Alex's even longer post thread.

[Rev. Powell]

It is Ash's 8th birthday today. He wanted a walking stick because he is now an old man. That is literally the only thing we could get him to tell us he wanted until about a week ago when we got him excited about the thought of a scooter and some more trains.

Tom Waits: "I wanted to be an old man when I was a little kid. Wore my granddaddy's hat, used his cane, and lowered my voice. I was dying to be old. I paid a lot of attention to old people."

[Trevor]

There was a big fire in Glasgow city centre last night. Sounds like it started in a vape shop and swiftly grew from that to engulf a large building from the Victorian era. The area is absolutely gutted and I am not sure if they will be able to save the building, which would be a shame. I've passed it thousands of times. At one point from what I'm reading, they ran a line straight from the river (a mile or two away from the actual fire) for more water, had 6 engines and 90 firefighters on scene.

Survives two world wars to be taken out by a vape shop...
The aftermath of the major fire near Glasgow Central Station. 
Photo from Glasgow live
Image description
The Scene at Union Street
The fire, which reportedly began in a vape shop on Union

There was a big fire in Glasgow city centre last night. Sounds like it started in a vape shop and swiftly grew from that to engulf a large building from the Victorian era. The area is absolutely gutted and I am not sure if they will be able to save the building, which would be a shame. I've passed it thousands of times. At one point from what I'm reading, they ran a line straight from the river (a mile or two away from the actual fire) for more water, had 6 engines and 90 firefighters on scene.

Survives two world wars to be taken out by a vape shop...
The aftermath of the major fire near Glasgow Central Station. 
Photo from Glasgow live
Image description
The Scene at Union Street
The fire, which reportedly began in a vape shop on Union Street, has left the historic B-listed Victorian building (dating back to 1851) a hollowed-out shell. 
Structural Collapse: The most striking visual is the collapsed dome that once sat atop the corner of the building at Union Street and Gordon Street. The roof and internal floors have caved in, leaving only the blackened, soot-stained exterior facade standing.
Rubble is scattered around the ground with smoke still rising from the hollowed-out building

We had an emergency med flight come in via helicopter from the coast guard last night too. It was met by an ambulance, which took whoever they were evacuating to the local hospital. About half an hour later, the ambulance returned for their patient to then be medevacted to a larger facility (I'd imagine either Aberdeen, Edinburgh or Glasgow).

Just thought, whoever was in those mercy flights should consider themselves to be damn lucky they aren't in the US. If a 20-minute ambulance ride costs $3600, I'd hate to think what the two flights would cost them.

It is Ash's 8th birthday today. He wanted a walking stick because he is now an old man. That is literally the only thing we could get him to tell us he wanted until about a week ago when we got him excited about the thought of a scooter and some more trains.

It is Ash's 8th birthday today. He wanted a walking stick because he is now an old man. That is literally the only thing we could get him to tell us he wanted until about a week ago when we got him excited about the thought of a scooter and some more trains.

Happy birthday Ash 🎂🎉💐🎊🍰🎁🐢

[Alex]

I've been going through the various model sprues I have kicking around and building up the kits, clearing out my backlog a bit. It wasn't a surprise when I came across a tank model in a sealed bag, but what did get me was that the instructions were missing and nothing was there to identify what manufacturer or tank it actually was, so I'd to build it up from guesswork. Turned out to be an Italian M13/40. Figuring out what parts to put where wasn't that difficult, although there was a bit of working out what order they'd to be built in, and I couldn't quite get the turret to fit exactly right with small gaps in the upper side of the turret. Filled them in, you can't tell there was a problem under the paint job.

Shame it is a crap tank after all that effort. 

The Italians had some decent tank destroyers, but the actual tanks they had were only just better than the Japanese (who had the worst tanks out of all the major combatants). Still, it will go nicely with the two platoons of Bersagliari I've just finished.

Storm season part two is in full swing right now with strong winds and heavy rains. Since the schools are out on holiday right now that pretty much sucks.

[Dr. Whom]

Esci did a M13/40 in 1/72 way back in the day

[Alex]

The stuff I collect is a rather awkward scale, 1:56 which is a terrible scale for gaming and I truely do not understand why it has become the most popular size. I could have understood it more if it'd been at the same scale as the most popular model railways for getting terrain and buildings.

[Alex]

So trump insults one of the Saudi princes and shortly afterwards the Saudi's release this picture. . I've heard estimates on the cost of each one of those aircraft from between $300 million to $800 million. Add to that the tracking bases that have been destroyed, the stock of missiles rapidly being depleted, the F-35 somewhere between shot down and landing badly damaged, the friendly fire incidents with the other aircraft, two aircraft carriers having to retreat from the conflict zone and the damage to various other military bases across the region and the US military is not looking great right now. The problem is that they tend to rely on very expensive assets to get the job done. Don't get me wrong, generally those assets are good at what they do, but they are expensive, they take a long time to replace when used/lost/destroyed and in some cases can't actually be replaced. All these high-tech toys are great for surgical strikes but what wins war is decent stuff that can quickly be churned out. The most expensive and best made things out there aren't what you need for victory. That is a lesson that has been shown time and time again throughout the history of warfare, yet time after time governments fall into this high tech mindset and dump the military with stuff that doesn't do what is really needed. Quite often high tech equipment fails to work correctly against lower tech stuff. Older raders can pick up US stealth aircraft for example. China figured out how to track them based on minute interference to mobile phone signals. The Javelin anti-tank missile works great in open spaces, but for urban combat it loses out against European-made equivalents.

And all the while people are dying just so someone can try and distract people from the Epstein files.

[Dr. Whom]

The stuff I collect is a rather awkward scale, 1:56 which is a terrible scale for gaming and I truely do not understand why it has become the most popular size. I could have understood it more if it'd been at the same scale as the most popular model railways for getting terrain and buildings.

I blame it on the people who want to play skirmish games in 28mm (mostly the Bolt Action crowd). Over the past decades I have noted a steady move away from massed miniatures to toy soldiers. Is this the influence of GW, or are gamers growing older and can't see 1/300th as well as they used to?
I agree that 1/56 is too big to fit comfortably on a table. I do like the scale for modelling though. You can get a lot more detail in than in 1/72 and it doesn't take up as much space as 1/35.

[Alex]

The stuff I collect is a rather awkward scale, 1:56 which is a terrible scale for gaming and I truely do not understand why it has become the most popular size. I could have understood it more if it'd been at the same scale as the most popular model railways for getting terrain and buildings.

I blame it on the people who want to play skirmish games in 28mm (mostly the Bolt Action crowd). Over the past decades I have noted a steady move away from massed miniatures to toy soldiers. Is this the influence of GW, or are gamers growing older and can't see 1/300th as well as they used to?
I agree that 1/56 is too big to fit comfortably on a table. I do like the scale for modelling though. You can get a lot more detail in than in 1/72 and it doesn't take up as much space as 1/35.

I've noticed a lot of scale creep which I actually put down to GW. When I started playing in the 80s 25mm was the standard scale. Now it seems to be 28mm with many manufacturers coming in at 32mm. I don't buy as many Warlord figures as their "heroic" 28mm figures look like basketball players beside any armoured vehicles. Anyway, over the years GW seemed to try and fit larger and larger figures onto their bases. I remember a box of plastic Dark Elfs in particular during the 90s that had swords wider than their heads and couldn't be lined up next to each other as various bits protruded out beyond the 25mm base. Given that represents a 5-foot square, that is a huge elf. Warlord, consisting of ex-GW staffers just seems to have the same mindset with Bolt Action. My point of view on this is that if you make figures bigger, that means they take up more storage space so in the long run you sell less of them (I am at the point where I have almost reached the maximum amount of figures I can store in my man cave).