Time Flys!

It really is true ~ Time Flys when you're not painting and blogging!

Somehow it's mid-January 2009. Yes, we have been busy with lots of work. Which is a Very Good Thing. Yes, we are finally almost better and almost over the nasty bugs that we've had since the weekend after Thanksgiving. (Before Christmas the Doctor actually told me that I had worked myself sick, and ordered me not to talk . . .)

And yes I have gotten a little painting done! But not as much as I wanted, or hoped. We're past Christmas and the Holidays. The house is back to normal. And it's time for me to get back on the painting wagon! I need to paint ~ and I need to paint regularly!!!

I must have been pretty good last year . . . Santa Aelf supplied me with a four figure sample pack from Askari Miniatures and a copy of Two Hour Wargames Colonial Adventures rules. The figures are 28 mm and beautiful ~ perfect porportions and great animation. The detailing is amazing! They are very worthy successors to my beloved Ral Parthas. Colonial Adventures look like a great set of fun playable rules too!

Now I'm planning a French Foreign Legion, and Enemies, collection for once I've finished The Secret Project! I'm really looking forward to it too.

In the meantime I'm following Al Maurer's excellent blog, which you can find at http://edsarmy.blogspot.com/ . I highly recommend his lines and company! Al is great to deal with and I am really looking forward to acquiring and painting a lot of his figures.

I was able to almost finish painting my sample Berber while our Family was here for Christmas. The other three figures are primed and waiting. I hope to post photos and review soon.

We did get to play/fight Tim the Elder's brillant Battle of Barnet (which he called "Stay Misty for Me"). It was a great game and I have a bunch of backlogged correspondance to post yet. (Which I will do. The lead up was so much Fun that I really want to preserve the, ahem, "historical record".) I have an incredible number of photos of the game to sort and edit too. So continuing the Barnet Saga is definitely on my to do list.

In the meantime though, as of today I'm getting back into my regular painting and posting regime!

I'm including this photo of my character figure since long psots without any photos can get boring. (Goodness knows my recent posts have been long and haven't had any photos!)


This 25 mm Dixon figure was a gift from Tim the E. Half of the horse armour is finished for the mounted version. Of course I still have six more figure characters to paint for Tim's Castle Devin games!



Even though I'm not very happy with his eyes I do like how he turned out.

Next up is a unit of six Ral Partha AElvish Archers. They are truly beautiful figures that have been waiting for me to paint them for about thirty years!

My goal for The Secret Plan is to finish painting one unit a month. Since I want to get back into the routine and get a unit finished this month I think a small unit is a perfect start! The figures are cleaned and washed and ready for me.

Before I begin I'm going to write back to my sister Terry. She sent me a wonderful note this morning. Pat and I got so busy, and so sick, that it's been awhile since we've been in touch and a lot of really exciting things have happened!

More soon and more photos to follow!

The Secret Plan !

To answer some of Tim the Elder's recent questions . . .

At this point The Secret Plan is to host a 25 mm DBS game sometime this coming June to celebrate my 50th Birthday, which is in July. We'll set it up so that Tim the Younger and Poppa John will expect a regular Castle Devin game. That's the bait part. The switch is that their opponents will be my (finally) painted Ral Partha AElves!

Yes, I am definitely into playing more Castle Devin games before then! But without AElves. The AElves don't fight until June. (Unless I get enough painted early enough to test play a couple of private games with Tim.)

Once they cross into Wales and run into AElves we'll have plenty of opportunities later to either play some fantasy games (in Wales or elsewhere) or not. I don't want to mess up all of the hard work that went into the Castle Devin project by injecting fantasy ~ unless Tim is really into the idea.

We could play with the AElves, in the Castle Devin mileau, as a one off or they could be an auxillary venue or theme. That's Tim's decision!

The next addition I have, and it's a variation of an idea that I've had for decades, will I hope help to explain "AElves in Wales" (as opposed to "AElves in Space!).

Somewhere in Wales is the Citadel of the Evening Star. (The Citadel of the Evening Star dates back to my high school days. It was probably inspired by that great estiole on the Ral Partha AElves' shields.) As far as we know the Citadel is the last bastion of the AElves in that area. Yeah, guarding the passage West to the hidden lands ~ on in this case the main land far to the west . . .

I know it's not terribly original, but it gives us a tie-in to both Castle Devin and another whole area where we could play just "straight" fantasy when we want.

Somewhere I still have a continental map that I created for Ted and myself. His Empire of Hunche was to the North, my AElvish Kingdom of Snaggle was to the South, with the Great Northern Waastleand between us.

Hey, come on, we were in high school!!! Those names will need to change ~ though I'm sure we can find some use for them somewhere. (The Citadel of the Evening Star was originally the capital of Snaggle . . .)

Anyway, for now, there's a quick overview of some of what's in my head. All subject to change as better ideas come along!

Thanksgiving Day Thanks

I do have so much to be Thankful for.







Friends and Family and Love above all.






Ezekiel Anderson Gibbs was delivered by c-section after Arie was in labor for 26 hours. They, and Lucien, are well but still tired. Ezekiel will be in the NICU for another day or so before they can go home.

Pat was in the hospital about to have Carl over a Thanksgiving. She definitely relates. Somehow no one thought to bring her a Thanksgiving dinner ~ I wasn't in her life then or I would have. We'll start to make up for it today.

I am going to spend the day cooking. It's what I do for Fun. Cooking is also how I show my Love; how I make it real for others to feel, to taste, to understand . . .

At times I think that we don't think about things enough, especialy the really simple, fundamental, things ~ like Food or Living, or sometimes even Love.

Today I will do my best and I am going to have Fun ~ doing and preping and cooking and being.

Carl and I will drink some beer ~ judging by last night, probably more than we should! We did have fun and we stayed up way too late talking about just about everything. Who knows if we solved all of the world's problems? But we did talk. It was good.

We'll make up plates to take to the kids in the hospital and we will share our love with them.

I know that everyone says it . . . But, Ezekiel really is a beautiful baby! And I am tearing up thinking of him.

I did keep myself busy while we waited, at home, to hear that he was born (with Carl calling Lucien every two hours). I got some painting done on the first of the Centaurs. The night he was born was the first night I worked on this one and I was determined to get his hair done in time. I did. Actually I got quite a bit more done.

I think I spent two evenings painting him so far ~ flesh and hair and saddle blanket that first night. Then his hooves, the armour, sword and shield. No, somehow, it has been three evenings! Last night I did some touch ups, the strapping and his base.

Ezekiel's Own are coming right along!
Appropriately enough, Ezekiel has the most amazing little pointed AElf ears. Just like this Centaur's! (He really does!)

The other two Centaurs have some flash that I need to take care of before I begin painting them. It's been Fun to paint one figure. I am really enjoying myself and it's a great feeling to see these figures coming to life under my brush.

I am thankful that I am painting again.

I am thankful for my very special Friends.

Today I woke, much later than I had meant to, and had a wonderful Thanksgiving e-mail from Tim the Elder. He's as into The Secret Plan as I am! Together we're going to have a great time surprising T the Younger and Poppa John.

I really would like to do this game as a follow up to one of our Castle Devin games. At first I was reluctant to ~ I didn't want to dirupt Tim's world. Knowing that he's as into the idea as I am . . .

Oh, we're going to have Fun with this!!!

As Tim the Elder said today: "Sheriff of Devinville leading a posse chasing the squirmy Welsh into a deep misty woods... but wait, what's that un-earthly sound? A growl? A scream? OH MY GAWWWWDDDD.....!!"

It gets my imagination flowing! And it makes me want to get even more figures painted! I really think we'll have to stage the grand unveiling to celebrate my 50th Birthday. It will make that day even more special.

I think that I will remember painting Ezekiel's Own and all of the Fun and all of the thanks that fill my heart right now.

I am thankful for my Family and Friends. They really are that special. My wife is amazing and I truly love her. My friends are mind boggling. Each is special in so many different ways. It's Fun to Live! It's Fun to Love!
Happy Thanksgiving!

Almost Finished !

I have almost finished my AElvish Halbreds !!! I spent Sunday afternoon painting and watching cooking shows on PBS. Fortunately most of them weren't too interesting so I got quite a bit done. The hair is finished, eyebrows added where needed, halbred shafts touched up again, and then (while watching the classic Zulu) all of the rivets and halbred blades re-painted with a shinier silver. I went ahead and painted their bases, using an avocado green ~ which I've decided looks much better than the hooker green I had been using for the last few years.

If I can get blogger to load this image correctly you should be able to click on it for a larger view. I hope you'll agree that they are looking pretty good for figures that are about an inch tall!

I still need to work on their faces and the knotwork design on their scabbards. I haven't decided how I'm going to do the knotwork ~ whether to use blue or maybe silver, or mayber even different colors . . .

I think I'm ready for a little break before working on the faces too. I have to decide just what paint I'm going to use! I think I used a Humbrol flesh way back when I first started these figures. These days I really prefer the generic craft store acrylics, but I haven't found the perfect flesh tone yet. Well have to see . . .

After sitting back and just enjoying looking at these figures I pulled out my boxes of Ral Partha figures. After some more looking and enjoying I think I have my next perfect painting project!

I have a good number of, mainly Ral Partha, centaurs. All along I've intended them to be Allies of the AElves. I think three of them that will be my next painting project! A fun change of pace and beautiful figures.

Watching Zulu did get me thinking about The Secret Project again . . . I've gone back and forth in my mind for some time about different ideas. Reading some of the great 18th Century gaming blogs about different Imagi-Nations recently reminded me of the neighboring, and belligerant, Empires that Ted M. and I mapped out back in high school.

At one point I was had thought about maybe making the traditional barbarian kind of orcs actually technicologically further ahead. A bit difficult though on the figure front. Now Zulu has me thinking along more traditional, though a bit different lines.

HoTT has a neat points system that allows for easy army customization. So my orcs could be fielded as blades, warbands, auxillaries, or just about anything I want or need. Seeing the Zulus disappear and re-appear in the terrain reminded me of playing The Sword & The Flame with Alan H. years ago. The hidden movement rule for the Zulus really added to the game tension. Definitely something to remember when it comes time to field my orcs!

This view is one of my favorites and really shows how they will look on the battlefield.

The unit is on the a cheese tray, with the lid behind them, that I use to store them on one of the living room shelf when I'm not working on them. It keeps them close by and available and keeps the dust off of them. I picked this up years ago for just a couple of dollars. It's perfect for my needs.

The Secret Plan (tm)!

Okay it's time to start to put my Secret Plan into operation . . .

I'm having Fun working on my Ral Partha AElves. It's incredibly satisfying to me to finally be painting them. I have a lot of them. A lot of them. I've always wanted to do some decent fantasy miniature gaming and I like WRG's HoTT rules.

And, ever since I was a kid and read Gary Gygax's article in one of the very first The Strategic Reviews I've wanted to pull the wool over my players eyes . . . He had run a miniatures game where one side was expecting a fantasy battle (the evil wizard defending himself from the good guys) and the other were expecting a WW II game. Yeah, it's a pretty outrageous idea! And I still like it!

Only instead of WW II, we have the Castle Devin games taking place some where in England near the Welsh and/or Scottish borders . . . We also have a plethora of Ancients available too.

Pat's birthday got me thinking . . .

My Birthday is in July, roughly eight months away. With the Family Trip to Colorado and our July Guild Fair I won't be playing anything in July. But I could put on a game to celebrate my Fiftieth Birthday next June!

And I can concentrate on painting my Ral Partha AElves! I have no idea how many I can finish between now and then. But would be Fun and it sure would be Great Fun to surprise my Friends with a fantasy miniatures game when they were expecting another Castle Devin game!

Being a Secret Plan (tm) I can't let them know, or even let them know about this site yet either. Tim the Elder is in on the Secret already. We stayed up late after the last game hear drinking and talking. I mentioned my idea of this type of a game and he liked it. (At that point it was to be in honor of Gary Gygax, since he had recently died.)

So now I have a Secret Plan (tm) to put into operation! I'm off to finish the living room make over and order our materials!!!