Weekend Activities.

The bottom shelf, placed on top of the brackets
without screws, to facilitate access
to the chimney hatch below

I have no painted minis to show from this weekend, because I've been busy in our home and in the garden.
I put up some shelves in a kitchen cupboard built around the chimney used by the firewood stove in the living room.

I had to do it in two stages, as the old house we live in has very strange walls; they are very soft in some Places, causing the drill to make a larger hole than intended, and very, very hard in other places, forcing me to use a bigger drill to do the job.


Bullseye!!!


In both cases, I had to put filler in the holes and wait for it to dry so I could drill a hole the right size for the plug and screw.

I am very happy with the results, though, as the Pictures to the right may justify.

I dont think that I have succeded in putting two shelves up in a row and making them both almost perfectly horizontal ever before :oD

I also got some work done on the electrical gizmos I need for my garage attic, to get some lights put up,



The finished result

Some of today I spent in the back garden roughly cutting up the rest of a storm-felled tree (and some smaller ones felled by the large one).



Almost perfect!

We'll have thoroughly dried firewood for the winter 2015-2016 from that tree (for the winter 2014-2015 I already have plenty of ready firewood in the shed), and I hope to be able to borrow a log splitter this coming spring like I did last year.

All in all, I'm pretty content with the result, as the pictures may justify.





Star Trek: Attack Wing, AAR 2013-12-26, Part 2.

Well,, it took me long enough to get this back on tracks, but this week I'll be doing some catching up on pending posts...

After bumping into the planet, my daughter decided to make a long turn (switching to auxiliary power) to get the Enterprise clear. I made a short move to enter orbit and promptly beamed Down my away team to start collecting mineral samples.

No shooting, as the planet blocked any chance of that.

The next series of pics really tell their own tale:

On my next move I could leave the board via my entry zone, carrying sufficient samples to win the game.

This may seem to have been an easy Victory, but Lea actually came close to crippling my ship, and the Dice Gods could have been kinder to her.

For a first game played by a 7 year old girl, I think she did quite well, and it demonstrates the cleverness of this game engine; it's simple enough for kids, yet with enough tactical depth to challenge seasoned gamers.

I staged this scenario as a four-player affair with my two daughters, my gaming pal Ulrik (duregar), and myself about a 1½ week ago, and while I won that one, too, while the Enterprise was destroyed by the Dominion, it was a really fun and chaotic affair.

But more about that game in another post!

Quicksand: A Fun and Simple Race Game!

A really fun, simple boardgame from Flying Fantasy; I bought Quicksand some years ago at a whim when seeing it at a sale for only DKK 50.00.

I hadn't played it until yesterday, when I finally decided that my kids are both old enough for introduction to the World of Boardgaming (actually, I've played a couple of games of Risk with open cards with them last summer, so I could guide them a bit, but Quicksand requires total autonomy by all players).

The pencil is not needed for the game, it just happened to be on the coffee table.

The set-up is a follows: Six explorers race through the jungle to be the first to claim the discovery of an ancient temple. The theme is fairly unimportant, though,, it could just as easily have been six prospectors racing to get to a goldmine, or anything you could think of.

 During the game, Explorers may be delayed by quicksand, either by landing on a circle containing the quicksand symbol, or by having a quicksand card played on them.

The game is fairly simple, but one element in particular can make even seasoned gamers scratch their neckbeard in frustration: You only know which 'pawn' (explorer) is yours - the other 5 can be either controlled by the other players or be duds (if you play with less than 6 participants).

Movement is controlled by a hand of 6 cards (replenished after each turn), drawn at random from the deck, so you won't always have the cards you need to move your own Explorer (which is just as good, as everybody else would be playing quicksand cards on it, or avoid playing movement cards on it, should they figure out it was yours).

You can only play movement cards on one explorer per turn (or one quicksand Card), though you may play any number of cards the same colour and/or wildcards (masks) on the corresponding Explorer.

If you make an Explorer land on a circle corresponding to him/her, you may also discard 1 card in addition to the ones played in order to move the Explorer, before you replenish your hand of Cards up to 6.

It's a game of deception, and cunningly playing your Cards so you can collect the Cards you need for the final leap for Victory.

It's probably not for dedicated boardgame afficionados, but it's a nice little game you can break out at social occations, as it takes no time to set up and explain, and you'll have up to six people playing within 5 minutes, or before bedtime if the kids require pacification ;o)

Activity Suspended: Men's Handball European Championship.

The MHEC is held in my Country this year (for the first time ever), and our team (sporting silver from 2013) is back on the pitch.

I'll probably not be painting or modelling a lot the next couple of weeks, but, just like I am just now, I'll see if I can get everything up to date while I'm watching the games on TV.

Rise to the Occasion...

Couple more zeds done, the first seems to be a bit more dry and less gory than the other examples of Homo Re-Erectus... maybe the scavenging dogs have been at him, after he rose, or something...

Mortuary Zombie

I made a mistake picking red as the colour for the shirt of number 004, the Country Club Zombie, but I've begun experimenting with Tamiya Clear Red for blood (and still struggling to get it right).



Country Club Zombie

And the Dead Shall Walk Among You....

Earrrl

I finished touching up this guy 2 days ago for the Lead Apocalypse Painting Club at the Laf. Most of the pj was done a couple of years ago by an acquaintance of mine, but I added some wash and darkened the blood a bit. I think I'll redo his eyes, too, but otherwise he'll have to do.

The shambler below I just finished a few hours ago, and I'll be painting zombies 'til I run out of primed ones, or the Lead Apocalyse ends. They are Wargames Factory multi-part plastics, not greaqt sculpts, and I'll be doing quick block-and-wash pjs on all of them.

I have another one ready for entering tomorrow, but I won't post it before I unveil it on LAF.

I know I promised to continue the Star Trek AAR, but I've been simply all but collapsing on the couch after dinner the the past few days, and it didn't help to have a very long workin hours yesterday, on my first day after the holidays...

Wall Street Zombie

But I'm starting to find my footing, again, and thus I managed to slip in this post today.

I'll see if I can find the time to write up some more of the AAR tomorrow, but in the meantime, these pics will have to do!

Star Trek: Attack Wing, AAR 2013-12-26, Part 1.

My last game in 2013 was with my 7 years old daughter who played a version of Jean-Luc Picard, who'd probably been too hard at it with the eggnog, judging by the way USS Enterprise-D behaved.

We were playin the first scenario in the rulebook, albeit without the Romulans, as my other daughter (age 10) had found something more interesting to play with (probably her new LEGO Friends yacht).

Both competing ships headed straight for the planet rumoured to contain dilithium.

The Klingon vessel started cloaking right away - forgot that I have to put the counter on the base until the End Phase.

On the second turn, the Klingons, now fully cloaked, performed a Sensor Echo (dislocating the vessel to the left), while the Enterprise... bumped into the planet. As you can't perform actions while in contact with another object, Picard and Data stayed aboard and proposed another toast...

Despise the confusion aboard the Enterprise, the sensors picked up the Klingons, and as a Cloaked Klingon vessel in the Neutral Zone was a clear violation of... something... the Federation opened up with Phasers (Enterprise D can shoot in other directions than its Forward Fire Arc, up to range 2).

As the Enterprise had to subtract 1 Attack Die due to firing outside the Forward Fire Arc, and the Klingons, being cloaked, could add +4 Agility Dice, no harm was done.

I have to conclude Part 1, here, as my stomach is killing me (we had cabbage for dinner). I'll continue this tomorrow, the powers that be permitting...