Life, the Universe and Everything. Well, maybe not everything, and probably nothing much about the universe either, but I suspect that this post may be fairly wide-ranging.
I have just started painting Aventine Miniatures Republican Romans - gosh, I hate typing 'Republican' - it's really awkward on the fingers, so perhaps I'll call them 'Repo Romans' which doesn't make my fingers ache so much. A unit of 16 hastati to begin with. Having cleaned up (well, not much cleaning up required really) and primed the figures, they have gone up even further in my estimations. Lovely little models they are. Buy some. Go on, you know you want to. I am, of course, going to cheat, by using Army Painter Quick Shade, and Little Big Men Studios shield transfers.
The rules "Augustus to Aurelian" are coming along nicely. The systems all work pretty well, and the games are quite fun. If I can get on and draw some diagrams, and tidy up the few remaining gaps in the text, it won't be long at all before we're ready for some play-testing. I've exchanged a couple of emails with Rich Clarke of Too Fat Lardies regarding publishing the rules - I thought it best to give him first dibs, as the rules probably owe more of their inspiration to the Lardies than anyone else. And he's such a nice chap too! More on this when more happens.
We're buying a new 'puter. After five years this PowerMac is still going strong, but my lad is starting his GCSEs, and needs more computing time and power. He also needs to use some Windows programmes. Having played around on a Macbook Pro, it is somewhat surreal to see Windows 7 running in a window surrounded by all the OS X gubbins! And this old Mac can't run Windows. So we're buying a new 'family' laptop - a Macbook Pro. From my point of view, it'll be good because I'll be able to go back to using my favourite drawing package, Xara (I've never found a Mac drawing package which can hold a candle to it, though I love everything else about the Mac), and it'll also mean we have a reasonably powerful machine to take when I/we go away - somewhere to download and work on the day's photographs, do some writing, and that sort of thing. For the lad, it means he can run the few Windows programmes he wants for school and work on his music composition in Garageband as well - and without coming into conflict with me for use of this machine. And the missus is finding her little 13" notebook rather wee and increasingly slow, for her book-writing. So it's going to be much in demand!
A new computer, with a newer version of OS X than this machine is capable of running will be nice. I'm not so sure that I'm looking forward to running Windows again though! My memories of Windows aren't terribly positive - the constant battle against malware, and the never-ending stream of updates to the OS from Microsoft.
My daughter went away to camp today for a week, and on Wednesday my son goes off to stay with my wife's brother, so we're about to get a little period of peace and quiet, which will be very nice. A chance for some rest and relaxation, without the patter of tiny feet... Umm, I mean the thump of size 11s!
Planning for the demo game at Partizan are proceeding, but slowly. I do need to spend a bit of time doing some work on terrain, to make the table more interesting, and to give the armies something to fight for. But painting some figures - the Repo Romans - is getting me back in the mood for making and painting things after a lay-off of about a month for DIY and holidays. Palm trees and an oasis. I've been looking at photos of oases on the web, and so far, I'm quite uninspired. Pools of water surrounded by vegetation, sat in the middle of a load of sand and stones. I need something more than that to inspire me to make something memorable. Ah, I have an idea! Way, way, back, Duncan at Wargames Illustrated published a 'series' of 'extra' magazines "Wargames World", with longer, more involved, articles. I seem to remember an article, or series of articles (by Peter Gilder?) on a Sudan campaign he ran. I think there was a photo of an oasis he'd made in there. I'll have to hunt the magazines out and see if I gain any inspiration from them.