May Update: "Gaming, Minis, Painting, and a New Experiment!"

It's May 2021. 

Think about that.

We are almost at the halfway mark for the year already.

Where has the time gone?

And of course that means it's time for another irregularly timed entry into my blog that keeps limping along like an old dog going down a path in the woods.

This one, dear reader is a bit photo intensive, so please be patient as it loads. 

A NEW EXPERIMENT!!!

Okay, so being the owner of a house, I noticed that outside of our dining room and living room windows we had two large window boxes...with dead plants in them.

"Hm.." sez I.

I discussed this over with my wife and while she isn't big on flowers, she is big on herbs and such. So I went and dropped a few dollars, and am now trying my hand at "gardening", (to a degree). I researched up "best simple easy herbs to grow in Indiana", and then went with that. As I am an amateur dirt digger, I decided to go with something that was A: Easy to work with, B: Didn't require a lot of maintenance, and C: Well....easy to work with and lived in this Zone (Zone 5). 

And here's the results.

Box #1: This is Chives, Rosemary, and Lemon Balm...

Box #2: This is Chives, Rosemary, and Spearmint...

Not only are these "easy" herbs for beginners, they are also natural insect repellants.

I look forward to seeing if I have a green thumb or a black thumb...

And on beautiful spring days around the house, the flowers keep blooming...

An amazing assortment of flowers beautifully arranged around our home.

But...

That's NOT what we are here for. 

It's back to the "war room"...

GAMING...

Now that the game room has been established, we have gone ahead and broke it in with gaming, and every two weeks I am running a AD&D 2nd Edition Campaign.  We just finished our third setting, and the party is beginning to explore the ruins of an old haunted house. 

The Adventuring Party: (From L to R): Hanibar, Rakerzon, Mearig, Fargrim, Timos, and Caedrynn. All figures except for Fargrim the Dwarven fighter were painted by me.

The PC's discuss a course of action over what they should do about the "rumors of the old haunted house..." (*insert spooky music here*...)

No fancy vid screens and online "purty stuff"...This is Old School RPG'ing...

The party finds a mysterious clue!!! (*dun dun dunnnnnnhhh!!!!*)

Handouts and maps...Old School D&D...

The mysterious parchment fragment piece that gives a possible clue....What could it mean? What COULD it mean?!?!...

The D&D game weekends are especially fun because we get to visit with good friends, and have good times together and eat good food. This last game, my wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!), made chicken stacked enchiladas and they were scarfed down.

Always keep the game room fridge stocked...

But the game room is for more than just RPG's...

THE MINIATURES TABLE IS SET!!!

So the following Monday I cleared off the RPG stuff on the table and decided to set up some miniatures. Looking around, I decided to break out some of my Bongolesia stuff, as I haven't done an AK47 game in my third world African hell-hole in a number of years. I've been itching to do a cross border skirmish as I had been slowly building up a force for the country known as "The Fandango Republic", and decided to set it up for this. I also wanted to play more armor intensive this game, as well as test play some homebrew rules I am working up right now to see how they run.

So with a little flourish and some moving things around, I set up Bongolesia's Southern Border.

Looking at the table The border is visible. Bongolesia is on the left side and The Fandango Republic is on the right side...

Looking North from the Fandango side towards Bongolesia. One can see the checkpoints, and the UN monitoring station as well as the small Bongolesian Town of "Bungatown" and the current object of content, the facility known as "Charlie's Chicken Farm"...

Looking North into The Fandango Republic from Bongolesia. Bungatown is closest to the edge of the table.

The UN border monitor site, and the border area along known as "Checkpoint Chester", (named after amateur English ornithologist Chester Wellerfuller, who was reportedly eaten by ravenous hyenas in this area in 1907), which is currently manned by a mixed contingent of Danish and Pakistani UN troops.

The view of "Checkpoint Chester", from the Bongolesian side, including the Bongolesian Govt. border station across the road which is currently manned in this photo by National Police.

The actual border of Bongolesia and The Fandango Republic with the UN Station "Checkpoint Chester" and the Bongolesian border post visible. The current UN contingent on site is a mixed unit of Danish and Pakistani troops.

The UN conducts a border patrol operation while the Bongolesian National Police watch from their positions.

The UN Patrol moves out...what WILL they find???...

COOL STUFF!!!

I will admit that I was surprised this past weekend as not only did my good friends show up for another fun session of gaming but my "Bruddah frum anudda mudda" Dan Merchant brought me a pack of Wiz Kids Deep Cuts Pre-Primed Bugbears Minis, and my good friend Bryan Carter brought me a copy of  "Tank Duel", from GMT games, (still in shrink wrap). I was surprised, humbled, and honored by their generosity.

Looking forward to trying this one out!

And I can't wait to get some paint on these guys!!!

There's a heckuva lot more I can go about right now (including our plumbing problem with one of the bathroom sinks), as well as some of the work on my painting table, but I think I am going to call it quits for now. More cool and fun stuff to come!  

And as always, thank you for reading!