Weighing in on the current debate

Assuming you've being paying attention, you are probably aware of the somewhat acrimonious goings on involving TMP and TFL of late.

I've dipped my toe in enough to know on which side of the fence I come down, but this isn't about that. Yes, our hobby needs to be inclusive and free from bullying, and I personally want no part of a site which appears to actively promote, condone and practice the latter.

But.

We both have to be better than that, and be seen to be better than that. Both because it hands people ammunition, and because, frankly, we should be better than that. By all means call out bad behaviour when it occurs, but we don't need to resort to personal attacks, directly or indirectly, on members of TMP staff for who they are, nor do we need to make bullying/threatening noises to manufacturers who advertise with them.

"He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee."

 

 

Dux Britanniarum - British Shock Cavalry - some thoughts

British Shock Cavalry are tough as nails. They're technically only available either as the very last couple of reinforcements for the British, or as a starter option for the Gwŷr y Gogledd in Raiders.

The former isn't really so bad, as to get them you have to have won four battles or raids by 5 or more as the British, by which time the Saxons are either fleeing across the North Sea like whipped curs or have also had about that many wins and have piles of Warrior Group reinforcements and skirmishers.

The latter case, as an alternative for the Gwŷr y Gogledd, is, I think, a little problematic if you're facing the Saxons (more so than with other forces). Shock Cavalry roll double the number of dice in combat (and the rule is 'calculate the number of dice including bonuses, then double it' per a clarification from Rich) and on top of that do double Shock. Lets do the maths:

• 4 Elite Shock Cavalry = 4 dice
• Champion = 2 dice
• Lord = 3 dice
• Hero of the Age = 3 more dice for the Lord (remember, it's in the British starting hand) + 1 for the dragon-suited card
• total = 13
• Doubled = 26

With no other dice, that's an average of 13 hits. Against Elites, that's an average of 2-3 kills and 8-10 shock (because Shock is doubled). With an Aggressive Charge or Artorius (which is not unlikely, and something the British player will be looking for and hanging on to), the cavalry are hitting on 3's and that suddenly becomes 20-21 hits, 3-4 kills, a metric boatload of shock (14-16) and busted Amphorae all over the shop.

Meanwhile the 12 Saxon Elites, Lord and Champion they are (in the best case for the Saxons, attacking) have 17 dice, for an average of 2-3 kills and 4-5 shock. To be fair, that is likely to break the cavalry, but that is their worst case opponent - two lots of Warriors and a Level 2 Noble will have 14 dice and probably not break them, although they will likely incur excess shock while vaporising the Warriors (4-5 kills now and 8-10 Shock). Against a single Group and Level 2 Noble in the Border Tower raid the charging cavalry would automatically capture (3:1 dice odds).

The tactic for defending against Shock Cavalry is to keep them at range and fill them full of missile weapons, so they have too much shock (any at all) to charge. The other forces in Raiders have 12 or 16 missile-armed troops in their core force, so the Gwŷr y Gogledd going against them do at least have some chance of being held at bay. The poor Saxons have 4.

I'm teetering on the edge of deciding they're overpowered for game balance, and the rule should perhaps either be double dice OR double Shock, not both. I'm also wondering if woods are too lenient in terms of movement restrictions for Shock Cavalry (charging knee-to-knee at speed in a wood?)

Thoughts?

More gardening and a shopping list (comments welcome)

Although not a lot to show for it, since today's hobby activity consisted of a couple of coats of paint on the Sarissa shed and a trip to Trains4U for some (small scale) flowers and vegetables from one of the model railway ranges. Godfrey's cottage will have tomatoes, strawberries, cabbages, some climbing roses and a few pot plants. Also pondering whether to rebuild the graveyard...

Also pondering the next bits of kit to pick up for the workbench. The plan is to move the 3D printer out from the shelf over my head here (I'm in what used to be my office in our music room, as I've locked up in the office/studio/workshop for the night) onto the long counter in the workshop, and use the rest of that counter for what could best be described as 'maker tools' for scenery builds, since I'm starting to figure that that's probably where a lot of my talent lies aside from writing.

Things that would be nice to have on there, if First Direct finally cough up my PPI claim:

• the 3D printer with a dual reel/head kit so I can print with dissolvable supports or in two colours - mine's the single reel version, and the upgrade is not cheap
• a resin 3D printer such as the AnyCubic Photon (for figures etc)
• a Proxxon hot wire table and the better fence from Shifting Lands (if you want to see the amazing things you can do with this and XPS foam, check out Black Magic Craft on YouTube)
• a spray booth - this presupposes I can find my bloomin' airbrush.
• a MDF laser cutter. Low on the list, as Trev from the Rift has one I can feed files to.
• a die cutter - been thinking about one of these as an alternative to the laser cutter for things like tile strips etc, and also because anything that saves ME having to try and make straight cuts, even with a steel rule, is a win :D
• and (given some of the items on the list generate stuff one shouldn't breathe in) some air extraction 

Comments?

On a more immediate note, I'm out of PVA (would you believe, my 3L supply from Hobbycraft went MOULDY????) :D

End of year planning

Lot of being driven around, as it’s visit my parents day. 

As I was partly navigating (son was driving) I didn’t get to write much down, but did get to do a couple of hours thinking and talking with Anne (when she wasn’t playing Ravenhill on her iPad) about serious gaming plans for 2020.  Watch this space. 

James and I also taught Anne how to create a discord server, which we both found rather amusing. :)

Plotting and scheming

Yes, I know it’s not the end of the year yet, but I’ve been doing some wargames related plotting and scheming for 2020, both for me and the club ;(AGM on Jan 6th, after all).

Will have to remain under wraps for now, though....

End of a day... and an era...

Seem to be having 'days' of late, of the fragmentary nature.

Have tidied the workshop ready for tomorrow's D&D session... sometime after blogging yesterday I had one of those glorious DM's "ahah!!" moments where a scenario hook and a bit of long-standing campaign history came together and fitted with a resounding clunk, which caused me to dash off 300 words of 'note to self before I forget'.

I really ought to count up how many words I write a week sometime. Certainly in the process of considering how to monetise the output and Do More Hobby Stuff (because, frankly, who wants to write code 5 days a week? :) I know what I'd rather be doing.)

We also named the new cat, finally - meet Jolene (probably Joley or Jo for short) - what can I say, Anne, James and I all play in the same country band! She has very much settled in and wormed her way into an Ash-shaped hole in our lives.

In other news, in case I really am your only source of hobby news, Neil has announced that the end of year episode of Meeples will be the last. Very much the end of an era - I used to look forward to Wednesday recording sessions during my time on the show as one of the highlights of the week. While it wasn't responsible for me restarting the hobby (that's entirely the Reverend Phil Marsh's fault), without Neil's reviews of things like IABSM, Duel in the Dark and many other things, I'd not be where I am today in terms of what games (war- and board-) I like and the amount of stuff I do.

Meeples has, for the longest time, I think, shaped the hobby, or at least the corner of it I live in, and it will be a shame to see it end. That said, kudos to Neil for making the call rather than letting things fizzle out to an undignified end.

On which topic... no, I haven't forgotten I have a podcast too. I'm planning on spending December and the Christmas break (what little of it I have given I blew the last of my vacation taking Anne to Brussels for her birthday!) getting my hobby ducks (and Dux) in a row.

Watch this space.

It's been a day...

If any cat of the four in this house were mine, it
was probably the grey fuzzy. I shall miss him.

Definitely didn't want to get up this morning, in part because I got up far too bloomin' early for Steel Lard yesterday, and partly because we were both putting off the inevitable, of having Ash, our oldest cat, put to sleep. He had a good three and a half years from coming to us that he probably wasn't due - he must have been 17 or 18 when he arrived, bad teeth, generally run down. But... we do what we do - I married a veterinary surgeon, and feline waifs, strays and the variously broken are her and our thing. 

He had a good life, and a peaceful end on my lap.

In contrast, spent the rest of the morning seeing a friend get baptised (by full immersion, or as we irreverently call it, 'dunking'), and then clearing up after Steel Lard and writing up the battle reports...

...And we have another cat, who arrived on Friday because life goes on, and just because we lose one doesn't mean there stop being others who need a home and some love.

Suggestions for a name welcome.

Pondering Dux battles...

...was pretty much the sum total of yesterday evening's Compendium work, despite best laid plans :D

Still trying to figure out the battle section of the Compendium. As I think I've said before, I have issues with the way battles are set up: it seems all too easy with the rulebook deployment rules to end up with a battle that either takes up one narrow 2' wide strip, or is a long fight across the diagonal of the table. I also feel that a battle should be somehow more significant and memorable than just a chance meeting encounter.

There's an argument (and I'm interested in other folks' thoughts on this) that raids are about things - they’re about stealing food, or cattle, or treasure. Battles are potentially about places - they’re about taking a hill, a river crossing, a road junction, a town, that is the gateway to the territory you want to take from your enemy. Still trying to work out if there's a decent way of handling this in Dux - I sort of have one approach but I'm not 100% happy.

Copyright, licenses and mapmaking...

Been finishing off some top-down map assets for Wonderdraft tonight - which led to some thinking about how I want to license assets like that - obviously it's good to get them out so folks can use them, but equally it'd be nice to see some small reward for the time that I put in.

A bit of thought and discussion later - stuff like that (map assets, 3D files, etc - not scenarios or the like) I'n going to put out as CC-BY-NC, which means it's under a Creative Commons (CC) license, so you can use it for your own projects; if you publish the result for others to use, you should credit me (BY); and this is restricted to Non-Commercial (NC) use.

Commercial use? Ask me. To quote what I've said on the linked page, while I am (obviously) interesting in making some small return on my effort, I’m equally interested in supporting independent creators and getting my work out there. Depending on who you are and what your project is, commercial licenses for things I create may range anywhere from ‘just give me a credit’ upwards.

More basing thoughts

One of the problems with the last batch of bases is the Tamiya Desert Sand textured paint doesn't stick that well to the coins, and the PVA/sand doesn't either to the 'glossy' MDF surface of the movement trays/sabots.

I've just done a batch of bases and trays for the Spanish guerillas Tom painted for me a while ago, so this time, to see if it improves matters, I've started with a coat of Halfords matt black universal spray primer. (Note to self: I am now running out of said primer, so if it works I need to buy some more.)

More when I find time to do the next stages!

Some thoughts from Games Workshop

Yup, you heard me right. I have in the past been more than a little scathing about GW's approach to what they consider their hobby, but I had my attention drawn to something by them that I actually agree with wholeheartedly today, The full article (largely on the subject of their new Contrast paint range and 'Battle Ready' is here, but allow me to share a quote or two (emphasis mine):

Whether it’s [an award-winning] model or the first miniature that you’ve ever painted, you should be proud of your work. No hobbyist should ever feel like they’re not good enough to paint – instead, we want to celebrate the time, effort, care and attention that everybody puts into their models.

And:

 Battle Ready isn’t a bar you have to pass to be allowed into our hobby. Rather, it’s an achievable and universally recognised standard that’s meant to say YES to your army, YES to accessibility and YES to more games with more painted models. Battle Ready is about making painting a celebration rather than a chore!

OK, so they're GW and they have to give a name to the process, but essentially they're talking about base colour, wash, detail. Works for me and my ham-fisted painting[1] :D And frankly, anything which encourages more people to get more painted figures on the table, is just brilliant in my book, whoever it's from.

---

[1] All 500+ 15mm figures on the Omaha Beach game at Salute were painted by your humble and somewhat average scribe. I don't think anyone commented either way :D

No, I haven't finished tidying the workbench. It's covered in bits of computer and hard drive shipping boxes :D

Stamford Model Railway Show

Today's hobby activity was to have involved a trip to the Market Deeping club's model railway show, held in Stamford.

Unfortunately, I awoke to Reuben messaging me this tweet from the show sponsor, our local model railway shop:

We are absolutely devastated to hear that vandals have completely ruined layouts & trade stands at today's 'Stamford Model Railway Show' which we were attending. They have been caught, but show show has had to be cancelled. Please can everyone spread the word.

— Trains4U (@Trains4U) May 18, 2019

It appears that four youths broke into the school hall that was being used for the show overnight (around 4am) and proceeded to do incalculable damage to both trade stands and the layouts that had been set up for the show the previous day. They triggered the alarm, but by the time the police arrived the damage had been done.

Words fail me.

Perhaps we're fortunate in our hobby that this is less likely to happen: most of the things we bring to shows as hobbyists are quicker to set up, and probably of less total value, than some of the magnificent pieces of work that some railway modellers produce. Too, in the cases where things are left overnight, we more often than not run shows at commercial venues with overnight security (even the Centre.MK used for Campaign) rather than schools, and perhaps we're luckier in that our tradition in the wargaming hobby has been not to pay exhibitors expenses, beyond free membership, which leaves us budget for even the smaller shows (which this was) to use more secure venues.

This doesn't stop it hurting. There's enough model railway stuff on the shelf right above where I'm sitting now that I recognise this is my hobby as well as wargaming.

I am heartbroken for the lost work - never mind the cost, some of the layouts that were callously trashed represented sizeable parts of a lifetime's painstaking work, were essentially irreplaceable.

I'm also, understandably, angry at the senselessness of it. There's been a lot of harsh words and violent suggestions on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere directed at the perpetrators, and I can understand those, as well as the frustration at the perceived likely futility of the legal process that will follow. (However, this post and its comments are not the place, please.)

I fervently hope that there will be some form of funding drive [EDIT: there is, here] to try and cover some of the damage done. When there is. I will link it here, and I will be giving what I can and encouraging others in our hobby to do so. These folks are our brethren, as I've said many times on here and in podcasts - we are hobbies divided only by our choice of subject material. This could have been one of our shows, or a club premises.

Catching up

Sarissa's Dark Ages Villa, with quite a bit of
customisation and general tarting up. Figure
by Bad Squiddo Games (Cartimandua).

Yes, I am still alive, honest.

Those of you following me on Twitter should at least be aware of that, since I've been managing to keep the #hobbystreak hashtag going, usually in my lunch break (but by the skin of my teeth on a couple of days), since the start of the year, which, if nothing else, is keeping me saner than otherwise :D

A combination of being the only available tech at work over Xmas, dealing with James' UCAS applications and getting him to open days (compounded by his depression, needless to say), and an unexpected death in late January (a close friend who passed away while staying with us, for which I wound up doing most of the local organisation for the funeral while his wife was back in Shetland). Most of my scant free time wound up keeping up with pre-booked musical commitments and organising Hereward Wargames Show, but...

*heaves mighty sigh of relief*

I actually got to sleep in my own bed and with no guests in the house, for the first time in two weeks on Wednesday. (I now understand why some of our guests don't like our various spare beds - the sofa bed is a thing of horror!) And I'm actually sitting here in the living room with a laptop and nothing to do for most of the rest of the day.

So. Plans:

• I'm going to move the master source of the #hobbystreak posts to here, as I do keep hitting the Twitter limit (me, verbose?). They'll still get crossposted.
• The next episode of The Miller's Tale will happen once I've cleared the mess in the music room (various stuff got dumped in there to make space for the sofa bed - the house has been chaos, as if you hadn't figured! :D) which should (I'm not promising) be this week, I know what it'll be about, but you'll have to wait and see :D
• The Dux Compendium will get finished. The batch of buildings I'm just about finished with (see Twitter) has me somewhat inspired. Currently, Anne is out Wednesday evenings as duty vet at the dog track, and since I'm no longer booked to record with the Meeples folks on Wednesdays, I'm aiming to make that my serious writing evening. (As an aside, on that score, I am rather miffed to have missed the British Library Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms Exhibition :)
• Ongoing modelling projects - a Cruel Seas Kriegsmarine fleet,  more Dark Ages scenery, some Peninsular forces for SP2, and maybe the Skytrex WW2 naval fleets I have kicking around and some War of The Roses 28mms.

OK. Fingers crossed, the world is back to some semblance of normality.

Catch you soon!

Miniatures-based boardgames, or board-based miniatures games?

Oi bin finkin'...

(Hey, it's Sunday. Sunday's my thinking day, so I'm not accountable...)

It was noted on the podcast (that's Meeples and Miniatures to you) a while back that we did seem to be moving into an era where there are a lot more RPG lite/skirmish/call them what you will games - see also a recent topic brought up by Peter from Baccus, which you can probably catch on the next Meeples episode.

Questions, though: are we going even further now, given the growth of miniatures-based boardgames that really blur the line (particularly Time of Legends: Joan of Arc is very much sitting on the edge, but there are other miniature-heavy games that are pretty much RPG-lite/skirmish)? is it a question of which side of the line you approach from? I'm thinking of Time of Legends: Joan of Arc vs To The Strongest here as a very interesting example, or even Wings of Glory WW2 (no board) vs Bag the Hun (hex board)...

And the followup to those: is this trend going to be a gateway to 'proper' wargames, in the same way that people seem (certainly in our club) to gravitate from fantasy towards historical?

Women in Dux Britanniarum

Busy on the Compendium today. Spent quite a bit of time thinking about a section heading, and nearly emailed a female friend who is also a gamer and early Mediaeval British historian, but I think, in the end, I'm happy with this:

Women 

It’s a matter of some scholarly debate as to the role of women in the society of Dux Britanniarum. Whether you choose to allow certain game roles to be filled by women is really up to you, but it seems to me that given the availability of a number of very nice sculpts for Saxon shield-maidens, for example, it would be a crying shame to pass up on them. Equally, the British can trace a legacy back to the likes of Cartimandua and Boudicca, for which there are also figures to be had (even in Roman armour). 

As such, I’ve made a conscious decision, after a fair amount of consideration, not to provide any actual rules differentiating the abilities and characteristics of the sexes in the Compendium. If you’re treating Dux Britanniarum purely as a wargame, it’s not going to matter at the level of abstraction the game models a warrior at, and if you’re immersed deeper in the game as a vehicle for telling a story? It’s your story, and the narrative and your perception of the setting is going to drive events far more than any rules I can come up with. 

My story has heroes and heroines. 

---

Accountability update for today, before I go rig for a band rehearsal:

• Imported and formatted my terrain articles from the two Lardies specials
• Wrote new section on writing and testing your own Raid scenarios
• Finished above section on Women
• Added rules for a Bannerman as a retainer
• Tidied up contents page formatting, added another section/contents level
• Started on various printable/copyable reference sheets

In non-Dux-related wargames stuff

• Did a whole bunch of follow up stuff post club AGM (yes, I'm still chairman)
• Fed the builders lots of tea.

Happy New Year

...from the Hyatt Place in downtown Minneapolis, where I am killing time till I can head for the airport and home.

Battle reports on a couple of games that happened while I was out here to follow, when I get back and fully awake, but for now.... a quick review of 2017 and plans for 2018.

Operation Get S**t Done progressed... well, a bit. I did make a reasonable attempt at not buying loads more stuff (barring a couple of big KS pledges): major purchases were SP2 forces for the Peninsula and needed buildings and scenery for the club IABSM campaign, and a Nights Watch force for the club Game of Thrones campaign.

The year was made a little fraught and interesting by Amazon deciding to shut LOVEFiLM down, and the ensuing work involved in making it probably the tidiest shutdown ever. I considered a number of options as regards continuing working for a different bit of the company, but in the end the lure of a chance to essentially take a sabbatical for a couple of months was too much to resist. So...

I'm essentially a full time wargamer and writer till, probably, Easter. Top of the list, obviously is to finish the Dux Britanniarum Compendium, followed by several other things. Also, to get back into the habit of blogging regularly, which will, I hope, include being publicly accountable for my time over Q1 of 2018. Given the number of people who very kindly describe this blog as inspiration, I clearly need to get off my duff and live up to that.

Additionally, I'm going to be trying much harder to avoid buying stuff I'll never get to play, and finishing off as much of the Cabinet Of Temporal Insufficiency (to quote Jeff Knusden) as I can. To this end, a bunch of the SP2 lead pile is already at the painters...

Catch you soon, folks!

2016 in review

It's been... a year. Perhaps wisely, I didn't plan anything for 2016, so this is all bonus :D That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

On the good side, we ran the second Hereward Wargames Show, which seems to have improved on the last with more games. more traders, more floor space and more people through the door, so hopefully we can continue apace. We seem to have also found a formula for the Meeples and Miniatures podcast that works, which people seem to like, including some excellent guests (I'm particularly delighted to have found both Kirsty Rogers (sadly, no longer working for the Royal Armouries in Leeds, but her new job at the National Trust might yet have potential for more wargames tie-ins) and Harry Sidebottom (wargaming historian and author) as guests, as a change from people with rules/Kickstarters to promote!

On top of that, I bought a 3D printer, which, as well as provoking a lot of discussion on the podcast, has been a real eyeopener in terms of getting stuff made for various games.

Gaming-wise? A lot of IABSM, as well as various other Lardy rule sets, some Kings of War and a few interesting one offs including Full Thrust, Altar of Freedom and Halo Fleet Battles.

Various things got painted - mostly 3D printed vehicles - and I did finally start in on the 4Ground French 15mm stash. A bit.

Secret projects have come and gone:

• Sekret Projekt W has been pre-empted (very well) by someone else, so is probably shelved;
• Sekret Projekt D (the Dux Britanniarum Compendium) is on the go - as I've said a couple of times, playtesting is important for the scenarios, so it's going to take a while yet;
• Sekret Projekt A is still being thought about, though I have identified several potential customers;
• Sekret Projekt L, the Lardy Lists site, is on hold pending me finding a week with nothing else to do to get it caught up with all you prolific people;
• Sekret Projekt P is rolling along nicely, thank you;
• Sekret Projekt C is next in the writing queue after D.

On the not-so-good side, my eye is still playing up. And we lost Nick Hawkins.

Watch this space for New Year Resolutions tomorrow.

Dear Diary, today...

...I appear to have mostly been a responsible adult thinly disguised as a gamer.

• Conducted a club EGM to determine our vote for GCN Secretary;
• Minuted the above;
• Conducted a club committee meeting to clarify our position on things before writing to people;
• Updated the club forum and FB page;
• Tidied the scenery cupboard (thanks Reuben and Dan);
• Sorted out 40 figures for painting by someone else;
• Outlined two articles for magazines.

:D

Coming round full circle...

It's no good, if I'm going to spend Sunday afternoon and early evening watching James play cricket, I either need to blog in the morning or get an anti-glare screen guard for my iPad. I may need the latter anyway, since I've committed to being the Sunday 2nd XI's scorer when my eye recovers. :D

Herewith, given it's now gone 10 and we've only just finished supper, some slightly disjointed thought that may pass for a blog post.

I find it amusing how things come full circle: for a decade I worked for CricInfo.com, and if you were a fan of their live text commentary in the mid-to-late 90s, and sometimes as late as 2004, one of the commentary 'voices' and scorers was me. Given I'd changed jobs, and given up playing cricket (as I was keen to preserve my fingers in an unbroken state to play guitar) I wasn't expecting to wind up scoring again.

Equally, thinking back, the first wargames army I owned was I think several boxes of Airfix 20mm plastic Napoleonics: guess what's queued up for a painting service now? (Not Airfix - I wouldn't pay someone to paint that plastic! :D)

And then there's Sekrit Projekt P. More in a couple of weeks, but let's just say that I've come right back to the incidental skills I learned in my first ever paying job.

Post Salute musings...

...some of which have already made it onto Twitter...

• I walked 5 1/2 miles - a lot of it in the same 12' x 12' area

• big Warbases mistakes

1. Only buying enough bases for the things I expected to buy
2. not buying any horses for the Sharp Practice wagons - *facepalm*

• I should never let Reuben talk me into visiting stalls just before the show closes. That way lies 100 quids worth of lovely, lovely Tablescapes buildings

• it didn't seem quite as crowded as last year, and I wasn't impressed with the way display games appeared to have been chosen. This isn't sour grapes because we didn't get a game, but some clubs and organisations appeared to have multiple games while folks known for awesome games had none.

• Bloggers meet up awesome as ever. But...

• Getting mouthed off at by someone in a SLWarlords orange shirt because our photo group didn't leave a path between my rear end and his stand's light stand for 30 seconds was a bit much

• There's too much of Salute for one day if you're actively doing anything at the show