Everything that is purchased must converge

I came home Friday evening and found my mailbox full of joy. It was a near-perfect convergence of things I'd ordered at various times all coming in at the same point. Only one item of my outstanding deliveries was missing and it arrived today.

This week's haul:

Collateral Damage

My last figure order to Timeline/Hoka Hey was to get some of the civilians from their Border Reivers range. This is the last order of minis for the Enfilade! game I'm running as part of The Irish Project. The game will be The Battle of the Ford of the Biscuits, which was an attack on an English column headed to Enniskillen. The column contained wagons of supplies as well as a cluster of civilians/camp followers. In the battle, the civilians broke and ran as the English force fell apart. Several extricated themselves with the soldiers, but a number fared not so well. War in 16th c. Ireland was cruel. I figure they'll be a good distraction for the Irish and I'll need to make up some scenario rules for them. They'll be used in the game as "Clubmen" according to The Pikeman's Lament rules. Pitiful, but not quite helpless.

Wagons Ho! (Collateral Damage part deux)

I ordered three wagons from Irregular Miniatures. They're quite nice. They come in several pieces, so I'll be in confession soon seeking absolution for my rage and foul language as I fail repeatedly to assemble them. Remember kids: Instant glue isn't.

Both the wagons and the wee metal civvies arrived from the UK within two weeks.

Wretched Hovels

While shopping around for buildings suitable for the Celtic fringe—terrain for The Irish Project games—I found some Hudson and Allan buildings for sale at the Michigan Toy Soldier Company. Those arrived within a week.

They're actually Scottish crofters' cottages, but I think they'll do for ramshackle Irish farmhouses ca. 1594. I don't think there were any farms or such in the area where The Battle of the Ford of the Biscuits took place, but I'll have the two buildings out there anyway. It's a skirmish game, gotta break up the field somehow—and I don't know for certain that there wasn't a wretched groveling peasant family or two eking out a living from the rocky soil.

The Fruits of Promise Breaking

The last item in the convergence was the completion of some out of stock items from an order I made to The War Store earlier. As I mentioned in January, my New Years' resolution of not buying any minis for new projects has been compromised. In that post I said I wouldn't buy any AWI minis until after the Enfilade! convention in May.

Oops.

I ordered soon after I posted that. I now have several boxes of Perry Miniatures AWI. I'm focusing on 'Mericans right now (yes, Brits and Loyalists traitors later). I'm interested in gaming the Southern campaigns when Rebels and Patriots come out next year, so a lot of my figures are militia, on foot and mounted. I've got some riflemen, too. That was my first order, which was only partially fulfilled while The War Store awaited restock des frères Perry.

Soon after receiving the partial shipment of the first order, I ordered more. More militia plus Lee's Legion foot and mounted.

I also ordered some Chessex dice from the War Store. I realized that for six players in a convention game of The Pikeman's Lament, I'll need 72 dice. So, I got two blocks of the small 12mm D6s, all ivory white.

I also picked up a block at The Game Matrix in Tacoma on Saturday, so now I have 108 12mm ivory-colored dice. That's enough to be getting on with. I probably could have cobbled together six sets of 12 D6s from the existing dice hoard chez moi, but buying dice for me is like buying shoes was for Imelda Marcos. Always gotta have more. Always gotta have the right ones for the occasion.

More bones to roll

Speaking of dice, I ordered more bone dice (true bone, not bone-colored) from Quartermaster Stores in Wolverhampton in the UK. These took some time because they were waiting on shipment from their supplier. But they arrived just a few days ago (a pre-convergence convergence). I had ordered some of them before, but the ones that arrived in the last order are considerably different, as in much nicer.

The bone is whiter and the pips are bigger and better defined. They aren't perfect cubes in any sense, but they're more regular in size shape than my beloved Viking bone dice.

I figure these new bone dice will be perfect for 17th-19th c. games like The Pikeman's Lament, Rebels and Patriots, etc. There was one flaw, however.

That's the only one I noticed. If I were shooting craps with that in the Old West, I might get hanged.