Here in Nova Scotia we can cope with cold and snow so no need for toy armies to go into winter quarters. Heat and humidity in summer? No that's a different thing, even though I was raised in Montreal which is hotter and "humider" (sic), I am well acclimatized now and 27 to 30 degrees is hot enough for me to suspend any but essential operations. Still, though my gaming/painting room which is on the top 1/2 floor of this 150 year old farmhouse is uncomfortable during afternoons and evenings and I am starting another stint of double duty tending to an aged mother in law in addition to various hounds, bunnies and what not, one can't give up all together.
Plans for the next 2 weeks include:
a) 16th Century Command Challange. I have been revisiting Rough Wooing, backing off some of the changes introduced in 2009 amongst other things. To test things out, I intend to set up and play the latest scenario published in battlegames.
b). Deja Vue Again. I thought I was done with Crysler's Farm and done with Charge! for another year but after looking at how the game could be worked using Charge! in response to a post on OSW, I feel curious enough to want to actually try it.The result will help me decide whether to pursue a version of MacDuff for use in Faraway or whether to just make some solo-game tweaks to Charge!
c) A Portable Game. The room upstairs may be hot but the garden table under the Willow is most pleasant. Dragging the 40mm metal figures down stairs and out to the yard sounds like work but 1/72nd plastic forces should travel easily. ACW or RCW?
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Summer Quarters
Born and raised in the suburbs of Montreal, 5 years in the Black Watch of Canada Cadets, 5 years at the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean followed by 4 in the navy. 25 years with CPC in IT simultaneous with 23 years running a boarding kennel. Inherited my love of toy soldiers from my mother's father. Married with a pack of Italian Greyhounds and 3 cats. Prematurely retired and enjoying leisure to game, maintaining our 160 yr old farmhouse and just living.
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Bunnies! - I knew there was something I liked about you, other than your blog. Keep up the great work, and yes tend to your other duties.
ReplyDeleteThanks
Dave
Opening top floor windows will help let some (by no means all) of the day's heat (since it rises).
ReplyDeleteAs you know, Ross, I am not built for hot weather . . . so you have my sympathy.
I recommend lots of iced tea under the willows with ACW troops on the table (not the RCW . . . at least that is my meaningless vote).
-- Jeff
I am very obsessive about keeping my soldiers safe (keep them in a darkened cupboard, all that). I may be heading towards a state where I don't allow anyone else to touch them, but I'll stick with the new medication and see how it goes. I am flinching on your behalf at the mention of wargaming under the trees - this is entirely because our own trees are full of extremely excited wood pigeons, and doing anything underneath them can be a messy business. I am sure your bird life is better trained.
ReplyDeleteUnseasonal question: Your initial reference to coping with cold and snow reminded me that, right at the start of my extended dalliance with toy soldiers, I read in one of the Great Books that, since tin alloys are unstable at very low temperatures (cue dramatic music and cautionary tales of Napoleon's buttons in Russia, Captain Scott's fuel cans etc), it is important not to let the frost get at the wargame figures, for fear that bits might drop off. [Come to think of it, I always assumed that this means 'bits drop off the wargame figures', but maybe I'm not so sure now.]
As a result, I have always been very careful to ensure that my armies are comfortably warm - probably more so than my family. In fact, I have never even heard of anyone who has had such problems with tin soldiers in cold weather, but our cold weather (until last Winter, anyway) is peanuts compared with yours, for example. You ever lost any bayonets in the frost, Captain?
Tony
'Charge!', 'Charge!'... what about 'The War Game', with 'Charge!' artillery rules instead of templates?
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, the requirements of 'The Real World™' sometimes deserves a high priority.
Dave yes 3 beautiful Angora rabbits. Good for the garden as long as they stay on the proper side of the wire.
ReplyDeleteJ-L, OK, sometime this summer I will force myself to give the wargame a shot on the table, just to round out my education. In my defence, I did play the Napoleonic version back when the ink was fresh and didn't care for it.
Jeff, That's 2 votes to non so far for acw.
Tony, luckily the birds seem to prefer cherry, apple, elm and other nearby trees to the willow and since we put up the 6 foot chainlink, the porcupine doesn't bother to come sit in it anymore. (he's a game closer). Bugs on the other hand become a major environmental obstacle for troops to handle.
ReplyDeleteMy old games room used to be over top of one of our boarding kennels. In winter when business was slow, we would shut down the kennel underneath, turn off the heat etc and on occasion, before I had finished the room and improved insulation, poor Hector's water dish would freeze when the space heater couldn't keep up, but I haven't had any bayonets fall off.
I have since heard that super-glues fail when frozen and this may explain why my older multi-part RAFM figures lose heads and shields so readily.