The Passing of Rich Villella

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

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

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.

Tags:

Traveller from Mongoose

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!

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