Modern Navy News

South China Seas Simulator Game:
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/i-fought-battle-south-china-sea-us-navy-was-crushed-81721

The new HMS Prince of Wales:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-49727151

Nice to see she is not going straight into mothballs then!

Crazy Weeks of News Stories (and not just about Brexit) ...

Is it just me or has the "scary silly season" been in full flight in the national and international news? see below:

AI and Automatic Face Recognition:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49726101

AI and NHS Health Data:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49740095

Fire in a Russian Bio-Lab:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49727101

And there will be more ...

Aeronautica Imperialis - Orcs in Space?

OK so know it is not really anywhere near historical, I mean Orcs in Space, really .. but the game pays homage to the best WWI Aerial Combat Systems, GDW Blue Max and Canvas Eagles, I've played, so it hit me in a soft spot right between the eyes (and it was classed as a birthday present from my brother so I had an excuse). The models are also very, very cool in a Steam-Punk sort of way(see below - an un-boxing to follow methinks):

The models remind me of Warlord Games latest Mig Alley Korean War selection (see Renko's superb rendition of Soviet silver camouflage) and immediately after writing that I can see myself falling towards Blood Red Skies (BRS) and the Jet-Age expansion (see below - Note: I could do that because I am not committed to any "jet age scale", whereas BRS WWII has the 1/144 to 1/300 scale "Why am I doing this again in a different scale?" question bobbing around in my head!):

It is also a "game in a box so you don't have to expand out and besides it's "Fantasy-Science-Fiction" so anything goes you can bring your own stuff in. If you get a game from it then what's the problem, otherwise I will be forever the collector and never the player. Maybe I should do some 1/300 aircraft as after all I have always played with the kit Renko has "coerced" (like I needed much pushing) into getting!

Afterthought:
Besides it is another one of games that the father can be shot down by his son (or daughter, or wife) with no loss of prestige (that noted I still don't forgive that dodgy rule call in X-Wing called by my [so-called] friends that lined up my TIE Fighter in front of that Rookie Rebel, being the exception to the rule - Unforgiven)!

Ares (from the Mortal Gods Starter Set)... you SoaB

It is a beautiful figure and it comes in many finely sculpted, finely balanced, fiddly parts. Mix that in with weak runny superglue and one of those uncoordinated days when you are just fingers and thumbs; then you could easily end up hating the world (see below, a part assembled Ares style Hero figure from Mortal Gods that stayed part assembled on the painting/assembly tray for quiet a long time - which is in stark contrast to the 20mm WWII Dicker Max German Assault Gun/Tank Destroyer that came ready assembled for instant play):

Ares with a head (see below, his arms are coming together as well):

Excuse the fuzzy picture as I was in much haste before I knocked him over and he disassembled himself again (see below, a lovely fighting pose, even if it does mean he takes hs own temple around wherever he goes): 

OK I may be bitter and twisted after too much time peeling superglue off my fingers (and yes I did wash the figure in hot soapy water first) but I have not dared undercoat him yet. I fear he will not be used tabletop, the Wargames Foundry and Victrix plastic figures shall do all the grunt work!

10mm Late WW2 British Infantry .. Shades and Highlights (4) Labelling and Game Aids

The final bit of the figure basing puzzle is how to label the bases clearly as to "what" a counter is in respect to the Order of Battle. The cunning 10mm gap at the rear of the bases was left so a clear label could be placed. As I was specifically painting these up for FireMove (see Simulating War by Prof Phil Sabin) and denoting which company a platoon belongs to is the most important factor I decided to go for a simple colour band (see below, not really that generic for other game systems and I may peel the labels off later, but it is a good cognitive helper in FireMove):

Let us not forger the Germans too. I was going to use six existing German infantry bases (without cunning space for labels at the back) so I created a sheath with compant colour at the back and a white marker at the front to denote they were "dug-in". If they "moved out" I would simply detach the white marker (see below, note the British Infantry does not have the option of starting FireMove as dug-in as they have already moved up some 500m to get to the baseline):

All miniatures now ready for their FireMove run-out at Connections UK 2019. Next I thought time to pay some thought and attention for gaming aids. To help ease the cognitive loading during the game with some simple rule reminding devices. I am thinking colour coded firing sticks [coffee stirrers] to help the players visualise and arrange 'valid' fire patterns - particularly as in FireMove different companies cannot combine in the same "fire attack" and I wanted an easy way to show this - hence the coloured coffee stirrers, coloured cocktail sticks to indicate spread of fire and/or close combat (see below, serrated disc for Victory Point hexes and the yellow one for the British Mortar spotting):

All good stuff, the photograph above is post Connections UK 2019 where I am looking to restock on the bits and pieces that inevitably go missing. Looking ahead (past FireMove) I might well make up some urban terrain for Block Busting, the next game in Phil Sabin's book.

Read to Some Interesting Books: Blink and Novocene

The first one was a holiday read, "thin slicing" a problem by intuition and good old Millennium Challenge - when is a wargame really an exercise (see below, a good read as it showed the potential of how to avoid making silly/needless mistakes):

The second was more more of a frightening listen (I used my Jabra headphone) to James Lovelock's scientific book aimed at the general reader (see below):

Frightening in that he is convinced that we can only but welcome our robotic (or rather cyborg) overlords and hope they treat us well as they realise we are necessary to keep Gaia in balance. Oh, spoiler alert for humanity the best we can hope for is to be treated as a 'loved pet'. Best enjoy my free will while I can and go buy some more model soldiers to paint.

Maybe I should go for a romance next?

Learning from the way the Kids do it nowadays!

In the old days you read books, then read some more books, talked to others in the pub (well playground) about those books and probably the animated version of Lord of the Rings that never got completed, read some 2000AD comics and then went and picked a (too) hard monster from the Monster Manual and then threw in a couple dozen Orcs and the adventure began. Now there is all this crazy stuff like (see link below) that my kids watch and read!

https://www.dndbeyond.com

You will honestly spend more time reading and watching this stuff than actually playing it ... but it's cool. This old dog has started learning some cool new tricks. Most excellent! And yes, there are so many more sites I could have chosen! Boy am I envious!