How to till a field... Prototype WIP

Last week was a bit cooler than the week before. Therefore I was able to get some things prepared. Especially I wanted to try to pimp up some of my fields. Thereto Pat's post from January on his Silver Whistle blog inspired me (look here).

So first I chose some stuff from myoffcut box. Namely a nice sheet of plywood and some foamboard. With the foamboard I prepared the shape of the field and the plywood made an excellent base.

As field I used a part of a doormat. Since I wanted to make a partly harvested field I cut a part off it and glued it on the board with all-purpose glue because I guessed that might contract less than wood glue. Afterwards I covered the empty part of the field with rough structure paint.

Now the board had to take a breake and I let it dry over night with a pile of RPG rulebooks on it.

Meanwhile I took some offcut pieces of the doormat and cut off the bristles. They shall serve as husk on the harvested field as well as straw for a bale of straw I'm preparing simultaneously.

But be warned:

If your sweetheart isn't as tolerant as dear Mrs Monty then make sure that she is away when you cut off the bristles or do it in a secret chamber in your flat. Otherwise you frivolously risk a debate on principles about cleaning your home. There is no chance to cut the bristles without flipping them all over the working place!

 

Anyway the day later I proceeded with the hedgerow which shall surround the field. basically I used the same technique as for my bocage (here). Which means that I glued flocks of different clumb foliage on the fomeboard with hot glue which worked rather well once more. But mind your fingers! Hot glue means HOT GLUE !

However, I'm rather satisfied with the WIP result and I hope to get the base drybrushed this evening. Then some fining touches and the prototype is ready to test.

A new gaming board tile, sweltering heat and sushi

During the last weeks I wasn't able to write or read much on the bloggosphere. I'm really sorry about that because I enjoy reading your mostly excellent post as much as writing some line to you but the last weeks were packed with appointments and deadlines and there wasn't much time to slide into the hobby. Somehow all my colleague seem to have ganged up on me and send me all there stuff just before they leave for holiday...

Additionally we're suffering from extreme heat. The whole week we had more than 30 °C and it's really anything but fun to spent between nine and ten hours at the office thesedays. And after two weeks of hot wheather our flat has heated up enough to make painting sessions more or less impossible. It's difficult to set appropriate highlights with sweat running into your eyes and dripping off your nose...

Anyway I managed to finish a very special tile for my game board. It's a hill piece whose hight raises from 30mm to 150mm. We'll need four of such pieces to create a hill for the AWI game our club is preparing for Crisis 2013 and the test match in late August. Fortunately Bernhard already has two of them. I hope mine will fit. Otherwise I'll have to make two more...

Another piece for my board...

Another piece of modelling my wife, a friend of ours, our daughter and me created yesterday, was sushi. To boile the rice is a bit tricky because you have to wash it several times and after boilding you have to flavour it with special ingredients afterwards. But my wife brought a book from the library which explained everything very well and so the rice turned out well. To form the sushi we used to forms which we bought at an Asian store for about 3 € each. The one for the Nigiri worked perfectly. Just fill it with rice, press it gently and take out some nicely shaped, rectangular Nigiri. Afterwards we covered them with some Wasabi and fresh (important!) tuna.

Making Maki was a bit more difficult. Although the form make a nice even rice roll it was difficult to put in the right portion of rice and mind the right mixture of rice and stuffing. So most of our Maki were lacking of structural integrity. However they tasted good, since my wife developed some great combinations of tuna, Surimi, cucumber, Welsh onions and cream cheese.

A selection of our sushi.

Although these sushi cannot match with those pieces of art which real sushi cooks create, they were really tasty and preparing them was a nice D.I.Y.-activity. I can really recommend to try it if you have some friends who are willing to join you or at least eat with you since the ingredients needed come in packages which are just inefficient for small groups or single experiments...

Monty's Birthday 2013

Actually it's unusual for me to write posts this late but somehow this day was special. Not too special since it recurred the the 36th time by now but nevertheless it was my birthday.

However it was a great day and it started with my two darlings giving me a hearty welcomeat 05.30 a. m. Besides all the goo wishes Mrs Monty prepared two excellent gifts:

A 90 x 90 cm gaming mat for X-Wing and Mark Adkin's outstanding "Waterloo Companion" an invaluable source for our Waterloo 2015 project.

Mrs Monty's gifts.

At work my day was kind of business as usual but we took some time to have a cup of coffee and a piece of cake together which my lovely wife had prepared as well.

The real highlight was the afternoon and evening. We went to Düsseldorf, met my parents, my dearest aunt and Auld Nick, one of my oldest and closest friends and haf a couple of beers together. Just perfect since Altbier from Düsseldorf's small brewweries is my absolute favorite! And Auld Nick crowned it all with a fine selection of presents. Especially the "Keep calm - Carry on" mug which will have a very special place on my desk at work.

After this outstanding evening my wife and me returned home. Our lovely daughter who was good as gold today stayed with gran and gramps this night and we had some unusual free time together.

But somehow I wasn't able to go to bed that soon and decided to have the day fade on the balcony with a fine cuban cigar, a glass of apricot liquer and some chapters of Ken Follet's "Winter of the World" uncut audiobook. Actually I prefer single malt whisky but the sweet potion chime together with Monte Christo's mastepiece of cigar making excellently.

What can men whish more?

Anyhow I wanted to share this eventful day with you and I hope you enjoyed it alhough it isn't that wargaming related.

 

X-Wing AAR: The shadow of the Death Star

On friday we had the first club meeting after my holiday. This time we wanted to play a game of X-Wing and I agreed to conduct the game as umpire.

However I decided to create a short intro to bring the boys in good spirits. It's in German only but I hope you enjoy it anyway. In English the text means the following:

EPISODE VI 3/4

THE SHADOW OF THE DEATH STAR

There is a new hope for rebellion. Finally,

after a weak point was discovered at the

Death Star, they are preparing their decisive

attack against the Imperial space station. On

Yavin the rebellion is gathering all their forces

to charge the Death Star.

But Grandmoff Tarkin, the commander of

the Death Star sense the danger. So he sends

out his best fighter squadrons with their leaders

Darth Axel and Darth Kalle to reconnoitre the

rebel base.

Within a asteroid field near Yavin it comes

to a battle when some rebel fighters are able

to intercept the Imperial fighters...

A rather simple setup for a small game to learn the rules. Altogether four squadrons gathered:

- Two Y-Wings with ion cannons and proton torpedos under Georgs command

- Two X-Wings flown by Bernhard and his son Pascal

- An identical Imperial squadron which (Darth) Axel managed

- A Tie-Advanced and two Tie-Fighters lead by (Darth) Kalle

The setup after turn 1. The opposing forces are converging carefully.

Georg knew his Y-Wings would be disadvantaged in speed and number. So he tried to play his heavy weapons off against Axel's squadron. He launched a volley of proton torpedos early but wasn't able to cause greater damage on the Tie-Advanced. But at least he was able to paralyse him with the ion cannon. After shutting down another Tie the Y-Wings turned left and tried to support the X-Wings on the left flank to enforce decision there. Afterwards they could finish off the remaining Ties here at the right hand side...

The Y-Wings ionize some Ties and turn towards their comrades.

Meanwhile the other Tie-squadron gathered to rush at the X-Wings. Those stayed in close formation and sent first laser fire at their enemies.

View at the rebel left flank.

Thereby Kalle's squadron got under heavy pressure. Although he was able to destroy one of the X-Wings, the combined fire of the remaining rebel fighters vaporised his Tie-Advanced and one of the other Ties.

Kalle's Tie-Advanced with a collection of target locks.

But the rebels miscalculated the speed of the Imperial standard Tie-Fighter. Just one turn after the X-Wing seemed to conquer the left flank Axel's fighters came in and attacked them from behind. Result was a burning Y-Wing and a heavily hit X-Wing.

The remaining Ties outnumbering the rebels.

As potentially more dangerous enemy Axel hunted down the X-Wing first. Although Pascal rolled the dice rather luckily the starship couldn't resist the green laser beams.

Finally the last Y-Wing was hopelessly outgunned. With some last words of warning to the rebel base on Yavin he vanished in flames. This time the Empire won but the Rebellion will strike back...

Three solid hits put the final nail in the Y-Wing's coffin.

All in all it was an exiting and funny game. Although I didn't play myself it was great fun to prepare the stuff for my fellows and guide them a little. Anyway they were satisfied enough with the game to put the return match on the agenda for our meeting in a fortnight...

Back from holiday...

The last two weeks were very quiet on Monty's Caravan.The reason was however rather nice: My wife, our daughter and me spent a week at the North Sea shore in Horumersiel near Wilhemshaven. The data connection with my cellphone was incredibly slow. Therefore I wasn't able to get in touch with you sooner.

Those blue sheep stood in the front garden of our holiday home

Anyway we had a great time. Since Viktoria is a real water rat we visited the local swimming bath several times and made some excursion to the surrounding villages. Unfortunately we had some bad luck with the weather. Very British indeed what I usually appreciate but it's kind of unhandy for bicylcle tours or time on the dyke...

However I didn't travel completely without hobby stuff. At least my colours, brushes, a lamp and a squad of Warlord Games Red Devils.

Monty's holiday workbench

Of course I hadn't time for excessive painting sessions but at least the base colours are applied...

Finely recovered I'll post some more wargaming stuff soon. Especially an AAR about a X-Wing game we played last friday. I hope to have it online until wednesday...