Update From Hawaii

Just a short update while still in Hawaii visiting family. Had a small birthday celebration for my mom's 94th birthday yesterday. She's doing well for her age, and her mind is still sharp. Visited Punchbowl National Memorial  Cemetery of the Pacific today. My dad is buried there since he was in the Army during WW2, but was still in basic training at Fort Dix when the war ended so never deployed overseas. 

The original Hawaii Five O TV series included a zoomed in shot of this during the opening credits. 

My wife and I go up to leave flowers on his grave whenever we're in town. My mom used to visit him every week until she got too old to do so.

This is one of mosaics up at the top of the cemetery where the small chapel is located. This one is of the Battle of Iwo Jima. In the center is the Motoyama Plateau - no relation to my family as far as I know.  Actually, Moto means base, and Yama means mountain in Japanese, so likely just a generic name. 

My wife,  who's Korean, in front of the Korean War map.

I may visit the Fort DeRussey Atmy Museum in Waikiki too. It's only a few away from my mom's house. Until next time, wishing you all the best. 

Lion Gate Assault - Mycenae Attacked!

Test set up for a game at a game day in December. Will be using One-Hour Ancient & Medieval Skirmish Wargames rules. I just finished the Acheson Creations building to complete the terrain. Most of the figures are from David Sullivan's (I Live With Cats) collection. Scenario will be the guards at the gate have been overpowered/killed, and the invader/attackers will be able to bring on their units at the entrace. Defenders will start out from the building on the left, inside of the gate. One defending unit will be staged at the megaron on the highground - defending the king and his queen and priestess. As mentioned in the earlier post, the grave circle will be a minor victory if descecrated by the invaders.

Wanted to see how the table would look like before departing to visit my mom in Hawaii this weekend. Next week is her 94th birtday.  I'll only have a week or so for the game day when I get back - so, happy that everything is ready. I even printed out the QRS's for the players. Hope to post something while I'm in Hawaii, and until then, thanks again for checking out the blog, and wishing you all the best.

Grave Circle A, Mycenae

Finished another scratch-build terrain piece for the Mycenae game. This is supposed to be Grave Circle A, which is located within the walls on the right as one would enter through the Lion Gate. It contained the graves of high-ranking persons from around 1500 BC. One of the graves contained the so-called "Mask of Agamemnon" discovered by Heinrich Schliemann in 1876.

The citadel walls were built around the graves around 1300-1250 BC, and likely was a sacred place. For the game scenario, it'll be a minor victory for attackers to enter and desecrate it - for spiritual reasons, if anything.

The grave markers are plasticard - with the edges roughed up a bit with a hobby knife.

Artists reconstructions.

The grave circle to the right, inside of the Lion Gate entrance.

I used a plastic food tray from the local Dollar Tree for the basis of the circle. 

I added spackling to the outside to similate the stone work. The entrance walls are styrofoam bits - also covered with spackling.

Also working on doors for the Lion Gate itself. Plasticard with woodgrain carved onto it, and drops of superglue for bolts on the reinforcement.

I'm waiting on an Acheson Creations Minoan/Mycenaen building which I picked up off of Etsy. I'm leaving to see my mom in Hawaii this weekend for her 94th birthday - I may post some pics if I find anything of interest there - hobby related, of course. Thanks again for visiting, and wishing you all the best.

Mycenaean Lion Gate & Wall Sections

Finished the additional wall section, and also drybrushed the stone work with lighter colors to better replicate limestone. EDIT: I'm still not satisfied with the color - I want it to have a warmer (golden-ish?) hue, like most of the photos and illustrations I've seen. 

I could add a corner piece to the wall section on the left as in the reconstructed image below. 

However, I plan on using the terrain on a smaller playing area - maybe even only 3x3', so don't want the walls to extend too far.

I ended up using some scrap white styrofoam for the additional wall section - it worked out even better than the adhoc pieces of the earlier sections. It was easier to cut out the stones, and the porous areas gave them a weathered look.

Decided to add stone work to the interior of the walls since the scenario will have some attackers already inside the citadel. Plan on using One-Hour Ancient & Medieval Skirmish Wargames rules which focuses on hand-to-hand combat, and movement to objectives will be limited. One objective will be the megaron located within the walls - to possibly either capture or kill the king inside.

Thanks for stopping by, and wishing you all the best.

Chain of Command 2 & Lion Gate Addition

Just got back from a nice game at my buddy's down the road using the second edition of Chain of Command. As mentioned before, although I don't plan on ever getting into the rules too much, I always enjoy the game when run by someone (as well as other players) who know the rules well. Today's game was a generic scenario with Late-War German and US infantry, mainly to flesh out the changes to the rules. Since I only play the rules a few times a year, I didn't really know which rules were changed or not, anyway.

I ran several squads of US infantry, each with a BAR team, on our left flank. I also had a mortar and bazooka team, but only managed to bring on the mortar team. 

I was faced by several units of German infantry in hard and soft cover. We traded a lot of shots, but mainly inflicted Shock more than actual casualties. For my limited experience with the rules, it's kind of hard to get many kills - at least from the few games I've played.

A mortar team run by my fellow US player - they didn't do too much damage to the enemy, but did survive practically intact.

Germans advancing early in the game. They had a lot of good Jumping Off Points during the Patrol phase.

This was during the Patrol phase and determining Jumping Off Points. Besides the use of yardsticks, pairs of laser pointers are also used sometimes.

I find this part of the game interesting, but somewhat awkward. Anyway, it was a fun game and good to see my buddies again.

Before heading out to the game, I started working on an additonal wall section for the Lion Gate terrain. Thanks again for stopping by, and wishing you all the best.

Lion Gate of Mycenae

Finished up the terrain today. Plan to use it (along with a previously made throne room/megaron, in skirmish games. The picture below could be captioned with, "Welcome home dear. I just drew the bath for you. "

I may add some type of device (similar to a fleur-de-lis) on the top of the column between the lions - I've seen it illustrated in some recreations.

The terrain is in three sections - and for gaming purposes will be the main entry point for attackers/defenders. The left wall doesn't have the crenallations on one side as this was facing the inside of the citadel. I only added the crenallated parapets on both sides of the right side wall, which was a sort of a bastion. The citadel itself was built on a fairly steep hill, and was naturally protected on most of the sides. In fact, the stone walls were built along the natural lines of the hill.

Close-ups of the wall sections.

The rear side of the terrain - I was too lazy to carve stone work on the interior.

Thanks for visiting the blog as always, and wishing you all the best!

Lion Gate of Mycenae WIP +1

Finished the left side wall. Used some pink foam to represent the natural stone at the base of it. 

After smoothing out some rough areas, will give it a coat of paint. Note, the end of the left side wall doesn't show stone work as the actual wall continued on a bit longer and sort of wrapped around to the right, following the contour of the hill the citadel was built upon. For a gaming scenario, figures can only enter the gate from the end of the terrain (i.e. they can manuever around it).

Frankenstein'd foam prior to spackling.

Thanks for visiting the blog, and hope you all are doing well!

Lion Gate of Mycenae - WIP

Started on some terrain for use with the recently painted Foundry Trojan War figures. Working on repairing/reworking the Lion Gate I made many years ago. The lion heads were originally facing each other (arching upwards toward the top of the center pillar), but after seeing the heads facing out in several sources, I carved them off and was in the process of having them facing outwards. I gave up after a while, but hope to finally finish this long-standing project.

In addition to reworking the lions' heads, also added another row of stones to the top of the gate structure, and adding the crenallated parapet. The left side wall will be worked on next - it has a base of natural stone as the foundation which I need to figure out how to make it.

Being cheap, I used left over spare pieces of foam from earlier projects. Here's what the pieces looked like prior to adding spackling over them - sort of a Frankenstein look.

Here's an old photo of the original Lion Gate - basically just a facade - along with Redoubt figures. The figures are the very first 28mm figures I ever collected - and still have them to this day, almost 30 years old!

A couple of pictures of the gate, present day. Amazing it's well over 3,000 years old.

Artist's rendition of the gate during Mycenaean times.

So much for now, thanks again for stopping by and hope you all are doing well.