What's Next?

As temperatures begin to cool and the calendar confirms the seasonal change to fall, thoughts drift toward what the fourth quarter may hold.

Having recently finished up the third playing of the Quistello battle on Thursday (thank you, Peter!), I wrestle with either bringing another 18th Century battle to the table while the rules are still fresh in mind or jump to something else for a brief diversion.  The rules withstood the change over from each BMU occupying a one larger hex to each BMU occupying two smaller hexes.  Still, a few situations need to be codified (at least in my mind) before the next run-out of the rules as I adjust and become more familiar to the two-hex format.  While Peter has provided a terrific battle report on his blog (see Quistello), I ought to hammer out my impressions of our game as well.  Sadly, my Allies fell in defeat but managed to put up a respectable fight despite having de Contades' Brigade caught almost entirely by surprise.  Well, I thought so at least! 

On the painting front, painting seasonality in the graphic below illustrates that my painting production tends to increase from now until year-end.  Will 2025 maintain this seasonal pattern?  I guess we will see in January.  Since I have not re-run this seasonality study since 2020, perhaps, it is high time to update this analysis and assess whether this pattern still holds today?  Hmm.  Something to add to my To Do list. 

Sticking to the topic of year-end painting, before the weather turns cold, time to think about what I want to tackle in the painting queue and get those figures primed for the long winter.  FPW Germans still figure prominently in the painting queue with a number of units already completed and awaiting a turn at the photo box.  My early August order from Lancashire Games, long held hostage by Irish Customs, finally made into my mailbox last week.  Hoorah!  Now, I have some more FPW Prussian and Bavarians to push into the production line.  What I want to concentrate on over the winter months is still undecided.  Probably more 15mm figures as I strike off on a project expansion into a new conflict but a return to Biblicals in 25mm is likely as well.

Plenty of time to formalize plans before the weather becomes too cold to prime figure outside.

Data for the GWS2025 have been recoded and processed.  First thing I took a peek at was the number of PWJ readers who completed the survey and entered the identifying code into the Observations field.  Nineteen of you took that extra step in the survey.  The number 19 seems about right in capturing those readers who regularly leave a comment.  Thank you!  Now, as a profile of those readers responding, a few of the demographic attributes are illustrated in the panel below:

Hardly surprising to see Old Grognards frequenting these pages!

Spinning My Wheels

Spinning both figuratively and literally!

Upper Falls split by Canada Island.

The literal wheel spinning gives a nod to an increase in mileage out on the bike.  While not up to the mileage of old, I am pushing an average of about 150 miles per week.  This is much better mileage than logged during the winter and early spring months of indoor training.  Good to get out in the pleasant weather before the daytime temperatures nudge the thermometer up into the 90s.  Doubly good to get the roadwork in before the hazards of negotiating crosstown traffic make the journey a bit stressful until I can get out onto the relative safety of the bike path and relax.

Upper Falls, South Channel

Saturday morning's ride saw me stopping on the Post Street Bridge for a brief snack break in the middle of downtown.  Breakfast consisted of downing a couple pieces of sushi while I enjoyed the pleasant view of the Upper Falls before making the long and hot climb back up the South Hill and home.  With no measurable rain for more than a month and the mountain snowpack long gone, the Spokane River is running low with both Lower and Upper Falls showing their mid-summer, natural state of exposed rock and reduced water flow. 

Lower Falls under Monroe Street Bridge

The figurative wheel spinning is happening on the hobby front.

Following the series on Mortimer's Cross battles and the chronicling of those very enjoyable games, returning to the keyboard and painting table has been difficult.  After wrapping up a series of battles, I am frequently distracted by what might occupy the table next.  That research continues.  After suggestions, a return to the 18th Century may be in the cards.  Early candidates include War of Austrian Succession and War of Polish Succession battles.  Which one to tackle first is still undecided.  

Another distraction is that Nancy and I brought a new dog into the family.  We all are adjusting quickly and this fellow has every hint at being a very good dog.  His calm and friendly disposition is unmatched by any dog we have had before.  The animal shelter says he is a poodle (mix?) but when I conducted an image match, a Spanish Water Dog came up as a close look-a-like.  Time (and possibly a DNA test) will tell, I suppose. 

Lee delivering a bow rake into Steve after I softened him up!

Finally, I did get a game in this week!  Reject Richard hosted another of his superbly directed playtests for the Age of Sail rules he is designing and developing.  Game ran smoothly and Lee and I came away with a victory.  Great fun!

Jon delivering a stern rake into Dan to seal the deal!

Richard's account of battle can be read at Naval Playtest 4 - Nearly There!

Next time, maybe some new units to parade?  By the way, the dog is asleep at my feet as I type, snoring...

In Between

As the calendar ticks down to the end of October, I find myself in between a number of projects and draws for attention.  A handful of projects are In Work but not many have jumped over to the Completed side of the ledger.

A brief summary of what is currently on my plate includes:

Great Wargaming Survey 2024 Edition

The data for the 2024 GWS appeared in Dropbox yesterday.  Usually, the data file is dropped in early September shortly after the survey closes.  This year, there was a two-month delay.  Respondent counts are way down from last year.  Will this reduction in response distort any of the trends seen in prior years?  Stay tuned.

Battle of Shiloh - the final act

The final game in the series of Shiloh battles played out on Monday.  The game featured Postie's Rejects swapping sides in a "grudge" rematch.  Great battle and some good fun.  Writing of the battle report awaits.

Painting Desk

Activity at the painting desk has been hit and miss of late.  Work on two dozen British cavalry sees final stages toward completion.  Painting mostly wrapped up this morning with staining and basing left to accomplish before moving on to something else.  Looks like more FPW Prussian infantry are up next.

Mikata Ga Hara - Next game up 

Having cleared the gaming table of Shiloh and all of its accompanying detritus, gaming focus switches gears with a return to Feudal Japan.  My Samurai armies have not seen action in a long, long time.  For a change of pace, play goes back to Basic Impetvs on hexes for the first of possibly a number of battles in this period.  First up is the 1572 Battle of Mikata Ga Hara.  First game is on the schedule for Friday.  Looking forward to the action in which I take a hand at commanding the Takeda Army.

That wraps up this short update.  Expect to see progress on one of these four fronts next time.  Or, maybe not!

Mixed Bag

Today's journal entry is a bit of a mixed bag with no clear direction.  Perhaps no direction at all!  

With no game on last week's schedule and visitors in and out throughout, hobby activities focused primarily on administration and preparation in short and irregular bursts.  I take that back, writing the Shiloh battle report in the previous post took a measurable block of time and concentration.  Some tasks saw completion or at least some good progress.  Others were left wanting.  Let's see what got checked off for the week.

Figure Priming.  With cold weather approaching quickly, time to jump start the figures "ready to paint" inventory before the really cold temperatures set in.  This annual fall ritual began this week.  Italian Wars, Franco-Prussian War Prussians, Sumerians, and SYW cavalry have all seen additions to the "ready to paint" pile.  Much more work to do.

Hex Terrain.  A box of wooden hexes arrived to augment both the four-inch and five-inch hex layouts.  The first batch of four-inch hexes have been painted and flocked.  With both scale hex layouts optimized for remote games, no hurry in adding to the already large stockpiles of painted and flocked hexes. Still, something to keep in work rotation. 

Flags.  With expectation that FPW Prussians will be mustering out from the painting desk, time to consider flags.  One flagsheet was created with Prussian flags along with a selection of Spanish WAS flags.  The Spanish flags are all from the talented hand of David at Not By Appointment. 

Storage Labels. While painted figures continue to fill boxes and new boxes are brought into service, I have been negligent in adding proper labels to these newly recruited storage boxes.  Fixed that this week by printing off a sheet of half dozen labels to give these unmarked boxes an identity and help in finding stuff quickly.  Well, more quickly.

Terrain.  Lastly, I tackled applying stain to the Gallia castle purchased a while back.  While it lacked a gatehouse, Vol (A Miniatures Hobby Room), scratch built a gatehouse for this massive castle.  Amazing what Vol created.  Superb effort!  The castle could use one more wall section.

OK. This week, Shiloh returns to the table in a second remote game.  Stay tuned for reports from the front on that one.

Back to the Brushes

With game reports seemingly monopolizing blog posts in June, high time to return to featuring some of the units crossing over the painting desk of late.  While productivity with the brush began the month with a bang, as the days of June tick by, time at the workbench has dropped.  Some of this loss of productivity is within my control.  Some of it not.  Of course, gaming and reporting on gaming consumes my limited time but as the weather heats up cycling moves up the priority list as the mileage increases.

One local highlight is that the Post Street Bridge has finally reopened after a four-year reconstruction project.  Long delayed by COVID interruptions, the bridge is finally back in service.  The original, 1917 bridge has been converted primarily into a pedestrian and cycling friendly crossing of the Spokane River.  The vantage point from the bridge is one we have not seen in, well, four years.  That is, a handsome view of the upper falls and the two foot bridges connecting Canada Island to the north and south banks of the river.  If you look closely, a tiny person can be seen on the footbridge to offer a sense of scale.

Upper Falls from "New" Post Street Bridge

Whoops, I digress.  Back to the painting table.

Off the painting desk today are two, nine figure stands of Swiss crossbow for the 28mm Great Italian Wars project.  Discovering that more crossbow were needed after fighting Fornovo, I placed an order to bring in more crossbowmen.  Figures are Wargames Foundry.  I have an equal number of Swiss arquebusiers to push into the painting queue at some point.  Not yet, though. 

Finally, I received a package this week from Ray of Postie's Rejects fame.  Having recently sent off a CARE package to Richard with some "spare" FRW figures that Ray may be able to press into service as well, in the post was a soft package from England containing the item below and a nice note from Ray.

How about that?

The Rejects have graciously accepted me as a full-standing member of Postie's Rejects (American Chapter, of course).

How cool is this?

Thanks guys!

Commentary Milestone

Last week, the blog ticked over, what for me, was a significant milestone.  That milestone?  PWJ reached 50,000 comments since September 2012.  Ed, from Ed M's Wargames Meanderings blog offered the comment that pushed the count to 50,000.  Thank you, Ed! 

Now, of course, half of those are mine but still, that is a hefty number of comments, right?  Maybe not since I have no other comparative gauge with which to measure. 

Nevertheless, I am very pleased with the level of reader interaction brought up through the commentary section of each post.  As always, comments provide encouragement, a show of support, advance the discussion with personal insights and critiques, and help in creating a bond and sense of camaraderie through these correspondences.  I am happy to receive each comment whether positive, negative, or somewhere in between.  I learn a lot from reader commentary.

One other facet of tracking comment statistics is the Top 10 Commentators widget that adorns the right sidebar.

Over the years, these Top 10 Contributors move up and down the rankings and come and go from the list.  Always a pleasure to see a new name pop up onto the list and a bit sad when a contributor falls out of the Top 10.  Still, the bulk of these Top 10 remain fairly stable with many of the same names on the list as seemingly permanent (and welcome!) fixtures.  These dedicated readers deserve a special thanks.

As one example, Stew attained #1 Ranking late last year and then slowly drifted down and out of the Top 10 only to re-engage after the first of the year to make a steady march back to currently sit at #2.  Impressive comeback, my friend!  

Anyway, I want to mark this occasion to thank everyone who has mustered the courage to leave a comment or two over these first 50,000 comments.

Thank you and keep those comments coming!  

Sumerian Straddle Cars

When I was assessing my goals for 2024 back in January (see The Road Ahead in 2024), the desire to cut back painting output in the New Year was noted.  At that time, I offered up a painting goal of 750 figures with modest shift to seeing more 25mm figures move across the painting desk.  Well, it is mid-May and I appear to be surprisingly on track to reach that goal.  Painting has slowed down, for sure, but a total of 750 figures painted seems doable.  At current counts, the Painting Log shows 303 figures painted, thus far.  That works out to an average of about 60 per month.  With the number of games played and the increased workload of designing scenarios and hosting games, I figured counts may be even less.  Still, I may be on track to reach the 750 goal by year end.

Back to today's topic, two Sumerian straddle cars roll out from the painting desk.  Not quite sure how I will incorporate these two stands into Basic Impetvs games but I am sure I will put them to work somehow and somewhere.  Figures are Newline Designs.  Nice models!

Piedmontese light infantry hold the bridge!

Thursday saw a four-player remote game of the WAS Battle of Bassignana fight out.  We lost two players due to illness but the game carried on in fine fashion with the Stalwart Four.  Another interesting battle developed with tension at every twist and turn.  Who came out the victor?  I guess you must wait for the reports to filter in.  I hope to see a few more games on this battlefield.

Finally, I received an email from Norm earlier in the week stating that his blog, Battlefields and Warriors was going into hibernation and comments would be turned off.  This is not the first time that Norm has drawn a line in the sand on his blog updates so we may see a return at some point.  While the reason for abandonment is understandable, I will miss his insightful posts and commentary.  In the meantime, Norm still offers diary updates on his goings-on at his Commanders website.  

A Peek Through the Looking Glass with AI

Having spent considerable time exploring machine learning and developing business applications using such techniques during my career, the broadening application of artificial intelligence to search engines and expert systems is fascinating.  General-use applications such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and CoPilot have taken the techniques of natural large language processing (nllp) models and offered them to the masses.

Intrigued by recent AI experiments by two wargaming bloggers,

An AI Take on my Blog

Limitations of Artificial Intelligence  

I buckled in, fired up the search engine, and posed the following question to perplexity.ai:

I asked, What is the focus of the Palouse Wargaming Journal? 

 

After only a few seconds wait, the algorithm returned the following summary:

Based on the search results, the focus of the Palouse Wargaming Journal blog appears to be:

1. Wargaming and miniature wargaming, covering a variety of historical periods and conflicts such as the Italian Wars, Napoleonic Wars, American Civil War, etc. 
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2. Providing battle reports and game recaps of wargaming sessions played by the blog author and his gaming group. The blog frequently features posts about specific wargames played, such as the "Battle of Sanguetta 1497" series. 
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3. Discussing the author's painting and modeling projects related to his wargaming hobby, including updates on figures and terrain he is working on. 
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4. Sharing the author's thoughts and reflections on wargaming, game design, and the broader wargaming community. For example, the post "Thoughts on Re-Fighting History: War in the East" discusses the evolution of wargaming mechanisms and content. 
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5. Engaging with the wargaming community, as evidenced by the blog's participation in book giveaways and discussions. 
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In summary, the Palouse Wargaming Journal appears to be a blog focused on the author's personal wargaming activities, battle reports, painting projects, and commentary on the broader wargaming hobby. 

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The results are not too bad for a general assessment of the content and focus of this blog.  In fact, the results are quite good.

Notice that the emphasis on Italian Wars content seems to score higher than older content especially when the recent series of battle reports on Sanguetta are singled out. Since the battle reports on Sanguetta have only been published in March, search currency suggests that these nllp models are being retrained frequently.  The Thoughts on Re-Fighting History scored highly too.  Could this result be driven by reader commentary and discussion as (5) suggests?  Are these models devouring content as well as commentary?

Is Google actively vacuuming up Blogger content (without permission) to train its large language models?  Would this activity lead to an increase in pageview traffic or remain unseen in Blogger statistics?

This experiment raises a number of questions, hopefully, without making me out as a conspiracy theorist.  I may re-run this experiment later and see if results change as content evolves.

Have you tested these waters with your own blog?  What are your results?