New Purchases = New Ideas = New Purchases....

Picture from Eureka Miniatures USA website

For quite some time I have thought about buying some Eureka Miniatures Sci-Fi Germans, not because I need them for any existing project, and not because I am running low on figures to paint, but by God, they are COOL minis and I just WANT them!  Sculpted with a classic coal kettle style helmet (aka Fritz), and armed with SturmGewehr 44 looking assault rifles for the riflemen, they just look COOL!  Many times over the last several months I have gone to the Eureka USA site and added them to the shopping cart, only to talk myself out of sealing the deal.  I just keep thinking "what am I going to use these for?", and then decide against buying them.  That was until last week.  I finally pulled the trigger and completed an order with Eureka USA.  By the way, I placed my order on a Friday and had the figures on Monday, DAMN good service from Rob at Eureka USA!  Anyway, I wound up buying figures to create two eleven man squads along with support elements (LAW team, auto cannon, and a sniper team).  Got my package in the post, ripped open the box, and was simply blown away by the quality of these figures.  Seemingly there are many companies out there now cranking out some high quality 15mm infantry.  A true golden age I believe.

So, many of you know I have been busy selling gaming items here on the blog, on the Bazaar page.  This flux of cash (PayPal cash, but cash nonetheless) has given me some extra coin to pick up some ultralight backpacking gear for a big trip to Isle Royale later this year.  But, I also am using some of this influx of PayPal cash to expand some of the Ambush Alley/Force on Force/Tomorrow's War "stuff" I have been slowly gathering.  And, as mentioned previously, I've been playing a lot of X-COM on the home PC, and that gives me some gaming ideas as well.

Why the Eureka Germans?  They obviously do not fit with anything else I have going on, but I can see them in an X-COM-like setting, shooting Greys on Mars or something.  Wait, so, I need Greys then, yes?  Why yes, yes I do!  I have ordered aliens from both Rebel Minis (their Greys) and Khurasan Miniatures (their Little Green Men).  From Rebel I picked up two packs of armed and one pack of unarmed Greys, along with a Mini Martian Walker for heavy support.  From Khurasan I bought one pack of Martian Warriors, one Martian Overlord, a Martian Flying Saucer, and various terrain accessories (sci-fi furnishings, computers, desks, along with steel drums and trash receptables for both sci-fi and modern gaming).  I have also picked up some buildings made by Micropanzer Wargames Studio.  These sci-fi buildings (I have six now) will work great on their own, or perhaps to supplement the Deimos Design middle eastern buildings I have.  I still plan to use Tomorrow's War as the base rules, but might also take a look at X-COM Tactical for more of a "Marsy"  or Martian feel.  Having options is good, very good!

Once the Rebel and Khurasan orders arrive, I will have plenty of figures to work on for this Mars meets X-COM meets Krauts in Space "thing" I have twirling about in my mind.  Thank goodness the Greys/Martians will be fairly easy to paint, as I have enough camo schemes in my immediate future!

It's About Damn Time!

Wow, it has been FAR too long since I have added anything to the blog.  Seemingly life comes around from time to time and keeps me from getting more involved with my hobby of gaming.  Of course, I also have the hobby of hiking and backpacking that keeps me very busy as well.  Spent fourteen hours a few weekends ago working on trails, killing honeysuckle, putting in the foundations for a footbridge, and other assorted trail maintenance duties.  Amazingly enough, this is all volunteer work, and some hard manual labor at that, but I do enjoy getting a trail looking more like a trail and less like a honeysuckle jungle!

Picture from RAFM

So, what has been going on with the gaming?  Not a lot.  I missed CincyCon, where I was going to assist The G Dog with some Force on Force/Ambush Alley and Tomorrow's War events.  I've recently placed an order for two more RAFM grav tanks for the Striker/Tomorrow's War project as they are now being cast with resin hulls, and I added a neutron turret to the order as well to give my tanks a different firepower option (I will use this turret as some sort of fusion weapon).  I have found a new interest in an old PC game I used to play many years ago, X-COM: UFO Defense, which eats up far too much time.  And I am also getting heavily involved with 12mm American Civil War with my passion for the Battle of Perryville, but that's another blog.  So, even other gaming projects get in the way at times!

I plan on taking a hard look at the upcoming QRF sale that starts this Friday.  They already give a slight discount when ordering three or more of the same pack code, and the sale will be an additional 10% discount.  I could always add some additional West Germans (but why, I have plenty for Force on Force as it is), or more modern Germans with the cool G-36, some Seminole War figures (always had a hankering for that, and 15mm is far cheaper and requires less space than 28mm), or Spanish-American War (same reasoning, but historical battles are mostly lopsided affairs in terms of manpower), or some sci-fi (shades of Alien and Predator).  Or, I am probably better off avoiding the QRF sale altogether and just work on what I already have!

And then, with the X-COM PC gaming, there is always the idea lurking in the back of my mind about gaming X-COM on the tabletop.  It has been done before, take a look at LuckyJoe's Place, some cool X-COM work being done there!

And, while I still have the Anglo-Irish War in Miniature blog up, I have combined the posts into this blog, since I plan on using Force on Force for that period.  Eventually I will need to do some sort of cleaning up with that...either keep that blog as it's own entity, or shut it down and add more Anglo-Irish war "stuff" here.

So, where to go from here?  Reading some of The G Dog's blog has smitten me with the Tomorrow's War/Striker project again, so now it's a matter of sitting down and putting brush in paint, and paint on figure.  My goal for May will be to get some gaming work completed.  This month is difficult due to some other hiking commitments, but a few evenings here and there should be able to be dedicated to a few hours of cleaning, priming, and painting.

More coming, and I won't wait six months to update the blog!