July Update and Thoughts for August

With July running out of days, I think it's a sure thing that I'm not going to get in the next game in my Helvetica campaign this month. I'm still wrestling over whether or not Duchamp would send his entire force per the campaign rules or if it'd make more sense to send a patrol or two to probe for weak spots (maybe with CR3:FV). Sauvignon-Blanc is no longer able to recover losses after battle so they have quite a bit to lose.

I did manage to finish the 10 zouaves I posted earlier this month, but I didn't start on the remaining bunch. On the other hand, I did finish these 15mm fellows from Irregular:

For glory! For the Queen!

I love the British but the natives were covered in flash and their faces are mush. Still, they work well enough and when I get back from vacation, I can return to Jimland after 5 years away.

Finally, I got in some solo gaming, thanks to my Goldielocks skirmish campaign plus some dungeon crawl action to boot.

For the latter, I've been using a set of cards I made up, coupled with a system I'm working on to give a "themed" adventure similar to the mechanism used in Chronicles of Arax:

I admit it: I'm a dungeon crawl addict!

This is the first level of the dungeon . I thought the party was done for on the first encounter when they ran into a goblin on a dire wolf. Fortunately, I used Unbelievably Simple Roleplaying so, while they took a little bit of a beating, they had enough HP to survive and push onward to the second level which was uninhabited. 

On the third level things went south: the cleric died in an encounter with a bugbear, the fighter took heavy damage from same, and the party set off a trap that closed the corridor behind them and forced them to exit the dungeon without finding the goblin leader.

I still need to work on the room population mechanism more but using cards drawn from a randomized deck to create the dungeon worked really well for me.


For August:

• Finish those damn palm trees! 
• Really get to use my USMC and Japanese as I learn Nuts! 2.0. (which came today!)
• Research uniform colors for different Russian and Swedish regiments in the Great Northern War (I have built up a very small GNW library that I've only minimally cracked into)
• Spray paint my trash-built Sci Fi buildings
• DM at least one non-solo D&D b/x / Labyrinth Lord session (this is a given as I'll be doing this within the week)

You'll notice no Helvetica game. Given vacation and a week of visitors later in the month, 3-4 hours to play a solo wargame may be hard to come by. So, this list qualifies as my attempt to be more realistic.