Mythic Beast Found - Dragon Dice at the Dollar Store

Hardly worth an update, but I found the Mythic Dollar Store Dragon Dice set at my local Dollar Tree. See the image below. (Campaign Wiki Readers, you can move along unless you want to see the picture.) 

They are puke brown, but they have clearly labeled d10's for digit and tens place. They have a good bounce and lack any obvious flaws. While not as pretty as most dice, they do have promise. 

Goblin Clan Games - Great Deal

A while ago, I picked up some Goblin Clan Skeletons and Lizard Men. They are 3d printed figures at a good price. I am a sucker for Lizardmen and Skeletons.

This batch of Skeletons shows off 6 poses without duplication. 

The same for the melee/swordmen Skeletons, except these show off the detail of weapons and armor. They are great for 3d prints. 

The final image is of the Lizardmen, with slightly less detail than the Skeletons only because they wear less armor. Cold-blooded creatures wear less armor because they need to sun frequently. Or so I tell myself. 

These figures are advertised as 28 to 32 mm. I personally use 25 and 15mm, but these make excellent tokens and showpieces. I am sure none of my players will object to a slightly large piece on the table. They also have a nice range of figures suitable for player characters, which match these perfectly. Maybe I need to upscale and upgrade? 

Anyway, right now Goblin Clan Games is running two different promos, 30% off and free shipping on orders over $35.00. No code or link is required. Now is the time to check them out. 

For me, now is the time to get paint. I really should have painted them a while ago. These look like fun and I the larger scale will help me practice my pitiful painting skills. That skill has wildly atrophied over the years and I want it back. Time to rank up.

"New to me" WotC Star Wars RPG Book.

I lucked out and found a new copy of WotC's Star Wars RPG in great condition at a very reasonable price. 

Ironically, the reason I like this ruleset so much is that it is very close to D&D 3.5 and d20. Sure, there are some differences but the system lends itself to modification. 

I'm sure you can judge by my posts that I would like to have more great Star Wars themed posts and this book is the gateway to that end. 

Back in 2020, I reviewed this book. Since it's Thursday, let's call this review link a Throwback. Since I had been playing this ruleset for a couple of months, I suppose I need to update the review. 

Maybe later. 

Life is a Test. Testing 1-2-3.

A little over a week ago, I posted some test images. I hadn't realized they were live on the blog until a friend called me wondering what was up. 

A lot and very little was "up". I had pneumonia and a lot of time on my hands. You see, having pneumonia and no fever indicates COVID. That is basically the kill mechanism for COVID. You have an infection that doesn't trigger a defense which leads to pneumonia, then you die. So, aside from getting tested for COVID weekly, I didn't have anything to do except go online. 

Coughing until you have a headache isn't conducive for reading or writing so the blog went on the back burner. I did some digital drawings, download a game to review and wanted to share them on one of my favorite websites: the Cosmoquest Forums. It's all about astronomy, but it's been around for 20 years or more and I have quite a few friends there. Right now they have an issue where you can't post images via an upload but you can via load an image via URL. Hence the images uploaded in that test file. 

After a while, I started having 3 or 4-hour stints where I felt fine. I began building models and uploading the images to the blog post I didn't realize was live. 

Then more bad news followed by some good news. My house... the one that burned... had asbestos in it. Yes, the irony. Now for the good news. Nothing in the garage was burned or contaminated with asbestos so it all needed to be packed up and moved to allow for cleanup of the interior house. Of course, this happened while I was sick so I had to pay someone do it. If you ever have the chance to not clean your garage and have someone else do it, I cannot recommend this enough. :)  

Dozens of really cool items were found in the garage. A headset with a microphone, a light ring, a second microphone, some models, dozens of painted... yes PAINTED! figurings, a set of drumsticks, some books, and a few Christmas gifts we had bought for the kids.  

Suddenly, I had something to do that didn't require too much energy. Play with toys! But not the ones I bought for the kids. My wife was admendent. 

When I started podcasting, I originally envisioned it as a video series, hence the light ring and extra microphone. Unfortunately, my face is not the stuff videos are made of and I stuffed all of it into a box in the garage. 

But you know what a light ring is great for? Taking pictures of models. And fortunately, all of my Star Wars models survived the fire and found hundreds of painted figures in the garage. So, my next series will be on figurines and models. 

I just need to finish this Review Series. My latest review is of a book found in the garage, How to Make War. This is week 43 and I am on review number 44, so I'm a week ahead. And I didn't even count my laptop review as one. I've got to finish this thing.  

So back to the models. The right ring is great for taking pictures. I can control so much more with the light ring.

X-Wing	Poe's X-Wing	T.I.E. and T.I.E. Advanced

If I want to show off some of my models and figures, this ring will come in handly. I dropped 9 bucks on it at Mashalls. I just need a good backdrop. I'll probably start with a basic black and a basic white and move on from there. 

I can't tell you about the Christmas gifts, I'm not ready to post about the figures and the models yet, so that leaves the microphone, headset, and drumsticks. 

A while ago, I abandoned my podcast. Before I got this pneumonia which makes speaking difficult, I decided to rebrand my podcast with the name Friday Night Death Slots. Back in September, I posted a short message on Anchor which included the new theme music for the show. I am not known for my musical abilities, but I do have some tiny interest, which explains the drumsticks, the microphone and headset.

So we have some good stuff happening. This is a test. 

Review - How to Make War By James F. Dunnigan

Title: How to Make War
Year: 1982, 1993, 2003
Author: James F. Dunnigan
Publisher: Harper Collins
Pages: 257 pages
Rating: 5 of 5 Gold Stars

This review covers one of those things you know, but don't really know. How to Make War by Jim Dunnigan reads like an RPG. James Dunnigan is an author, a military-political analyst, a consultant, and a wargame designer. He designed games for Avalon Hill and founded Simulations Publications Inc.

Despite being both a gamer and historian myself, up until this review I believed that Jim and James Dunnigan were two different people. It explains a lot. 

How to Make War is not a gamebook but a guide to war. While the title is focused on current military affairs, each section is applicable to many different eras of warfare. The intent of the book is education, not practical military knowledge. A quick read-through will greatly enhance the reader's background knowledge of what it takes to produce a war, productive or otherwise. 

Structurally, the book's 29 chapters are divided into 8 parts. Each part covers one major aspect of warfare. In order, they are: 

1. Ground Combat, 
2. Air Operations, 
3. Naval Operations, 
4. Human Factors, 
5. Special Weapons, 
6. Warfare by the Numbers, 
7. Moving the Goods, 
8. and Tools of the Trade.

A lot has changed over the years, and the effect of these changes has yet to percolate down to the battlefield level. Mr. Dunnigan takes a shot at predictions of how new technology will change the battlefield while presenting data from past conflicts. Everything is incremental. 

Since the Big One and The Second Big One, wars have become smaller and more politically complex affairs without losing any of their characteristic violence and horror. What changes are the speed and sophistication of the destruction along with the long-lasting effects of these conflicts on humanity. Sadly, Mr. Dunnigan points out that many humans feel that the aversion to war is a lost opportunity to right some sort of wrong. 

While much of the book deals with the hardware of warfare, the important bits are political drives and logistics of the attempt to meet those drives with real-world resources. To paraphrase Mr. Dunnigan, "amateurs think of tactics while professionals think of logistics." Nothing plays out worse than declaring a goal that cannot be obtained. Don't make threats, make promises. 

Mr. Dunnigam walks through the lives of those who will fight and why in addition to the hardware they will use. Starting with the infantry in Part 1, the readers follow the cans and can'ts of each resource available to the would-be warmonger. Aircraft are quick; quicker than a ship but not as quick as a satellite. They land someplace between the two when it comes to delivering hardware, information, and personnel to the front. 

Human factors address by the book covers the reasons people will fight, their leadership, and the intelligence resources available to both. When humans are involved, Murphy's Law rears its ugly head, and whoever considers that fact first has more control over who will be victorious. Additionally, since virtually all armed forces will find themselves at peace most of the time, what do you do with them? 

One of the biggest challenges on the battlefield is the application or refusal to use so-called "special weapons". The chemical, biological, and nuclear crowdpleasers. Yes, they are the big stick but taking out whole environments for weeks, months, or decades at a time might not be the victory one craves. On a more limited front, other special weapons are used to wage war in space. Special forces engage in brief, limited-purpose engagements. Circling back like the last chapter, militaries are able to engage in activities that are just as hostile as any conflict without using arms. Relief operations are a standout feature quelling or fueling the desires of war in an enemy, as is training foreign troops and waving the flag. 

Part Six covers logistics and attrition. Or the real reasons no one attacks without good reason. Part Seven pairs nicely with Part Six as it covers the costs and ability to transport to the tools of war. The final part in this section covers tried and true weapons and considers the untried technology against what the future may bring. It's interesting to see the reality of logistics weighed against the speculation of what may come. 

I've noticed two knocks against this book from other reviews that I completely disagree with: the lack of sources and the American-centric reality it presents. 

This is not a textbook, it is a reflection of the lifetime of study. It's all right in the title "How to Make War". It is a study of why wars happen and why they often fail to result in positive outcomes for both winners and losers. Sources over reflections would make this a textbook. The tact of this book is how costly war is in every term; a textbook on that topic would cause the reader to utterly miss the point of the book. 

The second point, the American-centric aspect is merely a reflection of the United States Budget placing warfare over all other things. Yes, we win wars due to insane spending which has many obvious costs. No, those wars often don't benefit anyone long-term and often have disastrous consequences. Or more humorously, America winning a conflict simply allows the losing side access to Red Dawn on Netflix, resulting in a lot of non-English speakers leaving to say the word: "Wolverines!". And if you think about it, war is about as cute and cuddly as a wolverine in your pants. A circumstance Mr. Dunnigan covers completely. Don't mistake the numbers for the reality of the situation. 

5 gold stars of 5 stars.