The Blog of Michael T. Murphy and his lifelong obsession with "little army men" and their imaginary glory, miniature wargaming, and other things...

Saturday, June 10, 2023

An April and May update

 Game wise that is...

The month of March has roared in and out with the majority of the damage from the tornado taken care of, life is kind of getting back to normal in our small Indiana town, (which is quickly growing).

As a result of all of this, my painting and gaming for the month of April came to a stop, and then for the most part May kind of did the same thing. Some figures got painted but not enough to my liking.

I did do a few things however, gaming wise and "other wise" (aka "Real life")...

Let's get to that first.

Soooooo....My wife was absolutely thrilled and then overwhelmed with anxiety when her BFF from high school and life in general announced that she was coming to visit us (all the way from Colorado no less!), and thus "we needed to get the house in order".

My wife decided that "We needed an actual coffee table".

Now I'll be honest. We haven't had one in the living room. 

So me in good old typical husband tradition, went scouring and found a table, that she approved of, brought it home and all was good. 

And now onto other things....


So we had company....

My wife's BFF and her husband were on a long road trip across the US, and made the return trip here back to us. To give my wife and her friend some "alone girls time", I took her husband to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where we delved into "All things racing".
IMS has an amazing museum. In all of my years, this is probably perhaps the third time I have ever been here, and each time it is amazing. The cars they have on display, the history of the track and the races, everything. It's been well done and very easy to take in.
Some pics of the cars in the museum, along with some very famous names on them. (Click on photos for a larger version).




































And of course, the trophy.


Odd Indy 500 Trivia fact....
Whenever a driver wins the Indy 500, he has a mask cast made of his face which is then reproduced in silver and added to the Borg-Warner Trophy here. This is the actual winners trophy, which is never awarded. The winning driver gets a silver replica of this for themselves. 
We also had a chance to play around on the simulators and my friend hit the wall at 234 mph, which would have been a spectacular fireball and sure to make the evening news.


And now....FOOD!!!!

A friend of mine says that "It wouldn't be a good post about minis and gaming, if I didn't include some "food" pics on it. So I often wonder "Just how many people come to read my posts and focus more on the food than the minis and gaming?" If you are a reader out there, please let me know in the comments.

Robbers Steak

So I decided to try out a recipe from a site based on the Robber Steak as written by Jonathan Harker in Dracula.  So with recipe and ingredients in hand, I went to it.
I had to use the oven version as my grill is not yet ready for summer cooking.

(Skewers full of meat going in the oven...)



(Looks good so far...)



(And on the plate...)


They were actually very good, and tbh, I can't wait to try them out on the grill.

I also had a chance to fix dinner for everyone and made my famous jambalaya, (complete with Cajun spices).

(Dinner is served!)



(A close up of dinner....)


And of course, dessert!
In this case, it was sugar sprinkled strawberries with bananas and vanilla bean ice cream.



After our friends left and went back home, I was also able to introduce my wife to this little delicacy.
Just a simple small whiff from the jar and it sent my mind reeling to "Back in the day" in South Korea.

(Oh yeah...)


(It's "an acquired taste" for us Americans...)


But it wasn't all "fun, games, and good times..."

So one day in early April I drove to Lafayette to do some business, and when I came out, "this" greeted me...

Ouch!








So my passenger side mirror got tagged and broken. Instead of filing an insurance claim, I hit up my friendly body part shop, who found one the same style and size in a junkyard for less money. A few days later, it's fixed and good to go.


And now I guess it's to the gaming and minis stuff....

What's on the table???

Knowing that I want to run a game for Little Wars next year, I decided to take out my Western buildings and do an experimental town setup.
Now the tables I use for gaming makes for an 8' x 4' setup, Each table being 8' x 2' plus I usually have an end table for me. with that being said, I wanted to get an idea of what "a small town setup" would look like. This will give me an idea of just "how big" this town could grow and become.  This would also give me an idea of what I need to build as well as to finish. 
(Click on the pics to get larger views).

(A test layout for my Western Town of Rimfire (Arizona, Territory). This setup is less than half of the table length.)


(An oblique shot of the town. I've noticed that I still need to build a corral for the livery stable, some hitching posts, a few more residences, and here I can see that I need to finish a roof for one of the shops.)


(Here we can see the unfinished jail... Man I gotta get off my duff and finished that thing.)


(Looking from the sheriff's office/jail down the main street.  So much more to build.)


(Looking from the cemetery. It looks to be getting pretty crowded in there.)


(Looking down Main Street from the Sheriff's office and the unfinished jail...)


(Looking from the filling up fast cemetery....)


(Good old Wun Hung Lo's Chinese Laundry...)


(A shot of Main Street...)


(Looking across the opposite site of the street.)

So the Western town is coming along nicely, but as always there is so much else to build:
Church
Gunshop
1-2 more saloons
Dance Hall
Corral for the Livery Stable
Hotel(s)
Bordello (s)
Grocers
And the list goes on and on and on and on....

And I also found out that I ran out of color, (Apple Barrel Craft Paints), and only then discovered that it is no longer made...(sigh)

(Anyone have a spare container of this, let me know...)


Other than that, I just did some building plan drawing on some foamcore. Getting some ideas to build a 28mm Brownstone and an adjoining cafe for some gangster gaming.

(Some plans for da "urban redevelopment dat da boss has in mind...")

So that's about it for now. 
Right now it is June and I am busy working on some dungeon monsters. I'll finish those up, and jump back either onto pirates or some pulp/gangster figures and who knows? I might even get the design for this building cut and assembled.

Keep your eyes peeled for more to come!

Thanks!

2 comments:

Jason said...

I come for the gaming material but also enjoy the food.

Michael Murphy said...

Excellent my friend! Food is always "good"!