The whole DW world looks very quiet at the moment. Warcradle talked about beat testing by "midsummer" and possible re-releases of minis with that or at least "soon", but as I'm currently experiencing a wintery chill these days ( I'm literally scraping
ice sheets off my windscreen when I'm going to work at Oh Dark Seven lately, and thank you, yes I
am back in employment at present
), my doubts are rising :/
Be that as it may I am still working away on the game. How is that, you may ask? Oh, you
did ask. Well, let's see -
1. Still tracking down some second hand items for my fleets. My Russian Coalition has recently been expanded with an Azov and I'm in the process of completing the Strike Flotilla. I may have to give up on Cheny submarines until/unless they are part of the Warcradle 'classic' release. My Britannians now have full submarine forces ( Cheers to Markymark in large part for that ), and I have a good sized force of destroyers and can field the Majesty-led flotilla if I choose while supporting it with
either of the aerial fleets. Australians are complete but will get and addition or two ( See below
), Covenant of Antarctica ( Dammit!!) pretty much complete, though I'd love a Praxilla squadron of course. I even bit the bullet, seeing how the Honorable Eclipse Company sea units ( Including lovely little references to a Gerry Anderson 'Soak Opera' of years gone
) were sitting on shelves and made a grab for their air units when a set came up on eBay. Figure they'll assist my Black Wolves, and will be most useful in a putative campaign I am pondering ( See below)
2. Been incredibly lucky with terrain - Someone gathered all the Sturginium Rigs that the few successful KS people who became disgruntled afterwards ( Enjoy your good fortune, I'd have said :/ ) and put them up for sale on FB at reasonable rates, so I have one; Blimey, it's an impressive piece of resin, let me tell you! As is the Baltic Sea Fortress, another lucky score - the detail on that is daunting to someone with my poor painting abilities, and given the
size and sheer
scope of this alone, the fact that Spartan offered
TWO for the KS price is either impressive, generous or a gross over-extension. choose whatever you like here.
3. And is it getting used, this terrain, you ask? Sure is - my toys
work for a living!
A local group of about half a dozen keen players are meeting weekly at the FLGS and while there are distractions ( Notably KoW and WoK
) these have been regular and mostly solid games of simple "Search and sweep" operations in the islands south-west of the Asian coast. My next idea is a campaign based on the real-life piracy in the Arafura Sea, involving those tribesmen of renown the Bugi who were so troublesome to the Dutch, the historical EIMC and even today make the area the second most pirated waters on the globe. If I can find a League of Crimson fleet that someone has tired of (
HAH! ) at a fair price ( Again
HAH! ) the twist that Bugi are being recruited by the ne'er-do-wells of that nefarious organization. . . . ( Yes, a LoC force coming on the market these days is a long shot, but it
could happen - I've installed an instrument landing system for monkeys on my kidneys just in case
)
4. Speaking of coming on the market, I'm not dependent upon that
entirely; I have three scratch building and conversion projects under way as we speak. In order, they are-
a) From spare Tambov hulls and some casts from other RC vessels, I am working on a hybrid support cruiser tentatively named the Makharov Class - Retains the forward lower turret, and adds a light mortar to the upper weapons deck. The thinking is, it can act as leader to a small unit of Novgorods or Nikels, or act in a squadron as support for non-bombardment ships to take advantage of bunched enemy formations.
b) A slightly heavier Australian/NZ warship, possibly battleship sized, based on one of Brigade Model's new British aeronefs, the Albert or Victoria; I'm still to decide which one to choose, as one offers the chance to depict the carrying of two Crocodile subs, the other will concentrate upon guns.
c) Again for Down Under, a large carrier, similar in performance to the assault carrier of the Raj, but with a generator like that of the monitors as well as a bombard. Suggestions have been made to make it a hideaway generator , though I'm not sure how I can achieve that with my base materiel ( I scored as part of a job lot a Brunel Class mobile carrier with damaged track units - cutting them off gives me a good start on a hull that strongly resembles that of the original Aussie/Kiwi vessels, so more than half the job is done.
) plenty of second-hand Brunels out there so it might inspire others as well.
So, that's what
I'm doing with a game I love and support, in case anyone tells you that some of us are just criticizing and doing nothing constructive. I'd love to hear what others are doing as well - might even trade ideas!
