PhD coming to a finish soon - look for more postings

I have a huge backlog of games that I want to review, mods and scenarios I want to write up, and even belated after action reports. I have hundreds of miniatures that require painting - from the early 18th century armies for the Great War of Northern Balkania, to re-basing ACW figures, to all sorts of 15mm projects, and even sprucing up my 1:2000 WW2 and WW1 fleets. However, with my final few months of preparation on the PhD, I haven't been able to do any of those things (with a clear conscience). Well, gentle readers, the end is (hopefully, and blessedly) near. I may be finishing within the next few weeks. Which means more content being generated from the celestial glee factory that operates day and night at Gaming with Chuck Headquarters (GwCHQ). Till then, see you - and keep gaming. ps - check out the announcement of a new (anticipated) adventure to be published over at Valley of the Old Ones, once the same PhD work is finished!!

Irrational Number Line Games

My friend, Alex, has a gaming website Irrational Number Line Games.  It is full of all sorts of creative stuff, but I might point out the recent game he did that took place on the outside of a space station.  He built the space station out of coffee cans covered in magnetic paint, and the figures klumped around on the outside with magnetic bases.  Cool.

He also did a game about a factory fight during the Luddite rebellion.

Clever guy, that Alex.  And his family (Wife and Daughter) are fantastic folks, and fine gamers, as well!

Hal Jespersen's Civil War Maps

What a great resource!  Hal Jespersen has created over 200 fantastic military style maps for different campaigns and battles from the American Civil War, and he has made these available on his website.  All I can say is "wow" what a great gift to the military history (as well as the GAMING) community.


http://www.cwmaps.com/index.html

Here is an example of his work - this is the action on Henry Hill during the first battle of Bull Run.

It's not Ravens, it's Dux! (quack)

Dux Bellorum will be published by Osprey Publishing later on this year.  These are an update and reformat of the great Arthurian rules, "Glutter of Ravens" by Daniel Mersey.

Evidently, this is the first in a new series of 64 page wargaming books by Osprey Publishing.  I hope that the series produces many similar titles.  The second one (not sure of the date) will be "A World Aflame" which will cover conflicts from the interwar period (1919-1939). A special section in that one will cover "A Very British Civil War" which is of course the fictional account of a Civil War in Great Britain, in the 1930s.  Loads of cool stuff.

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

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

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)

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