Still not dead :D

Yup - very much still alive, and mostly emerged from under the kitchen fitting and getting Jamie through his web dev course (despite the best efforts of his GP to refuse to renew his meds the week before his deadline!).

Upcoming news: I have two podcast interviews definitely scheduled for The Miller's Tale - both being recorded in the next two weeks, at least one of which ideally will be out before UK Games Expo at the end of next week. There's a third I'm trying to fix a date for in June [Edit: now booked!], and hopefully a couple more over the summer.

Speaking of UK Games Expo, I'll be working the Catalyst Games event tables for the whole event: you can find me in Hall 4 in a fluorescent green on black t-shirt, about halfway down the right hand wall from the plaza entrance. I think we're here [Edit: fixed to be ZZ, not V], but it's all a bit chaotic. Come see what all the fuss is about with BattleTech, learn to play Alpha Strike in no time flat.

Catch you around!

2024 in review

The best laid plans, as they say, once again... (and we'll see how 2025's plans look in the next post!)

There's a big 'ole right outside
my bedroom window, and it's
full of water!

Made it to the end of May with my sanity intact, albeit a little busier than I would have liked. Was driving back from the BattleTech English Nationals when... Son phones, to say there is water coming into the house. 

I'll spare you the full details, but suffice it to say we had to wait on Anglia Water paying for most of the downstairs carpets and the music room floor to be replaced, had to move out the grand piano for several months, and had most of our worldly goods stuffed into three fewer rooms than it was meant to go into. And we were probably among the luckiest of the 50+ houses affected - it's all sorted by the end of August. 

After a bit of thought, we decided to take a cash settlement for the damage to the kitchen (slate tiles fine, but a fair amount of water damage on the trim and side panels of the units) as a deposit on the new kitchen we've been promising ourselves since about 2005...

Mid-October, they strip the old units out. Take one look at the plaster under the kitchen window, note that the damp meter is bouncing off the end stop, and realise that we can't proceed until that's been fixed. (Nothing to do with the flood, it's just the price you pay for having an 1860's house!) Have you ever tried finding someone competent to fix damp in a 150 year old house at short notice? We were being quoted "mid November, but that's just to come and have a look. Expect January for a fix."

Huge credit to Steve from Elite Preservation who gave up a weekend in November to fix it. Next problem, finding a new install slot given everyone's booked up till Christmas. Justin (our original installer) again worked miracles with his team to get three days free in the last week before Christmas, and as off now we have working appliances and most of a kitchen.

We have however been living out of an air fryer and microwave in the laundry for two months, which it no real fun, and the dining room has been full of the stuff we took out of the kitchen in October!

I am not a fan of water this year.

In other non-hobby news, 

• our surviving parents are both surviving, although Anne's mum has advanced Alzheimer's.
• I have one really nasty contract job hanging over me (involving converting a massive suite of undocumented Excel tables to MySQL) which is making me feel guilty about getting stuck into other hobby-related intensive computer work. Hopefully I am getting this finished this week (currently finding the stupid mistakes :D).

Last year's plans:

• Finish the Dux Compendium :D (attempting to achieve headspace for that at present)
• Didn't happen :( See above
• Paint a lot more BattleTech stuff (no, more than that, the Kickstarter's arriving Q2 and, erm, well, I may have indulged in considerable retail therapy....)
• Kickstarter arrived end Q4. I did however buy three people's BattleTech collections off eBay, painted a lot of stuff, and set up a thriving sideline in selling off the ones I didn't want :D
• Run campaigns at the club
• What a Cowboy (deferred from 2023 for obvious reasons) - Q1/2
• Didn't happen :( (annoyed about that)
• BattleTech: Alpha Strike - details TBC - Q3/4
• Didn't happen largely because the KS was late.
• Run RPGs @ home. My long-running (since 2019) weekly sanity break Zoom-based 5E campaign finished in December, and I'm aiming to split my time going forward with two fortnightly ones:
• a 5E campaign set in a different corner of my world
• Running, party now 4th level
• a BattleTech RPG campaign set on - well, that's a secret for now
• Not yet,.
• Start on the Epic ACW plastic (and MDF) pile
• Again, not yet. I remind you that half our worldly possessions were cluttering up the workshop for all the summer.
• Finish the 15mm Bulge forces and buildings, consider an IABSM Bulge narrative campaign later in the year
• Ah... nope. 
• Get someone else to paint my 28mm British and French, and play some Sharp Practice 2
• Did! Thanks Dan!
• Play with the laser cutter
• Yup.
• Blog and podcast as and when.
• Surprisingly, yup...

In addition to the above:

• Started a new BattleTech-specific podcast.
• Actually had a guest on The Miller's Tale!
• Built/3D printed a lot of 6-7mm scale scenery
• Ran a number of fun show games
• Painted/Bitched on Wednesdays (which saved what's left of my sanity)

The Miller's Tale - Episode 10

Episode 10: In which the podcast reaches double figures, and Mike has his first ever guest, namely James Morris!

Links from the episode:

• James' website: mogsymakes.net
• James on social media: Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram and probably mogsymakes anywhere else you can think of!
• Midgard Heroic Battles videos from TFL:
• Midgard Heroic Battles. An Introduction
• Midgard Heroic Battles Part 2: A Look at a Typical Force
• Pre-orders:
• From Too Fat Lardies/Reisswitz Press in the UK
• From Karwansary Publishing in Europe
• James on the 20 Sided Gamified podcast
• That Partizan backdrop.....

Catchup, news

Two days after the
burst water main. From
our bedroom window.
And yes, they worked
overnight all week.

Just about got over the house being flooded at the end of May - last carpets/etc went in at the beginning of September (which means we're no longer trying to fit N+1 rooms worth of people and stuff into N-3 rooms) , and the new kitchen goes in later this month. Life has been... um... interesting for a while, hence the partial radio silence.

So. 

Time for a catchup.

• Just got back from the Innsmouth Literary Festival in Bedford at the weekend, where the club put on 'The Battle of New Innsmouth', a scifi retake of watery weirdnesses attacking a coastal settlement. Photos below.
• The club put on a game at Sutton Hoo over the summer (thanks to my good friend Andy Hawes) - watch this space for more, or see it at The Other Partizan. Come say hi!
• We also put on a game celebrating Operation: Market Garden (specifically the actions around Nijmegen involving the 82nd Airborne), in the Lincolnshire village of Folkingham, from which they originally took off. Martin S-C's excellent photos are on the club Facebook page.
• Posh Lard has sadly been cancelled (due mostly to a lack of spoons (see above) on my part). Back next year.
• So, sadly, was Hereward Wargames Show, but this time due to a lack of roof on the venue! Again, we'll be back next year!
• Ran a bunch of BattleTech games for the club, shows and even as far afield as Shetland. Again, pictures below, but most of my BattleTech stuff can be found on Tales From The Periphery, my BattleTech podcast and occasional blog.
• Re podcasts, I have two episodes of The Miller's Tale lined up for later this month - and they will both have actual living breathing guests! (and relevant ones, at that!)
• The club's weekly Wednesday evening 'Paint and B***h' session chez moi continues (apart from a break for a month or two when the workshop was full of furniture and guitars (again, see above)), and is a welcome weekly sanity break - thanks guys.

The Battle Of New Innsmouth

Assorted BattleTech:

The Miller's Tale - Episode 9

Episode 9: in which Mike once again attempts to remember how the heck the Heath Robinson-esque collection of RSS feed generator, local webspace and heaven knows what else all hooks together. And attempts to get caught up, and rambles about a 40-year old wargame...

Links from this episode

• Flashforge Adventurer 5M Pro filament printer
• XTool S1 laser cutter
• Tales From The Periphery - my new podcast
• The BattleTech portal page
• Brutal Cities MDF terrain

Still chairman...

 

...after last night's AGM. Which, unlike last year, I actually managed to attend. 

Per a sidebar with Reuben, I note that this is the start of my second decade as chairman. I also note that my blog is much more reliable than my memory for this kind of thing :D

And here comes 2024...

I have plans. 

I'm definitely not stupid enough to expect these to survive contact with the enemy but, hey, we can hope, right?

So, on the todo list:

• Finish the Dux Compendium :D (attempting to achieve headspace for that at present)
• Paint a lot more BattleTech stuff (no, more than that, the Kickstarter's arriving Q2 and, erm, well, I may have indulged in considerable retail therapy....)
• Run campaigns at the club
• What a Cowboy (deferred from 2023 for obvious reasons) - Q1/2
• BattleTech: Alpha Strike - details TBC - Q3/4
• Run RPGs @ home. My long-running (since 2019) weekly sanity break Zoom-based 5E campaign finished in December, and I'm aiming to split my time going forward with two fortnightly ones:
• a 5E campaign set in a different corner of my world
• a BattleTech RPG campaign set on - well, that's a secret for now
• Start on the Epic ACW plastic (and MDF) pile
• Finish the 15mm Bulge forces and buildings, consider an IABSM Bulge narrative campaign later in the year
• Get someone else to paint my 28mm British and French, and play some Sharp Practice 2
• Play with the laser cutter
• Blog and podcast as and when.

Yes, that's a fair bit, but, to misquote Robert Browning, "a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a hobby for?" (hands up who thought that was Kipling? - I did)