Ultimatum FAIL

So, I didn't make it.

I didn't even come that close, actually.  Here's what happened:  The week after I posted my self-imposed deadline, I made some good progress.  I got the three 'jacks completely assembled and primed, so at least there's that.

Assembly wasn't as trivial a task as it may sound.  I'm pretty compulsive about pinning (practically) all of the joints on these models, so that's a lot of drilling.  Plus, I spent a fair amount of time figuring out how to best attach some Litko magnetic base bottoms to the bases.  I haven't used those before, and they were really stumping me there for a while. Finally, I was following the BrushThralls tutorial and using green stuff to try to replicate the cracked earth look from the (earlier) studio models.  Now I don't for a second mean to imply that's any kind of major sculpting work or whatever, but it took me a while to get the hang of it.  Green stuff and I aren't exactly BFFs.  So, yes:  it was just assembly.  But I was feeling pretty satisfied with myself when I got it done.

The wheels came off the tracks right after I got the guys primed, though.  I had high hopes for that first weekend.  My last completed painting project came together when I got to devote a bunch of time over a weekend to it, and I wanted to replicate that experience.  Didn't happen.  Long story short:  a couple of real world events intervened, and (despite my best intentions) I simply wasn't able to touch the models at all that Saturday or Sunday.  That sapped my will to work on them, and there they sat, and then the deadline passed, and that was that.

I just cannot find the motivation to complete this project, or any other painting, for that matter.  So, I've decided to stop trying to force it and give it a rest for a while.  I honestly don't know when I'll get back to them.  I do know this:  I'm not spending another nickel on miniatures, any miniatures, until I get to a point where I can get something painted.

World at War: Eisenbach Gap -- can't miss, right?

I've been messing around a little bit over the last few days with Eisenbach Gap from Lock 'n Load Publishing (LOCK 'N LOAD!!!).  World at War is a platoon-level game system covering a (thankfully) fictional invasion of West Germany by the Warsaw Pact in 1985.  Eisenbach Gap is the first game in the system, and focuses exclusively on clashes between US and USSR forces.

WaW:EG is one of those games that I'd wanted for a long time before I actually got around to getting it.  I always figured it would be a "can't miss" buy for me.  I'm a child of the Cold War.  Red Storm Rising is probably my favorite piece of military fiction.  The game itself is very highly regarded and extremely well produced (i.e., pretty!).  Frankly, everything about it points to me loving it.  I want to love it.  The bottom line, though, is that I'm having a very hard time warming up to it.

I'm not up for doing a full-scale review because, for one thing, I'm still getting to grips with it.  Instead, I'm going to do a bullet-pointed snapshot of some of the things that I find aggravating (or at least distracting) at this early point in my experience with the system.

• As I mentioned when I described getting the game, I'm really not crazy about the rule book.  Some of that may be subjective on my part. Maybe the author simply didn't organize and word things the way my brain idiosyncratically wants to see them. (How about a nice table concisely showing me exactly how the different weapon types interact with the different target types?)  Be that as it may, there are some objective problems there as well.  Probably the worst example is Rule 7.0, covering Line of Sight (hello, fundamental wargaming concept!).  It's just a mess -- and I think LoS is actually intended to be quite simple in this game.

• I'm not crazy about this word, but it's a very fiddly game.  Every counter gets an "Ops Complete" counter put on top of it when it finishes its activation, then taken back off when it next activates (or at the beginning of a new turn).  "Disrupted" counters live under an appropriate marker until they rally.  Less commonly, units might be under "Out of Command" and/or (depleted) "Ammo" markers.  And though the stacking limit is two units, some things (like HQs and support weapons, all of which have their own counters) don't count against that limit.  So, it's not hard at all to accumulate a real menagerie of cardboard crammed into one hex.  And, since some of the counters are units and some are markers which apply only to specific units in a stack, you have to be pretty careful about the order you arrange them in.  That's obviously an issue when you have to go digging through the stack -- which you have to do in order to do basically anything.  Now, lots of war games use lots of counters -- I'm certainly not unused to that fact.  It wasn't until I started working on this post that I realized why this issue bothers me particularly with WaW.  The game is supposed to be relatively light, and it plays quite fast.  Combine that with the fact that units' statuses are changing constantly, and that amounts to a lot of counter shuffling.  It's aggravating.

• This one is completely subjective, but there's something about the scale of the game that puts me off a little bit.  The counters represent platoons, rather than individual vehicles.  I guess I just have conceptual difficulties with tactical games (i.e., where things like elevation and terrain effects on LoS are considerations) that don't use individual vehicles as the maneuver elements.  It's an abstraction that I'm simply uncomfortable with.  (All of the tanks in the platoon are behind the hill, or none of the tanks in the platoon are behind the hill.)  Plus, in this specific case, the platoons aren't the same size.  The Soviets organized their tank companies into three vehicle platoons, while (at the time) the US Army used four tank platoons.  (At least I'm about 80% sure it was four.  I'm no expert on the Army's organizational practices, and I believe the mid-'80's was a weird period for them anyway.)  This has zero impact on gameplay, of course, but it does add a tiny bit to the cognitive dissonance I feel every time I move a unit.

Now, on the positive side, none of these things are inherent insoluble problems with the game system itself.  So I'm not planning on putting the thing up for trade just yet.  But I'm not immediately interested in getting any of the other games in the series, either.  I will, however, give this one a little more effort before I give up on it.  I really do want to like it.

I can explain everything

Remember that rant about not buying new stuff (no matter how pretty) while I've got so many other projects already hanging over my head?  Remember how I resolved to resist that urge and focus on the things I already have?

OK, yes.  Yes, that is mine.  Yes, I did buy it and it came in the mail a couple of days ago.  But I can explain everything.

I remain totally committed to the concept of resistance!  In fact, I may very well be resistier right now than I was when I first made my Declaration of Resistance.  I'm so resistant that I put Ohmmeters in my general vicinity at risk of literally exploding.

But here's the thing:  one still browses eBay, doesn't one?  And surely, one looks at listings for things in which one is interested?  And one occasionally finds bargains?  And, when one finds such a bargain -- say, a $35 book (that one desperately covets) for $10 -- wouldn't it be irresponsible for one NOT to buy it?

Seriously, it was a little too good a deal to pass up, and I'm glad I pulled the trigger on it.  It's a beautiful book, well made and lavishly illustrated.  I've enjoyed thumbing through it and getting at least a glancing familiarity with the ruleset.  But -- and this is why I don't feel bad about the purchase -- I have no intention of jumping into it as a full-scale hobby any time in the near future.  So, on one hand, yes:  I did buy a new game that I was trying to hold out on.  But on the other, it's just a $10 book, not $100+ of unpainted lead.  Maybe next year?  In the meantime, I might pick up an army book or two, but no miniatures, and that's the real key.