Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Happy New Year

The Nightmare Before Christmas

The "Monday Knights" (as I call them) gathered for our Christmas end of the year wargame.

We had missed a HotTs game for Halloween so we caught up with the theme at Christmas with a 

"Nightmare Before Christmas" double HotT battle.

Skellington's Spear clash with Father Christmas' Knights.

Here I am commanding the "Black Friday Shoppers" a nearly all hoarde army.

My flank commanding general Mr. C. commands the skeleton spear army with a Hero General and a behemoth war wagon.

Checking the list to see who is naughty or nice.

It was one of our groups' better HotT encounters.  There were no rules surprises and the battle lasted just the right amount of time.

The Germanic Knights would clear the hilltop of the skeleton spear forest and the Viking host would hold the flank for the race of men.

Early battle.

The Skeleton Hero. "Got his eye shot out."

The Vikings face the black Friday horde.  Nearly an all zombie army.

Not my usual command.

What is Jack up to in his laboratory?!

The horde.

The meeting ground.

Mr. S and Mr. J. Set there armies to face the undead horde and skeleton army.

Thanks for looking in.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Dollar Tree Conestoga Wagons and a Bag O' Dogs

When you wargame in 54mm you have to know when to mass purchase.  You never know what era will present itself in the toy stores and dollar ships.

Buck a Bag.

Conestoga Wagon, with driver!  Fire pit and tripod of beans in a pot. Some 60mm possibly useful cowboys and Indians.

Bag O' Cats.  Well actually small pets in 54mm and 90mm.

More on this one later.

The bags have mixes of figures.  The wagon, fire pit and tripod are consistent and of useful quality in setting up a scene of a wagon train.

What made me buy the lot was the fact that the wagons had drivers.  I have found wagons in bags of cowboys before but this was the first instance of a useable driver figure on the bench.  Now the action can be wagon train "under way" or we can circle the wagons and defend a lager.

Cowboy.

Mixed figures in each bag.

Two bags opened for display.

These cats are essentially useless.  However I also game in 90mm medieval and these could be used as scenic devices but that is a stretch.  Anyone know of a good cat based RPG?

The dogs are what made me purchase three of these bags.

I am not a breed specialist but this is a good bird dog?

This brute will be added to my untouchables police set.

As well as these two tracking dogs.  I now have a K9 unit for my police.  These ought to paint up wonderfully and I don't know of any 54mm dogs I have ever seen before.  Anyone?

Time to track some criminals.

Great dogs for a dollar.

You never know what will pop up in a dollar tree.

Thanks for looking in.  Leave a comment for encouragement.

Newfoundland Viking Colony

These are my fifth grade students.

For 

the unit on "The Age of Exploration", we learned about the Vikings and the Newfoundland colony.  All of my teaching units for Social Studies include some form of game scenario using miniatures and terrain.

This unit included a simulation on sustaining a colony of Vikings in the new world inhabited by Skraelings.

The students randomly selected a Viking miniature from a cardboard box.  This random draw gave them their station in life: Jarl, Karl, Thrall.  They wrote a character sheet and kept a calendar.

This is the table that they saw to play the scenario.  This is actually mid game and the development purchases have been put on the table.  The original or start table would have been devoid of any man made items.

The Jarl, selected the Karls to go to the areas of resource management in conjunction with goals the colony needed to build the next level of sustainability.  The Jarls got to where the great horned helmet.

The colony would progress from landing a ship, to campsite, to palisade, to settlement, to longhouse, to forge, to shipyard.

Notice the Futhark on the blue cabinet in the background.  Extra credit points were allotted if the kiddos transcribed their Viking's name into runes.

Each turn was a 1/2 month segment of time and the Vikings would be placed on the brown 2x3" cards to indicate the resource activity they were involved in accomplishing.  Dice were cast to collect resources.  The resources were compared to the colony needs for food.  Starvation hits were recorded or  not needed.  Then inedible resources were calculated to build the next colony goal.

Worker placement, resource gathering, goal attainment.

Queen "S" and her adviser, Karl "M"  survey the table for goal achievement.

We got to play at least two sessions with each fifth grade section.  I teach three fifth grades.  This whole process included their research presentation and also some painting table work.   The kids did most of the work on the Viking miniatures.  I sealed them in army dip and did minor touch up on weapons and hair etc.  but mostly the Vikings were painted by the kids.

Thanks for looking in on the blog.  Leave a comment to encourage the kiddos.

The following images where taken by the students as part of the exit ticket for the assignment.  The required performance included a character sheet with 6 months of activity recorded from game time, a photograph of the game (preferably their character) posted to the website SeeSaw.com, their Viking's name converted to runes, and then whatever table level developments that their class accomplished in the goals description.

There Will Be A Great Battle

In Patagonia

The history of Aurikania and Pathagounia

The complete unabridged history in four volumes

With copious notes on the manner of the original manuscript

This is the story of two imagi-nations Set in a time long ago.

Table of Contents Volume I-III:
I  The foundation of the territories and the naming of the provinces.
            A. Ancient Times, see The Island of Marnon and other historical fables.
            B. The War and the division of Auricania and Patagonia
II Early Naval Architecture

Victualing documents from the museum of nautical artifacts. Patagonia 1782.

III  The Royal families: Prominent Families and Individuals
IV The Lineage of the House of Patagonia

V  The Armies

The overhead view of the battle field.  Auricania defending on the left edge of the image.  Patagonian assault began on the right edge of the image.

Opening view of the muster to defense.  Auricanian line and reserves form up in the streets of the Delft Gin Center.

Patagonian assault.  This was a surprise attack during the holiday season.  Preemptive attack on the forces of Queen Marie by the aggressive King Michael.

Nice sunrise view of the Patagonain line troops.

Scouting the enemy flank.

Auricanian banner unfurls on the wind.

The heat of the battle rages.  Cannons and musket balls whiz through the air.

VI The Armies Part the Second
VII  The Rules of Warfare
VIII  The Naval Atlas of the Western Sea and the colonies
IX  The Island of Marnon and early histories including fantastic stories and myths from long ago
X  The solar calendar of the Auricanian and Patagonian hemisphere
Illustrations:
Plate 1: Maps
Plate 2 Illustrations

Plate 3 Photographic engravings

Thanks for looking in.  More edits in a bit.