Project Review, Fall 2016: 25/28mm

A recap of what's going on:

    With the start of fall coming on, I decided I need to survey my madness. To wit, I am looking at each wargaming project I have ongoing, and what the status of said project currently is. 

   To define, a 'project' is a faction or force for a particular genre in a particular scale. Therefore, 15mm British WW2 and 28mm British WW2 are two different projects, as would be a 15mm DAK force, as would a British Paras vs. a British 8th Army force. Since there are so many and in so many scales, this shall be a short series of posts rather than one mega-post.

   For status, I shall use 'planning' (want to buy minis), 'active' (not playable but I am currently working on it), 'inactive' (unplayable but on to-do list), 'dead' (can't play, not doing anything, don't plan on it), 'playable' (enough to play, still adding to it), and maybe rarest of all, 'finished' (can play, no plans to add to it).

   I've already done the Small Scale projects, and the 15mm projects, if you missed those.

25/28mm

1. VSF Eureka Pond Wars: dead
2. VSF Lizardmen: inactive
3. VSF/Colonial British: playable
4. VSF German: playable
5. VSF Automaton: finished
6. VSF Martian: inactive
7. VSF Vardu: inactive
8. VSF French: inactive
9. VSF Russian: dead
10. VSF Japanese: dead
11. VSF Turkish: dead
12. VSF Parrotmen: inactive
13. VSF Characters (HM Victoria I, others): playable
14. Skyrunners VSF Racing: dead
15. EOTD/IHMN Werewolves: finished
16. EOTD/IHMN Gentlemen: finished
17. EOTD/IHMN Police Constables: playable
18. IHMN Lord Curr's Company: playable
19. IHMN Servants of Ra: playable
20. IHMN Society of Thule: playable
21. Colonial Boers: dead
22. Gutshot Cowboys and Lawmen: finished
23. Gutshot Banditos: dead
24. Terrain Old West: dead
25. Terrain Sci Fi: inactive
26. Terrain VSF: inactive
27. Terrain Fantasy: inactive
28. SAGA Normans: dead
29. SAGA Vikings: dead
30. SAGA Arabs: dead
31. Roleplaying Heroes: playable
32. Roleplaying monsters: playable
33. Doctor Who Daleks: inactive
34. Doctor Who Doctor and Companions: active
35. Doctor Who Angels: active
36. Doctor Who UNIT: planning
37. VBCW Free Welsh: playable
38. Warmachine Cygnar: playable (marginally)
39. Hordes Circle Oroboros: inactive
40. Hordes Minions: inactive
41. Warhammer Empire: inactive
42. Warhammer Lizardmen: inactive
43. WH40K Imperial Guard: inactive
44. WW2 British Paras: planning
45. WW2 Germans: planning
46. AT-43 Therians: dead
47. AT-43 UNSC: dead
48. AT-43 Red Blok: dead
49. Star Wars Prepaint: dead
50. Warhammer High Elf: dead
51. Warhammer Bretonnian: dead
52. Highland Badgers: playable (old and need re-paint)

Note: EotD is "Empire of the Dead," IHMN is "In Her Majesty's Name," VBCW is "A Very British Civil War."

   As you can see, there are a lot of dead projects in this scale. Ambition and ooh shiny got the better of my good sense over the years, and I almost never get rid of anything. Most are things where I have only a few figures, just testing the waters really. Which is good, I suppose. It's also by a fair margin the single longest list, which honestly surprised me. I thought the 15mm list would be the biggest.

   Also, I am shocked to see that I was considering up to 20 (!) different VSF projects in just 28mm. Twenty! I'm a sick man, really, I need help.

OwlCon 2013

   On Saturday, I decided at the last minute to go into town for OwlCon, the annual gaming convention held at Rice University in downtown Houston. Overall, I had a good time, so I thought I would share my thoughts.

   I played in two games, one in the morning and one in the evening. The morning game was Dystopian Wars. Each player was given a force out of the naval battle group box set. I had a Federated States fleet. I enjoyed the game overall, enough so that afterwards I went shopping for rules and minis (more on that in a minute). We ran out of time, but my fleet had only lost two frigates and my opponent's was down two squadrons, including his cruisers.

   I then had several hours until my next game, so I hit the dealer area. This was pretty disappointing. There were only three booths directly selling games, and two of them were more focused on board games. There were three or four steampunk costumers, and they offered some nice things, but nothing in which I am really interested. The Mechwarrior pods were back, and that's neat. But, overall, I was disappointed in the options. No one had any Dystopian Wars rules or minis, which I would have probably dropped $100-150 on.

   I spent an hour or so at Reaper Miniatures' sponsored Paint N Take. That was fun, and I now have a mouse Indiana Jones mini, which is kind of neat. Had a good conversation with my fellow painters about technique, style, and life.

   Steve Jackson, of Steve Jackson Games, gave a Q&A session, including a demo box of the upcoming OGRE 6E. It is huge, and I can hardly wait for my Kickstarter copy to arrive. That took up an hour, but well spent.

   The food was better than usual. There was a Greek grill that made gyros, shwarma, and falafel. The gyros was okay - the tzatziki was disappointing - but the chicken shwarma was fantastic. The dolmas were tasty, too. Back to gaming...

   My son Dane was dropped off by the memsahib at 8:00, to partake in the game of Gutshot! Mike Mitchell, a friend and one author of the game, was game master, and we have something of a tradition of playing in his OwlCon game. It was a last man standing free for all. Sadly, Dane and I were the first two eliminated. At least this time I put some lead into someone, even if I failed to take them down. When Feelthy Sanchez, bandito and pistolero extraordinaire, bit the dust, we headed out.

   My only purchase at the convention, other than entry fee and food, was a copy of Arkham Horror. I got a slight discount, and have had my eye on it for a while. We are hoping to play sometime this week.

OwlCon XXX Report

  Reporting from the trenches... Okay, well, not from the trenches. More like in the safety of my classroom during my conference period a few days after the fact... but I digress. I think I will break the day we spent at OwlCon into three segments, just like the Con itself is!

  We arrived at about 0900. Registration was easy enough (though they only take cash, kind of a bummer). Game signup was likewise very simple, and unrestricted. If there was an opening, you could grab it, as long as you didn't have a game in that timeslot already. Walk-ons were also allowed if there were no-shows or room to grow.

1000 - 1400

  Dane and Greyson play in a large dungeoncrawl (really impressive layout) of Reaper's Warlord, 2nd Ed. Dane won that round, and Grey came in second. Alas, they were short on time, the GM having arrived almost an hour late, and so they were eclipsed in their points by the end of the day. No Major Award for either of them. But they had fun, and will likely want to play again next year. Plus, they are now pestering me to get a game of that pulled together. I shopped during this period, not having a game I was overly excited about. Swag report will be later this week, so stay tuned.

1500 - 1900

  Dane was involved in a game of Uncharted Seas, the fantasy naval combat game. He played part of a Dragon Lords force, and was the only kid at the table. I think he got used by the other 'adult' players to soak up fire, and it seems like one guy on the opposing force may have been cheating some, but he still had fun. Greyson shopped and kind of kept an eye on his brother, just hanging out with no game this session.

  I played a game of Atomic Highway, a post-apocalypse RPG. My character, Brewer, was a beer-guzzzling mutant scavenger with a chainsaw. My new DROID came in handy here, as I downloaded a chainsaw sound app for special efects. The game is supposed to be podcast on Swing and a Miss, I think. I actually won the award for "best roleplaying" at this game - a first for me!

2000 - 2400

  The last session of the day was very full for us. Greyson and Dane were, as usual, at the Gutshot! game run by our friend and game author, Mike Mitchell (not the only author, but he's the onliest what wuz there, pard!) . Again, the unquiet dead rose from their graves, hungering for human flesh. This time, the cowboys, preachers, saloon gals, et al, managed to suppress the whole durn lot of them, without losing a single human to the stinking hordes of braineating shamblers!

  Meanwhile, I was in the year 2061, driving a car in a mad race around an arena, with bullets and rockets flying everywhere! Yep, that's right: Car Wars, the classic car combat game from Steve Jackson Games. Loads of fun, and crashes galore! Ever seen what happens to a car when it rams a rolling car at a combined speed of 180 mph? Now figure in the hit was on the roof of the rolling car. Totalled out (as in every single point of armor, and everything in between) both cars, and still had more than 35 points of damage left over! Confetti! I was taken out, but at least I didn't stab the 8-year-old kid playing with us in the back, despite ample opportunity and temptation (he got a bit mouthy). Still, had a lot of fun, and had the option of coming back into the game as a revived clone in a crappy car. I came in for a turn, but decided that it was getting to be time to go.

  The last thing we all did before we left was to hit the BattleTech MechForce pods. If you ahve never seen these, they are big, well, pods, in which a multi-player BattleTech simulator is run. Loads of fun, and they're interlinked, so you can blast each other, 'bot' players, and so on. They have a location here in town with 16 pods, but they only brought 4 to the con for space reasons. Look them up if you live in the Houston area - its a lot of fun!

Con Miscellanea:

  The food was decent at the deli onsite (hot sandwiches, sodas, smoothies, snacks), and prices were not too bad. Parking still sucks there. I recommend the parking garage, even at $11 a day, because it is loads closer to the site than any other lot.   The FOG Ancients tournament and Warhammer tournaments seemed popular and well-attended. I thought several people were going to be there for the FOG, but not one of them showed for that. I did see two of the regulars from my gaming group, but not in the tournaments.