Day: May 3, 2015

Cory Ring sent me this yesterday.  Apparently some folks are using my Santa Anna Rules for the American Civil War.  Santa Anna Rules was written for the Mexican American War.  It’s always neat to hear about folks having fun with rules I wrote.  Too often the only feedback an author gets are the slings and arrows of outrageous reviewers on places like TMP, blogs, and glossy gaming magazines.  At the end of the day, the reward for developing rules is not cash (there’s little of that), but knowing that folks are having fun with rules I wrote.

Several of the HAWKs assembled this Saturday to paint figures for our Armies for Kids project.  After about three hours of painting, we set up an impromptu science fiction game using G.A.M.E.R.  I am still wrapping up development of G.A.M.E.R. for WWII, so it wasn’t quite ready for a science fiction game.  Chris had recently finished his Bones science fiction figures, and we wanted to get them and my science fiction figures on the table.

The biggest things that I need to address for science fiction are how to account for body armor and stats for science fiction weapons.

The game was a near-run affair.  At first it looked bad for our side when Eric took out half my infantry in the first turn.  Then it looked better for us when I took out Eric’s tank and Dave started to engage Chris’ infantry who had entered the compound we were trying to capture.  It looked even better for us as Dave and I chopped up Eric’s infantry.  Chris sent one of his corporals to try hand-to-hand combat against one of Dave’s infantryman, but the corporal lost the melee and fell into a file of poisonous ooze.  But then Duncan arrived with some additional infantry.  Chris and Eric cut up one of Dave’s teams.  Then Chris moved around Dave’s flank.  I was in a strong defensive position, doing damage to Eric and Duncan, but I was not going to be able advance into the compound, so we called the game a victory for Chris, Eric, and Duncan — the “bad guys.”

With limited painting time last week, I didn’t get to paint any figures, but I did work on a few bits of terrain.  Greg pointed me at Underground Lasers (https://undergroundlasers.com/index.php?id_category=13&controller=category), which makes MDF terrain accessories.  For my ongoing effort to construct a shopping mall for a zombie game, I decided to purchase the Food Court set and the Arcade set.

The sets came with no instructions, but it was very easy to figure out how to assemble the pieces.

I think it would have been nice if one of the pool tables in the Arcade set was an air hockey table instead, but these are fun pieces.  I decided to leave most of the table bare wood and just paint the felt.  I think they came out fine.

I have posted previously some pictures of the Ertl farmhouses that I assembled and painted to add to the town of Granville or other games.  Those farmhouse kits came with swing sets, a mailbox, and a mail box.  I ran across them in a bag the other day and decided to paint them up to add to Granville’s school yard.