Kinda a dark day for hobby related news....

Well, I haven't been by in a while. Mainly due to some personal matters I'm not going to talk about except to say that's it's an illness in the family.

As for illness, I was cruising the Guild this morning and read a thread from
Jenny Howitt, daughter of Dave Howitt of Britannia Miniatures. I'll let Jenny's words break the news:

My name is Jenny Howitt, Dave Howitt's of Britannia Miniatures daughter, I've just registered to convey some unfortunate news. I'm afraid to say my Dad had a massive heart attack on Monday and is very ill in hospital.


As a result of this Britannia will cease trading for a few weeks. If anyboy has ordered I can assure you that all orders will be filled in due course.


Dad is very positive and in good spirits, thanks in advance for yur understanding.

This is some sad news, and I think we should all include Dave in our prayers, as well as see what as a community we can do to be helpful to the Howitt family.

UPDATE: The damage to Dave Howitt's heart was sadly, too much and he passed away this Saturday. Please include the Howitt family in your prayers today.

In other, more unpleasant news, though I don't do Battletech as much as I used to, I still cruise by the forums and I am involved in helping to run a strategic PBEM game. Therefore, I wasn't too happy to read this on the website link to the forums:

Due to a security breach the forums are being taken down indefinitely while the damage to the system is accessed. Because of the nature of this breach it is unlikely we will be restoring a backup of user accounts as it is impossible to know who's passwords and accounts have been compromised.


We are currently accessing our options and will get the forums back up in one form or another as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.


Jason M. Knight classicbattletech.com System Administrator

In other news, I am giving the Nook quite the workout as I master it's intricacies with PDFs..I can tell you smaller print is better. As you zoom in, it tends not to like larger print. I am right now engrossed in the Anthony Beevor work about Stalingrad, and it's giving me gaming ideas, not just for WWII.

I also have some writing projects in the fire, nothing major, and nothing I can discuss, but as soon as I can, I shall. Let's hope for better times for all concerned.

In closing, I am also out there, soliciting for SF 15's 3rd issue. Don't be shy, submit!

It's that time again, time again for SF 15's call for articles!

That's right, it's that time again. We need more contributions for SF 15 for publication in late Feb, early March. We're looking for anything of interest and import to the 15mm Sci-Fi gamer, be it interviews, product reviews, painting articles, scenarios, you name it, we'll find a use for it! We're especially looking for ART! So if you can draw and you're interested, send it along!

Please send any contributions to jasonDOTweiserATgmailDOTcom

Little Christmas gift for everyone in Ambush Alley Land.

I made some changes to my Terminator and Kafer rules to bring them into line for TW. Please feel free to either download them at the AA Yahoo Group, or HERE and HERE. Feel free to download...and Merry Christmas all!

SF 15's Winter Issue IS OUT!!!!!

Get it HERE!!!!

What's happening in 2011.

1. With my private life calming down, and work winding down into the new year, I do now have some time to work on some stuff. I also have the Guild's Project Build I signed up for. Yes, that's right. I am going to get this 20mm Twilight 2000 project done. Here's some of the ideas I wanna do:

- A Polish Battlegroup, probably of a built BMP-2 (ACE kit) and a Britannia T-55 along with some Grenadier 20mm figures. Probably even some Horse Cav?

- An East German Battlegroup of some BTR-152s and a T-72 called "Kampfgruppe Thallmann". I think some mixed East German figs, mostly of former Kampfgruppe der Arbeiterklasse (Battlegroups of the Working Class, eg East German Militia) and the old MfS Wachregiment "Feliks E. Dzierzynski"
(They're trustworthy Germans, or at least the Soviets think so), I am thinking the East Germans will come from Platoon 20 and RH Models.

- Repaint (Not happy with the BDUs at all) and organize my Americans, probably organize both a band of 5th Division survivors and a DIA backed SF unit.

- Paint up and organize my Brits, I've got a lot of what I need for them, I just need to paint the lot up. Rest assured, THEM will put in an appearance. (anybody got a Spare pair of Landrovers in 20mm?)

- Organize and come up with a backstory for my Soviets.

- I also want to paint up a Marauder band. I have a few Dark Future 20mm GW figures. I'd love to get more, but those things are damn rare. But these fellas seem to be coming to the fore! Some of their line might suffice.

Think that's enough tasks?

2. In other news, I am weighing what to use for Imperial Army troops. I know I've got the Traveller Imperial Marines, and Zhos for sure. I've got plenty I can use for lower tech troops as well as Swordies. But Imperial Army? I am thinking the new Khurasan Federal Army types. I just have to get the items together, but that's taking a bit of a back seat to my group build.

3. The Guild's Big Game is going to Be Modern Africa sometime in 2012. I am interested, but I did have some misgivings about 20mm Modern Africa. Oh well, I guess I can make it work, it just means Rolf is going to get plenty of my money. Though I hear Ehliem is also coming out with some suitable figures.

That's it for now, but I know there's going to be more, but we'll see where things go from here.

Happy Holidays!

First,
Happy Holidays all,
I am blogging from the wife's netbook at my parents. Let's just say I am rather OD'd on family togetherness. But this is a wargaming blog. So let's stick to the topics at hand.

1. SF 15 got a good response for articles and not so much for art. I will leave the art to our layout guy. I hope he can find some stuff we can use, but we'll make do. I'd really like to see somebody do a review for Tomorrow's War. I don't think either I or Gage should be doing any kind of review. We both helped with the playtest and I wrote some fluff for the rules. Talk about conflict of interest! What I am happy about is that we have at least two scenarios this time around! I am really psyched about that.

2. Got my Nook this week and took a look at it with a Battletech PDF, the results were so-so. I could read it but the occasional paragraph was out of wack and it took forever for any images in the file to load. Image heavy rules aren't the best on it, but if it's a lot of text, it'll do the job well.

That's pretty much it for now.

Been a bad blogger Pt 2

Well all, it's been really busy in RL (My wife was hospitalized, it's the nature of the beast with bipolar disorder) on my end, but there was a lot of gaming news.

1. Ran a Tomorrow's War game at Steve's place, and while I may have screwed up the reaction rules, in fact, I am sure I did...everybody had fun, and about a billion suggestions for house rules. I do agree with one thing, bigger units seem to have more defensive dice, which is weird, because larger units should be easier to hit? Something to ponder. No pics, but the terrain and troops, 25mm this time, were gorgeous.

2. Fall In was a good time, and though I am writing about it three weeks after the fact. The vibe was kinda a downer, as a lot of vendors had a bad taste in their mouths about the lastest doings from HMGS. Spoke to Walt O'Hara, and while I will not relate what was said, any support I had for the Baltimore endeavor is over. I had no idea how badly it was planned and executed. I just hope the lawsuits that are going forward can be settled to the satisfaction of all parties.

As for actual gaming? I got into a colonials game set in German SWA, and played the natives...The game was hard fought, with the natives controlling the high-ground and it became a smash mouth type of fight, just the kind of game I like. I lost on points, but who the hell cared?

The second game? It was a sci-fi 15s game? Well, it was confusing. I played the UN, and misread my victory conditions, getting into a fight I could not win. Oh well, I left early and hit the flea market, where I got some nice deals.

My third game was a Mexican-American game of Regimental Fire and Fury, while there was some argument over the scenario and play balance (some Mexican siege artillery that didn't fire on the Americans historically took out the US artillery), I had fun, though I don't get how Regimental F and F is much different from Regular F and F?

As for the haul I made?

1 Rapid Fire based company of 20mm WWII US airborne
50-60 20mm Partisans and Volksturm
1 FoV SU-122 in winter scheme
1 kit of the Armourama Fireflies
3 Ospreys I didn't have
The Against The Odds issue with the Russo-Finnish Air game in it.
Some Winter Americans and Early Pacific US and Japanese from SGMM
And, for Gage, a box of the PSC Soviets.

Not too shabby.

3. The deadline (self-imposed really) is coming up for SF 15's second issue, so if you've got something, please send it in. I really only have two submissions, and one's mine! So, if you want to submit something, and it's vaguely useful to the 15mm Sci-Fi gamer, by all means send it in! We've got a new layout guy who has done wonders with the new covers and layout, I just want to give him something to work with!

So, there is is for now folks, more later!