HOLIDAYS: Shana Tova! Happy 5769 New Year!

. TOP: It's customary to blow the Shofar on Rosh Hoshanah.

Hi Everyone,

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone and especially my Jewish readers a: happy, safe and prosperous New Year!

The Jewish New Year began at sundown yesterday, Monday, 29 September 2008.

The Jewish year is 5769 ...(Counting the years since the creation of Adam and Eve).

The proper greeting in Hebrew for the Jewish New Year is Shana Tova: Shana means "year" and Tova means "good."

May we all have a Shana Tova!

My friend Yehuda always has a a great way of expressing the right thoughts for the holiday:
http://jergames.blogspot.com/2008/09/happy-new-year.html

Let's all have a happy and healthy new year. This year, let's make peace with those with whom we've been meaning to make peace. This year, let's forgive those who don't deserve it, but against whom holding a grudge is doing more harm to us than to them. This year, let's start and finish at least one of those things we've been meaning to: a game, a story, a trip, a proposal, a business, a move, a routine.

This year make the world better. Start with yourself. Then your family. Then your block. Then your community. Then your country. Then your planet.

And my friend Treppenwitz AKA David puts it even shorter, but just as sweet:
http://bogieworks.blogs.com/treppenwitz/2008/09/a-simple-wish.html

... that this year should be a sweet one filled with health, happiness and prosperity.

Here’s a little Rosh Hashanah primer for all of my non-Jewish friends and readers who don’t know the difference between Rosh Hashanah and Riki Tiki Tavi, but would like to...
— (from Wikipedia):

“The traditional greeting on Rosh Hashanah is “Shana Tova,” Hebrew for “A Good Year,” or “Shana Tova Umetukah” for “A Good and Sweet Year.” Because Jews are being judged by God for the coming year, a longer greeting translates as “May You Be Written and Sealed for a Good Year” (ketiva ve-chatima tovah).

During the afternoon of the first day occurs the practice of tashlikh, in which prayers are recited near natural flowing water, and one’s sins are symbolically cast into the water.

Many also have the custom to throw bread or pebbles into the water, to symbolize the “casting off” of sins. The traditional service for tashlikh is recited individually and includes the prayer “Who is like unto you, O God…And You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea”, and Biblical passages including Isaiah 11:9 (”They will not injure nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea”) and Psalms 118:5-9, 121 and 130, as well as personal prayers.

Rosh Hashanah meals often include apples and honey, to symbolize a “sweet new year”. Various other foods with a symbolic meaning may be served, depending on local minhag (custom), such as tongue or other meat from the head (to symbolise the “head” of the year). Other symbolic foods are dates, black-eyed beans, leek, spinach and gourd, all of which are mentioned in the Talmud. Pomegranates are used in many traditions: the use of apples and honey is a late medieval Ashkenazi addition, though it is now almost universally accepted. Typically, round challah bread is served, to symbolize the cycle of the year.”

And lastly, I want wish a special Shana Tova to two local gamers, Hal L. and George G., who are both incredibly positive people, and have been bringing joy to my life every time we get a chance to game together.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Notes regarding photos / pictures / videos: These are not all my images and videos. I am using various images and videos from around the web, mostly from public sources and/or private sources used with permission. I have tried to include only images and videos under public domain, creative commons, or fair use. If I have inadvertently violated any copyrights, please inform me and I will remove your image/s (if it is indeed an infringement).

MINI WARGAMING: "Battle of Basrah" (24 July 2008)

.

TOP: Turn 1: An aerial view of the Battle of Basrah 1914-15...

...with Allies on the left and the Ottomans on the right.

Hi All,

Last Friday on 18 July 2008, a number of gentleman got together to play a colonial game, although a late colonial game from World War I. Mark Steinberg and Mike McGraw hosted. The game was loosely based on the actual Battle of Basrah from 1914-15 although the results (an allied defeat) much more resembled the Siege of Kut, the battle that followed Basrah in 1915-16. For those readers still gaining proficiency in geography, Basrah is located in modern-day Iraq.

It was a great game with lots of beautiful terrain, a host of 28mm figures, a British armored car, several light artillery pieces, two massive river boats, the French Foreign Legion, plenty of Brits, plenty of Scots, Indian troops, Arabs, Askaris, Boers, and everything a colonial-minded gamer could adore. I had a fabulous time and it was a great way to spend a lazy evening.

Mark's notes:

Here are some photos of the BASRAH 1915 game. Players were Maksim, Tim, Mike McGraw, Mike O., Hal L., and Nils. I took the photos. Observers included Carl O., Jim C. and Mark Cuomo, Mikos, Mike S., Marcus, and George G.

And the photos:

TOP: By turn 3, the Allies (left) had taken considerable casualties.

TOP: One of the mighty riverboats, that arrived too late!

TOP: The other mighty riverboat!

TOP: The two boats heading upriver to Basrah.

TOP: The mighty river itself!
Ottoman lines on the right.

TOP: The Ottomans had the advantage of holding the town...

And the Germans had vowed "...to fight to the last Arab."

TOP: Maksim's Arabs set up in a strong town building...
The fellows out of cover were quickly routed.

TOP: The British forces were bolstered by an armored car (left).
It's machine gun tore up Ottoman lines.

TOP: The brave Scots troops charged Basrah with valor in their hearts...
...to no avail!
TOP: A set of ruins in the foreground saved the Allies from a worse defeat.
TOP: By turn 2, the Allied ranks had been decimated by rifle fire.

TOP: But the Allies still held the rocky outcrops outside Basrah.

TOP: Part of the motley crew of Colonial heroes!

The game itself went well and all had a good time, but the scenario was, perhaps tilted a little in favor of the Ottoman side since by turn two, the allied lines had been considerably thinned. In fact, the game was an absolute bloodbath with both sides taking roughly 40% to 70% casualties within just three turns! Next time, the Allies will receive more troops and the Ottomans less and we can see how it turns out!

Link to Battle of Basrah (1914-15):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Basra_%281914%29

First Link to Siege of Kut (1915-16):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Kut

Second Link to Siege of Kut (1915-16):

http://www.1914-1918.net/meso_bat3.htm

Have a great Thursday!

And good gaming to you!

Shalom,

Maksim-Smelchak.

Notes regarding photos / pictures / videos: These are not all my images and videos. I am using various images and videos from around the web, mostly from public sources and/or private sources used with permission. I have tried to include only images and videos under public domain, creative commons, or fair use. If I have inadvertently violated any copyrights, please inform me and I will remove your image/s (...if it is indeed an infringement).

MINI WARGAMING: "RIF & Zombietown Are Back!" (15 January 2008)

.

TOP: Bill Johnson, Zombie Abatement Technician IV, Specialist:

“On a Friday night, no less!

Why can’t these things eat people at nine in the morning?

Dammit, I’m claiming overtime for this.”

Hi All,

I'm still in job search mode which explains the low level of posts, but I have some more good news:

Recon In Force (RIF) is Back!

http://www.recon-in-force.com/index.html

My buddy, Vynnie, had some hosting problems but RIF is back and hopefully with its former problems solved.

TOP: A car sits on blocks at the corner of Elm street.

The night is quiet.

Vynnie also has some new material up at RIF, a wargaming source text that he calls:

"Humanity At War: 2100 AD"

Link here:

http://www.recon-in-force.com/Orbit/2100.html

We all gamed together this past weekend, another mob of about twenty guys, at the local MWSS meeting. Vynnie hosted a 28mm Star Grunt "Space Pirates" game, Manny G. hosted a 20mm W.W.II Vitebsk game, and Alex F. hosted a 28mm Samurai game "The 47 Ronin." It was great fun. I took alot of photos, which now means I have two MWSS battle reports to post along with their photos...

How wicked are the lazy like me! I need to find some spare time... What will my Blog readers do? OH, the shame! LOL

Have a great Tuesday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Notes regarding photos / pictures / videos: These are not all my images and videos. I am using various images and videos from around the web, mostly from public sources and/or private sources used with permission. I have tried to include only images and videos under public domain, creative commons, or fair use. If I have inadvertently violated any copyrights, please inform me and I will remove your image/s (...if it is indeed an infringement).

FUN VIDEOS: "Blue milk, anyone?"

.


Hi All,

I'm still very much overhwhelmed at and away from my job, but I did manage to get a little gaming in with some buds Wednesday evening. Vynnie, Mikos, George and I got together "to shoot the bull" and played a short board game of ZOMBIES!. Mikos just bought a copy and wanted to give it a spin...

And here's a short Star Wars video that I recently enjoyed. I find it exceptionally difficult to NOT root for the Empire at times... Blue milk, anyone?

Have a great Friday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Notes regarding photos / pictures / videos: These are not all my images and videos. I am using various images and videos from around the web, mostly from public sources and/or private sources used with permission. I have tried to include only images and videos under public domain, creative commons, or fair use. If I have inadvertently violated any copyrights, please inform me and I will remove your image/s (if it is indeed an infringement).

GAMING NEWS: Photos From June 2007 MWS Meeting Posted.

.There was a "RUMBLE-LIAH" in this Dark Ages village at the June MWS meet!

Hi All,

I've simply been too busy and lazy to get some proper battle reports ready, but I do have the photos uploaded and... that's almost as good, right?

So, I have the following blog posts I'm readying for sometime in the future... no promises though as to when. Real Life TM always seems to intervene just when I get excited to get them done. Here's what I have in the queue:

- AAR from June MWS meet featuring Pig Wars.
- AAR from a 28mm WHFB game with my buddy Nils.
- AAR from a 28mm "Oriental Adventures" game with Vynnie and the guys.
- A 15mm expose of classic Martian Metals / RAFM figures for Traveller.
- A compilation post of "joke names" used in games such as Pvt. Parts & Maj. Weiner.
- The Death Star Mania post.

Pig Wars Norman knights run down an unfortunate village dog...
...contrary to the PETA Emperor's orders.
(Note: No actual miniatures dogs were hurt during the filming of this game)
(Really small note: However, plenty of villagers, pillagers, pigs, & chickens were kacked!)

But, enough of my prattle, here are the photos from the June MWS meet even if I don't have the write-up prepared yet:

General photos including Dick's 28mm Savage-munda "Bad Girls" gang:
http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/Maksim-Smelchak/Gaming%202007/MWS_6-16-2007/Necromunda_6-16-2007/

Photos from the 15mm Battle of New Orleans game:
http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/Maksim-Smelchak/Gaming%202007/MWS_6-16-2007/BONO_6-16-2007/

Photos from the 28mm Pig Wars game of the battles:
http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/Maksim-Smelchak/Gaming%202007/MWS_6-16-2007/

Photos from the 28mm Pig Wars game of the loot:
http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/Maksim-Smelchak/Gaming%202007/MWS_6-16-2007/Pig-Wars_Loot/

Photos from the 28mm Pig Wars game of the Dark Ages village:
http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/Maksim-Smelchak/Gaming%202007/MWS_6-16-2007/Pig-Wars_Village/

Photos from the 28mm Pig Wars game of the Arab warband:
http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/Maksim-Smelchak/Gaming%202007/MWS_6-16-2007/Pig-Wars_Arabs/

Photos from the 28mm Pig Wars game of the Magyar warband:
http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/Maksim-Smelchak/Gaming%202007/MWS_6-16-2007/Pig-Wars_Magyars/

Photos from the 28mm Pig Wars game of the Norman warband:
http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/Maksim-Smelchak/Gaming%202007/MWS_6-16-2007/Pig-Wars_Normans/

Photos from the 28mm Pig Wars game of the Pict warband:
http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/Maksim-Smelchak/Gaming%202007/MWS_6-16-2007/Pig-Wars_Picts/

Photos from the 28mm Pig Wars game of the "Milanese Mafia" Viking warband:
http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/Maksim-Smelchak/Gaming%202007/MWS_6-16-2007/Pig-Wars_Vik2-Milanese/

Photos from the 28mm Pig Wars game of the "Norveggi" Viking warband:
http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/Maksim-Smelchak/Gaming%202007/MWS_6-16-2007/Pig-Wars_Vik-1-Norveggi/

You can't play Pig Wars without the obligatory "Milanese Mafia" Viking warband, right?
These minis are Dick's fine work.

Have a great Thursday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
For the not-yet-informed, AAR = After Action Report.

GAMING NEWS: The Red Mikos Inn!

. The Red Mikos Inn.

Welcome, welcome to The Red Mikos Inn, weary traveler,

Come on in and we'll tell you a little tale... Take a load off and meet some of the Inn's other guests:

Some 28mm fantasy figures from the collection of Mikos... or George.

Perhaps we can offer you a fine meal from the Inn's kitchen?

The Inn's kitchen.

Or maybe you'd like to dine in a private cubicle? ...for a small fee... perhaps?

A private dining cubicle within the Inn.

Or maybe you'd like to dine in the common hall?

The common hall in front of a roaring fireplace.

Or perhaps you need a room for the night? Private ones cost extra.

Two private rooms within the inn. Most guests sleep on the floor of the common hall.

Maybe you're just back from a tough battle and need to visit The Apothecary of Mad Markus across the lane:

The Apothecary of Mad Markus!

Who is known to carry all sorts of exotic victuals, herbs, goodes, and even, it's rumored, spell components for the right price:

The first floor shop front of the Apothecary.

Few ever make it to the apothecary's second floor, but just maybe, you might:

Rumours fly that all sort of illicit business is conducted on the second floor...

So, pray tell, traveler, tell us what ye might need.

-------

I get a great deal of enjoyment from miniatures gaming and although we all admire the eye candy, gaming's really about the friends you game with and I'm blessed to regularly game with such a nice crowd as Vynnie, Mikos, George, and quite a few others. We played a 28mm fantasy game earlier this year in March and Mikos shared this terrain from his collection. George also provided much and Vynnie is always generous to host and make sure we're well stocked with trees, figures and whatever else we need.

I was inspired to write this post after reading this post at TMP:

URL: http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=111778

I'm in the process of scratch building some Medieval town buildings.

Does anyone have pictures of Medieval building interiors?

I'm looking of for taverns, inns, houses, shops, etc. It is for 25mm, but as long as it has enough detail, I'm for it. I've found lots of pictures of exteriors, but interiors are harder to come by. I'd appreciate any feedback.

- Ryan.

So, I hope this post helps you out, Ryan.

The base buildings are Armorcast although there are some Grendel terrain pieces and the details come from many different sources including doll house bits, miniatures bits, model kit bits, and the like. Mikos is a whiz with conversions and is always looking for something to add that extra touch to enhance our miniatures gaming experiences.

-------

Have a great Friday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
Please check out my new Displaced Miniatures gallery here:
http://www.displacedminiatures.com/Maksim-Smelchak/galleries.html

I have 28mm Pig Wars Arabs up today from this past weekend's MWS gaming club meet. I still haven't quite figured out the DM framework, but it seems good so far and I'll figure it out with time.

MINI GAMING: ConQuest Sac Was a Huge SUCCESS!

Hi Everyone,

Well, ConQuest Sac has now come and gone and it was a Huge Success! I had worries leading up to the show of a tiny room that would be poorly air conditioned and dozens of miniatures wargamers stuffed together with board gamers and the good Lord only knows whom else and... almost none of my worries came to pass.

First of all, here's a link for the con:

http://www.avalonconventions.com/conquestsac/

The Sci-fi / Fantasy Miniatures events did very well with 100% of the game hosts showing up promptly and all but one event attracted lots of players and had a great time. George Gardea's Full Thrust game didn't attract any players, but he'd also chosen a time that went head to head with the Babylon 5 starship game so most of his potential audience already had their phasers and missiles primed elsewhere... so to speak. It was also a first year show and we had one of the weirder phenomena occur (cue X-Files music)... we had more games & gamemasters than players the whole weekend! Very few of the games went to capacity because there were so many different choices.

Teaming up the historical and sci-fi / fantasy miniatures events was also a great idea. Don Delis and I were able to manage the miniatures games very well and made a great partnership.

Here were the areas for improvement for next year:
- Plan a little farther ahead so that room assignments will be known to all ahead of time...
- Have the convention event booklette ready a little sooner...
- Make individual game entries in the events booklette a little more discernable.
- Be able to provide more space for the big game tournaments that came such as the larger GW games...
- Locate registration somehwere closer to the front of the hotel or put up more directions, folks had to hunt for it...
- Provide more space for open gaming...
- Have affordable food available for the gamers; several folks expressed a wish for a closer and more affordable eating venue... The hotel's meals were a bit pricey.

Here were some of the con's great strengths:
- Great event coordinators; I saw happy people having a good time at every event I attended or even walked by...
- Great staff! Registration ran smoothly and the only complaint I heard was that the registration desks were located in the back of the hotel...
- Great game masters / game hosts... we had lots of generous folks and there were always plenty of games to play or even watch...
- Stephanie and Walter ran a really cool movie room and had plenty of auxiliary activities for everyone to do.
- Great seminars! I was very impressed by the job that Grace did and the only thing that kept me from attending the seminars (I had planned to attend three of them) was my responsibility as a miniatures games coordinator...
- Very cool painting contest! I had some difficulty finding time to visit and support Roger Mark, but I was able to do so later and I stopped and painted a miniature with him and some of the other painters around. Roger was great!

I simply had a super time and I got in the following games and attended the following activities:

======
FRIDAY:

Friday was the slowest day of the con and thus provided Don and I with the least work so we got to play more games than we expected...

1. DBA Tournament
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/299

- Mike Warde, Clay, Don and I all got a chance to get a few DBA games in and we had a great time. In one of my battles I received a huge surprise when my warband heavy army managed to beat a knight-heavy army. Mike also debuted his beautiful new Seleucid army. He put on a great event and everyone involved had a great time.

2. Wings Of War: Dragons!
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/22686

- Kimbo was kind enough to play a few games with me and we both had a good time. We later played a three-players game or two when someone else showed an interest.

3. Havoc
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/19363

- Kimbo utterly stomped me at this numbers / trick card game. It was ugly. I won one battle and he won the rest of the war (something like the other eight battles!)...

4. Command & Colors: Ancients
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/14105

- I had a chance to play The Battle of Cannae with two guys from the Bay Area and pulled off a surprise win on the last turn for the underdog Romans. It was a good game!

5. Junta
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/242

- The Junta game unfortunately didn't collect enough players to get underway, but I did get to meet Sam Abbaki, a Persian gamer and we were able to amiably swap Middle East experiences and stories. We just about went out for Persian food (I'm still Jonesing for it) that evening, but both decided to stick around and pull in a few more games...

I spent the better part of the day coordinating with Don and trying to make sure that we were prepped for the inevitable Saturday rush... of course, we knew that you can't prepare for every eventuality, but we did what we could.

======
SATURDAY:

Saturday was the busiest day of the convention and Don and I were swamped with games at the "rush hour" for the con, from roughly 10:00am to about 2:00pm... Out first order of the day was to find space for the big game tournaments of which we had several planned:
- Warrior
- Warhammer Ancients Battles (WAB)
- Warhammer Fantasy Battles (WHFB)
- Babylon 5: A Call To Arms (B5: ACTA)

The room we had wasn't big enough so we had to call on the senior con staff to find more room. Luckily they were able to provide the open gamign tables in the dealer room for the WHFB torunament and we used expansion space in the hallway for the rest of the tournaments. Thanks to Michael who made sure we got the extra tables that we needed. We set up Warrior in the hallway, but they never showed up. That wasn't so bad though because the Axis & Allies folks ended up there and we also put the big cult classic Zombietown Game there.

I wanted to add a side note that I finally got to meet Mark Cuomo of the WAB folks and he was utterly great! I really enjoyed meeting him. He is a gentleman with class.

I still had a chance to play in a few games throught the day:

1. Monster Island
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/3700

- I played this several times throughout the day and I have to say that Patrick Sweeney puts on a good game! His table attracted all kinds of convention throughout the game and it was rare to see less than a crowd of players enjoying his game. And his game was the biggest draw for younger convention goers... I played in a several games... mostly with adults though. My King Kong was masterful too... he went 3 and 0 undefeated and stomped the Alien in several grudge matches... (King Kong bellowing yell!)

2. Zombietown Massacre (ZTM)
- The ZTM folks had a great time and attracted all kinds of attention. I seem to recall that they planned for a maximum of 12 players and ended up taking closer to 15! The ZTM game was plain old-fashioned B-movie fun and all had a great time. I played Neal the gun store owner and had a blast. I also met Antonio from Oakland who played poor Timmy (got munched on by the undead). I shared lunch with Antonio and was pleasantly surprised to meet a gamer geek who more than matched my maximum nerd-osity!

3. B-17 with Ron Plunk
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/1032

- Two bomber boxes launched and what Ron advertized as a milk run was anything but! The lead box returned home with just two bombers while the other box lost two and nearly every other bomber barely limped home. I had thought that my flight would have done worse, but we managed to survive... Thabks to the many causalties, what would have normally beena very low score ended up snagging me 2nd place overall in the game. Again, my theory is that I only took second because most of the highest scoring players went down in flames... survival has a quality of its own!

======
SUNDAY:

Sundays and Fridays often vie with each other as to which day will be slower, but there was no contest at ConQuest Sac 2006. Sunday had a lot going on. The miniatures room had a full venue!
1. Flames of War - Vietnam Variant: "Pile on, A Search & Destroy Mission!"
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/11168

Charles Gomez put on a great game and I ended up playing the Vietnamese against Greg and Don as US forces. I had expected an utter Vietnamese rout, but it didn't happen that way. The Vietnamese lost the war as the US players pulled off a minor victory for finding and destroying two Vietnamese weapons caches, BUT... they paid dearly for those destroyed weapons caches. The Vietnamese took very minor casualties (abut seven stands) and the US was horribly mauled, taking half to three quarters of their forces as casualties (somewhere over twenty-five stands) before the battle was ended. We all had a good time.

2. Monster Island (MI)
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/3700

I played my last game 0f MI at this time and Kong finished the convention undefeated.

3. Painting Booth with Roger Mark
I had a chance to sit down and paint a figure with the indubitable Roger Mark. He's a great host and I enjoyed the experience of taking painting advice from him and two other experienced miniatures painters.

======

Have a great Tuesday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

MINI WARGAMING: Warlords Of the Wastelands: 2085 (18 March 2006)!

Hi Everyone,

Yesterday, I had a cool opportunity... to hang out with the bunch that hosts the very well-known Zombie Town games held at Great Escape Games every year on Halloween weekend.

We all met at Vynnie's place and the following were present:
- George
- Maksim (me!)
- Marcus
- Mike
- Vynnie

Poor George and I were both pretty exhausted though. George didn't get enough sleep (working too much) and I had done a graveyard shift the evening before with overtime so I had only gotten home that very same morning. Luckily the game didn't begin until around Noon so I took a good nap before heading over to Vynnie's place. George must not have had the same opportunity for a nap because he nodded off several times during the day. Poor guy.

Vynnie has been documenting our games for ages over here at his web site:

PUBLIC DISCLAIMER:
Vynnie is a bit of a Libertarian and doesn't beleive in the concept of "political correctness" so please be warned before you check out his site. He doesn't have any language or thought filters on so, as a result, his web site is most likely banned in neighborhoods of "emminent sensibility" like Berkeley, Davis or San Francisco. Be careful!

http://www.recon-in-force.com/index.html

And specifically here at his "Wastelands and Trailer Parks" page:

http://www.recon-in-force.com/Skank/index.html

======

Yesterday, we got together for a post apocalyptic game using Marcus's little-known rule set:

"Warlords Of the Wastelands: 2085"

...and it was a hoot! Yes, I did use the word "hoot!"

Mike had thought out a relatively simple scenario set in the RIFTS world in which a group of Coalition forces would attempt to rescue some scientists who had sent out a distress call earlier. The distress call came through garbled, but we were able to make out the location of the scientific outpost and that part of the distress call resulted from some sort of biological experiment gone horribly wrong. And with such scanty information, we "law men" set out to find us some scientists.

Mike acted as the game's GM / referee and the other four of us ran different detachments of Coalition forces dispatched to the rescue.

Much like all games that Mike and Marcus are involved in, they never take their gaming very seriousy and no matter how well the background is thought out, we always end up with a bad "B movie" plotline anyway! And yesterday was no exception!

I think that Mike had watched "Aliens" one time too many because it quickly became apparent that massed numbers of bugs versus high-tech marines along the lines of "Starship Troopers" was the order of the day.

The four Coalition detachments had barely ambled on to the field in view of the scientific outpost when we were assaulted by wave after wave of bio-bug nasties. Our line initially caved in until we retreated a bit, at which point, we stood our ground and let firepower do our talking. Casualties were heavy, but we left bug guts spread across the fields.

Finally, we hit a pause inbetween what we thought would be the next wave, but it never came. We administered to our wounded, regrouped and began to advance on the scientific outpost again. Marcus had his robot scout advance far ahead of the combat lines and when he entered the villiage, he found the scientists and their rsearch robot (who looked a might bit like Twinkie from Buck Rogers) ambling out of shelter. The robot began to converse with them and received nothing but grief for its efforts. The scientists were acting strangely and that funky research robot kept walking out of edge of the robot scout's photo receptors.

An instant later, the three scientists and the "Twinkie" lashed out at the bot utterly destroying it. We, in the Coalition forces, were confused, but consistent with our mission directives, we had a newly indentified enemy and set out to destroy them, the traitorous research bot and scientists. Our forces used what remained of our artillery and fired a rocket barrage at the scientific outpost. That gave "Twinkie" what for, but...

It also roused the beast.

A gigantic floating biological "brain beast" burst out of the ground and all hell broke loose. Ugly cockroach-like things came bustling out of the ground from every which direction and the skies filled with the buzz of entomological monstrosities. We almost broke from the sheer horror of that ugly horde.

However, the RIFTS Coalition doesn't breed nambie pambies so we figured to die standing our ground and...

We nearly did.

We unleashed everything we had and our troops were slowly but surely falling as we failed to destroy wave after wave of bugs. Suddenly some underappreciated NCO got the bright idea to target the "brain," so we did. And a half hour or so later, the "brain" fell and the waves stopped coming. In fact, the bugs seemed confused and ambled around mindlessly. We mopped up and called it a day.

Hey, the RIFTS Coalition may breed fighters, but we're not known for being the most clever lot! That NCO received a big fat promotion and a huge bonus.

End of story. Amen!

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If you've never played out a game based on a really bad "B movie," I recommend the experience. It's good-hearted no-brainer fun and is a welcome relief from folks who take themselves way too seriously. And the truth be told, every once in awhile I'm one of those folks so the light-hearted fun is a good reminder to loosen up, stop and smell the roses.

And for those of you interested in playing on some of the beautiful terrain sets featured on Vynnie's web site, check out ConQuest Sac coming very soon to Sacramento on April 7th to 9th, 2006. Mike and Marcus will he hosting a special edition of their Zombie Town game series there. Here's a link for more information:

http://www.conquestsac.com/

Just make sure, you don't things too seriously... LOL

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We also discussed getting a group together to see one of the latest films from Russia:

"Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor)!"

"Night Watch" is a sort of vampire film along the lines of a long series of American vampire films and has already received some acclaim. Unfortunately, when we checked, "Night Watch" has already left the Greater Sacramento area. I guess we'll have to wait for rentals.

I found a few links about "Night Watch" here:

http://www.nival.com/nightwatch/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403358/

Apparently, "Night Watch" is the creation of a certain "modern yet already classic science-fiction writer Sergey Lukyanenko," whom I have never heard about despite reading Russian science fiction as often as not. I'll have to look him up. There are a few Russian book stores in town and I'll probably only find him there as I'd be greatly surprised if Lukyanenko is available in English translation yet.

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I love this beautiful weather we're having.

Everyone, have a great Sunday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

GAMING NEWS: Fun two weeks culminating in the 10 December 2005 MWS weekend meeting!

Hi Everyone,

I've been blessed the past two weeks or so...

Last Sunday I had a chance to play Assyrian Wars by Udo Grebe with my friend Vince Blackburn AKA Vynnie at another friend's house, Dave Hanifan. George and Jeff also showed up and we all had a good time. The components could have used better color differentiation, but all of us had a good time upon final consideration.

The Board Game Geek link to Assyrian Wars is here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/8626

Last Tuesday, I found out that one of my favorite local gaming shops "Hobby Monkey" is taking a turn for the worse... less operating hours and several cancelled game tournaments including the immensely popular Formula De tournament, which really irks me because my racer had one of the top standings. The owner wants to close by 9:00pm on weeknights now (...sometimes 8:00pm) which really reduces the amount of time for gaming. Bummer...

I showed up on Tuesday at Hobby Monkey to find the poor Flames of Wars guys from Yuba City walking into an empty shop. We played a Formula De game, which they all liked. I was in first place until my car blew up in an unfortunate accident. Eric-Chern of Epic-Armageddon and Babylon-5 fame came in last place, but he finished unlike THREE of the rest of us! There were seven racers... pretty lethal race.

Yesterday, MWSS (Miniature Wargamers Society of Sacramento), had our monthly games day. Three games were hosted:

- 10mm (N-scale) WWII Eastern Front game with adapted ASL rules...
- 6mm/15mm HOTT Fantasy campaign...
- 15mm War of 1812 with Guns of Liberty rules...

I played in the 6mm/15mm HOTT Fantasy campaign and had a great time. I played two smaller HOTT battles (1 decisive win, 1 moderate loss) and played on the winning side of a Big-Battles-HOTT game which featured six armies (three a side) battling it out. General HOTT Dick Mitchell's "good consortium" (Elf army, human army and my magician's army) carried the day against Ork despot General Carper's hordes (Orc behemoth/archer band, Orc blades band and Orc shaman band).

I tried out an interesting HOTT army of eight spearmen supported by two magicians in the last game. It was fun although my sides didn't do much more than have my magicians toss spells at the enemy (which scared a key enemy behemoth which was forced to flee) and have my spearmen hold part of the line looking tough.

While the games were technically part of the HOTT campaign, we won't officially kick off the campaign until the January meeting so the games were really "practice" ones. I'm already afraid of the really tough Orc armies. Marc Carper really knows his game. And what a beautiful miniatures painter he is!

Photos of his minis and all three of the games can be found in a folder labelled "12-10-2005" at the MWSS E-group here:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/M_W_S/

After yesterday's game, Diana and I were invited to a wine-tasting by our friends Roger and Grace. Roger's my idea of a good guy to taste wine with, a former 82nd Airborne paratrooper with an attitude! He's also one of the world's premier miniatures painters and his work is regularly featured in gaming magazines in the UK and USA. We had a good time even though we weren't behaving according to "wine-tasting decorum!" We both got in trouble with his wife at one point so we mellowed out. She takes "wine tasting" much more seriously than we did... at the time! Although I still insist that a few of the wines we "sampled" wouldn't have been good for lubricating even a Peugot. More like pee-eeuhhh!

We tried three French wines and three Napa Valley wines. I much prefer the Napa Valley wines from California. The French wines almost all had a bad aftertaste and I was happy to toss the rest of them in the "slops" bucket.

After the "wine tasting" there was a "white elephant" gift exchange. It's Murphy's Law that if you're Jewish, you will always end up with a Christmas ornament at a "holiday" (really Christmas) gift exchange. We (Diana and I) ended up with a set of diet books (The South Beach Diet Book and The South Beach Diet Cook Book) along with a... yeah, guess again... a Christmas ornament. I might just make a vow someday to make a version of Frosty with a Yarmulke! Dagnabit!

We gave the Christmas ornament to Grace and were able to swap our "books" for some kind of a "fancy shmancy" lemon liqueur from Italy. It's called "Limoncello" (spelling?). I haven't broken it open yet.

I've decided, all in all, that wine-tasting may not be my thing. The husband host was good and has started his own wine label, but the wife host, was bit shmarmy and her red thong underwear were hanging out in the wind. I wasn't going to say anything though... However at the first glance of her red thong, I vowed to not imbibe generously of the wine... get my drift!

Besides enjoying the company of Roger and Grace, I met someone who was an appreciator of Russian literature so I had a good time. Diana talked Baltimore football with the host and a few other folks.

All in all, the past two weeks or so have been good to me.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.