Tannhauser

I’m a little late to the Tannhauser party. I got interested recently from the guys talking about it on The Dice Tower lists. I’ve checked it out online and it seems pretty Hellboy-ish, with a neat targeting mechanic. I’m not sure why I never noticed it before. The only thing that I can think is that I must have thought it was a Dust Tactics spinoff and I never got into that either.

It sounds like it would be worth giving it a try. Except now that it’s been out of print for a few years, it’s not as easy to find as it was. Most of the sets can all be found online with the exception of the equipment cards. This wouldn’t be so bad except they apparently make the game much easier to play.

I was lucky enough to win a used copy with both the equipment cards and a printed PDF of the updated rulebook. This seems to be the perfect pack with which to start. It all looks so pretty. Plus the background is interesting - World War I never ended, both sides have gotten into the mystical - more so the Germans. Tesla is helping out the Russians, and it includes a Japanese faction as well.

There are a couple of websites with extra scenarios and rules for other figures – like the Hellboy figures from Heroclix. Front Towards Enemy was a great one but is no longer being updated. Savage Tales has some good custom sets, as does Black Sheep Archive, and the Tannbunker - when it is working again.

Heroclix even offers a lot of extra figures that can be used for mods – Batman, Hydra, SHIELD, Hellboy, even army figures. I've read through the original rules and am almost finished the revised rules. I want to play a few games to verify that it is as awesome as it seems before I spend much more money getting more of the figures, maps, and sets.

I still hate drywall

Since we had the supplies out already, we also fixed the holes in the hallway and patched some water damage on the kitchen ceiling. A few days of puttying and sanding later and the ceiling is mostly ready for painting.

While we had the ladder handy I also updated the light fixtures in the kitchen and hall. I had a bit of trouble with the first one but, after rechecking the instructions, fixed the step I had skipped and they went up so much easier. We still haven't settled on the perfect fixtures, but these replace the old globes from the 70s.

I also put the new transition between the hall and bedroom to finish off that part as well. I started to replace more of the edging at the bottom of the siding. With a bit of work, I was able to pull out the nails without too much damage but when I put the new nails in most of the siding broke. Luckily I still had the construction cement to put them back but we will need to repaint them again to help hide the breaks.

So, a few more chores finished, and getting ever closer to the next steps of repainting the kitchen and hall.

I hate working with drywall - bathroom

We had been putting off redoing the ceiling in the bathroom until the leak in the roof had been resolved. That was finally fixed last summer and we had been waiting to see if we still had leaks in the spring. We still had occasional small leaks, and now finally had time to resolve it.

We opened up the plastic sheathing again and quickly saw that when the roofers fixed the shingles, the venting hose was no longer connected to the outside vent. This would cause moist, warm air to collect in the dead air space, freezing in the cold, and melting in the spring. The pooled and caused the new leaks.

I picked up some vent tubes and connected them to the hose. I wrapped the joints in the metal ducting tape and even fixed a small tear in the hose. We then replaced the insulation and taped up the sheathing again with tuck-tape.

I had picked up some moisture-resistant drywall, tape, and supplies, and we pieces together the ceiling and wall. I added putty and tape as needed, and spent the next few days puttying and sanding. I could have spent a few more days repeating this but the wife was keen to get it finished.

We also replaced the sink and taps. My dad happened to pop over so we put the new taps on the sink before we installed it. The boy and I pried off the old sink and put the new one on. The connections went on fine – a bit of a leak from another part of the water connections that had to be tightened – but the boy now knows how to turn off the water main.

I also took this time to replace the light fixture. We will have to replace the medicine cabinet at a later date. The wife had bought a few towel racks to replace the ones we have but they won’t fit on the wall space we have.

Two days of painting and a few touch-ups and we declared the bathroom done. The wife finished loading in all the extra stuff but we had a day or two with it looking all clean and bright.