Ottoman Janissary for Maurice

This weekend, I had the pleasure of playing my second game of Maurice.  It was a nail-biter with the game going down to the wire. The deciding rolls were preceded by good-natured hooting, hollering and high fives.  Before you deduce that we're a bunch of hooligans, let me just say Maurice is flat out fun to play.  It's so much fun that it's pushed everything else we play off the plate.

The game is driven by action cards used to activate forces and modify actions on the field.  I grew up in the era of wargaming without cards and as a result, I sometimes view card driven games with a bit of suspicion. No more.  The  action cards are where Maurice shines.  Each player has a hand of cards and actions/activations on the field cause you to use your cards.  As the active player, you are limited in which forces you can activate and use.  During your turn, your opponent can play a card that interrupts an action or activity.  This means that every turn unfolds with surprises, a punch and often a counterpunch. At the same time, you have to pace yourself because you don't want to run out of cards and have your attack or decisive action thwarted.  No cards means no actions for a turn.

Maurice also incorporate a system where you can choose the national attributes for your army, meaning that one army can  have a different style of play in each campaign.  This is in contrast to Field of Glory and other systems where you have to paint up a whole new army if you're looking for a different style of play.

After our first game in June, my friends Mark and Brent agreed to paint up Maurice armies in 15mm to run in an Imagi-Nation campaign.  I realized that I could use much of my 15mm Later Ottoman Turkish army in Maurice including:

• 5 wicked looking pieces of Ottoman heavy artillery  
• 4 units Ottoman cavalry
• 4 Ottoman command stands
• 2 Irregular units

With these units in hand, I only needed 9 units of infantry to complete my Ottomans for Maurice.  I put in an order for 160 Old Glory Janissary and out came the brushes! For my first batch of 5 units, I painted the base color in a dark blue, then a wash shadows, a mid tone and a highlight over the mid tone.  I generally don't do triads in 15mm as it's a bit of work for a smallish payout.  I think the results here are decent if subtle. The highlight does help them pop a bit and in 15mm, that's an effect I like. You can judge for yourself.    

For the sake of the photos, I put them in column but most of the time, they'll be fighting in a single line of 4 bases.  For the hard core Maurice folks, you'll notice that my Janissary are in a single line per base.  I did try to base them in a double line but I didn't account for the fact that 50% of the Old Glory figures are in firing poses.  As such, you can't properly mount a double line of figures on a single 40mm x 30mm base.  In the 17th century, the Ottomans were a throwback army so I'll attribute their odd appearance to that fact.  If you want to build an Ottoman army with a double line per base, pass on these Old Glory 15s and find a line that does Janissary in march order.

Edit:  Its been pointed out that there is in fact an OG line with marching Janissary.  You have to do a word search for "Janissaries" and it'll turn up the SYW Ottomans.  No photos available on the website so I'm taking this on the word of someone who told me on TMP.  Thanks for the correction!

Here was my inspiration for these units.

1 year!

Time to crack a beer in celebration, maybe 2 because it's the weekend.  To my readers, thank you!  I started blogging because I wanted to get back into the practice of writing. Also, I knew posting pictures of my miniatures would motivate me in my projects.  One year later, blogging has been a success on both counts.  I've also discovered that if you ask, fellow hobbyists are always willing give feedback and share tips & tricks.  There is so much talent in our field that it's really quite humbling.

If you've linked to my blog and I haven't linked back, shoot me an email so I can fix that. Also, blogging is about eyeballs so if you'd like to cross link blogs, just let me know! My email is in my profile.

I searched for the best birthday photo I could find and here it is...Marilyn Monroe in a dress that was sewn on.  I'm hoping she'll breathlessly sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. Painterman" to me in my dreams.  I do have a very active imagination.  After all, that's why I'm in this hobby!

Enough with the tomfoolery.  I'll start posting my Maurice Ottoman Army project later this week and then after that, I'll post my Impetus Gauls.

Road Trip Pt 2 -Schwimmwagen!

Long Island, NY: At the conclusion of Part 1 of the Road Trip, I was facing a return trip to NY for 2 days of work on Long Island.  Traffic stacked up as I got closer to the Big Apple.  Then the sky opened up and  down came a torrential  rain. Traffic slowed to 20 miles an hour, then 10 and then we were at a complete standstill. Inching forward, I saw a 3 foot geyser of water shooting up and out of a manhole onto the freeway.  Old Faithful, Long Island edition, was turning the freeway into a river.  Every driver was locked in a Darwinian struggle to survive by forcing their way into the high point on the freeway, the center lane.  With my Minnesota plates, the natives took pity on me and politely waved me in...NOT!  As I sat stuck in the rising river, I started to sweat.  My car was less than a month old.  I hadn't made my first payment and if the water got up into the engine block, it would become a $20,000 brick.  I cursed the rain. I cursed the gypsy who'd cursed me. I cursed my decision to buy a Toyota Camry instead of the World War II Schwimmwagen. Wasn't this exactly the situation the salesman warned me about? And wouldn't the M42 machine gun have helped open up a spot in the center lane?  When I finally forced my way in, sans machine gun, it was hydroplaning and white knuckle driving for the next two hours. Welcome to Long Island and enjoy your workcation!

Long Island is no trouble to navigate with a Schwimmwagen!

Long Island Railroad:  My family had some much needed down time on Long Island and we were told the best way to get into Manhattan was by train. After grabbing seats on the train, my wife, son and daughter sat in quiet contemplation. Quiet got off at the next stop and in its place came loads of 20somethings, swigging alcoholic beverages in brown paper sacks. Alcohol on a train?  I assumed it was prohibited but in a strange twist of fate, drinking on this date was mandatory!  The group across from us was loud even by NYC standards. Not all learning takes place in a classroom and my teenage kids got loads of it during the 90 minute ride.  Every story was peppered with the words "naked," "drunk" and "vomited,"...sometimes all three back to back! We'd apparently booked the same car as the cast of "Jersey Shore." Once the train reached standing room only, the drunken cacophony was off the charts loud.  A bottle of Champagne was "popped" and a passenger screamed "I've been shot!" I wished I'd been shot as a ride in an ambulance with sirens going would have been much, much quieter.  

I once worked as a trained investigator but my powers of observation  failed me on this day. Not my wife.  She looked on her iPhone and in short order, flashed it at me showing that today was the NYC Gay Pride parade. We were riding the Pride train!  Of course, how did I miss that!  For those of you not in the know (i.e. me) the NYC Pride parade is the largest in the nation and nearly all of the revelers were taking the train.  The parade marked the first anniversary of same-sex marriage in NY, so there was much to celebrate.  As we exited in Manhattan, there were many shouts of "Happy Pride!" although I couldn't hear them on account of having gone deaf during the ride.  I only wish I'd known beforehand so I could have dressed appropriately and brought my own alcohol.

Long Island Ferry:  After 2 harrowing days of work, I walked onto a main road and waited for my family to pick me up.  It was 4:00 and I'd booked a 5:00 ferry to get us off Long Island.  Brilliant plan, right?  Except I didn't account for the cruel gypsy who had it in for me. The first sign of our impending debacle was a call from my daughter saying they were at my work address and couldn't see me.  Well, it wasn't like I'd turned invisible.  I was the only idiot standing on the shoulder of  four-laner in rush hour.  Our refurbished GPS, El Diablo, had dialed up a random location again...arggg!  I walked a block to a residential address and told my daughter to punch it into the GPS.  Then I waited. And waited.  And waited.  Finally, the family car showed up and off we go to Port Jefferson for the ferry.  According to MapQuest, we were fine because the drive takes 20 minutes and we had 40 minutes till the ferry left. MapQuest didn't take into account that the traffic lights on Long Island aren't timed. We rolled from one red light to another until the clock showed 4:58.

Hallelujah!  We could see the Ferry but not which parking lot to load from.  We took a left which naturally was the wrong way.  I asked a native girl how to get to the Ferry but she'd been struck with an affliction that made her speak like she had a mouthful of marbles. Desperate, we circled around.  My helpful suggestions to my wife were not going over well as we made another U-turn. Out loud, I speculated that the Ferry was only for Mentalists who can close their eyes and divine their way out of the maze.  Or perhaps you have to take a Ferry to get to the Ferry? My wife found these clever observations "not helpful," except that she said it nn the manner of a salty sea sailor who, by the way, could actually find and operate a Ferry.  I shut up and lo and behold, we stumbled on a line of cars loading onto the Ferry.  We were the very last car to board!  A nice young man waved us to the left, changed his mind and then waved us to the center lane.  My wife hesitated and the young man made the mistake of saying "Come on, come on!" with vigorous arm waving.  That was all it took for my wife  (aka Mount Pinatubo) to erupt.  She stopped the car, rolled down her window and yelled "Excuse me!!!  I've never done THIS before!"  My kids groaned with embarrassment and I feared she'd get us booted.  This being New York, it was just another exchange between denizens and no blood meant no foul.  The fact that'd we'd made it on to the Ferry AND our car did not roll into the ocean meant that finally, the gypsy curse was broken.

At this point, I was not in a New York state of mind.    

The last 4 days of our trip passed without a major incident. Boston was a gem of a city, our collective favorite. To all of you Boston gamers, keep a spot warm for me because I might be back to live there one day!  With a few hours to sightsee, we took a tour of the USS Constituion and then walked Bunker Hill.  Then off to Rochester, NY and a brutal two day drive home.  On the way back, my son said it had been the best family vacation ever and my daughter said it had been the worst.  Technically, they both were right.

14 days, 9 cities, 7 colleges.  Despite the Fates conspiring against us, we survived.  What is the saying?  Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  We were like titanium at the finish line.  Hell bent for home, nothing could stop us from returning to our city, our friends and family, our dog, and most importantly, our own beds.  Lost in the telling were hours of family time.  Stuck in a car for 9, 10 or more hours at a stretch,  we had the privilege of hours-long adult conversations with our teenage son and daughter.  I'll always treasure our crazy road trip and the time we spent together as a family.

The Happy Family.  We survived!