Thursday, March 29, 2012

"China" Marines

After much starting and stopping and restarting, I finally completed my unit of "China" Marines for the Back of Beyond.  They are Brigade Games miniatures from their Caribbean Empires range.  I already had a few and bought the rest from my Metarie friend "Zombie" Ken.  So here they are:

The Headquarters Section - Captain Jack Kelley with his bulldog Chesty, his gunnery sergeant (left), and a two-man BAR team (right)

The 1st Section, commanded by an experienced 1st lieutenant and a veteran sergeant; consisting of four armed with Thompson sub-machineguns, two BAR gunners, and six riflemen.  You just can't fool around when you are facing the Chinese hordes!

The 2nd Section, commanded by a green 2nd lieutenant and a veteran sergeant; with the same composition as the 1st Section.
These "Devil Dogs" will see action on April 21st in the play test of the game I am running at our regional Bayou Wars convention (June).  OORAH!!  Semper Fi!!

Friday, March 16, 2012

It Was a Good Day, Today

The Margraviate of Carpania is all abuzz today.  The Markgraf threw a lavish party to celebrate the 62nd birthday of his favorite commander, Major General Seamus Campbell.  Bells were rung at noon, good food and drink were consumed freely, and fireworks were aglow at dusk.

Actually, I celebrated my birthday starting with a work session at Bill's as we continued construction on our Mayan temple for a game at Bayou Wars in June, then seeing Act of Valor with Lord Sterling and Russ-sama, followed by a fish and fried onion dinner by my wonderful wife.

Brief review of Act of Valor.  While most of the acting was rather wooden (after all, most of the actors are actual SEALs and support staff), the action was first rate.  The scenes of the slick boats supporting the first operation were truly outstanding, especially the "curtain of Gatling fire" keeping the bad guys away from the extraction point.  A very uplifting and patriotic movie.  IMDB link  Roselyn Sanchez (of Without a Trace, among other performances) was good as the CIA agent and Alex Veadov and Jason Cottle were good as the bad guys.

Col Campbell gives it two wargamer's thumbs up!

Jim