Gamecraft Painting Station

Hi All,

Just before heading off to Denver for JO Regionals; I received my Gamecraft Painting Station, Drawer Add-On and LED Light Add-On. You can see them here.

I had dry fit them together before flying out and had an opportunity to watch the assembly videos here. For some reason I could not find any masking tape around the house or at the grocery store, but we still had some painters tape and that did the trick. The nozzle on my wood glue was a little unwieldy at certain points, but I made sure I had a damp paper towel to wipe up the glue overage. I probably made things more difficult for myself by assembling it on my lap while sitting on the couch watching a movie with the family.

So here it is all assembled and stacked on top of each other. I just have to put the drawer knobs on. This is the 26mm Vallejo bottle version, since I mostly paint with Reaper paints. You can get one that has all 32mm slots for GW pots or a mixture of the two sizes even. The only thing I noticed I didn't do 100% right is the back of the paint tray is not fully flush on there, totally my oversight. Fairly straight forward to assemble and looks like it will help me a lot in keeping projects self contained and easier to transition to different places or speed up set up for things like my WFRP sessions, which I usually do seated at my paint desk.

I bought the three together off Amazon, but I don't see why you couldn't just buy it off the site. I'm very satisfied with the product and service thus far.

Anyway, hope to be painting on it later today. Thanks for looking and commenting.

Video Capture Software - a review of sorts

As you may recall, I have been trying to do some video capture of my gaming sessions on Roll20.net. After meeting with mixed success I wanted to share with you all what I have learned so far.

I have found three candidates for FREE video capture, they are OBS, Camstudio and Virtual Dub. I have used mostly Camstudio and OBS, I have only just installed Virtual Dub and briefly played with it.

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) seems to be primarily geared towards live streaming video game play, but it can also be used to record to your hard drive. Straight off I'll just say I liked this one the best. It has a lot of flexibility and makes clear MP4 encoded video. It doesn't seem to be a resource hog, and I could be capturing video, recording audio, and have the internet browser running with the chat and sometimes even skype all at once. That's not to say that there haven't been some issues. First off, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to get back to default settings. If you change something that's what it is now. So unless you have a good memory you may want to write the default settings down. I also was initially confused by the 32 bit and 64 bit versions. I believe that the shortcut made by the installer was for the 32 bit version. After I figured it out I put a shortcut to the 64 bit version in the task bar. The last issue I was having, and one which almost made me give up on OBS, was only recording a partial screen area. I'm not sure when, or how it happened, but at some point I was only recording a corner of my screen area. Nobody on the forums seemed to be having this problem, and I was at a loss. I fixed it by just setting a sub region to record that was the size of my monitor (1920 x 1080). Et Viola! It seems to have fixed the problem. I have not used Game Capture mode, but have used Window Capture and Monitor Capture. Both work fine with a caveat. In window capture you need to be sure that the window is active when you start recording, otherwise you get a black screen. I ran into a couple of issues when trying to record gaming sessions that would not start because I had minimized the browser to fuss with Audio and recording settings. What I have always wanted to do, and just figured out the other day, is Monitor capture. When you preview or record you will see an infinite screen effect. You a picture of the screen in screen ad infinitum. (Why does blogger say I spelled that wrong?) If you minimize OBS it will disappear from the screen as well. For some reason I got it stuck in my head that it was buggy and just didn't work. The reality is user error.  It records what's on your screen, just like I wanted.

Camstudio is another free one that works pretty well and I had used it in the past. It seems pretty intuitive, especially compared to OBS, but does have some limitations. It records to AVI and uses quite a bit of resources. I was still able to have everything running but it did seem to struggle at times. There is also a max file size, which going above will crash the program. I was fortunately able to save the audio, because I thought I could strip it from the video later, but the video was lost.

Virtual Dub I essentially have zero experience with this program. It is a little more complex than Camstudio, but I was able to set it up and record video pretty quickly. What I could not figure out was the audio settings and it sounded like I was at a Kraftwerk concert. Ok, maybe an exaggeration, but it sounded weird. It also records AVI and I have no idea if it would slow your computer down or have a maximum video size it could record.

A big thing to keep in mind is that I am using a Windows Surface 2 tablet and so don't have a lot of things to worry about as far as video cards or hard drive access times.

Hope you found this helpful if you are looking to record things off your computer.

I'd also like to take this time to welcome Rab of Rab's Geekly Digest to the blog. He's an Oldhammerer who is working on a most impressive Giant at the moment.

The follower counter also jumped from 161 to 163, but I can't for the life of me figure out who the other person is. So if you followed me in the last few weeks and have a blog let me know. I always try to link back to followers.

Have a great weekend!

Headphones and Electronics review

All right. I remember at some point in the past I promised you all a review of some stuff and then somehow conveniently forgot to do it. So here it is.

Headphones

I had previously been using a cheap pair of noise cancelling headphones for flights but grew to use them daily for watching netflix on my Kindle Fire while my wife read or watched something else on tv. After a few years the elastic band that helped it fit on my head, broke. That coupled with the cracking of the ear pad covers led me to look into buying something new. What I latched onto was these Ableplanet headphones on amazon.

The reviews were not all stellar, but I have never been a true audiophile. Perhaps blowing out my ears for two years in a rock band was the culprit. But I have never been very sensitive in any of my senses, try as I might.

Anyhow they worked great for cancelling the engine noise of the plane. They are a little heavy and after four movies my ears physically hurt a tad from being sandwiched between the headphones and my glasses, but they worked great and I found them easy to pack up and cart around. So recommended.

This next bit is less a review of the products themselves as their peripherals and a sort of international travel tip.

I have not done a whole lot of international travel, but I have done some, and one thing that has always worried me is charging electronic devices. Initially I didn't have, nor was as reliant upon, cell phones and computers. My first trip to China I think I only had my cell phone. But what concerned me was a travel mate switching off the breakers on our floor at the hotel when he tried to charge his video camera battery. I want to say that was 2005.

Feast forward to today and things are so much easier. I had my phone, Surface Tablet and Nikon D5100 camera along for the trip to London and Paris. We had brought along a power converter, but after the first two days it stopped working. Now I had read, and seen printed on the charger units, that they were mutli voltage now. In short, many electronic devices now support a range of voltages that should cover you around the world, you only need an adapter for the plug. So I took the plunge and plugged in the power block for my tablet and used the USB port to charge my phone. Success. So if your device's power supply says it can handle 100 - 240 V, it can.

Probably old news for most, but for me it was a revelation.

And just to review the Microsoft Surface Tablet, I really like it. I use it as my main computer now, editing all my photos etc, and have totally replaced my Kindle. It is heavy compared to a Kindle, but sooo much lighter than my 15" laptop. I stuffed it in the pouch in my camera bag that is designed to fit an iPad. I went with the largest storage I could find, you could probably get one with less storage for about the price of an iPad and buy an external drive, or just save to the cloud if it was a problem. Anyway I really enjoy it.

New tablet on top of Laptop, a lot lighter

Well so that's it. I'm still waiting on the Mongols etc, but my Gokstad ship has arrived. Funny how the stuff I don't need always arrives before the stuff I do.

I've got to make enough 2" wide river, and a bridge to go across my 6' table. I'm thinking of using the 3mm craft foam. I suppose I could just use blue, but I did want to paint it. My thinking right now is to just cut it to 2" width and forego banks. It seems you really only need those if you are building up a water effect. I had also thought of printing some on card as a quick solution. I'll see how I feel. Any thoughts?

Hot fun in the Summer time

Hi All,

  You may have heard of the heat wave in the Western US. Here in Phoenix it got a little hot.

Screen caps from 6/28 and 6/29.

I think it only got to 119F on  June 29th, but it was pretty damn hot.

I'm back into the full swing of Exercise, except the running has taken a back seat in all this heat. As such my aches and pains have gone back to the usual places. The only new thing is my ribs hurt from being punched in them and I may have to admit that it's more than a minor injury.

Astute readers will notice that I have been playing quite a bit of Elder Signs: Omens. I got it on the Kindle and it is addictive. I've beaten three of the four Elder gods in the basic game, but cannot beat Azathoth. Playing the app has given me a greater appreciation for the boxed game and I have learned the rules better. I may look into getting the expansion in the near future.

Several blogs I follow have been putting up mid year progress reports and I thought I would do the same. I had meant to take a bunch of pictures and snazz it up, but I'm at the point where I want to post something rather than put it off for another day.

So here is the project list with notes:

2013

Add blog pages

• Pile of Shame – haven't started.
• Figures/ Models Completed – haven't started page (1 figure completed)
• Games Played 12/31/12
• Project List 12/30/12

Fantasy

• Finish Tereken Figs – 30 foot 50% complete, 4 cav 20% complete
• Finish Mirholme Figs – 17 foot 30% complete
• Finish Naz-Goth Figs – 29 foot 50%, 2 foot 10%, 4 cav 10%
• Finish Treyine Figs – Taken off sprue, washed?
• Refurbish old terrain – Not started
• Build water feature terrain – Not Started
• Heraldry and Banners – Preliminary designs only
• Card stock buildings – Not Started
• card stock dungeon – Tried to adjust to 1/72 scale

Ancient/ Fantasy Naval – Not Started

• Play War Galley
• Build Roman Seas paper ships
• Read and Play Roman seas
• Go through other naval rule sets

18th Century Imagi-nation -Basic ideas roughed out only.

• Create Map – Got ideas for using Brain and Internal organs for maps.
• create back story
• Read Muskets & Mohawks, Long Rifle rule sets
• determine terrain needs
• paint up figures

ACW – 20 figures cut off sprue and washed

• Paint 10 Union figures – 5% on 10 foot
• Paint 10 Confederate – 5% on 10 foot
• Work through Rifles & Rebels ex of play
• Asses terrain needs/ figures

Wild West – Some Western Figures cut off sprue

• Finish reading Six Gun Sound Rules – Did I finish reading, got pretty far.
• Build Western card stock buildings
• Paint Cowboy and Indian figures

Pulp – Found a lot of resources, need to finalize

• Continue research into Cthulhu
• Figure out stats for Larger Than Life
• Asses terrain and buildings
• Source more figures

WWII – Not much progress

• Finish reading NUTS!
• Paint Billy V Americans and Germans
• Look through Not Quite Mechanized
• Revisit Squad Leader in Miniature

Sci-Fi – Not much progress, added Star Navy and Fighter Command

• Read 5150 rules
• Source Figures
• Play the damn game

So as you can see a lot of work still to do. I've decided that I need to focus on the work instead of the results. In that way I will have something accomplished.

Off for a quick Holiday weekend. Have a happy and safe 4th of July. If you celebrate it that is.

Further fun with Android Apps

Hi All,

 More fun with apps, but first let me wish you a joyous holiday season and a happy new year just in case I don't get to it in the following days and weeks.

From howtobeadad.com

After the last post The Convenient Skill (CS from now on), from here (sorry your blog title is too long for me to want to type it), had mentioned two apps in the comments which looked intriguing. Namely Dungeon Sketch and Tales of Mobile Entertainment (ToME).

I duly went to the Amazon app store and no luck. I then tried the Google Play store from my phone and found ToME but not Dungeon Sketch. A web search on the computer found Dungeon sketch but it said it was incompatible with my phone, I was able to download the apk file from the developers site because I really wanted to put it on the Kindle anyway.

I then spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to side load apps onto the Kindle Fire. There are some tutorials out there, I'll show you how I did it.

Games and Apps for Android - Review

I had been reading several engrossing battle reports here, here and here, when I decided to look up Hex Map Pro to see if they had an Android version. They didn't.

In the midst of that search I found three apps that I did download:

The first is 3D Virtual Tabletop. This looked so cool that I actually jumped right in and paid the $0.99 to purchase it. Right now it has pretty limited use for me but the figures are interesting and being able to completely turn it around etc is pretty cool. So if your doing a solo dungeon crawl and want something portable, it's not  bad little app. Give me the ability to add my own figures, you can already add your own map, and this app would be really awesome.

Populus Romanus, I'm running the free version right now and have played the expansion of Rome scenario. It's pretty simplistic and plays in a Civilization style. Cities produce gold and you can buy different units. Units have Attack - Defend - Move stats and some units have the ability to skirmish which holds enemies in place. It passed the "one more turn" test for me in that I just kept on going till the game concluded. Fun and not too cerebral. This one is free with limited scenarios. You can purchase the full version.

Wargame 1st Bull Run 1861 by DK Simulations (Sorry about the Google Play store link but the developer website is crap). This is s neat little game with nice graphics. It feels more like a proper wargame with strength  and morale levels. My only complaints were that I would have liked to be able to have a back button as I made a lot of mistaken moves by not knowing how to de-select troops. There is also an interesting feature where you can remain in column in the center of the hex or form a line along a hex face. Needless to say inaccurate finger taps led to selecting the exact opposite of what was intended on several occasions. Perhaps a more liberal use of the zoom feature would have helped. The Last thing I'll say is that I found the scenario frustrating as the Union player. I destroyed many Confederate units but could not seem to keep control of the objectives. This one is also free, the Gettysburg game is $1.99. They also have several WWII and Napoleonic titles.

If I had an iPad I would definitely buy Hex Map Pro. Andy over at Halfway Station has been using it in his ATZ campaigns and Justin of Wargaming Addict has been using it in a NUTS! campaign.

I contacted the developer of Hex Map Pro to see if there was a possibility of an Android version and he nicely replied no. So I've started down the path of learning how to program for Android http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html#download we shall see.

Battle Cry - First impressions

So I managed to get in one game of Battle Cry over the weekend. My son, with the help of my wife, played the Confederate side while I played the Union for the 1st Bull Run scenario.

This is from the 150th anniversary edition.

From http://pawnderings.blogspot.com/2010/12/comparitive-replay-session-of-battle.html

Also from http://pawnderings.blogspot.com/2010/12/comparitive-replay-session-of-battle.html

It was an interesting battle in that I jumped out to an early 4 flag to 1 flag lead and then watched as my son tied it up with some hot dice rolling. I should have known from previous experience, when he needs to roll something he gets it.

Basically the battle played out like this. On the Confederate Left/ Union Right is where the early action started The Union cavalry was aggressive and blunted the Confederate attack. On the Confederate Right/ Union Left the infantry tenatively advanced and traded long range musket fire, with neither side gaining much advantage. In the center the Confederates under Jackson took the ridge and poured musket fire onto a line of Union infantry set up in line with Henry House. The union was taking the worst of the musket exchanges until they played the Fieldworks card, and then things evened out a bit. General Beauregard (my son and wife) was reluctant to reposition his artillery once he had gained the dog leg of the ridge, which did not offer a full view of the main Union force.

The union finally won the battle by holding in the center while wiping out opposition on the flanks. So it was fun and the command cards are interesting. I see where some might have a problem with troops effectively sitting the battle out because you couldn't get enough command cards to order them, but I think it is a nice mechanic to give you decisions to make on the field.

The one question that remains for me is battling a general, or more precisely killing a general since they can't really battle. In this game Stuart became isolated on the hill on the left flank and did not move from that position. After killing the unit he commanded I played it that he was killed by rolling the cavalry sybol on the dice. Was that wrong? I'm not sure.

In this 150th Anniversary you get 10 regular scenarios, three from the Jackson campaign and thirteen more for the special edition. But what if your like me and, after seeing all this, wonder why there is no scenario for the first day of Gettysburg you can look here for that and many more.  Also check out wargaming miscellany for Battle Cry musings.

Wanna play solo? Of course you do. Boardgame Geek has suggestions here and here as well as a pdf here (I haven't tried it yet). Bob Cordery also had this to say about using Coomand cards for solo play. Also check out Dale Hurt's blog on solo wargaming about hand management here

I'd write more but gotta run..

Follow up on Valiant WW2 1/72

Well I did a search for "valiant miniatures review" and a bunch of stuff came up. The three most relevant to this discussion are The Miniatures Page [TMP], Elianto e i Mondi Alterei, and Miniatures.de

The TMP posts started in 2007 and it is pretty long (3 pages). The comments start by saying they are BIG! and talk abut 23-24mm. flakmaus gives a pretty in depth comparison with 20mm ranges that I am not familiar with. He says these are all around 21-22mm. {I will note here that when I buy figs I try to stick with the sets that are reviewed to be 24mm on PSR}. christot has a link to a photobucket gallery here which I missed on the first read through and I think may be pay dirt for this discussion.

Fantassin - Valiant - Elheim w/ slotta, from christot

Further on towards the bottom of the first page is a reply from Julian of Valiant Miniatures that basically states that they feel 24.3mm is the scale average height of a man in modern times. I totally agree, but fat lot of good that does me if my other figures are not that height.

Mondi Alterei is basically a review of the German boxed set. A good description of the contents and picture of the sprue. The box art is different and, although good, is not as enticing as the painted figure art I saw yesterday. This also seems to be a review of an item he was given by the manufacturer, for what it's worth.

Lastly miniatures.de. This is very in depth, down to the scale of the individual weapons for the British Tommy box. Basically they state that Valiant is incompatible with ESCI, Hasegawa, Italeri and Revell. They say that the weapons range from 1/60 to 1/50 in scale and the heads are more like 1/27.

ESCI - Valiant - Revell from miniatures.de

So here is my take on it. If you are getting into Rapid Fire and don't have any figures it looks like it would be a good solution to get some nicely detailed and inexpensive figures that are in preset amounts you need for the game. If you already have any other 1/72 figures it looks like the Valiant figures will dwarf them. You can do basing tricks to match the height but I think the girth issues bother me more. Unless you don't mind having a significant portion of your forces look like Jaws from the Bond movies (Richard Kiel).

So a shame really because I think that they are quite nice looking, but the incompatibility issue has me holding off for the moment. I have some IMEX Billy V US and Germans. Does anyone know anything about the Plastic Soldier Company 1/72 figures?

[EDIT]

Der!? Found the plastic Soldier Review listing for Valiant here, most sets get high marks but are listed at 25mm and up for size. Not sure why I didn't see it the other day. Plastic soldier company here get high marks as well but are sized at 23.5mm. So fit in with ESCI, Revell etc.

Orcs of Naz-Goth (Bold plan pt2)

So here we are a few days later, and while not great, progress has been made.

All 35, 39 if you count the wolves separately, figures have been cut off the sprue and some attempts made to clean up flash and mold lines. The seam scraper I purchased from megahobby turned out not to be as useful as I hoped. I'm sure it's great for aircraft fuselages and ship hulls, but it isn't appreciably better than using an exacto knife. In some cases it is worse.

On with the units. First up 5 stands of Orcs. Each base has 4 figures that are supposed to be lightly armed and armored. They are mostly from Caesar set Orc Warriors Fantasy 106 with a couple of figures from Dark Alliance Orcs Set 2.

Brown ones are Dark Alliance, all others Caeser.

Next, 1 stand Dire wolf riders. 4 figures and their mounts. These are the old Ral Partha sculpts that I purchased from Iron Wind Metals. They were recommended by EY here. I only bought the one set so shipping was too much, but other than that I like them. The riders are borrowed from the Dark Alliance Orcs Set 1. I cut their bases of and will use a rotary tool to help them sit down a bit. The armor represented is heavier than I want but these figures have wide stances so were in less need of conversion.

Haven't bored out the crotch yet

The 2 stands of Archers. These are classed as skirmishers and so only two per base. They are from the Caesar Orc Warriors Fantasy 106.

Lastly the Black Orc stand. These are from  Dark Alliance Orcs Set 1 but the standard bearer is from Caesar Orc Warriors Fantasy 106. The Dark Alliance orcs have the armor I want but I liked the Caesar standard bearer better.

I like the one on the right for the General.

One thing I will note is that the Dark Alliance figures are harder to clean. The plastic tends to look ragged and fuzzy after scraping. This leads me to believe that trying to clean the mold lines on them is probably not worth the effort.

The Bugbears are from Splintered Light minis. I originally read about them here. I had forgotten that EY had extended their legs. So they are shorter than envisioned in D&D but I think they work fine. I just wanted to have something other than a proxy. The Ogres are very nice as well. I think that they would probably be of the desired proportions with 15mm. These are advertised as 20mm Fantasy and as such feel a tad small next to the Orc figures. I still like them and will use them without modification.

Nice looking if a tad small.

From dragonsfoot.org

Again a tad small but will do and they look cool.

So there you have it. Way behind but making some progress. The final figures for the Treyine army also arrived so I'll detail them later. 9 days left to pull it all together.

Not one, but two games of Elder Sign

I got a chance to play two games of Elder Sign today and it was fun but very tough. The first I played solo with one investigator at a time. I took some pictures, but of course I can't find the one cable I have for an upload.

Anyhow in the first game I drew our old friend Nyarlathotep, what are the odds? (They are 1/8 or 12.5%, but I digress.) I drew Ashcan Pete as my investigator. I'll spare you the details and just say that a combination of terrible dice rolls and forgetting special rules at key junctures led to Pete's demise. I then drew Harvey Walters and continued. Harvey's attribute of strong mind comes in very handy, allowing you to change a horror result to a scroll result, saves on nasty terror effects. It's of course hazy now but some miscalculation had me run out of stamina, perhaps it was a mythos card effect that I forgot to take into account. Suffice it to say, one investigator by themselves has a hard time making it.

Cue game two. My wife and daughter are off at some reward activity for selling a ton of Girl Scout cookies. So boys at home alone, my son wanted to play the game. He picked Monterey Jack and I shuffled the remaining deck and picked ... Ashcan Pete (^$#@^!). The ancient one was Yig. He takes only ten elder signs to seal, but has only eight spaces on his doom track, five of which are monsters.

We did pretty well, coming close to death a couple of times. My son got a little frustrated and bored when he wasn't rolling well and I had to finish the game for him, but he did pretty well for a six year old. We struggled a little bit with locked dice but also got an otherworld adventure card through a magic item. It took me quite a while to realize that we needed to be there to collect the Elder Signs to seal off Yig. I did have to take one mulligan for Monterey Jack, as I just wasn't paying attention and would have gotten him killed foolishly.

We started rolling hot and using the focus die a little bit more and got nine of the ten signs needed before the hammer dropped and Yig appeared. Among the many things I misread, we each needed a common item unique item and spell to not be devoured. Neither of us had any items. I also forgot to remove elder signs for each Cultist we killed, but i'm not sure if that came into play or not.

So great fun, but very hard. If any of you have played solo and have any tips, please let me know. JF on Solo Nexus has a review of Elder Sign that is good and I think fair. I totally agree that the fonts are way too small to read easily. You can find his review here.

Welcome to Matt, he has an interesting blog about desktop wallpapers. I think the cow is saying "nice udders".

I'll try and put up some pictures when I find that damn cable.

Kindle Fire, Review and Rant

Not expressly gaming related but perhaps blogging related.

As an early birthday present I received a Kindle Fire. We are planning a trip to China this summer and my wife thought it would be nice for me to have it on the plane.

I spent some time agonizing about whether to get a Droid tablet or the Fire, but decided that since I do a fair amount of business with Amazon already it was worth it to buy the Kindle.

Things I like:

It's light, and fairly sturdy. I have a case cover for it and have so far dropped it once with no effects. The battery seems to last pretty long, a few hours at a go if watching video, a little longer if reading books or web surfing. Ease of downloading and installing apps, books etc. It is very easy to load things onto the kindle. Most of it is done through Amazon, but you can do it as an external drive. I have loaded all of my Two Hour Wargames titles and now have a way to bookmark where I am in each rule set easily. Watching movies on Netflix. I have taken to watching Netflix in bed with the headphones on. A 7" screen on the belly is about the same as a 42" screen across the room.

Things I don't like:

So far neither of the browsers work with blogger. Some of you may have received notifications of comments from me only to find no comment. It will let me comment on a blog, it shows up on the blog in the browser, but is never seen again. The included browser "Silk" is a little slow and most people seem to hate it. Dolphin HD and Maxthon are two recommended replacements. I've been using Maxthon now and it seems a little better than Silk. Of course when I tried to post this using it blogger said the browser was not supported and I could only type the title and not the body of the post. Which leads me to the last issue which is the App store. Why oh why does amazon limit the apps? The choices for things like browsers is really limited, Maxthon was the only available browser, for instance. I was also hoping to be able to buy Elder Sign: Omens for the Fire. No soap. You can apparently side load from another android device but get a glitch that messes with the clock turn making the game un-winnable.

So I think overall positive, just a few things that are annoying and perhaps would be issues with a Droid tablet as well.

So this leads me to what is the deal with blogger. I know it's free and all but there doesn't seem to be any way to address this browser support issue. If I could load chrome onto the fire I would. Why does google make all this stuff that doesn't integrate? Seems like it should.

Carry on.