To my gracious readers, far and wide...



The manger scene at St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Aylmer, ON
(this is actually the 2011 version, but the 2012 is the same.)
My wife, Beth, made the figures with her skill at crochet. The usual charcters are present - with a few guests:
the tonsured red-head on the left is Francis of Assisi who made the first Christmas Creche. Dead center is "Die
Weihnachtsmaus" -the Christmas Mouse- who is always blamed for eating Christmas treats early. The figure in
the black beret on the far right is Martin Luther who was insturmental in many of our Christmas customs.
Next to him is Chris-moose; friendsof ours in the USA said we could never have a manger scene in Canada
without a moose!

I wish all who read these poor words a very happy and blessed Christmas season and the best new year possible. If you do not celebrate the festival of Christmas, I still wish you the best of the season as you keep your festivals and a good new year.

For all of you, I wish you peace.

What's that you say? You need more nutrolls? Well, here!

See  you all in the new year!

Holiday Grab-bag

As I sit -and waste time, as it were- at the end of Advent, I have to admit it's been busy and things will not slow up until AFTER Boxing Day. As a birthday gift to my wonderful wife, we're off to see The Hobbit on Thursday; it's what she wanted for her birthday. We have tickets in hand and we're ready to go.

I haven't done too much gaming lately, and what I did I can't really blog about. I have been painting, though... and here are some of my latest brushings or brush victims or whatever.



War of 1812 US Artillery - repaints of Minifig Austrian artillerymen
I believe the plumes should be yellow. Well, we all make mistakes.




War of 1812 US Regiment of Light Artillery (Minifigs)
An elite outfit




"Say Hello to my little friend!"
US coastal artillery with a naval crew. I call it a 50-pound Columbiad.
(Frontier naval gun crew and a cannon from an unknown line of ship parts.)




Paper houses - as cheap as they come and convertible!
Here it is, relatively intact.




Here it is as a simple fixer-up-er.




Here's the conversion! It a neat little 15mm card house where the intact version
fits over the bombed out one.
If you're interested, send me a note with your e-mail address and I'll send the plans.



Gandalf, Bilbo, and the informing raven from "The Hobbit"
(Games Workshop's Warmaster Battle of Five Armies set)

GW Warmaster goblin shaman with an idol of somebody or other.
The idol's head is from an ancient GW goblin in 25mm



Another Warmaster special - the Giant!
It's a little diorama by itself. The giant is stomping on a two-wheeled cart and...



... has just passed over a cowering human. That little guy is molded right on the base!




Frying Pan & Blanket AWI mounted Militia...
set for use in our upcoming Imagi-nations campaign as Rob's dragoons.



FP&B German/Hessian infantry painted as Prussian Freikorps
The Freikorps facinate me so these will be the Fredonian Freikorps
in charge of dirty tricks and larceny. They'll be made up of guardhouse
and jail sweepings as well as other swamp wildlife.



FP&B Continental line infantry painted as an AWI loyalist unit...
Line troops for Rob's army. I may insist they be called "Regiment Hohn."



Rob's going to use dismounted Indian/First Nations warriors for most of his light infantry.
More FP&B from the Plains Wars range.



FP&B mounted Indians - Rob says he'll use them like Cossacks



FP&B again - The Fredonian Dragoons. I recently remounted them on smaller
bases and I think they look better as a tighter unit.



Rob's FP&B dismounted militia to be used as skirmishing riflemen.



A rather aged Ral Partha Reiter or Cuirassier of the Thirty Years War era.



From RAFM, air transport for the Imperial Guard's helicoptor-borne troops.
(40K Epic)

Now for something completely different,,,
Reaper Miniatures "Anime Girl" 'cause I'll use ANYTHING for Traveller!



Reaper again - goblin pirate with a blunderbuss... looks like my friend, Tyler.

 

Reaper's gargoyle or something that hasn't had its morning coffee.



One of Katie's favourites - Reaper's Steampunk witch.
I try to do a lot of good shading and ink work on these types of figures.



I don't remember the name of the manufacturer, but I thought it would be useful
as a female adventurer in my Traveller campaign.

 

"Y'all in a heap a' trouble, boy! Y'all fergot t' paint ma wristwatch."
Reaper's modern sheriff
I'll paint the watch once I'm off the chain gang.

 

Reaper's Sasquatch... appearing nightly on the Learning Channel.



Another Katie favourite... Reaper again... Femme Fatale spy...
again, plenty of inking and shading.




Okay, here's the deal; all good Traveller adventures start in a bar, right?
Reaper finally made some "Alien Exotic Dancers" for the bar, which will be
called "Club Salacious" from now on. Here's a dancing Grey - we'll call her
"Greghz-da-(cough)-Et."



Another dancer from the back. Note her mouth is in her chest and her head has one BIG EYE.
"A big hand for Suzie aaDringnrrrrrrrr!" 



Yes, she has green hair... and three breasts. What are you... a rube?
Penelope Smythe-(choke/squeek/crack/sneeze). Spelled as it sounds.



I did an update on the Grand Elector Rufus I . He's seen here with his aide, Captain Spaulding of the Saxe-Fredonian
Engineer Corps and a engineer NCO, Sergeant Chickolini.
"That IS the most ridiculous thing I ever hoid!"

 

The Grand Elector up close.





Since it's the Christmas holiday season, I give you ---- Nutrolls!

Now things will go at a break-neck pace until after Christmas Day. I even have a worship service on Boxing Day at a local nursing home. Then I can relax a bit.
[I just looked at the preview of this entry and I think it may be horribly botched. My apologies.]
I wish all my readers a healthy, happy and blessed Christmas. Should you celebrate another festival, may it be a good one and a peaceful one. I wish you all a better new year than we had this year. 2013 should see more entries on the Imagi-nations campaign which is coming closer. The Elector wants you to join his Marxist movement! ("What an elephant was doing in my pyjamas, I'll never know!")



Celebrating a Grand Opening

On Saturday, December 1, a few of us were invited to be part of the grand opening of a new game/figure/hobby shop in London, ON. The Games Chamber is a new business run by friends of ours, Cecil and Tim. The invitation was two-fold - run a drop-in historical game AND fire muskets for fun. Beth, Katie, Rob, Andy, and I all showed up in historical gear and hosted a "Tiger Hunt" game on one of the gaming tables at Games Chamber. The ladies wore period ladies' clothing. Andy wore his King's Royal Regiment of New York uniform and kit. (It's a Loyalist unit from the American War of Independence.) I wore my 1812 US Infantry kit. Rob decided to come as a soldier of the British Indian Department, who served with the First Nations' warriors as translators or advisers.
 
We set up a Tiger Hunt game. This was originally a training game to learn the mechanics of Iron Ivan's Disposable Heroes rule section on armour. Each player gets a Tiger I tank and "it's every man for himself" from there on out. If your tank "brews up", you get another Tiger or a Panther, if no Tigers are left. Sometimes we throw in things like a Hetzer, a Firefly, a Churchill with a 75mm gun, or things even weirder. (Rob says he wants a P-51 Mustang next time he plays.) We played twice, shifting the terrain.
 

Katie strikes a "power pose" ("Mess not with me, sirrah!") while Rob is a study in nonchalance.
I'm just wearing my forage cap.

 

Andy's in his Yorker's grenadier cap. Why Katie likes that brimmed hat I'll never know. She also seems to enjoy the Tiger Hunt games. The table was smaller than we're used to but it served well for all the drop in players.



Tiger kaputt! (not the last one either!)

 

Gollum attempts to board a burning Tiger to seek the Precious. The Heroclix figure was a grand opening gift if you bought $10 worth of merchandise that day. It wasn't a problem/

 

Some of the crowd. Some of the drop-in plalyers played until their tank was destroyed. Some played on a time limit. It didn't matter - we welcomed everybody.

 

That's what we like to see - smiles on the  players' faces. I was serving as games master so the cards on in front of me. We shuffled every turn to randomize who would go first.



This could be a world's record!!! At one point, Rob's Panther had sustained 14 penetrating hits! Each penetrating hit makes the next hit by an enemy that much more powerful. He had taken 14 before somebody brewed him up.



He's so proud.
Some of the town's buildings were Andy's, some mine. The bombed out ones are paper models I found on-line. The rest are resin or plastercraft and a few are paper - like the Tudor two-story in the center of the photo. 

 

Fourteen!

 

The downtown is crowed and dangerous at this time of year, but the malls are worse.



Late in the afternoon, we kitted up and did our demonstration. This looks like "Repel boarders!" Since Rob  had no bayonet, he carried Native warrior gear - hatchet and knife.




More of the same.

 

Tim and Cecil under arrest. If you come to London, ON., look the place up. It's worth the side trip.

 

Since Cecil had been in the Canadian Forces, he gave the commands.
"Make ready! Present! Fire!"

 

The last demonstration was a close up one.




Inside the store... in varied uniforms.

All photos are courtesy of my wife, Beth, who rarely gets to appear in such photos. Here's one more. We're all doing some "Steampunk" stuff , and Beth made me a new jacket for my persona - an American Civil War ordnance sergeant on detatched duty to an airship crew, a submersible, or a tunnelling device.
More nice work on her part.