This weekend I didn’t get a lot painted, but I did manage to knock out these Brigade Games War of 1812 Indians that I picked up at Historicon.
In terms of both size and style, I think they will mix nicely with all the Old Glory Indians I have for the French and Indians Wars. The deal is crisp, and the figures had very little flash.
At Historicon I purchased a few more inter-war Americans in tin hats. I painted them this weekend. I now have a sizable force ready to take on some baddies.
I often use a subset of these forces to accompany Duke Morrison on his adventures. I am working up an interesting Duke Morrison scenario that will involve large forces than normal, so instead of To Be Continued… by G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T., I’ll likely use straight-up G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.
All three people who follow this blog will recall that I have been building up a town for pulp games for several years. A year or so ago I went on a spending spree on Ebay to get a bunch of Plasticville buildings. There are only two or three remaining that I want but don’t have. Usually I get my daughter to paint terrain for me, but in this case, I wanted to do these two buildings myself.
The first was a gas station. I didn’t realize it, but Plasticville made two different gas stations. The first one I found I painted in green as a Sinclair gas station, complete with a green dinosaur out front. This one I painted as a Mobile gas station. Why? I always liked the red pegasus logo. You can’t see the sign in this picture, but you can see the red and white motif.
The second was the Plasticville pharmacy and hardware. As a rule, I have been replacing the “Plasticville” words on the signs with “Granville” or a made-up name of the store. In this case, you can see that the combined hardware in pharmacy is Graziano’s. As the real town of Granville is full of folks with Italian heritage, most of the stores have Italian names. Note that in the case of both the gas station and the hardware, I was lucky enough to find ones with the original paper inserts for the windows.
Planning for Barrage 2015 is shaping up nicely. We had the last gaming table fill today with the addition of our last game. I am happy with the breadth of games, from WWII to modern. I am also happy with the number of kid-friendly games.
We are actually running short of tables, so if the event grows much more, we’ll have to start renting tables. That’s a good problem to have, but it’s still a problem.
I started working on a few Pulp Figures last weekend and finished them up this evening.
This weekend I finished a few items I had started on last weekend. The first items I completed were four regiments of light cavalry of Burgdorfreuthenheim in 10mm. These are for Chris’ 10mm Not Quite Seven Years War project.
At Historicon I picked up some 28mm Pacific island natives from Pulp Figures. I started these last weekend, because I didn’t have much time, and natives are pretty easy to paint quickly.
Last Saturday Tom (and the class of 2019) was formally accepted into the United States Corps of Cadets at West Point. This gave us a chance to spend a few hours with him before the academic year started. We had a VERY nice visit.
Sunday and Monday, I participated as an “Old Grad” in the Beast Barracks march back. Cadet basic training, or Beast Barracks, ends at Camp Buckner on the West Point reservation and culminates with a 12.2 mile ruck sack road march over steep and rocky hills to the West Point main campus. This has been going on since time immemorial; although, Beast when i was a cadet ended at Lake Frederick, nearby, rather than Camp Buckner. What is relatively new is that the Academy encourages a bunch of Old Grads to participate each year to strengthen the new cadet’s connection to the “Long Gray Line.”
For the “Old Grads,” the march back began with a briefing by the Commandant of Cadets and the senior summer cadet leadership about all of cadet summer training. I will admit that when I heard about Cadet Field Training (the summer between Plebe and Yearling years) being shortened, I thought that was a mistake. During the briefing, however, the told us that in fact those missing three weeks have been replaced with a different three week Cadet Leader Development Training, which is a three-week, Ranger school-like tactical leadership course between Cow and Firstie summers. I think it was a good trade, and cadet summer military training is strong.
We Old Grads slept in Barth Hall at Camp Buckner on cots. Lights out was 2200, and wake up was 0300.
The night before the march back, the new cadets got to relax a bit with a talent show and the unveiling of their class motto. The talent show included a new cadet playing the bagpipes while another new cadet engaged in River Dance style dancing, a new cadet doing tricks on his yo-yo, several singers and musicians, and even a Best Barracks rap act. During the summer, the new cadets in the class of 2018 had nominated and voted on their class motto. At the end of the show, the final result was unveiled, and while it doesn’t rhyme, it is quite good: “So Freedom Will Reign.”
The march back begin Monday at 0230 for the new cadets and at 0300 for the old grads. We linked up at the parade ground at Camp Buckner with the companies to which we had been assigned. My son was in G Company, so I was able to march with his platoon. That was doubly good, because not only did I get to march with him, but since his company was determined to be the best at Beast Barracks, his platoon was first in the order of march. We reached the half way rest stop before the last company stepped off from the starting point.
A relatively new tradition is to honor a recently fallen West Point graduate by naming the new cadet regiment as Task Force ___. The class of 2019 was Task Force del Castillo, named after a recent graduate killed in Afghanistan. Widow del Castillo marched with our platoon — several months pregnant — and Tommy had a chance to talk to her.
The ski slope marked the final rest point before the march onto post where the rest of the corps and a strong of spectators awaited our arrival. The chaplain’s office provided ice pops to the cadets and new cadets.
Except for a little more illumination during the first — and hardest — three miles of the march, we couldn’t have asked for nicer weather. It was 63 degrees with moderate humidity. Despite arthritis and a recent knee surgery, my knees held up fine for the march.
This was an excellent event. I am very glad I was able to participate in this with Tom. We had a chance to talk a little on the march and a little more during the rest at the ski slope to wait for all the companies to arrive before the final two miles to West Point. He is doing well and seems it really good spirits.
See this little movie of Tom’s company marching onto West Point.
Often in WWII games you want some number of folks to have panzerfausts. It is convenient to use small markers to denote which figures are carrying them so that when they are fired you can remove them from the game. Also, it is helpful to have markers to show that machine-guns are set up and ready to use, because I don’t always have all the machine-gun teams in both moving and stationary poses. I got the panzerfausts and US .30-cal machine-guns from The Assault Group and made the markers pictured above. I left the bases with the khaki boarder to make them easily distinguished from figures in a game. I may decide they are too visible and flock the edges later.
In previous posts I reported on my progress painting up the Crooked Dice figures from a large order that Greg and I submitted some months back. Despite an eye exam yesterday that left me dilated and blurry, I managed to knock out the last of the Crooked Dice figures I had on hand.
Now Greg and I have to figure out when we are going to run a big Dr. Who inspired game!
