For Manchester

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.
- Winston Churchill, June 18, 1940

I almost never comment on things political or contemporary on this blog. But Manchester was simply too, too much to ignore. Children were killed, and maimed, and all because they went to a rock concert.

To our UK readers..I share your outrage. As you supported us on 9/11. We support you now. Know that. To all those "downrange". Get some.

Back from Cold Wars - Notes for the blog!

Well, another day, another blog entry it seems. I attended Cold Wars 2017 for the day on Saturday, and had a damn good time. Usually, I am resigned to just doing some shopping and chatting, but this weekend seemed blessed.

First, I hit the dealers area and ran into the folks from Covert Intervention Games whom are taking over the Force 20 line, I will be updating this article to reflect this. In the more exciting news, they will also be exclusively manufacturing Ehliem Miniatures entire product line in the US. This is an exciting thing! Matt, as much as I love you, shipping from England can be brutal, even with the lower exchange rate of pound to the dollar. I see this being a very lucrative partnership. I arranged a meeting with the proprietor, J. Reid "Streak" Denton. He is friendly, knowledgeable and local to me (in Woodbridge, as I am in Fairfax), in the future to speak on things T2K and other sundries will be coming in the near future. I even got some sample figures and a bag of colored smoke for signal grenades!

A sadder duty that I performed was to get some face time with Frank Chadwick primarily to offer my condolences concerning Loren Wiseman. Frank was busy running a Desert War Command Decision game next to the game I managed to get into. I waited till he was done, and went over and wished him my deepest condolences for Loren Wiseman. Mr. Chadwick, was, as always, the gracious and humble fellow we know him to be, and after a short 30 second conversation, we parted ways. He described Loren as "a great guy". I didn't have a chance to meet Loren personally, but all accounts agree with that. Again, thank you Mr. Wiseman, we have a really fun game universe to play in, thanks to you.

The convention itself was a bit on the sparse side in terms of attendance I thought. Especially at peak hours. I cannot say why that was, and the flea market didn't have a whole lot that grabbed me, except for some rubbled buildings (including a church, which will look great on any table), and some more trees from a young lady who has a really promising career in terrain building and baking ahead of her (I always buy trees from her). I also picked up in the dealer's area about 30ft of the Hot Wheels Road Tape I have been hearing so much about. It looks great for modern roads, and a little weathering and distressing would go a long way with this stuff, at $8 a roll, it was a bargain. 

Much of the rest of the convention was focused on my WW-II likes, as well as my Full Thrust fleets, so I will discuss, at least the WW-II side on our sister blog, FestungPlatz. 

I did my share to wear my threatened "Twilight 2000" T-Shirt with the First Edition Cover painting on it, and pimp the blog. That got a lot of attention. Hope to see some folks come looking from Cold Wars. 

In short, a fun time to be had.

More to be said later on FestungPlatz.

Loren Wiseman has passed on

One of the seminal designers of Twilight:2000, Loren Wiseman, has passed on. The cause of death was natural causes, but he was known to be in poor health of late.

RIP Loren Wiseman, and thank you for everything. My deepest condolences to his family and friends.

In memoriam, the adventure Loren won his HG Wells Award for. May it be a fitting epitaph