Author Archives: stonewalljackman

High School Soccer Officiating

Most of you know I officiate soccer. We are entirely into high school season now, and my weekends are becoming more constrained. I have been the center official eight times over three weeks. I have three more centers coming this weekend. One very interesting part of Wyoming High School soccer is that almost all the matches are played at the same time on the same day across the state.

For example all 34 schools are in action at 4 pm Friday. Some matches start at 3 the rest at 4. The same is true at 6pm. We have two regions East and West. Typically, in the West, matches start at 5, and men’s and women’s teams travel together. So for example Rock Springs travels to Star Valley, the Men’s JV and Womens Varsity start at 3pm while the Mens Varsity and Womens JV start at 5. On the East side the Men’s team stays home and the women’s team travels and two weeks later they switch. The other interesting factor especially on the West Side, very few schools are closer than 100 miles.

As an official who travels, I can rarely do more than 2 matches in a single day. I typically move about 6.5 miles as a center official and 3 to 3.5 as an assistant. If I have to work two matches, that’s a ten mile day. Previously we have been very fortunate to almost always have a 4th official. Referees would either do 2 ARs or 1 Center and 1 4th. This year is different, most games only have ,3 and several we are running 2.

This Week’s Casper Cup

I pride myself on having good control of matches. I specialize in challenging Men’s matches for both men’s and women’s where rivalries occur and tempers can flare. About ten years ago there was a major incident at the state tournament where the two Casper schools were involved in a massive altercation that included parents, players, and coaching staff from both sides. Since that happened I have always done the Casper Cup men’s match.

The last two or three years were simple where one school dominated and I expected that to be the case this season. I was very wrong. The best player for the home school was out with a concussion and they lacked a true leader on the field. The away school fell behind 2-0 early, but came together as a squad. While the home team dominated in the number of chances, the away team put together several strong fast counter-attacks. The score was 2-1 with 25 minutes remaining, and in those last 25 minutes I made all the money from the last three seasons.

I went from 0 yellow cards to 4. Had two confrontations where players faced off ready to brawl. Of my 7.3 miles, (warmups, field walk, etc included) I did 3.2 in the last 25 minutes. I never broke from a decent jog and was running hard for a solid 5 minutes at one point in a thrilling end to end contest. The away team had a pacy winger who ran down seven or eight loose thru balls blowing by defenders and executing a solid cross. His pace meant that the cross usually went harmlessly across the box with no teammates nearby.

Another challenge for me as an official were the three holding midfielders between the two teams. All three players were powerfully built and had strong personalities. These players were constantly engaged in battles for the ball and aerial duals. These battles were fun to watch and I think I only had one or two falls all game from their interactions. The challenge came from the attacking midfielder for the away team. He was out of their class size and strength, but made up for it with skill and quickness. It is hard to manage when you have three big bodies battling for the ball, but when they try and do the same interaction with a smaller player it results in a foul.

I was generally happy with my performance. There were no match critical incidents. I could have given the home team a foul at one point but the player had a tendency of going down too easy. When I wasn’t giving him those fouls he stayed on his feet and scored a goal with several other attempts. On the away end there was a critical attack stopped by a cynical foul. The away team quickly set the ball and played it forward within a second or two. The other officials were asking for a caution there but because of the quick restart I didn’t want to stop their attack a second time. One of the senior officials after the match stated that I could have cautioned it at the next stoppage. I know this is the rule in FIFA, but I don’t think it applies to NFHS.

Otherwise I had a good game, and the coaches complimented my control.

So it Begins

Two months later than scheduled, the battle for Stalingrad will commence. My hobby room will be done this weekend. Currently, it looks like :

Yes a bit overwhelming, more than a bit really. But I have all day Saturday and Sunday; with nothing scheduled; I am going to fix it. It will be glorious.

How did I get Here?

A great question. As we were moving things, I was counting the thousands of items I had forgotten I even owned let alone ever used. Those have been going away. I started my TCG store (Red Desert Wargaming), and selling 90% of the magic collection. This seems like a lot by 10% of 140,000 cards is still 14,000 cards. I am keeping my reserved list items, all the dual lands, fetch lands, various staples, and building about 10 decks give or take 2 to 3 in every format. The rest buh by. Do I really need a playset of every modern playable card? Do I really need 88 copies of negate? No. I will most likely sell the bulk to my FLGS, while anything over .25 will get listed on my TCG Player Account. I should easily clear $40,000 total after everything is sold. If not a little more. In two weeks of sales, just duplicates I had in the office or laying around I have already moved $18,000. I still have to sort the colorless, lands, and multicolored cards, but I am comfortable with where I stand now.

Other items that I have moving on from, 3d printed buildings are moving to the attic. I have a really cool Mos Eisley/ Desert Town setup for 28mm. But it’s 3 big boxes. It will work great in the attic. Ditto my Tyranid terrain. I also have 15 ish generic buildings, a church, some brick houses, those will stay downstairs for use in the campaign. Many of the fancy building ruins, trees, roads, will stay as those get used on a monthly basis at least. Although I have like 3 boxes of trees, pine trees, jungle trees, normal trees, colorful trees, big trees small trees, palm trees, too many.

I do need to come up with a better solution for 8,000 15mm Napoleonics. Currently they are stored in white Ikea letter holders, you can see one to the right of the picture on top of the lone shelf. The entire left line of the room shelves is lined with the Nappys. It is too many. I have one of my bun racks set up in the attic to move them, iffffff, I can’t keep them. I would say they are my favorite period to play and favorite armies to paint, but space.

I have two big challenges facing me. DND Figures, 1000’s of them, and game pieces for other games. I keep a drawer for dice and tape measures and other basic wargame needs. It fits nicely in a small drawer. But games like Legion, Armada, MCP, XWing, Blood Bowl, that require special rulers or dice and especially tokens do take up a ton of space. Each one has a toolkit filled with things, Xwing and Armada have three each. I am going to put up a wire shelf in the attic for said pieces, but my attic is getting very full. So is the attic at the office. It might be time to admit I am hoarding.

As far as DND figures. It has been over a year since I last DM’d. I don’t have much desire to DM right now. My creative bug for DND just isn’t there. I love playing and I really love DMing, but the last group just burned me out. I may have to migrate the smaller figures to sheet pan trays to clean out drawer space, but the larger figures are legion. We own a storage facility, I just hate the idea of renting a unit.

Moving Forward

Goals for the weekend, a place for everything and everything it its place. Start with cleaning off the 8×4 table in the middle, and all walk paths. Use my label maker to label drawers. Items like a map shelf, bins for rollout battlemats, specific shelf sections for terrain. If I don’t know when I have used it, it can go away. Magic down to one wire shelf. Dnd down to 3 sections, drawers for each game system. I think it will take 2 or three passes to be good, but I am close.

Get all Warhammer Figures to the Warhammer storage area, its the attic office, literally every. single. army. I am a big fan and love to play and paint. They can all be in one place though. Have the hobby desk clean and ready for work. This means if its not used for painting or building its in a drawer or something. Not on my desk. This is a non-negotiable. I am fine with some projects under the table, but get the hobby space clear. I have already sorted all the paints.

It will be a ton of work. I have a good book on tape, the ear buds are charged. I’ll see you all on Monday.

“Review of General D’ Armee 2”

This is my very informal review of General D’ Armee 2 rules just published. You can purchase the rules through Two Fat Lardies. I have yet to play with the rules but I am very familiar with the first edition with well over 100 games in my belt and most of the review will be a direct comparison.

Conclusion
The rules are better laid out and organized for play. 2nd Edition is superior in almost every way.

The original ruleset was written by an engineer I think. An example;

Evading the following units must evade a charge.

1…..2…..3…….4…….

Procedure

Step 1….2….3…4…5…6…7…8….ect

In 2nd Edition the rules while functionally the same is easier to follow along and allows more nuances to be accounted for.

This basic change is similar across the entire scope of the book and might push General D Armee above many other Napoleonic rulesets.

Slightly More Depth

The rulebook is high-quality, with great color photos and decent organization. The font is a little more excellent to read. The basics seem far superior to the first version. Esspecially for beginners, what do I need to play, basing scale, etc. They are quickly introduced and nicely laid out compared to 1st edition. I absolutely hate the basing advice for cavalry. I still have no idea how I should be basing my cavalry regiments, how many bases a regiment should be, there are good details for infantry and artillery just cavalry is lacking.

The troop types and formations are clearly laid out and easy to find. Small tables are abound throughout the rules. I also like the example blurbs being easy to find as well. When I first started I remember the allocating brigadiers step was just a little confusing.

I enjoy the new setup for Corps Battles vs Divisional Battles. I do wish there was a set of rules for army battles as I really enjoy playing with more than one Corps.

In general all of the chapters are just better laid out for player use. The deployment chapter is a prime example where it clearly follows what players actually do. The first edition rules struggled to have relevant information where you actually need it. The 5th chapter is similarly helpful and laid out with references to the chapters for more depth. I do wish the PDF was hyperlinked to the same sections.

Chapter 6 hasn’t changed much in function just more clearly laid out.

Chapter 7 is not new persay. It sure feels new. There are some nuances that are different, but again love the layout, love being able to follow along clearly the steps.

Chapter 8 is where the rules do get quite dense. The basic steps are clearly outlined, but the 6 or so pages of extenuating circumstances and tables are a bit tiresome. I am glad the supporting units section was made more clear. I also like the new evade rules.

Chapters 9 to 17 follow the same formula as above. Some variations to the rules are of course going to happen, but as a whole much easier to follow.

Chapter 19 is welcome as an appendix. First edition had something similar, but this seems superior.

The last major thing I want to talk about is the cheat sheet or quick reference sheet. The rulebook is 118 pages long, the creator made everything fit on 4 pages. There is a ton of information that is clearly laid out and much easier to follow than first edition.

Basement Remodel/ Hobby Room Progress

Or lack thereof.

The entire basement has been fully painted. We do want to paint the stairwell going down. Most items are in the rooms they are supposed to be in. The Library is 100% complete, the Den is 95% complete (need a TV), the Bathroom is 100% and the Laundry Room is 100%. We are working on the guest bedroom, which needs all its stuff moved out, and then my disaster of a hobby room.

Wow, I have a lot of items. Working hard on whittling down what I don’t need. Two loads to the landfill so far of misc boxes, broken things, things I’ll never use. Filtering out single-use terrain vs more generic terrain. It’s a lot of work. Hopefully end of this week first of next week we will be complete, but soccer season is in full swing. I will probably take pictures to show everyone what I am talking about. One of my biggest hurdles is slimming down the MTG collection. I have been playing since Shards of Alara. I have 116,000 cards in my inventory; at least another 20,000 are not inventoried. Until Brother’s War, I maintained 4 of every Pioneer Legal card. The work and the amount of storage it required was too much. I am going down to 10 ish decks and hopefully 20,000 total cards in the inventory for use in EDH, Legacy, Vintage, Ect.

The worst part is over the years my organizing has gotten lazy. As it stands, all Pioneer cards are organized based on set, then set order. Each in a 1000 count box. Everything else is in 5,000 count boxes, one box for each color, plus one for gold, colorless, and non-basic lands, all cards alphabetized. I only use one type of sleeve, KMC Hyper Matte Reds. Every card gets double-sleeved. It makes it easy to move cards from one deck to another, and I try very hard to keep sets of 4 of each card. The problem is I wasn’t planning on Pioneer when sets like Theros came out. All the cards up to Amonkhet were mixed in with the general collection, plus things like trading. I have stacks everywhere……. I am alphabetizing my piles, then going through letter by letter and removing Pioneer Legal cards to go in their respective boxes. The blues took about 8 hours. Black (will be the hardest), Red, Green, Grey, Gold, Lands. At least another 45 hours……

My games this weekend.

I was fortunate enough to officiate a couple of MLS Next matches. As a whole, they went well for my first experience. The pace of the U17s really surprised me. It took absolute focus and pushed my abilities as an AR to the limit. I wish I had footage of three decisions. I am confident I missed where a player was trekking back, but it didn’t amount to anything. Another on a shot where I was 90% he was offside, luckily the shot went over the bar so my decision didn’t actually matter, had the ball gone in I would have flagged the player. The third resulted in a corner but I had the player onside hitting the line at full speed. Immensely difficult as a referee to get those correct.

I was happy with my performance, not my pace. It has been a long winter, and I am not yet in form to make explosive runs for 4 hours. Something the two matches really required. I wish I had pre-gamed with the center referee a little better. I think we could have had better communication to help on-field issues. I apologize for being very vague. But for these games, referees are frowned upon for commenting or putting anything in writing or on social media.

For the future, I need to push my sprint workouts a little harder. My Achilles has been bum since at least October, and I have been trying to rest it. It felt decent, and once warmed up, it didn’t bother me until the 2nd half of match two.

A Referee Break

This weekend rather than repeatedly tell you all that I will keep working on my basement. I refereed an indoor soccer tournament. It was a blast I had a great time, but I had one really interesting and definitely match critical situation detailed below.

Situation

The game is being played using modified indoor rules. Relevant rules are a universal clock, no stoppage time, all balls that go over the two touchlines are IDFKs, two referees on the match, teams should have 4 players and a GK. I think that is all the changes that matter.

From my perspective. (so you have it for further education if needed) this situation happened in about ten seconds. My position on the field was team side, with my back towards the other fields, and on the opposite side of the field of the losing team goalkeeper. The losing team’s bench and coach were directly behind me. The current score was 6-5 with about one minute on the universal clock. 

The ball goes over the touchline, last touched by a player of the winning team. The original matchball ends up two fields away.  When the ball is identified as being a good distance from the field of play, the losing coach and team demand an alternate ball be sent to the field. A suitable ball was available and given to the losing team to take their IDFK restart. The losing team took the ball for the restart. Both teams seemed aware that an alternate ball was found, (as in the winning team, who was not in possession, handed me the alternate ball to check and the losing team kicked it in)

Play is restarted from the losing team’s defensive third of the field on my touchline, and the ball is quickly (less than 3 seconds) turned over to the winning team, who immediately scores a goal. The shot was taken from the opposite half of the field near the goal area. The losing team goalkeeper was in the corner of the field with the original game ball in his hands. 

I was not aware that the GK had left the field to retrieve the ball, how far away the GK went from the field, or even where they went. 

Decision on the field, award the goal to the winning team, restart with kick-off. 

Sidebar two touches after the ensuing kickoff, the losing team scores to make the final score 6-7 instead of 5-7. The clock expires before the next kickoff.  

____________________________________________

Rules, thought process, and perspectiveAfter a little more thought and review, I would say you definitely have a point about starting the match with the GK off the field, and it could have been handled differently. Ideally, we don’t grab the extra ball and wait for the GK to retrieve the ball that is left to restart.

After the goal was scored, the most fair thing I could have done was say no goal and give the ball to the scoring team with an IDFK where the shot was taken from. 

In the moment, the match ball is gone, the clock is ticking, we are in a game that must have a winner with high emotion, the winning team tosses me a suitable ball to be put into play, I toss the ball to the losing team and move to the opposite goal-line for the restart. (All 3 losing team players were in or near the opposing team’s goal area) I 100% did not look for the losing team GK. I did make eye contact with my other referee, who kinda gave me a shoulder shrug. IDK what to do, deer in the headlights look. Again, the clock was ticking; I felt like by the time we had a conversation, the game would be over anyway. The losing team coach was shouting, “Who cares, get the ball back in play!”. Live I also had a deer in the headlights look, because Fuck what now, and I determined that the goal stood. 

My thought process in that split second was 

A) Was the GK considered on the field even though he was retrieving the ball? answer yes 

B) Was what happened fair? answer no 

C) Do the laws allow me to fix this after the restart was correctly taken? answer no goal stands.

My assessment for point C is questionable. I don’t think it was incorrect based on the duties of the referee, the method of scoring the number of players, or anything else. 

Playing devil’s advocate here, when can we call a GK on the field? The laws are pretty vague that a team has 11 players, and one must be the GK. There are sections about going under 7 players and a player having to leave for treatment etc, but nothing about the GK leaving the field. We do not allow a team to play without a marked GK at all. We do not allow a team to play (limited substitutions) when the GK is on the sideline getting treatment. But if a GK is not on the field due to their actions and no other circumstances, I don’t see a reason we can’t start the game. To further that point, we allow a GK to take a throw-in or corner, and they are typically off the field when play is restarted. I will accept that a goalkeeper taking a restart is vastly different than a goalkeeper retrieving a ball. I also think GKs retrieve balls all the time aka when we keep an extra ball behind their net. I honestly never check for them to be back on the field if a teammate is restarting play, but should I?

I don’t feel bad about the decision, and I honestly don’t think the team that lost can complain.  I don’t think their team was done an injustice based on the time left in the game with less than a minute and no time able to be added for stoppages, them being down by a single goal, and the absolute rush to get a new ball on the field. My justification is this. If the losing team scores the tying goal instead of allowing a goal while their GK is somewhere else, would it be fair to take their tying goal away because their GK was not on the field? My other justification is the losing team is in charge of restarting the game. They were the team in possession, and their GK was elsewhere, and they chose to restart anyway. 

Another Remodeling Delay

I was ready to start. The flooring was complete. My wife and I started putting items away and preparing the game room. Then she grabbed a tape measure. She put on her thinking face. Then she put on her I’m sorry face.

Short story. I have a lot more work to do, long story below.

My hobby room has been a sore spot for her. Items I own consistently drift into the game room and every other room in the house. She looked at my hobby room. Where I keep most models, I do my painting, the magic collection is in there. Then she looked at the game room. A much larger room, but it does not have a door. “What if we put the books from the game room into your hobby room, made it a reading room and all your shit can go into the game room?”

I have a lot of shit. 42 lf of floor to ceiling shelves, plus a few piles and stacks of boxes and the like. We have worked about 14 hours on emptying my hobby room, and we are still incomplete. Four more hours to go. Then we have to organize and put about 10,000 volumes of books into the new reading room. Then, I have to restructure the hobby/game room. Build a new painting station. Put everything back on shelves in the game room. Finish the front den area where most board games are kept, requiring all new Billy Shelves from Ikea. Add a new entertainment center. Then, finally, I have to finish the guest bedroom. Building the new bed frame, etc. All before the first of March. Two weekends away, one of which we will be out of town for. Bleh.

I am very pleased to have the new space. It will work better for everything. It is just a lot of work. The campaign is delayed. I won’t have much time to hobby and paint, but it will begin. It will be awesome. Plan on updates.

Progress Continues

Stalingrad is getting closer and closer. The library floors are done, and the river pieces are all painted; now, we just need to apply the epoxy. I also have to move most of the books and bookshelves back into the library and organize them on the various shelves. It should take about a week, maybe a week and a half.

Otherwise, the terrain for the first couple of battles is complete. I do have to paint some 3D-printed hedgerows for the second battle. I also 3D-printed some fenced gardens that look awesome and need paint.

This weekend. I prepared the 40-odd river pieces that are all modular for epoxy. I also painted 5 trucks and a small armored car. I based most of the newly painted units. I will do an inventory in the next day or two to finalize the WWII forces and the Horus Heresey Forces.

I am happy with the trucks.

Terrain Progress Bridge Over the River Don

My terrain has always been an Achilles’ heel. I can get an army on the tabletop, no problem. The idea of taking 2 hours to airbrush and detail a building is daunting.

My first campaign battle is mostly taken care of for terrain. In fact, I have literally 2 pieces of terrain to make. The field is 6×4 with a river running 2′ from one of the short edges. On the small side of the river, there is a village with about 10 buildings. On the long side, there are some hills. A large bridge over the river.

I will use my Kallistra Hexes as the base of the 6×4 table. The simple grass flock. Easily my most used piece of terrain, and I highly recommend it. I will also use their hill pieces on the long side of the field. Kallistra makes several styles, and I will review my collection to decide what is best.

For the village, I will use several of my buildings. I have a few fully painted MDF, some Dwarven Forge, and I will probably paint a 3D-printed church. I also have some 3D-printed hedges and walls that will take no time at all to paint and some neoprene roads.

My crafting is going to be the river and bridge. Both items come from tabletopworld and are absolutely stunning. I have already painted, drybrushed and detailed the bridge. There is a small house attached to the bridge that I need to paint as well. I want to add some green algae effects to the bottom.

The river pieces themselves are slightly raised. They should fit really well into the Kallistra hexes. I want to paint the bottom. Add some river rocks, then fill them with a blue resin. This river will be used in 5 of the 22 campaign battles, and I want it to stand out. I have never worked with resin before. I purchased several large C-Clamps to hold wood against the edges. Wish me luck.

Horus Heresy Lists and Progress

As the house remodel saga continues. Hobby progress has stalled because my Hobby Room is in the remodel area. I have the entrance sealed off with plastic so as little concrete dust as possible can enter. I am much larger than dust particles.

We are getting new fancy floors in our basement. Unfortunately, our house is 120 years old, and the basement is not level. There is a lot of grinding, jackhammering, and laying new concrete to get the new flooring. Lots of dust. Progress is slow. Maybe by the end of the week, I might have access again.

To expedite hobby progress, and because I wanted to. I did purchase a new airbrush for my workplace. It is a budget airbrush but should work nicely for priming and zenithal highlighting. I may even try it on the 3d printed soviet trucks.

I should be on track for the 2nd week of February to complete the full 3000 pt Word Bearers Army. My Ravenguard has been arriving; pictures will be taken later this week.

Here are the Army Lists for the Two Starter Forces

Word Bearers3000RavenGuard3000
Praetor/W Command Squad235Centurion Master of Signals95
Contemptor Dreadnought Talon w/Drop Pod325Praetor Cataphractii W Command240
Destroyer Assault Squad2052 Contemptor Dreadnought390
Veteran Squad w/Rhino150Mor Deythan Squad150
Veteran Squad 1 Missile Launcher135Mor Deythan SquadW Storm Eagle360
Despoiler Squad100Terminator Cataphratii Squad325
Recon Squad w/Storm Eagle344Assault Squad145
Tactical SquadW/ Rhino145Tactical Squad100
Tactical Squad/W Rhino145Tactical Squad W Rhino135
Outrider Squadron91Tactical Squad W Rhino135
Proteus Land Speeders2102x Land Raider Carriers505
Sky Hunter Squadron105Basilisk Squadron200
Land Raider Squadron250Sicaran Squadron220
Basilisk Squadron200
Predator Squadron360

There is very little method to my madness for these lists. I think I have enough transport capacity for the Ravenguard for every unit to be mechanized. I hope the fast attacks on the word bearers can work as screens to prevent the Ravenguard from crossing over the bridge. Some hard-hitting tanks, some dreadnoughts. Coming from someone who has never played, this seems like a fun list to play.

The Raven Guard will be 100% complete once they arrive. I have started priming the Word Bearers Tactical Squad in a silver primer and painting the main areas in Flesh Tearers Red. I didn’t like the look on my one test model. One thing I am trying to push myself with is brighter colors. Way too many of my models are muted color-wise, and I would rather they pop on the table. I am going to try a 100% airbrushed marine with a gradient to see how it looks. Then pick out a few silver details. I am not sold yet.

My 100% airbrushed marine makes me much happier. Base/primer coat of Vallejo German brown. Followed with Vallejo Game Air Blood Red and finished with Safety Orange from Army Painter Airbrush paint series. Used Grim Black from speed paints on the blacks. Silver from Vallejo game air on the silvers, and some Army Painter Red Tone for a little more detail. I underpainted it with a shot of Vallejo Royal Purple.

You can see the side-by-side comparison; the gradient model came out much bolder. I will base both models on the next just to see how they look complete. I literally have 250 Horus Heresy Marines lying around. If one or two become sacrifices, I will live.

It is very interesting to me how a base can absolutely change a model. Some dry brushing is a must on the one on the left, a little bit of silver on the blacks with some yellow on the armor. Also, skip the silver toes and maybe go with something else. Silver markings on the pauldron, maybe.

I used the same colors on the marines as I did on the vehicles. I followed this guy’s YouTube guide on how to paint the vehicles. For my first couple of attempts, I am decently pleased. The next step is adding some transfers and a little weathering.

Time Grows Closer

I have a few things left to finalize the opening battle of the Stalingrad campaign.

Paint German Halftracks, Flamethrower Team, Medic, Spotter
Paint Soviet Bannerman, 5 Trucks, BA 20 Armoured Car, Dog Mines Team

Base all of the above-painted models.

For the Word Bearers

Almost everything needs to be painted. I have most of the models primed which would be good enough to start the campaign I think. Although I have some time Saturday and might be able to bust out quite a few models.

I need to acquire or kitbash 10 Man Despoiler Squad, and 10 Man Destroyer Assault Squad, Legion Chosen models.

I have ordered Destroyer Squads from GW but they have 0 Destroyer Assault Squads. I will add a few jump packs and call it good. For the Despoilers, a box of MKIV marines and the despoiler upgrade should work fine.

Legion Chosen are a little more challenging. I have acquired a couple of Legion Chosen single models, including a bannerman. I still need Legion Chosen marines, so I might just paint regular marines with gold trim instead of silver.

One big thing lacking is the river. I am anxious about painting the river and then filling the pieces with epoxy. It was a very expensive model.

Finally, as far as the future of the campaign. While it is necessary to plan ahead. I also think it would be interesting to look behind. Units can grow. I want to name especially stubborn or heroic units, and maybe, at times, it would be worth losing and withdrawing than going all out and losing your valuable upgraded units. I’ll work on it.