My Little Wars Loot and Swag!

 So I am recovering this weekend from Little Wars.

The house is in a complete mess due to massive plumbing and contracting work going on, so I am currently unable to access my game room. I can get to my paint room, but man, does that need a thorough cleaning.

So all the stuff I got from Little Wars (and some more stuff), is sitting in a corner of the dining room right now.

I was finally able to sit down and essentially look at most of my loot and swag from the Convention, (vendors, prizes, registration swag, a couple of gifts, round 1 of the flea market, and a side trip to Friends Hobbies in Kenosha).

This year I wasn't as interested in figures as I was in terrain and scenics, but I did pick up some figures, (go figure)....

(CLICK ON THE PIC FOR A LARGER VERSION FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE).

(The main haul...free stuff, registration swag, and purchases from the hobby shop not included.)

The first item I got in the flea market was a copy of Panzerblitz.

Yes this game is an oldie but goodie, and for new/novice wargamers, it is still a great board wargame teaching tool.

All parts there, in very, very good condition, (a little box wear), and only 4 bucks.

FIGURES:

The figures I picked up were a wide variety.

(Figures plus some ladders from Gaming Accessories...)

Knuckleduster always gets some of my money.

I can use these for my future Rio Bravo game.

(Indeed...good guys....)

(Meanwhile, in the cantina....)

I also picked up the "Gentleman Pirates" from Crusader Miniatures.

(Some fine fellows that have taken up the code....)

My next purchase was a bit of an "impulse", (and I don't mean "impulse drive").

I was wandering through one of the vendor areas and came upon these.

I know I will never use them for gaming but decided to get them anyway and paint them up.

(It pretty much confirms that I still like a tv show I started watching in 1973...)

My final figure was another impulse buy. I needed a figure to be able to do a size comparison buildings, so this pathfinder figure got me as his new owner.

Where there I also picked up the Army Painter miniature hand drill. I had one of the smaller cheap ones a while back but it vanished, and it was also a killed on my hands and fingers, so this one will be a welcome addition. 

(A welcome addition to my tool set...)

TERRAIN AND SCENICS:

One of the things that is true is the "Ooh" and "Aah!" factor in tabletop miniature gaming.

For me, it has to do with a nice visual appeal and attraction.

So for most of my shopping at the vendors this year at Little Wars terrain and scenics were the priority.

I started off with some ground cover.

These ground tufts are from Shadows Edge Miniatures and they are half the price of stuff coming from Army Painter. While I am not familiar with this company, I have decided to give them a try and do the comparison/contrast thing in a later write up. 

(Pretty, pretty, ground cover....)

Here's some close ups to get an even "closer" look at them. 

After getting the ground cover, I hit a couple of more vendors for some printed buildings and dropped a few dollars on the plastic sloop from Firelock Games.

(Think of it as "Property Development"....)

I also picked up a set of ladders from Gaming Accessories. I've found out that I am always needing things like ladders and such, so I went ahead and got this.

OTHER STUFF:

While at the convention, (I missed the Sunday close out), I was also able to pick up some stuff and was honored by a couple of gifts.

(Here we have one of the HMGS-MW Little Wars 40th anniversary edition dice, along with a gifted "Good Idea Fairy" Pin.)

After the convention was over with, Noah and I made a side trip up to Kenosha.

While there we stopped at a Hobby store and I picked up two Ospreys and a Wizkids figure.

(A couple of nice Osprey's for reference...)

(This is the fellow you meet when you suddenly realize that "Actions have consequences".)

And before we left, we stopped at Woodmans.

(Look what jumped into my cart!)

(And a small bottle to sample of Willett Small Batch Bourbon...)

And then we headed home with our loot.

That's it for this post, but more is coming.

Stay tuned!

New Year and A Clean Work Area!

 So Jan. 2022 is onto us and ushering in the new year with snow storms, bad weather, more Covid related mandates and all the usual craziness that seems to be making itself the "new normal" in our lives.

For us mini guys, it's usually when we start planning and beginning our new "projects"; many of these being "the same projects from the previous year", or "a previously abandoned one being brought back to life".

For me I have a list of the "What I want to do's", but before I delve into any of that, I simply realized that "First off", I needed to clean the painting and work area some....

The painting room was a mess. Empty boxes, stashes of stuff, and papers were everywhere, and the table itself was a confused, chaotic hodgepodge of half painted figures, brushes, tools, some scenics, more figures in various stages of prep, and paint bottles everywhere.

Something had to get done.

So I bucked up, soldiered on, and went ahead and started organizing the chaos.

My wonderful wife, (Gawd bless her!), has the saying "A place for everything and everything in it's place." and in the sense of this room and my setup that is indeed true.

So I finally finished it, and decided to get some pics, and to give some ideas for a work area setup.

(The table under normal lighting after it has been cleaned once again...)

Looking at my paints, I indeed need more paint racks desperately....and perhaps more shelving units...or a better way to store some things.

(A view of the table with the fairy lights and OTT Light on...)

I've included a series of photos showing the contents of the table, and how I have it set up, for those that would like to reference it.

(This is the left side, showing the phone unit I have downstairs, my coffee cup on the warmer, my brushes separated by size, the clear box that I keep my currently most used craft paints in, and my homemade wet palette made from a plastic pencil box.)

(A close up shot showing how I have my brushes organized. Two Tin cups hold my detail and small/small-med brushes, while the larger glasses (From Treasure Island and Excalibur in Las Vegas), hold my larger and BIG brushes.)

(The actual work area of the table with the green cutting mat, paint palette, paint racks to hold the GW pots, dropper bottles, inks, and other paints with flip tops. The two boxes in the upper right corner are more Reaper colors from their Bones IV and V Kickstarters.  You can also see a GW figure holder. I also have my Vortex mixer (a godsend), and a magnifier, clamp unit. Finally I have a large water jar (on the warmer), and a smaller jar. The large jar is used to clean brushes during painting. The smaller jar is also water filled and used with an eye dropper for adding clean water to paints for washes, etc.)

(Some of the Craft paints. Although not as well refined as some of the more professional stuff, they can provide wonderful cheap basic colors for buildings, terrain, etc., and some of their colors can be worked very well and fill in for where the pro stuff lapses. The ones I use for current projects sit here, and when I am done with them, they go back into the larger paint storage area.  Later on, I am going to do a post dedicated to craft paints and some of the colors that you can get and use.

(One of the most useful tools and needed items for a paint desk/table is a cutting mat. This is the essential, work mat for where you do your work. It helps keep your table top from becoming stained, scratched, and scarred.  For the top of my desk I also custom cut foamboard to make a protective topping. It's worked wonderfully so far.)

After I finished cleaning up the table, I looked over at the shelf and decided that that too, needed a spot and a lick to tidy it up.

So away I went, and when it was done I was pretty pleased.

(Unit 1, Shelf #1: The Dremel tools all go here. Yes that is a small flashlight, US Army Map Reading Protractor AND a Morrow Project RECON Patch on the wall...)

(Unit 1, Shelves, #2 and #3: Shelf #2 is my already ten year old Paintier 80 holding my old paint pots, (Armory, Old GW, Old Reaper Pro Series, Pactra, etc.), The Tamaiya is next to it. Beside it are jars of pre made "ground brown", agitator beads, cleaning solutions for brushes, etc. This shelf is pretty much for paints.
Shelf #3 is the tools shelf. All of my work tools, (Knives, rulers, pencils, paper clips, pins, extra palettes, Micro-Line Pens, etc., are all kept here in easy arms reach.)

(Shelving Unit 2, Shelf #2:  This shelf holds the glitter, a lot of misc. pieces, (bitz), some projects I am slowly working on in the clear container, some empty blister packs, (I cut the clear flat plastic for "window glass" for buildings, and a pizza slicer.)

(Unit 2, Shelf #3: It's all about the base...work.  Here's where I keep my bases, wood, metal, and slotta, in labelled and marked containers as well as the different types of groundwork.  It truly helps to keep things labelled so you know what you are looking at and for.) 

(Unit 2, Shelf #4: I got your glue right here!  Glues, expoxy, tape, spackle, cement, hobby-e tack, rubber bands, green putty, etc. It's all here...even the "glitter glue...")

My wife was correct. 

There IS something good about this whole "organization stuff" that makes things work a whole lot better. But knowing me and my methods of work, I know that this will probably only be a temporary look. (Edit: As of this posting the desk is filled with figures and work stuff, and the floor area needs straightening too...)

Ah well...one project at a time....

More to come!

Thanks for being here!

INTLLAB VM-370 Vortex Mixer Review....

 One of the issues most of us tabletop gamers and painters have is the process of having our beloved and often rare paints separating during periods of non-use, aging, etc. Sometimes the paint separates to the point that all the shaking by your hand and stirring doesn't seem to do the trick.

Plus the fact that mixing paint by hand shaking usually really doesn't do a decent job on pigment allocation and getting things properly mixed.

One such fix for this is a paint mixer.

There are a variety of these on the market, but in this case, I am going to review this little baby I ordered off of Amazon.

I had seen numerous posts from people on various Facebook pages talking about Vortex mixers and during my research, I had narrowed it down to two different models. After more research, I went ahead and dropped 60 bucks on Amazon and within a week had this at my doorstep.

INTLLAB Vortex Mixer VM-370

Before we begin, if you don't know what a vortex mixer is, well...it's a piece of laboratory equipment that is used to properly mix laboratory samples and vials quickly through the use of high speed rotational vibrations.  

So the box arrived:

Easily labelled and no damage....this is good....

Opening the box, we see the item, (note. This is NOT the way it was packed. I took the unit out and looked at it, and then repacked it into the box. The cardboard damage, etc. was from me.

The unit consists of the mixer itself along with a power unit, a small card of instructions, and that's it.

The power unit plus into any outlet, and then into the back of the unit itself. 

The upper housing, (mix area), of the unit is rubber, while the lower half is hard industrial plastic with a nice identifier label on it.

Unit with the power cord. A simple enough setup, even for me...

The base is flat, but there are no real grips to hold the item onto whatever surface you place it upon. An idea I have for the eventual future will be to figure out where it is going to go and drill three small holes into the mounting base and run securing screws into it and the table. This will keep it still and in one place while in use.

Let's try it out!...

There is no "on/off" switch. The unit is activated by placing the item to be mixed down upon the small circles where it will automatically begin a high vibration. 

The first thing you have to remember is that you DO NOT hold the paint container, (pot, jar, eye dropper bottle) in a death grip. You hold it with a slight firmness to keep it in place. I learned that with eye dropper bottles it is best to put them at a 45 degree angle. 

So here we have some pics and video of yours truly testing it out. The video is approx 1 min long as I try different containers, and I run the Vortex to mix the container usually on the bottom and the top.

The first main test was with a pot of GW/Citadel "Nihilakh Oxide". (Please note that during the video the unit stops frequently. This has nothing to do the the VM-370, but has to do with me "learning" how to hold the paint pot on the mixer properly.)...

And awaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy we go!!!

After that was the end results...

Wow! Really well done!

Next up was an eye-dropper of Reaper "Tropical Blue"...

Same procedure, but you can see that the pigment has separated and comes out initially as "clearish"...

Oh dear, this is NOT good.  Note: The white and brown are "before" and "after" shots using Vallejo "Natural Wood" with the VM-370...

Unfortunately the videos I took are way too long for Blogger to handle, so I will post the results pic here.

You can see the results!

And last try, is with an oooooooolllllld container of Reaper Pro-Paint Copper...

Before the mixer.....YIKES! Is this still even any good?

And the "After" the VM-370...And yes, it is STILL good!

A helpful suggestion is to also add 2 3mm or 1 6mm glass agitator bead to each paint pot. Please do not use "stainless steel" as they can rust, (if the coating on it goes away), and FOR GAWDS SAKE, DO NOT use "bb's"...or you WILL get rusty paint.

And finally I was able to actually finally properly mix up this ANCIENT bottle of Armory Tibetian Blue that I bought in the mid 1980's and is still good! (It's the last one of my Armory paints still working)...

An oldie but a goodie...

If anyone is out there that would like to see the actual videos of this things (the ones that are too long to post) and see the full before and after operations, let me know and I can post it on youtube for you.

Final Analysis:

The VM-370 is a sweet little machine. It's learning curve is essentially 10 minutes of learning how to hold the paint pots properly on it to get it going and give it a good mix. After you learn that, it's easy peasey. The only suggest I would have is to mount it somewhere so you don't have to worry about the unit slipping while using.

Thanks for checking this out and as always, comments, and questions are appreciated!

More to come!

Little Wars 2014....A review....

Dear Readers;
This is wordy, long, and photo intensive....Get a drink and relax before proceeding...
Thanks!

The 2014 Little Wars Game Convention held by the HMGS Midwest was once again held at the DuPage Expo Center in St. Charles Illinois...
My wife (Gawd bless her!), and myself decided to make a long weekend of it.
I cursed myself silently for not pre-registering, but will do so next year.

This year instead of taking I-65N all the way to Gary Indiana, (gak), and making a left and then selling two or three pints of my blood to pay the road tolls, we decided to take a left just past Lafayette Indiana, and take 29W past Remington and into Illinois from there.
My wife noticed a set of kitchen chairs for sale, as we passed through the small town of Goodland, that "would match our new table perfectly!"...Unfortunately we were on a schedule. I promised that we would look at them on our way back on Sunday. (Unfortunately they weren't there...)
We came up from the South and through Kankakee, (which honestly didn't impress me that much)...and then around and eventually hit the freeway going in.
Last year we spent almost twenty dollars in tolls going to and from the convention, (as well as seeing the wonderful South Side of Chicago, and public service announcement billboards on prostitution), this year due to our change in course, we only spent six going one way (although the signs do lie, (one sign said toll .90, and then found out it was 3.80!), and I made it a challenge to leave the area on Sunday and pay no tolls...and we had a nice scenic drive...

Unlike last time we went for a day, this time we decided on the weekend.
I was able to get a room across the street at The Pheasant Inn Resort. Little Wars usually has room blocks going on there, and luck was with me, as I was able to get not one of the standard rooms but one of the tower suites. These are $270.00 a night rooms and I got it for the con price.
To be honest, the rooms are a little dated, and I don't think they are worth 270 bucks a night, but they are nice.

Registration went well and pretty speedy although prices at the door for non-HMGS members have gone up some.

So we received our programs....

This years program. These books are always well done...BRAVO!!!!

And I took a gander to see what was going on....and what to register for....
Flames of War was having some type of major area tournament there, so there was going to be a bunch of FoW games going on. This was something that didn't interest me. While I buy some of their stuff, and yes...I participated in their 40% off Vietnam sale, (sigh), I don't play FoW at all.

So we wandered around the place, (pretty much laid out like last time), and bought a few items....

This was the wife's Friday night haul...

For that evening she picked up one of those little handy-dandy magnifiers with clips to hold small fiddly pieces, and she got herself some nice purple flowers for groundwork and some nice white topped flowers, (I see pretty meadows in my future battlefields), and a camel and some horses from Uncle Dukes minis table....

Meanwhile I sucked it up and just bought three packs of figs...

Two packs of Crusader Minis Pirates, and one of "Old West Foreigners"...Gotta have a gunfighter in a kilt! Oh yeah....Ol' Angus McHaggis packing his sporran and two six shooters....

So on Friday night the wife did better me in the "stuff buying"....

We then retired for the night for dinner (Jambalaya restaurant at the Pheasant Run is nice but too pricey I believe and our waiter was a bit pushy on trying to get us to order the drink specials...).

We retired to our room for the evening and prepared for Saturday....

Saturday came bright and early (as usual), and I was up and ready to go. My wife was in "lounge mode" so she bid me a fond farewell!...
Off I trekked, ready to do my duty...
But was quickly diverted by the breakfast buffet directly to the right outside of the elevators...hmmmm....

Now with belly full....I was off and ready to do my duty....

Upon entering the area, I noticed that this year HMGS Mid-West decided to change the hours and times of "The Flea Market". This year they ran the flea market in off hours when the dealers were not open. Though some people whined about it, I think it's a fair and decent thing to do for the dealers. Of notice is that the Saturday evening flea market seemed the prime one....
I bought nothing out of there...and too many people made me feel like I was in a cattle chute.

So I took some pics of the general convention area:

The dealers area on Saturday before opening...

As you can see the place was filled nicely with gamers and games. Fortunately the all too familiar "Gamey gamer smell" wasn't as prevalent as in days past. Although present, I think some of the worst offenders didn't show up, or had been introduced to soap and water....

A quick look at Saturdays events board...

Now I will admit that I DO like the way they have the event board set up. I'm not too sure about how to register for events. Seems that for those that didn't preregister, and did a walk up, you had to wait until one hour before the game you wanted to play started. You then told the guy the event # and he handed you an event ticket if there some available...

Some of the games that looked really cool filled up fast, and some of them were also ALL DAY (5+hour events).

An example of this was the "German Invasion of Oak Ridge Tennesse"...a wonderfully campy pulpy game, that had Nazis, cops, the Army, Aliens, Hillbillies, Townsfolk and all sorts of Iron Sky type madness going on all at once....

"Look! Up in da sky!!!! Is that a....????"

"Nazi's in their V3's from "The Dark Side of The Moon"....

A shot showing the entire table....

The local fire department and pest control....

There were tons of other games also....

One enterprising person was putting on a "Steampunk Time Traveller" game, (in which the game table was divided into four seperate game/time areas). One was Oriental, Once was Ancient Egyptian, One was kind of Steampunkish Europe and the other was a Seaside dockside...

I myself was fascinated by it and took a few pics to get some terrain and scenic ideas for my future pulp/horror/victorian/colonial games.

(Click on the pics to get a larger photo)....

 

 

 


Meanwhile I got myself involved in Uncle Dukes 25mm Alamo Game...

As Jim Bowie holding the Western Wall....

If you don't know what this building is....You need a history lesson....and don't ever go to Texas....

To be honest, I had wanted to play in an Alamo game since last year...and I was looking forward to it. The rules were relatively simple, but my fun was quashed by my opponent who felt the need to cheat and finally 'admitted" it at the end of the game....(more on that later)....

Uncle Duke...2 years past his expiration date...and a nice setup...

The immortal 18 lb'er on the SW parapet...

My West Wall...It would take my opponent to resort to cheating to be able to reach it...and he would...

Part of the attacking force of General Cos hitting me on the West Wall. By rules these were all musket men and needed a 7 or higher on an 8 sided dice to hit.  He had one unit of Lights, (which needed a 7 or higher to hit on a 10 sided dice.), Strangely enough after turn 2 ALL of his men suddenly became D10 "lights" and we only caught it AFTER he cleared the wall...and when the game was called, he ended up admitting it....Sad to have to cheat...

Mexican casualties are mounting in the second turn...(and the first obvious cheat is about to happen as pictured here and below...)

Here you see the Mexican Assault force with the ladders charging straight in to the west wall...right infront of my 9 lb gun. When I measured for cannister shot and they were easily in the template, my opponent suddenly said "Wait..these guys aren't really there...and picked them up and moved them....That was the first "What the H*ll?" moment....The enjoyment of this game soon went away as he started playing "the rules" and not "the game"...

  

Here you can see the recently "relocated" assault ladders OUT of the cannister template, as the Mexican column closes in on the West Wall. Notice that the guys in the green hats up against the wall were the only ones supposed to be using D10's...everyone eles in this photo (Mexican),. was using D8.  Strangely enough....they were all using D10's...

Which eventually resulted in the death of myself (Bowie) on the West Wall....So I left in disgust. May the gods save me from cheaters and rules lawyers.

I found out later that the umpires had been notified but it was too late in the game to do anything about it as it would requre the entire side of the table to "replay" 2 turns...Ah well...hope he's happy.

After this fiasco, my wife and I wandered back around the dealer area while she checked things out. And here I want to vent about something....dealers and their attitudes...

VENT: Dealers...I know you are dealing with lots of people. But please try to put on a professional courteous expression. Don't sit behind your table with your arms crossed and a nasty scowl on your face.  When a customer is looking at your wares don't walk right up to them and say "Something I can help you with?" and glare at them; and if they say "No thanks. I know what I am looking for." Don't just glare at them angrily and turn around and walk off in a huff. Really, if you don't want to be there, and don't want to deal with people...well damnit...don't rent table space....

I promise that unless prodded, I won't "name and shame" this time...since it was only one dealer, and each time I asked a question they acted like I was bothering them.  So I saw some nice stuff that I would like to have gotten from them....but due to their attitudes, I took my money elsewhere...

Meanwhile my wife was discussing the Leonardo Flying Machine Game and thoroughly fascinated by it....

She's a lover of the strange and unusual...after all, she married me!!!!

After making a long visit with Forrest Harris, who seems to be in cahoots with my wife to get me to spend money, plus talk scenery, (He truly is a really nice guy), we checked out the 6 pm pulp game to find out it was filled. Ah well...back to Culvers for dinner and for loot checking...

My wife's swag for the Saturday night...dice, scenics, (more treasure piles), and a Millenium Falcon...

We finally headed out Sunday morning and took an adventuresome run through small country state roads and through Joliet, to get out of the highway robbery activity that is more commonly known as "The Illinois Toll System"....

Once home we tallied up the loot...

Her finally loot tally for both nights once we got home....

She made out pretty good....

So I looked at mine....(remember that she "enabled" me by telling me that "I needed these"...)....

That's a pretty big haul of Knuckleduster and Blue Moon figs....yowza!!!

So I then went ahead and did the final "loot tally" photo....

And then cried when I think about how much we spent....

And how my little lead pile has grown yet again....

The final results of this years "Little Wars haul...."

Final result and observations:

Little Wars is a good convention for the Midwest US. Some people on TMP says that they think it was lighter than last year, but I didn't see that. I know that FoW took up a lot of space, and to be honest, I am thinking that if the con is going to get any bigger they are going to need a new location. It's pretty much maxed out the way it is right now.

The Dealers area seemed slightly lighter this year that last, but OG, Knuckleduster, and others were there. For the one dealer....dude...be nice to people..you might have more business...

There were a lot of games but I also noticed a few cancellations.

I like the way the flea market worked at not competing with the dealers. Although some folks didn't like it, I don't think it is fair for dealers to pay for tables at their cost and then have to compete with flea market guys during peak hours.

All in all, I do like the con, and the only real negative that I can come up with (which really can't be addressed without a major change), is the fact that St. Charles Illinois simply isn't an easy route to get to from "down South (ie: Indiana, etc...)

I'll be going back next year, since I became an HMGS-Midwest member and will support the con by running a game.

If anyone has any ideas, comment, opinions, on this post, please let me know, and if you would like to get in on a fun convention, try this one out.