Love in the Time of Coronavirus

Before anyone wonders what song this title is related to, for this post I am changing the rules slightly.  Instead, it's a reference to a book title.  In this case, the reference is to Gabriel García Márquez's novel, Love in the Time of Cholera.   After all, nothing says we can't class the place up once in a while!

From a gaming/painting viewpoint, I'm finding this quarantine period a bit confusing.  From reading TMP, TWW, or other people's blogs, it seems like everyone is getting loads of figures painted.  Indeed, it seems to be our patriotic duty (no matter what country you're in) to sit on your backside and wield a paintbrush,  So far, this has not been my experience.  Instead, I'm finding it more interesting to play on the Internet, catch up on some reading, or even helping my wife cook.  I can hear what you're thinking out there: "Gee Brian, you're just in a slump.  It happens to everyone; it's even happened to you in the past."  Normally, I'd agree with you, but I'm not ignoring the hobby.  Instead, I'm doing something that I'm afraid is much, much worse.  What, you ask, could I possibly be doing that is so horrible?  Well, I'll tell you.

I keep catching myself looking around for new projects.

  Even though I've said many times that I don't want any new projects, the call of something shiny and different still beckons.  For example: On TMP today (4/14) there was an article saying that a set of sci-fi rules were on sale at Wargame Vault.  "Ooh," I say.  "That could be fun.  After all, they're just navies in space."  Never mind that I have several sets of space battle rules; I'm still looking at these.  I manage to talk myself out of the idea before I start looking at spaceship miniatures though.  Some might call it strength of character; I would call it sheer laziness. 😒 

OK, so not completely new projects then.  Now, I'm looking through the unpainted miniatures, along with finished projects that haven't been shown here wondering if I can expand them.  Trouble is, I've got a LOT of miniatures that aren't on this blog.  Heck, I've got miniatures I don't even have rules for.  Take these guys for example:

These are the 1/72 scale 1938 Gran Prix cars produced by Minarions Miniatures in Spain ( https://minairons.eu/en/ ).  This has always been one of my favorite periods of racing history, probably because of a book I got when I was a child.  When Lluis at Minarions announced this project, I was all over it.  In fact, I have three of his new cars somewhere in the mail waiting to arrive.  The different makes of cars are pictured below.

Auto Union Type D.  The driver in the yellow sweater is Tazio Nuvolari.

Mercedes Benz W154.  The car noses are colored to help the pit crew
distinguish the drivers.

Alfa Romeo c12/312.  Italian racing red was not a uniform shade at this time,
and could be almost maroon.

ERA. This British make was popular with private teams.  The colors are,
from L to R: Belgium, Great Britain, Siam.

A lack of rules shouldn't be a problem, because I wrote a set of stock car racing rules for Two Hour Wargames.  Called Win or Go Home, it was fun but didn't sell very well and is no longer on the THW website.  It did, however, give me some ideas and was working on other versions before it tanked.

My baby.  My poor, orphaned baby.

So, I will be modifying these, but will also be writing a rules set that uses a complete track, like the old Speed Circuit boardgame.  My rules assumed that you were part of the pack on the lead lap, so only had enough "track" to hold all the cars.  Apparently, most racing game fans prefer a game with an entire track to chase each other around.  Why two separate sets of rules, you ask?  Well, I do want to use these cars, so will use whichever set most people like.

I have some other projects too, but I don't want to turn this into some sort of long, run-on post.  You can expect to see them in another post that will be up soon.  Whats in the next one?  Well, let's just say that these other projects are a little bit closer to what you might expect from me!