Fran and Ray's 20 Questions

Fran (Angry Lurker) and Ray (Don't Throw a 1) put this up on their blogs ages ago it seems.  I just finally got around to putting together my answers

1. Favourite War gaming period and why?

ACW - Primarily because its a transition war with armies trying to mix old tactics with new weapons and trying to figure out what would work.

2. Next period, money no object?

WWII 28mm Skirmish - With lots of cool buildings with interiors to really get into the action.

3. Favourite 5 films?

Galaxy Quest - Tim Allen at his best
Buckaroo Banzai
Zulu
Star Wars - The first film I really saw on my own
Raiders of the Lost Ark - Because who doesn't want to be Indiana Jones?

4. Favourite 5 TV series?
My wicked category I don't watch that much TV. Figure I would define this as series that I will continue to watch long after its cancelled.
M*A*S*H
Star Trek
Dead Like Me (Why do they cancel the best shows?)
Star Gate: SG1
Eureka

5. Favourite book and author?
I can't pick one book let alone one author so I'll narrow it down to two. Can't get it down to one book.
David Weber
J.R.R. Tolkien

6. Greatest General? Can’t count yourself!!

Patton

7. Favourite Wargames rules?

Fire and Fury (Bridgade and Regimental versions)

8. Favourite Sport and team?

Footall (American) - Green Bay Packers, after all I do own a piece of the team.
(followed closely by Ice Hockey - Colorado Avalanche)

9. If you had a only use once time machine, when and where would you go?

I have no idea

10. Last meal on Death Row?

Rib Eye Steak, medium rare, baked potato with all the fixins, my mom's apple pie (the whole pie, no point in sharing)

11. Fantasy relationship and why?
I think this is kind of a moving target as I get older my tastes have changed.
I guess right now I'm going with Anglina Jolie despite the fact that she apparently is a bit nuts/

12. If your life were a movie, who would play you?

Probably Mark Hamil - kind of non-descript

13. Favourite Comic Superhero?

Batman, the Dark Knight

14. Favourite Military quote?

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.
General George S Patton



15. Historical destination to visit?

I'll narrow this to Europe, since I have been to a lot of ACW sites.
Quatre Bras

16. Biggest War gaming regret?

Selling a couple of my painted armies. Anyone want to be a Norman army for SAGA?


17. Favourite Fantasy job?

NHL Winger


18. Favourite Song, Top 5?

Home - Marc Broussard
The Immigrant Song - Led Zeppelin
Zombie Jamboree - Kingston Trio version
1952 Black Vincent Lightning -Richard Thompson
Superman Song - Crashtest Dummies

19. Favourite War gaming Moment?

An ACW game where I played the Union side with green troops and actually being outnumbered by the confederates with better troops. Sent them packing with almost no losses!

20. The miserable Git question, what upsets you?

Playing with people that have no sense of sportsmanship. And people that walk their dogs while riding their bicycle.

And now for something completely different

I came across a couple of blogs that featured something called a Wordle. You can set it up to go through your site and it creates a picture using words out of your blog (I suppose based on how often they are used). Anyway you can find the site here: Wordle

And here is the result from my blog:

Run out the Guns - Kickstarter Progress

This kickstarter ended back on August 8th and we just barely managed to get it funded. The communication has been pretty good after the fact and it sounds like he is really making some serious progress on the project. I'm pretty darn excited about this one! I don't think I have seen the initial result from a 3D print job before. Those cannon are look pretty darn good from the pictures. I should pull out the pirates and get busy with that so my ships will have some crews! Mmm, and I guess I better find some American and British Naval crews as well.

Project Update #19: The Guns and Carronades have arrived! Posted by Matthew K Green I will let the pictures do the talking. Kevin Hull's 3D models printed up very nicely. Even the very small ones retain a great amount of detail. We are still waiting on the spin caster to arrive along with a bunch of wood that has been on back order. We have all the small ships printed up and as soon as that next batch of wood arrives will start working on the medium and large ones. So we are a bit behind where I had hoped to be at this point, but I am very pleased with the quality of all the models and think the results will be worth the wait. Oh, and I started working on the HMS Cyane - the British 26 Gun Sixth Rate Frigate.  She is going to be quite a challange! Regards, Matt Care to comment? View this update on Kickstarter →

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The Workroom

I have been quite on the posting front because another project was occupying my attention. I have spent time over the last few months and a lot this last week taking down my old darkroom and converting it into a proper painting space. There is still some stuff to do and clean up but it is to the point were I can start painting in it. The under shelf lights are some wicked expensive LED lights, but they are very bright and run very cool and will last a long time.. Overhead are two sets of 4' fluorescent lights and of course I can pull out all kinds of extra light if I want. The workbench top is a hollow core door so there is plenty of space to work on. The airbrush station is sitting on its own table. the compressor sits underneath and I can add a lot more light if I need to. Its vented out the back and up into the crawl space.

I have managed to fill all this space up and I still haven't managed to get everything into it. I'll have to really work at getting the stuff underneath cleaned up for more miniature and game storage space.

So really pictures say it all.

Airbrush Station with Reference Books and Games Above

Reference and Rule books

 Old Space Hulk Marines and ...Books!

 Mostly Rulebooks here

 Some Seriously old gaming books

Empty Space! How did that happen?

 Osprey Books

 Modeling Books

 Reference Books, who would have thought

 The Traveller Section. This may have to get moved else where so free up mini storage space

 A few clamps

 And behind the workbench more shelves!

Time to Boycott the NFL - Just say no to replacement officisals

I was willing to deal with replacement refs for this season, until tonight. Now I freely admit that I am a die hard Packer Fan. But after the game tonight in which the replacement referees decided that Seattle would win the game I'm now boycotting the NFL till the an agreement is made with the regular refs and they are back on the field. I will continue to play fantasy football but only because that's a commitment I made to our league.

The killing drive started off with a roughing the passer penalty that called back a Green Bay interception. I'm still trying to figure out how in the world that hit, with both players falling to the ground could in any way be called roughing the passer. At the very least the Packers would have kicked a field goal which would have made this a two score game. This drive included a "defensive pass interference" call in which the offensive player literally climbed over the defending Packer, including a face mask to get to the ball. The Packers held and got the ball on downs, but had to punt the ball away after a couple of major screw ups.

Packers are holding and the game ends with a Hail Mary pass that is intercepted in the end zone and yet the Seahawks are awarded the game winning touchdown. Some how one offensive hand on the ball cradled against the defender's chest with two hands is a tie ball. Of course the offensive pass interference is not called when the same receiver (Tate) pushes the Packer in front of him down.

Feel free to respond, I'm sure that everyone saw this a bit differently but the announcers are definitely on my side on this one. 

So that's it I'm done watching football till the refs are back. The NFL has the commodity and bad refs yet everyone is watching anyway. Quite frankly as Steve Young pointed out last week, the NFL does not care about the product on the field this season, The stadiums are still full and they are making their money. This is the only thing that I can do, granted it won't make a bit of difference but it makes me feel a little better. 

The Art of Murder - The Web Guide to Clue Games

Just a quick important link. If you are trying to figure out what edition of Clue (Cluedo as well)  you own this is the website to consult; The Art of Murder

There are pictures of virtually every single edition out there along with pictures of the components. This is definitely the guide to Clue games and means I don't have to make one myself. Check it out.

Saturday Delivery - Little Black Boxes

I know, most of us get far more excited about little black books (you were thinking 1st edition Traveller weren't you?) than little black boxes, although I think women are pretty keen on little black boxes at times. This was a care package from Architects of War and contained a bunch of small black boxes and for a historical miniature gamer that can only mean one thing; Perry Miniatures!

Yes, yes, my personal Norman SAGA army has arrived packed neatly into those wonderful little black boxes. I started getting them all cleaned up and ready for primer during my regular D&D game on Saturday night. I can't wait to get started on these.

Identifying your edition of Clue (Parker Brothers)

If you have read this blog for any length of time you know that I'm prone to go off on all kinds of tangents. I did collect boardgames at one point, primarily Avalon Hill and SPI. Most of those games are long as I moved away from the collecting aspect of our hobby. There is an exception; Clue by Parker Brothers.

Yes, there are plenty of editions of the game Clue or more properly in England Cluedo. The original was published by Waddingtons in England as Cluedo (although the original presentation was as "Murder" I believe). It was brought to the US in 1949 and the US publication rights were purchased by Parker Brothers.  I periodically search through eBay to see what versions are out there and slowly increase the collection. Nothing drives me crazier than mis-identified versions being touted as 1st editions, even copies published as late as 1963 are identified like this, but I do understand why this happens.

The first edition of Clue was published in the US in 1949, it consisted of a small box containing the pieces and the board was separate from the box. The board was displayed in stores and when you purchased it they gave you the box of pieces. There are actually two versions of this 1949 edition. One says the "Great Detective Game" on the front and the other says the "The Sherlock Holmes Detective Game". Later in 1949 the long game box that we are familiar with was introduced with all the components in the box. Again there are two variations of this version; Great Detective and Sherlock Holmes. So within the first year of publication there are 4 variations of the box, the game itself remained the same. The boxes are an odd shade of green which fades very badly to a light grayish green.

This is a picture of the 1949 re-production and the color is a little lighter than a mint first edition.

The next edition was published in 1956 and this one is often mistaken as a first edition. While the copyright on the board says 1956 the rules are still copyrighted 1949. Definitely not a first edition, the orange box is the first dead give away and followed closely by the 1956 copyright on the board. I have a couple of versions of this box and I'm not sure if they are really different colors or if the orange faded in an odd way.

The other edition that is sometimes identified as a 1st edition is the 1963 "Hanna Barbara" edition. I call it this because its the edition I grow up with and the artwork on the cards is done in a very cartoon style. I'm not sure why this is sometimes called a first edition as the rules have at least two copyright dates and the board has a 1963 copyright on it. This version is still pretty common yet I have seen it on sale for as much as $45 dollars, I would maybe pay $10 for a mint or near mint copy and no I don't want to buy your's!

The next edition came out in 1972 and pretty much this one and those that followed are pretty easy to find. This is one of those games that just about every household had on their game shelf at one time or another. There are also a ton of licensed variations; Alfred Hitchcock, Scooby Doo, Disney's Haunted Mansion, even an "The Office" version. However, one of the more sought after editions was created by the Franklin Mint. This is one I'm still looking for at a reasonable price (I have since acquired a copy of this for less than the original retail price, quite a coup since I have seen it sell of well over $1,000 on a number of occasions).

I think those are 24K gold plated pieces! Its been a while since I have looked for this one.

I'm not at home so I don't have access to my own collection so I have borrowed a lot of pictures off of other websites. There used to be a number of really good websites out there with a lot of information but it looks like they have disappeared into the ether. The one "good" site that I did find I considered rather poor as far as content was concerned. I guess I will have to start photographing my own collection and shoving the information into an obscure corner of my website, hoping that it will help those trying to figure out what edition of Clue they own.

"Shopping" Street Scenes

I was messing around with the camera tonight and took some street scenes of the Shopping diorama and then de-saturated the photos to get that gritty reporter on the scene look.