Above is a pic of Lt. Colonel James Galbraith, Regimental Colour in hand, alongside Bobbie the regimental dog and some of the other "Last Eleven" survivors of the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment, making their last stand in one of the walled gardens just South of Khig village, a few miles West of the Afghan town of Maiwand.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

MAIWAND DAY 130 HEADING TO PACIFICON

It's been a long time since my last post -- several weeks. In that time my mother-in-law sadly passed away, following my father-in-law, who left us a little over 2 months earlier, back in early June. We had a long-planned family vacation in the works which they were both supposed to go on. In the event, our family and my sister-in-law's family went, together with my wife's one other sister, who happily was able to fly in from Shanghai in time for the funeral. Luckily we were able to arrange it so she could take the place of my recently deceased mother-in-law, which enabled 2 complete branches of the family and a representative of the 3rd branch to all spend some time together, mourning, remembering, laughing and crying. I'm glad my wife decided we should all stick to the planned vacation, rather than canceling it on the heels of the sudden tragic turn of events. It's been a rough Summer, especially for her and her two sisters, as well as the 7 grandchildren. I think spending time together, away from almost all day-to-day responsibilities, helped us all deal with things a little better. Obviously this has absolutely nothing to do with Maiwand in miniature but I feel obligated to spend a little time on the subject and hope those of you reading along will bear with me. Now, on to far happier matters...

THE COUNTDOWN TO MAIWAND DAY 130 VERSION 2.0 HAS BEGUN!!!

Yes, it's true, myself, my 13 year-old son and our good buddy Matthew will all be lugging 6'x12' of Maiwand terrain up to Santa Clara for the upcoming PACIFICON GAME EXPO this coming Labor Day weekend.

Here's a link to the convention's website:


We will be lending the terrain to my TMP brother in Maiwand Madness, Nick Stern, for use with his Black Powder Maiwand game to be held starting at 11:30am on Saturday, September 4th.

I'm almost done with the 6th board, which will eliminate the need to "rotate" the boards to extend the table Southwards, beyond Mundabad Ravine and the karez, in order to make room for the rest of the villages of Mundabad and Khig and especially for the walled gardens of Khig, where members of the 66th Regt. made their last stand at the end of the actual battle of Maiwand.

I'll try hard to post a few shots of the table with the 6th board attached, after it's all done. I've also finished up some more high quality trees to use in the villages and the gardens. The trek to Santa Clara is a little bit daunting, only because the boards have never travelled before -- but I have a plan to utilize some carpet foam as packing material to cushion the bumps along the road, plus I've got some furniture blankets that may come in handy as well.

If any readers of this blog happen to be planning to attend Pacificon, please try to stop by Nick's Maiwand game to check out the table in person and say hi!

Here's a pic of board #6 -- still without its final dry-brush highlight coat of sandstone --



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2 comments:

  1. Bluebear JeffAugust 31, 2010 at 1:00 AM

    First, my sincere condolences for your wife and her sisters on the loss of their mother.

    It is a few decades since I was last at Pacificon (I no longer live within driving distance of it -- I'm not even in the same country now) . . . but I always enjoyed it, so I hope that you do too.


    -- Jeff

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  2. Mad GuruAugust 31, 2010 at 2:37 PM

    Thanks very much, Jeff, I truly appreciate your sentiments.

    My son and I are looking forward to the con and I'm sure our buddy Matthew is too. I've organized and run countless miniatures battles in my time but never helped set up a convention game before, so it should be somewhat exciting. My daughters said they will make me a sign to hang around my neck with regard to the terrain, reading: "I MADE THIS!" Honestly, I am not that much of an egomaniac but I do plan to enjoy putting the terrain out in public. One thing I haven't gotten around to doing here on this blog as of yet is posting step-by-step guide to how I did it. Although not many people may be interested, it's something I really want to do, in order to help out the few and far between folks who find themselves in a position of wanting to build desert terrain boards without knowing exactly how to go about it.

    My guess is a lot of the people who have visited this site already know more than I ever will about constructing miniature terrain but aside from the one great site I put a link to here, there is not much out there on building desert boards, at least that I could find. At the convention I'll be able to answer questions, if anyone has them.

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