modeloperator – modeloperations

Err…, well, what is this?

8th Mai 2023 modeloperator Kommentare 0 Kommentare

That’s why I love flea markets! I was very surprised to find this game on a flea market in Rheine in summer 2021. A german cosim? Obviously quiet old. The name of the author is written on the box, what I consider a rather modern development. Who knows any boardgame designers from the times before Klaus Teuber? In addition, topic and partially the mechanic of the game is explained on the front cover. What makes this cover rather look like the backside of the box (Which is completely white!) as if the producers wanted to explain what the spectator is looking at. I had to have it!

For 2 Euros I couldn’t go wrong, I thought, without having any big expectation. And what a bummer! Now that I had the leisure to have a closer look (Nearly a year later!), I found out that it is incomplete. Some dice, markings and, most importantly, some of the ships are missing. It’s really not a nice affair to sell old games without any infomation that it could not be complete. Well, that’s how it is now but, in a way, it paid off.

So I found out that Seeschlacht, maybe Naval Battle or Battle at Sea in English, really has an entry on Board Game Geek. I never expected that for old forgotten games published very long before the internet era. But you can all find them there. All the games from my earliest childhood days! You remember Gran? What a bother! Ever heard of Captain Future? The boardgame, I mean? How much I wanted to have that one! But our toys store (Late Vorgerd.) was unable to order it. Unimaginable nowadays when everything is just a few clicks away. Anyway, according to BBG it’s quite boring and has nothing to do with the animated series, besides of the name. Thank you, BBG, for solving that trauma! 😉

Back to Seeschlacht, published in 1975, BBG describes it as an „abstract naval combat and merchant game“. Well, „abstract“ is not what is usually on my wishlist and at the moment I really do not know what to do with this one. I guess I can substitute the missing parts somehow and might game with it a few times. But that’s for a later date…

Dirty old box

23rd April 2023 modeloperator Kommentare 0 Kommentare

It doesn’t know it yet. But it has to go!

But before that, what’s lurking inside?

Strangely coloured apparatus! Not so bad a paintjob for some teenagers in the early ’90s. Before mini painting became a science and youtubers revealing to us the newest and hottest techniques of how to paint your minis on a daily basis.

Let see what I can make of these. Maybe I will give it a try to strip off the paint. In any case, useful for destroyed Titans, scenery items and objectives. Also, I could practice some rearrangement of the torso on them. (Frankentitan?) The bases are really well done and in good condition. Maybe spare ones for bases in less good condition.
Until that time all that stuff goes into another box, old but not so dirty. That is the place where they once came from.

Vive le Printemps!

21st April 2023 modeloperator Kommentare 0 Kommentare

During the Easter holidays we spent some days at family in southern France. We had wonderful 20 degree celsius most of the time and there is a lot of gaming related stuff going on there. We lived near Béziers and visited the medieval town several times. A wonderful place for a fantasy setting!

Béziers was also the hometown of Jean Moulin, an important leader of the Résistance during the second World War. He is said to have united the several factions of resistance in France. Moulin died in custody of the Nazis before the end of the war but in Béziers he is still present.

Close by, Narbonne is another beautiful town which kept its medieval flair. On our visit there we stumbled across an exhibition with medieval costumes at the cathedral. They were made by a group of reenacters based on contemporary sources, old pictures and scripts. Great inspiration for our next visits to medieval markets!

On Easter Monday we were on our way back home but had to wait for our flight in Montpellier. So we walked around the city and came to the magical toy shop of the old-fashioned sort. Of course it was closed this day. Only window shopping this time but we had been there before.

That saved me some money and, for sure, the next trip to wonderful Occitanie is not far away.

The best game ever!!!(?)

26th März 2023 modeloperator Kommentare 0 Kommentare

Well, some people call Heroquest like that. Surely in one or the other way it is the role model for all modern dungeon crawler boardgames and the nostalgia around it can not be denied. A gamer’s expertise would somehow be incomplete if you had never played it at least once. Nevertheless, I think, you don’t have to like it! But it’s cult!

In the days of high political incorrectness

This 1ed. box was another gift from a fellow gamer. Intended as a Christmas present, it went on its own quest. Delivery services were so busy in December that the service person put a wrong name on the delivery card (We weren’t home that moment.) and that simple mistake made it impossible to retrieve the parcel from the post office. So it went back to sender, was resend and, finally, weeks after Christmas arrived safely at my place. That taught me a lesson about Heroquest: You may not love it but you don’t want to lose it!

As it came after a long and suffering journey

Dating back from 1989 it is in great condition. Nearly nothing is broken and what is, can easily be repaired. Even the furniture is complete with all the small parts, mice and skulls, that are much sought after on Ebay, I was told. With it came the add-on Karak Varn with some of the figures still on sprue. This box was long forgotten in a barn full of many good games, the story goes on, only to be found by a true believer in the best game ever!

When heroes were still heroes – no detail bloating here

Now, what to do with this rediscoverd treasure? Certainly it is going to be painted one day though that might be in the far or very far future. The other plan is to play it via internet as my benefactor and me are far away from each other and meet only rarely nowadays. The machinations of the game make it easy to play it via camera and microphone. Time will come!

Dude, where’s my mini?

18th März 2023 modeloperator Kommentare 0 Kommentare

As of today, I’m an active contributor to the Lost Minis Wiki. For a reason I do not remember I stumbled across this site a few day ago and immediately fell in love with it. At the beginning it was great fun to look at old minis I wanted to have as a youth but could never afford in the early days. Nevertheless, at certain points, I realized I own some stuff that is not pictured or even listed on LMW. So I wrote to the admin this week that I wanted to contribute and got my login details within a day. Originally I had only planned to upload some pictures but then I spent this whole afternoon and early evening on creating a complete new page. And this is the result:

I was quiet surprised not to find this 33-years old legendary box there on LMW although there are thousands of minis from over a 1000 manufacturers listed. But, I guess, metal minis last much longer and most of the plastics went down the garbage chute in the past decades. So, probably, nobody really posseses a representable example to show on a wiki anymore.

I never did a wiki page before and I had to spend some hours before (almost!) everything was fine. Luckily, the admins left some useful tutorials for editing pictures and the the code could easily be adopted (copied and edited!) from other contributors. Nevertheless, it took me some time to figure it out how it all works.

These old Space Orks weren’t always mine. Again, a certain old gaming mate gave them to me about a year ago after resting for more than 20 years in his place. And it is complete! No piece is missing or broken. These unharmed sprues are likely to become an Ork warband for a scifi skirmish game. I had planned to write a blog entry about this box before but only today was the day and here are the pics:

36 minis in a box! And we did not even pay (what is now!) 15€ for these boxes, may it be Orks, Imps or Squats. While writing these lines, a box of 11 Ork boyz is 35€! Ok, agreed, a lot has changed since then. Nevertheless, let see what we can make of them!

One post a week

12th März 2023 modeloperator Kommentare 0 Kommentare

Only one post! Shouldn’t be too much as there is much going on on the hobby front. Today I got these two wonderful boxes from an old gaming mate full of gaming memories. This is stuff from our earliest tabeltopping days with some surprises I didn’t know about.

The Titans are the ones I missed earlier in the Adeptus Titanicus unboxing. The metals came as a real surprise to me, including the Ratling sniper. I always wanted to have one! The first-edition Imps are the first tabletop army I battled against with my old Squats who still rest in boxes upstairs. Maybe there is some new battle ahead in the future.

Adeptus Unboxicus

2nd Juni 2022 modeloperator Kommentare 0 Kommentare

Earlier this year an old gaming buddy gave me his first-edition Adeptus Titanicus from 1988. This box rested longer with him than I know him. We never played it together but, as far as I know, it saw a lot of action.

Today was the day that I opened the box for deeper inspection. However, I was already warned that there wasn’t much left in the box, namely the rulebook and the Titan models.

Strangely, when looking at the Titan models in the scenery on the back, you can see they are different from the usual old plastic Warlord models. Recognizable especially when looking at the legs‘ armor plates where you can find much more detail on the models in action. This difference is also true for the unpainted model in the circle which shows the standard model. Even in the old Citadel catalogues I couldn’t find a model that is exactly the same as in the scenery. An „unseen“ Titan?

The big prize was the seven polystyrene buildings which are still in good condition. They will go nicely with the new AT buildings. I can’t see any difference in size despite the smaller scale of the old edition.

Only one Titan model was still in the box and I’m not really sure what to make of it. The bases can be restorated and there are a lot of heads and weapon options. No idea where all the Titans went but I have about ten of the old plastic Warlord models in my collection, in addition to some metal Reavers and Warhounds. Enough for epic battles!

Next step is to finish some of my Titans already under painting and play some solo games to learn the rules.

Cheers from here to an old gaming buddy who let me have his old stuff! The AT box was not the only thing. So more to come.

Not what I had planned but it stinks

14th Dezember 2021 modeloperator Kommentare 0 Kommentare

As an early Christmas present I treated myself to an old Märklin starter set I found on ebay. And guess what? It’s incomplete! Three curves are missing and no word about in the description. But at least it works.

Oh,boy! I remember that smell of burned iron from my childhood days. Gladly the set was cheap enough not to complain too much and I ordered the missing rails for a really decent price.

This antique controller though frightens me a bit. So when I tested it (Very carefully!) I was prepared for the worst and to react in an instant if necessary. But it works fine. Even the switch for going into revers. (Is there a proper word for that in English?) I will not lose a word about these cable/ plug connections here.

So, whereforefore? The idea is to teach myself a little bit more about maths, physics and electronics with the help of a book that uses model trains as demonstration material. Ok, that’s only a pretext. I just wanted a model train!

Nice to be here again

5th September 2021 modeloperator Kommentare 0 Kommentare

Today I visited the scale model exhibition in Rheine, Modellbauwelt 2021, for the first time in years. This time together with my brother. This exhibition is in no way not as big as the one in Bünde (Baden-Württemberg) but the entrance is free.

As a bonus I found some nice cheap additions to my Cold War collection.

I also had the chance to talk to the club’s chairman, the GFWC Rheine. Unfortunately he had to tell me there isn’t much club activity going on anymore. Still there were some clubs from Brandenburg and Duisburg exhibiting their pieces and I hope for 2022 event in which I might take part.

First things done in 2021!

1st Januar 2021 modeloperator Kommentare 0 Kommentare

Today I finished painting four cargo loads for the Zvezda Ural 4320 Truck in 15mm. Not really much to do on them but it’s a good feeling to get something done this early in the year.

These pieces are a very nice addition to an already great model suitable for many different settings.

I already had four of the truck models, ordered in around 2015, when I found these loads on sandsmodels.com. In addition they offer a conversion kit for an office body which makes a very nice comand vehicle. At that time, in 2017 or 18 maybe, they also sold models of the Ural and so I snatched four loads, the office body and a fifth Ural in one order.
The four cargo trucks and the comand truck were already finished one or two years ago.

A very nice convoy ready to get ambushed by some partisans or special forces teams! 🙂

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