Projects

My tidied painting and work area.

 So, after about four sessions of 'tidying' my painting area, it's finally cleared off and ready for use.

 What took so long I hear your ask ? (You did wonder right ?).

Apart from all the pressing real-life matters ("Make me a coffee" - SWMBO) and other mundane interuptions it was the usual distractions of finding things that had 'gone astray' - my favourite small file, a pack of florist wire (for spears and suchlike), a model boat and so on.

All the items from the newly implemented "Lost and Found" had to have a place to be stored anew and there were also 'surprises' that already had places to be but weren't there - a couple of ship's cannon to be added to the decks of my pirate fleet, surprisingly both were painted!

I also found more usable brushes - quite a variety, from very large , to very small detail ones. These are in the pot to the top right of the photo above, the top left one being where brushes go to die and are stored!

A pair of dice, one D6 and 1D20 were also a notable 'find' as they were last used for working out points scored in the conclusion of my last Jimland adventure nearly a year ago.

Most of my paints are stored 'below decks'

The drawer for 'work in progress'

Each of the drawers had a distinct purpose, now though they mostly have 'overlaps'. The top drawer was for tools, e.g. pliers, tweezers files and such like, whilst the second drawer contains mostly 'consumables', such as glues bits of cardboard, washers, beads and so on. However the two drawers now contain lots of bits which should be in the other one.

The third and fourth drawer  are shown above whilst the remaining two drawers are where other things that haven't got a home are hidden from view safely stored.

In an attempt to be more organised I've decided on the following 'projects':

Finishing my Chinese Westerners

Cutting flash from more Westerners (small selection shown)

Perform minor surgery on cows to make them steers and add horns to all!

Add a canopy to this market stall and complete two others.

Clean, base and paint these two up !

So that's the roundup of things on the immediate 'to do' list, Westerners, some Sudan things and Jimland additions.

Current view with the addition of a fishing boat (red arrow)

 That's it for this week, hopefully next week I'll have made some progress on something !

 

Thanks for taking the time to visit, hopefully there was something of interest and of course your comments are both welcomed and appreciated. 

 

Paints and Builds and Games

My gaimng table as it currently looks !

The Christmas holiday period once more greatly affected my hobby efforts (as it nrmally does), things have to be 'put way' or got 'out of the way. Why ? "Because it's Xmas !", is the sort of conversions that happens in our house every year. It normally takes me a huge effort to get back to what passes as normal these days and of course with addtional, almost non-stop caring duties, it's been very difficult gearing up to get back into anything hbby realted.

My gaming table was used for Xmas present storiage and acted as my present wrapping station too !

 

My painting area !

My painting area/table also suffered as the area where I'd put stuff "out of the way", meaning my mdf paint storage thing is now almost completely buried under 'storage'.

Getting this mess and my game table (above) sorted out is top of the priority list.

Top of the paint queue is of course my westerners and I've now made in-roads to tackling this by replacing my current brushes.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My current 'best' brushes

My new, all singing, all dancing brushes.

I've all but thrown out all my old brushes and invested in thirty new brushes from the wonderful firm ABC Brushes - The prices worked out at a little over £1 for each brush I bought (including p&p) and their service was first rate - ordered Monday, arrived Friday despite the Covid restrctions and two inches of snow in our area. I also got a free key ring fob thing (sorry no photo).

My Birthday cake insisted on by my Grandaughter

The last week also saw two events to celebrate, the first being I had another birthday (^yay^) and on the same day I received notice to attend my Covid vaccination later that week, along with my wife (now much better). 

This week also sees the ninth anniversary of this very blog, it's been a strain at times keeping this going but I've managed, somehow to accumulate ovr 460 posts and over 5000 comments, which must mean something, though I'm not sure what !

That's it then for another week, hopefully something hobby-wise will be posted about next week as all I've done in the latst week has consisted of me ruminating over both Western rules and finalising (in my mind) some canoe rules for Jimland adventures.

 

 Thanks for taking the time to visit and apologies for the boring nature of this post, but your comments are still welcomed and appreciated !

Max's 4th Adventure Finale

Two weeks (game time) into this adventure, sees the expedition overcoming an ambush by seven Tribal

warriors with little loss, namely a soldier and their wounded Interpreter Horation Mundella. The latter had therefore to be carried. IN game terms in meant the whole column was moving at half speed. Moving into unknownn terrain (4mp) is therefore impossible, unless the expedition waits a day (the expedition at half speed has only 2mp per day)

The photo on the right shows the slightly depleted column, carrying Horatio, who can be jst seen in the fourth row behing Lady Alexandra.

Once more then from the Journal of Frederick Cartington:

Perha"Alas,  two weeks into the expedition and it has been cut short by the wounding of poor Horatio, having to carry him will make for a very long journey back to Jimlnd and we shall follow our outbaound route as much as possible, therby cutting a trail through our already newly disovered terrain "

 

Our bearers decided that Bad Juju was present to our South, our intended direction and refused to move in that direction; we therefore altered course to keep moving and took a brief divrsion to the south-east.

 

Perhaps should have really heeded their absurd beliefs as we were set upon by a large body of the hateful pygmies"

[Obligatory blurry photograph showing the column crossing a stream]

 "Typical of our current luck, the pygmies managed to catch our column crossing a stream. Sharp eyed  MAx had spotted their apporach and we face to both our flanks, where the attack was undoubtedly coming from."

[Note Doc and Lady Alexandra sheltering tin the centre ]

 "As the pygmy's intention cleared we adjusted our postion, sending LAdy Alexandra and the Doc to the rear, whilst the bearers, many of whom were stuck in the muddy bottom of the stream,tried to get to safety too."

 

[The new defensive formation all the pygmies were on the head of the column's side of the river]

[The pygmy attack, about to go in...]

[Great shooting ? low is good btw]

[The aftermath of the shooting, one dead pygmy -yikes!]

[Max's score of a twenty brought a water buffalo into play, 4" in the direction of the arrow ! - yay!]

[The buffalo immediately disposes of a a pygmy- yup, the pygmies are rubbish fighters !]

[Let the fighting commence !]

"Our marksmanship was off and only managed a single volley that saw off one of the little blighters, a water buffalo, disturbed by all this kerfuffle also dispatched one of their number.

In an instant we were engaged in a bitter face to knee struggle as these curs charged us"

[The pygmies, as expected, quickly lost all but one fight and hit a bearer - who made his saving roll]

[Max  kills another pygmy, whilst the buffalo kills the last pymgy needed to cause a rout, itself dying to the hero bearer].

"The fighting was swift and confusing\I turned to aid a fellow soldier that seemed to be struggling with his opponent, but they all fled crying out some guttural noises" The buffalo was seen off by our bearer, semingly it was wounded by the pygmy it faced as he was in turn gutted by our brave bearer skewering him from behind."

"It seemed to be that between ourselves and the buffalo, we had killed half their number and they  fled as quickly as they cold.

"It took another fourteen day to trudge back to Jimland at our slowed pace and though we met with many natives, most were at least oblivious to presencewhislt other glady trade with us..

All of us were indeed grateful to venetually be back at Jimland" 

 

From my Pov, the fight at the end could have gone so very wrong, but the pygmies weren't the fiercest opposition  - even our bearers could give them a fair fight, so I wasn;t that worried. The route home however took another fourteen turns, during which I always bought from friendly natives and sparingly gave out trade to avoid conflict (we had even given the last, of our trade, at the time, to our pygmy opponents  in the last fight, trying to avoid a fight ! 

Although the last fourteen campaign turns were merley a paper exercise, each turn of the event deck was full of tension for me !

The map on the right shos the route of the expedition, each arrowhead indicates the end of the day's travel, early on thee were roads but eventually new hexes were uncovered and on the return journey these new hexes would have roads made by our expedition travlling through the already explored hex.

Each time I hit a swamp, I would back-track, being lost in a swamp is no fun!

I was a singlehex or two from my objective of getting a northern road twenty hexes from Jims landing; the reason getting so far wa to establish a new trading post and thus a new starting position for exploration as the immediate land around Jim's Landing is well covered.

This expedition had spent around $590 to outfit and expences incurred during the expeditionbut had ammassed $561 and had food in hand too, giving an expedition total of 699 points ! - Best yet !

Thanks for taking the time to visit I ghope there was at3 least someh#thing of interest.

As always, your comments are both welcomed and apprecieted.

Max's 4th Adventure (part two)

Last week we left the expedtion about to be atteacked by Tribal Warriors frrom ambush, the reason that this was such a tricky situation were the disatnces involved.

 The column above is about 8" long (they're 20mm bases) and has to be placed in the centre of the 30" square table, which means the natives can close with the column in two turns, if it doesn't move andit really can't leave the taable either as it would do in two turns too!

By turn three the natives are about to close with the column.

 Let the action commence!

[The moment before the impact...]

[...and from the expedition's pov - note the Doc in the centre bottom, staying well away from the action]

.

[The natives close to contact and were on the whole better fighters than the explorers]

[Two soldiers are downed and two natives killed outright -thankfully they don't have saving rolls]

[On the other side of the fight, catinton and a soldier gang up on a single natove]

"The fierce assault of the natives targetted as many of our number as they could reach, I joinre i to help a soldier that was too fairly matched for comfort"

[Another Native casualty]

 "The outcome was inevitable as I smacked the wayward fellow in the face with my rifle butt. but  one fellow had avoided the obvious fronal assault and flanked around our righthand side to assault our unprotected bearers, but his will failed hi at the critical moment and he and his two remaining companions fled. We let them flee to the safety of the jungle, wishing to conserve ammunition.

However with his dying breath a native had downed poor Horatio, our interpreter even though with his trusty spear he is probably our best fighter"

"Doc busied himself after the fight, managing to save both Horatio from certain death,  our party though did lose a solider to his severe wounds. The party was in a dour mode as we now had two casualties to manage and with our speed reduced we decided to slowly make our way home to Jim's landin after a day's rest.

[The newly formed column, carrying Horatio]

 "According to the bearers, our column was headed toward 'Bad Juju' and we had to detour southweasterly rather than our intended southerly direction.

 We had been but two days journey from our fight when Max, discover a pile of treasures - maybe our luck was changing ?

We did find a cache of trade good to supplement our dwindling supplies and a small group of pygmies were pacified by our plying them with our abundant offers of trade goods, so much so that they ignored us.

Our luck wasn't to last however as the Bearers decided they would't move from this spot as there was, once more, 'Bad Juju' everywhere. They weren't far off the mark as we crossed a small stream  a large group of pygmies attacked "

[Obligatory rubbish photograph of part of the column]

 And that dear reader is where I'm leaving it for this week, as I realsie now that this was the extent of the photo graphs I have edited so far) for this adventure - there;s at least another two dozen !

 Here though is a photograph of Alexadra St. Gabriel, survivour of the  first attack, but will she survive the deadly pygmy assault ?

[Lady Alexandra St. Gabriel]

 That's it then for another week, thanks for taking the time to visit and hopefully there was something of interest. As always, your comments are both welcomed and truly appreciated !