For Your Own Peace of Mind - Organize!

 

As my previous post said I'm packing to move. The deadline is fast approaching and of course I'm scrambling now since before this I had 'plenty of time'. I no longer have 'plenty of time'.

I'm going to use this post as a heartfelt plea for you to go through your hobby/office spaces. Please declutter and throw out/donate/sell what you're not going to use. Look, actually look, at what you have and be brutally practical. Take what's left and put it into storage containers, then put those on shelves. It's a lot of work and it may not seem necessary if you're in your forever home or don't plan on moving.

But sometimes you don't get the luxury of planning on moving. Sometimes your forever home turns out not to be your forever home. And in general we collect and pile up a lot of crap.

I was somewhat lucky in that I started organizing things into plastic storage bins a while ago but never really finished. I'm paying for that now in some respects and in others not so much. I can use a lot of the 'unorganized' things and use them to fill space where the containers don't fit the boxes. That helps greatly in the short term, it isn't so great in the long term.

I'm not saying you can't keep things 'just in case'. I've got a lot of things like that for scratch building and they pack up just fine. When they're unpacked they're going into, you guessed it, plastic storage bins. I've also found a lot of things that I kept because it was more convenient than throwing them out. That's no longer the case. I don't need them and see no use for them in the near to moderate future. So they go.

When you're in one place for a long time this happens. It's easier to leave things out because you're using them than it is to go through and put them away. Piles occur. There's no judgement here. There can't be based on my own situation. But I'm saying that organization will save you a lot in the long run.

I'm a big fan of plastic bins over cardboard when possible. Get ones with tops. I use a lot of the dollar store ($1.25 store?) plastic shoeboxes and their smaller containers with handy flap lids. Those two sizes are mostly what I use since I can't make them too heavy for metal miniatures and the supplies fit mostly very well into the smaller ones. I'm also a huge fan of the 16 x 16 scrapbook paper holders from the craft store since they hold mini paint bottles well. I have a cart that holds six of those. I'm going to need another cart. But when I put the paint away it's put away.

In general it's a lot easier to find stuff if you've put like with like. All the sandpaper? In a plastic paper holder with a sliding lock. All the Dremel accessories? In a container. All the bases? In a container. It's work up front but if you look at it, really look at it, it's a one time pain. Then it saves you time when you're looking for where you put whatever later.

I also have storage cubes with doors. I lucked out getting those because they were discontinued. They fit perfectly into my current space and should fit well into my new space with some planning. Right now they're handy to where I paint so I can keep things I use a lot in there. In plastic storage bins or loose-ish in other kinds of containers. I use a pill bottle and a pilsner glass for the second rate and terrain paint brushes. They're contained.

I'd have a lot more trouble if I hadn't done this up front. Even with doing a partial organization it's saved me a lot of time and things are already together. When a box has 'bases' written on it I know all the bases are in there when it comes time to unpack. When a box has 'air' written on it I know it's everything I need for the air compressor. There will be other things in those boxes but I know what the important things are.

Another thing I found from all this is just how much I have of particular kinds of items. Between you and me I have too many of some. I know I can clear one of those when I get settled. The other will take more work and planning. But until it was all gathered up I didn't know the extent of what I had. Having it scattered put it out of mind. Having it put in one place lost me that luxury.

So just how well organized will the new space be? I'd like to think it's going to be decently organized. What's not in plastic containers will get there. The things that can be reduced will be. I will have more storage space so more things will be visible for me to use. I'll even label the containers if I get all kinds of ambitious. Those are all future considerations. Right now it's a matter of a rough organization of at least getting things into the boxes that will go into the same room.

I'm lucky in that I'll have more rooms for things now. With my hobbies I outgrew my two bedroom apartment resulting in a dense accumulation that was difficult to use. I worked hard to use every possible bit of storage space and I think I did well. The problem with that was getting to most things. I also had things on the shelves that I wasn't going to use but had the space to put them. That happens. That's going to happen again. By having more rooms and separating two big space hogging hobbies I'll have actual room to work. That's a luxury I haven't had for well over a decade.

I'll end this as I started, begging you to take the time to organize what you have. Plastic works better than cardboard in my opinion because if something bad happens that involves water your stuff has a much better chance of coming through undamaged or at least minimally damaged. Wipe it off and put it back. Cardboard, not so much. There's enough variety of sizes and shapes of plastic containers that you can find what you need or at least what will work well enough. You don't have to do it all at once. But please, please, please do it.

How I Roll - My Traveling GM Bag

Another blog had a post asking what people kept in a traveling GM bag. Rather than comment there (burying the answer and giving that blog traffic instead of mine) I decided to do a post on the contents of my traveling GM bag.

I used it when the game went virtual as well because we were going with a camera on the battle mat so it was still a physical game and I needed all the same things. There was no point in having things scattered about more than they were so it stayed as-is.

My Traveling GM Bag

Here's my oh-so-glamorous GM bag

This is a rolling suitcase I bought at the thrift store on half price day. It probably cost me about $5 or less. I know there's all kinds of fancy cases out there but honestly I'm frugal and needed some way to transport all my stuff. A suitcase works just fine if you don't mind that it's not all fancy and things can get messy.

As I said, things can get messy. Everything moves to the bottom of the suitcase as it gets moved around. I don't mind that and pack with the idea that it's going to happen. Heavy stuff near the bottom, more fragile/lighter stuff near the top. Even then contents can shift during travel.

One of the most important things a GM needs - a way to take notes. At least that's what I consider most important. I've written on my feelings about taking notes before so this should be nothing new. I did try the Rocketbook and while it works for some people it didn't work for me. Printouts of the transcribed notes are in the green folder. I went back to my trusty spiral bound notebook for the last couple of sessions and found myself much happier. I never decided if I was going to put the pages from the spiral bound notebook into the folder or not before the game ended. Since I will be using written notes in future games it's not a consideration. But notes and the way to take them are extremely high on my list of things to have.

This is my GM screen. Isn't it fantastic? Isn't it perfectly in keeping with the theme of the game? Another thrift store buy it's wonderfully horrible. I thought about covering it with something more appropriate but decided to leave it in all its tacky glory. However this thing is perfect as a screen for me.

It's short enough I can see over it when I'm sitting down. It lets me put sticky notes for things like player-character names, special abilities, PC ability scores, etc. The center lets me put in notecards with more detailed information and I can add as many sleeves as I want. Hint - put some tape around the bottom of the sleeves or the cards fall out.

Even better if you run more than one game you can start from the other end and have a separate screen for the second game. It's pretty cool that way.

I use a screen to hide my dice rolls and keep my notes less visible. I don't need a lot of room for that and having a custom setup for my 'in my face' notes is perfect.

Pencils, pens, and the markers I use on the battle mat. Of course I'm going to have a pouch of pencils, pens, erasers, sticky notes, and other writing related materials. I'm a GM. The center box holds the special pens for the Rocketbook. That's a leftover I never bothered to remove. The markers are self explanatory and I don't know why I even keep the yellow marker since that color never shows up anyway. But they're all there, ready to be used.

Dice. Of course there's dice. What kind of GM doesn't have dice? I swear even in a fully virtual game I'll have dice on hand just for the tactile click clack they give. I tend to keep three full sets of poly dice and swap them out when I want a different look or I think they're not performing up to snuff. I also have:

• D24 (hours of the day)
• D30 (Forgotten Realms has a 30 day per month calendar)
• Weather dice (the set of 2 - one for current, one for forecast)
• Place value dice into the millions (because I bought them and would maybe have a use for them some day)
• Pink D20 (the D20 of Shame)
• Random dice (because dice)
• Red glass blob (makeshift campfire marker)
• Black cat eraser (something I've had with my dice for a very long time)
• Orange tricorder accessory from a ST:TNG Data figure (so I don't lose it)

The triangle you see with a note and a value is from a treasure notecard. I'll get into notecards next.

I love this. I keep this handy. I love 3 x 5 notecards. I absolutely love 3 x 5 notecards.

I use notecards to have item information I can hand off to players. I make trinket, treasure, and magic item cards as the need or inclination hits, then keep them here for when I give out loot. The top card is a low value magic item with the name, the information on what it does, how it works, and in the corner the actual value. When I hand out these I rip off the corner so they don't know what it's worth. I take a picture before I do so I have it available to me - I don't have second copies and if the player can't keep track of their own inventory (game and physical) I can get it back if I feel like it.

Up at the top is a fine tip black Sharpie. That's my writing instrument of choice for notecards since it's permanent and dark. It also means I throw out a lot of notecards when I make mistakes in writing them up.

The trinket and treasure cards are from various item generators. I have a big thing for item generators. All the links are affiliate links so if you buy them I'll get a few pennies, so I can buy more item generators. Inkwell Ideas  has my favorite ones in their Infinite Choices products. Rusted Iron Games has some smaller, more focused generators in their Roll With It! series. Dicegeeks has a great selection of random item generators along with other types of random lists.

These folders have non-campaign specific paperwork. The red one has blank characters sheets and other things that are useful when people need them or I'm working on something. The bigger one has the 'working' paperwork. Let's get into that.

I like combat tracking sheets. You can see one there. I don't require players use them but I offer them every time there's combat. It has places for the round, initiative (I reroll every round), character action, result. I find these help a lot in the combat details - like how many rounds an effect lasts, what damage was done, overall what the character did at the time. I have them in various sizes so they're not wasted. Short combat? Short sheet. I also have bits of scrap paper for notes, maps, blank treasure and XP tracking sheets, etc. There's nothing in these folders that is essential to the specific game. I just keep it together.

These folders, on the other hand, do contain campaign specific materials. Notice how much less there is in them than the non-specific materials. I try to keep these thinned out so I'm not hauling around maps from months previous that will never be used again or I have online and can look up if needed. I also try to build a nemesis party for every game I run and rarely get to use it. It's so fun to have when it works and is always a subplot to have handy.

The campaign paperwork generally has notes and printouts for the next session or two and what was done in the previous session. I thin it out when I'm reviewing my notes before the next game so it's an ongoing process. I keep some of it if I can use it in other games, like maps printed to scale or canned encounters I found useful. Others get tossed during the winnowing.

The characters! I ask the players to send me copies of their character sheets so I have them on hand. Whatever version I have is the one that will be used when that player isn't available so it's in their best interest to make sure I have the most current version. I also have their backstories and any other information I've given them or they don't know yet in their folder. If you're going to do this you'll find very quickly you can't write directly on the folders. Put down a piece of tape, write on it with a Sharpie, and put another piece of tape over that so it doesn't rub off. I put both player and character names on the folders.

I keep each version of the character sheet. Their entire character history is in their folder. I can look up numbers or abilities at the table and I find it even more useful when doing game prep when I can reference whatever I need. I can also put things I want to give the player into their folder and know where it is when I need it.

As much as I'd like to have a fully immersive game with appropriate minis for every encounter I just can't do it in a traveling game. Instead I found this workaround. Those are old Stratego game pieces with colored, numbered paper sleeves. Note I said they're the old version of the game. The old version has a smooth top edge. The newer versions have crenellations. Another thrift store find and if you can find them here's the sleeves you can print out for yourself. Print at full size and 1/2" tape fits perfectly around the bottom. You get 10 each of 6 colors.

They're not as sexy as the minis but it makes it so much easier to keep track of things in combat when someone says they're attacking Red 6. You can also make the different colors different monsters. They fit into the 1 inch squares and I didn't get around to making something that would fit more squares for bigger monsters. But these are a good start.

I could have bagged each color individually but that's a waste of bags and I generally needed 2 colors for each encounter so having them together helped. Kind of since they were all mixed up.

Hint - don't stress about having them in any kind of order. There's no need to pick through so you have 1, 2, and 3 unless you feel that need. 2, 5, 9 work just as well.

The position of the token also can be useful. My standard is upright is active, on their side is prone/unconscious, flat is dead/down. They still fit in the square and help the players determine their actions. They also continue to take up space on the mat if you leave them there, which makes for obstacles and other fun issues.

Books. Where would we be without books? These are the only ones I carry since they're the ones needed pretty much all the time. The DMG is pretty self explanatory and I don't use it as much as you might think. If I didn't bring it I would need it, of course. The setting book is a must. And the player's handbook as well. If there were other setting or game specific 'required' books I'd have them in the bunch. But books are heavy and I also don't like the abuse they take from being hauled around. So I keep them to a minimum.

My final tool - my tablet. I have the SRD apps for my games and use those for things like monsters so I'm not hauling around those books. I can also keep copies of splat books (or pages of splat books) on there so I've got them as needed. I have the PDF copies of most of the books in my Dropbox (no, I won't link that) so I can look them up in a pinch. I use this as a tool but it's not a central tool overall. It's an accessory. 

There's a lot of debate about electronics at the table. This isn't me being a hypocrite since I ban electronics at the table and I haven't gotten anyone saying anything to my face. Unless I need it for the game I don't play with it.

Not shown is my battle mat. I don't put it in the suitcase so it kind of doesn't fit in this post but it's something I always bring. I still have the plastic sleeve for it and I think the packing tape patches add character. I just added a wrapping paper core support so it won't sag when I stand it in the corner. Even if the game doesn't use squares it's a way to draw out the scenery at least.

Summary

I can carry a lot of stuff in a rolling carry on sized suitcase. I try to carry as little as I can since it makes the stupid thing heavy. Finding a place to put it during the game can also be a problem since space is always at a premium. Keeping the bag handy is much better than having the contents strewn about the table is my opinion. My preference is to have a chair within reach and have the suitcase across the arms so I can dig through it as needed.

I use a lot of different kinds of folders. I like thinking I know where things are when I need them. That doesn't always hold true. I put things in the wrong folders at times. But in general I prefer to have them as organized and protected as I can.

Hopefully this will spark ideas on how to make a traveling GM bag. We always have to carry the most stuff so finding a way to do it efficiently and effectively is a task. My way still needs that space to hold the bag where I can get at it quickly. I carry a lot of stuff now that I look at it. But I also use a lot of paper in my game so that adds up. I'm more old school in that I like pencil and paper at the table so I lead by example. Lay out what you always use, what you like to have, and what you keep around because of habit. Out of that you should be able to assemble a good set for games away from home.

Game Prep Stuff

As any GM knows there's a lot that goes into game prep. Running in a sandbox world means a LOT of prep since there's never any certainty the players are going to go with what you hope. Unless you make it REALLY COOL but that's another post.

I had less time than normal to prep this time around. Because of life we had to switch the weekend schedule. One player's custody weekend got swapped to the game weekend. I put it to the group (without him in the email chain) with the three options. The player knew all the options going forward.

1. Switch weekends
2. Keep the weekends, play while he has his four kids at home
3. Keep the weekends, player would leave the game.

I sent the email without stating a preference. I know I get one vote like everyone else but the GM's vote has the unfortunate tendency to carry more weight with some groups. I figured I would be a tie breaker if needed.

Unanimous vote to switch weekends. This was a pleasant thing to relay.

Next hurdle - more life. We couldn't play on Saturday but everyone could make Sunday. Ok. Fine. My weekend gets a bit screwed up but I can handle that.

I also met with a potential new player who was recommended by a current player. He seems to understand and accept the house rules and started coming up with a nice character.

And then to prepping. Lots of prepping. Things I would have had a week to do I had to complete in two days. Along with the extra burden of introducing a new PC to the game. No pressure, right?

I'm trying a Rocketbook after hearing good things about it from the Twitter GM community and it makes sense. You can click the link for more info but it's plastic pages you write on with special markers. When you're done you use the app to take pictures of the pages and they get uploaded to any one of half a dozen or so storage sites. The best thing is that several of them do OCR as you upload. That's what got me. The post office messed up my delivery so I had less time to play with it than I would have liked but so far it's been good. I took this game's notes in it so crossing my fingers I don't have to rewrite them all in my spiral bound notebook.

I made magic items for two of the original players based on their backstories. Turns out I did really well in picking the right one for them going forward. At least that's what they told me. I always offer to make or pick something else if it doesn't feel right and have yet to have someone take me up on it. I wonder if they really do like it or if they don't want to make me feel bad. GM insecurities.

Finally I needed to make taverns and inns. I have a wonderful deck of cards that has taverns with menus so I could use those. Except when the PCs are only going to be in the area for a day or three I don't want to 'use up' one of the good taverns. 

Enter Infinite Menus from Inkwell Ideas. I love their stuff. I have all the Infinite series products and adapt them as I see fit. In this case I decided on limiting the fare available in these taverns since they're all out in the wilds. Those taverns aren't going to have a selection of dishes. You eat what they serve. The instructions help you with determining random numbers of dishes and I did try that. Once. Now I'm doing one choice meals. I may get fancier later.

Add onto this reading material that I would probably/hopefully use in the game, making notes for what I need to ask each player, and all the other things that go into prepping for a game and it made for a long two days.

But I think it went well. I'll write up the game itself after I've had a chance to let my brain recover.

Note - DriveThruRPG links are affiliate links.

Forgotten Realms Campaign - Session Zero

We had our Session Zero today. I had one potential player drop out a week or so ago because he didn't like that he couldn't assign his character stats and didn't want to even try the method I prefer. Honestly I think we're better off without him if that's enough to make him quit a game. But I digress.

We had the last space filled yesterday. I also have someone interested when I posted it on the local Facebook group but she couldn't make today's session. I'm going to try to meet up with her before the first game. I can handle a table of five players but no more than that. I also have a feeling that one of the current players might not be that reliable. It's just a vibe I'm getting. I hope I'm wrong.

As always this session is a lot of discussion. I went over my House Rules with everyone and explained some of the ones that were vague. No one had questions or wanted changes but again, Session Zero.

I always need to get contact information - name, email, and phone. This time I added a couple of things because there's a lot going on with my Twitter GM groups about consent forms. No, it's not what you think. It's finding out if there's specific words and/or situations that people don't want in the game. For me it's less of a problem since I'm not the GM acting out my prurient fantasies with the players but I agree that it's showing respect for them. I didn't have time to print one up so I wrote out the sheets while I was waiting for people to show up.

Then we got to stats. My method is one I stole from a GM I had before and tweaked until I liked it. It's a stat block rather than a point buy or 'roll and assign' method. As always the players found that it gave them a lot more options. One was very frustrated because the numbers didn't give him the character he really wanted but he could make several other kinds. That's the way the stat block works. It builds a character, not just a bunch of numbers.

They were a bit confused when I had them roll up birthdays. We did the random age thing as well as the height and weight but I take it a step further and have them roll up their birthday on the FR calendar. It's why I have a 30 sided die in my box. FR months are all 30 days long, if that wasn't clear. Now everyone has an actual birthday and I feel that helps with immersion.

I was the only one with physical books and the limitations of using PDFs became very clear as people were squinting at screens. After a game or two we'll have everything we need either in the books or printed out. At least I will. I will encourage (or shall I say "encourage") them to use the books/printouts rather than their phones and tablets when looking up things. I try to keep the electronics away from the table. It's even in my house rules.

After puzzling over the stat blocks and consulting many books here's what the party looks like at this point. The next post will have the character names as well but for now I was happy with as far as we got. We're starting at Level 2 so they're not quite as squishy but still very fresh.

Lesser Aasimar Druid (Note 1)
Gnome Rogue/Swashbuckler
Human Ranger
Sun Elf Druid

This is an interesting mix. There's not a healer in the bunch. Nor is there a tank. I'll be reading over those character classes in the next week so I can start figuring out how best to craft encounters. I see more dungeon work and less city work here. I'm fine with that one. Then again druids in the city can be amusing.

The reason we ended up with this mix is because I tell my players to play the character they want, not the one they think needs to be included. Hence no one feeling obliged to be a cleric or a fighter. Playing a character you don't like lessens the fun all around.

Since they're second level they would have at least one tasty item from previous adventures. I told them to get their basic equipment (nothing masterwork or magic) at no cost. They'd have all that. Using the loot tables I gave them their starting money (in whatever form they want to convert it to) so they're not poor.

A funny thing. I gave them an appropriate amount of money. One of the players got a little snippy, saying it wasn't much. I replied that it was more money than most of the people they encounter would ever see in their lives. He didn't snip after that. Players forget that they're freaking RICH compared to most of the population at large.

I need to work up magic items for everyone. I'm going to be leaning heavily on the healing magic so that they can patch themselves up reasonably well. Everyone will have a different kind of item with different levels of usage. I think it's a way to get around the lack of healing spells in the group without making it too much. No one gets something that will always heal them all the way back. There will be limits.

I also stressed the backstory aspect. One page isn't much to ask and I bribe them with saying they'll get something extra based on that backstory. It gives me a chance to get them another feat, some skill points, an item, whatever. They have stuff from before they joined this party. I keep stressing the need to be more than just some numbers on a page. Even if that's what the base really is.

Forgotten Realms gives players even more freebies. Everyone gets a bonus feat based on what region they're from as well as some extra equipment. We got through that as well. Of course one of the players wanted a feat that wasn't on their list. It makes sense that he would want it and I told him to convince me that he should have it with his backstory. He's fine with that one and so am I.

We ended with people still needing to fill out their characters since there's a hella lot of numbers in 3.5 but we got the core of everything down. I repeated that they can contact me with any questions they have and I'll check in with them later this week to see how they're doing. I need to know what regions they all chose so I know where to plunk them all down to start the campaign. So far they're spread pretty much from one end of the continent to the other. I can work with that.

Here's what Session Zero tends to look like after things get rolling. A table full of books, dice, paper, pencils, and whatnot. The actual gaming table will be larger.

Session Zero is over for this group. I'm hoping that they reach out to me with questions and I certainly plan on reaching out to them. And I really, really need to find my notecard holder since I love me some notecards.

Note 1 - Aasimars are not a playable race in my games because they're LA1. I don't allow level adjusted races. But there's a Lesser template to take out the level adjustment. I think it's a little cheesy because the stat changes are both pluses and there's some abilities they keep from the original race. I gave a tentative agreement with my final one coming after I've read over the changes thoroughly and possibly underpowered it more. The player is fine with discussing it and seems pleased that I'm willing to consider it and see how it goes. I'm hoist by my own petard because this comes from the books and I opened up the races and classes to all published books.

I Airbrushed! (No Pictures)

I finally used my darn airbrush. I only used one and I used it to prime the minis for my dungeon crawl. I did this long after I should have done so.

I expected this to be good practice and it was. I learned that it's another tool that I need to learn to use better. Priming is great for practice because it doesn't matter what it looks like in the middle - it's going to be a solid coat at the end.

I'll be on my third photo tent enclosure when it arrives. I went from 60x60x60cm to 40x40x40cm to 30x30x30cm. I can't really go smaller than that. I didn't really measure the area well and I don't know what I'm going to do with the extra photo tents but I'll figure something out. Or not.

I did find that wearing a mask is A Good Idea. I also hope the fan I'm getting is powerful enough to pull the overspray into the filter. If not I may have to do some surgery on it to get a better fan in place. I'm hoping with practice there will be less of that but from what I read from my friends there's always paint flying about.

I'm debating about trying the airbrush on the minis for actual painting, even if just doing some base coats. I do need to learn but I also need to get these painted. It's a tossup. Plus I've got appointments after work pretty much all week so that limits my time overall.

The good news is that I used the airbrush, I understood how to use it, I realized that I'm going to need practice, I'm OK with needing practice, and that I cleaned it with a minimum of effort. All those are good because they're steps forward.

Which is why I'm tempted to use it for actual painting. But it's probably smarter to hold off and practice with ink and paper when I have more time. That means breaking out the brushes for the minis. Although those base coats are tempting me...

Churn Baby Churn

This poor printer is just running through kilometers of filament churning out dungeon pieces. I am personally very tired of grey filament. Very, very tired.

There should be two printers doing this, halving the time, but my other one is still down waiting for the replacement board I ordered this week. They haven't even shipped it. Sure, they're blaming the holidays but I need the stupid board. The printer is a doorstop without it.

And then I had a clog that was resistant to the normal methods of removal. It was kind of cool to see the filament extruding in two streams instead of one but that's not really the point. For the first time I used the acupuncture needle they include with the kit to try to move whatever little piece of gunk that was in the way to a place I could remove it.

Then it was a few rounds of cleaning out the nozzle (look up 'atomic pull' for the details) and then it looked like it was good. Although I didn't see the piece of whatever in the cleaning filament.

I 'lost' about twelve hours of printing because of this. I could have tried to clear it last night after the print finished but I was too darn tired to trust myself with printer maintenance. I know better. I'll give up the time to make sure I do it right. This morning I was there, swearing at the printer, doing maintenance.

I should do some calibration again and I think I'll do that when the other printer is ready to go. I will calibrate them both at the same time and then it's off to the races. At least off to 'printing the rest of the dungeon pieces'.

I have the lights for an LED torch wall section but I'm iffy on doing it now. At least I'm iffy on doing it for the convention dungeon. I have a legitimate reason. Hear me out.

The piece is rather clever. The part where the torches are is a separate piece you print in transparent orange (or yellow or whatever) and then there's holes in the back where you shove the mini LEDs. Overall it's a very efficient design using an off-the-shelf light string and battery holder. But here's the catch. That entire panel of torches is out of the transparent filament. So there's this line of orange in the middle of the stone.

This isn't a problem with the addition of that thing called 'paint'. But as of now I don't think I'll have time to paint it before the convention and I don't want to bring it primed because then there's fingerprints on the primer and I don't know how the rest of the paint will adhere. Right now it's all a consistent light grey. To use the LED torch walls I would have to paint the orange sections at least and then they'd stand out just as much as if they were still orange.

It's something I'm pondering. Once I find my airhose for the compressor (dammit I hate losing things) then I can figure out how long it would take to paint this. I can practice on scatter. I plan on using the primer as the main color and then just accenting it with some random bricks and overall drybrushing. And then there's varnishing. So it takes time. Time I could be spending painting the darn minis.

I might have to give up on the airbrush for priming and either use the rattle can or paint it on. I want to use the airbrush but I don't want to waste too much time looking for the missing hose. And before anyone suggests it I want this hose for a reason. It's brand specific so it's threaded properly, it's a braided hose so it's more flexible, and it has the quick disconnect adapter attached to match the quick disconnect adapter on all my airbrushes. It's not cost effective or useful at all to buy another hose and adapter. I'll look more tonight and if not tomorrow I bring out the rattle can and be annoyed.

Prepping an army

Like I don't have enough armies.  Previously I showed some 15mm I was painting.  Now I've got most of the rest of the army and have been prepping like crazy while I've got some time and the need to do repetitive tasks.  I'm still waiting on the paints I want but I've got painting I can do until they come in.  French Conquest is pretty easy - red, white and blue.

Here's slightly less than half of my line infantry.

Infantry 03 - Prepped

Each stick holds 8 minis and there's 12 sticks.  It should have been 11 sticks but I had enough for one more and I would rather have too many prepped than not enough.  I still need to do at least 10 more sticks of regular infantry.  Yes, I need a total of 232 minis for my battalions.

Here's a combination of my Grendadiers (need more), drummers and eagle bearers.  The drummers and eagle bearers all belong to the command unit - there's enough of those.  Yes, I have 8 battalions to do.

Infantry 02 - Prepped

And finally the skirmishers (done) and the horses for the commanders and possibly sub-commanders.  I'm not sure if I'm using those horses or if I have other ones for the sub-commanders.  I need to dig through the unprepped stuff and see what's there.

Infantry 01 - Prepped

Hrm.  The last stick of skirmishers at the bottom didn't seem to be in the picture.

Let's total up.

• Line Infantry - 96
• Grenadiers - 24
• Drummers - 8
• Eagle bearers - 8
• Skirmishers - 32
• Commanders and Sub-Commanders (we'll count as half since the riders aren't attached) - 12

Grand total - 180 prepped minis.

Next up is the remaining line infantry.  So that's another 88 or 96 minis, depending on how many I prep.  Or maybe 80.  I'm hoping there's more Grenadiers in that set since I need another 40 to fill out the battalions.

For those who don't know the Lasalle rules a battalion consists of 4 stands, 8 minis each for 32 minis per battalion.  With one exception.  There's 3 stands of 8 infantry and 1 command stand of a mounted commander (counts as 2 minis), a drummer, an eagle bearer and 4 infantry.  Mixed in with the 28 infantry are 8 Grenadiers.

I need a total of 8 battalions since I'm playing French.  We get 2 additional battalions when we attack.  This is before the French turned into cheese eating surrender monkeys.  Along with a regimental battery (artillery - 3 cannons and 1 howitzer) that makes up my core force.  Of course the artillery needs to be modeled and painted as both limbered (hitched to horses) and unlimbered (unhitched and about to cause havoc) so essentially it needs to be painted twice.

Let's do more math for a total core division.

6 Veteran Infantry - 20 line infantry, 8 Grenadiers, 4 Skirmishers 1 drummer, 1 eagle bearer, 1 commander, 1 horse
1 Regimental Battery - 3 cannons, 1 howitzer (unlimbered with 12 crew); 3 cannons and 1 howitzer (limbered with 6 horses and 3 riders/drivers)
2 Veteran Infantry (attacking only) - 20 line infantry, 8 Grenadiers, 4 Skirmishers 1 drummer, 1 eagle bearer, 1 commander

Now this is where I start sobbing.

6 Veteran Infantry - 120 line infantry, 48 Grenadiers, 24 Skirmishers 6 drummers, 6 eagle bearers, 6 commanders, 6 horses
1 Regimental Battery - 6 cannons, 2 howitzers, 12 crew, 6 horses, 3 riders/drivers
2 Veteran Infantry - 40 line infantry, 16 Grenadiers, 8 Skirmishers 2 drummers, 2 eagle bearers, 2 commanders, 2 horses

Grand total of minis for the core division:

• Line infantry - 180
• Grenadiers - 64
• Skirmishers - 32
  
• Drummers - 8
• Eagle bearers - 8
• Commanders - 8 on horses
• Cannons - 6
• Howitzers - 2
• Artillery crew - 12
• Limbered horses - 6
• Limber drivers/riders - 3

Total of minis for the division.  I'm counting the commanders and horses as separate minis for painting purposes even though they create a single mini.

Total - 337

Sound bad enough?  There's 2 different support divisions as well.  Cavalry and artillery.  Light cavalry is 32 mounted figures and artillery.  Dragoons are 32 mounted minis and artillery.

Oh yeah - I need a commander and 3 sub-commanders.  So that's another 5 mounted minis.

Grand total is around 445 miniatures and if I want to do casualty disruption markers I'll need 15 of those as well.  I can use dice for that but it's not nearly as cool.

This is why you don't count up the number of minis in a historical game.

On the plus side I've got them on the sticks so that I can paint up the 99% that's the same on every one.  The last 1% is the color of the pom/plume to designate the different battalions.  I plan on breaking an army painting rule and not do the same color pom/plume on each stick.  I'm hoping to do some variation in hair and skin color per stick so making each stick one of each battalion will spread those around.  I like a little variety on the battlefield.

Let's hope the weather holds and I can get these primed.  I'm going to prime white since so much of the uniform is white and I want the bright colors for the uniforms. That and my grey primer has been hijacked.

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