Sunday, August 13, 2017

Summer Daze

Very little happening here as Summer stretches on. A little puttering with new, consistent, bases for my Prince Valiant collection and some prep work on figures to finish the Wolf Regiment.

However, yesterday I made the trek down to Sobey's Community Room in Greenwood to join the lads down there for some games. In the end only 4 of us showed up so we played 2 games of 2 on 2.

OK, the explosion is over kill but one must celebrate one's victories such as they  are and this was my only 'kill' of the day and my first battle in Space since the late 70's and Starfleet Battles. 
The second game, shown above, was X-Wing. It was ok. The base was sound as it used basic concepts that I first encountered in Wings of War a decade ago. However, like so many "fantasy/scifi" games today it has a strong streak of profit mongering built it with expansions, presumably limited edition, which add new features, special rules and capabilities that allow players to build "Super" squadrons for competitions so that, given equal talent, the guy with deepest pockets can grab a technical advantage.

The first game, however, was Wings of Glory, the re-release of Wings of War and virtually identical and still putting the weight on pilot skill (and luck - there is no escaping the one explosion result if you pull it!). It was just as enjoyable as it was when I first played it. Not something I would go seeking to play but something I'm happy to play as a social event.

"High above the Fields of France" (for Al Stewart fans)
That's me in the middle.....

Meanwhile back home, while the Elastolin are reasonably stable on their native bases, as sold, the bases are too small and the figures too light for stability in the rough and tumble of skirmish gaming. Having done some experimenting and also some contemplating  on getting cheap, I decided to go buy new washers 1" wide which exactly match the length of the standard Elastolin infantry base. Two will do nicely for a figure-eight cavalry base and are heavy enough to keep the light figures stable even on a steep slope and to withstand the dreaded Domino effect.

Its mildly annoying that the hardware store tends to classify wargame skirmish bases by the width of the hole rather than the width of the base, which is what really matters. Still, its not that hard to puzzle it out, esp with a sample in hand to confirm the desired weight and width.
LtoR: figure base vs washer, sawdust and glue groundwork, painted, cavalry.
I did contemplate buying some sort of drywall compound or similar to attempt to imitate the texture and finish of the original plastic bases and match my painted table top texture better but got home without it and decided to just press on with what I had. Who knows, table tops change, as long as the colours are reasonably close it won't bother me.




8 comments:

  1. X Wing: Just played my first game of that a few months back--seen other games, which look way too involved (with all the bells and whistles and "specials"): at least you don't have to plot moves. Al Stewart--wow: I knew of Time Passages and Year of the Cat, but wasn't aware of the larger body of work--excellent!

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    1. He has a lot of good songs most of which never made it to radio. Roads to Moscow played on a local radio station when I was in college and I remember seeing him in Montreal 40 years ago with a giant screen behind him with panzers rolling across it.

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  2. I use washers for basing my trees and some of my 25mm Ancients. They work great and add the weighty feel to the figure and keep my trees from toppling. They also allow the use of magnets if needed to hold them in place.

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    1. I used to mount my plastic 54's on them and a lot of my 40's have been on washers for years. A lot of these were recently made surplus but were 2mm too short to fit the Elastolin bases without overhang.

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  3. "Its mildly annoying that the hardware store tends to classify wargame skirmish bases by the width of the hole rather than the width of the base, which is what really matters."

    I know what you mean! :)
    I do like to use the metal wargame bases from the hardware store to add some weight and allow them to stick to magnetized trays, too. Too bad they only sell round bases; sometimes square or oblong bases would be good, too.

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  4. Lovely to see the Elastolin figures are out again - will there be a resumption of conflict any time soon?

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    1. I hope so. But it may be a week or two at least. A nice cool, rainy, weekend would be just the ticket to move things along.

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