Figure painting: Three dismounted men at arms

Slow painting progress. Really slow. Blaming overtime at work. Been quite a lot. But it is about to decrease really soon though, so life should retain back to normal (whatever that is!).

Anyway, managed to complete three dismounted men at arms recently. Although minor progress, I'm happy with the result!

They are all 15mm Chariot Miniatures (obtained from Magister Militum [YLT3]).

Built a painting station!

Wow, more than two weeks since last blog post. Not good. Not entirely sure why, but there has been quite a lot of overtime lately. However, things will get better (i.e. less work) in a few weeks.

Despite overall bad gaming related progress, I have actually managed to do something :  I have built my own painting station!

And here it is:

I woke up Sunday morning last week and said to myself -- "I'm going to build a painting station today" -- and so I did! During breakfast I did some quick drawings and came up with some rough measurement estimates. After finishing the breakfast, I went out in the yard and started to build. A few hours later, it was completed (except for the black paint, that I applied a day later). And today I added an old lamp I found in a since-long-forgotten moving box.

Even though the station is not a beauty (never was the intention), I'm very pleased with the result. The reasons for building one in the first place, are these:

1. I usually paint minitaures and build terrain in our attic. During winter, especially when there are outdoor temperatures down at minus 15-20C, it gets quite cold up there. In other words, a not so nice environment to sit for a few hours and paint. Even hesitate to go up there sometimes.
2. I feel very anti-social being up at the attic, alone, for a few hours painting. Now, with the painting station, I can bring down the work to e.g. the living room. Paint while watching TV with my spouse! Very convenient! =)

Here are two more photos (work in progress):

Work in progress. Just started. Built the painting
station out of an old IKEA cabinet.

Work in progress. Before black paint.

States of Siege - the solitaire engine from Victory Point Games

Victory Point Games has a solitaire engine called States of Siege. They use it in many of their solitaire tabletop board games.

One of those games is Empires in America which I have had in my possession for a few years, but not really played it much - not until now. Below is a brief review of Empires in America.


Empires in America - brief review

Background

The game in action! I later won this game!

The game is about the French and Indian War (1754-62). The solitaire player controls the French, and must defend Montreal from the British forces slowly closing in from several directions. And that is actually what the States of Siege engine is all about - an enemy closing in from several directions, at the same time, and the player must do everything it takes to stop him, usually with a scarce number of countermeasures at hand.

Components
As with Victory Point Games, they are hand made. Cards/counters/maps/etc are printed and cut by hand. Might put a few off, others won't care. I must say that I actually like the idea of components crafted in this genuine manner - you can feel the love put into it. Everything is carefully and nicely packaged. And regarding the art -  I think it is colorful and attractive - no complaints there.

Gameplay
The rulebook takes a few readings before nailing the rules - especially the card locations. A card can be in one of seven different places (e.g. your hand, removed, discarded, bottomed etc). A little confusing at first, but something that you get used to after a few plays. Apart from that, the rulebook is very nicely laid out, and easy to navigate.

Gameplay is fun! And tense. You have a lot of decision making to do. The game is quite hard to beat. It is extremely frustrating to see all the British forces closing in on Montreal from all directions, but having so little space of maneuvering, so you can't stop them all.

The game rules are of low complexity. Game play is around 30-45 min.

The good
* Fun and engaging. A lot of decision making.
* High replayability. There is a big randomness around the pile of cards drawn. And since the cards drive the game, game play will look differently each time playing. A very good thing.
* Nice looking art.
* Very clear rulebook.
* Small footprint, and good when traveling - light and small in size!

The bad
* A minor complaint: There is a rule saying that if the British has two or more Leaders (haven't brought Leaders up in this review, but basically, they are a good thing and you need them!) than the French has (when starting the British phase), and a similar rule saying that if the French has two or more Leaders than the British has (when starting the French phase), then Leaders must be sacked, so that the gap in power between the two nations won't get too big. I don't like those kind of rules. I don't like it when the game system prevents one player to get too strong by comparing to the other player's power. Such power regulations should be handled by other means, within the system itself. It's hard to connect such action historically, or into the real world. Why would a winning, more powerful side of a conflict reduce its power because of the other side being weak - that is a great opportunity for offensive actions!

Conclusion
Despite the minor complaint, the game is excellent! I love it! And I would recommend it to any solitaire wargamer. I cannot compare it other games in the States of Siege series, since this is the only game I own in that series. But that is about to change... see below!


States of Siege - future (from my point of view)

* GMT Games and Victory Point Games has a strategic partnership, meaning that GMT releases some VPG games. Currently on GMT's P500 (pre-order) list, there is a game called Revolt and Revolution, which is three States of Siege games in one box! And with GMT's fine quality, mounted boards etc, this can't be bad! I have signed up on that one. I really hope it collects enough pre-orders to be published.

* Levee en Masse, which is a States of Siege game, will be developed for Android/iOS. I found the news here (The Gaming Gang) and here (BoardGameGeek). I'm an Android user, so this is wonderful news!

So, this means, more States of Siege for me in the future! Hopefully, at least one of the above products will be in my hands during 2012. Can't wait!

More terrain completed!

Two more pieces of terrain completed, primary for 15mm fantasy use.

15mm figures, for reference.

15mm figure, for reference.

Next up: Painting of 15mm (fantasy) humans.

Look what I found - a bunch of Mage Knight miniatures!

I honestly had forgot about these. (Found them by coincidence when looking for other things.) I bought them about 10 years ago, and they have been stored on my gaming shelf behind a few other games since then.

I remember trying the game a few times, but didn't have that many to play with back at that time. Especially not other gaming friends buying miniatures. So the game fell into oblivion. Until now!

I'm not sure what to with them. There are probably to few of them to play big games, so gaming would be limited to small-scale battles.

I found a good web resource though, The Mage Knight Project, which has kept rules and other stuff for the future, since the game officially dies many years ago. And I just found out that there is a 2.0 version of the rules (compatible with my old miniatures). I most likely have the printed 1.0 rules included with my sets.

Would be cool to try this out! Think I have to do just that!

My miniature painting queue

This is my miniature painting queue.

Orcs/goblins at the top of the picture,
and humans at the bottom.

So far I have painted 7 humans and 8 orcs. The goal is to complete all those 50+ miniatures before end of 2012. Might sound like an extremely easy goal, but with many other projects and real-life issues, that is a realistic goal... I think... and hope...

Painting queue - another angle!
In the front, dismounted men at arms.

Figure painting: Eight armoured orcs

Completed painting eight 15mm orcs today (did not paint them entirely today; have been working on them to and from during a couple of weeks). A good day! =)

They are all Chariot Miniatures (obtained from Magister Militum [GOB12]).

I'm a newbie painter, but I'm quite happy how they turned out.