Historicon 2009 - a great time!

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

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

DM of the Rings

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!

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

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.

Tags: miniatures, wargaming, Hordes of the Things, Fantasy Gaming

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 . . .


Tags: roleplaying games, traveller, frpg

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).

Tags: wargames, fantasy gaming, miniatures, Hordes of the Things, runequest