Thursday, June 25, 2009

Alhambra!

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.


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Historicon getting closer - more Hordes painting!

With Historicon only three weeks away, I am working away on some last minute Hordes elements.

I am finishing up "Raza the Hunter" and "Sethmak the Hippo God". Here are some photos.

Here is the Hippo God from the front. Bad photo, but you can see a stray Riverman and some female Royal Warders, doing the Elf-King's bidding (and having their paint completed) in the background. The Hippo God himself is mounted on a Tester's plastic cement jar for painting.

Here we see Sethmak from the side. Now also appearing are the Four Jackals, also being painted. They, and the rest of their diabolical order (desert Assassins of the Ebon Temple) should be ready for Historicon.


Here we have Raza the Hunter, being completed. What you don't see in the photo (as bad as it is...) are the heads that Raza has already collected, hanging from the back of his sash. He will be mounted as a Hero element for Hordes (60x40mm), but that allows him to be used for a number of other types, as well. Lurker? Cleric? Interesting. The weighted chain he is using is a blunt instrument, so in all old-school D&D goodness, he could certainly serve as a cleric. And the fact that he is a stealthy hunter leads one to buy into the Lurker line as well. We'll see how it goes in Lancaster.

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Monday, June 22, 2009

Traveller Fantasy?


Just starting out looking at Classic Traveller for Fantasy. A couple of links come to mind. The first is the very nice (and concise) Aldreth RPG - as a free pdf on the internet.
Aldreth for CT and MT

More coming . . .


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Thursday, June 18, 2009

Hordes of the Things - Two Battles

There are some great photos of our game at Egyptoid's gaming blog (Gameroid).

We played two games on Tuesday evening. The first was my new Lunar Empire army (with help from the Horned Men - a chaos mercenary band consisting of 6 hordes elements) against Elliott's Steampunk dwarves, complete with three airboats. The Lunars had 6xSpear, 1xHero(General), 1xMagician, and 4xHordes.

The Lunars were doing well, with a 10AP to 4AP lead, when the Dwarves killed my General. That made it 10AP to 8AP (not enough for a win for the Dwarves). The next turn I killed another Dwarf element, giving me 12AP, which was a win. A very, very tough fight, but a good first showing for the Lunars.

The second battle was my army of the Rivermen of Bissel Stone. A new army, based on some old Bladestorm figures, I think they were the Fishermen of Soluthurn. The game is described online at link and link.

In this battle, things went worse for me, as I fell to Elliott's dwarven army (again). This time the dwarves traded out their airboats for much faster, but less effective, flyer elements. Against them, I had my army of 2xBlades, 2xSpear, 2xShooter, 2xWarband, 1xHero(General), 1xCleric, and 1xLurker. This game, I lost handily with a General kill. Both games good, looking forward to more at Historicon.


Photos compliments of Elliott. Lunar Empire based on various Glorantha histories and gaming writeups over the years (thanks to Gregg Stafford and the rest of the Runequest writers).

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Monday, June 15, 2009

Sunday, June 14, 2009

More Spiders and HotT

Thanks so much to Robin of Wargamingnz for the update on spiders. Plastic toy spiders might be the ticket, I'll take a look for some at the discount store.

While I'm on the topic, there are some fantastic HotT (Hordes of the Things) websites, other than the venerable and excellent Stronghold. Here are a couple of links, to sites with interesting insight, painted armies, or just enthusiasm!

Miniature Minions - DBA, DBN and HotT covered, but also fantastic looking miniatures.
DBA n Stuff - more on DBA but some great looking minis here.
Vitruvian Zeke - loads of stuff on a variety of issues - good HotT cheatsheets, and more fantastic painted armies.
Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog - variant rules, great army ideas, and AARs with lots of photos.
Steven's Balagan - Great all purpose wargaming website, but with terrific stuff for HotT like variant rules, campaign systems (including two different types that we have done in years gone by in ODMS) and other useful stuff. Look under the DBx link.

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Saturday, June 13, 2009

Spiders - a plea?

So, does anyone know of any good Spider miniatures?

My criteria are - creepy looking, will fit on a 60mmx60mm base (for HoTT of course), easy to assemble, not TOO expensive.

There is this one, I suppose, until it sells, but it don't look too creepy.

While looking, I came across this website, which (among other things) journals the author's quest to do miniatures for his Battle Lore game. Awesome.

One possibility is the spider from Ebob Miniatures. It is not too expensive, looks great, is sized right. But damn, it looks like a nuisance to put together.

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Tuesday, June 2, 2009

High Elves. They give me the munchies.

What's all this about High Elves?

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Campaigns in Germania


This is a wonderfully inspired website Campaigns in Germania. It follows the general trend of old school wargamers doing Imaginations - imaginary nations as the basis for toy soldiers and wargaming. The idea comes from Charles Grant, but has gotten quite popular in recent years. See own posts last year concerning the 19th century war in Balkania for a meager example.

The website Emperor vs. Elector has a great list of 18th century imaginations amongst other wargaming gems.

Great stuff, and quite imaginative. I just can't quite figure out if what the author of Campaigns in Germania does is closer to roleplaying or wargaming. It certainly has elements of both.

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Assembling Fort Khalaam


At Colonel Campbell's Barracks there is an excellent series of how-to articles, followed by a scenario and after action report, where a home-made Colonial Wargaming fort, made for gaming in the Northwest Frontier (of India) is presented.

This fort is made of yogurt tubes and pink board, similar to the project that appeared on the Major General's web site some years ago. Very nice project, Colonel Campbell, and as always we are all in debt (in the Colonial Wargaming arena) to Major General Tremordan Rederring.

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