One of the bones they throw to public school teachers is periodic respite to recover from post-traumatic stress. It is my custom to fill these breaks with sufficient industry that my return to the kindergartners is a welcome relief.

During the past two weeks, for example, I constructed a brace of bookshelf headboards for my sons’ beds, performed the usual chores on our acre farm, and indulged in a mess of hobbying. The Mega Minis townsfolk featured yesterday were, in fact, the third substantial project I completed. The second was one I hadn’t anticipated. [The first was making a gaming mat from an old bed sheet, caulk, and lots of flock].

My older son is a superhero enthusiast and for a time, years back, he amassed a modest collection of Heroclix and Heroscape figures. He played both games a bit with friends, pitted them against Lego constructions, and then eventually allowed them to gather dust. At the onset of this break, he challenged me to a super-heroic skirmish on the new wargames table (which I built on the last break…). We decided to give Ganesha Games’ Power Legion a whirl. The sole spanner in the works was that I cannot abide those enormous click bases.

[As an aside, I’ve always considered myself to be an imaginative person. One would think, therefore, that I could employ said imagination to overlook the occasional gigantic rulebook or bottle of soda nestled among the scenery. Sadly, this is not the case. I find that with the little people and terrain I paint and build, a certain quantity of verisimilitude is essential. So, the click bases had to go.]

Rebasing the Clix was an unexpected detour, but I found the process thoroughly pleasant. Since I didn’t do the paint jobs on the figures (and had no intention of repainting them), I could ignore their simplicity. It came as a surprise (as always) how spectacular the Chick Lewis Magic Wash makes paltry painting skills appear. Please to forgive the cellphone photos — I’ll admit that a fruitless quest for the perfect set up to photograph my creations is one among many reasons that I haven’t posted in æons.