The Raz File

In my excitement over Star Fleet Battles and Federation Commander, I began looking for a hex mat to play with miniatures on. Both games feature cardboard counters with paper/cardboard maps to play on, but those are boring. I'd heard quite a bit about Hotz Mats, but I was reluctant to order from them as they've had some timeliness and communication issues in the past, even as recently as a few weeks ago. These are well-documented on The Miniatures Page, but it always appeared that people who ordered from Hotz Mats got their product eventually even if it took a few months. So I decided to order one and see what happened. I placed the order on 06 APR and on 07 APR I got an e-mail confirming the order and explaining that the mats are custom-made to order and some designs (like the space mats) could take a while due to the extra steps (airbrushing the nebulas and whatnot). The e-mail told me to expect a five-week wait, and the threads on The Miniatures Page warned me to expect a several-month wait. The mat arrived today, for a turnaround time of 18 days from order to delivery.

I am quite pleased with the product. I ordered a 72" x 45" Deep Space Mat with 1" hexes. I've taken a few photos of it below. The package felt pretty light at first, but upon opening it I found that the mat feels quite sturdy and should hold up to wear pretty well. In real life the hexes aren't nearly as intrusive as they look in the photo; I think the flash made them several times brighter than they are in person.

I am rather pleased with it. I think the last thing left is to get my Klingon ship painted up and try the game out.

I made a purchase from Hobbytown's Flames of War display. I picked up a Tank Destroyer Platoon box set, which doesn't at all fit into the Eastern Front games I plan on building forces for. I just can't resist the allure of American WWII vehicles. Some people can't get enough German kit but I'm a sucker for U.S. gear. So I'll probably wind up trying to build opposing forces for Germany and America; I'm trying to decide whether they'll be mechanized infantry or footsloggers. I can pick up various attachments (such as an M10 Tank-Destroyer Platoon) for them to keep things interesting. One thing I like about Battlefront's packaging scheme is the ready-made units. You can buy one box or blister and have all the vehicles, soldiers, and guns you need to fill out the unit. You can also buy individual vehicles and infantry groups. One thing that attracted me to the set I chose was that I got three AFVs, a couple of jeeps, and a couple fire teams worth of infantry as well as crew for each of the vehicles.

The vehicle sculpts seem a little fuzzy and there are some big globs that I'll have to carve off, mostly on the bottom where the tracks and wheels glue on. There is plenty of stowage sculpted on, as well as a sprue of accessories like sandbag armor for the front slopes of the M10s. One gripe I have is the way the metal accessories are attached to their sprues with huge tags running the length. On the jeep windshields, for example, the sprue attaches to one full side of the windshield, meaning I'll have to clip it carefully and file the whole thing down. The same goes for the machine guns and stowage. The M20 armored car has a ring mount for the machine gun that is going to be bear to mount as it doesn't match up with the attachment points. I imagine my fingers and that part will spend a little time glued together before it's all done with. I don't see any problems with the crew and infantry figures although the jeep crew figures are attached to a sprue with the same large tags as the machine guns and windshields.


I like the variety of the sculpts. The jeeps are both a little bit different. The stowage in the back is slightly different and one of them has the windshield folded down with some gear tied across it. Looking closely at this jeep just now I noticed that a section of the windshield broke off at some point and wound up stuck to the hood. I don't know what Battlefront's policy on replacing miscast figures is; I guess this is a chance to find out. The extra stowage sprue for the Tank Destroyers is nice. Aside from the ring mount on the armored car the parts appear to fit well.

Overall I'm satisfied with the product. Hopefully I can get the jeep replaced or fix it myself. It should be fun to put the kits together with their stowage and accessories. I like the full-unit-in-a-box packaging, especially when you can get a unit with a nice mix of vehicles and infantry. I haven't worked with resin figures before, so I'm not sure what to use for glue. I'm sure I can search on TMP and figure it out rather quickly. The resin seems to give them a little more heft than plastic, but not as much as metal. I also don't have any paint for the figures, a situation I'll have to remedy at some point.

The Fantasy Basketball season is almost over. I have managed to reach the final round in both of my head-to-head leagues, and I like my chances of winning both of those leagues, or at least splitting them with one first-place trophy and one second-place finish. One of my rotisserie-league teams is in a bitter back-and-forth fight with another team for 2nd place. My other rotisserie-league team just took the first-place spot from the team that's held the top spot all season. I'm hoping I can hold on to it, and end up with four 2nd-place or better trophies this season.

The first week of the Fantasy Baseball season started out well for me, but ended in disaster. A lot of my best players got shut-out by the weather this week, and my place in the standings took a free-fall. I've got plenty of time to make it up, though, as the baseball season lasts forever. This daily roster-management is getting me down. Next year I might go for the leagues that have a weekly roster, so I only have to switch my players around one time every week.

It's occured to me that I sounded quite angry in my last post's remarks about the Reaper Warlord army packs. I suppose it's because I am heavily invested in three partial armies for the game, and the changes to the distribution system stand to cost me a lot more money than I really want to spend. That leaves me in the lurch, as I either lose by having three partial armies that I was excited about painting or by spending a bunch of extra money to finish them out. I think I'll just paint my Warhammer and Supersystem stuff until the situation sorts itself out or I break down and buy the rest of the models I need.

I recently got a gift certificate from Wyrd Miniatures and ordered their Misaki, Warmaiden figure, which came in the mail a couple of days ago. It's a cool sculpt and I've seen a few painted up that look really nice. My issue is that it will take some doing to get it assembled and looking right before I paint it. The figure comes in four pieces: body, rock base, head, and weapon with hand attached. The feet don't seem to rest correctly on the rock, so I'll have to do something about that. I can't seem to get the head matched up to the neck, so I'll have to work up a way to attach that. And the weapon was bent all the way around in a loop and looks to be extremely fragile and impossible to straighten entirely. There are also several metal tabs poking off of the figure, at least one on every piece. They will have to be clipped off and then I'll have to work the areas where they attachedto the point where I can paint them. To me it seems like a lot of effort just to prep a mini for painting.