End Of The Week - The Crusaders Are Ready (49)

The New Cruelty is content with my output for the week. It has been a week with a project that should have felt like a bit of a slog. I've put some effort in but it has felt easier than I might have feared. Some of it has even been quite pleasurable. There are now 40+ Quar Crusaders ready to go. Enough for a basic force and really enough for most purposes. I am still thinking in terms of what's next?

A Clash of Rhyfles is apparently doing fairly solid business. I have felt like it might be me judging by the money I have already put into it. The thoughts in my head are already moving towards the next move. This will be adding more to both forces. I can see the need for some more support weapons and another infantry squad for each army.

Having had a few weeks of painting on a colour primer, this is the first time it felt it really worked. The Damned wasn't bad but this felt like it worked well. My guess is that I will try it a bit more often. If nothing else it has spread the process up significantly. I don't often get forty four figures done in a week.

I have to look to what to do next. I have a lot of Soviets to do. These will probably use an identical paint plan. The Crusaders usually appear as something closer to Vietnam Americans but I hear Soviets in the lore. I haven't got what I needed to finish the force yet, of the seventy ish minis ready to go, so maybe I need to look for something else. That said this has not caused me a problem with any other project. This is a project that seems to want to grow. I got some more minis this week but my order had some stuff missing, so a step or two away from completion

Then there are some more bits for Traitor's Toll. I have a the peasants ready to go. I have some armed peasants that have also failed to arrive. I also have some more military minis for the project that need to be built and based. This will slow things down a bit. I could see me building this up to about forty minis again.

I am feeling the urge to return to a couple of older projects. Somewhere along the line I was expecting I would do a few more units. A cavalry unit is one thing I have missed out. This would be twelve mounted figures. I need another batch of mages and clerics alongside some specialists. Not got a plan that I would describe as concrete here.

Another project from last year was Atomfallish / sUnderDground.  I got a frame of Japanese WW2 infantry. This project does call for these but there are plenty of parts on the frame that would certainly work with the cobbled together look of the force. There are plenty of minis available for this project. 

The WW2 Soviets work with the project and there are a whole range of stuff I can use. I have some more Germans for the British Fascists in the undercity. I have a couple of frames of Americans. There is an idea that there is a massive bunker under the American Embassy which could be used as one of the players in the rubble that London becomes in the game. As it's a nuclear winter scenario, I liked the idea of some civilians in great coats as well.

My brain needs to settle on a plan.

This has been a good weekend and since the car got sorted, things have not been too bad. I got to spend some time with my daughter. These are always the best days. I've also spent a bit of time with some good friends. There is also the prospect of spending time with some other friends. I currently feel like I am in pain almost everywhere. Its not a good feeling.

Just as a final hurrah is this fire elemental. This is a bigger chap than much of what I have painted recently. It's a Teaper Bones mini. It's been on the bench for a while, probably half a decade. Nice to have it done. I am calling this the equivalent of 3 figures.

Just so I have some ideas of what paint I have used, these are the paints I have used for the Quar. Thinking more about the skin tones.

Quar Crusaders - Now In Colour

It would appear that I am making some progress. The three main uniform colours are now on and I have painted the weapons. I still need to paint the shirts and the collar studs and a few more bits and I want a very Soviet type green for the helmets. After that there are a few colours on a few models to do. To even out the colours I am planning a heavy wash at this stage, before I start doing the flesh.  Then there is the skin to do. This will be a mix of fairly vibrant colours for the skin tones. This will include. pink, bright blue, lime green, orange, yellow and purple. This will involve putting them into groups for batch painting. 

To get roughly equal forces for both sides the basic plan calls for another ten man rifle squad which I should probably have ordered already.  It makes sense to get a tank as well. I can see there is some cavalry on the way so I will probably end up buying the three together at some point.

More vehicles and some artillery crews are further down the pipe. There are some heavy machine guns in the game but I want something a little more traditionally, but chunky. I kind of like the idea of pushing the envelope a bit. So more vehicles seem like a must. This probably means some 3D files. 

There will be the need to add a bit more to The Coftyr army including the cavalry and another squad of infantry.

For both sides there are things like flame throwers. It crosses my mind to do some heroes/special characters, for both side. These are not a thing in the game. As a game it is far to genteel for such weapons.  I also have an urge for priests, medics political officers and the like. I am thinking these can mostly be kit bashed. Not to mention even more vehicles.

There is another box set due out this year with two new forces. I don't actually have a starter set or an actual copy of the rules. I also already have a few Fidwogs which are a bit quickly to paint (no obvious legs). This might be a bit too far.

The grand plan was to write this up for Savage Worlds Showdown. Whilst Savage Worlds is really an RPG, Showdown is about bigger battles which can be integrated with special characters. This is a project for another date.

ABC Warriors

So I have been doing some gaming with a new gaming group. Having a ball so far. Have played a wide range of games, most of which I haven't played before. I seem to be enjoying myself. For all my current luck, I seem to be doing okay with the dice. Maybe a little bit of tactics too.

This was a game of ABC Warriors. This is a game I liked the look of but was never going to buy. With two cards that gave us the hand of god, a sniper with a gun that seems to do the damage of a large artillery piece and a robot that is all but indestructible, the good guys won. With hardly a scratch.

Unexpected Projects

I now have an almost pathological avoidance of games my friends want to play. Over time I have been drawn into many expensive projects that have been shelved before my first purchase has arrived. Many of those that don't fail for a variety of reasons like suddenly moving away or making a decision to buy every Napoleonic army in 6mm.

Still at the blobby stage

So a couple of my mates are playing Battletech. I've played it in the past. Almost forty years in the past. I had been thinking about it in much the same way. I have to admit I was wrong. They actually like the game and want to keep playing. As a birthday present I got a couple of box sets and some random extra mechs.

Suddenly I am back to painting. For the first time in months. Trying a few different things. Not least is a leaning more towards contrast types of paint. Then I've taken moulds of some mech bits and used greenstuff to make base scatter. 

I have some of my mojo back. My painting area is now back up and running properly after almost a year. I've even got a proper wet pallet as I couldn't find my home made one.

Once I've done the mechs, I think I have twenty four of them, I am going to move onto Sludge, and finish of the stuff that has been waiting for final touches for a year. 

More Freakin Hexes

About ten years ago I had this idea for terrain hexes. About five years ago I started making some when i got my first laser cut. Then I had a thirty five litre RU box full of them. Then there were two, then there were three now there is a fourth box, overflowing with blank tiles.

My name is Jacko and I have a problem.

So I started doing tabletop gaming again this year, after what is about a five year gap. Not my choice, just, errr, circumstances and stuff. I still think I want to do more. And more. And more. And, well you get it. I have a problem.

For me I would be happy with a 2' x 2' or 60mm x 60mm. Well ish. Hex geometry is more complicated than it looks. However a lot of games and most gamers want a 3' x 3'or 90mm x 90mm table (ish again" thanks to the way hexes work. So...I had enough for what I call my most apocalypse board to do a 2' x 2' so time to upscale.

I wanted to use the hexes to replace battle mats and give me something more variable. No two games should be the same. That means a lot of variants. The post-apocalyptic table also had a lot of extra requirements to improve the character. This meant a lot of junk, some bits of resin and a lot of scrap material to give the tiles more character. To add a bit more character there are actually four different textures on the tiles. Not sure they have any meaning in game terms but they make the game look pretty.

So this board is getting on for being finished. I reckon I need to finish what I have and do about another dozen tiles. Maybe I need tiles to integrate them into other sets.

Now I am looking for what's next. I like the mud tiles and think I will make more but not sure I want this as the next project. So right now I am thinking either desert or a ruined futuristic city tile, which I am calling Paradise City Lost. I am also thinking in terms of snow.

Getting Things Done - Counters

It appears that today was the day to finish my This is Not a Test counters and maybe a few others. So back in 2019 in the summer before my daughter was born I went to Salute. The big plan was to start playing This Is Not A Test. It kind of hits a lot of buttons for me.

The game uses a lot of counters and as of today, I now have them. Designed cut and stuck to bottle cap stickers as per Guerilla Miniatures Games.

I may even get a game in.

Thanks for your help Ross.

6mm Wargaming

6mm wargaming? Well I used to do that quite a bit. Going back thirty years, it was practically all I did. Timing is becoming my thing at the moment, so this is about a month out of date but I went to the Joy of Six recently. It's not really my thing now but a few of my mates, and one in particular, are still keen. So having done my duty in the morning, the thought in my head was "what the hell". It was on the cards anyway.

I enjoyed the show. Some pretty stuff there. I got several ideas. More about the terrain than the figures. I spoke to a lot if people from the world of internet wargaming. So had a nice time there. 

For some reason I did not buy anything aside from food and a drink. I was looking at the idea of brigade games' Imperial Skies. If I got two forces I could probably find another player. As my paint queue of 28mm stuff is at least four years, if I only include what is painted and based. I would to think how long the rest would take.

Given that I am more into the idea of gaming in a more compact area, 6mm has a lot of appeal. There has  been a lot of growth in the area and it now covers a number of areas I am interested in. Skirmish is still winning, I have pretty much everything I need for that but I am always open to a change. The fact that I still need two armies kind of puts me off.

Polemos rules seem pretty good to me. They have worked for Napoleonics and I imagine they will be fine for the other two mass battle periods that I like the idea of, ACW and ECW, would probably also work. Give that I like the idea of making everything smaller I would like to make the 60mm square bases smaller, 40mm or 30mm. As I am working on the premise of using skirmish sized tables, this would allow me to get biggish battles on the table.

The last gaming that involved 6mm was a Napoleonic game. The plan was to refight the entire The Napoleonic Wars using a boardgame of that name as a campaign structure. That might sound impressive, if not stupid. The plan was big but the forces involved would not have been that high in reality. I was going to be the French and I was figuring £200 would have given me absolutely everything and a few allies. So I spent most of that. I think I was a bit light on artillery but that was about it.

So I started painting. After arguments about rules and basing we started to make progress. Then it petered out. Every now and again I paint a few more bases. Just to keep my hand in really. It's something I wouldn't mind going back to. I play about with the idea every couple of years and I drag a few minis out for some out for painting. As I recall it's the Hussars that have the most interesting uniforms so they get the most attention.

Somewhere there is a part of me that would love to get back into this scale. The idea revolved around using the boardgame, The Napoleonic Wars, as a background. It's already a pretty enjoyable game. I play Napoleon so I do pretty well all the way along, right almost to the end. We had played our way through this a couple of times. This wasn't going to be an every week game but it was an opportunity to get together and make an event of it. Personally I could have see this going on longer than the actual war. Everyone was picking a side, getting the figures. It just kind of fizzled out. 

Robots

My bench is currently full. It's mostly full of paint and part finished projects. There is a fair amount of space dedicated to what I call the "grey legion." These are figures that have taken the time to prep, glue to a base, cover the base with sand, prime and allow to be covered with dust.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty that have made it as far as work in progress. I found some old figures that I thought I could upgrade with all that I have learnt over the years. So technically they have been WIP for thirty five years. Still they are mostly at the stage where they still look a bit crap.

So the perfect thing to do was start to paint even more figures. So being geared up for Stargrave I decided to go back to the post-apocalypse. I think you can use robots in Stargrave too, but I didn't find that out until after I'd finished them.

Copplestone castings is one of my favourite miniature makers. I recall adding a few things in to make a price point. One of which was a pack of robots which were quite like Terminators. Rather than pairing them as shiny death machine I thought an aged look would fit my post-apocalypse better.

So here we are. A quick and dirty paint job. Looks fine to me. A few more bits to do, washes, varnish and a bit more debris on the base and they are done

Stargrave, Fallout and Wargames Illustrated 402

My other half kindly gave me a copy of the latest Wargames Illustrated. Most, if not all, issues now come with a sprue of miniatures. This month it was Romans from Warlord Miniatures. Much as I like free stuff, I don't really do ancients.

Then I remembered an idea for a project I had a decade ago. Fallout: New Vegas featured a group called Caesar's Legion. They featured in some of the deep lore if the game. So when it came to seeing my attempt at a tabletop RPG background set in Arizona, these seemed to be a natural choice as the looming big bad. That game was really done in 15mm but I wanted to do this in 28mm again.

So I have some free  Roman figures. I have a bunch of extra arms  from Stargrave and some equipment. Couple this with a few hours to myself and a knife. I doubt they are perfect but what the hell.

Supply Markers

The Walking Dead: All Out War by Mantic Games is my favourite apocalypse game at the moment. Nuclear war (especially Fallout) and other forms of zombies are pretty close. Does that sound a little insane? Maybe I am a little insane. I am comfortable with that :)

Anyway, I like the idea of skirmish gaming and post-apocalypse skirmish gaming is particularly appealing. TWD:AOW is still drawing me in although I have only played a few games of it. I keep looking at it and want to buy more of it.What has been on the list of things to do for a while is the supply counters.

Supply counters, or something like it, seem to be a facet of a lot of skirmish games. I was looking at doing something like this for Scavenge, Skirmish, Survive. This made me think I should put some effort into these thinking I might use them in other games as well. If nothing else they will do as scatter terrain. The bases are either basically painted green or sand. Over time I have developed a box of basically green and basically sandy terrain so I might as well make stuff that would fit for either.

Progress On The Stormtroopers

I don't seem to have done much other than painting white today. My love of Star Wars as a child was legendary. This process is testing that love at the moment. There has been a little bit of progress since then and I guess I could now paint the base rims, do  a bit of touching up and a few more details and I could call them done. A bit more work would get them above tabletop standard. I am probably going to move on to something else tomorrow but I will probably come back to these at the end of the week.

If I get what I have on the bench done (including what I am starting tomorrow) that will be fifty five figures completed in two weeks. This would be almost a record if not an actual personal best. By my reckoning I am now doing better than my minimum expectation for the year although I am still a little way off what I have aspired to.  Another couple of weeks of this rate of production would see me caught up. The other stuff I have to do is a little less inspiring or a lot more intensive which will make catching up a little harder.

Modernish Barricades

The post apocalypse is never far from my mind, at least in a gaming sense. Despite Bethesda recently ruining my gaming experience, I do not feel that the world is about to end. I think my interest goes back to reading The Postman by David Brin after reading a review in White Dwarf of all places. A quick reading and rereading of Day of the Triffids and I am kind of a fan of the genre. Zombies and nuclear war seem to be my preferred way to end the world. The Walking Dead and Fallout out gave been my most recent influences in tabletop gaming but I have a lot of love for ideas from the old RPG Aftermath and almost anything done George Romero and a number of other books and computer games.

Finding players has been hard in the past so I haven't pushed it. In there here and now things are not so bad on that score.  So I am looking at this as a possibility again so I figured it might be time to do something about it. I don't have many figures left to paint and those that I do have I can't find. What I can find is some terrain.

In the end (so to speak) it's close enough to the modern era that the terrain at least should be able to do double duty. What is available is a bit of a mixed bag. I wanted them to all tie together and look relatively uniform and with a lot of the longer I wanted a bit more stability and I wanted it to match what I had done in the past. If I do get X-Com off the ground this year I will need some terrain for that. I have medium terms plans for a zombie and one based in post nuclear war London. Part of me wants to get into 28mm modern but I have a few reservations about that.

I wanted a range of sizes some of which, if not all could be used as barricades and general scatter. Large quantities of tire piles seem to figure highly in a lot of games so I purchased some from Crooked Dice. These first four are produced by them although there is a crate found in my bit's box (I have no idea who by) added to make up the length. Then is is also an oil drum which I think is Tamiya.

The crowd barriers are from Ainsty Casting. I love these guys for terrain. Hopefully these will hold up to the punishment but will need to be carefully look after.

Most of what I have to hand is from Mantic's The Walking Dead : All Out War. Nice details on the terrain as I am starting to expect from Mantic. Some have been added to with stuff that I have handing around to make up the length. Some of the barrels are from a Tamiya kit I got back in the 1980's and other bits have been around for well over a decade. It's nice to get some of things used rather than just hanging around.

In total there is just short of three feet/ninety centimetres of stuff. It's never enough but it's a distinct improvement. I have some Mantic supply tokens to be done. These are a lot smaller but have a bit more detail. Think these will be a project for next week as I expect the Stormtroopers are going to take a lot of work.

Stormtroopers

Last year I spent some time playing in a Star Wars RPG last year and I was surprised to say that I really enjoyed it. For some reason I felt the urge to paint some suitable figures. This led to a lot of internet searches which is pretty much how I waste all my time.

To save you going through what I found out I shall summarize. We were playing with the old Wizards Of The Coast figures which don't really interest me. They are pre-painted and a to be honest they are not the best models ever made. Most are a bit scrawny and they don't really fit in with the sizing of other figures. The Imperial Assault figures are very nice but they are not the cheapest and don't have a lot of poses. The detailing is great and they are 28mm which means that they fit in with a lot of other ranges. On the downside the range isn't great either. I have about thirty of the old metal Stormtrooper figures from West End Games. These are lovely figures and if I recall there were about ten sets of them. Nice as the range was it wasn't that great and there are a lot huge range and given that it is old school a lot of the races aren't there. Finding bits for conversion was also going to be a problem. On the plus side they are 25mm which is not that much of a plus. I have a load of 25mm figures from back in the day and some old Traveller figures which I used to love. Sadly the figures are long out of stock and to buy them second hand was looking like a lot of money.

This kind of leaves me with Star Wars Legion. When I first started looking at this game my opinion was a bit negative. They are big figures which don't really fit in with the figures that I have. There is very little available commercially that would fit in with them. Initially there wasn't much of a range.

When I thought about it though they quickly became my first choice There are now about fifty plus non-character figures out there and the range seems to be expanding. Basic units are relatively cheap compared to the old WEG and Imperial Assault figures. The non basic units are a bit more pricey but still cheaper especially if you can find a deal of which there are plenty out there. The characters are way more expensive though but I guess there are ways around this.

My plan is basically to do a lot of conversions. Star Wars has a lot of alien races but nearly all of them are men in suits. This means that a head swap is most of what is needed. Looking at the Rebel figures I don't see the need for a lot of miniguns so these were going to be ripe for conversion. hen I thought a lot about conversions. There are a few 3d printed options as well as the ability to convert yourself. I think it was the ability to use 3d bits that appealed the most. The construction, in the main calls for the arms to be stretched to fit in the sockets, the figures are relatively elastic. This means that they would take a lot of punishment before falling off.

So we get to the Stormtroopers. My aim is to have figures for an RPG. I have forteen Stormtroopers, two of which are armed with missile launchers. In my head a dozen stormtroopers is enough. That said, if I have them I might as well paint them. The exception is that I am going to scrap one of the missile launcher figures. The Rebels don't have a missile launcher so I might use this for a conversion option.

Now they are glued and have a base texture. My next step is to prime them. I can't spray prime indoors and outdoors is looking like it is out of the question for a bit. So I guess they are going to end up in a draw for a while.

Progress, After A Fashion

Today has been another busy day and I am painfully tired. What I need right now is some sleep. The work on the zombies has progressed a fair bit. That said, whilst I have done a fair bit of highlighting, there is still plenty of details to add before I would class them as finished.

The tiredness and the detail was starting to make me go a bit cross-eyed so I stopped the figure painting. Instead, I went to on to work on the bases for the Viking wargame for my Savage Worlds Wargame. All of what is now glued together and covered in sand is now ready to go. Then, there were still some bases that hadn't been glued together. The bases (of the bases) that I had available were not enough for what I needed. I did however have a number of the top half of the bases that hadn't been cut properly. The cuts were deep enough that chopping them down to the size of bases of the bases (look at the pictures if you don't understand) that there were easy enough to cut out. So, although it was a bit of a cobble together, the problems won't actually be noticeable when figures or blanks are put in the slots. Most bases now only need a touch up to the paint and there are about ten that need texturing and painting. There is enough there really to give it a go now.

Then I moved on to gluing up some dungeon tile ideas I tried running off last weekend. These are definitely not going to work in their current form but I will paint them up to see what they look like from an aesthetic point of view.

Graft

I've said a number of times that I am not a big fan of basing. For me it's pretty much the worst element of figure painting. I should probably put a bit more effort in and then I would probably get better results. Even so, it has become the kind of thing that I do when I can't focus on the details of figure painting.

So today I started something that has been really hard work.  Having glued some bits together for the wargame sabot bases yesterday I have put some texture on them and given them a green base coat. I wanted to get ahead on this because tomorrow I am hoping to come away with a whole load more bases, maybe double the number I already have. My thinking was that if I don't do some of them now, the pile of bases will put me off completely. Now I have enough bases for about one army with a few spares and options. There are fifteen bases done. Mostly they are standard infantry bases but there are a couple for regular cavalry, and one each for heavy cavalry, irregular infantry and smaller monsters.

Hopefully I'll have a duplicate of this set so I can run two armies. With a bit of luck I will also have an odds and sods set with some different base layouts, irregular infantry, larger monsters and even some light artillery.

If the plan goes better than expected I might even have some more regular bases and some larger irregular bases that will do for terrain areas like swamps and woods.

At the end of the day I did get a chance to work on the week's figures. They don't really fit with anything on the horizon but the Arthurian age (Romano British) types are nice minis and the other figure which I think is a Frostgrave captain looks pretty good. I am worried that I have slacked off a bit on these to do the stuff for FabLab. For the most part they now have a base colour and tomorrow I am planning to ink them up and make a start on the highlighting, assuming the extra bases don't get in the way.

FabLab, Wargames And Bases

Much to my surprise I got to FabLab just about on time. This proved to be a bad thing. Having booked the machine, someone else was using it when I got there and I was told that the time I had wasn't going to happen because they were going to close early. With a bit of targeted complaining I got them to extend the hours but still didn't get what I want done because it took over forty minutes to get the other guy of the machine.

For a while now I have been working on the idea and basics for a Savage Worlds driven wargame. There are a couple of wargame systems available already. The mass battle system in the rules is extremely basic and the Showdown rules won't handle mass battles. So I thought I could find a third way.

The plan calls for about ten to twelve units per side with units ranging from about five to thirty men. In a world where two hundred men might be called an army, this is about right. What I have wanted to do is give the rules a serious play test. I have played them through with digital paper counters and they seemed to work okay. Over the summer I have been thinking about doing it as a miniatures games, I just needed some sabot bases.

As a game it is really an extension of a RPG campaign but like most of my games, I like a mass battle element to them. So I want  a mass battle feel but still have the scope for using individual heroic characters. There are plenty of dark age figures in my collection but they are all based individually as I am primarily a roleplay at the moment. So whatever the rules were going to be would have to take this into account. I also wanted a system that would allow characters to be right up in the action but a bit more, well, wargaming light. The most obvious solution was sabot basing.

Take somewhere between two and six infantry or two or three cavalry figures per base. Make sure that there is some scope for bigger monsters and even light artillery (okay I have two dwarf ballistas and I might get one for a Romano-British early saxon army).

I had hoped to walk away with about enough bases for two armies. Time got a bit short but I have still walked away with enough stuff for eighteen bases, admittedly some are not needed at the moment and I could do with a few more leg infantry bases. However, I should have enough of the stuff cut by the close of play on Saturday to make that happen.

A bit of sand, some time, some paint, some wash (maybe make some of my own wash as I am now going to need a lot of it) and a bit of highlighting and that should do me.Time is getting a bit tight to have all this done and finish my figures but I live in hope.

Game Of Thrones And Bigger Picture Fantasy RPG

I was catching up with GOT today. It is only really this show and The Walking Dead that I really look forward to at the moment. So finding a moment when I can watch it without interruptions is a good thing.

Watching shows like this (and Vikings, The Last Kingdom and similar shows like Rome have similar vibes) always make me think what they would be like as an RPG. I have seen plenty of figure conversions on sites like Lead Adventure Forums for GOT minis. Possibly there is also a viable kickstarter out there with some more specific figures for a tabletop wargame. There has been a tabletop  RPG out there for a while as well. Basically there is no shortage of inspiration.

To be honest I doubt I would run it as a tabletop game. There is far too much to remember and players being people are bound to trip me up. However it did start me down the road of RPGs and the statecraft element. These, and other systems, had a big effect on the idea of spectacle that plays a central role in my games.

The biggests game I have set in motion, in recent years at least, such as Fallout and Vikings, both featured mass battle system. For the Viking game I have even done a Savage Worlds mass combat system. Yes I know they have a skirmish game called showdown but it doesn't give the almost wargame feel that I wanted which still allows the players and heroic NPCs to have an effect on the outcome.

Whilst I know these are combat systems, the real pleasure in such a system is how it creates a story and builds a background. If you look back in dark age history the most notable events are the battles. This is despite the being fairly limited records of what went on. Now I am not talking in terms of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles but having a history of the game alongside a mythology always helps the players to buy into a game.

Most players like a scrap. There are not many RPG games out there that are combat light. Skirmish battles are fine but if the players want to make it into a games legends, they have to claim their glory in the biggest battles.
 

One Hour Wargames

I got a copy of One Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas a little while back. The idea seemed to fascinate me when I heard about them and I went out and searched for a copy of the rules. I have played a few Two Hour Wargames rules and they simply lie, it's much more like four hours to a game but I liked the general idea. I am not doing much wargaming at the moment and would like to do some more. It has to be said that these rules give me that sort of scope to be able to do that without running out of time to walk the dog or feed the kids.

Essentially there are three bits to the book. Each period has a short description about what warfare was like in that era. It's only a few pages of details but it acts as a raison d'etre for the rules. This is followed by a few pages of rules. Most rules are common to all periods but there is some variation depending on the era. Repeat this for all the periods it covers. After this are many generic scenarios which allow you to run the game. Simple.

The basic idea put forward by the author is that games companies want to sell you lots of stuff and that really, most gamers at least, do not have the space for the table let alone all the figures and terrain. That seems fair and it has to be said that I have a lot of sympathy for this idea. Instead of having massive armies most battles take place with about six stands on a three foot square table. Sometimes there are a few less stands and rarer still with a few more. If you are doing it with smaller scale figures you could probably get them painted up in a weekend at most.

Sadly though I think wargamers are missing a trick as this set of rules does not fit the niche. There are two schools of wargaming as far as I can see. The easiest way to discuss them reduces the ideas down to two basic, reasonably controversial groups, style over substance and substance over style. I know this is a little of track but it will become obvious where I am going in a minute.

Style over substance sounds a lot harsher than it is. Here it's the look of the terrain and the figures that make an extremely visually appealing game is at the core of what these gamers do. Hand made terrain and pro-painted figures are the order of the day. these are the people who will not allow unpainted figures on the board. The rules can be important and in fairness people will usually pick a nice set of rules to. These are not people who like to do things that are not by the (rule) book.The emotional payoff comes from people telling you how beautiful a game it was.

Substance over style is at the other end. Terrain can be quite basic and maybe even symbolic (roads made of of brown paper envelopes as an examples) although it might be purchased it is at the cheaper end of the market or very basically made. Figures are usually painted by the players and will sometimes not be painted at all. These are the people who think they might want to try out a period so buy some airfix or similar kits and just plonk the figures on the battlefield. Rules and more importantly the feel of the game (is it historical?) are what is important. These are the people that like to tinker with the rules and maybe even write the rules themselves. The emotional payoff come from people telling them that they had a good game.

One Hour Wargames is a good solid set of rules and I have enjoyed playing the game. They are great for solo play with limited time and space. It's simple mechanics are easy to pick up and can be played with just about all periods. The trouble is that they do not meet the needs of the style of substance or the substance over style players.

It does not offer the style over substances players the pretty game and it does not offer the substance over style gamer an interesting set of rules. Whilst the rules are basic they cover most eventualities. The system covers a vast range of periods and gives a few subtle ideas for each period. Neil Thomas has tried to keep things simple as he sees it but this means that there are only four troop types per period when in many periods there are clearly more than that. Keeping a common rules framework has the advantage or disadvantage of making the mechanics a little overly simple.

So why do a review of something I don't seem to like? Well the truth is that I do like them. With the absence of a lot of mechanics, you can concentrate on a strategy. They make an excellent solo game as a result. Each side starts out with a simple objective and you can just get at it. Each period is just begging to be tinkered with. Pretty much every gamer I have spoken to who has played them does not like them but wants to have a play about with them to make them better. This is true of most of the really successful wargames rules over the years. People want a game with just a bit more, a ninety minute wargame perhaps? If you have a play about with them, add some more mechanics, some extra troop categories and more units on the table it would become a pleasure of a game.

Phalanx

Spent a bit of time at my local show Phalanx today. It's more a chance to catch up with a few people and have a brew. It's not the biggest show by I like it. That said I am not sure that this is the show I have spent the least money at but it's probably not far off. I got some 6mm Napoleonic stuff which appeared to be quite cheap. Then, when I got home, there were a lot of Parthians and colonial British and a lot of odds and sods.

 For some reason the only thing that really took my interest were two winter games. this is a newish samurai game with a few fantasy overtones. The figures seem really nice and they had a guy dress up in a full suit of samurai armour. For a long time now I have been thinking about running a fantasy far east, journey to the west meets samurai game. These figure might just pursuade me to do it.

The other game I saw was a world war two game. Seems nice enough. I think it's a Warlord games Bolt Action demo game. Whilst I like the idea of Bolt Action I am not sure I have the time in the painting queue to get anything any time soon. That said, I would be happy enough to have a go.

Now I'm off to play a wargame followed up by some wargames. Should be a good evening.

More Napoleonic Cavalry

Even more Baccus 6mm Napoleonic Hussars. I like the Hussars on one level because they are nice and colourful. On fairly mundane (but not drab) battle fields, the Hussars have a bright and snazy uniforms. Anyway, this is the mornings work so far. Still a bit more to do.

They are about right but again it is hard to find all the details you actually need. Still some more detailling work to be done but will do that as a batch when I am ready.