Yesterday, I took a trip down to Brookhurst Hobbies in Garden Grove, CA because I’d heard through the grapevine that someone from Peter Pig Miniatures would be there demoing a new set of Samurai period wargame rules.

Sure enough, Battle in the Age of Wars turned out to be a lot of fun and quite satisfying historically. I bought the rules and will be using them if and when I get my 10 mm Samurai armies painted. The most interesting thing about the game was that there’s whole pre-game “campaign” that you play before your army actually gets put out on the table. This can drastically effect a lot of things for the upcoming game—from troops that appear late, to hampering your chain-of-command to all kinds of other intrigues and inconveniences. I think that’s what made it so appealing and interesting—you really don’t know exactly how things are going to work out for you.

The game itself is very fast-playing, involving rolling bucket-loads of D6s. The mechanisms make sense, though, and it’s easy to get the hang of things and memorize how to do stuff part way through. With two complete novices and fairly normal sized armies of three wings, our turns were taking about 1/2 an hour and we finished the game in about 3 1/2. Of course, we also had the author himself refereeing for us…

I got so involved in playing the game that time flew by and I missed lunch (not that I need it…), so I treated myself to an early dinner at the only Sonic Drive-In south of Bakersfield—it was yummy!

But now to today’s big news: I brought Victoria home from kitty hospital this morning. She gained nearly 2 pounds in the two days she was there (mostly fluids from the IV bag), but she still isn’t eating. The doctor said she maybe didn’t want to there but would at home. I have to give her liquid antibiotics twice a day and will have to continue with the subcutaneous IV fluids at least once a day in the morning—kind of creepy since it means ME having stick a needle in her. The doctor also said that there seems to be both kidney and liver problems, but she didn’t elaborate yet. I’m going to take care of her this week and go back for a visit on Thursday. Hopefully she’ll be eating by then and on her way to full recovery; if not, I’m going to have to either board her or have a professional pet-sitter come visit while I’m gone to Las Vegas this weekend for the convention.