are surprised and cannot cope with it.

It doesn't always work. There are ways to screw it up from both sides, and for it to really be an Icelandic Gambit, the other side would have to follow a natural script for four whole moves, and they often don't, so it doesn't always even occur because they can do whatever they want. All openings end up that way eventually, some fall off script quickly and others  follow one a long time. If you don't want or like that, then you avoid it.


You can't always get an Icelandic Gambit, since only so many guys will follow the steps laid out for as many as four moves, so it may just be a Scandinavian Gambit if they only follow the script part way. But if they take all four steps as desired, it is the Icelandic Gambit.

A Gambit is a Gamble, a Gambiteer is a Gambler

All Gambits are risky, what it is is you let the guy take a piece or two hoping you can turn that to your advantage somehow, either off the little time it gives while he's busy cutting off your leg, or else the space opening behind his sword arm while he's whacking at you elsewhere.

But it is a way even a nerd can demonstrate King Kong Cojones.

Figuratively it is a little bit like when Beowulf was fighting the Monster's Mother, and the little opening let him get at her heart, but he took a lot of damage in order to get there.   I mean in the Neil Gaiman version of Beowulf.

  You give him your pawn or piece or even two pawns like here and try to beat him anyway. It only appeals to a certain kind of player, and the majority frown on it and think you're crazy, and so it is taught that if you find yourself playing a gambiteer, just take it, and chances are he cannot pull it off anyway.

That Danish Gambit I mentioned is really crazy because you give up three and maybe even four pawns, it is the Gambiteer's craziest gambit of all and often doesn't work.

I haven't got time to figure out how to put up chessboard diagrams although there is bound to be some way to do it that I haven't seen.

If I just nicked the one off the site, that'd probably be copyrighted to them, but the moves are mine. There must be someone who could read the algebraic notation, this is almost international language but not quite, because the letters are based on English piece names. There are ways to do this notation understood in all countries, but this is easier for me and pretty well-known anyway.

So I'll put the moves of my 41st win here, as it is an almost perfect result and has really ticked off a pirate type player more than 250 rating points above me and utterly crushed his ego, humiliating him tremendously and I will bet he even considered breaking his computer or quitting--it happened five hours ago. This guy beat me in the previous game just when I thought I had him.


Ego Destruction Worse Than Regular Sports

Chess is uniquely able to affect the person's ego more than other games, because it is seen as intellectual, so to lose is to be proven a stupid dolt, unless they have better emotional preparation than most actually do. This can result in temper tantrums, and I remember I mentioned how I quit for four years after the Nemesis beat me four and a half years ago.

Excuses Always Are Great to Hear Because of the Ego Thing and the Cover-Ups

By the way, the Nemesis quit in July and says it was 'distracting him from his work too much.'

Tuerckenkriege on Two Fronts
I've been in a tournament that started in August with ten games, and then another one started on schedule the first of September with as many more, plus I already had a few private ones going, and I have been pretty busy fighting it out.

There are three days per move allowed, but you can move immediately if the other guy is online, wherever he or she may be in the world, so I have been fighting two simultaneous Tuerckenkriege at all hours of the day and night, among others, as there is one Turkish guy in each of my two tournaments. One of them is a fast mover, so we are almost done already with that set.

Normally in the tournament there are a certain number of players in a group, it could be four, six, ten, or whatever, who play each other one game as White, one game as Black, as statistics show whoever has White has a first-move advantage. So you do one each as Black and White.

But this September tournament has both games at the same time, instead of back-to-back, so it is a lot of games.

Luckily a week into it I see there are a bunch of fast guys here, so it'll be over probably before the first one is.

In that August one I have moved up to fourth place out of ten for the time being, above several guys better rated.


Break Out Your Chess Sets and Follow Along

This shows a bloody pirate getting humiliated in a bare fourteen moves. He falls from 1705 to 1658 rating, and I move up from 1443 to 1473. He is furious about this, believe me.  The first four moves define the Icelandic Gambit because each one he did what I hoped for, and then in just ten more moves he resigned this afternoon while I was sleeping.

Pirate 1705-1658   v. mekelnborg 1443-1473

1. e4          d5
2. exd5      Nf6
3.c4           e6
4.dxe6       Bxe6              there is the Icelandic Gambit, the rest will vary
5.Nc3        Nc6
6.d3           Bb4
7. Nf3        Qe7
8. d4          0-0-0
9. Bd2        Nxd4
10. Be2      Bxc4
11. Be3      Nxf3+
12. Bxf3     Rxd1+
13. Rxd1    Rxd8+       ouch that was the Queen!
14. b3        Bxe3+
White (pirate) resigned. Kicks dog repeatedly, falls 50 rating points.

*                      *                        *

"You're a Good Shooter"

"With Practice, You Could Be Great"

That is quite a compliment coming from Chuck.   He does not give them out that easily.

In the very small world of legal Chicago pistol shooting and training the name Chuck is well enough known not to need any other introduction.

And likewise Chuck knows the name Haggerty who was my instructor, and can go on at length as to his style and the problems under which  he operated.

I just had to requalify because one of my shooting cards is coming up for renewal, on a worknight after a worknight, coming off the midnight shift, and the range where Chuck operates is at 142nd and Western, over forty miles from where I live. Through heavy traffic from the Northwest suburbs to the South Side.

At five pm on a Friday evening. That's commonly called "Rush Hour," which is kind of a quaint phrase from some time back in the twenties when some of the other hours must not have also been  rush hour, but it is still the worst hour for traffic, that and the other one right after it, which I was just in.

So I did 81 miles of that plus fired on the range, and absorbed useful pointers about trigger pull, sight picture, when to not shoot, two-handed grip, up to the butt--yes there is one--and talked intelligently about how pistol training was done back in the day, and got back in time to get ready for work in two hours and 45 minutes, and still haven't calculated as to whether that could be mathematically legal or not.  I think it is mathematically possible.

Unless you take out nine minutes for the Mickey Dees at the Hinsdale Oasis on the Tri-State. These roads are famously shown in the movie The Blues Brothers, and I think they even stopped at that Oasis.

With all these millions of people driving around, I still can't get over that I found the one guy who can still talk knowledgably about the legendary Haggerty. That class  must have been twenty years ago, as I look back now on what must have happened which year and because of what.

I still remember Haggerty had a reloading station set up in his living room so he could watch TV while he did reloads.

I got a 95, and my glasses are several years past their prescription date. One round went two inches to the right of the target's chest, and would have probably got his arm anyway.

That's nothing, one time in the army I had broken glasses, so broken that there was no lens on my usual right-handed shooting eye side, and I had to make do with only a left lens, while the right side swung free in the open air. But unfortunately for me, the left side had no crossbar from the frame to the left ear, so I had to attach a suitable twig off the ground with a piece of duct tape. That is Double Broke.

That was using an M-16A1 which would drop hot brass down your shirt front left-handed, without a left-handed brass deflector, and being right-handed most of the time I didn't think to get one, so that did happen a couple times. Still, I am proud that I shot Expert under those conditions, left-handed. They really should lower the price of glasses for us poor folks so we can get them more often.

Anyway I have noticed I seem to shoot at billiards better left-handed too. It's a useful skill sometimes.

What I shot tonight was a Smith and Wesson Model 67 .38 Special, which is a six-shot double-action revolver, I think a J-frame, and a four -inch barrel, which might have been a bull barrel but I didn't really look that closely.  Don't even ask what was in the rounds, it was whatever Chuck provided.

If I get new glasses too then look out. I gone tink abou getting some.

*                                *                                *

More on Scale-Changing for Leipzig: Empire, Napoleon's Battles, DBA

Empire, the Grand Tactical game
Empire by Scott Bowden was the Grand Tactical Napoleonic game popular in the 80's with 1 figure = 60 men, and 1 gun = 2 guns.

So battalions could be 6, 8, 10, 12, maybe up to 18 at most figures, and batteries each needed 3, 4, or 6 models.

So to do Leipzig with that you'd need almost 1,100 cannon and howitzer models on the table, and about 8,300 figures, not counting thousands of gunners necessarily in that total.

There have been several iterations of Empire, besides derivatives, and the current version is called Revolution and Empire. There are still people playing it, including more or less as written.


Please click here and look at this guys photos, they show us what 12,000 painted Napoleonic figures looks like all in rows. It's pretty awesome but a lot of painting. This has been in my blogroll for several months but I don't think I ever called attention to it. Amazing work.




Reaction Against Empire
Then the community reacted against Empire, after maybe ten years of its ascendancy in the eighties, on the grounds it's too fiddly, time-consuming, trying too hard to be a simulation versus a game, and gives too many +2 to the French even though it's +1 to the British, etc.

Plus people didn't like being stuck with the generals named and shamed as incompetent as they were many times. And also, Empire had the nerve to have the figures in a line stand only one rank of figures deep, instead of two, even though there were still deeper formations for the column anyway. There are still people overreacting against that.

Me, I just didn't like the percentile dice, that's all, even though they probably are better. It could have been a little simpler and been all right. Actually it isn't really that difficult anyway, to me. But it still needs too many guns, at the 1:2 ratio.Who has 1,000 limbers painted up?



The Vocal Community's Solutions
So the solution of the community, and it may really only be a very vocal minority, is to reject all that and go to big battalions of at least 48 figs, which would point to 1:10 men, or 12, even though they often use one gun, with or without limber, as a battery.

The trend is to much simpler and quicker games, which may be further back towards game from simulation on the continuum.


But not only can they not do Leipzig, but they can't even do one tenth of Leipzig either, with rules like that. They could do Bunker Hill, but not Leipzig.

The result is Leipzig would require only 300 model guns, if at 8, but also 41,666 or some odd figures, if at 12. Distance who knows but few have that many tables nor could reach across it, yet this battle is only two or three times the size of Waterloo really.

The Obvious Solution
The obvious solution is to change the scale.

Even with all this having been said, there always have been a minority who saw these problems ahead of time and so we find in Charles Grant the Elder's The War Game, around 1972 or '73, a mention of a figure:troop ratio of 1:100 as a possibility, that some were using.

And in Ned Zuparko's Vive l'Empereur, again 1:100. That was 1982.


When Avalon Hill joined the trend set by GDW System 7 for board wargame companies to have a Napoleonic cardboard/miniatures hybrid system, their Napoleon's Battles went with 1:120 men, but still compromised to the two figure ranks deep line, saying that it was for a satisfactory appearance of depth, just for the visual aspect, while acknowledging it is a great distortion of depth at least for a line.

Napoleon's Battles had a far superior graphic presentation over any miniatures rules and most boardgames too for that matter, as they were in a position to produce top-end components. These are the same company who did Squad Leader.

Then there is DBA, De Bellis Antiquitatis, which divided an army into 12 parts, and called them elements, and covered many thousands of years' history with one coherent system, Barkerese notwithstanding.

If the French army of let's say 180,000 at Leipzig were in 12 roughly comparable parts they'd need to be around 15,000 men each, and if so then each element would need to be a corps d'armee.

And if 360,000 Allies had to only be in 12 elements, theirs would have to be around 30,000 men each.

So the one silliness is to force every army of all history into a 12-part mold, no matter what, and count the commander as one of them--but then they define one element as being what, 300 paces across? That means all of them in one line would be 9000 feet, 3000 yards, no matter what, and thus would make a French Napoleonic army no more than 13500 men, and that's all you get. Then ranges and moves and time and all else scaled accordingly.

So it's double silly, yet popular and fulfills a need in the community.

To me it is a challenge to make something sort of like that, but more like the idea of the dream of what the potential of DBA seems like the first time you look at page one and start to realize what they are doing, but before you completely figure out what they are doing, which pretty much spoils it.

The obvious solution is to change the scale.

Boardgamers Don't Ever Deal With This they don't need to
Boardgame companies think nothing of adjusting the scale drastically from each publication to the next, they have gladiator fights and they have all of World War One, and Two, and Three, all on the same physical size of maps, plus many with more than one map to adjust the scale as needed. They have one ship on one ship duels and they have all of outer space in the future Galacticas and all that.

So the miniatures community seems kind of hidebound and overly conservative and even to the point of being "reactionary," the way it looks to me. Except in World War Two miniatures, so there I see a glimpse of light.

In the period of World War Two, even though there are many skirmish-level games and small-unit games, there are also a healthy range of games at what they call the Operational level, which is the one above Grand Tactical, but below Strategic.

Thee are games where  one stand is a squad, or a platoon, or a company--and there are several games out where 1 stand is a whole battalion or in one case a Regiment/Brigade.

Horse and Musket Does Think About It Sometimes
There are also Snappy Nappy, and One Brain Cell games, and that is for both Napoleonic and Seven Years' War, that do put some thought into this level. I know what people say about the names, but these are closer to what I am looking for.


Attention Deficit Disorder?
So headed in this direction, now I am busy thinking about how to convert some of the WW2 operational miniature games to the Korean War, so again the ADD strikes again, but I think there is a connecting thread.

                               *                    *                         *