212
So made it down to 212 pounds so far on the diet of doom… I haven’t been down to this weight in a very
long time and am easily fitting into clothes I’ve not fit into for
decades. Cleaned out my closet last
weekend and dug out a bunch of things I had buried in the back of the closet in
the “maybe someday” pile. Actually
having to rotate out things I was wearing for the last several years as I
cannot actually wear them anymore without looking silly… Boxers for instance J Need to be sure they are caught under the now
tightened belt lest they fall victim to gravity… But is nice wearing things I wore working at
Illinois Power or Ciber up in Chicago and finding them actually loose these
days. WW seems to be working quite well
for me, had one “real meal “yesterday with the non-diet approved burger and it
was quite nice… While eating it. After, not so much as I am clearly no longer
used to eating that sort of food. The
running and workouts are going well for me, finally fully recovered from my
illness and back to my now normal times on the runs. Planking, body weight workouts and the like
for the other 2-3 days filling in.
Probably best to start switching over to actual weights at some point as
my cardio workouts are going well.
Endurance and strength back at levels I’ve not seen since my Army days,
so just waiting on my Iritis to finally clear off (Doctor says it is ALMOST
there) so I can get back to wearing my contacts… I had forgotten how annoying glasses were,
especially during the winter. And
without sunglasses I count on wearing a hat to keep the sun out of my eyes… Ah well J
Gaming wise, waiting on the new FFG stuff to hit tomorrow we
are told… My X-Wing card packs and Republic (Clone) reinforcements. Slowly getting those lads painted up, or at
least the few I have. 500 point games
are fine for now, but until I have a Tank I suspect the 800 point level is
simply not going to be a thing for me.
General Kenobi and 2-3 Squads or CPT Rex and 3-4 Squads being the best
choices. I have the BARC speeder and it
does… Well it does. Some games it is amazing and it kills many
things. I typically send it off as a
guided missile to be my Jaeger (hunter) and deal with Sniper teams or flanking
Scouts that my Clones would otherwise have difficulty dealing with. Were I playing more competitively I suspect
that skipping it and having more Clones would be a better choice. And with the lads, it is somewhat counter
intuitive to have them bunched up… When
I was in, it was drilled in to keep spread out to minimize the damage from
Artillery or things like Grenades or the like…
To b fair I suppose the armor I wore was nowhere near what the Clones
are wearing and as of now there is simply nothing “Artillery-Like” in the game
to pose a realistic threat to forming up in a flying wedge and moving toward
the Enemy… With their ability to share
Tokens and easily get the Surge Tokens (“Focus” equivalent from X-Wing) to be
used either offensively or defensively to enhance their battlefield
effectiveness… Between this and the far better
basic weapon they have a huge advantage over their eventual replacements in the
basic Storm Troopers. It reflects the
Republic’s emphasis on better training and far better equipment over that of
the Empire with the more… Well, more is
better with no regard to quality… “Quantity
has a Quality all its own” I suppose.
This translates across most of the games FFG does with the Imperial
things being the ones with the overwhelming numbers on their side and the
Rebel/Republic having the FAR better but usually hopelessly outnumber Units… And I usually fall pretty well into one of
those sides with my personality and preferred play style, so that works out
well for me.
Other game stuff, Bolt Action is still here, test minis for
the British Airborne (though I suppose they use the word “Airbourne” J) camouflage smocks… Still not really getting that, but getting
FAR closer with some of the GW “Contrast” paints. At this point though I have
only a handful of the lads even assembled so a ways off from actually getting
in games… One Armored Car though so the
lads will have minimal Armor support when they do hit the table…
BattleTech…. Well, in
cleaning some of the Basement of Doom™ I DID come across a large number of the
ancient miniatures I had from the ancient times. Some of them at least are just “point of
pride” ones as we played the far more hard corps where if you lost the Mech on
the field, you lost the miniature. Could
ransom it back or the like, but we were very much keeping with the “history” of
the in game universe…. So, the ONLY
reason I had some of those minis would have been captures that were never
repatriated. Like my eventual command
Mech, the Banshee-3S. The original
Banshee was just bad. Dropping the
smaller engine in place dropped the maximum speed from 4/6 to 3/5 but freed up
a LOT of space and weight for an actual Assault Mech’s weapon load out. Went from a bad joke to an Assault class Mech
that I would argue was actually better than any other out there including the
(at the time) king of the hill in the Atlas.
So, it took some time, but I had mine go into the shop as it were and
came out as a real Assault class Mech to lead out my Mercs. I’ve stripped the lot and am repainting in
the colors of the Skye Rangers. So, dark
red/crimson body and black on the arms.
Looking pretty good so far, at least a unified pattern to make them all
look like part of the same force. And
keeping with my tradition of finding a strange, usually Scottish, sub faction
to put my forces into J… Waiting on the Kickstarter to have the new
things including the redesigned Clan Mechs which for me will go either Clan
Wolf or Clan Wolf in Exile… Keeping with the theme, and the WiE forces are
allied to the Skye forces, so planning ahead I am to keep ALL of my stuff in a
nice, neat package…
