Kriegsspiel

I spotted that the Too Fat Lardies have managed to reprint the von Reisswitz Prussian Army Wargame Kriegsspiel so I ordered a .pdf copy of it. The book is the 1824 version of the rules with both Editor's notes and the 1828 update included. The .pdf isn't terribly printer friendly as over the first half of the book has coloured backgrounds to the pages.

The Lardies also produce scenarios and a version of the Meckel map to go with the rules and I believe Lancashire Games make the markers - so this could be yet another project (which will never get finished!).

The Savage World of Solomon Kane

I just picked up a copy of the Savage World of Solomon Kane from Orcs Nest. It's the latest Savage Worlds book and it's a beauty. The book comes in hardback, with glossy pages and lots of illustrations. It provides both the Solomon Kane background, the Savage Worlds rules, details of the Kane's world and a plot point campaign.

I really enjoyed Robert E. Howard's The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane and this book allows you to bring it to both the RPG and tabletop world with the Savage Worlds rules.

Of course now I need a figure for Kane himself...

Quebec 1759

I managed to pick up a copy of the Columbia Games block wargame Quebec 1759 on eBay recently. It was actually an old Gamma II edition but other than a couple of very minor production differences the games are identical. The box sleeve was a little more badly damaged than I was expecting but the game was complete and the block bags still sealed and unstickered - though after C&C:A I would have been happy to get one with the stickers already fixed. I've only had a chance to read though the rules so far and it's pretty much as expected. It was one of Gamma II/Columbia's early games (first published in 1972) and so is somewhat less sophisticated than their later offerings but that's what I was looking for - I want a range of games I can play with different sets of people. My other half likes board and card games but isn't keen on wargames as they're "too thinky". I'm hoping something simpler like Quebec 1759 might allow a foot in the door. Who knows - but it's got to be worth a try!

Wargames Weekend Update

Managed to get quite a few games in when Lenin visited last weekend including Troops, Weapons and Tactics, Metal Storm, Renaissance Raiders, Savage Worlds and Commands and Colors: Ancients Expansion #1.

Troops, Weapons and Tactics is heavily based on the Too Fat Lardies previous rules I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! (IABSM) and that is very apparent. As the rules are lower level, with the tactical unit being a fire team rather than the IABSM section, a few additional mechanics have been added. This was only the first try out but our initial impression was that, whilst they did provide an interesting game, the additional chrome didn't produce a result which was a pleasing as Nuts! in terms of the "feel". Obviously this is highly subjective but I think the additional mechanics confuse and complicate the basic IABSM approach but don't deliver proportional added value - which is a shame as I am a big fan of IABSM and use them as my preferred rules for the next level up.

Metal Storm was another first outing. The rules appear to be heavily based on Peter Pig's AK47 Republic rules with the addition of different dice sizes and rules for more modern weaponry. As with all rules which use up and downgrading using different dice sizes (d4, d6, d8, d10 etc.) the statistics are a little iffy but the overall result was a fun game (though we're reserving judgement on the realism element) and I expect these will see another outing (though possibly with some tweaks).

For oue first go at Renaissance Raiders from the Antwerp Fusiliers, we pulled out my 28mm Vendel Border Reivers, Grand Manner Bastle House and Gripping Beast livestock for a little sheep and cattle rustling on the borders. The rules are heavily influenced by the Commands and Colors system and are intended to be hex based. Since I don't have any hex terrain I chose to restructure them slightly to allow them to be used on a normal tabletop. Again they gave a fun game but in my view the card and average dice initiative mechanic was a little too involved for the type of game we were trying and the cards needed to pop up more often (and be a little more varied) to add flavour. The core approach is sound but a few changes are what's needed for it to become ideal for a Reivers game rather than a more traditional Renaissance battle.

Savage Worlds once again proved it is a versatile ruleset allowing you to meld various genres successfully. Lenin presented an excellent Pulp meets Call of Cthulhu game which was tremendous fun.

And having spent ages putting the stickers on my Greek and Eastern Kingdom expansion for Commands and Colors: Ancients (CC:A), I was determined to actually use it - so we set up and played the Gaugamela scenario. CC:A is still a favourite and the card system provides some real challenges for each commander.

The best laid plans and all that...

Given that my plans didn't include being ill things have slipped a little but such is life.

It has allowed me to make a bit more progress with Fighter Boys by Patrick Bishop which focusses on the RAF around the Battle of Britain. The book relies heavily on the author's research into the individual pilots who fought and died in that critical time. An interesting read.

I think I've also got a scenario for the Troops, Weapons and Tactics game too. Another opportunity for me to look out my 20mm bridge for an Eastern Front game!

Back from my holidays - Time for a sort out

Just got back from a family holiday relaxed and refreshed - so just in the mood to have a complete sort out! I've decided that I need to catalogue all my unfinished projects and work out a plan to get them moving again. A cursory glance in the games room revealed quite a few stalled projects which don't need a huge amount of work to get them to the table top.

I'm also planning to create a schedule to get my unplayed rules played! First off I plan to give Troops Weapons and Tactics by the Too Fat Lardies (a lower level derivative of their I Ain't Been Shot Mum WW2 rules) and Renaissance Raiders by the Antwerp Fusiliers (a set inspired by the Commands and Colors system - although hex based I plan to convert these to traditional table top). So watch this space!

News: Athens and Sparta

If you're interested in block games the latest Columbia Games offering Athens and Sparta is due for release next month. Using a combination of traditional block mechanics and a card driven approach it looks interesting, through not revolutionary. But as it's a period I'm interested in (and one I'm not likely ever to collect enough miniatures to play on the table top) I'm probably going to pre-order it.

The game has an odd back story, this release is by Tom Dalgliesh rather than the originally touted game by Craig Besinque. There appears to have been a parting of the ways some time during the development process and Carig has taken his game to GMT Games to be published as Hellenes: Athens vs. Sparta. Superficially the games seems pretty similar with the Columbia offering seeming slightly simpler/shorter (which is what I was looking for anyway). But it will be interesting to see how they compare when the GMT game comes out (it's still on the P500 list).

Oh Dear - got out of the habit

If I had left this post until tomorrow it would have been an entire month with no posts - sorry about that! Real life has been intruding and I've just got out of the habit of making even small posts (which is something I really need to try to do) - I suppose as I'm only just back from holiday and, prior to that, hadn't really had much in the way of gaming going on (way way too much work) I didn't think I had much of interest to say.

Got a couple of additional games so I'll be popping first looks up if I can get my act together. Just need to pop off and fix the TV as my wife seems to have killed it - possibly in an attempt to get a new one!

So where the heck have you been?!

Sorry folks - loads of work, a brief (very brief) holiday and a bunch of boring domestic stuff have been getting in the way of my gaming life! So not much to really blog about - but I thought I'd check in just to prove I'm still here.

I am still trying to make progress on some of my ongoing projects (but not having much success at the moment) - I've got all my Vendel and Graven Images Tudor Ireland figures out in order to finish basing them and to try to encourage me to work out the rules (not having been able to find any commercial ones that suited). At the moment they are a card based set but need some major development before they're ready for the tabletop.

I just took delivery of the balance of a Eureka order which I picked most of up at Salute. A slight ordering mix up meant they took much longer than expected. They are mostly Greek Myth figures to compliment the Foundry Greek horde I bought in their summer sale. I'll be using the Typhon rules for them - I just need to get them painted now!

I still haven't got round to taking pictures of the Brigade Games figures I got back from Lenin but I'll try to do that next weekend (no promises mind!).

XDA: eXtremely Duff Assistant

Work kindly provided me with an O2 XDA a few weeks ago so that I could get email on the go. Now me being a bit of a gadget geek thought woohoo this'll mean I can dump my palm and mobile for a single device. Unfortunately the XDA is a compromise of the worst kind - yes it's got load of features BUT and it's a big but - the battery life really sucks! If you really conserve it you might get a day and a half - compare that with my Nokia mobile and Palm Zire both of which would be well into their second week with the same usage. In addition the XDA is saddled with Windows Mobile - nice idea but oh dear is it flaky - it once crashed four times in a hour!

Hopefully I'll be swapping it for a blackberry soon and that can't be as bad - can it?

5150: Assault on Arcturus

The 5150 game we played over the big game weekend was another trial for the rules (as we were running it wrong previously) to try them again. This was human vs human so we need another trial to check out the alien specific reaction tables though. Here's the briefing:

Location: Arcturus, the Arcturus Loop (between the Borodino and Weyland Yutani Sectors)

For years the Arcturus Loop has provided a route for trade (both legal and illegal) to bypass the Core Systems. Both the ICC and the UNSC have failed to halt or regulate this traffic and this has been a source of some tension amongst the Nation States and the Corporations. The Neu Swabian League (NSL) have finally lost patience and taken direct action to deal with this problem. They have launched an invasion force bent on taking direct control of Arcturus itself and hence the loop. The initial assault wave was formed of elite teams of Sturmtroopen who have been deployed against specific strategic targets in advance of the main invasion force. One such target was Ibn Ihmael, a key control complex for the Arcturian planetary defence and communications system. The surprise assault has left the NSL in control of the complex but the Planetary Defence Forces have planned a counter attack to retake the complex and regain control of the planetary defences, possibly their last chance to halt the main NSL invasion force.

The NSL force consisted of two 5 man squads in Hard Body Armour with a variety of weapons. They were generally Rep 4 led by Rep 5 squad leaders and had the advantage of a fortified position (albeit with a perimeter too long to properly defend). The Arcturian PDF was a squad of Rep 3s in Soft Body Armour led by Rep 5s again.

A initial probe by a PDF scout quickly revealed the NSL positions (recon by death) but the first PDF assualt was quickly routed by NSL fire and the entire squad legged it for home. A more tactical approach had the NSL pinned down by one squad whilst the other attempted a flanking manoeuvre. The NSL squad slowly lost out to the greater PDF numbers and following a quick bypass being run on the main gate the outer defences were penetrated.

A short firefight between a second NSL fire team and the PDF ended prematurely with the judicious use of an anti-air missile by the PDF. The PDF advanced towards the command bunker only to be pinned down by the remaining NSL troopers. A brave assault by a PDF trooper with a flame unit failed by concentrated fire some his buddies took out the NSL trooper.

The final assault on the bunker was quickly resolved with the NSL officer being cut down before he could destroy the comms equipment and the NSL shuttle pilot thought discretion the better part of valour and bugged out.

It was a fun game (around the two hours - as you might expect) and reinforced our view that the THW system is a winner.

Our SF universe is a melding of the Aliens RPG and GZG backgrounds - more details can be found on the Encyclopedia Galactica.

A whole lot of gaming goin' on...

The main reason for the latest lack of posts is I've been preparing for a big weekend of gaming and then actually playing loads of games! Lenin popped over for the weekend and we managed to get in a record number of miniatures and board/card games including 5150, Warmaster, Triumph of the Will, Afriboria, Gloire, Commands and Colors Ancients, Shogun and Pirate's Cove to name a few. I am currently working up some session reports, a couple of brief reviews and some photos. Lenin also brought over some Brigade figures he has painted for me - so expect a figure review of those soon too.

How time flies...

I could make loads of excuses for the lack of posts but I'm sure noone would be in the slightest bit interested (indeed juding by the almost complete absence of comments I may simply be talking to myself!). Anyway most of my time has been spent at work and when I have had some free time I've been preparing for a big gaming weekend coming up over the Bank Holiday (so more of that after the event - including some reviews, or at least first impressions, of several games).

I did, however, manage to get along to my club this week and had a fun late roman skirmish game using Pax Romana. The result should have been a foregone conclusion since I had Eric (the Spawn of Satan) on my side but his usual spectacular dice rolling certainly wasn't in evidence so I can only assume that Beelzebub has deserted him for a more willing acolyte! In any event we seemed to have done enough to ensure victory when I had to leave a little early (I'm still waiting confirmation of the final result - so if we didn't win I'll blame it all on my colleagues snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!). Bronze, who was running the game, produced some lovely Gripping Beast toys and we're now giving some though to putting our collections together and running a big game - the jury's still out on which rules to use though...

Where's the post?

You'd think with all that spare time over a bank holiday weekend I'd have found some time to post something to the blog. Err...well no not really. It's amazing how much ends up getting packed into three days; however, not much actually gaming (well that's not strictly true as I did get some family boardgaming in but no wargaming I'm afraid). I've had a chance to read the various rules I bought at Salute and am now setting up some test scenarios so that I can put together a full review. I even managed to get another rule set and some other bits but more of that once I've had a proper chance to read them. So watch this space...

First Look: Troops, Weapons & Tactics

Troops, Weapons & Tactics (TW&T) is the latest ruleset from the Too Fat Lardies. It is largely based on their previous I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! (IABSM) World War 2 Company level rules but TW&T is pitched at Platoon level. Anyone familiar with IABSM will see a whole series of concepts being ported across not just the Lardies signature card activation system. The major new addition is Tactical Initiative which are points representing the orders which Big Men can give to the troops under their command. Being at Platoon level the rules have a lot more "chrome" than was included in IABSM, whether upsets the balance between flavour and playability is yet to be seen. In addition to the main rules the second part of the booklet is devoted to a synopsis of the major players in Europe in the later part of the war.

TW&T is available from the Too Fat Lardies for £17.00 in softback or £10.00 for the .pdf (be warned that the second part of the booklet looks nice but isn't very printer friendly with plenty of full page watermark pictures and colour).

Start Player: A Kinda Collectable Card Game

A recurring problem with various boardgames I have is that they don't specify who should start or, alternatively, they only give you a single option (i.e. youngest player, oldest player etc.) which becomes somewhat of a drag if you tend to have the same opponent. Bezier Games have come up with a solution - Start Player a kinda collectable card game. It's a deck of collectable cards each of which has different conditions to determine which player should start e.g. the shortest player, the player with the most body hair, the player who last bought a game etc. The cards are of pretty thin card stock and not all exactly the same size but they do come with different Board2Pieces cartoons on each and as a ten second distraction before the main game they work pretty well.

As with other, more conventional, CCGs Start Player has a starter deck (with 42 cards: 27 commons, 5 uncommons, at least 1 rare, 1 blank, and 8 rules etc. cards) and a series of booster decks are available. Unfortunately I believe it is only available direct from Bezier Games which, due to the postage, makes this relatively expensive circa US$21.95 with P&P to the UK. Bezier can also be a little slow posting the order - mine arrived about 4 weeks after ordering; however the post mark was only five days before it arrived!

First Look: Crusader

Crusader Historical Miniatures Rules by Crusader Miniatures is a set of miniature wargames rules designed to cover Biblical times to the Medieval period. Anyone who has read my earlier rant regarding Ancients as a period will have some idea of my views on this approach. The rules don't appear to contain anything radical or particularly innovative; however, this can be said of any number of other rule sets. They have a stand based approach which should avoid the need for rebasing and are both nicely presented and clearly laid out.

I picked up a softcover copy of the rules at Salute for their special offer price of £5 as opposed to the normal £7.50. Given that you get a 60+ page glossy booklet with nice colour pictures I thought the offer price was pretty good value. Obviously I've not tried playing them yet but will post a review once I have.

First Look: Typhon

Typhon by Alternative Armies is a set of miniature wargames rules designed to accompany their range of 50mm Greek Myth figures but can be used with other figure scales. Typhon is aimed firmly at Greek Myth and provides a synopsis of all the most well known stories. In addition to combat the rules allow the players to pray to the Gods for support either by granting special powers to various items or by bestowing skills or favours upon them. The object of the rules is to form your own adventuring band and create your own myth through a chain of scenarios.

I picked up a comb bound softcover copy of the rules at Salute for £12 but they are available direct from Alternative Armies either on its own or as part of a package deal with some of the 50mm figures (which are available both unpainted and painted).

First Look: Gloire

Gloire by Rattrap Productions is subtitled Swashbuckling Adventure in the Age of Kings and is a set of miniature wargames rules. Gloire is based on the mechanics of Rattrap's previous set of pulp rules .45 Adventure. As it says Gloire is aimed at Swashbuckling games and hence leans more toward the game rather than the simulation end of the spectrum.

I picked up a softcover copy of the rules at Salute for £10 but they are available as a .pdf download from either Rattrap or RPGnow for US$11 along with a few free scenarios, game aids and pre-generated characters. There is also a yahoo discussion group to support the rules.

Salute Sum Up

As always I made my annual pilgrimage to the Salute show at ExCeL in London last weekend. I arrived at around 09:30 (with doors scheduled to open at 10:00) and joined the Queuebuster Queue (an oxymoron if ever there was one as Lenin pointed out). Fortunately we were actually let in around 15 minutes early so it wasn't too long a wait. It was an expensive day out for some with the parking being a little on the steep side and with the entry price being £9 for the standard punters - along with the cost of getting there.

I must admit the new layout did go some way to reduce the feeling of wandering around an aircraft hanger but the space is still somewhat soulless. I trundled around picking up my figure pre-order and a few new rule sets (of which more in some later First Look posts) but there wasn't a huge amount that really caught my eye. There was a huge range in the games being put on from the "I'd be embarrassed to put it on in my living room" to the visually impressive but nothing that made me rush off and mortgage my house on a new project (probably fortunately). Lenin and I met up with Swiss Tony and all came to the same conclusion - we're not getting any younger and it's more difficult to generate the same excitement about a project.

Once I got home I broke out the new rules I'd purchased and they have certainly got me thinking about some new games - I've even started putting together some terrain for one of them which is a good sign. So maybe I'm not as jaded as I thought.