Winter is here
This really needs no introduction and a lot more eloquent people have written about this.

Frostgrave looked very interesting, never played it but never mind, but the only drawback that I could see was that all your scenery had to be winter themed which could be quite restrictive.
Ghost Arcipelago is set in a more tropical environment so the scenery can be integrated into other games.
At my rather casual reading of the rulebook it appears that it can be a sandbox of a rule-set. You want pyrates, OK. Savages, no problem. Dinosaurs, why not? It seems it can be a lot of fun.
I’ve put out a request for players on my local gaming forum, but no takers as yet.
http://www.diefestung.com/forum/
Next year’s Austrian Salute is looming and I’d like to try and win best gaming table again. I’ve set a standard so I have to go one better and I’m up against Christoph from Grune Horde who does his own laser cutting. To win I have to have an oustanding table AND play the game.

I have my gaming table, thankyou Electric Love. And I have started planning out a possible layout. I wanted my island system to be as interchangeable as possible so I could go from small islands to large conglomerations.

You can see on the right the first iteration of the design process. Looks nice however the pieces don’t fit seemlessly, there would be a little gully between each cluster.

This led me to laser cut this little device which means I can have perpendicular edges enabling everything to fit together unobtrusively. Hopefully.

Laser cutting some islands.
Lush tropical islands need to be accessorised.
Here are some scatter plants. I need a lot more. Thank heavens for eBay and cheap chinese aquarium suppliers.

Some scenery from my bitz box. Who knows what eldritch terrors this statue has witnessed.
On a final note. I’m having to squint to type this so apologies for any smelling mistooks. I had my eyes tested and my prescription has changed very slightly. Trying to be sensible and grown up and looking after my eyes I took the new lenses. After a week of squinting at the computer, I thought my eyes took time to adjust. Sitting a metre back from the screen hunched at a weird angle trying to reach the mouse I’d have enough and went back to the optician.
“You didn’t say you wanted to read as well.”
Using the interweb acronym FFS!