The Nunawading Wargames Association is one of the longest continuous wargames club in Melbourne being established in 1977 by good friend Geoff and some of his mates. Every year with some Covid exceptions they run an open day. Given the wargames population in Australia this is nothing like anything you will see overseas, but then you make do with what you have.
Some of the games and traders on the left and rear.
There were a number of games including this one which was a large Sharpe Practice game, called “Nobody Expects”. The 95th rifles were trying to rescue something valuable from a monastery before the French arrived there. There were a large number of things on the table for children to find like seagulls fighting over fish and chips!
Bring an buy stand where I picked up a large robot “thingy” for a dollar.
A Saga game in progress.
A 1944 US armoured division is attempting to secure a road juncture at Montelimar to disrupt German withdrawals from the region.
The photos show my bias!
A large 28mm Napoleonic game being umpired by the “Fickled Finger of Fate”!
A 9th Age Fantasy game using Games Workshop figures.
A Peloponnesian naval battle of Aginusae between Athens and Sparta! Go Lacedaemonia!
A Cold War game set in the 1980’s.
The Great Airfield raid of 27th of August 1979 where Guerillas mounted in a variety of technicals attack an airfield somewhere in “Imaginafrica”.
A Field Of Glory Napoleonic game of the battle of Katzbach on 26th August 181, where Marshal Blucher inflicts a bloody nose on the French Army led by MacDonald.
A Battletech game on superb terrain!
Far to complicated for me. Around this table were about thirty stat and record sheets….blah!
A Marvel Avengers game where multiverses collide. Can the Avengers save the day! Again another game run by a couple of young guys who had lots of participants playing. Well done!
A “Bot War” game where on one Saturday morning in 1985, in an alternate reality on Earth, large robots battle it out for what resources still remain. Nice terrain but looks as if things are pristine and plenty of resources are still around to me.
An Armageddon game set in the 41st Millennium on a war torn hive world. A nice game put on by some youngsters.
A game called Nocturnal using some brand new rules yet to be published. A 28mm Modern Horror skirmish game of “Gothic Punk Vampires”. Strange, since when I asked him if he liked “The Damned’s” “Keep em alive” he thought I was talking about a new miniatures range! Still I don’t think he was alive in the 70’s!
Diggers & Yanks & Huns on the rum. A 54mm set of skirmish games. Loved the tanks!
I had a great few hours came away with a few goodies, caught up with some mates. I also was introduced to a local gamer and I hope to catch up soon.
Amidst hanging new curtains throughout the house today I was also able to get some more work done on the ruined monastery! The project is starting to take shape as the paint goes on.
I have started the detailed painting on half of the buildings with six still in their spray canned state.
I am pleased with the combination of GW Nurgle Contrast paint and Reiksland Earthshade over the top of the sprayed white, black, and grey. I was after a slightly burnt out, spooky, algae look and am pleased with how it is coming out.
Buildings with just the spray can look.
The project can be used as a single large monastic building with large rooms and corridors or a series of separate buildings depending on the scenario, I still have three or four cemetery tiles to be made up but am waiting on the availability of more mdf place mats. I may have to cut out my own.
In the centre foreground you can see the ruined chapel completed earlier. The tiled roof and partial wooden floor gives it a slightly browner look than the other all masonry buildings, but that is OK.
I intend to finish off the five I have started the detailed work on first, but not until Sunday as I am off to a games day tomorrow! YIPPEE! My first since the start of Covid!
Written by game designer Raph Koster and published in 2005, A Theory of Fun For Game Design explores the meaning of fun and the potential of games. It comes at the issue from a design perspective rather than a theoretical one, and its informal, personal tone combined with useful but comical illustrations make it a very accessible read.
You need to remember that the book is now 17 years old and has some concepts which are now not valid. One area which I totally disagree is the value of the narrative of a game.
The narrative of the game has now increasing importance, and the link between creative writing and game design has become far more important. The recent collaboration between Edge Hill University Creative writing students and Karl Perroton’s “Crooked dice” has ended in the development of the Pulp version of their 7-TV game.
This is the major change in Wargame design and for me the “narrative” is an importsant part of the game. Sorry Raph Koster on this we disagree!!! Which brings us to the books content.
Raph Koster
As the book shows, designing for fun is all about making interactive products like games highly entertaining, engaging, and addictive.
The book has twelve chapters that look at different aspects:
1 Chapter 1: Why Write This Book?
2 Chapter 2: How the Brain Works
3 Chapter 3: What Games Are
4 Chapter 4: What Games Teach Us
5 Chapter 5: What Games Aren’t
6 Chapter 6: Different Fun For Different Folks
7 Chapter 7: The Problem with Learning
8 Chapter 8: The Problem with People
9 Chapter 9: Games in Context
10 Chapter 10: The Ethics of Entertainment
11 Chapter 11: Where Games Should Go
12 Chapter 12: Taking Their Rightful Place (& Epilogue).
I will give you a quick outline of some of the chapters to give you a feel for the book.
Chapter 1: Why write the book?
Kids use games as learning tools and this lead Koster to “tackle the questions of what games are, and what fun is, and why games matter,” the three major themes of his book.
Illustration from Page 3
Chapter 2: How the brain works.
Chapter two begins with various definitions of what games are, Various writers are quoted but the conclusion is that no one fully agrees on a definition. Koster’s own definition is one that I like, ” Games are just exceptionally tasty patterns to eat up”!
He talks about the brain “chunking” pieces of information together in patterns. As the brain begins to more and more pieces these chunks together into recognizable patterns our understanding increases. You have seen our group do this as we have learnt the Lasalle2 set of rules during the games posted over the last few weeks. A we have “chunked” various components of the rules together into bite sized patterns our learning and enjoyment (fun) has increased. These patterns are important.
From page 19 of the book.
Chapter 3: What games are.
Koster delves into the meaning of games further explaining games are puzzles to be solved and provide lessons to be learned. “Fun from games arises out of mastery,” Koster writes, “It is the act of solving puzzles that makes games fun.
From page 3
Chapter 6: Different Fun For Different Folks
Koster uses Garner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory to explain that because people have different learning styles different types of games will appeal to different people. While it is true that different people have different learning styles it is a massive leap to suggest that this is because “multiple intelligence’s”. The theory proposes the differentiation of human intelligence into specific modalities of intelligence, rather than defining intelligence as a single, general ability.
Readers should be a little wary as the theory has been widely criticized because there has been no empirical studies to prove the theory and because it relies on subjective judgements. Critics would also argue that psychometric supports the view that there is a high correlation between different aspects of intelligence rather than the low correlation that Gardner predicts supporting the theory of a general intelligence rather than multiple ones. Also it has been argued that Gardner has re-defined intelligence and uses it where others would used the terms traits, abilities or aptitudes.
Despite this I agree that people do learn differently and that different games appeal to different types of people.
I may not have seen them but I saw their van when shopping at House of War today!
Mind you this was Ringwood where strange things happen, but I wouldn’t have thought it was the scariest place on earth. Maybe third or fourth but not the most scariest!
Wicked campers hire camper vans to tourists (mainly to UK back-packers on their tour of Oz).
Hey wait a minute – English back packers!
They may well make this the scariest place on earth after all!
I forgot with my last post that I had to put the gravel/sand on the base of each. Drats! Here the Monastery is with the bases ready to dry for painting.
So far in book week I have reviewed a couple of rule sets and some books. Today is a game review.
Reign of Cthulhu is a Pandemic System game where horrible Shoggoths shamble across the board. Unpredictable ancient gods materialise and affect the game in unexpected ways. Players find and use powerful relics at the cost of their sanity. The four towns on the board begin to live and breathe beneath your fingers.
In spite of the branding, the mechanics are significantly different from the original Pandemic game. You’re still collecting sets of colour-coded cards to travel and win. But the goal here is to shut down four gates, one in each town. Instead of disease cubes there are cultists and Shoggoths. And instead of an outbreak a random Great Old One appears and casts its baleful effects on the game. Azathoth, for instance, reduces the number of cultist figures available which is bad news because running out ends the game. Shudde M’ell costs the players a bunch of sanity.
All these extra goodies don’t make the game any more complex than the original. It’s suitable for family play if the family can stomach the theme and evocatively bleak art which I think is awesome.
The miniatures are simplistic but totally representative of each type of investigator and will be fun to paint.
All-in-all we find this a great couples game and a great investment.
Last night I was able to pick up some mdf placements for the building bases and so I have now glued all of the building in place and completed all of the tiling.
Wherever I go I collect peoples business cards as the thickness is ideal for terrain paving! With the cavern paving and these buildings the pile has taken a bit of a hit!
After lunch we are going out, so the tiling and the building gluing to the base, should all be dry enough to start the spray painting of the buildings when we return!
I had heard of the Fistful of Lead rules and thought them to be a simplistic beer and pretzels set of western Gunfight rules. I have only been introduced to them properly recently with the Footsore Miniatures Kickstarter “Savage Frontier”.
Footsore Miniatures were going to supply there own rules but something happened and in order to fulfil there obligation of figures, mat and rules they arranged for Wiley Games to supply a copy of their Horse and Musket rules.
I initially put them aside as something to clutter up the shelves and began sorting out the figures. For those who know my favourite period is French Indian Wars, probably because of reading “Last of the Mohicans” growing up, and movies like “Northwest Passage”, (movie and the TV series), “Saskatchewan”, the “Iroquis Trail”, “The Pathfinder”, “Allegheny Uprising” and “Drums Along the Mohawk”.
Recently we had been using “Rebels and Patriots” rules for the period, produced by Osprey and written by Dan Mersey. These give an excellent game and the Hollywood movie and serial feel I was after. I like skirmish games and while the rules represented small groups of men and not individuals I am quite happy with them.
One of the posts from the Kickstarter indicated that although they were supplying the Horse and Musket rules intended to cover the whole period there was a particular supplement “Red Hatchets and Black Powder”, that covered the French Indian Wars.
I was starting to get interested.
I went on to the Wiley Games website and downloaded a pdf of the FIW supplement rules and a whole lot of free pdf files including some solo rules. I was now very interested.
The main driving force behind the game is an ordinary pack of playing cards, which helps to organise and regulate the turn sequence and the actions that may be carried out by each model. Some cards also have a special purpose within the game, enabling the player to expand the range of actions that may be carried out in a turn. The do sell their own set of cards which has the characteristics of the special card printed on them.
Each model may take two actions per turn, which are partially defined by a list of examples but could actually cover a whole host of activities.
Textual and pictorial examples are used to define movement, cover, shooting, etc. The weapon tables cover a number of generic types, from Spear and Bow to Rocket Launchers and Laser Rifles.
The close combat rules continue the simple but effective motif found in the rules, dealing with pairs of combatants up to multiple fighters.
The effects of wounding upon a model’s abilities are discussed in detail, making for an effective and quite characterful set of results. By rolling a D10, the result of a wound is either Shaken, Wounded & Down or Out Of Action. Models can have up to three wounds inflicted upon them before they succumb but can suffer a number of statuses after each one. Wounds may be recovered from, by activating the figure as usual but then spending time dealing with wounds.
A two-page Example of Play is simple to follow, and very useful. Having dealt with the basic rules, there are Advanced Rules, including undertaking tasks beyond the realms of combat, using a task difficulty roll.
The Building Your Team section enables players to put together their chosen models as a playable group. A team consists of a Leader, a Specialist and up to three Regulars. In addition, Grunts may be added to your team, although these are less able than the other models, only using a D8 to gauge the result of their actions.
Grunts come in groups of three, and only have 1 wound. Each member of a team has their statistics, weapons and the all-important Traits recorded upon them. Traits are the specialist skills and abilities that players may choose from to create unique characters. These may be both positive and negative and may be balanced against each other: if you take a negative trait, then you may take an extra positive trait for ‘free’. Traits may also be allocated to the Team, and there is a sample crew offered as an example.
The properties of each type of weapons, whether ranged, close combat are otherwise, are further clarified, adding extra layers to the choice of weapons. A handy approach is the decision to juxtapose modern and historical weapons against one another, allowing knights on horseback to engage World War Two troops or similar. This ‘mix and match’ approach is rare to find in most skirmish games.
After creating a team, rules exist to progress it through the course of a number of games, using Renown Points. A number of scenarios are presented, taken from a variety of genres. There are also pages of sample teams taken from both historical and fictional origins.
The simplicity of the games system allows the inclusion of a one-page reference sheet in the book.
Over the years, the core rulebook has seen a number of additions, most notably a set of supplements which focus upon a particular genre, thereby saving the ‘time poor’ gamer the need to work out everything themselves. So far, there are:
Tales of Horror; the world of classic horror movies.
Fistful of Lead Reloaded; classic Wild West gunfighting.
Horse and Musket for the Black Powder era.
Red Hatchets & Black Powder for the French and Indian War.
Galactic Heroes collection for those looking for some retro sci-fi.
In October they will be bringing out “Battle Suit Alpha” a large mech based game as well.
Quite frankly, I wish I had known about this set of rules long ago. Fast, easy to use, but with a low figure count and depth of gameplay, Fistful of Lead and its supplements have a great deal to offer those gamers looking for a tabletop adventuring system. It is adaptable, covers a variety of genres and could be used again and again for not only skirmish gaming but the type of ‘games within games’ where small groups of warriors undertake the type of missions legends are made of. Equally, the presentation of the books evokes the comics, movies and pulp literature that is so popular with those gamers who enjoy narrative adventures and campaigning.
Although the rules may have been around for a while, they are pretty much ‘on trend’ for the current crop of skirmish-style rules, whilst also having been thoroughly play tested by legions of gamers, something not always seen amongst more recent releases.
I really enjoy these rules and am happy to recommend them to players that want a quick simple set of skirmish rules that are easy tom learn but hard to master.
Thanks to Miniature wargaming magazine for some of this information.
