Open Fire!

Like many gamers, I have an interest in WWII.  Something about titanic tank battles and the industrial capacity of the whole world turning to wartime production is captivating.

The primary game that I have played for WWII (if you do not count the innumerable battles with soft plastic army men I staged as a child), is Axis and Allies, which is an abstracted high level game covering the entire conflict post Pearl Harbor. As I mentioned yesterday I just got Duel in the Dark, which is a abstracted game about British bomber fleet raids.

Another game that I have always been interested in, is Flames of War (FoW).  FoWis the simplified company plus level game produced by Battlefront, with glossy rules and supplements, and boxes and blisters packed to build units in the game.  It uses 15mm miniatures, and has rules that many have compared to Warhammer 40k (often derisively).  I bought some figures and tanks five or so years ago to get into it, and subsequently they have languished in boxes. (like a good number of my projects, although I did build up a Panzer IV)

Battlefront has recent released the third edition of Flames of War, and as a follow on has now revealed their starter boxed set (does this model sound familiar to anyone?).

(Pictures cribbed from Battlefront)

The game will come with two platoons of Sherman Vs, two Sherman Fireflies, a STUG platoon, a company of German Grenadiers, and a platoon American paratroopers.  Plus a V1 terrain feature.  (Must be for Market Garden?)  The Germans look pretty good from the preview pictures, but the Americans do not look quite as good.  And the Shermans seem a bit... squashed.  In any case, I am cautiously excited about this boxed set, and hope that it builds local interest in FoW again.  I am also hopefully that ebay sellers will follow the GW game starter model, and break up the components of this game for sale individually. I could certainly see getting that German company, or the American paratroopers if the price is right.

August Update

Apologies for the long gap between posts. (nearly a month?!)  A number of things have combined to reduce my time and energy for posting, including being busy at work and planning an overseas trip.

I had a birthday recently, and got a number of lovely presents that I will be talking about at some point in the future.  Including: a GW Ent kit (which is intended to serve as a DnD and LotR figure), a new roll top desk to house my modeling tools and projects, decoration for the hobby room, and the board game Duel in the Dark, which I am very excited about.

I have already played a solo game of Duel in the Dark, a feature that will ensure I am able to get a game in from time to time.  (and I won too, defeating the British for that night)  The components are fantastic, and it was only $15 on Amazon, so you really ought to check it out.  I will try and post a more through review once I have played a few more games... and have some more time.

Neo-Soviet Power Armor

The wife and child were out of town a few weekends ago, and I had a bit of time to myself.  It used to be that such time was converted into 99% hobby time, but alas and alack, I spent most of the time doing various chores that had accumulated.  I did have some time to try out a figure conversion that I first dreamed up a while back.

I had been looking around for power armor to accompany the lovely Copplestone Neo-Soviets (comparison picture here).  They are largish 28mm figures, and I wanted something that looked a bit like the MAK designs.

I somehow hit on the idea of kit bashing Space Marine legs and a Tau Stealth Suit torso, and over the next few months, collected the various bitz I needed. Then they sat in a box for a few years like most projects of mine.

Here is the result of a few hours of cut and paste and some Aves:

Parts from seven different GW kits.

Now I just need to crank out another four of these, and get them painted.  A 40mm base seems more suited to the size as well.  Then maybe even paint the Neo-Soviet section I started painting four or more years ago...

What do you think?  Does it work?

Red Box Games Kickstarter

Red Box Games, Tré Manor's line of miniatures, is having a kickstarter to transition the HelsVakt Gynnade Krigare figures from metal to Trollforged plastic-resin. Backing at $25 (Plus shipping?) means that you get five figures, when normally they go for $40 in metal.  So a good deal if you are looking for properly scaled chaos warrior types.

Tré is a great sculptor, and used to (still does?) produced the odd figure for Reaper as well. His figures have a great musculature, and always seem to be loaded down with gear the way real people would be in battle, or better, when exploring a dungeon.

The current Red Box line has some great figures, so I am watching this one eagerly, and hope that it allows Tré to re-release a number of his lines into cheaper plastic-resin.  So please give eagerly!

Rolang's Creeping Faith

Rolang, of Rolang's Creeping Doom, has been posting some great stuff lately in regards to Clerics.  One of the most interesting is a form to help you figure out, or record, the details of a particular faith in your setting.  If you are building a more structured, or at least non-gonzo world, inevitably you are likely to have a major religion, which has a structure, dictates, temporal power, and clergy (which may be where the clerics of your world come into the picture).

While many probably just run with a fantasy version of the Roman Catholic church circa 1200 with minor gods subbing in for saints, or possibly a Greco-Roman style pantheon, occasionally you want something more complicated, either for the RP purposes presented, or because it fits your setting better.

Enter this form, which helps you to work through the details of said religion, creating in effect a "character sheet" for it.  Here is one for the Orthodox Shepardic religion in my Deepest Sea setting:

Deity Name: The Shepard	Pantheon:None
Titles, Aliases:	Image or Symbol: Crozier
Church Name: Orthodox Shepardic Church
Domains (Purviews): Creation
Alignment: Lawful Good
Color: White
Special Spells: Remove fear [plus 1 turn per level]
Forbidden Spells: Cause wounds, other reversed spells
Rituals: Mass, wind baptism, burial
Offerings: Burnt livestock portions, money.
Special Clerical Requirements: Use of blunt weapons, celibacy Specific orders may require poverty or other restrictions	Physical Description: The Shepard is not depicted in person, but sometimes is seen as a cloud, or as a man seen from behind with a flock.
Taboos: Dead animals, blood	Notes: Orthodox oath: I will to my Lord and Master the Shepard, be faithful in all things, love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns, according to His laws and the order of the world. Nor will I ever with will or action, through word or deed, do anything which is unpleasing to him, as He will hold to me as I shall deserve it.
Enemies: Sufic Shepardic tradition, other monotheistic religions
Attributes on scale of 1-20
Strictness : 15
Jealousy : 16
Revelations : 15
Organization : 19
Wealth: Astounding at all levels, but diffusely spread amongst the various dioceses.  Tithing is a set 10% of income.
Popularity: Popular where ever humanity is found.  Particularly strong in Brémdy and Chénez (19), and large basilicas are found there. Less popular in Turq lands (5).
Holy city and places: Empty pastures, and churches, various sites related to saints.
Potential Afterlife(s): The endless field, where humanity flocks together under his guidance.

This looks like it could be useful, however, I wonder if it would make sense to use some of the ideas from Stars Without Number factions for the organization of the church itself, i.e. Hit Points, Force Rating, Cunning Rating, Wealth Rating,  and FactionCreds, as well as Assets (armies, agents, and influence), and Tags (Machiavellian, secretive, plutocratic etc.) .  Working with the SWN system in a fantasy setting should help to figure out how the organization interacts with other political players, and for a major world spanning faith, could be set up for functional sub-divisions, such as the church in a certain country, or a synod.

Anyway, food for thought, and certainly a useful tool.

Dungeon Room Key Layout II

In response to my previous post about Dungeon Keys, FrDave asks: What would this look like with a monster out in the open and what would it look like if those monsters were hidden (in an ambush, for example?)

Basically, monsters or hazards out in the open are listed in the obvious category, and those which are hidden are either in the detail or DM section depending on how easily they could be found.

Here is an example with some goblins and a troll:

The goblins are obvious to a party opening the door to the chapel, where as the obvious detail of the bone covered alter obscures the sleeping troll until it is either looked at in more detail, or the troll wakes up following a battle or other loud noise.

Thoughts? Comments? Refinements?

Wargames Foundry Currency Exchange

I just got a surprising email from Wargames Foundry, the contents of which are below:

Dear Sir/Madam,

While you may not have noticed yet, things are changing at Foundry and we are the middle of a process of restructuring and reorganisation. This will include bringing back some old ranges and reintrodcuing some old packs that were inexplicably removed from others. This will all take some time but we want to return to being the company we once were. As a symbol of this we have reintroduced the English Civil War and Thirty Years War ranges.

Although some of these things will take some time to put into place, one immediate change we have made is to make sure that those ordering from outside of the UK will pay the same price as everybody else. It was a particularly bad policy that we have rectified as of today, no matter where you live in the world you will not pay more than our domestic customers.

Watch out for further changes in the future.

yours faithfully,

Neil Littlewood
This is, frankly, an astounding reversal of their previous policy of charging whatever they felt like for non-UK buyers, and results in sizable discounts for those buyers.  [For example, using the exchange rate of £1 to $2 US when the actual rate was closer to 1:1.6]

Now I wonder about getting VAT off too...

Dungeon Room Key Layout

In my previous post, I mentioned that I was thinking about what FrDave had been doing with room keys for dungeon modules.  I liked the way that he was breaking down the information in to separate chunks, but I think that it could go further.

Here is a refinement of his ideas:

The room number and name are in the first row of the information box, then the dimensions of the space, with an orientation of the far wall. Special room shapes (i.e. circular) are mentioned here. Then information is presented about the room contents, and sensory information when needed. This information is sorted by "obviousness", so that what the PCs would first notice when opening the door is listed first, such as a coffin on a dais, or a slavering baboon rushing for them. The information is divided into three columns, the first being "Obvious", the second "Detail", and the third being for the DM's use. The column color shifts as well, to help you keep it straight when reading the text.

For example a painted wooden chest is obvious, that it has a dwarf made brass padlock is detail (that the players would get during examination), and that the chest is trapped with a poison gas, and contains a jeweled skull worth 100gp is for the DM's eyes only.

Picture of what this looks like using one of FrDave's examples:

Anyway, nothing groundbreaking here, but it may be helpful when you are in the heat of the moment.  Thoughts? Comments? Refinements?

Things what I noticed

Have not been keeping up with the old blogosphere, so there is plenty of interesting work out there that I did not notice when it was new and fresh. 

Map Text Layout from FrDave.
http://bloodofprokopius.blogspot.com/2012/06/layout-experiment.html#comment-form
Where-in different columns are used to convey information to players and the DM respectively, and information rows are sorted by "obviousness".  For example, a you might have basic room description as a player text box, and the size/secrets of the room as the DM.  Monster physical description, and then monster stats, etc.

There is definitely something there about organization that I want to look into more, and being spreadsheet/box oriented, this appeals to me.

Classed based XP from Jeff Rients:
http://jrients.blogspot.com/2012/06/class-based-xp-shenanigans.html#comment-form

It seems to me that class based XP charts can be a fun addition to the game, particular in a more sandboxy setting, where you want the players to develop their own goals and plans.  It may be important to try and structure the bonuses in such a way as to direct play in a positive way, where the party tries to work together, rather than against each other.  I particularly like the idea of a pilgrimage XP bonus for cleric based classes.

While reading the comments, I also had the flash of how the "barbarians" of my Deepest Sea setting function.  They have a gift based economy, with all of its attendant virtues and vices.  Played properly, this pushes barbarian characters nicely into alien "otherness" without having to larder on a set of rules to make that happen. (not that there is anything wrong with more rules)

Landsknecht Painting Guide

The Empire in the Warhammer world is set up as a pseudo-Holy Roman Empire in the late 1500's, and correspondingly its soldiers look like Landsknechts.  Games Workshop has drifted away from this focus slightly in the last decade, and correspondingly my interest in the new units of the army has declined.  Fortunately, I have enough troops to make a [sizable] army using the earlier 5th and 6th edition plastics, and do not need to resort to the newer pajama-men-with-poor-dental-work-and-bric-a-brac that now pass for proud soldiers of the Empire.

Unfortunately, Landsknechts can be pretty hard to paint, as they had no "uniform" colors in the standard sense, and just went with whatever looked good, wore layered clothes with ribbon sleeves, and otherwise made it hard for the poor contemporary painter.

Enter this Landsknecht painting guide that I found via link on TMP. Very useful that, and will be particularly useful for mercenary units and individual character figures that do not correspond to the Empire state armies.