CHANGING UP AND ADDING OPTIONS

With the recent Mexican Revolution range from Peter Pig (Army and Sombrero Caballeros) and an Old Glory 15s order (Presidials), I've added three more Mounted/Foot/Dead/Horse stand sets resulting in:

Federal and Mexican Government:

Mexican Federales, Presidials, Reservation Police

US Army, Pinkertons, Territorial Rangers

Bad Guys:

Sombrero Caballeros, Mexican Banditos, Mexican Armed Peasants

Comancheros, Apache Renegades, Desperadoes

Outlaws, Robbers, Rustlers

Local Government and Private Good Guys:

Magnanimous Dozen, White Scouts, Mountain Men

Town Marshall, County Sheriff, Posse

Rancher Forces:

Range Boss, Gun Hands for Hire, Hard Luck Cowboys

Professional Gunmen, Cowpokes, Regulators

This no longer works so well for town assignments but I've also added another small town with the Peter Pig Mexican Buildings - still need to order a few.  The newer Peter Pig figures will allow some old Bearcats TV show scenarios which traipses into the pulpish side of things and can bring in things like motor cars, airplanes, and heavier ground vehicles even.

Return to the West

Finally able to replace my old computer system with an operating system that could not be updated. So, now I can start posting about progress and other musings again. Mostly in the realm of critters, like 96 alive and 6 dead long horn cattle painted and more in that realm. More soon. Adjusting how pages work so expect some odd responses - see the sidebar to the left for Pages.

Minor Progress

Heat has dissipated substantially but smoke continues to be a major issue.

Able last evening to spend about an hour in the garage and labelled all the bases for the denizens of Alkali Wells as well as the bases for the buggies, buckboards, and grain wagons - and a couple of other items to appear at some point.  Over 160 bases.  Also did the replacement of some of the individual male drivers with couples, a man and a woman, so that two buggies and four buckboards have two folks instead of one.  While only minor progress, it does mean as I prep the figures I can glue them to their bases to await priming more quickly and well organized - that last a critical element in so large and diverse a collection.

Closing in on a solid month of smoke filled skies but there is hope in the weather patterns that might help clear - or at least partly clear - our skies.  I have seen some bad fire seasons, mostly in very recent years, but nothing that compares to this.  The volume of fire related ash in our pool cost me a major chunk of a day just to clean it out to a reasonable degree - won't clean the filter until I see some blue sky!  The bag on the pool sweep has been turned black several times after being cleaned - by far the worst this has ever been, worse than ash from a distant volcano many years ago.  I 'watered' all the plants in our yard (a Lot!) to rinse the ash off.  Climate change doubters need to be required to drive down some of the flaming roads turned dark in daylight despite the illumination of the fires.  Nothing like a near scorching to change someone's mind, maybe?  Science over politics.  From where I sit, the science is crystal clear.  I am pretty sure there will be no real, concerted action until after crossing the "tipping point".  Our house sits a bit over 100' elevation and about an hours drive to sea level water in the San Francisco Bay area.  Maybe in a decade or two we will be a ten minute drive, maybe a three minute drive from salt water?  At least there will be lots of new farm land available in Greenland after all the ice melts and raises ocean levels 20 to 30 feet worldwide.  I fear that will happen much sooner than expected.  But will there be any water for that farmland?  Scary times in too many ways.  I cannot imagine the psychological burden this must place on the minds of very young adults who are paying close attention.  Okay, enough on this - see what all that time under so much smoke has done?

Switcharoos not Buckaroos

I purchased a number of extra sets of the figures that go with certain stage coach sets and I will be swapping out some of my already rearranged figures for buckboards and buggies so that instead of a single man driving I will have a couple, a man and a woman, driving/riding some of these vehicles.  I will be doing this with other wagons as well but saving some for seated folks around town, especially the train stations.  I also recently acquired some paired seated limber riders that I will be using as the occupants of my tumbleweed wagon - and use the coach driver with his shotgun toting partner as drivers, a little mismatch in size but the riders will be behind bars so I hope it won't be too noticeable.

These decisions were made while waiting for the heat to dissipate which it has done to be replaced by hazardous air filled with smoke from all of the far too many fires burning right now throughout California.  So, still not able to spend time in the garage.  Yes, it is that thick with smoke outside, even with the garage door closed - though I might do a bit while wearing a particle mask.

Next batch to prepare will be the four stage coaches and that tumble weed wagon plus the destroyed stage coach, the other resin destroyed wagon, and the two metal destroyed wagons.  Those ten vehicles will, when primed and ready, bring me to 60 items ready for paint.

While out helping the wife find some replacement needles for her sewing machine she has been using to turn out a large numbers of masks, I found two rather expensive plastic containers but will each be able to hold 18 or more wagons and carts each.

So, even though I haven't been able to do physical work I have been able to make some plans and that tiny progress of finding those storage containers.

Screeching Halt, Scorching Hot

The intense heat of the last week or so here abouts put the brakes on any hobby progress.  A garage at or near 110 degrees fahrenheit is a no go zone for me.  And now we have a cloud of smoke overhead from all the fires in the region that makes being outside genuinely hazardous to health; parking lot at work this morning almost looked like it had a light dusting of snow.  Almost.  But it was just falling ash.  At least it is relatively cooler today than it has been - no 111 degree high forecast for the next week, plenty of highs near or slightly above 100 but we are used to that.  So, maybe some progress but for the moment, not so much.

The Nez Perce

One element of gaming the Indian Wars that I've seldom (ever?) seen explored in miniature is the campaign that ended with Chief Joseph proclaiming, "I will fight no more forever."  Perhaps an apocryphal quote but still one of my favorites from all of history.

I have been contemplating recently about fusing the battles from this campaign into my Whiskey Hills collection.  As I explore the battles, I find I can probably do most, if not all, of the battles at a 1:1 scale with my 15 mm figures.

When the wife and I traveled to Yellowstone and beyond, we actually visited some spots related to the Nez Perce including the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway (alas, not very scenic when we were there courtesy of the dense cover of smoke from all the wild fires burning throughout the west that late summer).

Will have to put more time into studying the campaign and adapting my collection to fit - I don't think it will take much effort once things are painted up.

The one thing I won't attempt at 1:1 is the pony herd of the Nez Perce reputed to have been 2,000 strong!

Strange doings upstairs

Right above and below the title bar - now with some additional text - are some tabs leading to pages that will, eventually, feature on varied elements planned for this collection.  Almost all of the needed buildings exist with some being scratch built just waiting windows and doors.  And, I suspect, all of the figures I am going to need.  Seems to be a more limited number of page tabs than there once was or I haven't figured it out properly.  Whichever way it lands, I will make it work.