Hotlead 2017 Part II - My Part In Its Downfall

First, for all you kids out there, the title is a riff on the title of Spike Milligan's seven-part war memoir trilogy.  In actuality Hotlead is going strong and survived me, but below are the stories and hindsight from my two gaming sessions last weekend.

I put in to run two games, Silent Death Star Wars in The Force Awakens (Ep. VII) setting Friday night, and Song of Drums and Shakos (SDS) cinematic skirmish Sunday morning.  I chose those two timeslots in part because they're a more casual time to game during the weekend, unlike the hot and heavy (in all senses of those words) Saturday sessions.  And the SDS games in particular only take four players, and I didn't want to take up a whole table for a relatively small game.

For both games, my plan was to run multiple scenarios - for Silent Death so as not to overwhelm the players with handling multiple ships, and for SDS because I expected each game to be relatively short.  So I had three scenarios ready for Silent Death, expecting to get through two, and two ready for SDS, with the plan to have the players swap sides and play them again if the games went super-fast.

In the end, in both timeslots we played...one scenario.  For Silent Death, though the one played quickly, that seemed to be all the appetite people had, getting up to speed and re-setting for another game was more than they wanted to do on a Friday night with all the shopping potential in the hall.  I can dig that, and it wasn't like they didn't enjoy the game (more details below).

For SDS, the one scenario we had lasted almost three hours, so everyone got their fill and was ready to check out and head home.

So after this and my KEGSCon experience with SDS (which was like the Silent Death experience this time), I'm surrendering on the multiple scenarios in a timeslot idea.  I'm not sure what I'll do for Silent Death, as the problem of overwhelming players is still there, but it could be something like a scenario where you get reinforcements as the game progresses, so you start with one or two ships, but get more later.

For SDS, it's simpler, the four-player scenarios work well to fill a timeslot.  That also means less to pack!

😣😣😣

Getting into each of my games in more detail, I'll have to be the first to admit (because I can't really hide this below) that I forgot to take any pictures of my Star Wars game, and only a few mid-game and end-game of my Napoleonics skirmish.  GMing is a busy time!  If you want to see a pic of the Star Wars table, either check out the Friday night pics in the Hotlead Facebook group, or look at my pre-Hotlead post where I had a photo of a playtest game.

But despite the lack of visual documentation, I did indeed host a Silent Death game on Friday, for a full allocation of six players, though my buddy Ron helped fill in the last slot.  As mentioned, we only played the intro scenario "Last of the Red Hot Y-Wings", which has three TIE/sf fighters entering a system just behind a beat-up Rebellion-era Y-Wing (the only one that survived the first Death Star) piloted by a teenaged girl who's escaped in grandpa's Y-Wing with her boyfriend in the back seat and some secret First Order documents.  As it turns out, the system she's entered has a Resistance base, and three X-Wings rise to meet the challenge.

The game starts with the TIEs and X-Wings at either end of the map, and the Y-Wing just ahead of the TIEs (and their heavy weapons).  Each player has a TIE or X-Wing, and I controlled the Y-Wing, which only had to race ahead in a straight line.  The TIEs initially have to destroy or cripple the Y-Wing, but their orders change when they realize there's a Resistance base here.  The X-Wings initially have to save the Y-Wing, but that also changes when they see the TIEs trying to escape to report back to First Order HQ.

In this game, the Y-Wing got crippled pretty early, and then destroyed while limping along.  Much faster than anticipated, two TIEs also got blown up (on critical hits to their still unprotected reactors), and at that point we called it a game.  The First Order side, in their rush to retreat with the news of the Resistance base, didn't follow Boelcke's Dicta and gave the Resistance some easy flank or rear shots; they should have flown through the X-Wings and then come back out.  One X-Wing got beat up pretty badly in the exchange, but all in all the good guys had an easy time of it.

I had a good group of players, a father and two teenage boys, another boy (maybe 12) and two other adults.  Everyone seemed to have fun in the brief game, one of the teenagers downloaded the free classic-era Star Wars Silent Death rules that were in a magazine 20 odd years ago and are available online, so maybe they'll check that out and use their X-Wing (the game) ships for it.

😣😣😣

Sunday I set up a four-player version of "The Last Pig in Russia", which has very hungry French forces trying to round up some bacon (in the form of a live pig) in a Russian village in late 1812.  The Russians, of course, want to protect their holy Russian bacon.

I had a full table again, my friend Mike took on the French hussars with Roger running the French voltigeurs against young Roy (Russian infantry) and Dave (Cossacks).  The game got off to a pretty furious start, with Roger shooting the pig on turn two, but Roy - who rolled hot all game - getting troops to the wounded animal first and starting to haul it off the table their way.

The French suffered from some terrible rolling, and it looked like I was going to need the second scenario, when all of a sudden the tide turned a bit as the French got their act together.  

Here's a shot of just before that happened, with two Russian infantrymen hauling the pig away in the middle-right of the picture (clicking on the picture will bring up a larger view):

The Cossacks turned around from their sweep to the Russian right to come back to help and engage the hussars on their left, but the French broke through and some volley fire and sabre action lead to the poor Russian pair hauling the pig falling dead with the pig ON the table edge, as you see below in this photo from the end of the game (the pig was never picked up again):

It looked like maybe the tide had permanently turned, but the lone surviving hussar charged into the fray rather than grabbing the pig and riding off, and melee broke out everywhere amongst the survivors, and when the French NCO was killed, the game was over.  Just a lone Cossack and a half dozen Russian infantry were left, but that was enough.  The Russian infantry NCO was pretty heroic, beating off all sorts of melee attacks and cavalry charges against him.

Here's another shot of the table at the end of the game from the French side:

It was a fun game to GM and watch, the guys picked up most of the rules really quickly, and watching the tide of the game turn this way and that was great and got some attention from passersby and other tables.  Without really thinking about it, at one point in the game I referred to a wounded figure (wounded figures are removed as being out of action unless you're playing a campaign game) as being "functionally dead", and that became the catchphrase of the game.  Except when someone was tripled in a combat roll, which led to the catchphrase of "really dead dead".

So my first lesson learned was that a four player game is more than enough to fill a timeslot.  Secondly, my new player aid of "It's Your Turn" with the basics on it seemed to help, but I still was doing too much helicopter parenting of the players, rather than stepping them through the QRS' combat modifiers and results and letting them do the work.  It had nothing to do with the game system or the players, just me "hovering" a bit too much.

To help with that, for next time I think I'll come up with a new set of scenario sheets for the players that has just a very, very basic scenario into, simple victory conditions, and their figure stats, and then the "It's Your Turn" piece on the same sheet.  That plus the QRS with all the combat modifiers should help me (or at least remind me) to let them learn the game.  My big QRS on an easel will still be there to help too.

I also forgot the first time it came up to make a player check for morale because his force had hit 50% of its starting strength, but in the end I decided on the fly to overlook that for everybody.  This was a convention game, not a campaign game or a game between two experienced players, and it wouldn't have been fun for anyone to lose their force in the middle of the game.  Plus, a fight to the death made the game the drama that it was, and in this particular scenario, wasn't an unreasonable situation, particularly for the French.

So I think I'll ignore that 50% rule at conventions from now on - all the other reasons to check morale will still be there (leader death, cavalry charges, Green troops etc.), just not this one.  

😣😣😣

In the end then, I was pretty happy with the two games - full games, happy players, learned some things about GMing at a convention, and no disasters and no one flipped a table on me.  Next up will be Broadsword 3 in Hamilton in May, then maybe Cangames in Ottawa, and I'll look to run a game of something at each.

Pic-less Update

Given the lack of updates here, you'd think I wasn't doing anything, but it's actually been a couple of the most productive months I've had, at least in terms of getting things ready and in some cases painted. It's been so busy, I haven't had time (or room) to get some photos of all that's going on.

If you've been following my schedule for 2012, and its re-jigging, then you'll recall August was to be 6mm terrain month, and a lot got done. So much so, that I decided to bail on the rest of my non-painting schedule for 2012, and concentrate on finishing the 6mm stuff, and prepping ALL of my 6mm figures, across all projects. So that's 6mm WWII, sci-fi, fantasy, and ACW. Along the way, some new (and final) 15mm 18th century India figures are getting done, as well as all my new 15mm sci-fi. If there's time, the rest of my 15mm will get done too, before 2013.

My goal for the abandonment of the plan is to take a big chunk out of my huge backlog of metal, and then spend 2013 only painting. I noted before that despite my plan for 2012, the terrain work was getting all the attention, and my painting table hasn't been used since March. Even the painting I'm doing now has been downstairs at my bigger "building stuff" table. So I want to have nothing really left to do next year BUT paint.

If I get super far ahead of schedule this fall, I'll keep rolling through my aircraft, 28mm pulp and sci-fi projects.

I hope to get some pictures up this week, I've been having fun customizing some of Gamecraft's 6mm buildings and ruins, so they'll probably be first.

2012 Update

This seems like a good time to review how my resolutions are holding up after 3.5 months. For painting, I've gotten as far as: "1) Continue practicing on 25mm figures.
2) Finish the 6mm stuff that's been on my painting table half-started for a stupidly long time (I think I have a friend who'll paint the rest of my 6mm WWII stuff on commission for me)."

The 6mm stuff includes both polishing off what I got commissioned, and the tanks that have been sitting on my table for ages, doing nothing more than serving as a backdrop for pictures of what I was actually painting.

The 25mm figures still lag, partly because of the desire to catch up on the 6mm, partly because it's a real pain doing character figures with different paint schemes all the time. This doesn't bode well for some of my 28mm projects like VSF and pulp skirmishing...

On the other (non-painting) tables, things are a bit better - a lot's been done - but I'm now conceding I'm a month behind. Here's what was planned through April:

"Jan. - Cardboard terrain
Feb. - WWII plane prepping
Mar. - Base texturing (for all the stuff I based in 2010)
Apr. - VN terrain, including hills"

I'm still working on basing, the Vietnam terrain hasn't come out of storage. Part of the reason for the delay was I was working on both modern and WWII plane prepping - I had a lot of moderns come in from Shapeways - and partly because I rushed through cleaning and prepping 6mm microarmour so I could get them off to be painted.

I've also been distracted trying to prep up my Star Trek and Star Wars ships, including priming with gesso. Plus (lots o' excuses today) March is a crazy month for work and play, and I was away for all or parts of five straight weekends, home for one (Mar 31/April 1) then away last weekend again.

So I'll spend April working on bases, then get onto the Vietnam terrain in May (also a crazy month for work).

15mm Sci Fi from Rebel Mini's

I had my order from Rebel Miniatures arrive yesterday, I'd placed it during their pre-Christmas sale in mid-December. It was mainly a 15mm sci fi order, although I did get their pulp Cabras pack, which I'll use as a gargolye/demon sort of thing for Solomon Kane and Cormac Mac Art historical fantasy gaming.

Of the rest, I got the Earth Marines and the Earth Armored troopers, which I like as Traveller-esque Imperial Space Marines (better than RAFM's). I'm not sure what I'll do with the Earth Marines proper yet.

I also got the Magistrates pack, which I like as being Cobra-esque, in the GI Joe sense. I also got the Black Widow mercenaries, the Scourage (terminator robots), and the Sahadeen, which are sort of like lower tech rebels. There were also some vehicles in the mix.

So, given that in 25/28mm I have Star Wars, John Carter of Mars, Space 1889, faux-Space Marines/gothic sci fi, Star Trek, and post-apoc. stuff going on, what the heck am I doing in 15mm? Well, like I hinted at, Traveller. I love Classic Traveller, but will probably not be playing it as a RPG again (I'll always tinker with stuff though), so this will be a way to keep the love going. I'll pick up some RAFM Traveller packs later this year, if RAFM does a sale again, and I've learned that Critical Mass does some nice additional Vargr-alikes.

I may do some other things here or there as opportunities arise - Starship Troopers, Firefly, or the Star Risk novels (very Traveller-esque) for example, or just generic sci fi. It may even work for Battlestar Galactica, with the Scourage as Cylons.

2011/2012

One day into the new year seems like a good time to review last year's resolution, see how I did, and try to come up with a plan for 2012. Assuming the world doesn't end in the meanwhile - we survived the end of the world twice in 2011, and while the Mayans were probably more on the ball than modern apocolypse cults, I'm pretty sure we're ok.

So first to review some of what I said at the end of 2010 (in bold):
The review is pretty simple: Lots prepped, not much painted!
Yeah, that can some up 2011 too, although I did finish the Vietnamese project I had on the table, and some terrain got done, there was too much chasing of butterflies. So after the review, I'm proposing (to myself), my plan to be more focused.

No more cleaning of figures until the backlog is cleared, with a few exceptions:
By "exceptions" of course I meant everything. Mainly it was a couple rounds of 6mm fantasy enthusiasm that caused problems, plus some aircraft prep, and one diversion for Star Trek ships.

Purchasing will be scaled back
It was, for about 3 weeks in October. I actually did scale back relative to 2010, but still spent too much. At least this year I didn't do any stupid purchases (1930's Car Wars, anyone?). 15mm sci-fi isn't stupid, and I lasted until mid-December, so there. Hopefully my plan to maintain focus will let me scale down my purchases in 2012.

Well, ok, two new projects may be allowed – 3mm ACW Terrible Sharp Sword, now that it’s released, and 6mm Hammer’s Slammers, IF they ever get released by Old Crow.
Check and check, at least I followed through on those. Some of my Ground Zero Games purchases have been in support of the Hammer's Slammers project.

Terrain purchases will include a space mat, an aerial mat (overland, already have naval), some 10/15mm pieces, 2mm Irregular, and 3mm from Simply 6 (via Picoarmor).
All good there, except for the aerial mat. And I want a different scaled space map for fighter actions. Unfortunately it looks like Simply 6 is out of the game for 3mm terrain.

2mm purchases for SYW India, my two fantasy projects (Kull, Imaro), Star Wars, and Land Ironclads.
Good there too, except the 2mm fantasy projects seem to have fallen off my mental wayside.

Star Wars capital ships from Studio Bergstrom (falling under the “completing a project” exception).
Again, good! Except I need one more Victory I Star Destroyer, and four more Mon Cal ships. And a Super Star Destroyer from Shapeways.

Then I'm good.

Some more Pulp Figures, particularly if I manage to make the Hot Lead convention in March and PF is there with a booth.
Well, Bob Murch wasn't at Hotlead, but I was. And I bought some of Artizan's pulp line, and some of Blue Moon's pulp cars. And some more pulp vehicles from Recreational Conflict.

And I still did a mail order purchase from Pulp Figures. They're still allowed for next year too. Of course, late this year Splintered Light Miniatures came out with 15mm pulp awesomeness, but I'm not that dumb. Thanks for not asking how many scales under 10mm I'm currently during the American Civil War in.

If Brigade (US version) has any sales, I’ll pick up some ERB Martian figures and VSF skirmish stuff.
If Brigade (UK version) has their summer sale again, I’ll pick up some Aeronef and Land Ironclads stuff – I hope you all admire the way I didn’t spend any money during their Xmas sale.
Yes to both. And I've avoided Brigade (UK)'s Xmas sale this year too. Despite their 15mm sci-fi, 6mm sci-fi, and great spaceship line. And aeronef, land ironclads, and Iron Stars stuff. I hope to be strong during their summer sale.

Splintered Light Miniatures have a few sales during the year, and I expect they’ll have some cool new Splintered Lands mini’s I’ll need, plus I have some of their 15mm stuff in the pending pile.
Yeah, they had sales. More of their 15mm Dark Ages stuff, their not-Firefly crew in 15mm, and a dragon to use in 6mm.

In January I expect to put in an order to round up WWII over the Pacific, there are 6 mini-starter packs that will do me, plus some spares for China. And some modern odds and ends. And I found I need another pack of D.XXI’s for the Finns. But THAT’S it.

Except that wasn't it. Some of the madness were Oddzial Osmy's Italian and French aircraft, but much of it lately has been the ongoing awesomeness of Roman, Arun and Roe, three designers on Shapeways, who've been doing 1/288 WWI aircraft for me (Roman, Der Kampfflieger) and 1/600 WWII-modern aircraft (Arun - Objects May Appear; Roe - Tinythingamajigs). Now I'm waiting for Dom to get some of the modern-era packs put together for me, so I can finish off WWII and the moderns (mostly).

At some point I’d like to place a small order with H&R for 1/300 WWI a/c, I have some gaps in my lineup, and they’re the only ones with a reasonable collection of interesting Interwar a/c.
Didn't get this one done. Am holding off on the interwar stuff in 1/300, as the Shapeway guys might get to it in 1/600. Will have to see how does the coolest stuff fastest. I'd like to wrap up WWI from H&R in one swoop, to get their 40% shipping cost out of my life.

So, my plan to focus more on painting this year is to limit the other stuff I get into - cleaning and prepping, building, etc - by fixing it to a strict schedule. I'll priortize painting projects too, but not put them onto a schedule, just work through one and then onto the next.

Painting Priorities:
1) Continue practicing on 25mm figures.
2) Finish the 6mm stuff that's been on my painting table half-started for a stupidly long time (I think I have a friend who'll paint the rest of my 6mm WWII stuff on commission for me).
3a) Vietnam air.
3b) VSF space (it's on the same tray as the Vietnam stuff).
4) Actual 25/28mm figures - VSF characters and non-Space Marines for my Gothic Earth project.
5) Star Wars fleet scale.
6) Actual 15mm's - Splintered Lands, India skirmish, dark ages, whatever's primed.
7) WWI air.
8) Star Wars fighter-scale.
9) WWII air.
10) Modern air.
11) 2mm fantasy and sci-fi.

Terrain can be done as prepped, and for the record, my definition of 'painting' includes priming.

Other projects, by month:
Jan. - Cardboard terrain
Feb. - WWII plane prepping
Mar. - Base texturing (for all the stuff I based in 2010)
Apr. - VN terrain, including hills
May - 2 and 15mm India miniature prep.
June - 2 and 3mm terrain, mainly texturing bases (India, Europe, sci-fi, ACW)
July - 6mm terrain (fantasy, WWII, modern, sci-fi)
Aug. - 3 and 6mm ACW prep. (and any Vietnam leftovers)
Sept. - Take 2 at cardboard terrain
Oct. - Build terrain from 3D puzzles and other wood things (e.g. birdhouses)
Nov. - Build 15/28mm sci-fi terrain (include the Naloomi's workshop stuff I have around)
Dec. - 6mm fantasy prep.
Bonus: Finish prepping my 1/72 marines in Vietnam.

Leftovers
If I get ahead of schedule, I'll just bump up the next month, which will help because I also have on my list:
- Modern aircraft prepping
- WWI aircraft prepping
- 15mm Indian terrain
- Spaceship prep. (Battlestar Galactica, Iron Stars)
- Basing/mounting/assembling aeronef and land ironclads
- Other 2-6mm figure prep. (may need to do some 6mm WWII prep. so I can get them off to be painted)
- Other 15-28mm figure prep.

The last two are all my lost projects: retro sci-fi, War Rocket, 3mm Cold War and Blitzkrieg Commander, 6mm moderns, 1/72 WWI, more VSF, modern spy skirmishing, more pulp, 2mm Ogre, tons of 15mm, 28mm gothic sci-fi, 2mm ACW.

Planned Purchases:
- 2 and 15mm India
- 2 and 15mm ECW (skirmishing/Solomon Kane for the latter)
- aircraft (all eras)
- mats
- 3mm fill-ins for Vietnam and ACW (e.g. the new Zouaves!)
- cardboard terrain
- a few big Star Wars and Star Trek ships from Shapeways
- Pulp Figures (a birthday present methinks)
- use my forthcoming Ground Zero Games Xmas coupon for some more 6 and 15m Sci-Fi
- Microworld's awesome 6mm dwarves should be released this month

A busy timeline, but if I can keep to that and actually finish some projects, or at least make a first dent in some of the huge ones (15mm gaming, for instance), then 2013 will let me get to all those lost projects, while actually using more of my toys. Right now my Star Wars and fantasy pre-paints, a few WWI aircraft, and my Vietnam project are all that I can play with.

Important to all this as well is resisting things that have tempted me repeatedly: ACW naval gaming (other than what's needed in 1/600 for Terrible Sharp Sword), pre-dreadnought and WWI naval gaming, 1/6000 modern naval ships (as targets for my a/c), 2mm big scale Napoleonics, the rest of the SYW in 2mm, ancients x50 projects, etc. etc.

Right, so off now to practice my big fig painting on those old 25's, and work on that cardboard terrain!

Star Wars Timeline

There's been a lot of discussion about Star Wars, where Lucas went wrong (if anywhere), and how people game the setting. From past posts it's obvious I love Star Wars and have plans to game it in 2mm (big battles), 28mm (skirmish), and fighter-scale and fleet-scale space battles.

However, I am a fan chiefly (essentially exclusively) of the original trilogy and assorted fluff that came out from that, up to and including Timothy Zahn's sequel trilogy (which chould have been filmed, if anything, as episodes 7-9) and some of Michael Stackpole's Rogue and Wraith Squadron series.

The prequel trilogy just had too much wrong with it, both from a movie-making point of view - I still can't figure out some of the plots going on - and from a backwards continuity point of view. Anakin Skywalker was too young, the Clone Wars would have been AGAINST the clones (not with), and there's no way Anakin/Vader had an idea he had twins, much less had a past on Tattoine.

So working with the canon timeline as a starting point, I've written my own timeline and incorporated it into my rules conversions, just as a refresher as to what's going on. I will even do some gaming in pre-Episode IV periods, but according to my feelings for what was going on.

So, for what it's worth, here's my history, starting with the birth of Chewbacca. BE = Before Empire, NO = New Order (Empire's founding), BBY = Before the Battle of Yavin (= 19 years, 4 months after Empire founded), where a number follows a slash, that is the month of that year.

181 BE – Chewbacca born on Kashyyyk.

55 BE – Palpatine born on Naboo.

52 BE – Obi Wan Kenobi born (71 BBY).

50 BE – Palpatine joins the Jedi Order as a padawan apprentice.
50 BE – The Old Republic has become stagnant, complacent, even corrupt. The reputation of the Jedi has become tainted by their association with politicians and politics.

48 BE – Obi Wan Kenobi joins the Jedi.

37 BE – Anakin Skywalker born (56 BBY).

32 BE – Major advances in cloning made, initially can grow adult clones in two years, later (by start of clone wars) this increases to 6 weeks. Initial successes tempered by instability in the clones, either physiological or psychological. Some improvements made, by never entirely eliminated.

30 BE – Palpatine elected Sectorial Senator, representing many systems, and resigns from the Jedi Order, discovers secrets of the Sith and begins to explore the Dark Side of the Force and restoring the Sith cult. He later uses the cover of Darth Sidious in some of his clandestine meetings, but he is not a true Sith Lord, preferring his own path to power.

28 BE – Anakin Skywalker is discovered by Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn, who recognizes his strength in the force. Over the opposition of the Jedi Council, including Yoda, he becomes Jinn’s padawan. The other Jedi warn that Anakin is too emotional, too temperamental, despite his great power with the Force, to be a Jedi. When Jinn is killed shortly thereafter, Kenobi takes over as Skywalker’s master.

26 BE – First mass-cloning facilities built, intended to create soldiers for the Old Republic, reducing the need for citizens to serve. First military units available shortly thereafter. Templates for clones taken from existing Old Republic soldiers and officers, as well as mercenaries (Mandalorians) and bounty hunters.

24 BE – Palpatine takes Darth Maul as his apprentice in the Sith.

23 BE – First coup attempt by a Republican general empowered by his massive number of available clones. Coup is stopped by the Jedi, but this unleashes the clones themselves, now self-lead and rebelling all over the Old Republic – the start of the Clone Wars. The clones are able to reproduce and reinforce themselves quickly, having first secured all major cloning facilities. The clones regularly commit atrocities, from massive orbital bombardment to death squads, as their mental instability dominates their behaviour. Palpatine covertly aids the clones, hoping to eventually step in and gain control of them. Their souless-ness however, hinders his ability to control them with the Force and he does not overplay his hand.

21 BE – Senator Palpatine is elected Supreme Chancellor of the Republic.

19 BE – Obi Wan Kenobi is made a General in the Old Republic (Grand Army of the Republic). He and Anakin Skywalker serve together.

17 BE – Clone Wars end with the victory of a much-weakened Old Republic (36 BBY). All clone vats and clones themselves destroyed, but both individuals and facilities do escape.
17 - 0 BE – Fall of the Old Republic (36-19 BBY) as a weakened Jedi Order and Republican Senate has difficulty controlling the outer fringes of the Republic as well as internal power-plays by worlds and corporations. Violence, trade disputes, political deadlocks all follow. Later in the period, the Jedi are increasingly discredited through a propaganda campaign orchestrated by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. The order starts to fall apart, with fewer recruits, fewer resources, increasing “disappearances” and other losses to its membership. It is, however, still a force to be reckoned with.
17 BE – Anakin Skywalker first approached by Palpatine and given hints as to where teachings on the dark path to greater power could be found.

16 BE – Han Solo born on Corellia.

0 BE – Skywalker twins are born after Queen Amidala is spirited away from Anakin Skywalker by Obi Wan Kenobi and those loyal to the Old Republic. Amidala is hidden within the Royal Household of Alderaan, in Bail Organa’s family’s service as a nursemaid and servant (tutor). The daughter is kept as Bail Organa’s “daughter”, the son is taken by Kenobi back to Tattoine to be raised by Owen and Beru Lars; Owen Lars is a cousin of Anakin Skywalker. Kenobi stays nearby to protect the son, but Lars’ isolation as a farmer works well. Anakin was only vaguely aware his wife was pregnant, as he was busy serving Senator Palpatine and saw her only rarely. She had also concealed she was pregnant with twins.
0 BE – Anakin Skywalker finishes his fall, becomes Darth Vader after he and Obi Wan Kenobi battle at Mustafar and he is thrown into the lava pits. The massive damage he sustains leaves him dependent on his protective armor and life-support, and limits his powers in the Force.
0 BE – Empire declared, with Palpatine becoming Emperor, now year 1 of the New Order (NO). Emperor makes Darth Vader the Dark Lord of the Sith, his special agent to deal with the Jedi and ensure the security of the state. Palpatine renames the Senate as the Imperial Senate, with limited power and controls.

1 - 10 NO – The Jedi Purge, orchestrated by Emperor Palpatine, conducted by Vader and Imperial forces under his control.
1 NO – Queen Amidala, living under the name Padme, dies on Alderaan.

2 NO – Stormtroopers, using armor based on those of the clones during the Clone Wars, appear as the new standard line unit in the Empire.
2 NO – Eye of Palpatine station begun, later destroyed.

7 NO – Ghorman massacre, Captain Tarkin promoted to Moff as a result.

11 NO – Darth Vader finally has time to search for his lost child (not realizing there were twins), finds no trace and dismisses the search.
11 NO – Death Star design work begins, Grand Moff Tarkin in command.

16 NO – ISD design finalized, orders begun.
16 NO – Death Star design finalized, completed prototype components joined, construction of remaining sections begun.

17/6 NO – Corellian Treaty signed, Rebel Alliance is formed, first HQ is on Chrellis.
17/6 NO – Mon Calamari ships ordered to be constructed in secret for the rebels.
17/8 NO – X-Wing plans stolen by fleeing design engineers, turned over to rebels.
17/9 NO – Construction of first SSD’s begun.

18/4 – Rebel HQ moves to Orion IV, then begins moving every 6 weeks or so, until it ends up on Dantooine.
18/6 NO – First ISD’s received and operational by the Imperial Navy.
18/7 NO – First X-Wing fighters completed by rebels.
18/10 NO – Death Star plans stolen.
18/12 NO – Death Star plans uploaded to consular ship Tantive IV by rebel spies.

19/1 NO – Princess Leia and Tantive IV captured by Darth Vader; he reports it destroyed with all hands lost.

Still Here

Have a longer, themed post to do next, but wanted to actually talk about miniatures before I put it up. The last month has been busy with work, weekends away and women. Well, one. So there was a pause, but some figure prepping was done (despite being against my resolutions for 2011) and the last two nights saw some actual painting done. The 2mm Star Wars stuff was painted to a point where I could safely pause, and then I got onto a priority - practicing my 25/28mm painting so I'll be in shape to do some Xmas gifts.

I am also working to cross everything off a list I prepared of all the half-started or nearly finished projects lying around. I want to get them done before anything new begins...

Wins (football) and Wins (OOP Ospreys)

I was downtown in Toronto today for a football (Canadian) game (we won) and afterwards hit the World's Biggest Bookstore ("it's just a name") and discovered they may have the World's Biggest Osprey collection. At least it left me in awe, and I've seen a couple pretty nice ones elsewhere.

However, as the WBB is now part of our national bookstore empire, the bricks and mortar prices are about 25% higher than what I can get online.

But...

I've been trying for six months to get the Campaigns: Assaye book. Our national bookstore empire (online edition) tried and gave up after a month, Amazon tried for 5 months, and then I gave up on them, because I found Osprey direct had it listed. Until I told Osprey's website that I lived in Canada, when it mysteriously became unavailable in North America ("but we're still part of the Commonweath - the Queen's on my money (well, most of the big bills, anyway)").

So my first walk through of Osprey heaven didn't turn it up. I wandered away, Osprey-less, and checked at a computer linked to their online store - still listed as unavailable. I went back to the Osprey aisles, mainly because of consternation around an issue I'll bring up below...when I saw Campaigns: Assaye!

So I am now stupidly proud of owning a copy. After my SYW in India project, I plan to roll along into Wellington in India, re-using what I can. Some of the units will get later period paint jobs, the only real new units will be EIC/British cavalry, although I'll probably eventually do two rank EIC infantry.

So why else was I consternated in the store? I found both volumes of Fighting Ships of the Far East, which I've long wanted. Problem: I've long had one of them...but couldn't remember which one! I spent 15 minutes walking around trying to remember which one I had...couldn't do it, and since I didn't want to make a return trip downtown (two hours or so) to return one, I skipped on them. But I now have an order in to the online empire, as they say they can get one, and cheaper.

I also got some VSF/steampunk inspiration: the Steampunk I anthology (I picked up Steampunk II a while ago, couldn't find #1 locally). I also completed Edgar Rice Burroughs' Venus series by finding Pirates of Venus. Now to find suitable miniatures...

I also picked up Russian Amerika, the first book in a series, of which I picked up the second last weekend (Alaskan Republik). It looks like a Crimson Skies sort of thing, with the Russians still owning Alaska, an independent California an Texas, USA and CSA. Mainly though it was the wicked paint jobs of Mustangs on the covers.

So now pictures again...but I'm doing a lot of gluing, basing, and gessoing (or is it gesso-ing?), so nothing sexy to look at. I did pick up some VSF figures from RAFM during their recent sale, once the stupid postal labour dispute is over, I should have them here.

I'm also being distracted thinking about Cold War Commander and Pulp Figures. Um, not at the same time, separate projects!

Rumi-nations

I'm entertaining myself with the cleverness of this post's title yet have the sneaking suspicion there was probably a better way to use it, as this post doesn't really have any tie-in with Imagi-nations. But since I'm up late unable to sleep after an unintentional 4 hour nap this evening, I thought I'd ruminate about a project idea I have had for a while that does at least cover many nations.

And for a change I don't have to buy anything or spend 100 years painting new stuff to undertake this project - I'll be able to do it as I finish my existing 100-year projects.

What my idea is, is to take an existing "most famous" battle and then refight it using its basic principles across multiple periods and genres. So an obvious couple are Waterloo and Gettysburg, but instead of Britain+Prussia vs. France, or North vs. South, it would be:

• Seven Years War - France and Indian allies vs. the East India Company (2mm)


• Seven Years War - Prussia vs. Austria and Russia (2mm)


• Seven Years War - France vs. Hanover/Britain (2mm)


• Victorian Science Fiction - say Germany vs. Britain (2mm)


• Union vs. Confederates - but at Waterloo! (2 or 6mm)


• Napoleonic France vs. Britain - but at Gettysburg! (6mm if the club goes for it)


• Any variety of ancients - Alexander vs. India, Mongols vs. Poles (6mm)


• English Civil War (2mm)


• WWII - company vs. company (6mm)


• WWII - division vs. division (3mm)


• Cold War - division vs. division (3mm)


• Vietnam (3mm)


• Star Wars! (2mm)


• Fantasy - Acheron vs. Valusia (2mm)


• Fantasy - Naama vs. Cush (2mm)


• Fantasy - traditional orcs vs. dwarves (6mm)

I've put the potential attackers (French, Confederates) first in the above list, where obvious. For some, it could go either way...e.g. the NVA assaulting a US ridgeline, or an American push to drive out the VC.

The "basic princples" would be the terrain layout, situation (attacker, defender), objectives, relative force strengths and proportion of arms (as best as can be done when translated over time), reinforcements, random events.

Anyone with forces ready to go should feel to steal this idea and let me know how it goes. Any other interesting battles to try this with?