Well one really buys some stuff we just shouldn’t oughta! This time its the Gingerbread Gang from Jackalope.
Mum, Dad and the kids.
At least if you roll crap dice with them you can bite a piece off as punishment.
This one rolled a one!
The figures are part of the “War in the Christmas Village” that was originally a kickstarter from Jackalope but the figures are still available if you want to search for them. There is an average set of rules and a whole heap of scenarios to downlad like “Looting Santa’s Sleigh” that look like fun.
Not even Batman with his “bat claw” can catch these guys. Look out in two weeks time Bucko!
Next the evil snowmen just so the Gang has something to melt away.
I have been searching for this original 1955 version of “The Campaign For the Sugar Islands, 1759 A study of amphibious Warfare” by Marshall Smelser for quite a few years and have been lucky to pick up an old Missouri State College Library copy that is in OK condition.
The sugar islands in the Caribbean were of huge economic importance to both Britain and France during ther Seven Years War and their loss would have a serious impact on the economies of both countries. French possessions in the Caribbean were thought to be poorly defended and late in 1758, a decision was made to attempt to capture the French-held islands and a force of nearly 5,000 men under Major-General Peregrine Hopson set sail with a contingent of about 700 marines.
The attack on Fort Royal in Martinique on 15th January 1759, after initial successes, was forced to withdraw because of the Navy’s inability to support the Marines due to adverse currents around the Island. It was decided that the Marines should with draw. Unknown to the British was the fact that the French had not been supplied for some motnhs and would not have been able to withstand even a brief seige.
The force sailed to Guadelope which was home to a large number of French privateers. The Island was captured in May 1759.
Three years later Martinique was eventually captured.
The book itself is an excellent history of the expedition, although the writing is typical of the turgid style of the 1950’s historian.
A great read about a little known period of the Seven Years War history.
More importantly it provides me with heaps of opportunites to to use my French and British FIW figures and my pirates together. You can download my one page pirate rules from here:
The rules require only one explanation – a base of rabble is a large round coaster size base with civilians, thugs and the like on it. Place about six of these on the table. Dealing with them is half the fun of the game.
The Jolly Roger Cards required for play can be downloaded from here:
Now, it is not often that I think Warlord Games has a good deal, but this appears to be one of them. A free SPQR book with a variety of purchases. Of course there is the usual “by a ship load” and we will give you trinket but the purchase of a single box set gives you a free version of the updated rules.
The SPQR system is a set of “Hero based” skirmish rules that have a campaign system. Worth a look at seeing I needed some more Gauls for my Ancient British Infamy Infamy game from Too Fat Lardies.
Well just signed up for my second Kickstarter in two days. The Savage Frontier Kickstarter is nowhere near as good a value as the Undead or Alive, with all of its FREE unlocked goals, but is still slightly less than the normal retail blister prices at around AU$4.00 per figure. The resin boat, crew and stowage is probably worth the money on its own, and will go well with my Ranger whale boats and canoes.
The first 24 hour pledge comes with the boat and 2 blisters and a sled team for each of the Rangers, French Marines, and Indians. The figure sculpts all look up to the to the usual excellent “Footsore” standard.
The stretch goals have leaders for each of the Rangers, Indians and French Marines with the Rangers below at US$9.50 per blister (Ouch!).
Unlike others in our little gaming group (Hello Chris), I am not normally a kick start backer. Even the causal reader of this blog would know that I am a fan of both Wild West and Zombie games. What better could be the combination of the two. The Great Escape Games “Dead Man’s Hand” has dabbled a bit with the “Curse of Dead Man’s Hand” but that is all. This offering from the CMON group seems an excellent addition to the genre:
This one is already 700% funded after only three days and about 23 stretch goal figures have already been unlocked. For $130.00 this one seems to be really good value.
For me the Zombicide games are just OK as games but the figures are excellent. This production seems just the same.
Zombicide Undead or Alive has some great figures and historical characters including Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill, Doc Holliday as stretch goals – most reached already.
There are only twenty days to go if you are interested.
Another gaming passion of mine is the French Indian War. The Savage Frontier from Footsore Miniatures is about to start on Kickstarter today.
I have not been able to gain much information on this one but the pics above have pricked my attention. The Footsore range of figures are very well sculptured so I am hoping these will be the same. More info on this one soon.
Well, the sudden 5 day Covid-19 lockdown in Melbourne on Thursday meant that my restaurant booking for today’s lunch was cancelled. Never mind just resorted to the tried and true box of chocolates and breakfast in bed. Don’t know what the wife did! No not really!
After she had eaten the lovingly prepared bacon and eggs with all of the trimmings she just rolled over and went back to sleep. Where is romance these days!
The last few days I have been busy building and painting unfortunately NOT hobby related.
Covid-19 has left our pantry bulging meaning it has been difficult to find anything. The pantry is small compared with what we are used to so I (well actually Maree) decided to add some shelves and make it more space efficient.
Some narrow shelves behind the door now stores plenty of cans without taking up any more shelf space.
More narrow shelves for all of Maree’s herbs and spices also added a lot more usable space.
Finally some utensil rails and a knife rack from IKEA has now made the bench space a usable preparation area rather than a junk collector.
In return for getting this done I was able to spend some time finishing off my work bench area.
In the next few weeks the bookcases will have glass doors and shelves added for holding the figures in those plastic containers.
No more spending a half an hour rummaging through four tool boxes to find the right tool for a few minute job, or those small hobby files to prepare some figures for undercoating.
Great to finally have everything at my fingertips.
Unfortunately because of these projects not much was achieved on the hobby front.
Just a few more Indian elephants from Irrgeular Miniatures put together and based ready for undercoating. The generals elephants were removed from their rectangular bases and put on round ones to make them easier to distinguish.
No, I am not thinking of Frank Drebin in Naked Gun, but the set of campaign rules to re-fight the 17-18th century conflict between Native American tribes in the Ohio Valley. Whilst written for the “Song of Drums and Tomahawks” (SDT) rules they can be used for any set of man on man skirmish rules such as “Flint and Feather”.
Frank: “Nice beaver”! Jane: (producing a stuffed beaver) Thank you. I just had it stuffed.
The 75 page booklet is an average quality production for this day and age, consisitng of a lot of black and white photos and line drawings on poor quality paper, bound with a nice glossy cover. The price of 15 pound compared with a other productions like Black Powder for 25 pound is also quite high. I picked mine up from Galloping Major whom I have used for a large amount of FIW purchases.
What “Beaver Wars” lacks in price and production is more than made up for by its contents. There is a set of simple campaign rules, eighteen scenarios and four specific campaigns. A section on the various tribal histories provides an interesting insights into their individual tribal beliefs and customs. A very basic set of card templates is provided for War and Hunt cards (tribal stances for each game), and a set of post game reward cards. The War and Hunt cards determine which tribes are fighting each other, the scenario to be played and how many beaver pelts are collected post game.
With beaver pelts being the currency of the day it is no surprise to see that camapign points are awarded for their collection. Prestige points and scenario victory points are determined by tabletop results. Your war party can increase its fire power by trading Beaver Pelts for muskets, and figure upgrades for the number of scenario victory points.
I was skeptical when the author indicated that while the rules were designed for SDT rules they could be easily used for other sets. As the book is concentrating on the campaign aspects the only section that you will need to modify is the warband selection which can be simply modified.
The academic in me also likes the Bibliography which provides an aid for the reader too conduct their own research on the period and also a gain an insight into the authors thinking.
The balance between playability and historical accuracy, I think, has been successfully achieved.
I would thoroughly recommend it if you are a French Indian War devotee otherwise, for the price, I would suggest borrowing it for a weekend from a mate.
Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I am a big fan of the Dan Mersey suite of rules. Needless to say I have been waiting eagerly for my copy of his latest morsel to finally arrive yesterday.
I have just finished having a quick flick through and I have to say the word “morsel” does not quite apply – more like a banquet with its one hundred and fifty-odd pages.
Like any true wargamer the first thing I flicked to was the section on my favourite army list. I expected this to be somewhat generic but to have some added oriental flavour and spices, and was not disappointed.
I have always loved the history of the Christian Military Orders and went straight to page fifty two. Each army list is broken up into the following sections:
Areas of Deployment;
Period of Deployment;
Historical Background (in this case three pages including some pretty pics);
Special Characteristics and their “in-game effects”;
Available troop types (the list), and a
Suggested Warband.
For those of us who know our period history and preferred army in extreme detail the detail is at a superficial level, but for the novice gamer wanting some ideas on which army to start out with, the information is an excellent guide.
The gamer in me wanted to know what perks I would get. The religious zeal of the Orders is depicted by the ability to re-roll one failed courage test per game, but because of their military training and discipline they cannot purchase the Religious Fervour upgrade. Nice twist -zeal with discipline!
I digress, but this reminds me of my retiring Philosophy Professor who started his retirement speech with “Psychologists, Sociologists and Philosophers are all wankers, the only difference is that Philosophers do their wanking with discipline”. He went on to explain why. I remember the quote not the rationale! Must have been the “ration ale” afterwards.
The Order of Saint Lazarus is the one exception to this, who because they were just crazy buzzards, have reduced armour and can purchase the Religious Fervour upgrade (why fear death when you believe you are coming back) .
Enough nuance to portray the “feel” of the army without being OTT. Others can comment on their favourite list.
Next I went to the sections that are mostly overlooked by readers and that is the Forward by Dan Mersey and the Introduction by Gianluca Raccagni. Dan Mersey outlines the philosophy behind the Lion Rampart rules which was to be an introduction for gamers to get to use the rules and understand the troop types so that they can conduct their own research and tweak the rules and their retinue based on their own research. This book is an example of this.
Gianluca, being a medieval historian by profession, indicated that he wanted to “gamify” his historical research and explore the relationship between gaming and history. Being involved in both professional and hobby wargaming this really interested me. Lion Rampart (The Crusader States) is the final outcome of this approach.
Quite unusual is the appendix which is the First Annual Walter Scott Roundtable presentation by Daniesl Mersey, where he outlines his thoughts and ideas on games design which he sums up “gaming is a hobby where history matters”.
When you read the book with these thoughts and approaches in mind you get a far better idea about what the authors were trying to achieve.
There are some new upgrades to the rules that are specific to the Crusade period.
These include religous fervour, assassination, fear, holy and unholy characters, Greek fire and talismanic objects. All of these are upgrades that have some game impact but are not game breakers by themselves. I like the approach where they have brought in thematic elements without overcoming the existing game mechanisms. They seem to add without dominating.
Finally the scenarios are absolutely superb. Historically, based they cover a huge variety of game types; attacks on keeps, trying to feed the multitudes (sound familiar), attacks on pilgrims by wild beasts, straight battles etc. They have rules designed to link them together in mini campaigns and the normal pre-game boasts.
I can definitely recommend the purchase but you do need Lion Rampart to be able to use the book.
We have been playing Mark Lewis‘ rules, Sword and Spear for some time now, mainly in 28mm but occasionally using 15mm. These have quickly become the Phillip Island Gaming Societies (PIGS) Ancient Wargaming rules of choice. Like all rules they have their good points and bad points, but I like the game mechanics with “innovative system for activating units that creates interesting and challenging decisions, keeps both players involved at all times, and has a lot of depth and subtlety” (see BD below). Battlefield friction is created by the activation system which means you cannot always do what you want when you want.
The Second Edition has been published by Great Escape Games.
There are many reviews about Sword and Spear so rather than create another one I will direct you to several that are already out there:
The rule book is quite small (for these days) with about 40 pages. This is possible because they do not include army lists, which I think is a good thing. Over the years with the Wargames Research Group suite of rules we have grown accustomed to having things served up on a platter. This created the huge historical anomally of the the Light Medium/Light Heavy category of troop types which NEVER existed. However, for those of you who prefer to have a list designed for you rather than conduct your own research, Mark Lewis has provided them as a download for free.
The games stengths are that it gives an exciting, interesting and challenging experience, plays relatively quickly, and the rules are simple and easy to grasp.
Some pictures from our 15mm Early Greek versus early Persian game of last Wednesday night.
I have enjoyed these rules so much that I have ignored my painting plan (see last blog) and started painting my 28mm Republican Indian Army to fight Buckos Greeks and Persians.
Here are some of the cavalry that I have finished and are ready for flocking.
The unit bases are 120mm wide and 40mm deep, so fit most 28mm basing conventions.
