A Busy Weekend

The weekend started out rough, having to replace the fuel pump in my wife's car, which was interrupted by several hours of monsoon-like rain.  During a couple of lulls, I did manage to finally get the pump and sending unit replaced.  Turning on the car afterward indicated that the pump was working, and that the exhaust line had broken again.  I had replaced all but one piece a couple of months ago, and sure enough, the part that I didn't replace broke, when I started up the car.  So, managed to get that fixed Friday evening.

Saturday was partially tied up taking my wife to a scrapbooking Expo (the reason the car had to be fixed during the monsoon).  Funny part is that I actually found some bits for use in scratch-building space ships and sci-fi doo-dads at the scrapbooking Expo.  After the scrapbooking adventure, we took a long-cut back home, so that I could drop the wife at her parents for awhile, and I got to stop at an old friend's and play a game.

The game presented by Craig of Gaming Models, and was a late WWII Western Front shoot-em up.  There were four of us, with one guy playing his first ever miniatures game.  The game was simplified somewhat in that there were no infantry, just vehicles and some towed guns for the Germans.

The Americans, played by myself and another of us old-timers, had to push the Germans off the high ground two-thirds of the way down the table.  We had probably 25 Shermans and an assortment of other stuff, including some M10s, M5 lights tanks, armored cars, etc.

The Germans, run by the newbie with some help from Craig,  had a couple of Tiger Is, a few StuGs, and an assortment of towed 75mm and 88mm guns. 

The Americans had a 25 percent chance of air support each turn.  I regained my old dice rolling for and failed on my first nine rolls, finally getting it on the last turn of the game.

Craig's games are always a blast, and this was no exception.  Despite being a stripped down somewhat to teach the basic rules mechanisms to the new guy, it played out about right, with the Americans taking a pounding, the Germans doing well, all of us enjoying the typical bad gamer humor, bad die-rolls, and great times.

In the end, the Germans achieved total victory, smashing the Americans, and holding the high ground.   The game was totally successful in creating a new miniatures gaming convert, who had a great time, and was already planning lining up his research sources, and planning miniatures purchases, by the end of battle. Unfortunately, I had to leave while the post game discussion was still going on, as I had to stop at the in-laws, pick up the wife, and drive 120 or so miles home.

Sunday I managed to get some work done on my latest batch of modern African buildings, got some much needed cleaning and organizing done in the basement, found my mis-placed Origins convention haul that had disappeared shortly after the convention, and made a little progress on a couple of new 15mm vehicle masters. 

A rough start, but a great weekend in the end.