Stay out of the long grass!

I recently (a month ago) finally found a plan straw welcome mat.  I wanted to make some farm fields for my rustic Flames of War terrain.  I cut the mat into 5.5-6 inch squares to match the hedges I made a few months back.  The fields are a little simple but I think they add some good atmosphere to the table. 

 I have also started on my Germans from Open Fire. I am going for a winter/grey scheme. 

 Kevin

Discworld: Ankh-Morpork the Game (a review)

Death, my favorite character

Latin: Make my day, Punk

I have loved Terry Pratchett's books for years.  A long long ago I had a job at a bookstore.  One fateful day I found a copy of "Mort" on the shelf.  I bought it and have been hooked ever since.  So a few weeks before Christmas I found a copy of Discworld: Ankh-Morpork the Game on the shelf at X Plant, I had to pick it up.

The game is very simple but has a lot of tricks to master.  It is for 2-4 players.  Game length can very (we had one game last 1.5 hours and followed by one that lasted 20 minutes).  What was very interesting about the game is how to win it.  There are too ways.  The first is for the draw deck to run out.  At this point players count their money, minions and buildings.  Each is worth a set amount of points, who has the most points wins. 

The second way is what makes the game so much fun.  Each player has a character card that only they know about.  The card tells them of a secret mission that they are trying to do to win the game.  Objectives can be, controlling a certain number of areas, having minions in a set number of locations, or in the case of Commander Vimes (my favorite) you win if no one else wins.  So as you are trying to achieve your secret objective you have to be trying to figure out what each other player has and blocking them.
 
It is a fun game even for people who are not familiar with Discworld.  The first game we played, only one person had read any of the books.  If you are a discworld fan, then you will get a kick out of many of the cards.  I highly recommend it.  We played 4 games back to back and it just got better as we got the hang of it.  

This has been one of my favorite board games, i would give it a 9/10.  If you come across it, defiantly give it a try.

Kevin 

Back in Black...green...

Hello People

Sorry for the absence, I know you have all been really broken up about it.  I am back with a new Flames of War model.  I just finished painting it tonight as a gift for a friend of mine for Christmas.  He does not play any games but wanted a painted tank.  So I picked an interesting one and went at it.  I found a baseball display case that fit nicely.  Plus it gave me an excuse to try out the new camera I got for Christmas.

I also picked up the new Hobbit starter set, so I will be posting some pics over the next few weeks as I paint it up.  This is in addition to the Open Fire set I am working on for FoW.
Kevin

The Germans are comming

I got a few minutes today to do a little work on the Germans from the Open Fire box set.  The recessed bases are really nice to work with.  I used to glue all the infantry down, then spend hours putting a healthy coating of polyfilla down to smooth out the transition.  I still have to use a little filler on the new bases to cover the gaps but not nearly as much.

These Germans are going to be painted up with a winter camo scheme.  I am going to be basing it out of the "Nuts" book.  Hopefully I will get some paint to models this weekend. 

Kevin

Flower Tea and other things

Hello again.
I have not had a chance to get any work done on the "Open Fire" box.  I will try tonight to work on filling in the gaps on the bases of the infantry.  I started a new job (the first in my new career) and I have been doing a lot of training.  Beside the new job (which I am totally stoked for) this week started of terribly.  Fortunately I have some really good friends that have been keeping me busy in the evenings.  I owe these people alot and I am great full to have them.  To them, for now, I can only say thank you.

One of the a fore mention people is my friend Lin.  (It dawned on both of us that we have been friends for 10 years!)  She gave me this Chinese blooming flower tea to try.  I had seen them in the store before but never really looked into it.  It is this little tightly packed ball, about the size of a bottle cap.  You put it in a cup and pour hot water on it.  Air bubbles immediately start to escape and the blossom starts to open. Out of the bulb another bulb pops up on a string.  Then that bulb releases another bulb, so on and so on.  I know it is not that special, but I got to say, it has kept me amused!  and now I have more tea to drink.

 

I have also found 3 boxes of old photos and documents from my Grandparents on both sides.  I am going to be scanning them all to make a back up.  So i will have some more family history to report soon. 
Kevin

Locke VS Hobbes: A Zombie Explination

               So with everything going on, i have not gotten much work done on the FOW stuff.  But while scanning some old faimly photos I found an essay I wrote in the first year at college.  I was trying to explain the points of view of Thomas Hobbs and John Locke, and using zombies as the backdrop.  Please feel free to let me know what you think.

  

I have probably spent far too much of my free time (and not-so-free time) dedicated to the development of zombie survival strategies.  I drove my roommates crazy while looking for a new house, because I rated all available places on how defensible they were against a zombie horde.  I have two theories on how the world will react to the zombie outbreak.  Both theories are dependent on the extent of outbreak.  I feel that the survivors will take ether a John Locke or a Thomas Hobbs view toward their fellow man.

                In the first situation, we are looking at a very small zombie outbreak; a few dozen walking dead terrorizing a small remote town.  The humans far outnumber the zombies.  In this type of outbreak the world that these people know still exists; all-be-it in turmoil and chaos.  These people maintain hope that everything will go back to normal once they defeat the walking dead, or if they make it to the next town.  The societal structure that they are used to is still intact and the survivors will work together.  While there may be one person who everyone looks to, decisions will be made in a democratic style, with everyone receiving a vote.  They would have a John Locke approach to their group; that people are generally good and will look after each other.  They will also expect the military to arrive to protect them, and liberate their homes (protection of property).  Survival rate for this group is very high in a small outbreak; however their chances of survival decrease if the outbreak proceeds to the second stage.

                In the second scenario, society as we have known it has broken down.  The zombies now surpass the humans as the dominate being all over the world.  Because the survivors relies that there is no going back to the “way it was”, they will organize into very small groups and only look out for each other.  While in the smaller outbreak other survivors were seen as additional people to help liberate, on the apocalyptic scale, those same people are now seen as competition for limited recourses and conflicts between surviving groups will occur.    

Only a small, well organized group where every able-body adult assists and is lead by a strong individual has any really chance at prolonged survival.  Larger groups are too hard to control.  Food and shelter will be scarce and if there is not an adequate supply of each, the group will quickly devolve into anarchy.  At this point, survivors in a large group will have to be weary of others in the same group as well as the zombies.  I think that on the apocalyptic level survivors will abandon the democratic mentality and adopt autonomous leader figure to make the difficult choices that they don’t really want to make. 

A system where everyone has equal say does not work when survival is measured in minutes.  If a group is going to survive, there needs to be one person who will make decisions and give directions and the others will listen.  This person, Thomas Hobbes would call the “Leviathan”, would create law and order.   He will make the hard decisions that would rarely ever reach a decisive result in a democratic vote. For instance, what to do if one of their party was bitten by a zombie.  The Leviathan leader must be the one who makes this choice for everyone.  Every moment a decision is not made puts the whole group at risk. 

The main difference that separates both approaches to surviving the zombie apocalypse will be “society”.  I believe that as long as people feel that the zombie threat is only temporary they will be civil and assist each other.  This is not to say that there will not be some people that will take advantage of other, but these are the same people who would be doing that regardless of the zombie apocalypse.  Only when every remnant of society is gone, and life is a constant fight for survival will people turn away from each other.  They will do whatever it takes for them and the members of their small group to survive one more day, even at the expense of another group.  

Kevin

Open Fire Infantry

It has been a few days since my last post.  It has been a long week to say the least.  I did not get much chance to work on "Open Fire".  But I did get the infantry put together.  Very time consuming to clean so many little people.  I do have a little complaint as to the quality of the plastic itself.  I had both PaK40's gun shields and one part of the frame break into pieces while taking them off the sprue.  Low quality plastic perhaps?

 I used a little poly fill to fill in the empty spots on some of the bases.  The new sunken bases are really nice, i will add a little poly fill to cover some of the gaps left next. 

Kevin