International Naval Wargaming Day

 

It’s August 6th, and you know what that means.  It’s the birthday of Fred T. Jane, the author of Jane’s Fighting Ships, as well as a set of naval wargame rules long before it was fashionable.

Stop your laughing right now, dammit!

A. This is the first year I remembered it was International Naval Wargaming Day, so I beg indulgence.

B. I didn’t actually get to play a game today.  Pretty much all of my friends are working because they have real jobs, and I don’t have to have a job.

C. But I did recently get a kind of cool looking board game, Thunder Upon the Water, on the Battle of Albemarle Sound from the American Civil War just before I headed to Pullman.  I haven’t played it yet, but I did take time to start preparing to play it solo.  This is the action between the Confederate ironclad Albemarle and its consorts and the blockading Union fleet.  It’s an interesting and bloody battle and I’m anxious to give it a whirl.

It’s published by High Flying Dice games, and designed by Paul Rohrbach.  It looks pretty easy to play.  Definitely best as a two player game, but very playable solo. It also has miniature influences and could inspire an Ironclads scenario.

Cutting apart cards and counters took all my time today. But I’m ready to give it a try tomorrow. The game looks interesting and fairly easy to play, with some nice twists. Can’t wait to give it a try.

There is a fair amount of preparation.  I ordered mounted counters which all have to be separated with an X-Acto knife.  The cards used to play the games all have to be separated with a pair of scissors.  But there was other things to do that required my attention today, so maybe I’ll get to play tomorrow.

I hope  you had a chance to remember this special day.  And if you didn’t, well maybe next year.  Fred won’t mind.

I was gone, but now I’m back.

So, it’s been about a month since my last post.  The last time I wrote I was discussing Enfilade.  In that intervening time, I was wrapping up school, finishing the last issue of JagWire and getting ready for my prostate surgery.

Well, all that’s come and gone.  Surgery was last week and pathology report shows I am cancer-free, so that’s good news.  I’m in a recovery mode right now, which means I need lots of rest.  I am physically incapable of playing a game at the moment, though things are in the works to start playing the weekend of  July 19th.

Even so, I’ve been trying to paint a little bit.  Mostly I’m painting for fun.  I’ve got some hydroplanes I’m working  on.  I finished the 1959/60 version of Miss Burien, a local favorite.  It’s denoted by the big swoosh like decor on the tail and the deep red cowing and engine decking.  I also decided to paint myself the Hawaii Kai.  The Kai was one of the very few pink hydroplanes during racing’s Golden Age. I painted one for Dave Demick years ago, but I decided I needed one of my own.  The other boat I have on the painting blocks is the Miss Bardahl from 1968, “The Checkerboard Comet.”  It is in fact painted a creamy yellow with black checks everywhere.  It seems like a really big headache, but I thought I would at least try.  It’s one of Shawn McEvoy’s new hulls.  I think I’m actually going to pencil grid out the design as best I can.  I’ve finished one other boat, a second fantasy hydro, the JagWire, in honor of the school paper and all my students who have worked so hard on it.  It’s in ERHS school colors, with our flag on the hull.  It’s green and black with a jaguar paw on the tail.  I like it.  You may think it’s a bit much.

Hawaii Kai was quite a fast boat in the late 1950’s and early 60’s. I painted this for my friend David, but noticed I had no pink boats in my inventory

I painted JagWire for my school and in honor of our paper. I tried to emulate our flag with it’s brackets and Helvetica font.

Miss Burien was a local favorite, though I don’t remember it having a lot of success. This is the 1959/60 version of the boat.

 

I’m also working on some ACW ships I’ve had for a few years, but really need some paint. I finished painting and rigging an armed sailing sloop.  It may be a Bay model, but it looks kind of Thoroughbredish.  I also have a sailing merchantman by Bay as well as the Confederate river ram, Webb.  From Thoroughbred I’ll be working on the river monitor Neosho, as well as Toby’s truly awesome Benton. They’ll be fun and relatively easy to paint thought I’m hoping to put some rigging touches on all of them.

 

Pretty sure this little sloop is a Bay Area Yards miniature. I have another three or four ships I plan to paint and rig this month.