Back, with Stuff to Say

Sorry for the long hiatus, but I haven't been doing much gaming or painting.  Shame on me.

Right now I've got one gaming project going on.  The Brigadista and I have started a new game of Avalanche Press's John Prados Third Reich.  This time I'm commanding the Allies and the Brigadista is commanding the forces of fascism and oppression.  This game is a bit of a monster and we can usually finish about four turns in an evening session.

I'm not going to give a detailed blow-by-blow of this game because I don't want to lose the few readers I have.  (Or at least think I have...  Hello??  Is anyone out there??)  The game got off to a typical start - the Germans quickly overran Poland, the Low Countries, and Denmark.  France held out until Fall 1940, despite receiving no help from the British.  The Germans never invaded Norway.  The Germans invaded the Soviet Union in summer 1941 and things are on schedule there.  (One bad thing for the Germans - the Swedes got tired of German aggression and cut off the iron ore supply!  Fortunately for the Brigadista the game impact isn't as severe as what I suspect the real world impact would have been.)

Things went off script in the Mediterranean.  Yugoslavia got fed up with fascist Italy and declared war in the Winter of 1939.  Britain followed up with a declaration of war against Italy that same turn.  The Italians defeated Yugoslavia in a couple of turns, but things did not go so well in the Western Desert.  The British (under Wavell no doubt) quickly cleared Libya and, after a series of costly naval battles, seized control of the Med and landed in Sicily in spring 1941.  Monty hopes to win the 'Race to Messina' since Patton is still back at Fort Benning with the rest of the U.S. Army.  To add to the Italian misery, Mussolini decided that the best course of action in the face of these setbacks would be to declare war on Greece.  (In fairness to the Brigadista, this was a random event and not his own hair-brained idea!)  Fun stuff.  I can't wait for our next session.

In other news, I'm currently rearranging my basement game room.  I've added taller shelves, which has allowed me to shift things around a bit and have more stuff out and accessible.  Now I'm trying to get my painting desk under control so I can actually paint some something.  It's hard to claim to be a miniatures gamer when you don't paint anything!

I guess that's enough for now.