On to Montreal!

Well, number one Son is now a Montréalais; Sunday we dumped him in a shared student-style flat in a very classic Montreal neighborhood .


 






Accompanied by the good McDuff, who had come along to help me control my emotions (too much joy can be dangerous while driving long distances), I headed off to the Captain's.   After a brief return to parental responsibility ("Dad, could you drive me out to Ikea?"  Thankfully Rob lives nearby)  we settled down to mark the passage of hurricane Irene with a festival of games.  For the first time I played Wings of War and a member of the DBx family (HOTT in this case) as well as a German-style rail building game called Transamerica.  I'll not paste many pictures of games and figures here (although Rob's Burgundians are lovely) -- I am sure you will find some pictures elsewhere.

History, wargame stories and game design were heavily discussed in the twelve hour drive there, and on the return trip.  All in all, a very enjoyable weekend break.

Some WWII blogged!

As you can see from the sidebar, I now have the WWII blog going with one unit on the blog, and pictures of four more "in the can".  Progress - I love it!

So, how did we do this week?

Well, I have actually labelled two Soviet units (410 Rifle Regiment and 119 Separate Tank Regiment); however I have lost the light here to photograph either them or the Romanians.  I will try to make that happen early this week; then my WWII armies will have their own blog.

I also now have a new time waster -- The Operational Art of War is a multi-scenerio operational warfare engine.  The interface looks like a good old fashioned hex map boardgame, but the internal engine is quite bit more sophisticated.  I think the sweet spot is WII, but it has scenarios available from the ECW up to the cold war.  It also has a powerful scenario editor and a very active community so the replay value should be pretty good.

I will be out of touch next weekend while I take #1 son to university in Montreal; but I will post here if I make progress before or after that.

Epic Fail!

No planned objective was met this week.  I did, however, progress on another front.  I have organized units for three of my WWII forces, and attached the labels for two of them.

This is what the unit labels look like:

Organized units (on magnetized stands) will go in Belgian biscuit tins labelled to be easily found.











I fear I have been focusing more on WWII than on other projects in the past week.  I have significant forces, but have always planned a few tweaks to finish them off.  Maybe this will be the chance.

Progress Report

The scorecard for this week

Interpolated mass, temperature and luminosity for all stars with complete spectral data	Fail
Complete painting (but not basing since I do not have the rules yet) for a 15mm SF unit.	Fail
Pictures of one 10mm ~SYW unit	Succeed
Revise ground scale for Mars-la-Tour and write "scale" section for rules	Succeed

If I were at work, we would certainly be talking "red project" about now.  So, how did I do in detail?

The star data interpolate is actually getting close.  I have to:

1. Add "extrapolators" to accommodate the end cases for each luminosity class.  Alternatively, I could plug the data to make sure that my extreme ends are covered.  That might actually be simpler.
2. Develop data outside of the Main Sequence.
3. Sort out "R", "N" and similar secondary types - where do they fit in the more-or-less smooth curve of each luminosity class.

We'll leave this one on the books, but I think it will probably be more like two weeks.

No paint touched the SF platoon, but I did magnetize, label and photograph a 10mm German infantry battalion for BKC.  This project will get a website when I have some non-fascist units to include.  I really have quite a large army, but this is the 1st explicitly organized battalion.

I wrote one (really easy) rules section and blogged the Bravant artillery.  The "document 10mm unit" target is a gimme until I run out of labelled units; still, I should do something more entertaining with these lads.

I also found yet more forgotten FPW figures.

So for next week:

• Code complete and tested interpolator for Main Sequence only.
• Finish painting an incomplete unit for some army - I have got to get the FPW French going along.
• Catch up labeling on existing Bravant units and blog both another unit and some kind of army list.
• Write another section of the Mars la Tour rules.

Mixed Success

Results for this week:

Objective	Result
interpolated mass, temperature and luminosity for all stars with complete spectral data	Fail
a starting coat on my first 15mm SF platoon	Succeed
pictures of one 10mm ~SYW unit	Succeed

On the other hand:

• Close investigation and new decisions on the Mars-la-Tour rules including several posts.

I'd say moderately successful -- its been an annoying busy weekend.


Targets for next week:

Interpolated mass, temperature and luminosity for all stars with complete spectral data

Complete painting (but not basing since I do not have the rules yet) for a 15mm SF unit.

Pictures of one 10mm ~SYW unit

Revise ground scale for Mars-la-Tour and write "scale" section for rules.