After a lot of long discussions Mrs. Rabbitman and I decided to end our part in J&M Miniatures.
We had a lot of fun doing it together and serving our customers from all over the world. We certainly learned a lot and wish Martin every success as he takes the J&M banner forward.
But some things had to change, so it was time to call it quits.
The dining room is pretty spacious now. And with the packing material gone from the basement I probably have room for a second game table!
Showing posts with label JM Miniatures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JM Miniatures. Show all posts
Friday, May 29, 2015
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Stomping Through Woods on a Snowy Morning
Last weekend was a fun but tiring one on my cadet corps' annual trekking FTX (Field Training Exercise); a full weekend of trail hiking and geocaching, plus snow shoeing as a bonus (we haven't been out on snow shoes in quite a few years). Cold and snowy, but the threatened freezing rain held off until I was half way home, so no mud marching. Which isn't fun, which is why we now schedule the FTX for earlier in the year, when it's colder.
There's me on the right, rocking the old skool OD green parka. After the picture I took the snow shoes the officer cadet is sporting out for a spin through the woods and got myself well off the map into parts of the area I'd never been too. Oddly enough it all looked the same (trees and snow), which is probably how I missed my turning buried in the snow.
I know, insert jokes about LTs and maps here.
I claimed it was a deep insertion LRRP.
But I did catch some cadets also about to go off map onto roads not taken and undiscovered countries, and got them turned about, because I was hungry and wanted to get back for a lunch of tasty MREs. I think I might have had the ravioli with meat sauce, which isn't that bad for something preserved in a bag for several years and reheated in hot water.
But the cadets all had fun and Chris and I didn't have to really lose our cool with anyone all weekend, which was quite pleasing.
On the Friday the new rules by Sam Mustafa, Blucher, launched and had sold out by the time I woke up from midnight shift, so before heading off with the cadets I had to make a quick reorder and pay the first invoice before I'd even gotten the boxes.
So add all that to some overtime last week and I haven't done any painting at all. I glued some stowage on the Husky recovery vehicle though.
The Mad Padre and I had hoped to wedge in a game this Sunday between Valentine's Day and the Family Day holiday, but he's neck deep in his thesis so I haven't heard from him. Perhaps a snowy Sunday afternoon painting is in order this weekend.
There's me on the right, rocking the old skool OD green parka. After the picture I took the snow shoes the officer cadet is sporting out for a spin through the woods and got myself well off the map into parts of the area I'd never been too. Oddly enough it all looked the same (trees and snow), which is probably how I missed my turning buried in the snow.
I know, insert jokes about LTs and maps here.
I claimed it was a deep insertion LRRP.
But I did catch some cadets also about to go off map onto roads not taken and undiscovered countries, and got them turned about, because I was hungry and wanted to get back for a lunch of tasty MREs. I think I might have had the ravioli with meat sauce, which isn't that bad for something preserved in a bag for several years and reheated in hot water.
But the cadets all had fun and Chris and I didn't have to really lose our cool with anyone all weekend, which was quite pleasing.
On the Friday the new rules by Sam Mustafa, Blucher, launched and had sold out by the time I woke up from midnight shift, so before heading off with the cadets I had to make a quick reorder and pay the first invoice before I'd even gotten the boxes.
The Mad Padre and I had hoped to wedge in a game this Sunday between Valentine's Day and the Family Day holiday, but he's neck deep in his thesis so I haven't heard from him. Perhaps a snowy Sunday afternoon painting is in order this weekend.
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Council Fires
With a bit of trial and adventure I made it to another small convention yesterday as Council Fires made another attempt at rebirth. This convention used to be a staple in the autumn for many years, then it's organizer stopped doing it. A decent attempt to resurrect it was made two years ago and then there was a year off. This year's effort was pretty modest, another Legion hall and minimal pre-show promotion or advertising.
Unfortunately I had to work the night before, getting home at 0500 to shower and get some sleep before Martin was banging on the door at 0700 to load the van with stock. Then it was back to bed, planning to get up around 1100 and see how I felt about driving to the show, but Wierdy-Beardy called at 0930. Quick breakfast and he picked me up at 1000 to make the 45 minute-hourish drive to Cambridge.
"Do you know where we're going?" I ask in all innocence.
"I have a vague idea" he says.
Now Cambridge is composed of three smaller villages (Hespler, Galt and Preston) that all grew together, so there are in fact THREE Legion halls. Plus my driver was remembering the venue from two years ago, which was in fact the Newfoundland Club.
Turns out we drove within a couple of blocks of the venue when we first arrived in town, but had to circumnavigate all of Cambridge for an hour visiting the other two Legion halls first.
But we did eventually arrive around 1300 hours to find about half a dozen very nice miniatures games in full swing. Some X-Wing, a 28mm WW2 using Chain of Command, a big 28mm Napoleonic battle (Shako II), a couple of 20mm Vietnam games of the Battle of Ia Drang Valley (LZ X-Ray and the Lost Platoon) put on by RAFM using their Charlie Company rules and some 10 or maybe 15mm SF armour. A VSF game using In Her Majesties Name was being set up. I started taking pictures and my battery died. There are more pictures of the IHMN game over on the Lead Adventure Forum here. Unfortunately the penguin in the pith helmet (sounds like a Professor Elemental song doesn't it?) eluded photography.
While Wierdy-Beardy played in a second 28mm Napoleonic game, I spent all my afternoon talking with folks and got this sweet deal from the Crossed Swords multi-convention long going out of business sale. A nice, if somewhat shopworn, 28mm resin Norman church for only $10.00!
I'm confident the previous attempt to paint it will be easy to cover up.
Being more centrally located Council Fires drew a slightly bigger crowd than KEGSCON. Martin was pleased with the sales.
Unfortunately I had to work the night before, getting home at 0500 to shower and get some sleep before Martin was banging on the door at 0700 to load the van with stock. Then it was back to bed, planning to get up around 1100 and see how I felt about driving to the show, but Wierdy-Beardy called at 0930. Quick breakfast and he picked me up at 1000 to make the 45 minute-hourish drive to Cambridge.
"Do you know where we're going?" I ask in all innocence.
"I have a vague idea" he says.
Now Cambridge is composed of three smaller villages (Hespler, Galt and Preston) that all grew together, so there are in fact THREE Legion halls. Plus my driver was remembering the venue from two years ago, which was in fact the Newfoundland Club.
Turns out we drove within a couple of blocks of the venue when we first arrived in town, but had to circumnavigate all of Cambridge for an hour visiting the other two Legion halls first.
But we did eventually arrive around 1300 hours to find about half a dozen very nice miniatures games in full swing. Some X-Wing, a 28mm WW2 using Chain of Command, a big 28mm Napoleonic battle (Shako II), a couple of 20mm Vietnam games of the Battle of Ia Drang Valley (LZ X-Ray and the Lost Platoon) put on by RAFM using their Charlie Company rules and some 10 or maybe 15mm SF armour. A VSF game using In Her Majesties Name was being set up. I started taking pictures and my battery died. There are more pictures of the IHMN game over on the Lead Adventure Forum here. Unfortunately the penguin in the pith helmet (sounds like a Professor Elemental song doesn't it?) eluded photography.
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| Council Fires |
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| LZ X-ray |
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| Some big Napoleonic game |
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| Victorian SF |
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| New addition to my Medieval village |
Being more centrally located Council Fires drew a slightly bigger crowd than KEGSCON. Martin was pleased with the sales.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Rabbitman's Grand Day Out
Yesterday was supposed to be a day of training seminars for our 5th year cadets. But Detachment kindly scheduled something else that day, so our plans got bumped. This meant I was now free to go to KEGSCON. This is a one day gaming convention held in the Chatham Legion hall, hosted by the Kent-Essex Gaming Society (KEGS), a pretty active bunch of splendid chaps who I think are scattered from London to Windsor.
This is KEGSCON's second year, and they're still trying to get some traction. It was a two hour trek for Wierdy-Beardy and I from Stratford, so Pasha Dan and the Mad Padre had an even longer drive. But four fellows came from Toronto and put on a spiffing game, of which I shall speak more anon.
Friday, Mrs. Rabbitman and I packed up the store.
Wracking my brains to try and predict what would sell, what would be a waste of space, and what we should bring anyway just so folks know we have it. Fortunately Martin's van is pretty roomy.
Martin was coming with his van to take everything down Friday night and set up bright and early. He would run the booth and I could spell him for breaks (which he never needed) but otherwise I was off to have fun.
And fun was had.
Mikey and I arrived around 10, so the morning games had started. But the Wings of War guy didn't have players, so we jumped right in, flying an assortment of biplanes to try and shoot down a pair of Gotha bombers.
This was my first time trying the popular WW1 air game. I quite enjoyed myself. A lot of the technical detail is nicely buried in the unique maneuver decks for each aircraft. Saves a lot of fussing with tracking airspeeds and such.
Of course shooting down the lumbering brutes wasn't as easy as you'd think. Flying into some German 'Archie' and catching fire didn't help either. Both bombers got off the table edge, although one only had ONE damage point left!
Then after some more schmoozing with people and lunch (beer, burger and chips), I got into a game of FUBAR set in Afghanistan run by four young fellows from Toronto showing the colours for The Most Glorious Order of the Magpie (formerly known as the Toronto Historical Gaming Society). A team of US Spec Ops fellows have to search a village and rescue two downed pilots.
Fun game with lots of tense decisions, some spectacularly bad die rolling (fortunately it was on both sides!) and beautiful toys. Those Spec Ops guys may have some great game stats but when somebody goes down, well now you're seriously handicapped. I'm starting to like FUBAR.
Next I joined the guys in some X-Wing. The Mad Padre let me take over one of his Y-Wings. I hadn't played this popular game yet either, so it was fun to get a taste of it. The Padre and I shot down the big shuttle, but I got blown up by it's escort and the Padre bugged out with only one damage point left!
I didn't get many pictures of the other games though. There was also some Flames of War and a very pretty Dux Britanniarum game.
After dinner (most of us had the fish and chips special and we all sat around a big game table to eat together) it was a massive, silly, last man standing wild west shoot out.
Keith and Jason put all of their Wild West buildings and terrain out. Everyone got a figure and the mayhem began. Alliances were formed and as quickly betrayed. I took a lot of wounds very quickly which resulted in me spending most of the game bleeding in a house. When I finally staggered forth I had a misfire and killed myself off with a bullet in the leg!
I did take some shots of the interiors of the lovely 4Ground Dead Man's Hand buildings with some furniture in them.
I mentioned the furniture to the players around me. "Was that a shameless plug?" "It was a plug," I replied. "There was nothing shameless about it."
This is KEGSCON's second year, and they're still trying to get some traction. It was a two hour trek for Wierdy-Beardy and I from Stratford, so Pasha Dan and the Mad Padre had an even longer drive. But four fellows came from Toronto and put on a spiffing game, of which I shall speak more anon.
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| So that's what the wall looks like |
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| Warlord horse and musket and Perry shelf pretty empty |
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| PSC shelf picked clean too |
And fun was had.
Mikey and I arrived around 10, so the morning games had started. But the Wings of War guy didn't have players, so we jumped right in, flying an assortment of biplanes to try and shoot down a pair of Gotha bombers.
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| Don't you just love the WW1 camo patterns? |
Then after some more schmoozing with people and lunch (beer, burger and chips), I got into a game of FUBAR set in Afghanistan run by four young fellows from Toronto showing the colours for The Most Glorious Order of the Magpie (formerly known as the Toronto Historical Gaming Society). A team of US Spec Ops fellows have to search a village and rescue two downed pilots.
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| Lovely 28mm Empress figures |
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| Very nice Miniature Building Authority buildings |
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| Entering the village |
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| Technical shows up |
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| Getting bogged down |
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| Things going pear shaped. We've got two operators down in the garage, trying to rescue the 2nd pilot. Another fireteam is rushing up to rescue all three. |
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| Terry Taliban tries to outflank us |
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| Can we lay more smoke? Trying to get out of Dodge. |
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| Mission accomplished! |
Next I joined the guys in some X-Wing. The Mad Padre let me take over one of his Y-Wings. I hadn't played this popular game yet either, so it was fun to get a taste of it. The Padre and I shot down the big shuttle, but I got blown up by it's escort and the Padre bugged out with only one damage point left!
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| Pig Wars |
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| 28mm Bolt Action |
Keith and Jason put all of their Wild West buildings and terrain out. Everyone got a figure and the mayhem began. Alliances were formed and as quickly betrayed. I took a lot of wounds very quickly which resulted in me spending most of the game bleeding in a house. When I finally staggered forth I had a misfire and killed myself off with a bullet in the leg!
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| Betrayal! |
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| That's me with all the wound markers by my base. |
So after all that, Mikey and I staggered home in a rainstorm, trying to rehydrate and fend off the too much gabbing, too much laughing, too much having fun and eating bad food headaches that always get me at these things. Martin and Stephen had already packed up the store and left, so I got home to a pile of totes in the living room.
Mrs. Rabbitman and I are spending our Sunday morning having a lot of tea and taking stock, putting everything back on the shelves and seeing what sold and what didn't. For a small crowd, sales were actually not that bad.
Monday, March 24, 2014
Still Hot After 20 Years, Hotlead 2014
Our 20th Hotlead has come and gone. Mrs. Rabbitman is still counting money and crunching numbers but my Mk. I eyeball tells me it was dazzlingly successful. More games on Friday night than ever before, with all of them running, so I think more gamers too. Sunday morning was also quite full and busy with 6 or 7 games and lots of people playing in them, plus the DBA tournament. This tells me more folks came and stayed for the full weekend, unlike the last couple of years when economic conditions caused fewer full weekend passes. Previous years, Sunday has been pretty quiet; sometimes with just the VSF game and folks making last purchases and saying their good byes. This year it was pretty busy, and J&M Miniatures was making sales right up to the boxes being taken out to Martin's van!
The Bring and Buy also broke some records, raising $1800 for charity, which means the team did an astounding $18000 dollars in sales in 8 hours! Usually we only bring in a thousand, plus or minus a hundred or two (last year it was down with only $830 raised). They certainly earned their beer that evening. I even sold a gratifying amount of stuff to finance my Samurai project. Plus none of the left over stuff (there are always abandoned B&B items that the owner doesn't want to take home) came back with me like in previous years. Steve just got folks to make him a deal and even gave some of it away.
But on to the pictures. Friday night:
On Saturday I met an Italian gamer who is at a local university for some graduate studies. He thought we were larger and nicer than the Milan game convention. So we're an international hit now, I guess. Plus we hooked him up with some gamers in the area he is residing in so he can do some gaming while he's in Canada. Hotlead, the friendly convention.
More pictures:
Also in the basement we had some smaller meeting rooms with 5 tables running "Warhammer" and "Warhammer 40K" pick up games and a another table where they could get some painting and modelling coaching. This was an unexpected expansion arranged by the fellow who co-ordinates the local "Warhammer" crowd, but it seems to have worked well.
The Bring and Buy also broke some records, raising $1800 for charity, which means the team did an astounding $18000 dollars in sales in 8 hours! Usually we only bring in a thousand, plus or minus a hundred or two (last year it was down with only $830 raised). They certainly earned their beer that evening. I even sold a gratifying amount of stuff to finance my Samurai project. Plus none of the left over stuff (there are always abandoned B&B items that the owner doesn't want to take home) came back with me like in previous years. Steve just got folks to make him a deal and even gave some of it away.
But on to the pictures. Friday night:
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| Setting up the J&M booth Friday night. |
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| Dan's "Mongols with Mausers" '30s Pulp skirmish game. |
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| Which requires silly hats, bad accents and lots of laughs |
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| close up of "Mongols with Mausers" |
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| "Flames of War" Grosbeek Heights Sept. 1944, which ran in three time slots |
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| "Dux Britannarium" which proved quite popular all weekend. |
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| Monsters and giant robots trash a city. Also popular all weekend. |
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| First of many Napoleonic games. |
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| First of many 28mm WW2 skirmish games too. |
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| First action in a "Wings of War" campaign that went on until Saturday night. |
More pictures:
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| New volunteers at the Bring & Buy |
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| Saturday morning crowd starts to swell |
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| 15mm Fort Erie in the War of 1812 |
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| 15mm gunboat for the War of 1812 |
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| A 20mm WW2 game gets going |
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| Battle of Liebertwolkwitz in 28mm, yes masses of 28mm cavalry thundering around |
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| More Lieberywolkwitz |
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| Another 28mm Napoleonic battle, |
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| The Battle of Magnesia in 28mm |
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| Dreadnoughts in the water |
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| Dreadnoughts in the air, "Leviathans" had players all day. |
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| 1/72 scale Baltic Crusades |
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| Air war over the Pacific |
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| More Dux |
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| "Blackwater Gulch" a later version had zombies and demons running around too... |
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| "Malifaux" |
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| 28mm French Indochina |
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| This looks like more of the Battle of Magnesia |
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| A glimpse of the scrum around the Bring and Buy. Red shirts hard at work (or creaming off the good stuff first?) |
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| A rather pretty 20mm Canadian Recce Sqdn |
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| This year we had some "Axis & Allies" minis games. One session each of air, naval and land. They seemed popular. |
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| A quite pretty 28mm D-Day game using "Bolt Action". We talked the GMs into running it a third time after dinner and filled it with Hotlead staffers, who got very loud.... |
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| Big German bunker. The brass ring represents smoke... |
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| View from the Landing craft |
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| The rather nicely done town of Liebertwolkwitz |
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| More Liebertwolkwitz in the afternoon |
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| The British storm Fort Erie |
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| "Axis & Allies" in the air |
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| 1/72nd scale American War of Independance |
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| Another view of the AWI game |
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| 15mm Battle of Ipsos using DBM. Look at all the elephants! |
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| more of Ipsos |
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| 6mm WW2 Normandy game "Advance to Falaise" |
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| More monsters and giant robots |
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| ACW naval. The Battle of Mobile. |
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| Another 28mm Napoleonic battle. Kulm. |
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| Another view of the Battle of Kulm |
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| War of 1812, Battle of Blandensburg |
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| Saturday night crowd, still pretty busy... |
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| Yet more "Dux" |
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| Zombies |
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| Unwinding with the gang over some beers and Bolt Action. Told you we got loud... |
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| I'm not sure what they're celebrating, maybe getting off the landing craft? |
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| 28mm War of 1812, Battle of Longwoods with "Black Powder" |
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| 1/72nd scale Biblicals |
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| Allies get off the beach |
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| An unscheduled 28mm ECW assault on a fort. |
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| Nice fort |
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| Space naval from the 'Honor Harrington' universe |
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| 15mm Napoleonics. Battle of Montereau 1814 |
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| 6mm SF, OGRE minis |
Sunday morning, seven games and good crowd for a Sunday:
But if I've added things up right we had the 5 DBA tournaments, the GW pick up game son Saturday and 77 open participation games throughout the weekend! Last year we only had a few over 50. So that's what, a 50% increase?
I didn't buy much. I picked up a Battlefront Centurion tank from their Vietnam range for $5.00 because I have a fondness for the venerable Centurion.
Less stress this year. Although there was a comedy of errors involving my car keys Sat morning which caused me some panic for a bit. Delegating the program and sign up sheets was a huge load off. The guys (and gals now) are doing a stellar job with the Bring and Buy. Mrs. Rabbitman and I thought for next year we'd get them a printing calculator to help with the cash out, when everyone's eyes are spinning and simple addition isn't so simple any more. I'll need help with the event coordinating next year too, as March 2015 threatens to be rather busy for Lt. Rabbitman as he attempts to get his Training Officers Course done (4th time I hope will be the charm...).
Others have posted more pics to the Hotlead Facebook page and AARs are starting to appear on blogs too.
I've set the date for next year: 27-29 March 2015. Mark your calendars now.
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| The crowd Sunday morning, still pretty good |
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| VSF Bring and Battle, it's become a hit with the kids |
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| The "Pinkilicious" takes down a Martian flier |
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| Flashpoint Krplakistan |
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| More "Bolt Action" action |
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| An unscheduled game of "X-Wing" |
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| An unscheduled game of "Bolt Action" |
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| Some "Full Thrust" |
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| The J&M booth, the piles are smaller now... |
But if I've added things up right we had the 5 DBA tournaments, the GW pick up game son Saturday and 77 open participation games throughout the weekend! Last year we only had a few over 50. So that's what, a 50% increase?
I didn't buy much. I picked up a Battlefront Centurion tank from their Vietnam range for $5.00 because I have a fondness for the venerable Centurion.
Less stress this year. Although there was a comedy of errors involving my car keys Sat morning which caused me some panic for a bit. Delegating the program and sign up sheets was a huge load off. The guys (and gals now) are doing a stellar job with the Bring and Buy. Mrs. Rabbitman and I thought for next year we'd get them a printing calculator to help with the cash out, when everyone's eyes are spinning and simple addition isn't so simple any more. I'll need help with the event coordinating next year too, as March 2015 threatens to be rather busy for Lt. Rabbitman as he attempts to get his Training Officers Course done (4th time I hope will be the charm...).
Others have posted more pics to the Hotlead Facebook page and AARs are starting to appear on blogs too.
I've set the date for next year: 27-29 March 2015. Mark your calendars now.
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