My New Girlfriend, Charlotte:  Leveraging AI

    In truth, we've been dating for a couple of years, so my relationship with ChatGPT is not really new. My wife has named it Charlotte and refers to it as my girlfriend because there are some weeks when the 5–6 hours I spend researching and exploring ideas are more than I spend with her. It's a sad state, but without extra help caring for her sister, we sleep and take care of our other obligations in shifts, with little overlap for ourselves.

    Now... back to Charlotte.

    I'd been hearing a lot about things others were doing with AI (ChatGPT is the one I chose to use), so I decided to explore some of these uses and probe its limitations.

    The first avenue was Bolt Action. I was familiar with the game, so I asked Charlotte to design a scenario with a couple of squads of German and American troops on each side. The prompt included the type of scenario: Americans attacking a village to secure a specific building and a crossroads. There was also a hard limit on the point values for each side.

    Charlotte went to work on the troop lists. What was interesting at that point was that I could see each iteration, including the troops selected and their point values. The first list had too many points, as did the second, but each time the model noted that the total was too high and recalculated until it reached the correct number.

    The victory conditions and starting troop deployments were set, and I prompted Charlotte to "Play it." My goal was to see if the model had enough data available to accurately play the game turn by turn to a conclusion. The response was a paragraph or two summarizing the entire game.

    The prompts were refined over several games until ChatGPT was returning the data I needed to check the accuracy of the rules being used. In the end, the activation die was reported, followed by the unit chosen to move and what it was doing. The dice rolls for combat and morale were also reported so I could verify the results. The Americans won each game, which may have been a hallucinatory bias of the AI, but the reported results were all in order.

    That half hour or forty-five minutes taught me a lot about writing prompts and requesting responses, information that has been invaluable going forward.

Westmoreland Gamers Guild Flea Market

    I'll save some of the other exploration and experimentation for later blog posts. For now, let me tell you about one of the latest ways I've been able to leverage AI.

    A YouTube video with a thumbnail about France and civil war caught my attention about two weeks ago. I'm pretty skeptical of these types of claims without corroborating reports, so I set up a little date night with Charlotte and asked her to find reports from news sources covering the unrest in France. The responses led me to actual articles from several sources, allowing me to see what events were being reported and whether there really was a civil war in progress.

    Along with the response, I was notified that I could use Tasks, a relatively new feature of ChatGPT, to perform recurring searches for information and notify me if things worsened. Charlotte also suggested that Tasks could be used for several other things I might want to monitor. Local gaming events where I might have sales opportunities were among those suggestions.

    With a little refinement of the prompt, I was able to set up a weekly search for gaming events within a 200-mile radius of home. These include gaming flea markets, conventions, game days, and similar events.

11/05/2026 Event Report

    Now, every Monday morning at 9:00 AM, Charlotte goes to work for me. The web is searched for events, new ones are added to a spreadsheet, and events that have passed are moved to an archive tab. Once that's done, a notification is sent to my email and to ChatGPT, waiting for me the next time I open it.

11/05/2026 Archived Events

    Charlotte is still learning the ropes and missed a few events I already knew about, but adding them is a simple matter of prompting her to do so. The spreadsheet is immediately updated for my own use or to share with clients and friends who might be interested.

    I know, especially as a married man, I shouldn't be seeing someone from work. But for now, I think I'm going to keep my options open.

 The Mystery of the Missing Blog Post: SIBCON 2026

    My association with the Circle of Swords began when I met some of its members way back in the late 1980s. Several of them would join us at the Random Gamers Guild game room in Oil City, PA. They were a likeable bunch, so we started going to some of their game days and their convention in Butler, PA. I even attended occasionally as a vendor.

    Eventually, they added a second convention: COSCON in the spring and SIBCON in the fall. Unfortunately, they usually coincided with, or were too close to, the HMGS East conventions, so for a long time I couldn't attend or vend at either one.

    Then life got in the way, and I lost contact with the group for about ten years. I'd see some of them occasionally or communicate with them on Facebook, but not consistently.

    A couple of years ago, another friend of mine and I started attending as vendors again. Last weekend, I had the great pleasure of attending SIBCON. Hence, the missing blog post last weekend.

    These conventions are small and local, with between 200 and 300 people in attendance. There is a good mix of role-playing and tabletop miniatures gamers, so it's the perfect place to take items from my collection that I'm ready to pass on to others.

    I also sell my own 15mm miniature lines and offer my services as a sculptor and painter. It's a good venue to pick up a client or two along the way.

    I don't bother taking photos of RPG sessions. Unless you are actively participating, they are boring to watch and usually just look like groups of people sitting around a table staring at their character sheets.

    But... I did photograph this seemingly 100-foot-tall 3D print of Strahd's castle. Ok, Maybe it was only 6 feet tall. During play, this was separated into multiple layers, including a catacomb level.

    This game was particularly interesting, with several adventuring groups exploring the castle from different starting points and eventually meeting somewhere near the top for the final encounter against Strahd and the other parties. It was a truly impressive sight, and the players seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves.

    Other games included:

    A sci-fi game with stompy mechanicals and human sized troops.

    A French and Indian War scenario. I believe it was the attack on Kitanning.

       A modern somewhere in the Middle East scenario.

       And several games of A Song of Ice and Fire. Very large games of ASOIAF. Holy cow, the number of figures...

    There is a couple who do a lot of really nice filament-printed terrain, so I added a few medieval town buildings to my collection for Guards of Traitor's Toll and other similar games.

    I also found a copy of Free League's Invincible Starter Set for $20. I may never actually run a superhero RPG, but I really like Free League's products and couldn't resist adding it to my shelf.

    SIBCON was held at Butler County Community College. There is no onsite lodging, but there are several places to stay within a half-hour drive. Food options are similarly limited, but I did try out the student union grill and coffee shop on the first day. I found a crispy chicken sandwich and fries that were quite good.

    I decided that was probably going to be my lunch for the next few days and that it could be enhanced a little with the addition of some hot sauce I'd made the week before. So Cayenne Smoothie made a guest appearance in the display case for the rest of the weekend.

    What I really like about the Circle of Swords conventions is that they are run by good people. Hanging out with them for a weekend reminds me of some great times from years ago. But I also get to make new connections and get to know people better with each convention I attend.

    If you get the chance and are within an hour or two, I highly recommend trying one out. The next one is COSCON in April 2027. Please see the provided link for more information.

https://circleofswords.com/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

We Got a Convoy!

 Or more of one anyway.

While I was painting the Opel Blitz, I started thinking about more vehicles I might need for some Raiders of the Lost Ark gaming. Motorcycles were a definite must. And one with a sidecar. So I started looking around on the Interweb.

A search for Warlord Games DAK motorcycles turned up a result for $9, which seemed like a pretty good price. The motorcycle and sidecar was $12. There was also a Kubelwagen for $18, so I threw that in the cart as well.

When they arrived, they were in clamshells and were all metal. Must have been why they were so cheap. Then I looked at the backer card in the package and discovered that I had ordered models made by Offensive Miniatures, not Warlord.

The mistake had been made. So I figured I'd give them a try.

I opened the Kubelwagen. The first thing I noticed was, "Parts, Mr. Rico, millions of them." OK. There were only about a dozen.

The second thing I noticed was that there were no assembly instructions. There weren't any online, either. But a look at the photos on the website showed what most of the parts were and gave me a general idea of where they went.

I decided to add the passengers before painting, since some of the parts would make fitting them in afterward a problem. The gun rack in the back seat and the steering wheel were two of the worst offenders.

Assembly was a little rough. As with a lot of metal models, some parts were slightly misaligned or twisted. The most frustrating part was the connection points. They were not well defined and, in some cases, were practically non-existent.

Patience and a liberal dose of colorful language persevered. I think.

And the Kubelwagen was assembled.

Things were fairly straightforward from there. I painted the base colors, then gave everything a wash to bring out the details.

Next, I added the highlights.

I scrounged and cobbled together some decals from the other vehicle sets and applied them. Then I added some chipping and rust. Finally, it was weathered with Vallejo dust and mud pigment powders.

There are a few things to be aware of if you decide to purchase one for yourself. First, it is scaled slightly smaller than the Warlord Games miniatures. The passengers are close to the same height, but noticeably slimmer. The other issues I've already covered: assembly, lack of decals, and so on.

For about half the price of the Warlord version, though, it turned out to be a nice addition to the DAK/Lost Ark project.

 

 Discovering the Ark of the Covenant

    I have been sorting through games and miniatures in my basement, deciding what I want to keep and what to sell. In a dusty box on the corner of a shelf, I discovered that I had inherited the lost Ark of the Covenant from a friend's collection.

    Of course, when one finds the lost Ark, and one has recently purchased the Pulp Alley rules, one needs to start putting his DAK pile of potential to use.

    I decided to start with a Warlord Games' Opel Blitz to transport the troops and, naturally, the Ark.

    Assembly began. Once again, I had to make some decisions regarding which parts to paint before gluing the cab and bed together. I also started assembling the passengers.

    Credit where credit is due, the parting of these soldiers for mold making was pretty darned good. There are only minor gaps between a few parts, and the instructions made their placement clear. The legs, arms and weapons have to go in specific places, but there is a variety of heads, and they can be positioned in natural poses.

    I completed the subassemblies, primed them and painted the interior. The truck was then assembled, painted in the base colors and washed with a dark brown stain.

    While that work dried, I turned my attention to the passengers. They were painted in their base colors and washed with the brown stain.

    At this point, I added the highlights to the truck and soldiers and did some preliminary weathering on the model.

    Decals were applied, followed by some additional weathering, mud, dust and rust. The final step was to put the windshield in.

    This was a piece of acetate that resisted being glued to the frame with the recommended styrene plastic cement. I tried superglue on another cutoff piece, but the resulting bond was not secure. In the end, I settled for press fitting the windshield between the steering wheel and the frame of the truck. I'll need to handle it with a bit of care, but I'm calling it done.

    Minor annoyances aside, this was another fun build with several lessons learned and more practice with new techniques. I have about a platoon of infantry left from the DAK starter army box, and I've purchased motorcycles with and without sidecars to add some variety. I'm looking forward to getting these on the table for a few games of Pulp Alley.

Rebuilding Highlander Studios

    Life takes some strange turns. Over the last several years, I have been working full time as a primary care giver, managing a community garden, and sitting on the local planning commission. I have just recently been able to get back to painting and sculpting. I'd like to thank all of you who have poked me during this time to see what I was working on and how I was doing.

    The care giver job has a definite end in the foreseeable future. I am shifting my focus back to sculpting and painting miniatures and am looking to build my clientele again. I'd appreciate your consideration if you have projects you would like to have done.

    Thanks. And have a great day!