10 December 2008

My package of Flames of War goodies from The WarStore arrived yesterday. Unfortunately instead of the Fortress Europe book I ordered the box contained a copy of Festung Europa, which I already have. Luckily the customer service at The WarStore is very good and they've already got the proper book in the mail on its way to me. They offered to let me keep Festung Europa at half price or mail it back and have them refund my shipping costs. As I've already got a copy I elected to ship it back. So everything is taken care of; it just stinks to wait another week for my book to arrive.

I do have the main body of my Flames of War American Rifle Company now, so maybe I'll be able to kick that project off sometime soon. The army list I have written out calls for 118 infantry figures, 4 jeeps, and 8 AFVs. Not extremely overwhelming as they are 15mm figures. I am still short a bazooka team and a Sherman platoon, but I've got the bulk of the army on hand. Once I finish the Americans I've got an opposing German list written out. Going off the profiles in the book it seems like the Germans don't get as much kit for their points and don't really have a lot of statistical advantages built into their profiles. They are slightly upgraded in quality (Confident Veteran as opposed to the American's default Confident Trained) but having never played the game I don't know how much that affects their performance in-game. All I've got for the Germans so far is one Panzer IV, so it will be a while before I get around to starting that phase of the project. I haven't noticed any of the Flames of War stuff moving off the rack at Hobbytown; I wonder if I'm the only local interested in playing.

I went to Hobbytown after work last night to get some paint. It was gaming night, so the usual collection of folks were there. One guy was busily stacking his army and as much terrain as he could find on the largest gaming table. The lone female Hobbytown employee was talking to another gamer about getting a ride home for her son and the terrain-hoarder jumped in to loudly give his opinion on who would be the best to give the kid a ride. Somehow he got onto the subject of all the educational and social benefits of gaming and as she moved away he followed her in an attempt to corner her and impress her with his arguments. Between his volume and obvious ignorance of her desire to be geographically separated from him I think everyone in the store felt a little uncomfortable.

He was distracted from his conversation when a couple of guys came in with their armies and asked who was using the big table. He ran over and told them he was waiting on a friend because he had a 2000-point game arranged. They asked where his friend was and he assured them that the friend would arrive sometime during the evening and asked how big their game was. They said 1500 points with the caveat that it was 1500 points of Orks (traditionally an army with a lot of figures-per-point). Also, they argued, we have two people here with their armies ready to play now while you don't have a clue where your friend is. He announced in a petulant voice that he had shown up early just so he could reserve the large table and all of the terrain for his game. The discussion was getting pretty heated at this point, with neither side wanting to give in and use a small table. I never got to see the battle's resolution as I had completed my purchase and didn't want to stand around gawking at them, but even without seeing the finish it was a pretty interesting trip to the hobby shop.

If we ever get to a point where this baby will lay down for a nap on his own I will be able to get my Flames of War force put together and painted up pretty fast. With the smaller scale and realtively simple paint schemes I should be able to pump out my Rifle Company pretty quickly. That's not to say that we don't enjoy the critter, but it's occasionally frustrating especially for my wife. Some days when he's being difficult she's lucky just to brush her teeth and get a shower. There is certainly an adjustment period while we get used to caring for the critter and he gets used to life on the outside. People have reassured us that he will develop a schedule and we'll get more time to do things.

We rented the latest Batman movie last night. It was pretty good, although Batman's voice while he was wearing the batsuit was very distracting. It sounded like every time he put the suit on he came down with a terrible sore throat. It sort of jarred us out of the movie every time he had a significant conversation. Everyone raves about Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker and I suppose the attention is warranted. He certainly carries the film more than anyone else.

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