Battle of Tashihchiao: July, 1904 - A Virtual Gaming Experiment

I will be hosting a tabletop game tonight - re-staging the battle of Tashihchiao from the Russo-Japanese war.  Now before any of you have a fit, I'll be alone in my basement but playing the game over the internet via the zoom conference calling package.

This will be the first outing on the table for my 6mm Russo-Japanese armies.  The battle was a prelude to Liaoyang and was smallish in size with roughly 65K men per side.  The Japanese 2nd Army, which consisted of 4 divisions plus some support units attacked through the hills with the objective of seizing the rail junction located at battles namesake town.  Opposing them are two Siberian Infantry corps.  Historically, the Russians gave a good account of themselves during this battle and withdrew in good order.

 The battle will be played on a 6x4 table.  It could have been bigger but I was worried about the camera being able to "see" the total field.  The Russians are in the upper left half of the board and are defending the ling ridge in the middle.

Units are individual battalions.

A view from the Russian side of the table. The Russians have an advantage in cavalry and the Japanese have advantages in heavier artillery brigades.

The Japanese corner.  The terrain's a bit suspect - I made the railway and villages on powerpoint and then used whatever hills I had to simulate the rough ground.

I'll be using the WW1 ruleset "Great War Spearhead II" - why?  I've played them a few times during Josh's epic Gallipoli games and like them.  The employ an order concept for formations such as  "Attack point X", "Move to Y", Defend Z".  Once an order is set the details of how a unit moves or who it can target are pretty specific.  Both of those concepts should lend themselves to remote play where players can give orders but cant really manipulate the bases in a precise manner.

All of the unit formations are color coded to make them easier for players to see.  Video resolution will be an issue but that's also a form of fog of war - at least that's my current story.

To be honest, I am a little nervous about pulling this off.  On the other hand, I really miss the Monday night game sessions at the club and just don't want to give into the negative side effects of enforced isolation without trying different options.  Don't get me wrong - I fully support the concept of social distancing and know that we all are savings lives by complying.  That said, if I can figure out a way to make them a little less dreary then that's a good thing too.

Lastly, I have checked the odds in 'Vegas and the overwhelming favorite for the outcome of tonight's game is:

Well, tonights game may be a disaster, but at least I know it can't be as bad as the slow US response to this Virus - thanks Donny for being my Mississippi.
!

(here in the US, Mississippi almost always ranks 50th in any measure of a positive aspect, so the other states that also rank lower are very appreciative that Mississippi always prevents them from being last.)

Terrain Workshop Re-Organization

My terrain work shop is a disaster, so I spent a good bit of Friday cleaning and reorganizing the mess.  Good progress was made but more needs to be done.  One funny thing is. I always put off these types of tasks until they can no longer be delayed yet really enjoy performing the task when it actually gets underway.

 The result - a workbench that can be used.  As a bonus I discovered these two unfinished hill sections under the rubbish I made more than a year ago.  Each is 20 inches long and can be placed next to each other to form a long ridge.

Finishing those hills will be today's project.  There's a little damage to repair as I apparently stepped on them while stumbling around the workshop.  I have never been accused of a surplus of grace.

 The floor space is almost all cleared out.  Still some more work to do but at least it's no longer a hazard area to move around in.

The new cabinet is in use storing Jungle terrain and terrain supplies.  To the left of the cabinet are my terrain panels (some of which were store on the floor.  The collection currently stands at 18, 2x2 ft panels.  I've got storage room to add 12 more and will be doing some special terrain (trenches, rivers, urban area foot prints etc.  I really like these panels as they look very nice but are easy to store and move for convention games.

About half of the Jungle terrain on the top two shelfs and the cabinet top will be making their way to Canada as they's Curts from the Analogue Hobbies blog.  Once I get off my ass and package them up, the freed-up space will be used to store 15 and 6mm buildings/terrain.

Only one of the drawers on the right side of the cabinet is currently in use as a barracks for minis.  It's the bottom one which has the bulk of the 15mm Arab Conquest Army cavalry I painted up for this years painting challenge.  The other seven drawers are empty for the moment but will likely get filled very quickly as my Russo-Japanese War project is moving along nicely.  I may have even received a shipment from War Times Journal of 3D resin printed models for every ship involved in the conflict.  Every ship.......

Quarantine Woodworking Project 2: Storage Cabinet: Done

Let's move another gaming related woodworking project into the finished column as the storage cabinet is done and installed in my "terrain workshop".

What? You are unfamiliar with the now standard residential housing feature of a terrain workshop?  Well then sit back and I'll tell you the tale.......

In the basement of our house are these 2 doors which open up into a 8ft x 8ft bump out space that is directly below the breakfast nook of our kitchen.  For reasons that I can not remember, it never got finished like the rest of the basement and has always been a bit of a hobby space for me.

My lovely, yet fierce wife approves of me using this space as she can close the doors and not be reminded of the mess.  At least I hope it's the mess and not me.

 Upon opening the doors, you are greeted on the right side with the new cabinet.  The blue backgrounds and leftover scenery on the shelfs are evidence that this room once held a small HO-Scale train layout.

 On the left side of the room is my trusty terrain making workbench and scenic supplies.  It's a mess.

By the way, that workbench was my very first woodworking project and was built when we first bought the house way back in 1997!  It has served in many different hobby campaigns over the years.

Speaking of messes, we now move on the  disaster of the middle space - it's not normally this bad as I had to move some things to make room for the cabinet.  OK, that was a lie - it's always this bad and I desperately need to reorganize this space - hence the need for a storage cabinet.

The schedule for the next few days are a few board calls and a lot of cleaning up / re-organization of this space.

I wonder how many "missing" figures I'll find as I clear away the debris on the floor of the shop?

Quarantine Woodworking Project 2: Storage Cabinet - Sanding Done

Not as much progress as I would like today on the cabinet given a bunch of work related calls.  I did manage to sand all the surfaces on both the cabinet and drawers.  Sanding is tedious but important

One of the reasons why I have a standard size for drawers is that I've built several jigs that really speed up the construction.  In the center of the first picture (under the small hammer) is my form jig.  I can pop the drawer parts into the jig to confirm they are the right sizes and then glue / nail everything in place.  With my brad nailer and air compressor all fired up. a drawer can be assembled in under 30 seconds and I don't feel like the job was rushed.

The second picture shows the hardware mounting jig - I align it to the left side of the front drawer face and it shows where I need to drill the two holes for the file cabinet drawer pulls.  Drill two holes at those spots and screw in the drawer pulls.  Perfect alinement every time.

Drawer pulls are now all mounted.  I use a very inexpensive style of library index card drawer pulls.  They'er just stamped metal but has a slot for a label and don't take up a lot of space.  I got them on Amazon.  They cost $0.32 per pull when bought in packs of 50.  The eight drawers for this cabinet are the 25th - 32nd versions of these drawers I have built, so I still can make 18 more before needing to buy new hardware.

You can also see that small back panel has been added across the bottom.  I don't need a full panel as the cabinet will be pushed up against a wall in my hobby area but I did want to add something to increase the stability of the cabinet.

All that's left to do is cut two shelf panels which need to be 35.5 inches wide and 18 deep and this project is done.

Quarantine Wargamer Woodworking, Project 2: Storage Cabinet

With the prototype stool done, it's time for another for another project (that I have been putting off) - a storage cabinet.  The overall dimensions are 24 inches high, 48 wide and 18 deep.

The first photo so the framing of the cabinet carcass.  I was doing the design pretty much on the fly.

In the end, I decided to put in a stack of drawers on the right side so put in a divider and started adding drawer runners up each side.  I'm using my "standard" miniature storage drawer size of 10 inches wide, 16.5 deep and 2.5 high so all the drawers are interchangeable with the other ones I've built.  I've also got a jig built that makes building the drawers really easy and didn't want to design another one.

After a few hours work time all the drawers were built and the cleats for the shelves added.  I plan on adding a back once I get some 1/8 inch plywood, but that will be awhile

The next step will be the worst part of any project involving wood - sanding.  Once that's down I'll cit the shelf panels and install this bad boy in the basement.

Stay safe & healthy everyone.

Qurantine Wargmaing Wood Working: Barstool is Done

 And here it is in all it's utilitarian glory.  Yes, that's right. 30 inches of pure bar stool excitement.

 Once the lower leg aprons where glued in place I added the top ones, which will also support the seat.

 The seat (underside) with the placement layout marked.

 I still need to dial in the lap joint cutting as you can see by the gap in the lower apron.  By the 4 th leg I had this nailed down.

 Glueing the top.  As stated in an earlier post, one can never have too many clamps.

I did round off the corners of the seat as sharp right angles and peoples seating apparatus often don't mix well.  In fact, they never mix well.

And the big test - It didn't collapse under the weight of yours truly.  No creaking, no wobbling - I consider this a success.

With the prototype done, I'll set to the task of building 5 for the club.  It took about eight hours to build but a lot of that time was me measuring and re-measuring and then correcting measurement mistakes.  In "production mode" it should take about 1.5 hours to build each stool.

This project was a lot of fun and hopefully will lead to some nice new stools to use at the club.  Here's hoping that the day we can all return to the club is not too far off into the future.

Stay safe and healthy everyone.

Quarantine Wargaming Wood Working Project: Barstools

 On Saturday, I decided to start a wood working project to build a set of bar stools for the club.  The ones we have now are a bit on the rickety side.  While I love precariously balancing on a wooden stool as much as the next guy, it can be a bit distracting from the rigors of miniature wargaming. 

Therefore we have a need for some sturdier posterior support devices.  As you can see from the picture, I practice woodworking in a socially distant and safe way.  Actually, I have no idea if the face mask is at the N-95 level but it is rated for organics and does a nice job of keeping sawdust out of my lungs.  Plus I look very dashing, so what's not to love? 

I know all of you now have "Right Said Fred" playing on loop in your minds right now.  You're welcome, by the way.

This initial version will look a little "kludgy" as I'm just using the wood in the shop (which is popular, by the way).  My wife is a healthcare professional and involved in this fight so we do take the social distancing stuff very seriously and I'm trying to limit external trips. and deliveries to just the essentials. 

The design I chose is a bit short on appearance but very long on function - just like my miniature painting.  The stool will be 30 inches high and the legs will use lap joints and the pegs to ensure nothing comes loose over time.  Heres a shot with all the lap joints cut.  It was a little confusing figuring out where to cut the gaps on the legs so everything went together right....

Test fitting the legs to see if everything fits.  It did, yeah me!  OK, that was a lie, as the first test fitting proved I am an idiot and cut one of the upper leg slots on the wrong face - Dooooh!!!!!
I cut a plug and glued in place and then recut the gap.  I'll make sure to show it on a future update.

SInce we're being honest here, I also messed up the layout on my table saw for the upper aprons in the picture - I forgot to account for the saw blade width and cut the gap 1/8 inch to wide.  The solution was to re-cut the two upper aprons to match the wider gap. 

Glueing the aprons in place and making sure everything is nice and square.  The legs form a 12 inch square.

Clamps - does anyone really have enough of them?

Lastly, the panel glue up for the seat.  It was only 55F today so the glue is taking a long time to set so I stopped here to let it cure over night.  Oh. 55F is either -12C or 12,315C - I can never figure that out.

The final seat will be 14 inches square, which will give it a nice 1" overhang all around.

Assuming the prototype meets the ascetic criteria for the club (which are very demanding), I'll bang out four more.  That will require me to get some more wood.  It's for the club, so has to be certified as "essential"

Basing 6MM Russo Japanese War Siberians

 Scencing of the bases has commenced for the Siberian contingent for the Russo-Japanese War Project.  A little less than halfway done and then need add details such as burn marks for craters and some barbed wire / downed trees.

I've got a few more European Russian divisions to paint up and the the Japanese Guards Infantry Division and all thirteen of the Kobi Infantry brigades.  After that is will be some ships.

Quarantine Workbench: Siberian Troops for the Russo-Japanese War

 Some more troops for my 6mm Russo Japanese War Project.  This time its all Siberian troops.  These are a little different from the European Russians I painted a few weeks ago.  Based on my handy Osprey R-J War Man-at-Arms book, the uniforms for the Siberian divisions had blue pants and green tunics.  Hey it's on a color plate in the book so its got to be right.

There's some artillery and two bases of naval crews that were pressed into service as infantry in the waning weeks of the siege of Port Arthur

Even more Siberian troops.  This will allow me to field all 9 of the Siberian divisions that were in theatre when the war began.  There are also some Russian dragoons and cossacks.  The Russians had 5 cavalry divisions engaged but they didn't amount too much.

Rolling Herb Garden: Quarantined Woodworking

With spring around the corner, it's time to think about getting the garden ready.  Add on top of that being quarantined, well then one needs to get creative.

We've got a nice raised bed garden in St Michaels but the boss (aka my lovely yet fierce wife) wanted a small herb garden near the kitchen at our place in St Michaels.  I had a bit of cedar in the garage so 8 hours later we have this rolling herb garden.  I copied the design from a product that is available on Amazon.

I decided to put wheels on it so we can roll the herbs inside during the winter.  The wheels came from my number one hardware source McMaster-Carr.  If you need hardware, fasteners or are just looking to be inspired to build something then go to their website.  The seeds to plant the herbs are on order from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds so it's really just a rolling cart of dirt for now.  For those of you in North America, Baker Creek is the best source I've found for seeds if you're into gardening.  With the world's economy crumbling, its an activity I do recommend all of you take up.

MB was actually thrilled with the planter, so +1 me!

Stay safe and healthy