A Slight Divergence

While I was recently recovering from the Plague know as COVID, I could not get enthusiastic about painting, so I decided to venture into the realm of vintage computing and assembled a replica of a 1970's minicomputer known as a DEC PDP-11. I had bought this kit a few weeks before with the intention of building it latter in the year.

The kit essentially adds a scale replica of the PDP-11's front control panel to a Raspberry PI single board computer which in turn runs an emulation of the PDP-11's operating system.

For a more in depth look, here is a link to the kit creator's website:
https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11

Opening and first look at the kit

Sorting ready for assembly

Stage one completed

Switch bank added

Pi board added

The finished article

It took three afternoon's of work to complete the kit, and I am quite happy with the outcome. I only made two mistakes - the white switch was put in wrong and one solder joint (out of 350+ ) was dodgy - but easily found and corrected. I have not done electronic work like this since the early 90's and actually enjoyed a trip back in time to an earlier part of my working life. There are some additions that can be added, and will look at doing that at a latter time.

Still Here...

 I seem to have let this blog slip a little over the last 18 months or so, so here is a quick catch-up.

My daughter continues to go in more Kickstarter campaigns.

More undead.

The 3D printer farm grows.

Some figures have been painted.

And a 3D printed Napoleonic project started.

More detailed posts on various projects later, and hopefully I will keep posting a bit more often in the future (not every couple of years!), but time will tell.

Time Goes By...

Just a quick update on recent activity. Firstly, an new toy arrived recently in the form of a Resin 3D Printer. It is a QidiTech Shadow 5.5 S, and so far I have been very happy with the results. For a good review of the printer, I suggest looking at the one done by 3DPrintingPro on YouTube.

First print was some multi armed aliens. I will post pictures of the painted figures latter.

Strangely, everything printed on it so far has been for my wife to use and paint. I will do a more detailed post on this latter.

Next up, my Daughter and I played our first game of Star Wars: Legion. We setup very basic terrain, with myself as General Grievous and his Battle Droids and her as Obi-Wan and the Clones. Not sure I am sold on the rules/game mechanics as yet, and of the new games we have tried this year I think I prefer A Song of Ice and Fire over Star Wars: Legion. Mind you I like the figures, so I don't think I will be shelving it just yet. 

I could also have been influenced by the fact that the Clones walked all over my Droids, with Grievous being taken out early in the game.

Painting Update

Things have definitely been different for the last few months, but I have been able to do some painting during the restrictions.

First up, some undead for an eventual SAGA: Age of Magic army. Theses will add to existing units I painted some time ago. I will post the finished army at a latter date.

Next up, my 6mm French Napoleonic forces are slowly growing, with several regiments based, and the first regiment painted by myself now ready for action.

And finally, my first Star Wars Legion project is finished, with two units of Battle Droids, General Grievous and Destroyer Droids ready for action.

Next project, setup for better photography.

Games Played

Of late I have managed to play a few games with the family during our isolation, and my daughter has also talked me into possibly playing some new ones, which she then duly purchased. I admit it did not take much arm bending to be convinced.

First up, we played a few games of Power Ranges: Heros of the Grid. This is a cross between a board game and a miniatures game, with some very well made and detailed figures, some of which are quite large.

 

Next up, one of the new games, A Song of Ice and Fire. This one is a more traditional miniatures game, based in the Game of Thrones universe. One of the features I like about this game is the ability for non-combatant characters such as Sansa or Cersei to have an effect on the battlefield by the use of a separate board of tactical options, representing their political manipulations.

Of the two games, I prefer A Song of Ice and Fire, but both are well thought out and of high quality, however Power Rangers is definitely more one for fans of the series.

Next up should be the other new game - Star Wars Legion:Clone Wars, but I will leave that for a future blog post.

A While Ago

Back at the beginning of the year I mentioned that my family bought me a new Crealty Ender-3 3D printer for Christmas. As I am behind in updates on this blog, I thought I would add a quick post about the printer.

So from this...

To this..

To finally this...

All up, the build process took an afternoon. I had some initial leveling issues, however these have been overcome. I have since added an after market glass bed and at some point in the future I will also replace the extruder, but for now it prints well, and am very happy with it.

So Where Were We...

Been a bit busy and distracted the last few months and have neglected this blog for too long. So for the first post of the year I will start with a game played last night.

I decided to try out a game called Palaeo Diet: Eat or Be Eaten, and it's companion Palaeo Diet:Pulp. The rules are published by Nic Wright and Ganesha Games and allow the players to control a prehistoric tribe or hunting party as they search for food, survival and some adventure.

The companion Pulp rule set brings the game into the Pulp era and allows archaeologists, big game hunters and other adventures to be played. Think perhaps along the lines of The Land That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs, or the Mummy movies (the Brendan Fraser ones, not the more recent attempt)

However for this game, I chose to use some anthropomorphic animals as the adventurers.

The Mouslings of Shireford have sent a small group north from their village towards some old ruins to investigate rumors of an evil shaman setting up shop in the area. The wizard Alden, ranger Ford, and barbarian Throgg have signed on with the mysterious Silver Knight (known also as Edmund) to investigate.

The adventurers started in the lower left near the crop field. To the right near the pond is a pair of honey badgers, whom we will ignore for the rest of the game as all they did was roar a bit at the party but not much else. The shaman and his companion are in the trees top right.

The party decided to give the badgers a miss and went around the thicket towards the low hills. Except for Edmund the Knight who seems to fail nearly every activation roll, and lags behind, who for some reason is ignored except for the badgers which roar at him, then go back to what ever they were doing near the pond.

Eventually, the party moves in and attracts the attention of the shaman and his rat mummy companion. Ford shots his bow at the mummy, misses, and is cursed by the mummy for his failure. Throgg charges forward to attack the shaman, who screams (roars) at him in an ancient tongue causing Throgg to retreat in fear. Alden mulls his options, while Edmund finally catches up with the rest of the party.

The shaman retreats and summons a swarm of dung beetles to distract Throgg, who still manages to charge in, swing, miss, and is then attacked from behind by the mummy suffering a wound. He swings at the mummy, misses and poor Throgg is hit again by the mummy and is down for the count. Alden decides to move up and slap Ford who manages to shake off the curse. Ford then shots the mummy, causing a wound. The mummy then lunges at Edmund, hits and wounds him. Edmund swings back at the mummy, misses, takes another wound from the mummy and he too is down.

At this point, Alden moves up, and taking a risk, throws an alchemical bomb at the mummy, which rolls just past, explodes, and kills the mummy in a burst of flame that also takes out the summoned swarm.

Our remaining party members manage to catch up with the shaman, who summons more swarms to distract the group, but to no avail as Ford, although wounded by the shaman, manages to put two arrows in him, ending his nefarious plans.

The above is an abbreviated narrative of the game, but does cover the high points. Although the rules are not written for fantasy style characters, it was not hard to adapt. For example the Wizard's staff I played as a club, and his alchemical bomb, of which I gave him two, was treated as a grenade.

As it was my first game, there was a lot of referring back to the rules as the game progressed, and I probably did a few things wrong, but I enjoyed the game and look forward to more. The Mouslings will be back...

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