How many metaphors are there for "Things didn't go as planned"?

I'm seriously thinking this blog should be renamed to "Best Laid Plans Of Mice And Wargamers" or something like that.

After the painting frenzy at the start of the week I slacked off a little bit, mainly doing other bits and pieces. The artillery tractors are all nearly done, one german vehicle just needs rivets adding to the scratchbuilt flatbed. It's funny how in English, "riveting" means something that's incredibly exciting, while in the world of steampunk stratchbuilding, it's the most fiddly, monotonous process imaginable.

Then on Friday I had family duties, taking care of my elderly and bed-bound mother while my father had a hospital visit. It's not quite as onerous as it sounds, in between preparing and serving the odd meal it was a good opportunity to sit quietly with no distractions and assemble card buildings. But after I'd gone home and was preparing for the regular Friday meal & video night with Jonesy, my father called up saying he'd been called by the hospital and had to go in urgently for a blood transfusion. So I had to drop everything and head round to take care of Mum while he was in hospital. Which totally screwed up the planned weekend painting session with Jonesy, and makes it a bit of a challenge to get the rest of the figures painted over the next three weeks.

While sat at my parents house, without internet access (which for a tech geek like me is like saying "without oxygen") it did occur to me that this would have been the perfect use case for a genuinely Portable Wargame. Something compact and self contained that I could have just grabbed and used to setup and play a modest battle with. Unfortunately as it stands, the bits I've set asside for Portable Wargame duties fill an under-bed plastic box and two plastic crates, and then some. Clearly some streamlining is required to create a genuinely portable Portable Wargame setup.

I made a start, picking out a selection of Heroscape tiles which I think have enough variety to allow a flexible terrain setup on a 10 x 12 grid (the optimum size made by four of the large tiles combined together.) About a dozen 15mm trees and a Town In A Bag for buildings. A roll of masking tape for creating roads. About a dozen dice in two different colours. So far that lot fits nicely in a single plastic under-bed box.

Then onto troops. I've got my 15mm 19th Century/Colonial figures which would need rebasing and painting , but right now I'm really tempted to head up the M61 to Preston's Tranport Models and picking up a selection of Napoleonic 1/72 plastics.

OR.....

(click)

.... order from them over the web.

I'm weak I know. But it's been one of those weekends. Now, back to the painting.