Weekend Miscellany

Friday evening, I setup Burning Mountains again.

It's a fairly low counter-count game, although there are a few piles of reinforcements off-camera

Starting the game after midnight probably shows either my great optimism or a lack of forethought. In truth, it was probably some of Column A and some of Column B, as they say.

Although I did much better grasping the combat calculations and modifiers this time around, the game still takes considerable time to play compared to my typical fast-play miniature games, and I completed just three turns. Never the less, even though  I forgot an attacker can advance to take the space of a retreating defender, and I did far better job of maintaining supply lines for both sides, it was quite obvious that the Italians were in a bit of a pickle from the get-go.

I opted to have the Italians retreat from the attack to regroup, and to meet up with reinforcements, in an effort to hold the Austrians off at a second line of defense. Time ran out before I could determine the success of that, although I'd like to believe it would have worked. Barring conclusive evidence otherwise, I will rest easy with my decision.

End of turn 3, before I called it for the night.

Saturday afternoon saw not a game, but this fun set up of an amphibious assault with my 7-year old son and his vast supply of "army men" figures (the water is the brown, the other color is the beach). I present it as a reminder of the kinds of things that ultimately got me into this hobby:

"American" forces approach the landing beach through shark and sub infested waters while under heavy fire. The tank turrets are submarines.

"American" air superiority buzzes the beach to clear a way for the attack.

Lead by an armored battalion, the assault presses home!

The "German"defenders, armed with a mish-mash of outdated and highly advanced weaponry, hold their ground in the face of overwhelming odds.

Saturday night I watched They Were Expendable and 30-seconds Over Tokyo. The former I have watched many times and have no great love for, but my undying crush on Donna Reed compels me to watch it. The latter was a first for me and I rather enjoyed all the stock bomber footage. I am also pretty sure I have heard that Van Johnson spent more time on screen in a uniform than any other actor and I believe it. He pops up in every other old war movie it seems.

Finally, I have been experimenting on creating some low cost "stone" walls for my table. In the past, I I tried foam-core, ink, and thinned paint. While that worked well enough, I want something different now. If the latest tests come out OK, I'll post details. Otherwise, it's best we never talk of this again!