Giving Thanks!

With the Thanksgiving Holiday going on, we're not going to post any content today.

Instead, I'd like to personally take the time to thank each and every person who contributes to the WWPD network of sites. When this blog began as a personal pet project several years ago, I had no idea it would grow into something so big! So many people have contributed their own enthusiasm and passion for our hobby to make WWPD the resource it is today, and I am so thankful for those contributions.


Secondly, I'd like to thank you! The community who continually comes to WWPD to share in our enjoyment of the hobby are what keep us coming back. We're so thankful for all of you!

We'll be back tomorrow!

-Steven

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Two Years In, A Flames of War Retrospective

By Sean "Throckmorton" Sarah

So, about two years ago I walked in to my FLGS and finally took notice of all those cool looking World War 2 models on the rack and asked my mildly friendly proprietor "what the hell is that game all about?"

I was, you see, fed up with the ever increasing costs of Warhammer, the douche baggery of the Warmachine tournament scene and the failed attempts to buy into other miniatures games that seemed to show up, look cool, and disappear without notice.

I loved modelling, gaming and all the stuff that goes along with it. I'm a nerd, and pretty proud of it. But I was a nerd without a community. I needed a game I could call home for the long term, something I could dig my teeth into, paint a ton of cool looking stuff and go places to meet and game with new people. Plus, I freaking love World War 2 history.

And, after a good long time, I finally found a community to call home.

Say what you will about model shortages, housing delivery botches, odd editing flaws and ruling off the cuff
on the Flames of War forums; the game, it's system and the people who play it are simply superb.

He doesn't get bogged down....

I think we get bogged down in the day to day craziness of a small group of people trying to run a business for a group of dedicated, and well informed people, so I wanted to take a minute to reflect on how, after two years, I still wake up in the mornings wondering what my next army project will be and what drove me to first create my own blog then move on over here to the home of Flames of War for players around the world.

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There and Back Again: Steven's Announcement

Hi guys! I wanted to take a quick opportunity to let all of you fine WWPDers know that I will be returning to the WWPD network in a few short days. As many of you know, I came to work here at Battlefront down here in New Zealand last summer, and though we’ve very much enjoyed our time here, for personal reasons we will be returning to the East Coast!

Our visit to Hobbiton

Isabelle really enjoyed the ocean.

I’ve enjoyed my time at Battlefront, and leave with nothing but good will for the team, and the company itself. I’ve forged many strong friendships in our short time here, and have enjoyed seeing how the hobby I love is developed from “behind the curtain.” My enthusiasm for Flames Of War is stronger than ever, and thus you can expect loads more content from me on the WWPD blog in the coming weeks.

To that end, while I will be returning to the News From the Front podcast, for at least the next few months I will be recusing myself from any speculation, analysis, or crystal ball rubbing concerning Battlefront and Flames Of War. I have naturally signed an NDA that I take very seriously, so please don’t even ask!

I wish to sincerely thank Jon, who has acted as the Steward of WWPD. He’s done a fantastic job of

We'll always have Auckland!

keeping all of the spinning plates in the air, and upholding the vision for the network. Thanks goes also to all of the many contributors, podcasters, writers, editors, and cheeto-eaters that keep the engine turning over.

There will be more news to come in the coming weeks. I hope to see all of the old familiar faces around the East Coast again soon.

Finally, I’d like to again thank Battlefront Miniatures for the time I’ve spent here, and certainly wish the company all the best! There are some very cool things in the pipeline, and I can’t wait to enjoy them all soon.

Keep Calm, and Carry On!

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Some Recent Board Gaming

Recently, Lydia and I have been having some regular board game nights with our friends Nate and Nikki.  They're huge board gamers and have introduced us to a ton of great games.  I'm not going to go too in depth here, but will give a brief overview of the games we've played with them so far!  I've played several other board games outside of this group, so expect more updates along these lines and of course on the podcast!

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Farewell 2011, we hardly knew ye

It's that time of year again- a time when the blogopshere explodes with retrospectives, hopeful looks to the future, and new year's resolutions.  I'll be brief here, since I know you're nursing that champagne hangover, but I would be remiss if I were to let WWPD enter 2012 without a quick look back!

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Steve's Reinforcement Has Arrived!

Isabelle was born at 4:26 on 11/22/2011.  7 pounds 9 ounces.  Everything was textbook perfect- zero issues.  The child can count base 10 on her digits.

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Updated Man Cave

Staples had 30" book shelves on sale for $20, so I took the opportunity to revamp my man cave!  I bought 4 of them to sit the game table on, offering me a lot more storage space!

In the past month I've built more furniture than I've built in my entire life- between the nursery and the man cave!

And here's a bonus pic of the nursery.  Luke and his wife Cynthia very generously helped us paint it! 

For those of you concerned with brain rot- the TV is for mom and dad.  It will be removed once we aren't spending tons of time in there.

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Panzer Shower 2011!

THE PANZER SHOWER

As many of you may know, My wife and I are expecting a little one in the next few weeks! So some of the guys and my wife decided it would be cool to have a "Man Shower" which quickly turned to "Panzer Shower". Sean ran with the idea and organized the whole event- a big game hosted at his family's home in picturesque Montpelier VA. We had 8 players show up- 4 soviets and 4 axis. Ron Bingham, Rob Eubanks, Tom de Mayo (who's crotch you've seen in plenty of battle reports on this site) and I all represented the soviet side. While Sean, my father, Dirty Jon, and Pete Ellis played across the tables as the axis. The boards were set up in a T fashion on Sean's large screened porch and the weather was absolutely perfect. The guys all brought gift cards for my wife Lydia to help with baby stuff. Lydia showed up a little later with a cake, and we all were well fed due to Sean's grilling and his mom's amazing party food! The game was very laid back, and I think everyone had a good time. Huge thanks to everyone who came out, and especially to Sean and his family and my wife for going above and beyond!

>>>CLICK TO SEE THE REST OF THE PICTURES!

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Quick news update and French 25mm AT Guns

Hey guys- first up I know it's the 2nd Sunday since our last 'cast and folks are jonesin'! (Seriously, thank you everyone who's e-mailed us asking when the next episode would be out- it keeps us going!)

Unfortunately, we did not record this weekend and may not for a few days. The reason? Our Mk I Air Conditioning unit failed a difficult weather check and bogged down. Unfortunately, it's also 13 years old and thus unreliable. Anyways, I've stretched that dumb metaphor long enough. The bottom line is my house is 90 degrees, and the thought of sharing a room with Luke and Jon in this heat is not pleasant. Right now my top priority is getting it replaced and getting my pregnant wife somewhere where she can be comfortable!

This weekend I sent her to her parents' and I stayed with the ship. I got some painting done, but it was so hot I mostly just sat around miserably.

So the next episode is TBA- we will definitely get one more in before Historicon.
Speaking of Historicon: don't forget to come to the live show at 9:00 Saturday night! We will have the room details soon, and there will be flyers for it which you won't miss!

And now here's a few pictures of some French 25mm AT Guns I finished up. These are Quick Reaction Force. I also got a blister of the BF ones, and I can solidly say the BF guns are WAY better. The crew are a decent match, with the QRF guys being a tiny bit smaller. The QRF *do* have the correct helmets though, so that's something. Overall, I still prefer the BF models, but it is what it is.

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WWPD joins the expanding ranks of the Stylish Blogger Award Recipients

Anatoli of Anatoli's Game Room fame has generously nominated us for a "Stylish Blogger Award"!  Anatoli maintains one of my favorite blogs in the "blog-o-sphere" (I still gag when I hear that word).  His prolific work are always a joy to see, and he has a wide focus on different aspects of gaming and entertainment that is worth checking out.

Anyhow, this award is sort of an e-pat on the back, given from one blog to another.  It's spreading much like a virus, but it's all good intentioned so WWPD will definitely play ball!  If you haven't already read this, there's a few rules:

1. Thank and link back to the person giving you the award
2. Share seven things about yourself
3. Select 10-15 blogs who you think deserve this award
4. Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award

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1) Opposite of Anatoli, I am a total Apple fanboy.  I use a Macbook pro for my personal computer. My wife uses a Macbook.  We use a Mac Mini for our home theater (and got rid of cable over a year ago!).  We have a Time Capsule as our wireless router/automatic backup device.  2 iPads, 2 iPhone 4s, and countless little gadgets.  I'm a relatively new convert to Apple (just over 2 years now), and there's no zealot like a convert!

2) Despite #1, I am a programmer/analyst/consultant, and thus spend the majority of my professional time in a Windows environment.  Although I love OSX, I have to give it to Microsoft- Windows 7 is really quite nice.

3) Not a day of my life goes by where I don't quote either Aliens or The Big Lebowski.  I don't trust people who dislike either of these movies... but that's just like, my opinion, man.

4) One of my pet peeves is when people mispronounces "Reece's Pieces".  They're pieces that belong to Reece.  Not "Ree Sees Pee Sees".

5) I prefer staycations over vacations.  I saved a ton of money to buy, and put a lot of time into my house.  I do that because I love it.  I like spending time in my own house.  This makes me a crotchety old man and a homebody.

6) I prefer Star Trek to Star Wars. 


7) When Wendy's introduced their dollar menu, I got very fat on delicious jr. bacon cheeseburgers.  I then lost 65 pounds to make up for it.  I am now smaller than I was in High school.  It gives me a new appreciation for trying to eat right- it's tough work!

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There's no way I can nominate 10-15 blogs- though I follow quite a few, I think a good number of them have already received it.  Here goes:

Mik's Minis - All kinds of different stuff, and always a good read.  Plus, he's an awesome dude!
Model Dads - They make the prettiest battle reports I've ever seen.
World of Tanks Skins - If you aren't playing this game, fix that.  If you aren't using these skins, fix that too!
Lead, Paint, and the General - Fellow WWPDer and good buddy Joe's blog.  His painting updates are always gold!

Thanks again, Anatoli!

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Two Flames of War Missions And a Big Thank You

First of all- seriously, THANK YOU to everyone who donated to Lydia's 'Free to Breathe' run to raise money to support Lung Cancer research. The outpouring of generosity was truly moving. With your help, Lydia raised $1200! It means so much to our family.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming- I have added to the Downloads Page two new missions. The first, Dust Up is included in the New Zealand Flames of War Nationals player pack. The second, The Outpost (Revised) is a major re-working of my previous mission of the same name.

Please give both missions a shot, and let us know what you think!

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Free to Breathe 5k- Consider a Donation

This post is off topic, but important to our family.

My wife Lydia has, within the past year, developed a love for running. She's been to many races now, and trains religiously. A few months ago, her wonderful Aunt Doreen sadly passed away from Lung Cancer, and it was a trying experience for her whole family. Now, Lydia is running a 5k that is a fundraising event for Lung Cancer Research. She's reached her modest fundraising goal of $100, but I'd really like to show her some support. WWPD doesn't ask for much, and I make it a point to not try to push things on our subscribers and listeners- but I ask that if you at all enjoy our blog and/or our podcast, that you consider a small donation for her efforts. It's something my immediate family holds near and dear, and so I hope my extended gaming family would be willing to embrace it as well!

If you'd like to make a donation to Lydia's efforts, you can visit this link: http://participate.freetobreathe.org/site/TR/RunWalk/General?px=1311342&pg=personal&fr_id=1370.

The race is this Saturday. Thanks to everyone in advance!

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The Plastic Soldier Company T-34s WIP

The Plastic Soldier Company were kind enough to send us 10 of their new(ish) plastic T-34s for review.  We are going to do a full review in the next episode of the Podcast, but I couldn't wait to show some WIP pictures!  I decided to use all 10 for a mid war SS captured panzerkompanie.  For those of you who do not know, I am a huge fan of captured panzers!  After some digging for paint schemes, I decided I didn't want to go with dunkelgelb, and instead settled on panzer grey.  I found some pictures of T-34s in use by the SS Totenkopf in gy, and decided that's where I would start.

Please realize these are WIP photos (which I don't often post), and as such the vehicles are missing insignia, weathering, and general touch ups!

And on an unrelated note, I took my first sick day today when I woke with a dreadful sinus infection.  I've basically been down and out all day, and generally pretty bummed.  I absolutely *hate* taking sick days- I feel worthless!  To cheer me up, my wife picked me up some Star Trek Glasses, and giggled as she gave them to me.  At least she is okay with marrying a nerd!  To further cheer me up she also picked me up a new bottle of scotch (probably better wait to try it till I am not taking copious amounts of medicine) AND my latest issue of Wargames Illustrated came in!  All in all, not a terrible sick day.

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Working on the blog's usability some

This dog picture has nothing to do with the content of this post.

Over the next few days you will see some slight changes to the blog's layout.  I've added a "posts index" to the navigation along the top to make finding some specific articles easier.  This is in addition to the battle report index (which is still the bread and butter of this blog), and the Podcast Index (which has been an absolute blast to do here lately!).

I'll be cleaning up the navigation column on the right as well, making it a little more useful and less clunky. I toyed with the idea of widening the right hand column at the expense of the "content" column, but ultimately since battle reports are still the backbone of this site, I greatly prefer the wide format to make sure the pictures are easily viewable in all their glory.  I *really* hate having to click on images to enlarge them or, even worse, the "light box" style.  Guh!  Form follows function around here I reckon.

I've been playing way too much Fallout 3.  Amazing game.  I have found time to get in a little bit of painting, but not a whole lot- I'll post pics soon!

Thanks again to everyone who follows this blog.  Please have a look at the post index and see if there's any neat articles you may have missed!  Just 4 followers away from breaching 100- that will be a very exciting moment for me!  I'll have to think of something special to celebrate the occasion with the readers :)  Again, thank you all for continuing to follow WWPD- it keeps me going!

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2010 year in review

Hey, everyone else is doing it!

I'll just touch on some highlights looking back at my posts throughout the year, but first let me say thank you to all our new followers and thank you to everyone who helps me out here at WWPD- Luke, Joe, Sean, Brian, Dirty Jon, Max, Pete, and my wife Lydia. It's been a ton of fun and I'm looking forward to 2011! Here's some highlights of my 2010 in roughly chronological order.

Painted Italians- The Italians I got for Christmas 2009 got all painted this year. They've been a ton of fun to play, and I've been largely successful with them. I can't wait for Early War and see what kind of goodies (crap) they get!

New House- My wife and I bought a house, and that means new game room! It's been great having our own place. The dogs have a nice big yard to do their business, and I can be as loud as I want! While talking about personal stuff, I graduated from VCU finally. I had an Associate's degree in Information Systems Technology, but frankly, I was not satisfied. So I went back to VCU and got my Bachelor's in Computer Science. Now I'm toying with the idea of getting a Master's Degree, but that will significantly detract from my gaming so we'll have to see.

Started and Failed 3 campaigns- This is a big disappointment for me. Over the course of the year I started a Firestorm Bagration campaign, a Normandy campaign, and a N00b campaign in North Africa. Bagration fizzled out quickly, Normandy made some progress but ultimately petered out. The n00b campaign didn't come to completion, but it did serve a purpose of getting some new guys more acquainted with FoW.

Mamayev Kurgan is now my arch nemesis- I played in the MD Gamer's excellent Stalingrad campaign where I was tasked with taking the Kurgan. A few weeks ago I again battled over the Kurgan in a tournament where my army failed to achieve victory for a second time! I now have a grudge against that damn hill.

Scratched my cowboy itch- That sounds gross. Anyways, Sean and I played some Legends of the Old West. It's fun and all, but not crunchy enough to really hold my attention. I'm sure we'll pick it up at some point.

Fully Thrusted- As in- played Full Thrust. I really like this game. I really need to get more time in my space ships!

Got in several tournaments and did fairly well

• 1st place in Bethlehem PA's North Africa Tournament running DAK panzerpioneers.
• Got trashed at the Fall In Doubles Early War tournament running French and British with Sean
• 2nd place in Fayetteville's Late War doubles tournament running German pioneers and grenadiers with Sean (also won best painted)
• 2nd place at the DE Late War 1000 point tournament running German Luftwaffe

Podcasting!- And finally, we recorded 10 episodes of the Podcast. It's evolved a lot in those 10 episodes, but I think it's reaching a very nice format that we're having a blast with!

Thanks for sticking with me through 2010, see you all in 2011!

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A Very WWPD Christmas!

First- I'd just like to point out that this is the 200th post on WWPD!  Coming up on 2 years.

So this morning my wife and I spent Christmas all by ourselves- and it ruled!  I didn't ask for a whole lot of stuff relating to miniature games since I have a whole pile of stuff to get through, but I did get some pretty cool stuff!

Flames of War River Set

Normandy Battlefield in a Box

 

 

PanzerTales illustrated book.  Very "cute" in an awesome way!

This is going to keep me from painting for a few weeks

Adult Snackage

I got plenty of other awesome stuff!  But I am mostly just happy to be in my own house with my beautiful wife in good health.  Life is great!
Merry Christmas or whatever Holiday you celebrate this season!

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2010- good year!

I've been really busy with work and whatnot for the end of the year, and thus the blog hasn't been updated quite as frequently- but things are great here!  We're planning one last Podcast episode for the end of the year- it will be light on specifics, and heavy on "chatter".  I'm really trying to get 4 guys in the studio to just shoot the breeze and talk about the best (and worst) highlights from 2010.  We have big plans for 2011- so stick around!

And now, your moment of Zen- Pete rockin' his brand new WWPD Shirt!

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Get your official WWPD T-Shirts!

Sean and I sporting the new shirts

My brother in law recently designed some very cool logos for some T-Shirts.  He also designed all of the good graphics on this site (while the crappy ones were done by me :P )  Click here to check out the store!


I did a lot of research and soul searching debating HOW I wanted to present T-Shirts to the world and came up with these criteria:
1) The T Shirts had to be made to order.  I couldn't afford a massive up-front order, and especially not if i wanted to offer several designs in several sizes and several colors.
2) I wanted them to be high quality.  Not crappy transfers or made of thin material.  And, being a gamer, I didn't want light colored shirts.
3) I wanted to keep the price as low as possible while meeting the first two criteria.


Naturally, it's nearly impossible to get high quality, nicely printed, dark colored shirts for dirt cheap.  So I had to compromise- these shirts aren't exactly bargain basement prices, but I do think they're fairly reasonable.  Also you should know that I make next to nothing on them- truly a negligible amount.


And so, before I allowed these to be sold, I ordered a whole mess of them to give them my approval.  I have to say- they are quite nice.  High quality printing, very nice T-shirt material (nice and heavy weight).  Plus, I have a variety of available colors and cuts.  So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce the super sexy line of WWPD Shirts:

WWPD Roundel Design.  15 Color Options

Website logo.  15 Color Options.

WWPD Roundel Girl Tee.  3 Color Options.

There's also 2 long sleeve designs bearing the same logos.

You can get to the store by clicking on the link to the right!

AND for the rest of the season, there are some coupon codes to save some cash:

Coupon Codes:
FALL2010 $5 off subtotal of $25+
HARVEST2010 $10 off subtotal of $50+
AUTUMN2010 $20 off subtotal of $100+

Thanks!

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Indierockclimber, Yellow Jacket Hunter part II.

This morning I woke up to a hilarious e-mail. But first! A little background.



For those of you who don't remember, a few weeks back I suited up to slay some yellow jackets. My get up was so ridiculous that my wife had to take a picture and couldn't stop laughing. Here's my original post.

Well my wife is an "internet enthusiast" perusing social news sites like Reddit, and she posted the picture there where it got wildly popular.

Whilst it was wildly popular, some random guy from reddit sent her a message and asked permission to paint the photograph. We laughed about it and of course said yes, not really expecting to see anything come of it. But today, that changed.

Reddit user slartibartfas sent us this:



Way too awesome!

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WWPD News: Bell of Lost Souls, PodCasting, "FOWdy K" documents

Sean and Joe paint while recording episode 0

Ahoy mateys! Just a little bumper update here. So far we've gotten good feedback from the Podcast. We'll iron out some technical issues before the next one- but we still need some theme music! If there's a particular topic you would like to hear us discuss, sound off here and let me know.

My second article has been posted to Bell of Lost Souls: A discussion of Kradschutzen. The comments pretty much devolve into calling me out on not using umlauts, but I think there's some good information to be gleaned from the article nonetheless.

Lastly, Tom has cleaned up his documents for our "FOWdy K" Epic -> Flames of War General Rules, and I have posted them to the downloads page.

I am wrapping up the last of my French armor (I'll have around 5000 points of French armor in the bag before the infantry gets to my doorstep!). I'll post pics when I finish them up.

How's everyone doing this week? What's new in hobbyland?

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