Hordes and Armored Bears

   More armored bears! Yep. It's kind of a sickness. Don't know why I like big armored bears so much, but I sure do.

   Privateer Press is expected to release this box set in November 2017. It's the Trollblood Northkin Bear Handler & Battle Bears. It's awesome.

   I bought the starter set for Trollbloods a week or so back. I don't care if these are good in the game or not, I'll be getting these to augment the force.

Prep for MilleniumCon, Chapter 2

   I think I have decided upon the minions of Otto Maton to be the fourth faction in my convention game, just because I like these guys so much. I will probably take the gentlemen of the Sapphire Club as well, in case I need to squeeze in a fifth player.

   And I think they need a vehicle. I happen to have one already painted and good to go - the nefarious All Terrain Quadruple Wheeled Lightly Armoured Autocycle (Machine Gun), more commonly called the "Quadcycle" or even simply "Quaddie." 

You've seen this before, no?

So, I need to stat it up for In Her Majesty's Name. Probably best to treat it as a walker, I think, as far as the rules for hit allocation are concerned. This is what I am thinking:

Pluck: 5+ (2 pts)

FV: +1 (1 pt)

SV: +3 (4 pts)

Speed: 9" (2 pts) - based on Bestiary from HVF

Armour: 10 (4 pts)

Weapon: Machine gun (26 pts)
Equipment: Steam Dynamo (10 pts)
Equipment: Lined Coat (Steersman, AV 8) (1 pt)
Equipment: Pistol (Steersman) (3 pts)
Equipment: Breath Preserver (Steersman) (2 pts)

Note: Can not enter Difficult Terrain

What says the collected wisdom?

Prep for MillenniumCon, Chapter 1

   I will be running a game at this year's MillenniumCon XX, held in Round Rock, Texas, the second weekend of November. I'm running a game of In Her Majesty's Name, my current favorite skirmish VSF rules. Here's the basic story:

  After weeks of exploration in the desert, the Tomb of the Lost Pharaoh was found. Unfortunately, the myths about the Regalia of Osiris being hidden there were just that: myths. Even worse, your rivals followed you and one of those fools triggered the Lost Pharaoh's Curse. Now, a storm of flesh-eating scarabs pursues you across the arid wastes. Your only hope is to be the first to reach the safety of the coastal town of Al Maja, where you can board a ship and escape the doom which follows close behind you!

  I plan to have four Adventuring Companies in this game:

• Lord Curr's Company, 
• the Society of Thule,
• the Servants of Ra (naturally), 
• and either the Sapphire Club or Otto Maton.

   I also have the figures for a werewolf company, or a Scotland Yard company, but they don't seem right for an adventure in the North African desert. My other mad scientist company, belonging to Professor Vardu, isn't ready yet either, and I don't think they'd fit in very well anyway.

   The scenario is pretty simple: 9.1.7: Death at Your Heels, with the following modifications:

• Table size: 4' x 6', with coastline along the long edge.
• Two boats, not one, each having a jetty 18" from the table edge
• Must convince captain to sail*

*Convince the Captain to sail: any figure with a Leadership characteristic can attempt to get the Captain to cast off, but only if there are no enemy figures on the boat. To make an attempt, roll a die in the figure's Movement phase. Add the Leadership characteristic and the total number of figures on the boat. Modify the roll by +1 if the scarabs are past the center of the table; add +2 if they are within 12" of the boat. A total of 8+ indicates the ship leaves, stranding anyone not aboard. The ship will automatically leave when the scarabs would reach it.

   For terrain, I don't have much, all of a sudden. Dammit, Harvey! I have a Cigar Box Battle Mat desert mat, and a few desert palms. That's about it for 28mm compatible desert terrain. I just ordered a number of Plastcraft Colored Desert houses to build a small village along the coast. I think I am going to embellish this with the addition of a few fishing nets hanging to dry, easy enough to make a simple frame and net. I do have some of the sand colored cobblestone roads and some older dirt roads to put out, as well.

   So, any ideas for improvements? Especially terrain. I was hoping to put some sort of ruined wall up on the desert side.

The Damage (Flooded Part 2)

 It has taken me a while to work up to posting about this. What did I lose in the flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey?

What I didn't lose is most important: my wife, my kids, my dogs, my friends, my home, my faith, or even my job. What I did lose is hard enough.

I lost a lot of things I have collected over the years, going back to when I was a kid. Nutcrackers -dozens of them - and books. Oh so many books. Hundreds of books. Enough to literally stuff a dozen tall bookshelves. Highlights include:

• Most of the Bibles in our family, including those given to our sons at their birth. Thankfully, my old family Bible (dating back to the 1870s) is in a safe in a house that did not flood.
• Kim, by Rudyard Kipling, given me by my grandmother
• Fifteen first edition Casca novels
• Monster Hunters International Limited Edition Leather bound
• All of my Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin novels (I had all 21)
• About half of the Horseclans books, again, first editions.
• Everything S.M. Sterling has written, in hardback if available that way.
• Most of my Harry Turtledove books.
• My Richard Scarry books from when I was a kid.
• All of my sons' Series of Unfortunate Events books - the entire series
• My Odyssey and Iliad, gifts from my grandmother
• My language dictionaries (German, Welsh, Spanish, and Latin)
• All of the Song of Fire and Ice, first print, hardback.
• My hardback Lord of the Rings.

I lost a bunch of game related stuff, too. Including...

• Original Ogre Pocket Box
• All my D&D stuff, from red box to 3.5
• Star Frontiers, several editions
• Twilight 2000 and 2013
• All my GURPS stuff, including several rare ones (Swashbucklers, for example) and Man to Man.
• A lot of terrain.
• All of my Ospreys
• Almost all of my board games.
• Custom terrain boards
• But, as far as I can tell, no minis.

   Plus furniture. And clothes. And a lot of my sons's stuff: trophies and martial arts belts and stuffed animals and school projects and... well, you get the picture.

I have a few dry boxes left to go through, so I may have a few things yet I'm hoping that I didn't lose.

Sorry for the whinging post. In perspective, I have friends who lost basically everything they own. People lost their lives (thankfully, no one I knew personally). I lost stuff, and most of it wasn't an everyday useful item - it was in storage, after all. But it sucks. Thanks for listening.