June 2025 Digest #3

Vietnam War

Health issues currently interfering with this new solo wargaming project. It's been a long while since I played this ruleset so am fairly rusty reacquainting myself with the ins-and-outs. Nonetheless, the possibilities are proving exciting; making them real however is the real test.

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Medical Break

Kidney stone pain is not nice. So distracting it's not funny. Planned gaming canned as a result. Will hopefully get back into next week.  

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World of Warships

Been grinding for coal to access the hitherto untapped Collection containers, primarily for free XP but also to access the untapped rewards. Items are useful enough like permanent camouflage for ship types, second flags, commanders, and even ships. 

Currently completing the Always Courageous collection whose final rewards include the Tier V US premium battleship Oklahoma. Which is a pleasant surprise because even though custom camos or permanent camo are always welcomed, camo remains an accessory of no real economic value but is simply a visual cosmetic effect. Meanwhile a ship reward - however useless (so I hear) - adds value especially toward my ultimate total ship goal.   

The Legacy event in this Update is interesting but remains basically another money grab with ship rewards as the enticement. Sure, new ship chances are included in the random bundles that cost tokens, or you can buy them outright, ships like the Cambridge, Nanning, and Johnston. The GQ Johnny is also available - it is the Johnston but cloaked in its sunken camo. 

However, the enticement for me remains the resources. Today, for instance, it is the coal, free XP and Elite Commander XP I'm chasing after. One bundle type offered over half a million ECXP which was too alluring to ignore. So I've spent around AUD45 to grab both it and another bundle type that was offering 20,000+ coal. The ship rewards don't interest me; and I will continue to spend for the resources. If a ship reward pops up (it is random after all), then I won't say no.

Anyway, I used part of that ECXP haul to advance my Pan-American legendary commander (Lisboa) to the next captain skill level. And the coal was spent to make a serious dent in the Always Courageous collection. I estimate that I need another five crates. So, 15,000 coal, please.

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Tonight I finally allowed myself permission to spend my stash of steel to complete a couple of collection. One was Always Courageous and the other Allied Heroes. Got the Oklahoma along with six special Allied commanders - all 10-pt - as my rewards for completing both. Been a slow process gathering steel which is one of the rarer assets in the game. Figured I might as well put what I do have to good use NOW instead of waiting forever to gather more from the various events in order to grab another steel ship. Given I don't play Randoms or Ranked, let alone belong to a clan and play Clan battles, it will be forever before I even get close to obtaining a steel ship ever again. So, no biggie in the end.

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Seeing Potential

One of the more fun aspects of this hobby is being resourceful. Today I went to the local craft shop. Originally I was after some plastic counters (old skool terminology: tiddly winks) for proxy basing of my Big Men but ended with stuff equally as useful.

1. Blinds. The rules make full use of blinds to represent fog of war. They measure 8" by 1.5". Ended up with Jumbo Ice Block sticks (coloured) that measure 8" by 1". Useable therefore. Colourful as well. Simply cut two strips to .75" then combine to make one new one at the stipulated dimension.

2. (P)inned and (S)uppression markers. Found these teeny weeny alphabet dice. Plain or coloured. Very interesting option. Got two lots so there should be enough to cover. One of the dice are rounded for variety sake.

3. Big Man marker base. That's what the tiddly winks were meant for but found these plastic buttons instead. Figure fits perfect as photo below shows. Various colours. Extremely useful.

Total cost: Less than $12 for all three items - jumbo iceblock sticks, mini dice, buttons. 

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Air Wargames

Tonight I was fortunate enough to find a WW2 version of Canvas Eagles. Managed to download the rules and aircraft profiles. Read through it briefly, and it is very much CE for WW2 airplanes. Same game mechanics throughout. Not quite 3D level but it's already earned a plus because it's familiar to CE. Finally my WW2 1/72 collection gets to take off.

There are some elements of the ruleset that I like a lot more than CE's version. The only problem will be finding bases that allow for displaying banking, climbing or diving. It's always been a challenge that was never properly addressed and resolved. So this needs another re-examination.

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What Terrain?

Speaking of ongoing, I had a funny discussion with a gaming friend the other day regarding naval wargames and the lack of terrain being off-putting for him. I guess the simple response would be to point out that the open sea is the natural environment of naval wargames, and the lack of land formations, apart from the occasional island, rocky outcrops or coast line, is what naval wargames is quite natural.  

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