Gaming with Chuck

Never mind the bollocks - it's AD&D!

2012-01-19T20:43:00.002-05:00

Okay, so this is EXCELLENT news for old school grognards like me. Wizards of the Coast, finally throwing in the towel on the horrible pile of doggy puke that is 4th edition has made some announcements lately.

First is that there will be a 5th edition.

Second is that in April of this year, there will be a limited re-issue of 1st edition AD&D books. Proceeds will go to the Gygax Memorial Fund.

Third is that 5th edition will have layers of optional rule structures. Depending on which you use, you can mimic playing D&D, 1st Edition AD&D, 2nd Edtion, 3rd Edition, and so on and so forth. Edited by Monte Cook. This seems very nice, and might be a double barreled blow against both the Old School Rennaisance (depending on how well it is done) and against Pathfinder. Personally, I think those two rules movements will have their own following, but that many, many of the players and DMs will be buying the WOTC rules when they come out. The staff at Gaming with Chuck probably will...

Washington's Army

2011-07-15T00:05:00.000-04:00

Here is a great video about Martin Goddard (upcoming Miniatures Gaming guest at Guns of August 2011)

I picked up a copy of these rules at the recent Historicon 2011. I can't wait to play them, probably in a few months (still trying to finish school).

Tags: wargaming

Interview with Stephen V. Cole (Starfleet Battles, Task Force Games, Amarillo Design Bureau)

2011-07-12T23:13:00.003-04:00

The Rural Gamer has a great interview of Steve Cole - the original designer of Starfleet Battles back in 1979. I never played the pocket game version of it, but I did play the first boxed version that got released a year later. I would continue to play that game all through the rest of high school and college. What a great game.

The cover art of the pocket game version, shown here, and the art of the first box and some of the first expansion packs was all done by Alvin Belflower (he would sign Belflowerdidit). I love his look of the energy weapons "splashing" when they hit a target ship's hull.

This is a picture of the contents of the first version I owned (the Designer's Edition) also released in 1979, although I did not get a copy until 1980. My copy also came with two heavy duty plastic document holders and two grease pencils for marking damage on the SSDs. I had a HUGE amount of fun playing that game.

Cool news - Mongoose is going to do a classic Trek treatment with their starship combat rules, and they are also going to do a Traveller RPG treatment of classic Trek. Groovy.

Tags: Star Trek, , science fiction games, boardgames

Anticipation . . .

2011-07-11T12:39:00.000-04:00

If the silly boys from Warhammer Historicals would have had this available at Historicon, I bet it would have sold several hundred copies.

http://warhammer-historical.com/acatalog/Waterloo.html

Some gamer pornography is available here -
http://warhammer-historical.com/Aspreads/waterloospread.html

Tags: wargaming, Napoleonic Warfare, miniatures

Carthage at Historicon

2011-07-11T12:27:00.003-04:00

I got to play two scenarios of one of my favorite games (C&C: Ancients) at Historicon 2011 in Valley Forge, with one of my best friends, Chris.

We played, first, the battle of The Crimissos River (341 BC) between Hasdrubal of Carthage (me) and Timoleon of Syracuse (Chris). Here is the intro from the scenario:

The Carthaginians learned from earlier defeats in Sicily that they had to field reliable, trained heavy infantry of their own. They formed the Sacred Band, a force of about 2,500 excellently trained Carthaginians, as good or better than the best the Greeks or Syracusans could field. They formed a part of a large army under Hasdrubal, advancing eastward to subjugate Sicily. Opposing him with a much smaller army was the able tactician Timoleon. Ever aggressive, Timoleon anxiously awaited an opportunity to strike the Carthaginians a hard blow on his terms. He got that chance when, on a foggy morning, Hasdrubal carelessly ordered his army to cross the Crimissos River without bothering to send out scouts (who would have reported that Timoleon’s army was arrayed on the bluffs just beyond the river). Waiting until about half of the Carthaginian army had crossed, Timoleon unleashed his excellent heavy infantry phalanx against the surprised Carthaginians. Most who survived fled, but the Sacred Band stood their ground and were annihilated by superior numbers, (aided by a sudden rainstorm that slowed Carthaginian reinforcements crossing the river). Seeing the disaster unfolding across the river, the remainder of Hasdrubal’s army broke and fled. The loss of so many citizen soldiers had a horrific effect on Carthage. The Sacred Band was reformed, but only once was it ever dispatched from Africa again, and then only for a very short campaign.

Chris totally dominated my Carthaginians in this scenario, and he ended up winning 5-1 - a smashing defeat! The Carthaginian Sacred Band was his first target (they were playing "Houses of the Holy" and he doesn't like Zeppelin). His Syracusan Heavy Infantry totally outclassed my African Citizens.

We went on to play a second game, after some tasty treats from the Flying Dog brewery (I had the Doggy Style Classic Pale Ale, which is pretty low carb for my diet, and also the Snake Dog India Pale Ale - also low carb).

The second outing for us was the battle of Bagradas (253 BC). I got to play General Regulus and his Roman army, fighting in North Africa in this battle from the end of the First Punic War. Chris played the army of Xanthippus, a mercenary Greek general for the Carthaginians. Here is the text on the scenario from GMT:

The Romans are on the verge of defeating Carthage and ending the First Punic War. Regulus and a veteran Roman army have landed in Africa, and though woefully short of cavalry, have defeated several Carthaginian forces. Desperate, the Carthaginians turned to an otherwise unemployed Greek general, Xanthippus. While not on a par with Alexander the Great, Xanthippus at least knew how to train and command an army, and that was enough. The Carthaginian army marched into the Bagradas Valley, and Regulus, confident of yet another victory, offered battle. It was to prove a costly mistake for him. The Carthaginian cavalry and elephants routed the Roman cavalry, and then turned on the flanks and rear of the Roman army, now fully engaged with the Carthaginian infantry. The Roman army disintegrated. Those who survived told of the horror of being overrun by elephants and cavalry. This Carthaginian victory prolonged the war. It took several years before any Roman army would stand and fight against elephants. The larger lesson— proper employment of a combined arms army over a largely infantry army resulting in victory—was lost on the Romans. They had to re-learn it at the Trebbia, Lake Trasimenus and Cannae.

This one was much closer in the end. At the beginning, however, Chris was totally dominating my Roman army. The score after the first few exchanges was something like 5-1 in favor of the African force under Xanthippus, but then my Romans rallied, and it became 6-6. Finally, I got lucky, and it ended up at 7-7.

The Carthaginian Elephants were quite fun to play in this scenario, and when they rampaged (which they did several times) they were a danger to both sides.

I could have lost 6 battles in a row, and I still would have loved my time playing. A great evening.

Pet Peeve: people who walk up and see the game and say "oh, what a silly game, it looks like Stratego". Don't these people know this game came from Miniatures play, and was only later converted to a board game? Whatever.

Tags: wargames

Frontline General: Spearpoint 1943

2011-02-17T00:48:00.000-05:00

Rather than me talking about Byron's excellent Spearpoint 1943 card game, I thought I would just link to some of the excellent video reviews that are out there.

The first is from Marcowargamer - Marco has some great videos about games, and this one doesn't disappoint.

Next up we hear from Lance with Getting Board - another good review.

Finally, although this should have (perhaps) been first, we have an Unboxing from Chance of Gaming Podcast

The Chief Bottle Scrubber here at Gaming with Chuck HQ thinks that Spearpoint 1943 is a great game. There is strategy, metagame considerations, tactical decisions, cards and dice - all coming together in a nice little simulation of a 1943 meeting engagement between a few German and American forces in Europe. What's not to like? Now if I can only talk Byron into doing an Eastern Front edition . . . T-34s and Russian Combat Dogs!
Tags: board games, card games, wargames, WWII

Those Whacky Supplements

2011-02-13T23:43:00.001-05:00

No, gentle readers, the Staff at "Gaming with Chuck" did not begin selling vitamins or other Dietary Additives. What I am talking about in this article are Add-Ons to games - expansions, kits, supplements - whatever you like. In particular, I am going to give a quick review of three that really stretch the theme of the original game that they were added on to. But, at least for some, that doesn't mean they are a bad add-on!

First up - the new (and very welcome) supplement of Alvin and Dexter for Ticket to Ride.
What do you get? Well, in the small box, you get two great figurines (for Alvin the Alien, and Dexter the Dinosaur), and a small deck of 42 cards. You also get a small rules brochure, with the rules printed in a handful of languages.

What does it do? After the initial set-up of a Ticket to Ride game (any board, apparently, works for this supplement), the last player then places one of the new Monster figurines on a city on the board. Then the next-to-last player places the other Monster figurine on another city. There are two decks of 20 Monster cards (one for each figurine), and two Monster Bonus cards for the end of the game - these all get placed near the board. Then play commences as usual. During the game, you may (in addition to your normal turn) play a locomotive card to move a monster figurine up to 3 cities, following network lines. You may play two cards to move the figurine up to 6 cities. You may only move the same monster twice with two cards, not each monster once. When you do this extra action (either one or two cards) you select one of the Monster Cards of the type you moved (either Alvin or Dexter) and place it in front of you until your next turn. While there is a monster card in front of someone, that monster may not be activated by someone else. Once your turn comes around again, you turn the card face down, but you keep it. While a monster is in a city, nobody can claim (build) routes into or out of that city. At end of the game, the player with the most Monster Cards of each critter gets the monster bonus for that critter. Tickets, at the end of the game, with a Monster on one of their cities, are only worth half. Uncompleted tickets with a monster on one of their cities, only cost half(!) as much.
Opinion Yes, Great!

Second up - the recent (2010) Agricola Legen*Dairy Forest Deck, which is a follow-up to the X-Deck.
What do you get?You get a small box with 24 cards in it, and a small rules folder.

What does it do? More cards for Agricola. This includes the Event deck, first from the X-Deck supplement. The cards here are all from a light hearted fantasy/fairy-tale motif. Quite a few have some Monty Python and the Holy Grail DNA injected into them (which is a good thing.
Opinion Yes, Great!

Third Up - the 2008 Carcassonne: The Catapult add-on for Carcassonne.
What do you get?You get a wooden catapult for launching(!) round cardboard tokens. You get a bunch of cardboard tokens that are to be launched with the catapult, and you get a handful of new tiles all with the "Faire" symbol on them.

What does it do?Whenever you pull and play a tile with a Faire symbol on it, that starts a Catapult round. The player who just played the Faire symbol gets to shoot a token from the edge of the board towards the middle of the layout of tiles. Depending on the token chosen (each player starts with one of each type), several actions are possible: Knock out tokens try to remove meeples; Seduction tokens try to swap meeples; Target tokens try to hit the faire tile; Catch tokens must be caught for points.
Opinion Nope, give it a miss!

Okay, so why did the "Gaming with Chuck" staff like the first two add-ons and not the third one? I think the reason is simple - framework. The first two listed are within the framework of the game they add on to - in the case of Alvin and Dexter, you are still just drawing and playing cards. Now you get to move an alien piece, but its effects mesh into the structure very well. In the second case there are just more cards to choose from - whether they are events (introduced in X-Deck), or new occupations or minor improvements. Each, in some way, adds to the Agricola experience by introducing new rules and/or actions - but each is essentially a basic Agricola component. In the third case, you are taking the basic structure of the game (decision-based tile placement and scoring) and adding in a wonky dexterity based shoot-it-up mechanic that is very different from the framework of the game. The faire tiles work within the framework, but the actual catapulting does not (again, according to the opinions of management, workers, and elves at Gaming with Chuck).

Tags: boardgames

Steam - An excellent session at Williamsburg Muster

2011-02-10T19:43:00.000-05:00

Williamsburg Muster (our next convention will be Guns of August, Aug 12-14) was last weekend, in Williamsburg, Virginia. It was an excellent time! We had over 200 gamers come to the convention, in addition to the 70 staff and vendor bodies that were there (but hey - we all get to play at the Muster)!

One of the things I got to do (more later some of the other stuff I was part of) was play a great game of Steam on Friday night with some old friends and some new friends. Steam is a relatively new re-implementation of Age of Steam, from the genius of Martin Wallace. Great game, with turns (in the basic game) consisting of (1) choosing roles (which grant special privileges through the turn; (2) building tracks and city improvements; (3) moving cargoes; and (4) adjusting income. In the advance game, rather than choose roles, they are auctioned off. It adds a good deal more strategy, but with the addition of an auction and also a money sink.

Around the table were Jeremy C (Black), Bob W (Natural), Byron C (White), Jake DT (Green) and myself (Orange). We played (since I only had the base set, and we had 5 players) the Germany map.

{Not actually our game}

The game was great. The thing I love about Steam (other than role selection, building, and TRAINS!!!) is that there are several paths to victory. We played the basic version, which allows for money borrowing at any time, and also allows for role selection in order (vs. bidding for it each turn, which makes the game economy harder by creating a resource sink, but I digress into game theory).

{Actually our game}

Anyway, at the end of the game, the four of us other than Jake were pretty closely grouped together. Jake, on the other hand, had over 10 points more than any of us. Fun, but disgruntling. I definitely want to play more!

When I got Steam, I was definitely interested in a tile based train game. The other options open to me would be to find a used copy of Railroad Tycoon, a copy of Age of Steam, Railways of the World or some other tile based railroad game (less popular than those). Age of Steam has a zillion supplements available for it, many of which seem to be compatible with Steam. But between those two Steam wins, because it is (1) more casual gamer friendly, and (2) has more attractive components. Railroad Tycoon is based on one of my favorite computer game franchises, is ALSO a Martin Wallace design (albeit with development by Glenn Drover of Eagle Games), and has AWESOME plastic bits for the towns. However . . . the board is HUGE (3 feet by almost 4 feet), and won't fit on most tables. It has been replaced by Railways of the World - which was the serious contender against Steam. In the end, I think I chose Steam because of all the Age of Steam variants that could be accessed. However, there are already several nice new boards, etc out for Railways of the world. From talking with some TAGS guys (Jake, who played, and David) it appears as if there are enough differences to possibly warrant also getting Railways of the World, one day when I'm rich and famous.

The Good Fellows playing at Williamsburg Muster

Dice - the secret

2011-01-29T22:54:00.000-05:00

Tags: dice

Excellent Gaming Weekend at MarsCon

2011-01-17T11:05:00.001-05:00

I had a great time at MarsCon this year. I usually get to play some boardgames and such, but this time I kept to running some old school Fantasy RPG (old version of D&D were the rules, the setting was one of my own invention). To see the info on the game, visit my RPG blog, Valley of the Old Ones.

The recap of the two sessions at MarsCon has been covered here.

It was a fun time, although the players were left asking the age old question of "Who locks a hooked horror in the bathroom?"

Tags: fantasy gaming

Gaming Gifts bring new opportunities to the GWC Staff

2011-01-17T10:45:00.000-05:00

The season of Christmas brought a lot of blessings to the staff at Gaming with Chuck (GWC) HQ. We got to spend a lot of time together, and it was all good time. That included playing some games, having friends over, and just quiet family time as well.

Along with all the good things that came from Christmas (good times, relaxation, reflection on the meaning of Christmas itself...) there also came a good number of neato presents and new games to the HQ collection! Here is a list, I hope I didn't forget anything.

Battles of Westeros - Gotten from Secret Santa on BGG - Thanks, Secret Santa
Talisman, 4th Edition - Great fun, and the whole Staff likes it
Castle Ravenloft - Looks great, haven't played yet.
Dominion, Big Box - Included the Alchemy and Prosperity expansions!
Forbidden Island - We played this at Woodhole, and it was a blast!
Shadow Hunters - Very nice gift from Bob & Carol, haven't played yet!
Carcassonne, Wheel of Fortune - Looks cool, haven't played yet!
Roll Through the Ages - Civilization in 30 minutes! Great!
Gardens of Alhambra - Once you get past that tile flipping thing, it is a whole lot of fun
Wings of War, Famous Aces Wanted for a while, finally delivered by John Dent!
Marco Polo Expedition - Knizia. That's all I have to say on this one, so far.
TransEuropa - Includes Vexation which we can use with this and TransAmerica
Cardcassonne - Played last year with Erin and Rob, and loved it.

Are there any requests for reviews for any of these? I think I will try to do something for most of them over the upcoming months. Playing these gems and treasures is the least I can do to say Thank You to the gift givers.

Tags: boardgames

A Recap of the Holidays at GwC Headquarters

2011-01-03T20:07:00.000-05:00

The holidays at Gaming with Chuck HQ were very pleasant, in spite of several mishaps.

First the mishaps - on Christmas Eve, Anita proceeded to suffer from an accident that resulted in her having to be rushed off to the emergency center for 10 stitches in her left hand. Luckily, she rolls dice with her right hand. Then, of course, on Christmas Day and St. Stephen's Day we were dumped on by the largest blizzard in these parts since the mid 80s. We got over a foot of snow.

All of this meant, of course, that we had some great Gaming going on!

In the days leading up to Christmas, I ventured forth to meet up with my ODMS Brethren for some real wargaming. On the Monday before Christmas, I played some Cold War Commander with Scot (as detailed here). I also met up on a Thursday in the middle of Advent with Wayne and some other great fellows for boardgaming. There was lots of Commands&Colors:Ancients being played (as there should be.

On Christmas Eve we celebrated by having some friends over (once we realized that Anita's hand wasn't too bad off) for dinner and drinks, and of course board games! We played Citadels, Power Grid, and took a long hard look at Battles of Westeros (too many people, but it sure does look cool).

On subsequent days, Anita and I played some Settlers of Catan (with some variants from Traders and Barbarians), Stone Age (great fun) and also some Agricola (still one of my favorites).

Finally, on the Sixth day of Christmas, we traveled north to Fredericksburg, to spend New Year's Eve at our friends' (Carol and Bob) house. Of course, that meant more gaming. There was Bang, Cash & Guns, Ticket to Ride, Unspeakable Word, Thurn and Taxis and Apples to Apples. All that, plus time to travel into DC in order to spend most of Friday (New Years Eve) at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. That put me in the mood to play Stone Age...

Coming up is MarsCon in January, Williamsburg Muster and PrezCon in February, and that will be about it for me for gaming until after my PhD is finished. In the meantime, while getting ready for MarsCon, I have been fleshing out my fantasy roleplaying world when I have some spare time from school work. The fruits are over at Valley of the Old Ones.

I hope you have a great and blessed New Year, and that your holidays were wonderful as well!

Tags: boardgames, boardgaming

Cold War Commander - East Germany vs. West Germany, 1968

2010-12-21T22:54:00.003-05:00

I got to play a game of Cold War Commander yesterday at the Hangar. We used Microarmor to do a small 1968 clash between mixed forces from West Germany vs. East Germany.


BTR-60

West Germans - a pair of Leopards, four M-47s and 6 squads of Infantry riding in HS-30s. Backed up by a small battery (3 tubes) of 155mm US provided artillery.

West German HS-30

East Germans - T-55s led the way, supported by a pair of vintage JS-IIs, backed up by BRDM-1s (with Saggers) and BTR-60s carrying a mix of East German infantry, and some weapons teams (12.7mm HMGs).

BRDM-1 with AT-3 Sagger

We fought over a forested area, with a lovely scenic pond in the middle of the battlefield. The M-47s were caught in the open by the T-55s, but the higher training and initiative of the West German tankers proved too much for the godless communists.

JS-II - Josef Stalin would be proud.

The pair of JS-2s tried to get the jump on the HS-30s (and destroy them before they disgorged the infantry) but the West Germans were again too fast, and they deployed out of the APCs. The East German infantry came up behind the Stalin tanks, and there was a lot of death on both sides. In a moment of terror - the West German scouting element (a couple of long range patrol infantry scouts, with a dog and some binoculars) were brutally gunned down by DDR machine gunners.

Leopard-1 - a later model, but still a lovely tank.

In the end it looked like the decadent West won the battle. More should follow as Scott and I vowed to play more of this great ruleset, and more frequently.

M-47 - in Curious "Battle of the Bulge" movie livery.

Tags: Cold War

Christmas Gaming at GwC Headquarters

2010-12-18T17:02:00.000-05:00

I have a little bit of time off, so am planning to do some relaxing and spend some quality time with the other staff members of GwC (Wife, Daughter, 2 cats).

My relaxing, of course, includes gaming! I have the following planned:

Play a game of Napoleonics using Shako II rules (Dec 18).
Run a game of 1980s armored combat using Cold War Commander and micro armor (Dec 20).
Run a game of The Sword and the Flame, using 28mm figures (Dec 23).
Play Battles of Westeros (the game I got through the BGG secret santa program).
Play C&C:Napoleonics (purchased through GMTs P500 program).
Continue to prepare adventure and characters for MarsCon old school D&D gaming (as reported on in Valley of the Old Ones).
Continue to support prep for Williamsburg Muster.

Reports on all activities will, of course, be presented here at Gaming with Chuck. Watch this space!

Tags: wargames

Valley of the Old Ones - Week of Encounters Completed

2010-12-06T19:42:00.000-05:00

The one thing I have been working on, gaming wise, has been the launch of a new blog dedicated to my (occasional and sporadic) roleplaying activities. It is based on a new fantasy campaign world that I have been thinking about for a while.

Both the world setting, and the blog are called the Valley of the Old Ones.

The whole thing, rather old school (intentionally) in feel, is based on some disturbing and exciting deep dark secrets, but those are not for print (at least not in the light of day), but rather for the players to discover in the dark dark places of the realm.

In preparation of this world for unveiling at MarsCon '11, I have done up a starter adventure and a bunch of pre-generated characters, and began the "Week of Encounters" challenge to get me to write up seven different encounters that will entice others who are thinking about my gaming world. Those encounters are:

Board Games and Miniatures - moving through a patch of "rough going" right now

2010-12-06T19:40:00.000-05:00

I have not been writing concerning board games and miniature games lately, however I am excited to be able to try out a few new ones coming up at Williamsburg Muster.

In the meantime, please enjoy this notice of big changes in the Dr. Who universe.

Tags: Doctor Who

Week of Encounters - progressing over at "Valley of the Old Ones"

2010-11-29T01:38:00.003-05:00

My week of encounters is progressing nicely over at Valley of the Old Ones. This is my answer to my own "Seven Encounters Challenge" that was posted a short while back, here at Gaming with Chuck.

With lots of Holiday travel this past week, I got off schedule a little bit, but I have 5 of my promised 7 postings done already, and the next two are coming in the next day or so.

These are all encounters (some simple combat encounters, some descriptions of more in-depth adventures to be developed by a GM as he/she sees fit) that reveal a little bit of something or other concerning my game setting- the Valley of the Old Ones.

Valley of the Old Ones is intended to be an old school fantasy roleplaying setting. The idea is that there is a lot of weird stuff out there (to capture that feeling we had 30 years ago when first playing FRPGs and all the stuff - monsters, magic, settings - were new and needed to be discovered), and there is a sinister undertone to some elements of the world. There was a race of "high men" - very magically advanced men - who dwelt in the valley a long time ago. They were involved in the active worship of four of the Great Old Ones (known to us under other names - such as Cthulhu and Azathoth, etc). That race eventually (and mysteriously) vanished, and the younger races took their place in the great valley (which is some 1600 miles long and 900 miles wide). Their ancient places are somewhat still around to be explored and discovered, and a lot of the legacy of their weird magics and practices are around. An interesting setting, I think.

My Secret Santa has Delivered

2010-11-24T17:40:00.001-05:00

I am participating in the Secret Santa program hosted every year by Board Game Geek, this year. I have already gotten a fantastic Christmas present sent to me by my Secret Santa. I will soon be ordering the gift (probably this weekend) for my secret target.

So, what did I get?

None other than "Battles of Westeros" which I had been waiting to get, and also had written about in this blog most recently, in my article about the Dice methods in the Commands and Colors series.

Thank you Secret Santa, and I'll pay back the community by writing up a review just as soon as I find time in my schedule to play a game.

Week of Encounters progressing nicely over at "The Valley of the Old Ones"

2010-11-24T17:36:00.000-05:00

Over at The Valley of the Old Ones (my FRPG blog) I have been working on the week of encounters challenge. So far I have two days down, and five to go. The first two challenges are "The King's Highway" and "The Fell-Beast of Riven Moor".

More coming, watch this space . . .

Tags: fantasy roleplaying, dungeons and dragons

Seven Encounters Challenge

2010-11-21T16:08:00.002-05:00

What is it that makes your RPG setting unique? Why should people be interested in your setting, over all of the other ones out there? Sure, you think it is cool to run adventures in "The Land of the Pickle People" or the "Lost Bedrooms" - but why should other GMs or players care? In short - what are the hooks that make your world unique?

I think that it should be possible to expose some of the Really Cool elements of a world within just a few short encounters. Do you have an alien race, school of magic, fantastic setting, flavor of monster or something else that makes your setting unique and fun? If so, write a couple of short encounters describing it.

This is a challenge to all blog writers (old school, new school, etc) who have blogs about Roleplaying Game Settings. And even those who are even vaguely interested in RPGs. Also - it doesn't just have to be a world of your own creation - if you really like Glorantha (for instance) and have been itching to get your players to play Runequest, use this as an excuse to write up some really cool encounters to make them want to play there.

Use this as an excuse to have a Week of Encounters, where you write one encounter (no matter how brief, or how detailed) each day for a week. It gets some really cool content out there on blogs - gives the GMs who are writing about their worlds an excuse for cool content - will generate some great encounters that players will be exposed to - and is a good way to give people an excuse to see what your world is all about.

The Valley of the Old Ones setting described over at the Blog of the same name will be taking up this challenge. I may (if time permits) also do something similar for the Fourteen Suns blog.

Those taking up the challenge, leave a comment with a link to your blog.

Tags: roleplaying

The Great Schism - RPG posts split from Gaming with Chuck

2010-11-18T23:25:00.000-05:00

In order to split content, I am now moving all posts related to FRPG to my new blog, Valley of the Old Ones. Initially, this will have a lot to do with the setting of the same name, and also the fantasy games I plan to run at MarsCon. In the future, who knows? It is still an in-house publication, run by the "Gaming with Chuck" staff, and will be linked to from here regularly.

See you on the other side....

Tags: roleplaying

Forest Abbey of the Hedgehog People (part 2)

2010-11-18T21:21:00.000-05:00

Here is the basic area map for the countryside surrounding Finch Abbey. I am planning a more detailed version, but the details are not meant for the eyes of the scenario players, so it will remain safe and secure in my GM notebook.

The key to the map is as follows:

1.Finch Abbey – former abbey of St. Brigid – Hedgehog people monastery

2.Trevor Landing – Out of use boat landing

3.Kliban Tower – Tower of a dead wizard

4.Village of Nosh – Western most village of Gorrem Castle

5.Tozen Quarry – flooded stone quarry

6.Raifhome Keep – Home to the retired mercenary, Raif the Spear.

7.The Red House – Very old marble villa, now a nest to a clan of ogres.

8.Haunt of the Spider – Tower of a dead wizard

9.Ruins of Fernrush – Once a wealthy trading town, now ruins.

Although the scenario of the game centers around the player-characters starting out at the Village of Nosh (in a tavern called "The Happy Lute" no less...) and then traveling to Finch Abbey, I wanted to populate the map with other interesting locations that could be of use later on for other gaming sessions.

Tags: roleplaying

Forest Abbey of the Hedgehog People (part 1)

2010-11-17T17:34:00.003-05:00

One of the keys to the old school adventure I am dreaming up for MarsCon is the peaceful fantasy race known as the Hedgehog People. Their own name for themselves is the Roikkitikki, but everyone else just calls them the Hedgehog People, or just the Hedgehogs.

For visual inspiration, I take my cues from the marvelous artwork done for the Ironclaw rpg, especially the hedgehogs.

In my setting of "The Valley of the Old Ones" the hedgehogs usually inhabit relatively peaceful forests,near (but not too close) to the civilized lands of peaceful people. When encountered outside of their forests, they are usually in small groups consisting of monks and clerics of St. Brigid. They don't usually deal in magic, get along well with halflings and gnomes, admire humans of the better sort, but distrust the elves. Hedgehogs are excessively fond of feasting, and usually tend towards the pacifistic.

For my scenario, the group in question is a community associated with the Abbey of Finch, in the Redsmoke Woods. This small forest lies along the Fernrush River, which is a southern tributary to the Great River. Nearest the Abbey, the Fernrush is about a mile wide, and is home to sporadic trade and fishing.

East of the forest, the rolling hills in the demesne of Gorrem Castle. The lands have been lawless for several years, and most of the villages and holdings have started looking to their own defense, without the castle to protect them. During this period, a number of bands of goblins have worked their way north into the Redsmoke and have been raiding out, threatening outlying settlements that were once under the protection of Gorrem. Finch Abbey has recently fallen to one of those bands, but there must be something more sinister at play, because of the degree of evil coming out of the former peaceful sanctuary. A band of raiding goblins couldn't possibly be responsible for the atrocities committed.

Maps and write-ups coming soon, subject to real life demands, of course!

Classic Fantasy Gaming Monsters

2010-11-16T22:27:00.002-05:00

There are some classic monsters that exist almost exclusively because of gaming. You know the sort I am thinking of - the Beholder, the Carrion Crawler, the Shrieker. What is your favorite, and why? Please comment...

Veteran's Day, Remembrance Day, WWI and Wargaming

2010-11-14T14:22:00.001-05:00

Yes, the fact that Veteran's Day (known under other names, such as Remembrance Day) is on November 11 is for a very real reason. The Armistice that ended WWI was signed in a Railway Car on November 11, in 1918. It was signed by the Allied commander in chief, Foch, and also by the German representative Erzberger. Although the signing took place at 5am, the effective time of the ceasefire between Western Front belligerents took place at 11am. So 11th hour, 11th day, 11th month of 1918. Okay, enough history (I had to write this because I recently saw an article on Remembrance Day comparing it Memorial Day in the US, and mentioned that by coincidence it was also Veteran's Day, but never mentioning why the date is important - one wonders if the author of that article knew what was important about 11/11).

Now, on to WWI wargaming. This article focuses on Board Games, but I may do a similar treatment for Miniatures Rules. There have been a lot. From some Avalon Hill standards like Guns of August and 1914 to more modern fare like Clash of Giants and Paths of Glory. The magazine Command had two that were very appealing to me - 1914: Glory's End and 1918: Storm in the West.

There have been some wonderful boardgames on the Naval aspect of the war, again going back to the venerable Jutland from Avalon Hill, Dreadnought from SPI and the more recent Avalanche Press tour de force series, The Great War at Sea. Once again, Command Magazine also had a great treatment - Jutland, the Duel of Dreadnoughts. In fact if we limit our examination to just games with the name Jutland in the title (which is not surprising, since it was far and away the single more important naval engagement of the conflict), we uncover the two player card game Jutland from the prolific Lloyd Krassner of Warpspawn Games.

Moving on to the dan of warfare between aircraft, we see a number of titles - from the excellent Avalon Hill title Richthofen's War through GDW's Blue Max, the very clever Ace of Aces published by Nova Games, and in modern times the immensely successful Wings of War.

Finally, there are some very interesting grand scale games that attempt to show the entire war, at a highly aggregated level of detail, but one which gives a great overview. Amongst these, of course, is the revolutionary game Diplomacy, which is about the origins of the war. But also in this category is the new First World War published by Mayfair and Phalanx.

Lots to pick from, and to make things even MORE interesting, within ODMS we have a new design for the battle of Tannenberg (the 1914 version) based on the excellent Napoleonic 20 series of games from Victory Point games. At our Nov 11 meeting of the club, John Dent and I got to play the game a couple of times, and it is really enjoyable. Look here for some interesting additions to the game, and some cool reuse of the same idea for other battles.

Tags: world war one, wargames, board games

Valley of the Old Ones

2010-11-13T12:13:00.001-05:00

A setting for some Old School roleplaying. Drawn using Autorealm.

Once, ages ago, before even the dragons remember, the Old Ones held court on the sunny face of the world. At that time, Ba'a Zarn, the king of the Old Ones, ruled a mighty empire. His craftsmen were the source of many things - the stars, music, time - but one of the the strongest things they built was the King's Highway.

This highway is a massive stone lane, large enough for the King's chariots to ride over, built on top of a mound that varies between 100 and 200 feet above the surrounding plains. Periodically, there are ancient guard towers that still stand, and massive stone lined tunnels that go through the mound. There are even tunnels under the mound for the tributaries of the Great River to run through.

The Great River circles the entire world, and the King's Highway generally follows its course.

The Valley of the Old Ones is one spot along the Great River, home to the ancient human city of Narn. The valley measures 1600 miles from end to end. The city is old and crumbling, but was once mighty enough to withstand attacks from the warlords out of the mountains surrounding the valley. Now it is mostly bereft of riches, so is not the subject of attack nearly so much.

In the plains throughout the valley, countless small unknown villages dot the countryside. With the collapse of Narn some generations back, local nobles began the construction of many of their own castles and keeps, to keep safe from the mountain raiders.

Today, Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings dwell in the valley, trying to make a peaceful life. The surrounding ancient ruins and wonderous sites remind them that the Old Ones once roamed here. Those same sites can be the home of adventure and exploration, but can also be the source of great, unnatural danger.

This will be the setting of a number of old school adventures that I am brewing up. I hope to reveal the first at MarsCon (January 2011).

Tags: fantasy role playing

Retro-Clone RPG based on the RC of BD&D

2010-11-08T14:35:00.001-05:00

Okay, I think that is the most Acronym laden title of any article here at Gaming with Chuck. (The Staff is currently on a Health Improvement Program (HIP) and that means increased levels of vitamins being consumed. So there is a big fascination with letters....)

Okay, a Retro Clone of a Role Playing Game is one of a new-ish batch of RPGs that seek to capture either the specific rules or the flavor of classic RPGs. You know - like Good Old Dungeons & Dragons (or Basic D&D). One of the versions of that game (a pretty good one) was the old Rules Compendium. A great collection of rules. It has everything in it that I usually like in a simple RPG - good distinct classes. Nice list of spells and equipment. Skill system. Weapon system. In fact, for me, the only things missing would be (1) Speed factors on spells and weapons (easy to add in), and (2) Tactical moves for doing combat with miniatures (also easy to add in).

Alright - so there is this great new retro-clone of the RC version of BD&D called "Dark Dungeons" (yes, named after the made-up game in the old Chick comic. If you have to ask, then you are better off not knowing).

It has it all. And in true to form honesty to old Basic D&D (or OD&D - Original D&D, although that is sometimes more narrowly defined as old White Box D&D - again, if you have to ask, you are better off not knowing, although it might be a good plan for the Staff to write a history of versions of D&D) there are only Classes, not the Race/Class combination we have seen in so many other RPGs. This means that if you want to play an Elf - then that is your class. This bodes well for the geek tshirt I once saw that said "I Remember when Hobbit was a Class" - and it was in OD&D. It is again in Dark Dungeons (although, for several legal reasons, they are called Halflings).

How does this race-as-class thing work out? Well it makes the race of non-humans Really important. As in it is a big deal if you say you are an Elf. Unlike in, say, AD&D when you are an Elf MU or an Elf Fighter, or an Elf F-M-C, then there is not too much of a big deal about the Elf Part. Especially in 2E, 3E or 4E (remember the vitamins thing and acronyms). But in OD&D - and in Dark Dungeons - being an Elf is a big deal.

So what are these races as class all about? More coming in a future article but briefly - Elf is a Fighter/Magic User mix. Halfling is a Fighter/Thief mix. And Dwarf is crusty. Like I said - more coming soon.

Also - look for some coming up articles on content for Dark Dungeons. I am inspired . . .

ps- thank you especially to Matt and Braz, whom I saw at Battlefield Band in Williamsburg on Nov 5 - and they got me jazzed up on Dark Dungeons. Previously my favorite retro-clones included Castles & Crusades (which I still love - and the Castle Keeper's Guide finally came out - w00t), and Mutant Futures. Both of those generated a fair amount of press here at GWC.

Tags:

Blocks of War III: C&C:Ancients (part 1 - the dice of Commands and Colors)

2010-10-26T15:25:00.004-04:00

Before starting, let me state two things.

1. I know that the C&C series, even when it uses blocks (like Ancients, and the upcoming Napoleonics) isn't a traditional Block game (like the gems from Columbia and other companies). But in some fora it is considered to be part of the block games universe, just because of the physical implementation of the pieces (being, well, "wooden blocks").

2. Even if you accept C&C:Ancients as a Block Game, then this article may prove to be a bit off because it is not an overview, replay, or review of the game. Rather it is analysis of one piece of the game.

Okay, what is this article about? In brief I will try to compare the various odds of causing a casualty within the different implementations of the C&C system that we have access to, today (that is, October 2010).

Okay, first lets identify our quarry. The C&C system has, as constituent games (each implementing the system somewhat differently):

Battle Cry! (from Avalon Hill)
Memoir '44 (from Days of Wonder)
BattleLore (from Fantasy Flight Games)
C&C: Ancients (from GMT)
C&C: Napoleonics (due out from GMT)

In each case, there is a dice spread that is rolled (on situationally varied numbers of dice). The symbols of the dice then give you the results of that combat round (dead or retreating units, usually).

But each one does it different.

The oldest game in the series is Battle Cry! It has dice with the following faces:

Infantry
Infantry
Cavalry
Artillery
Flag
Wildcard

The three types of units in the game are: Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery. The other pieces involved are Generals.

Infantry (killed on Infantry and Wildcard symbols) - 3/6 or 1/2 per dice
Cavalry (killed on Cavalry and Wildcard symbols) - 2/6 or 1/3 per dice
Artillery (killed on Artillery and Wildcard symbols) - 2/6 or 1/3 per dice
Generals (killed only on the Wildcard symbol) - 1/6 per dice
(by the way, here is a picture of the New 150th Anniversary edition of Battle Cry coming next year)

The next game in the series to come out is Memoir 44 - the excellent game of WWII combat. It has dice with the following faces:

Infantry
Infantry
Armor
Star
Flag
Grenade

The three types of pieces in the game are Infantry, Armor and Artillery. There are lots of modifiers to the basic types, but that type determines which dice faces cause kills.

Infantry (killed on Infantry and Grenade) - 3/6 or 1/2 per dice
Armor (killed on Armor and Grenade) - 2/6 or 1/3 per dice
Artillery (killed only on Grenade) - 1/6 per dice

This brings us to BattleLore - the great game of Medieval and Fantasy combat in the series. This is a great game, originally from Days of Wonder, but later on (currently) from Fantasy Flight games. Terrific scenarios (although I really like the historical scenarios that popped up on the Days of Wonder support website, before they were taken away with the move to Fantasy Flight), and lots of cool published supplements. The dice in this game have the following symbols:

Red Shield
Blue Shield
Green Shield
Sword/Shield
Flag
Lore

In this game all the many unit types are all given a quality color, called the Banner Color (Red, Blue or Green). Each of those units is killed on their respective dice faces (red units are killed by a red shield).

In addition, the Sword/Shield marker works like the Grenade marker from Memoir 44 (i.e. it kills all units), however there are specific times when it works and when it doesn't (based on the Weapon being used by the unit attacking). It does pretty well for almost all the hand-to-hand weapons, and half as well for missile weapons (some it just doesn't work for, like the common or short bow, as well as the cavalry reflex bow and the slingshot). Some target types get to ignore the sword/shield hits form some weapon types (i.e. - knights).

The most popular, so far, in the series has been the GMT offering, Commands and Colors: Ancients. This is the first time the series name has been used (except on some of the Memoir 44 game literature - but it is never referred to as "Commands and Colors: WWII").

The dice here are similar to those in Battlelore.

Red Shield
Blue Shield
Green Shield
Sword/Shield
Flag
General

The results are similar as well, with colored units taking hits from corresponding dice. Rather than weapons affecting the extra dice side, it is determined by unit type (of which there are a lot - light infantry, auxillia, medium infantry, barbarian infantry, heavy infantry and so on. For instance, light infantry never hit on the Sword symbol. Some units are immune to some hits (i.e. - heavy infantry and heavy cavalry).

Okay, the last game of the set - Battles of Westeros. Fantasy Flight Games put out this lovely boardgame about the battles of the George R. R. Martin fantasy novels, the Game of Thrones. It is based on the Richard Borg system, however there are some modifications. Chief amongst those are two - first, the command cards are not based on different sectors of the battlefield (unlike all of the other games in the series , so far). Second, the dice are eight sided. This is because of this dice spread:

Red Shield
Blue Shield
Blue Shield
Green Shield
Green Shield
Green Shield
Valor
Flag

Okay, so with this spread we have interesting results - first Green units are killed 3/8 of the time. Blue units 1/4 of the time and Red units 1/8 of the time. That makes Red units very strong, in my opinion, but I have yet to play the game (I am only judging this by what is in the rulebook, and from my understanding of the dice odds). Also, unlike some of the other games, there is no wildcard symbol in this version. Interesting.

Okay, so where does all this take us. First - I think the most tactical of the games are BattleLore and Ancients. I suspect that the upcoming Napoleonics release (which I have pre-ordered and which is due next month) should also be quite high-granularity in its tactical details. But most importantly, in the games where there is little in qualitative difference among the troop types (i.e. - Memoir 44 and Battle Cry) there is a big difference in the odds of basic types (like infantry) vs. the stronger types (cavalry, armor, etc) being killed. Fair enough - without the differences of different grades (or weapons, etc) you have to introduce some tactical difference.... Now, I have to see Westeros to see where the interesting bit is there, I suspect it may be amongst the different leaders and their abilities, but it is not in my clutches yet!

Okay, so that is what I have to say on dice. Curious that in some the difference in odds is driven mainly by attacker difference, and in some others the difference in odds is driven mainly by defender differences. In all cases, the dice pool size being rolled is a function of attacker type. Regardless they all play somewhat different because of these variations, and that is what makes the whole series appealing, rather than just one or two of the titles.
Tags: boardgames

October 25 - a day of famous battles

2010-10-25T20:22:00.000-04:00

There are at least three great battles that the staff of Gaming with Chuck is particularly fond of, that all took place on October 25. Other than being something like the 289th day of the year, it is also St. Crispin's Day (Crispin Crispianus) as any fan of Shakespeare will no doubt remember (read on)...

The first, of course, is the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. This battle marked the defeat of the Prince of France by young King Henry V of England in the 100 years war. Great stuff, and the product of many boardgames and miniatures rules. It is celebrated in Military History as one of the marker battles in the Revolution in Military Affairs the culminated in the ascendancy of Infantry over Cavalry as the chief battlefield arm. And there were a whole lot of longbows. And of course there is the fantastic treatment (mostly fictional, but still great fun) given to the battle by Shakespeare in his timeless "Henry V". The famous Band of Brothers speech comes from that play.
Great treatment of the battle from a bunch of different angles is given at Wikipedia

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

The second is the Battle of Balaclava in 1854, in the Crimean War. This is a battle fought between the British and French on one side, and the Russians on the other, over the rights of Turks amongst a bunch of other hegemonical things. Other than the fact that it was a very interesting battle it is also the occasion for the famous Charge of the Light Brigade, which inspired the stirring poem of Alfred Tennyson.
Excellent article on the battle (with maps, bios of the commanders, and a blow-by-blow including the stirring events of the North Valley that led to the Charge of the Light Brigade) is located at Wikipedia. Some excellent maps are located at the battle's webpage at History of War.

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

"Forward the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!" he said.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

Finally, in our own history, from October 23-26 the largest naval battle in history was fought - the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944. The Imperial Japanese Navy lost a fleet carrier, three light carriers, three battleships, eight cruisers and countless lighter vessels and planes. The United States lost one light carrier (and some lighter escorts). It was a victory for the US and secured not only the Philippines from the Japanese, but also halted the IJN from being a serious threat - in fact the only remaining surface action of any size that the Japanese dared after Leyte Gulf was the suicide run of the Yamato at the very end of the war.
Good article, with fantastic maps (for wargaming and just general historical drooling) again at Wikipedia

Hope to see you wargaming, soon!
Chuck

Tags: Military History, Wargaming

Renaissance Wargaming

2010-09-30T13:28:00.002-04:00

Wow - this was (and I guess still is) one of my favorite periods in history. Historians (as with most things) quibble over when the Renaissance should be placed (I think it goes well with the dried flowers on the mantle, but I never could decorate properly). And of course there is some concern over the Northern vs. the Southern renaissance. However, in painfully broad terms, this refers to the time of transition from the Medieval World to the Age of Enlightenment. Warfare is characterized by a re-ascendancy of infantry over other arms; a rapid improvement in the worth and effectiveness of firearms; and causes for fighting that coalesce around modern ideas such as nuance in religious identity and nationalism. In other words, Tercios, Pike & Shot, Roundheads, Sakers and Demi-Sakers, and all that other fun jazz.

There is a website making available a great series of articles from Airfix magazine that were all written by the most excellent wargamer, George Gush. For those who don't know about George Gush, he is the author of several old-school sets of rules that continue to be played quite popularly. One of those was the WRG set on Renaissance Warfare. From the WRG Historical Archives

"In June 1976, a set of War Games Rules for the period 1490-1660 written by George Gush was published and this was followed in April 1978 by a slim book of 41 Army Lists. In 1979, the second edition was published and followed in March 1984 by a much thicker book of Army Lists which now included 90 armies. Since George now owns the copyright, no pdf version is included here."


George Gush's most excellent rules for 1490-1660

Okay, back to the articles. These were published in the 1970s by Airfix Magazine, and other than a short introduction to the period (Part 1), there are sections on Infantry weapons and Tactics, Artillery, and Cavalry. Then a whole series of different national army articles. Very nice. here is a list of the articles.

The website follows up with some links to other articles that Gush wrote, concerning Renaissance military concerns (from a website called My Armoury that features absolutely fabulous articles on military history as well as sword crafting).

This is mother's milk for a wargamer, and interesting for those of us with an interest in Military History in general.

Now if only Richard Borg would do Commands & Colors: Pike & Shot!

(please don't take this too seriously, it is meant as a joke - and wishful thinking)

Tags: renaissance, pike and shot, miniatures, wargaming, boardgames, military history

Blocks of War II: Wizard Kings

2010-09-18T01:14:00.002-04:00

The second block game to get the "Gaming With Chuck" treatment, is Columbia Games' excellent fantasy wargame, Wizard Kings.


Classic Orcs/Elves matchup, right out of the box

This is a terrific design, from 2000, following on the 1998 release of Victory: The Blocks of War. In both cases, the game itself is sort of a "game kit" in that it gives you some maps (which are geomorphic), a pair of generic armies, and some rules. The games themselves are actually scenarios that use some subset of the bits that come in the box. The scenario can be as simple as "Each side chooses 100G of pieces, and come on the map from opposite sides. The last man standing wins". Not very exciting, but certainly a scenario. Now with the same pieces, a totally separate scenario can be played next time - very cool indeed (although this is true of almost all scenario based games).

The base game comes with four maps (in the first edition, maps numbered 1 through 4 - there are 8 more maps available from Columbia Games as add-ons, and there are four more numbered 13-16 in the second edition box set). An impressive variety of terrain types are represented on the maps, and all sorts of terrain configurations become available.

At the beginning of the match, players select their armies based on a Gold Piece (point) value. As with Hellenes, this is a classic Columbia style design, where the blocks take hits over time. When "purchasing" a unit for a scenario, therefore, each successive level of the unit must be bought (up to the block's maximum, usually three or four). The blocks are then placed on the board, in the cities on your side of the map if playing the basic scenario, and the game starts.

There are seven different armies available for play. This has changed between editions, but with the first edition of the game (which I own) the armies were Elves and Orcs (both came with the box set); Dwarves; Amazons; Norsemen; Undead; and Beastmen known as the Ferkin (more like Pigmen than Beastmen). Each army has a unique set of unit types, but all involve a wizard, as well as an assortment of other unit types. In the second edition, the Ferkin are replaced with a generic Human Medieval army. The other big differences between the two editions are in how additional armies are acquired. In the first edition, the game came with complete Orc and Elf armies. You could purchase the other five armies, each separately, for a couple of bucks each. With the second edition, you get a handful of blocks in the main set for each army, and you purchase reinforcement packs which come with random new blocks and stickers, enough for some in each army. With the second edition, you automatically get some blocks for each army whether you like it or not (who wouldn't?). There were also Chaos Mercenary sets (which included a bunch of monster, and enough blocks to assign four to each of the seven main armies), and the Were-Creatures set, which added optional rules to use phases of the moon to enhance/limit Were Creatures, and another set of four blocks and stickers for each of the seven Races/Armies. The third big difference between the sets are the maps - the first edition comes with maps 1-4. The second edition comes with maps 13-16.


Multi-player game in progress

The game plays very well, and the pacing and advancement of the game are fun, if sometimes a bit slow. When playing the standard scenario, which is simple conquest of the cities belonging to your opponent, the game can devolve into a big slugathon. But when playing any of the multitude of scenarios available (or making some up) the game becomes much more interesting.

Other than Magic, which is represented by a list of spells that your wizard can cast (each army is different, which gives good variety and more "feel" to the individual armies), the tactical combat rules are similar to other block games. Each unit has an initiative rating, and a combat ability rating. The initiative is a letter which gives general order for the blocks (lettered, 'A', 'B' and 'C'). Then the combat ability is a number, below which a dice rolled for that unit will score. Unlike Hellenes, there is no card play (although on the excellent support fansite, Wizard Kings Wiki, there is a variant that used cards very similar to how they appear in Hammer of the Scots - a variant that continues to intrigue me), there is no route capability in combat. Other than scenario specific, cities do not need to be besieged.

The game is fun, interesting (if you like fantasy), ripe for scenario development, and suitable for multi-player play (which is great, if you want something more than a typical 2 player wargame). Recommended, and a great block game.

After some movement and combat, it is then time to reconstitute. In most scenarios this means that you now have Gold Pieces (points) in order to either add to reduced levels of blocks out there, or to buy new blocks (and maybe enhance them up a few levels).

I played a couple of rounds lately with my daughter, and she had a great time. She then helped me set up my next game of WK, and picked Orcs vs. the Undead. An uppity Necromancer wanted to take over the land of the Goblinoid hordes. It was a good game - the cheap easily replaced Orc Army light infantry kept coming back after a slaughter, whereas many of the units in the Undead Army are quite expensive, so even when they did return from the dead, it took a couple of turns to build up their strength.

Tags: wargames

Blocks of War I: Hellenes by GMT

2010-08-29T15:44:00.000-04:00

In a recent high level of activity, I played a number of different block games. For the purpose of this series of articles, I am going to stretch the definition a bit and include the most excellent Richard Borg title "C&C:A", but this first entry, Hellenes from GMT is a classic block game in the most perfect tradition of blending the Columbia Games heritage with GMT's added goodness.

Hellenes - Sparta in Red, Athens in Blue

Going back to Hammer of the Scots, and some titles from before, Columbia has been blending the great idea of their block games (which feature 1-sided wooden blocks for units, allowing for great fog-of-war; and the blocks rotate showing stepwise reduction in combat unit strengths) with the more modern ideas of card-activation in a wargame.

I don't know for sure (and I bet there are half a dozen forum articles and geeklists at Board Game Geek on the topic) but I think that the first of the card-driven designs may have been Hannibal and Successors both from Avalon Hill, but these were quickly improved and followed up by For the People, Paths of Glory and Wilderness War from GMT. With the design for Hammer of the Scots, Columbia expanded the idea to separate the unit activation cards from event cards. Each round a player picks one, and it gives either a number of activations (for units or groups of units), or an event. This keeps the game always fresh and adds a lot to replay value. The GMT idea for the cards had three things on each card - unit activations, events, or replenishment - and when a card was picked, the player then had to choose which they wanted. The cards were balanced, so that the really good activation cards usually had the good events, and so on, so that the decisions were tough and required some decent thought and planning. Elements that make for a great game, in my book. By the way, see the homemade map for Hammer of the Scots, by DK Kemler (as posted on Board Game Geek)- it is beautiful!

Homemade map for Hammer of the Scots

The recent game Hellenes from 2009 takes the Columbia idea of blocks with hidden values, and rolling for combat based on a two-value combat rating. The first value is a letter (in this case, from A to F) that gives the basic "initiative" value of the fighting - so that all A units fight before all B units and so on. Then there is a numerical value (usually from 1 to 3) which gives the target number for scoring a hit. Roll 1d6 for the strength (called the Combat Value, or CV) of the block (which ranges from 1 to 4, based on the current strength of the unit), and each dice that is equal or less to the "hit" number scores a hit on the enemy. An equal range at the top of the dice span means an enemy unit is routed. There are specifics about which units take the hits first, and who routs first, etc. Simple, but elegant, and gives great results with some appreciable depth. So far, this is classic Columbia Games (although I don't recall seeing the to-rout capability in older designs). But GMT adds rules for naval transports (there are, not surprising in a game on the Peloponnesian War, lots of naval units), as well as rules for sieges, pillaging, and so on - to capture the feel of the city states going into rebellion, and being besieged (all from Thucydides - great stuff). And with the activation cards all having an event, the goodness from GMT makes its way in.

There is a 2007 Columbia design on the same topic - Athens & Sparta, which appears to be a little bit simpler, and can cover the entire war in one sitting (whereas the more detailed Hellenes covers scenarios of the war in a single sitting), but it is a small matter of difference about which card system you prefer. Both have their strengths, and both (to me anyway) are appealing.

On Thursday, August 26, Wayne and I played a game at the weekly ODMS meetup, and he took Athens while I became a Spartan general for the evening. The game was great, and although I won, I believe it was due to a fluke in my exploiting the economic engine of the game a turn before Wayne was prepared for it. We have scheduled a rematch, and shall see how it goes. This time I think there will be a lot more fighting over the point-value-rich colony city states. It, like the original war, should be glorious!

On a side note, I would like to put out an endorsement for two histories on the Peloponnesian War - the first from Donald Kagan (The Peloponnesian War) (a few years older, but quite excellent), and the second from Victor Davis Hanson (A War Like No Other).

Thanks,
See you soon - Chuck

Tags: wargames, boardgames, Peloponnesian War

Autumn Gaming is Approaching

2010-08-25T09:28:00.000-04:00

After a very successful "end of summer" wargaming event - the ODMS convention, Guns of August, the staff from Gaming with Chuck is looking forward to some Autumn Wargaming.

Autumn is coming at us hard and fast, like a Monkey riding a Goat, and if the schedule isn't filled up soon with some gaming activities, then all of the normal stuff that takes place this time of year will ensure that there ain't no gaming! So to keep that from happening, we hear at staff HQ are going to try to do some weekly boardgaming, as well as an occasional Thursday night wargame with the ODMS guys.

Upcoming possible wargaming projects include:
DBA campaign revolving around Phillip II's conquests (being organized by Cliff)
Victorian Colonials (TSATF) (by me)
Cold War Commander (Wayne and Scott)
My Galley Sally (Dave D)
C&C:Ancients (Wayne)

Boardgaming at HQ will likely include:
Zombie Dice
Pandemic
Agricola
Albion
Steam
Wizard Kings (maybe...)
And the usual (see the Boardgames tag for more on what usually goes on around here for boardgaming)

Tags: wargames, boardgames

Guns of August, After Action Review

2010-08-18T15:32:00.001-04:00

ODMS Convention Page

The convention was a great success, from the perspective of the staff. I can only hope the gamers felt the same way! (comment about your experience, please!)

On Thursday we got to the hotel (a day before the official start) to meet with the hotel staff and make sure everything was ship-shape. The tables we rent were late getting there, so some of the ODMS guys helped to set them up right, so that everyone's games would go off with a minimum of disturbance over the weekend.

After all the setup (and getting the hundreds of sodas and snacks loaded into our Hospitality Room), there was a round of boardgaming in the gaming area (the tables have to be broken in, you know). The Vendors continued arriving all evening, from all over the eastern half of the US, and set up their fantastic wares.

The Thursday night boardgaming was terrific. I played a really neat game of Reef Encounter (polyps anyone?), and then proceeded to totally Borg out in repeated games of Commands & Colors: Ancients (for those who don't know, Richard Borg is the designer of C&C:A).

The Reef Encounter game was with Anita, Heidi and Jeremy, and was a lot of fun. Jeremy was king Shrimple, getting his prolific shrimp all over the ocean floor, and it turned out that his Parrot Fish ate the most coral.

The C&C:A games were mostly against Wayne, but I also played against John Snelling as well. the battle was the same for each game - the Battle of Leuctra. Every time I played the Theben army, and every time I got the Sacred Band killed off by the Spartans. The first game was the most humiliating, as Wayne's Spartans totally eviscerated me in about four turns. I actually won a game or two, but still lost the Sacred Band each and every time. I guess they weren't that Sacred after all.

Friday came, and there were plenty and plenty of miniatures games, as well as a whole lot of board games. I had to leave the convention in the afternoon for a few short hours, but in the evening when I returned, I got to run my "Neil Thomas" rules Napoleonics game. It was an a-historical scenario - set in 1813 Saxony, with a British force facing off a French force twice its size, trying to buy time for the Prussian command in the area to arrive and help against the French. The British were played by Paul Knight, the Prussians were played by Scott Kidd, and the French were played by two players new to the rules, whom I did not know, but whom were real gentlemen to play with. The game went well, with Paul playing the role of a British commander very well (form a defended and anchored line of Infantry and hold it against repeated French assaults). The Prussians finally arrived, and the French decided that they had enough. My apologies to my players for not providing some really good player aids (the game needed quick-reference sheets).

Saturday came, and during the day all I did was to help out with the convention (spending many hours in the morning working Registration and meeting many of the great gamers who came to play at our show). In the afternoon, I got to spend a few short hours enjoying the hotel swimming pool (highly recommended) with my Daughter and some friends, and spending time talking to new gaming friends as well. Very nice.

Saturday afternoon, our Boardgaming room was a complete hit! It was filled to overflowing with boardgamers playing old and new wargames, and the Euro-games library that we had in the Hospitality Suite was really put to good use, with a bunch of gamers checking things out (most popular - SmallWorld and Steam). Tons of gaming in the Hospitality suite as well - Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan, and so on.

On the Wargaming front, everything from the old SPI classic 1918 to the much newer Washington's War were being played. There was also the double blind Axis and Allies game (each player only knew where his own pieces were, not even his allies). Neato.

Napoleon came and visited the convention on Saturday afternoon, and stayed until about 5:00 or so, when he gave an address to the gamers and bid his Adieu. Afterward, the great Guns of August Raffle took place, and thirty great gaming prizes were raffled off.

Saturday evening brought a new round of gaming for all involved, and I got to run my game of The Sword and the Flame. It was a total fun-fest, with the Anglo-Indian army attempting to rescue a small command of Miners waiting for transport down a river, and suddenly attacked by hostile hill tribesmen. This time, the British and the Indian troops were able to rescue the miners. A few casualties, but it was a successful operation.

Late night Saturday there was more gaming. Card gaming, to be sure. Plagues and Pestilence, which I (miraculously) won. I almost never win those kinds of games, because there is almost always a "pile on chuck" phase, but this time I drank some excellent imported beer, and played it cool, while my fellow Medieval City Builders were busily destroying each other with mongols, vikings and bubonic bonbons.

Sunday came, with more gaming and final shopping in the great Guns of August Hobby Bazaar, and afterward the vendors started breaking up and heading home, and the final games were played, and we all sang hey nonny nonny and bid each fare-thee-well until the Williamsburg Muster.

It was a great time, and I hope you can make it to our next show!

Tags: wargaming, Tags: boardgaming

Leaping Lemmings

2010-07-28T20:46:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while (like about twice a week) I obsess about getting a new game that I hear about.

My new favorite target has got to be GMT's Leaping Lemmings.

Nifty.

Reviewers seem to think that it hits all three gaming markets that I care about - light gamers (read: noobs and non-gamers), euro gamers (read: my family), and wargamers (urrah). Lots more information at the Geek.
Tags: boardgames

Eurogames with Wonderful Plastic Bits

2010-07-27T20:44:00.000-04:00

From my recent Geeklist over at Boardgame Geek:

"Okay, plastic bits is something that frequently gets associated with Ameritrash titles. In fact, some of the better aspects of Ameritrash hits all have to do with the wonderful little plastic bits that seem to fill those oversized boxes.

However, there are a number of Euros that have some very nice plastic bits in them. I list a few here, and welcome the list to grow and grow . . . .

(This topic was inspired when, after traveling to the house of some gaming friends for a weekend of fun, recently, I was returning the games we took back to our shelves at home. I carried Torres and Manhattan in to the house, and that clink of plastic in the boxes just filled me with a warm and fuzzy feeling. Like the ka-chunking a box full of Lego makes as you turn it over and over, before opening it and building some new wonder.)"

I went on to list six games, although I am sure the list will be added to.

Cleopatra and the Society of Architects

All of these are wonderful, great titles! And some of them have seen really recent tabletime at The Furze (secret world heaquarters of Gaming with Chuck).

Tags: boardgames

The Mighty Hoffhandel River

2010-06-22T00:17:00.000-04:00

My recent Shako game at the Hangar on June 19 was a great time.

On the Italian/French side we had Generalissimo Callahan leading four divisions of Italians, with Marshal Dietrich coming on later with two divisions of French.

On the Prussian/British side we had Fieldmarshal Von Kidd commanding four divisions of Prussians, with Major-General Terry arriving with two divisions of British troops.

The game was interesting, with the two main forces taking different tactical approaches. The Italians were more hesitant than the Prussians, choosing mainly to hold onto the villages on their side of the river, while their divisions on the Italian left took up a defensive position to await the arrival of the British.

On the Prussian side, there was a very aggressive advance, on the Prussian left leading with two advance battalions of Guard Infantry, and in the center with charging columns of troops assaulting across the central bridge, led by Fusiliers but followed up by Regular Infantry and Reservist Battalions.

The British divisions arrived, and proceeded to take the upper hand (pretty quickly) against the Italians. At one point, an Italian battalion trying to withdraw to a defensible position between a forest and the river's edge, was ridden down by a unit of Royal Scots Greys.

Other action saw a battalion of French Grenadiers assaulting the village of Turnip, which was held at the time by some Prussian Reservist infantry. After a nasty firefight, the Grenadiers proceeded to oust the Prussian infantry, and the French held the town.

In the end it was a slight victory to the Italian/French side (13 VP to 10 VP), but might very well have changed if additional turns were played. The scenario was quite enjoyable, and deserves to be played again.

Some pictures are online at my Flickr site.

Tags: wargaming, miniatures, napoleonics, Shako

Crossing the Hoffhandel - ODMS game June 19

2010-06-18T02:54:00.000-04:00

This is a fictional Napoleonic scenario, set in 1813. An Italian Corps encounters a Prussian Corps, during the fight to relieve Germany. The two forces meet, north to south, in a river valley, fighting over the network of roads and towns surrounding a few bridges of military value (sturdy, stone bridges). The game will be played June 19, at the Hangar.

Both sides have allies, not in the immediate area at the start of the battle, but 2 divisions of French are arriving from the East, and 2 divisions of British are arriving from the West.

The decisions of the French and British commanders at the start of the game determine their starting positions and turn of arrival, but these data are not known by the other players at the start of the game.

Here is the terrain at start of game:

And here is the initial deployment:

Tags: wargames, napoleonics

Aventine Miniatures - Ancients in 28mm

2010-06-12T12:39:00.000-04:00

There is some pretty nice wargamer porno over at Aventine Miniatures. These guys have lots of photos of their range of 28mm ancients - both in the gallery, the customer photo section, and the catalog.

Tags: miniatures

Knoetel's Uniformenkunde

2010-06-04T12:40:00.000-04:00

There is a website presenting series after series of Knoetel uniform prints. It has a wonderful series of uniforms from a variety of periods (concentrating heavily on 18th century and Napoleonic era) for Saxon, Prussian, Austrian, Neapolitan and other. Very nice reference.

Tags: history, military history, uniforms

A gaming weekend at Staff HQ

2010-06-01T11:02:00.000-04:00

This past weekend (Memorial Day weekend) we had quite a few boardgames going on at "Gaming with Chuck" staff headquarters.

Starting out Friday with a game of Small World, for just the immediate staff members (me, Anita and Heidi). Very fun, very light, fantasy wargame. Everyone at HQ seems to enjoy this one.

On Saturday we had some lovely folks visit from out of town. We broke into two groups (the boys and the girls). The benefits were - (1) two game tables, so neither was overcrowded, (2) different game tastes. But I usually like playing with the girls, so next time we might split up different.

The boys played two games - Stone Age and Hansa, and then talked a bit (quite a bit) about wargames - old (Avalon Hill and SPI) vs. new (Columbia Games and Richard Borg). This involved taking a look at the old classic Napoleon, and the more recent "classic" Memoir 44.

The girls on the other hand, played three games and spoke of other things. They played Ticket to Ride, Unspeakable Words, and Apples to Apples. The event also included catered sandwiches and chicken, as well as lots of fruit and cheese. Since the youngest staff member at HQ was celebrating her 11 year old birthday, there was also Cake.

All in all, a great weekend, and some good times playing games with friends.

Tags: boardgames

Great Game last night

2010-05-28T14:49:00.000-04:00

At the weekly ODMS meeting, the chief of staff for Gaming with Chuck played a great game of Shako II last night with Wayne, vs. Kai and John Callahan.

The rules went a whole lot slower than in other recent games, but it was fun nevertheless.

The forces were:

Wayne & Chuck - three Allied Divisions (Prussians and Russians)
Kai & John - three French and Italian divisions

A meeting engagement in an open field (somewhat boring, but a good way to learn the basic rules).

Tags: napoleonics, wargaming, miniatures

On the Bookshelf at the Moment

2010-05-28T14:18:00.001-04:00

I realize that it has been out for a while, but I recently bought the newish (June/2009) Osprey hardback on Armies of the Napoleonic Wars. This is a fantastic volume, with information about all of the major players, and many of the minor players in the Napoleonic wars. It rivals some of my other old stand-bys for Napoleonic uniform information (I really enjoy the Otto von Pivka volume, and my Knotel and Ball).

Ordered, but not yet arrived, is a copy of the Digby Smith Uniforms of the Napoleonic Wars. This one looks pretty good (I have flipped through copies at the library and bookstores). The depth of unit-by-unit details don't appear to be there, but I may have missed something. The color illos are nice, however.

Finally, off the Napoleonic bandwagon, I have also been enjoying the recently arrived copy of Vanished Armies, and also a recent Hoyle-like volume on card games by David Parlett.

Been trying to keep up with all of this...but my normal reading for school and research trumps the fun stuff. For Christmas a few months ago I received the two DK volumes Battle and Warrior from Anita and Heidi. They are the most phenomenal stuff, but I'll post on them later.

Tags: military history

Balkanian Jitters

2010-05-28T13:19:00.000-04:00

Excitement grows at "Gaming with Chuck" in anticipation of the Wargames Factory figures for War of the Spanish Succession being released. Of course, that is not what the staff of GwC are planning on using them for. Actually, a small war (The War of the Pumpkin-King Succession) between two Balkanian states is planned for these figures, although the uniforms of Poppenheim and Bombastia (curiously) mimic the uniforms of the Swedish and Russians during the Great Northern War.

A great set of photos from a wargame of that OTHER conflict (GNW) is located at this Ilkley Lads associated website. Very nice 28mm figures, some in game shots, and some in (apparently) posed shots. All very nice. I like the paint jobs on the figures, and the basing is interesting.

A much later matchup between the Swedes and the Russians was in 1808-1809. There is a terrific website that details much about that war (with a lot of good resources). The pictures of the lovely Poppenheim and Bombastia female troopers in this posting come from that website (where they were Erroneously identified as Swedish and Russian troopers).

It came to me this morning in a flash. If I am planning on doing 24 figure battalions for the Balkanian conflict, then I can certainly do 36 figure battalions. That would amount to something like 24 Musketeers (including officers, etc), on four stands. Plus a stand of 6 Pikemen (actually the officers, etc, could be on this stand), and a stand of 6 Grenadiers (that could be peeled off for converging). All on stands 60mm wide by 40mm deep. Ooh. Shiny.

Prepare for Basing

2010-05-22T02:13:00.000-04:00

A batch of 1813 Prussians (enough, in fact, to do the Shako II 1813-1814 Prussian Standard Army referenced here) are assembled for Basing by the staff of Gaming with Chuck.

Bases to be used will be from Gale Force Nine. See the white chinese food container.

This is in preparation for the Shako II game being hosted at the Hangar (ODMS) in June. The game will be held on June 19, at 10:00am, and the scenario is called "Crossing the Hoffhandel". It is based on a mixed alliance on both sides (Prussian/British vs. Italian/French).

Tags: wargaming, miniatures, napoleonics, prussia

Standard Army Sizes

2010-05-20T11:56:00.000-04:00

I suspect that this is something that arose, over the years, first amongst figure resellers (who tried to come up with "standard" boxed armies based on published army lists), and then among rules writers to provide standard armies for systems that did not have points values (I am thinking of Tactica, etc).

Recently, I started organizing my 15mm Napoleonics for Shako II. 99% of the games played in ODMS using Shako are scenario driven (some referee picks a scenario and sets the forces and terms of deployment and victory conditions, ignoring the standard army lists and tournament rules etc). This is the way I usually like to play wargames. However, I am using the army lists as a helpful rubric (like that?) for deciding how "large" my forces should be. You know, so I don't try to build the whole invasion Leipzig campaign, man for man, in miniature.

My observation is this - those are pretty large armies. For instance, the Prussians (1813-1814 variety) have an army that looks like this:

10x Battalions of Line Infantry
10x Battalions of Landwehr Infantry
5x Battalions of Jaegers/Fusiliers
2x Battalions of Grenadiers/Guards
1x Regiment of Cuirrasier
2x Regiments of Dragoons
1x Regiment of Landwehr Cavalry or Lancers
1x Large Gun Battery
1x Medium Gun Battery
2x demi-Battalions of Skirmishers

That is with 12 figure battalions, and 6 figure regiments. The size of units is flexible, and a battalion could be (reasonably) as few as 6 or as many as 24. Most that I know of are doing between 12 and 16.

Anyway - does that seem kind of large? Almost all of the standard armies in that ruleset are approx 30 units (more or less - the Prussians are more, the British are less, etc), plus artillery and skirmishers.

I know that rulesets like DBA do it smaller, and that Tactica armies could range quite large. But this seems big for a "standard" army.

Please comment below ?

Rules for AWI wargames

2010-05-18T01:00:00.000-04:00

The rules used by ODMS during our recent Community Day presentation of American War of Independence (AWI) wargaming were written by the staff of Gaming with Chuck, based heavily on the Napoleonic Warfare rules, presented in Neil Thomas' book, Wargaming: An Introduction.

The rules use the same basic unit sizes (4 stands for infantry and cavalry, 1 stand for artillery), but represent some of the differences for AWI (different unit types, and two very basic army lists, for instance).

They are presented (at the right) here on Gaming with Chuck for your enjoyment. Please, if you like these, continue on to buy the real thing from Neil Thomas - all of his wargaming books so far are spot-on!

Tags: wargaming, miniatures, American War of Independence, Revolutionary War

Principality of Bombastia

2010-05-14T00:35:00.000-04:00

In the tradition of a long line of articles about Balkania, Gaming with Chuck now presents information about the early 18th century army of the Principality of Bombastia.

Bombastia is a petty state, found within the Simian province of Furstenberg. It is populated mainly by Ethnic Urbs, who are almost all uniformly gourd farmers. While the economy of the region was never a glowing powerhouse, during the early and middle part of the 17th century, the Urbs of Bombastia fared pretty well. Then the pumpkins stopped coming quite as early, nor blooming quite as big. By the end of the century, almost half of all the Urb farms in the region were doing very bad. Because of this, manpower willing to serve in the army of Prince Peter of Bombastia grew and grew. Finally when the Crisis of the Pumpkin-King Throne of 1696 precipitated the War of the Pumpkin-King Succession against the Duchy of Poppenheim, the army of Prince Peter was quite sizable and ready for the conflict.

The progression of the war saw the Bombastik infantry progress from regiments featuring central companies of pikemen, surrounded by musketeers, to all-musketeer units. While Grenadier companies were converged together to form grenadier "regiments", there were also some standing regiments of Grenadiers in the army. In fact, this is in sharp contrast to the strictures of the Edict of Boomplatz. The Prince often explains away his violation of the Edict by claiming that the armies of the Principality are not proper armies of greater Furstenberg, but the droits of nobility, due to him as a peer of the margravate. Curiously, the Prince's foe, the Duke of Poppenheim, does not even bother to explain away why he has Grenadier companies within his armies - also strictly against the codes found within the Edict.

The cavalry of Bombastia consists of dragoons and armored cavalry, but also of units of Cossacks from two main Urbik tribal areas within Simia. The Dukon Cossacks and the Arzov Cossacks both have feudal agreements with Bombastia, and the Prince's family.

The artillery of Bombastia differs from Poppenheim chiefly in the employ of small 3-pounder regimental guns, attached to an infantry regiment, nicknamed "pot guns". The nickname comes from the fact that the original Pot Guns were crafted, during the heyday reign of Ivan Badinov during the 30 years war. During that time, the last of the Patchouli people were rounded up in Eastern Simia, and forced to give up all of their metal and metal objects. This was first intended to disarm the Patchouli people, but it had the unfortunate effect of rendering them Pot-less. The captured Patchouli Pots were subsequently melted down and poured as small cannon for the Badinov's army. These pot guns were passed down from regimental commander to commander, until today they are still part of the regiments (which have a history going back at least fifty years to the 30 years war, and some much farther back).

Tags: Great Northern War,
Wargaming,
Miniatures,
Russia

Grand Duchy of Poppenheim

2010-05-13T23:38:00.000-04:00

In the grand tradition of Emperor vs. Elector, Gaming with Chuck presents the Grand Duchy of Poppenheim, a petty state of the Furstenberger province of Simia - located smack dab in the middle of Balkania.

The ruler of Poppenheim during the War of the Pumpkin-King Succession was Grand Duke Charles. He comes from a long line of gourd farmers in the Poppen line. His ambitions were to expand pumpkin patronage to not only the middle class, but also to the growing ranks of gourd-artists among his citizenry. During the Pumpkin-King crisis of 1696, he came into dispute (over the throne of the Pumpkin-King) with Prince Peter of Bombastia, which quickly resulted in armed conflict.

The three branches of the Poppenheim army were the Infantry, the Cavalry and the Artillery (not uncommon for European armies of the time, such as that of Sweden). In the field, such an army was often divided up into three "battles", corresponding to a central division, and two wing divisions. Within these, cavalry was not infrequently mixed with infantry, and it is a mistake to consider these divisions as the separate and flexible organizations found later in Napoleonic era armies.

The infantry of Poppenheim was organized into Regiments, which consisted of a number of companies of Musketeers, as well as a company of Grenadiers. The Grenadiers from a number of regiments would sometimes be converged together into a "converged regiment". Each of the Royal Duchy regiments were named for the town from which they were mustered. A number of nobles, supportive of the Duke, also raised independent regiments that were known by the name of their patron Nobleman.

The cavalry are also organized into Regiments, with a number of different types. Armored cavalry as well as dragoons are popular (the dragoons still fighting dismounted as often as mounted). Light, irregular cavalry were sometimes hired from the Carfathian mountains to the west, being usually tribal Bosniaks.

The artillery of the Poppenheim army is a strange creation. The individual guns are owned by skilled "artisan" artillery crewmen, and serve the Duke and his army at their own will (and for money). Because of this, artillery is somewhat unreliable, especially strategically. While a gun and crew may show up on a battle, in support of the army, there is no guarantee that it will follow the army on the march to the next engagement.

Tags: miniatures, Great Northern War, Sweden, wargaming

Early 18th Century Balkania

2010-05-13T21:51:00.000-04:00

A few friends of mine and I share in some Imagi-Nation wargaming activities concerning an imaginary region of the world known as Balkania. In the words of Eric the Wise (one of the original crafters of the concept of Balkania),

Welcome to Balkania! It is a fictitious land of petty princes and minor monarchs, located East of Venice, South of Vienna, West of Istanbul, and North of the Nile.

A good bit of the emphasis has been on late 19th century (roughly from about 1850-1915) period. Look for games, coming up at the Guns of August. Some of my own writings on the topic can be seen here. Notably, I have developed the imagi-nation of the Margravate of Furstenberg, and their centuries old foe, the Earldom of Rumpwhistle. This has been accompanied with histories and military unit information, as well as some wargaming plans. The island of San Balkano was devised to serve as the backdrop for fictional Spanish-American War gaming. More coming about these fictional nations. Other states, created by my co-conspirators, include Trans-Turkylvania, the Kingdom of the Three Sicilies, Vulgaria, Kingdome of Payepal, and others.

However, inspired by a desire to do some 18th century wargaming, as well as all of the inspiring 18th century Imagi-Nation work done on the internet (the activity is not limited to, but is broadly connected to the website Emperor vs. Elector), the editorial staff of Gaming with Chuck has decided to venture into the early 18th Century of Balkania.

Taking the nation of Furstenberg as my starting point, I wanted to come up with a couple of minor states that could serve for Marlborough-era wargaming, using fairly generic armies. This then morphed into developing some Great Northern War armies, but using them to represent my fictional principalities. This is leading to the conflict known alternately as the "Great Northern Furstenberg War", or the "War of the Pumpkin-King Succession".The gently rolling farmland and pasture country of the Simian plains of northern Furstenberg (later to become the agricultural province of Simia) was home to two petty principalities. Those were the Grand Duchy of Poppenheim, and the Principality of Bombastia. These self-styled petty kingdoms were really based around the medieval castles of some local barons, and their dependent villages and market-towns. However, one thing led to another, and in 1696, when the annual Pumpkin Faire was held at the Church of St. Gourdfellow, the judges of the annual Pumpkin-King contest were all found poisoned. The clergyman present, Father Squashnot of the Holy See of Balkania (later the kingdom of Payepal) declared the office of Pumpkin-King to be unclaimed, and the throne vacant. The two competing nobles, Duke Charles of Poppenheim and Prince Peter of Bombastia each claimed the throne, and the gauntlets were thrown. It could only end in war.

The blue uniforms of Poppenheim bear a passing resemblance to the uniforms of the Swedish Army in the Great Northern War.It has been mentioned that the green uniforms of Bombastia can sometimes be compared favorably to the uniforms of the Russian Army from the same conflict. It is not the place of the editorial staff of "Gaming with Chuck" to decide.Anyway, watch for further posting on this project, and also to watch painting progress. The staff will probably wait for the release of the new WSS (War of the Spanish Succession) figures from Wargames Factory before starting this project, but who knows?

Spanish American War AAR - May 6

2010-05-09T14:54:00.000-04:00

A recent ODMS game that I presented on May 6 was a pretty good success. There were six players, three to a side, commanding a Division of Spanish (4 brigades) vs. a Division of US (4 brigades).The Spanish held a hill - La Colina Verde - which is central in the hills south of Puerto Gris (the capital of San Balkano). The US force, approaching from the South, come up all south east of the Azzuro river, which cuts through the hills. The Spanish force was located in the hills, and the central hill had a walled town on it, which was defended by a brigade of Spanish.The Spanish troops had been on the island for years, fighting against Insurrectos, so were quite experienced in jungle fighting, and using the cover of the island to their best advantage. Because of this, they gained an advantage when firing from under cover in the jungle.The rules used were a simplified version of "A Splendid Little War" - a version of my age of rifles wargaming rules also used for RJW and other gaming.The US approached, as expected, heavily in the center and a little bit on the eastern flank. There, on the East, they got held up by battalions of Spanish Foreign Legion in the jungle for a few turns, before moving past them. On the west, they moved up along the Azzuro river, and met a few units of Spanish Naval Infantry that tied up that brigade.In the center, the two brigades assaulting the hill were peppered by Spanish artillery (German guns, of course), but eventually made it to the hills and fought over the defenses. The Spanish, once fighting inside the towns, were bested by the US troops.

A good game.

Tags: miniatures, wargaming, Balkania

War is Declared! - Spanish American War

2010-05-05T11:36:00.000-04:00

Over at the ODMS website, here, and here there are articles about an upcoming Spanish American War game.

This game features the rules I wrote (borrowing heavily from influences such as the Brom Standard rules, as well as the Jackson Gamers RCW rules) for both RJW and RCW, but modified for the Spanish American War.

I borrowed the Brom mechanism of activating brigades (each about 3-6 units) by card flip. Each side also has a "bonus" card in the deck, which allows for a bonus move by one brigade.

The main changes to the rules include changes to reflect the Spanish smokeless gunpowder - while they are under cover in jungle/forest, they can fire out but can not be fired at. Also, I disassociated the morale level of a unit from it's size. It is now possible to have different sized units, and big units with low morale, and small units with high morale. I'll report back after some playtesting how this goes, and it may make its way into the RCW rules.

Chuck

Tags: Spanish American War

Monopoly Cards for Fun

2010-05-03T02:51:00.000-04:00

Okay, okay. Like most of the rest of the gaming hobby world, I too think that Monopoly is a stinker, and gives boardgaming a bad name.

However, over at dribbleglass, there is a website - Monopoly Cards We'd Like To See

Check it out. You won't regret it. The humor is a bit, er, tarnished - but still funny.

Tags: monopoly

Music for Colonial Wargaming

2010-04-28T20:38:00.000-04:00

This is the stuff. It gets me in a Darkest Africa mood just looking it at the uniforms.

Tags: madness

Blitzkrieg - Used for other Games

2010-04-14T14:58:00.000-04:00

I recently came across an article over at Lead Doesn't Bleed that discusses his love affair with the old TAHGC classic, Blitzkrieg. Evidently, the author of Lead Doesn't Bleed is active on the Consimworld Blitzkrieg Board as well.

He, it seems, uses the game (and the mythical countries presented therein) as the setting for other gaming activities, and most recently has started building up armies to play Cold War Commander set in that world.

Years ago, I did something similar with the game Russian Campaign, also from TAHGC. I set up forces for the Soviet and German side, that corresponded to platoons and companies in the OGRE gaming world, then I moved them around. I had a repair/reinforcement schedule and rules for what else was happening in the world (partisans/insurgents, economy changes, diplomacy, strategic strikes, etc). I played it out. This was during the brief time I lived in West Virginia, in 9th grade (the same time period where I got interested in both Historical Miniatures and Roleplaying).

Anyway, I think this is a great idea for Cold War Commander. A similar application could be something like the mythical countries that one can generate for AK-47 (see a nice review here). For fun see the AK-47 army event sheets here. Those events are all rolled up before the battle, and really make each game a mini-campaign.

The world of Blitzkrieg is a large continent, crisscrossed with roads, rail lines, and encompassing every sort of major terrain (from swamps and forests to mountains and deserts). The west is dominated by the Blue Empire of Azurnerreich, and the east is controlled by the Red State of Krasnynorad. In between, five smaller satellite states make things interesting. In the west, we have Nord Walkure and Sud Walkure (both in the Blue Hegemony), while in the east we have New Endor and San Estados as states under the Red Shadow. In the center there is Calaedia, which is almost neutral, but leans to the Red (Krasnynorad). Some very interesting things can be done with this simple structure.

Tags: wargames

From a friend of mine - Speed painting Napoleonics

2010-04-13T17:21:00.000-04:00

My friend Carl penned this interesting missive.

A DNA induced requirement to produce more and more painted Napoleonic figures in any scale can be really frustrating if one does not paint quickly, with extra social negatives if one is not a master painter from birth. The quality painting of J. Croswhite, E. Ackerman, and C. Turnitsa shines as examples of what can be. If you are not one of these gentlemen, we’re here to help.

First, find all the painting related articles and pamphlets. Throw away one fifth of them, as the authors are master painters who make everything look easy or have legions of “employees” to paint for them or can afford ten dollar ounces of paint.. Throw away another fifth, as the schemes only work for a very specific army or navy, and the author left something out anyway so yours will never look as good as his. You can keep the next fifth, about keeping brushes clean, using good brushes and paint, securing good lighting, as this is good advice. The last fifth is up to you to keep or not, free will and all and maybe it works for you.

If though, you forget to clean brushes because your cat and child are destroying the house and you need to intervene, if the lighting isn’t great because you’re on a budget, if the only one painting is you, if your buddies aren’t into assembly line painting or team painting is going to crash into the giant mollusk named “Bob”, wonderful fellow, brings pizza and all, but has to be watched, this is your article.

If you are tough enough for some social stigma, if your fellow gamers can handle the concept, cheat, cheat, cheat, cheat. Not in the game, you need to be beaten if you do, but in the strategy of painting.

First, make up the nations and their forces. This is all kinds of liberating, because now you can be painting Napoleonic Hawaiians instead of a lace drowned Hussar. You can pick which figures fit your painting style, rather than slogging through required forces that don’t have any interest and will be sold off or dumped half painted. Just out of the blue, let us take Payepally armies. These are dressed in Landswehr uniforms, because it’s my army and I said so. Landswehr uniforms can be used up to the Civil War, so changing your mind is facilitated. Make sure your rules don’t require a gun park of more than two guns. Cossacks may be crud in most rules, but they paint easy and you can write your own rules.

If you can get your spouse to promise to help paint and she doesn’t, well, par for the course, my friend.

Get the figures out of the bags, clean them of extra metal or plastic unless that’s your look, dump them all into a box (war is rough), and take them outside and primer them black. If you primer indoors with no ventilation you should eat the can, as it is kinder and quicker. Buy an oven for the garage and use it to dry the figures or melt them if plastic. I can’t defend against all the stupid after all. When dry, dry brush them white. Don’t go nuts, you’ve got a hundred figures to do, three different branches, and if you keep adding figures to the total you’ll give up and take up haiku, I promise.

While that is drying, look at the paints in hand and decide your uniform from those. “Honest, sweetie, I’m being frugal, I’m not buying any new paints for this”. But if you do, crafty places tend to have really big bottles of paint comma water soluble, for not much. Write All Your Decisions Down, change them maybe once or twice, and then cast the decisions in stone. It’s the only way my friend.

BTW, one of the fifths you tossed was about how your work environment needed to be right for –you-. I cannot help you there, as wife, children, pets, friends, and telemarketeers have a radar for when you want to paint, and will do everything in their power to make sure you can’t. I suggest feigning no interest at all in what you are doing, and as long as you look lump like, they’ll all leave you alone. True story, although my family was keyed to me merely picking up a brush. Unemployment and school age children are great for getting things painted, but it’s tough to maintain the miniatures budget in the same time frame. Finding a job that lets one paint is just an urban legend.

Anyhow: if you are really strong, Nappy armies frequently put covers over things, oilskins over hats, fabric around gun locks, overcoats over everything, etc. These are excellent ideas for speed painting, will not win you any awards. But your forces will be done, bringing a smug smile to your face while your fellow gamers moan about the slows. Of course, you may wind up with an army you can’t use because everyone else changed scale or period while you were out getting cheetos, but you takes your chances, and you get to paint an oppo army, so good for you.

Get clean big brushes. Paint hat and coat the same color, don’t do the hat if oilskinning. Paint the pants, if a different color. Use smaller paint brushes. Paint the flesh colors and the rifles. Be careful but not obsessive because if this works right one of the later paints will bury your mistakes. Paint the blacks of the leather and fabrics, and if you’re smart it’ll all be black Get even smaller brushes. Paint the metals, and be obsessive with this. Paint the facing colors. With really good small brushes, go back and neaten everything up. Do it again. One more time. Have someone else look because they will find things instantly that you missed. Neaten up one more time. Go to hardware store, replace brushes you forgot to clean. Stop chewing on the paint brushes, you’re scaring the cats.

Carefully carry it all out to the garage, pick a very special wood stain of the lighter persuasion, and wash down the figures. Wait five minutes, brush off the blobs. Wait five more, brush off the blobs. Wait five more more, brush off the blobs. Check often during the drying time, because once the blobs set it’s ugly, especially over light colors. If sticky, put out in sun to dry. If still sticky, chuck it, sell an organ, and buy the army you want from a painting service. If not sticky, touch up the light colors by dry brushing or dotting, then coat with matt lacquer. Make sure the lacquer doesn’t cloud up. Really, at this stage, make sure the lacquer doesn’t cloud up. No, Really. Not to worry, five or six armies and you’ll have this down to a science or be watching televised poker as a hobby.

Cranking out speedy armies is a good way to irritate people. Why I recall buying a set of figures from a fellow who’d had them for five years untouched, I used them in the game next week. Really honked him off for years. Speedy armies is way to get into the game before interest shifts to poker or boardgames or 15mms. Speedy armies don’t mind being sold on e-bay, or life leaves you starting over again.

Over to you.

Cool free gamnig magazine - Irregular

2010-04-09T12:51:00.000-04:00

Recently became aware of Irregular a free (downloadable pdf) quarterly gaming magazine that covers most everything from RPGs to historical miniatures gaming.

Nice, check it out.

Tags: gaming magazine

Speed Circuit

2010-04-09T11:28:00.000-04:00

A short AAR on a recent ODMS game night featuring a bunch of runs of Speed Circuit is located at the ODMS blog.

The important thing over here at Gaming with Chuck is that I won one of those games. My tactic was to max out my car design on initial speed, and then when I had to make a tough choice on wiping out in a turn, I would choose to spin out and start over - at 80MPH!!

Anyway, I won one of the games, and that called for a celebration. So what better way to celebrate than with the Ode to Joy!

Tags:

Napoleonic Gaming Poll

2010-04-06T21:41:00.000-04:00

Online Surveys & Market Research

Interesting article about Der Kriegsspiel

2010-04-06T21:35:00.000-04:00

Zone of Influence has a great article called On Debord’s Kriegsspiel and Board Wargames.

This is of course interesting to me as a gamer, but also interesting to me professionally, as I am currently writing a book chapter for a textbook on combat simulations tracing the history of military simulations.

Tags: kriegsspiel

April 5 1242 - Battle of Lake Peipus

2010-04-06T20:42:00.000-04:00

Also known as the Battle of the Ice, this was a great medieval battle that checked the Eastward expansion of not only the Teutonic Knightly orders, but also of Roman Catholicism in 13th Russia.

The 768th anniversary of the battle of Lake Peipus - or "Schlacht auf dem Eise" as the German's know it.

It was the battle between the Teutonic Knights and their Estonian peasant allies (all led by Prince-Bishop Herman of Dorpat who was intent on invading the neighboring Novgorod. The troops included those of the Order as well as the Estonian troops (Chuds) totaling about 4000.

The exiled prince Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod was begged to come back by the people when they knew that the Teutonics were coming to get them, so they begged Alexander to come back - which he did. He hooked up with his brother Andrei. Their forces consisted of the Druzhina (bodyguards) of the two princes, plus Pagans and Eastern Orthodox Christian troops (total about 5000).

The battle was fought over the thick ice of Lake Peipus and the attached Lake Pskovskoe (now you know why that lake is never remembered). The knights and their allies battled the main line of the Russians for hours, when Alexander had his numerous archers join the fray. That disordered the Teutonics, and when the light Russian cavalry appeared, they fled back over the frozen lake. On the far side they began to rally and gather for a counter-charge, but by that time the thinner ice at the edge of the lake began to give way, and (according to legend and the Eisenstein movie made under Stalin's regime) the knights crashed through the ice to their frozen watery grave.

Regardless of the outcome, it is a great medieval battle, and worthy of a Wayne presentation (he has the Teutonic figures, I am sure).

All fought (originally) on April 5, 1242.

Tags:

One Monk Miniatures - Free

2010-04-06T16:02:00.000-04:00

One Monk Miniatures - some of the finest Cardboard Cutouts available - are now free. Yep, all of em, on the website. Free.

Go check em out, and download some if you like cardboard figures. Lots of Fantasy and Sci-Fi goodness to be had.

Tags: paper modeling

Hard Plastic 28mm Figures from HaT

2010-04-05T00:29:00.000-04:00

It is a long tradition that HäT Industrie holds up in doing soft plastic figures. They cover 1/72 and 1/32 figures, in soft plastic, very well.

However (this is big for wargamers) they are now starting to do a hard plastic line in 28mm. The initial releases are covered here with a listing, as well as lots of pictures of masters, box art, and painted samples.

It appears that the initial target is for El Cid (Christians and Moors), as well as Napoleonics. The French seem well targeted, but also some other nations. The masters for Prussian Landwehr look great.

MacPhee's Miniature Men (a great blog about toy soldiers and the painting and modeling that goes along with them) has a couple of articles about the new French Legere. This is a two part series with part 1 here and part 2 here. Earlier MacPhee wrote about the also released Bavarians from the same series. He has a blog entry with lots of pictures of the sprues, etc, along with comparison shots located here.

The nice thing about this for wargamers is that it means that the plastic 28mm market is growing enough to attract the attention of the larger plastics manufacturers. I hope this isn't the death knell for Perry, Victrix, Wargames Factory and Warlord Games. I like 'em all, and don't want to see their plastic efforts go the way of the dodo.

Tags: toy soldiers

Battle for Atlanta

2010-03-26T12:31:00.000-04:00

A nice Fire and Fury game held by the Catawba Gamers, with an AAR posted at My Little World of Dementia - the blog of Scott, from the Charlotte Area.

The game was held at a comic book store, and the terrain looked real good. The chief perpetrator was Barry (one of the members of Catawba), and his tables always look good.

Tags: wargaming, miniatures, acw

Remembering Gary Gygax (at the movies)

2010-03-17T11:08:00.000-04:00

Remembering Gary Gygax

This article honors Gary Gygax's memory by reviewing two really bad/good fantasy movies from the early 80s. Those two movies are (stinkers both) "Hawk the Slayer" and "Krull". Wow, I remember them both fondly.

Tags: fantasy

Battles of Westeros

2010-02-25T16:18:00.000-05:00

Battles of Westeros - a new game from Fantasy Flight Games.

FFG has announced the new game they are going to produce in the BattleLore series.

This is a whole new standalone game, but based on the BattleLore system. It is called "Battles of Westeros" and is based on the world and armies of George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series of novels. Very Cool.

The base game comes with two armies (representing the households of Stark and Lannister), hard mounted board, 138 miniatures, and lots of cards and markers. It is similar to BattleLore, but with some differences. Much less emphasis on magic (and Lore). The dice are a bit different. In the standard BattleLore/CC system there is a 6-sided dice with a Red banner, Blue Banner, and Green banner (along with retreat, wild, and lore). In this one there are 8-sided dice, with 3 Green Banners, 2 Blue Banners, and 1 Red Banner (so Green Troops are much more vulnerable than Blue troops and Red Troops, etc), and two other sides (retreat and wild).

It sounds quite cool.

A forum article on the differences

And a nice FFG article announcing the news

Tags: boardgames, BattleLore

Tron Legacy

2010-01-25T00:48:00.001-05:00

This one might be enough for me to run something cyber-punkish again.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810096458/video

Tags: tron

Sticks and Stones

2010-01-20T15:17:00.000-05:00

I think I gotta play this

Tags: caveman

MarsCon Gaming - a big success

2010-01-19T16:58:00.000-05:00

MarsCon 2010 has just run its course, and it was a good year. There were a couple of personnel snafu's but it all came together nicely. From my perspective, it was a really nice convention.

At the last minute, the senior leadership asked John Desmarais and yours truly to help with the organization of gaming. We did what we could, and organize a few important events (RPGA D&D, Pathfinder, Project:Crusader, Quickfire Starfighters, Delta Files, Visible Dungeon, and demo games from Privateer Press and Steve Jackson Games, among others). This meant dropping our own plans to run a number of roleplaying sessions (Champions, Pulp Hero, Castles & Crusades and Mutant Future - to name the candidates). This was going to be a Neptune City heavy year for us, but alas - it was not meant to be, mes amis.

Even with the lateness of the planning, the room was full almost throughout the weekend. Once, around 2am on Saturday night, the room was down to three games being played (horrors), but for the most part, Friday Evening, and all day and night Saturday the room was full. It was even quite heavily utilized on Sunday. A good year.

In order to contribute somewhat, even though there was little in the way of RPGs or Miniatures being offered by "Gaming with Chuck", there were a number of boardgames. These included:

Several games of Manhattan - a SdJ winner from 1994, and quite a fun game to play.
Also tried Small World. A fun little near-wargame. What surprises me about this one is that it was originally based on a map of Europe (as Vinci).
Jon K, Justin G and I played a game of Carolus Magnus. Vicious!
Finally, John D brought his new version of Cosmic Encounter. We played a bunch of hands of this game. What a great game - and it has certainly stood the test of time!

All in all - a good convention. I am sure that I will help out (if allowed) with MarsCon 2011 in some way. But more importantly, I hope I can run a game or two!

Tags: boardgames

Christmas and New Years gaming

2010-01-06T14:07:00.000-05:00

First, I hope all who read Gaming with Chuck had a very nice Holiday season (we proudly and unashamedly celebrate Christmas at the secret bunker of publication, but I understand that not all do). Second I hope that all will have a better year this year than last.

The only gaming items that were given or received in the immediate family this year was Apples to Apples, which our daughter Heidi absolutely loves. It's a good game, and especially easy to lure non-gamers into the ranks with. Some of the answers in our games, and even more so - some of the justifications for those answers - have been great.

The dearth of games as presents will be dealt with in the post-Christmas hobby spending that takes place in these parts at both Marscon and the Williamsburg Muster (two local conventions, one being Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and the other Wargaming and Boardgaming).

Now, as to actual gaming that took place over the holiday break - we played a couple of games. These included the already mentioned Apples to Apples, but also Blokus, Wooly Bully, Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, Rummy, Gin-Rummy, 10 Days across the USA, Tara, Carcassonne, and Cosmic Encounters. All good games, all played when we had various guests visiting. Sadly, everyone who played was already a gamer, so we did not introduce any new members into the hobby. But that will happen, I am sure of it, and soon.

Tags:

Terriffic article introducing Euro-Games

2010-01-06T14:04:00.000-05:00

Yehhuda - a gaming blogger (who has the kindness of linking to Gaming with Chuck) has a truly excellent article from last year that introduces Euro-Games, also known as designer games or German games.

These are the sorts of boardgames that are usually at our house (also known as the world-headquarters/secret bunker for publication of Gaming with Chuck), and frequently make an appearance at weekly meetings of ODMS.

Go. Read the article. It will remind you of all the cool things you like about Euro-Games.

Tags: board games

WWII Naval Wargaming Video

2009-11-16T23:17:00.000-05:00

I found the reference to this video on The Forgotten Legions - Thanks Kelly.

It is a pretty good video, and provides a good teaser to a WWII naval scenario using "lighter" forces. Not everything is a BB vs. BB vs. CV type battle, although that is something that gamers usually enjoy.

Tags: world war 2, naval wargaming

Broo Fest

2009-11-15T11:08:00.000-05:00

Gloarmy has a great article, Malia Fiesta! It deals with some Broo painting projects. Great looking figures, and a nice overview of the beastmen available for doing Runequest (Glorantha) Broo.

One of the best things to come out of the Games Workshop machine are their chaos beastmen (which have a direct lineage to the Broo of Runequest, as Citadel miniatures used to produce those models, and then when Citadel started doing Warhammer figures, they reused some of the Broo models they had, renamed - simply - beastmen). Here is an excellent version of a GW Nurgle beastman, that could easily be a Broo Runelord.

Tags: broo

Mutant Future Links - and Spider Goats

2009-11-15T01:00:00.001-05:00

More links concerning Mutant Future. The inspirational pictures of Spider goats are to set the mood for Mutant Future (see the book for details, but trust me - spider goats are totally bad encounters).

Chatty DM says "Dude, you gotta try Mutant Future!"
A Brave New Weird has some great MF stuff Savage Afterworld discusses the goods Mutant Foursome scores on some great MF articles, with artwork (like the Pigmen). Here is a video showing RARE EVIDENCE of Pigmen being aquatic raiders...

Mutagenic Substance has some really interesting content. And an entry on Robot (home)Sexuality.Finally, this website has downloads for the rules, etc for the first three editions of Gamma World. Interesting . . .

Tags: gamma world, mutant future

More Gamma World - The Rise of the Mutated Plants

2009-11-15T00:36:00.000-05:00

Alien Plants
Uploaded by Chromer.

Also, for grins and giggles, a nice academic article about Roleplaying Games and their ilk.

Post Apocalypse Gaming - what gives?

2009-11-14T23:33:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I admit it, I have long been a Gamma World junkie (although these days I must admit that I am secretly more attracted to Mutant Future than Gamma World - it's free and available now).

Traveling, with your mutant mates, across the wasteland. Stop in at a friendly village for some radiation-free melons handed out by lovely green-skinned girls, trading a rusty hubcap for some referee whistles (valuable goods), and having that bad infestation of glowing slugs on your left tentacle be treated by the local ripper doc. And then after all that rest and relaxation, its off to the local robot guarded missile silo for valuable copper, or into the nest of the angry mutant crocodile-men, or hauling yourself up 200 meters to the robot-operated algae skyfarm to rob parts and food. All part of a normal day in the life of a typical post-apocalypse hero.

But the overall idea of post apocalypse gaming really depresses me. That is - if it is realistic. The futures of settings like Mad Max (where the oil dries up, and civilization collapses), or Twilight 2000 (depressing third world war, and civilization collapses), or Morrow Project (civilization collapses, with real effects of radiation, disease, etc), or Planet of the Apes (Apes win, civilization collapses). You get the idea. If it is a little too close to home, or too realistic (think - Threads or Day after Tomorrow), then it is just too much of a downer to be a fun game.

But it the whole thing is a total lark, and absolutely preposterous - such as the future radioactive playground of Gamma World (still potentially depressing, but who can stay down for long in the world of the polyester-devouring Yexil), or the Barbarian sword-fest of Robert Adams' Horseclans novels, or further fun with Sterling Lanier's Hiero books (who hasn't dreamt of riding a telepathic warmoose) - then it can be a whole lot of fun.

This is what lured me back into the genre with Mutants and Death Ray Guns, but I am also thinking of running a game of Mutant Future at MarsCon in January. If I do I will do a mixed lot of characters (2x Pure Strain Humans, 2x Mutant Humans, 2x Mutant Animals), and probably revolve around rescuing a young mutant child from a group of brigands living in an old military site of the Ancients. Warbots, androids, zombies, mutants galore, traps, radioactive pits - the fun is just bubbling out of me (or is that the lo mein from dinner?) and I haven't even written down anything yet.
I guess I gotta do a quest for miniatures (this sort of game DEMANDS miniatures - when else would I get a chance to use my green mutant in a house coat?), and build some suitable terrain. The good news is that it will all be useful for Mutants and Death Ray Guns, as well.

Some fun blog reports out there. First, Society of Torch, Pole and Rope has a nice write up on the classic Gamma World Deathbot for Mutant Future. Second, Savage AfterWorld has an interesting link to a conversation about incorporating Mutant Future into Hackmaster. Bizarre. Dwarf and Basilisk has a nice listing of games, films, and books that are inspirational. Facebook has a Gamma World page. Finally, Grognardia has a nice loving homage. He also has a great review of Mutant Future.

Tags: gamma world, mutant future, rpg, miniatures

More missing mutations

2009-11-13T00:40:00.000-05:00

More fun for Songs of Mutants and Death Ray Guns . . .

Weather Manipulation - The Mutant must take 2 actions to activate this mutation. Then, based on a 3d6 Q check, he may change 1, 2, or 3 aspects of the weather (either temperature, cloud cover, or wind).

Empathy - As Telepathy, but affects all models within Short range.

Life Leech - treat as Telepathic Scream, out to Short Range. If any target is knocked-out, then the Mutant receives a Force Field.

Displacement - Whenever the Mutant receives an attack that results in a Knock Down, Kill, or Gruesome Kill result then that Mutant immediately rolls 3d6 against Q. If it is Knocked Down, then it must score 1 success to Displace. On a Kill it must score 2 successes, and on a Gruesome Kill it must score 3 successes. If it succeeds, then the model is placed, in a random direction, one Medium stick away. Note that it will not displace into a harmful situation (i.e. - mid air, over a lava pit, in front of an onrushing hovertrain, etc).

Acid - treat as Poison.

Emit Radiation Field - As Radiation Energy Projection, but affects all models within Medium stick.

Electrical Generation - Electricity Hand-to-Hand attack. Lethal against Robots and Androids.

Resistance to Mental Attacks - Mental Shield

Total Resistance to Mental Attack - Mind Block

Immune - as Absorption towards a particular type of attack (Radiation, Heat, Sonic, Light)

Precognition - Danger Sense

Heightened Intelligence - as per Psychometry

Radioactive - On a successful Hand-to-Hand attack, target must make a Radiation Check.

Coated in Poison, Acid - as per Poison

Telekinesis - as Telekinetic Disarm (may also grab other small objects)

Repulsion Field - as Telekinetic Shield

Mobility - treat as Medium Movement

Manipulative Vines - treat as Entangle

Increased Metabolism - requires 2 food per week.

Molecular Disruption - The Mutant may make an attack as per a Death Ray Gun, except it is Lethal against all targets. When using this mutation, the Mutant is immediately knocked unconscious (whether it is successful or not). The Mutant must eat two Food per week.

Symbiotic Attachment - Whenever the Mutant makes a H-t-H attack, and scores either a Kill or Gruesome Kill, the target is instead Controlled (as per Telepathy). The controlling Mutant may make the victim do whatever he/she likes, but it must remain in Contact with the controlling Mutant.

Mass Mind - When in contact with other Mutants with Mass Mind, this allows all Mental Mutations to be employed as a "group effort". This means that all attempts to use Mental Mutations will be treated as always having a minimum of 1 success.

Chameleon Powers - May start game in Ambush

Carapace, Armor - Treat as Flak Jacket

Fear Generation - Terror

Intuition - Danger Sense

Fear Impulse - treat as Phobia

Shoot/Spit Poison - treat as Short Range attack, if successful, roll vs. Poison as with a Needle Gun attack.

Levitation - Fly

Attraction Odor - Allure

Small - Ground movement is reduced by one category (not below Short Stick). Also, all ranged attacks against this mutant are at -1.

Density Increase - Short range. With 1 success, may make the target Larger or Smaller by 1 category, for 1 turn. With 2 successes, the change is permanent. With 3 successes, the change may be 2 categories. The categories are - Small, Normal, Big, Huge.

Anti-Life Leech - Whenever attacked by Life Leech or Telepathic Scream, the results are automatically reversed.

Tags: mutants, gamma world, miniatures, wargames

Songs of Mutants and Death Ray Guns - the Missing Mutations

2009-11-13T00:32:00.000-05:00

I am really excited about the new game from Ganesha that I picked up at Fall In.

I immediately set to translating all my favorite Gamma World encounters into SoMaDRG rules, and found that there are a good number of GW mutations that don't appear in the new Ganesha game.

So I started writing up the old mutations in the new rules. Here are a few . . . more will be published here in a PDF document, soon.

Poison Susceptability - The mutant is adversely affected by poison (more so than usual). This has two game effects - first, when checking for the effect of poison needle gun hits against the mutant, add +1 to the dice (so it must make a check on 3-6, vs. 4-6). Second, when checking to see if the Mutant's Q goes up, from being attacked by Poison, add +1 to the dice (so the target's Q goes up on 5-6, rather than just 6).

Dissolving Juices - Treat as Acid (or Poison).

Cryokinesis - Treat as Energy Projection/Cold.

Devolution - Short range attack. With 1 success, the target chooses one mutation that does not work for the rest of this game. With 2 successes, the mutant making the attack chooses one mutation that does not work for the rest of the game. With 3 successes, the mutant making the attack chooses one mutation that is gone permanently. Attacks against non-mutated Humans increase Q by 1 for one game (with 1 or 2 successes) or permanently (with 3 successes).

Dual Brain - Treat as Psychometry, but also grant 1 additional Mental Mutation.

Illusion - The Mutant creates an Illusionary Figure. Anyone within Medium range of the figure must make a 3D6 vs Q test. If they get 3 success, then they can ignore the Illusion for the rest of the game. 2 successes means that they can ignore the Illusion for this turn. 1 success means that the target is transfixed for this turn. No successes means that they are transfixed until the illusion moves out of range. If any other figure touches the illusion, it disappears. When a figure controlling an illusion rolls for activation, it may choose to activate itself, or the illusion (which always moves Medium).

Light Generation - Generate a flash of light. Anyone within Short range of the Mutant must make a 1d6 Q check. Failure means that they target is transfixed for a turn.

Physical Reflection - Treat as Absorption.

Reflection - Treat as Absorption, but also immune to Life Leech.

Total Healing - Whenever affected by Radiation or Poison, make a 1d6 v. Q check - with success, the effects of Radiation or Poison can be ignored.

Speed Increase - Sprint

Heightened Phys Attribute (Strength) - +1 HTH Combat

Will Force - Once per game, the character can automatically make 1d a success, in a C or Q check.

Heavy Armor - Treat as a force field (negates a potential loss in Combat, ranged or hand-to-hand) working on a 5+, and no longer effective after rolling a 1. Except Heavy Armor does not take an energy cell to operate.

Immune to Poison - Ignore effects from poison and poisoned needlers.

Horns - Treat as Hand-to-Hand specialist (+1 in close combat).

Mental Control of Body - Once per game, the mutant may take complete control over his body. He may Sprint and also receive +1 in Close Combat for 1 turn.

Magnetic Control - Treat as Telekinetic Disarm but only against weapons with a metal component.

Teleportation - The Mutant may teleport itself to any other spot on the board (or out of combat, by teleporting off the board), once per game. The mutant makes a 1d6 check v. Q, and if it fails it lands "knocked down".

Tags: mutants, gamma world, miniatures, wargames

Songs of Mutants and Death Ray Guns

2009-11-09T02:15:00.000-05:00

So I picked up a copy of "Songs of Mutants and Death Ray Guns" (SoMaDRG or SMDRG) over the weekend, and I am excited to give this a try!

Anyone who does not get the picture couldn't possibly understand why I am so excited about this.

There are a couple of important things missing from the book, however. The version of "figuring out" an artifact given in the SMDRG book is woefully inadequate. Use this (genetically pure) version of the original instead. Much better.
Something that might be fun to do with SMDRG is to take all of the classic critters and encounters from a classic post-apocalypse game and publish them on some website. Yessirree, that would be a fine thing indeed...

Tags: gamma world

Furstenberg mapping project

2009-10-31T00:29:00.000-04:00

This is the first, rough, map of the Balkanian country of Furstenberg.

The surrounding countries include Rumpwhistle, Vulgaria, Tran-Turkylvania, Kingdom of the Three Sicilies, and others.

Sci Fi Nemesis of the week - Plants

2009-10-30T22:47:00.000-04:00

Just for giggles, I've been thinking of a sci-fi type wargame where plants play a very strong role.

Years ago, when Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader first came out, we played a lot of the scenarios (I think there are at least a hundred in the rule book, with a bunch of modifiers, in a scenario generator system). One of them involved some competing squads of bounty hunters tracking a high value target through a violent and dangerous alien jungle. Lots of weird plants and animals. It was fun. Could be again.

Mars Plants
by donaldtheduckie

Tags: alien plants, science fiction, wargaming

SciFi bug hunt - questions, questions

2009-10-29T14:11:00.000-04:00

Ganesha Games' "Song of Mutants and Death Rays" is high on my 'to acquire' list of miniatures rules.

One of the things I am thinking of doing with it is a Humans v. Giant Insects type scenario. Not bad for either (1) 1950s style atomic horror gaming, or (2) post apocalypse (remember the giant cockroaches from Damnation Alley? cool!). One of the issues will be finding suitable looking models for both the Humans and whatever they are going to be fighting. Today, there is a pretty big movement amongst SciFi miniatures manufacturers, and there are some very nice options out there. Almost too many.

But what to use for bugs? And what to use for humans? I am thinking (seriously) about 15mm Sci-Fi, but that seems a bit premature considering I just got lured back into 6mm, by Future War Commander. We'll see.

Tags: sci fi

Bio-Hazard from King's Sleep

2009-10-29T14:02:00.000-04:00

King's Sleep - a gamer's blog from the UK, has posted (among other good stuff) some really cool warning signs useful within a sci-fi setting.

Tags: sci fi

BattleLore grows and grows and grows

2009-10-29T13:57:00.000-04:00

BattleLoreMaster - a Fan site for Battle Lore, has pointed out that Fantasy Flight Games (the publisher) has announced three new supplements coming out before the end of the year.

First - Heroes - out now. Comes with figures (foot and mounted) for four different heroes, and rules to use them (along with artifacts and equipment cards).

Second - Dragons. Out this fall - covers three different types of dragons, and comes with minis. Looks real good.

Third - Creatures. Will also include cards, rules and minis. Also out this fall. Will cover Giants, Elementals, and a Hydra (at least). Apparently the Hill Giant and Earth Elemental (previously available as special releases) will be present, but also with a new Giant and a new Elemental.

Tags:

Chuck's Greyhawk Webpage

2009-10-27T23:29:00.000-04:00

Wow - my old Greyhawk Campaign website (on Geocities, back in the 90s) disappeared a number of years back (2002? 2003?). Little did I know that all (or most) of those old sites were saved by the Web Archive Project. So, I took a look, and lo and behold, there is a live Archive of my old Greyhawk campaign website.

It is not perfect - some of the images and linked pages are missing (curious), but most of it is there. I've since scraped it all, and am in the process of reformatting it for publication in a better format. I planned at one time to include lots of individual maps of countries, towns, geo-features - maybe I'll get around to it in the next 20 years or so. Also, the posting of military information in terms that a Wargame can make use of (DBA? BattleLore?)

Chuck

Tags: World of Greyhawk

What am I shopping for at Fall In?

2009-10-13T22:25:00.001-04:00

This thread at The Miniatures Page is about what people are planning on shopping for at Fall In. Here is my entry -

-Perry Plastic French Nappies

-15mm RCW infantry, wearing Schlem (either Tin Soldier or PP)

-Some rules from Ganesha Games ("Mutants & Deathrays" and "Song of Deeds and Glory")

Lots of free-range shopping. 100% organic, and hormone-free.

Handing out Williamsburg Muster flyers. :)

We'll see how much I hold to that after the convention. (watch this space)

Glorantha Wargaming Report

2009-10-12T12:13:00.001-04:00

Over at BigRedBatCave the author of that blog has a very nice report on a Glorantha battle between the Lunar Empire and a Barbarian horde consisting of Bison Riders and Sable Riders (Praxian nomads).

Great photos (take a look at the link above).

The rules used were the new War of the Ring rules, which look pretty cool. I haven't gotten a copy of the rules myself, but the reports sound good.

Tags: runequest, Glorantha, miniatures, fantasy wargaming

Great Scenario Articles

2009-09-26T14:26:00.000-04:00

Ross Macfarlane has put on his website the first three quarters of a romp through the CS Grant and S Asquith book "Scenarios for All Ages". I have a copy of that book, and it is great. It fits neatly within an "old school wargamer's library" - see Col Campbell's Barracks for a brief comment.

Ross has put up a couple of different sections, each with links to refights of the games (often using his own self-made figures, and often using his own rules). They are here:
Scenarios 1-9
Scenarios 10-18
Scenarios 19-27
Scenarios 28-36

Ross uses his own rules for some of the games. He has a good looking set of Renaissance rules called Rough Wooing. He also has a similar set of rules for Horse and Musket called Heart of Tin.

In addition to his own rules, Ross also (apparently) enjoys Warhammer Ancient Battles and Cold War Commander. Wise man, Ross. :)

All in all, some nice old school wargaming going on over there!

Tags:

Campaign System for Craftees

2009-09-22T11:12:00.001-04:00

More on this later, but here is an idea (for comment, please) for a campaign system to be used with a simple wargame system (should work for any era). I proposed this originally for Craftees players.

The thing I was thinking of for a Craftees campaign would be something relatively simple (in terms of details) but still stylistically fun. Maybe a simple point-to-point movement map, with some nice army markers made out of craftee-parts. Whatever period it would be for, use small armies (maybe 6-12 units) and simple battlefield rules (the Thomas rules would be great here).

Mark three armies on the map for each side.

Each node on the map would have a basic terrain type, dictating the type of battlefield (i.e. - open, hilly, wooded, river crossing, etc)

Alternate moving. First player chooses an army marker to move, and rolls 1d6. On a 2+ he moves the marker one node. Then he picks another (or the same) marker, and rolls again - this time a 3+. Then a 4+, 5+ and 6+ (meaning a maximum of 5 moves in a row). If at any time, he fails a dice roll, then the order changes to the other player.

Whenever a player moves an army marker onto another army marker, there is a fight. Both sides get 4d6 to determine attacker/defender. If one side outnumbers the cavalry of the other side, they get +1d6 for each unit of light cavalry more than their opponent, and +1d6 for each 2 units of heavy cavalry. Both sides roll their dice, and high roller gets to decide (after seeing the battlefield) attacker or defender. The defender then picks side of table, and sets up army. The attacker moves units on first turn.

Limit the game to a certain number of turns (or play to the written victory conditions if using the Thomas rules).

Once an army loses, it must retreat a d3 nodes (must move away from enemy, cannot encounter new enemy, cannot double back on same nodes - if it cannot do this, it is eliminated). Once an army loses twice, it is removed from the map. The winner is the player with armies left once his opponent is all gone.

If the campaign has multiple players, then the players not involved in a battle may take turns challenging a player on the other side to a "raid". A raid is played with half the units of a normal game, and if successful scores "operational points". If one side or the other accumulates 3 operational points, they can be spent to remove a "loss" from an army marker (remember that two losses make an army marker disappear from the campaign map). Raid losses do not count towards making an army marker disappear (since they aren't based on army markers, but take place, somewhere nebulously defined as "the front"). Raid battles always end when the main campaign battle ends, if it is not a victory at that pooint, then neither side gets an "operational point".

To Do - (1) print a sample nodal Campaign Map, (2) publish some notional army lists based on the Thomas rules.

Punic War Fun

2009-09-12T00:14:00.001-04:00

The ODMS Blog has an After Action Review of a Punic War battle, fought September 10, at the Hangar.

The game was pretty good, but the Roman side used completely the wrong (ahistorical) army list. We used the Early Imperial Roman army list, rather than the Republican Roman army list. I would like to fight a similar battle again (using Warhammer Ancient Battles, with armies of 4000 points per side) using the proper army lists (from "Hannibal" - the Punic Wars supplement).

Some inspiration . . .

A good video of Zama, using live action dramatization. The Elephants and the anti-Elephant tactics are good.

A two part, more in-depth exploration of the battle of Zama, and some Punic War background. Relies a lot on computer animation, but it is good.

Tags: punic wars

More on the Russian Civil War

2009-09-06T15:54:00.000-04:00

More work progresses on the Russian Civil War wargaming rules.

I will be running a scenario at Fall In (Crossing the Kolva) that details an attempted River crossing by White forces from Deniken's army, during the winter of 1919-1920. Stopping them are some quick moving Proletariat horse units. Tschanka's anyone?

A good chapter on Deniken's retreat can be found here:

Tags: Russian Civil War

Wargames Factory Numidians - part I

2009-09-06T15:00:00.000-04:00

Okay, lets see if I can write a more lucid report than last time.

I spent a little bit of time putting together two units out of a package of WF Numidians this weekend, and wanted to report on it.

First of all, organization. I am doing two units of skirmishers for Warhammer Ancient Battles with these figures, but in order to maximize usefulness I will base them on WRG basing (two figures to a 60mmX30mm base). Each unit will have 14 figures in it.

I chose to model a standard bearer, leader (with sword) and musician as part of each unit. That left 11 skirmishers in addition. For the first unit I chose slings as their main weapon, and for the second unit I chose the bow that comes in the package.

My leaders and musicians were identical. I chose the ornate helmeted head, as well as a sword for the leader. I chose an unhelmeted head for all other figures in the unit, and the musician is given the curved metallic horn. For the standard bearer, there are two ornated poles in the set (presumably unit standards). I used these, unmodified. The more ornate one (for no particular reason) with the disc and the crescent, I gave to the archer unit. The other one (with the "horsetail") I gave to the slinger unit.

I chose a variety of arms and arm poses for the warriors of each unit, and also the heads are all at different angles. It took me only a few hours to clean and glue together all 28 figures - not much more than it would have taken to sort and clean a similar number of lead/tin figures.

The next step (painting) gave me a bit of a quandary. I could have taken a couple of routes, but I'll describe the one I did.

In order to paint figures this scale, I usually will mount them on popsicle sticks with a dot of white glue, and then remove the finished figures to glue to bases. This might have worked, but with the plastic figures, I was unsure. So I have glued them directly to the bases (which is quite spacious, since they are on WRG light infantry style basing). I will proceed to spray and paint them on those bases, and then decorate the bases once the figures are completed.

My next steps are to spray the figures black, dry brush them white (my usual technique) and then paint in all the detail layers over that. I'll report back when I am finishes (and will test my photo skills to see if they have improved).

ps- note, the term Nubian was not used once in this article.

Tags: numidians

The Passing of Rich Villella

2009-08-31T22:44:00.000-04:00

I will always think of Rich Villella as a very good friend and also a good wargamer. I met him, first, at Campaign Headquarters, in the mid 80s when I was a shop clerk for Joe Legat. Rich and I spoke a couple of times about different wargaming topics, which led to conversations about girls, music and a number of other topics. Eventually, he got around to inviting me to wargame with the Williamsburg crowd that gamed (in those days) at a training building of Colonial Williamsburg.

I started attending those gaming sessions (weekend nights) a couple of times here and there (work and school permitting) and Rich was always a gentleman (as were the rest of the club). Rich always inspired me, in those days, not only with his expansive knowledge of military history, but also his welcoming friendliness; his eagerness to share a game with someone new; and his open minded approach not only to game ideas, but to any sort of conversation topic. After that, for a couple of years (while I was still working at the hobby store and an undergraduate) I would do a number of contract painting projects for Rich. It was always a good relationship, for not only would I get to paint new topics, but I would also benefit from Rich's knowledge of history. After college, I saw Rich on occasion on weekend game sessions, when I lived in Williamsburg, and continued to see him from time to time.

A few years back I heard that Rich had retired, and we saw each other again (after some time of sporadic contact). It was as if no real time had passed in between - we took up our friendly relationship and conversations on historical topics (mostly Ancient warfare, Napoleonic history, and more esoteric things, like Garibaldi and the Reunification of Italy). Just earlier this year, Rich hosted a Napoleonic game at the Hangar, which I played in eagerly (using Rudy Scott Nelson's rules - which Rich introduced me to years earlier, and which I still enjoy playing). I was glad for the experience. Just before the first Williamsburg Muster (our local convention - of which Rich was totally supportive, and served on our committee), he ran a French Foreign Legion game, which was a lot of fun as well.

Then, just a few days ago, I received the dreadfully sad news that Rich had passed away. The wash of sadness still hasn't left me. The world will be a much hollower place without my friend Rich in it.

Undead Army

2009-08-29T00:40:00.001-04:00

So, I've been thinking of building an Undead army for HoTT. Here is the reason why . . .

http://www.partiallyclips.com/index.php?id=1316

Tags: skeleton warrior

RCW Equipment Series - The FT-17

2009-08-28T23:50:00.000-04:00

Renault FT-17

An excellent light tank of the early stages of WWII (France, 1940), was also used in the Russian Civil War, and a number of other conflicts/theaters (Rif War 1925-27; Spanish Civil War 1936-39). The FT-17 originally came into service during the Great War, during 1917. Before the end of that conflict nearly 3,000 would see service.
This tank was used (evidently) by both sides (Red and White) during the civil war. Notably, the Bolshevik government had the Krasnoye Sormovo Factory reverse engineer a number of captured, burned-out FT-17s and produce the first soviet-built tank - a copy of the FT-17, named the "Freedom Fighter Comrade Lenin" (now housed at the Kubinka tank museum). The factory would go on to produce T-34s for the great patriotic war. A discussion of the technical details of the Russian Renault can be found at Skoblin's History Blog.The FT-17 was the first tank to appear in Russia during the Civil War. They arrived, in a shipment of 20 tanks, in the port of Odessa, in December of 1918, to support French and Greek troops fighting the Bolsheviks. In subsequent fighting, six of these initial 20 were lost to the Reds. From then on, the FT-17 would appear on both sides of the conflict. They continued to be supplied to allied troops fighting against the Reds. Most tanks supplied to the White generals were actually British tanks (Mark V Heavy, Mark A Medium, Mark B Medium). [See the excellent "Armored Units of the Russian Civil War" from Osprey Books, by D. Bullok and A. Deryabin for more details. A preview copy from Google Books is viewable here

Some very nice websites showing scale models of the FT-17 are here and here.

For wargaming, wonderful FT-17 models are made by MiniFigs and also QRF. I have the latter, and they were easy to assemble, and look good on the field of battle. I will try to take some pix next time they see action.

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Traveller from Mongoose

2009-08-17T13:29:00.000-04:00

I was aware that the Mongoose Publishing version was out for some time, but I wasn't paying too much attention, until I picked up a copy of the mini-version of the rulebook during a summer vacation trip with my Wife to Staunton Virginia. We visited Dragon's Hoard gaming shop there (owned by a nice fellow, and long time friend, Harry), and I picked up a copy of this book.

It is great! Preserves all of the goodness of the original (1977) version of the game, and improves upon it without it becoming unplayable (which, I'm afraid, is my opinion of many of the other versions - T20, MegaTraveller to a certain extent, T4, and so on).

What a great game - now if I only had time to run a game.

Tags: traveller, role playing game, science fiction

Historicon 2009 - a great time!

2009-07-20T14:52:00.000-04:00

Historicon 2009 was a great time for me and my friends from ODMS!! This was the 25th anniversary, and was a well attended convention, apparently. This gargantua of wargaming cons will be moving to Baltimore next year (amid some disappointment from the fans who have been coming to Lancaster for two decades), but I will leave all that politics and grumbling aside for now. On to the report -

I ran two con games - RCW and TSATF. Both were excellent, and I got good feedback for the two scenario books I am working on.

Re-connected with lots of gaming friends.

Played 5 games of Hordes of the Things - my record was 1 and 4 (almost as good as I did in the DBA tournament).

Played Pillars of the Earth - very good with 4 players (we did not use the expansion, with more players and different cards). Players were Jon K, Odin B, Justin G, and myself. Odin came in first, and I got second. Very nice, and had a good feel from the book, although it was more than a little reminiscent to Stone Age.

Played Power Grid - another very good game. Played with the same players as Pillars (Jon, Odin, Justin and myself). Elliott helped by flipping cards and restocking the uranium. I won this one, but it was close throughout (an excellent game).

Purchased enough Wargames Factory Celts to do a decent sized WAB army.

Purchased a boxed Infantry battalion of Seven Years War Prussian Musketeers, by Crusader. Very nice miniatures, I can't wait to paint these.

I got some new rules

Songs of Drums & Shakos

Der Kriegskunst (from Chris)

Got some light infantry and some cavalry for my Romans. These are from Wargames Factory (like the Celts). These guys (Tony and the rest) are one of my favorite wargaming companies out there today, which probably isn't hindered by the fact that they do the periods that I really like (colonials, zulus, and soon - Vikings!).

Picked up some Litko bases for John Dent (I'll bring them on Thursday).

Got plenty of British figures to do Songs of Drums & Shakos. These are the Victrix plastics, which come in a box of 52, Flank Companies for the Peninsula Campaign was the set I got, which should give me some Light Infantry and some Grenadiers, as well as a few foot officers. With the rifleman figures that were given away (very nice Perry figures), I should be able to do a pretty decent British collection for a skirmish game.

Sold a 15mm ancient indian army - thanks Elliott, for showing it in the flea market.

Picked up a copy of BattleCry from Richard Borg. Almost bought "Ancients" from him, but I figured that would out for a while, while BattleCry is hard to find. Found out that a Napoleonic version of the system is due out next year from GMT.

I met Jason Salkey (Rifleman Harris) from the Sharpe's movies - very nice fellow.

I saw the "Charm City Cakes" cake that they baked for Historicon 25th anniversary.

I did not play in the WAB tournaments, but I went out with a great bunch of WAB guys for dinner to the Lancaster Brewery. 10 beers, a burger and some tira misu is a good consolation prize for not getting to play in the tournament. Cute waitress.

Tags: gaming, wargaming, miniatures, boardgames

Wordle brand word cloud for Gaming with Chuck

2009-07-09T13:24:00.000-04:00

Interesting. I had no idea that I used the word God so frequently on this blog.

DM of the Rings

2009-07-01T15:24:00.001-04:00

You may have seen this, but if not, it's pretty funny reading.

DM of the Rings - A parody of Lord of the Rings, told as if it were a roleplaying game.Pretty funny, in my book.

Tags: Lord of the Rings, roleplaying, Dungeons & Dragons

Alhambra!

2009-06-25T02:19:00.000-04:00

We played Alhambra on Tuesday, as a family game. It was great fun, but Jack tried to play too. He thinks he is a crafty Moorish Sultan of old Spain.
Here he is, watching over the Money and the Market, ensuring no dirty dealings.

Tags: boardgames, Moorish Cat, Alhambra