About Me

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My name is Gavin McClements. I am a wargamer and family man, living in Los Gatos, which is a suburb of San Jose, CA. Building terrain is one of my favorite aspects of the wargaming hobby - in fact, lately I've become more interested in making my battlefields "pop" than in actually playing.

Monday, March 21, 2016

10mm Warmaster Dark Elf Hydra comparrisions with proxies

I got my hands on some Dark Elves for Warmaster recently. Wanting another hydra, but not wanting to pay "real hydra" prices, I purchased http://ironwindmetals.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=7988 to see if it'd work. After all, its a 25mm item!

Well...hmm. It's a bit small :P


makes me wonder if I shouldnt have tried http://ironwindmetals.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=8130:
And I REALLY bet http://www.15mm.co.uk/products/hot35-giant-hydra would work:
Still, I'm really only out $7 :)

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Card Manipulation and Flourishes

This is more of a note to myself, since I never seem to remember what I've seen :)

I love cards. I rarely play poker-style games, but I collect decks of cards anyway.

I love the Cardicians (NOT the Kardashians!) and Thirdway Industries for cards...and so I want to have some flourishes ready for when I actually use them! Not tricks, per se, but ways of handling decks of cards that are fun. I did love walking around my dorm with a deck of cards that I constantly shuffled, back when I was in school...

The Swing Cut

The Swivel Cut

The Charlier Cut - one I  don't tend to use cause I have small hands :)

Disturb Reality also have some other fun videos worth perusing.

A GIANT playlist of card flourishes here!

A one-handed shuffle? I want!

Im never super excited about "First videos", but this kid has a different take on some of the Disturb Reality tricks.

DECK REVIEWS:
As mentioned, I love custom decks. Scrambled Decks has a whole channel devoted to such reviews.

Here is a recommend order to learn:
If you're just starting, just work on the basics: Charlier Cut, Revolution Cut, and Scissor Cut.

Feel ambitious? Muse Cut, Teachwrap, Knacky Hackey Sackey



What to play with all the decks of custom cards I own? Tien-Len (13), of course!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ti%E1%BA%BFn_l%C3%AAn
http://foicica.com/thirteen/01_Rules.html
http://www.howtoplaystuff.com/how-to-play-13/

Saturday, January 2, 2016

Midlam Miniatures and a Blast from the Past

I've been following a fun blog for some time now - The Blog With No Name is updated weekly, and has been a fun read. Apparently he does a Secret Santa exchange every year, and so I got in on this past event.

It was run very smoothly, and while I kind of broke the rule that you were supposed to write what you'd like on your blog, I didnt...

However, soon after the event began, I got a neat little package from http://www.midlamminiatures.co.uk/ who did a great job in disguising their origin (their shipping label even says, "A mysterious package arrived from the Stone Hills..."). Inside were 8 very cool minis, fantasy themed. 2 even had "winter clothing" on - someone picked up on my like of Frostgrave, for sure!

As I marveled at them, I noticed two things.
1) they were small. You know, not tiny, but these were definitely 25mm, not 28mm or larger as most modern minis are wont to be
2) they really reminded me of some old school goodness.

I do like knowing what I've got when it comes to miniatures. A lot of these I got decades ago as a youth being introduced to D&D. http://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=Main_Page has been a trip down nostalgia lane for me as I identified many of my old fantasy collection. I mean, come on, how fun is it to see things like this:

Yes, I have those two minis :)  They are Ral Partha "01-136
Chaotic Knights of Doom Legion" according to the site.

Anyway, what struck me was the archer. I thought, "Man, I've seen him before!"...as in, like, recently! I pulled my own box of minis out, and sure enough, I had him already! The painted version is mine (and by "painted" I mean it has some primer and a dab of color...) and the lead version is what arrived:
They even have the same stamp on the bottom: "HP89 with "JO" below that. Mine is at LEAST 20 years old...which makes me really, REALLY curious - I have not yet identified him as per the Los Minis Wiki, but his entry at Midlam is http://www.midlamminiatures.co.uk/rangers/C1022F.html (I also have, but didnt receive a duplicate of, his "twin", http://www.midlamminiatures.co.uk/rangers/C1022E.html). [EDIT - I lied. http://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=C1022_Druids_and_Rangers_%28Metal_Magic%29 has them listed as originally belonging to Hobby Products, with the sculptor being Josef Ochmann, circa 1989. Such fun to be a detective!

Anyway, I want to spread the word. If you like old school minis, the kind we used to buy as a kid, well, Midlam Miniatures seems to have some oldies but goodies.

Thank you, Secret Santa!