Dracula's America - Review

Last weekend I travelled down to Cheetor's place in Cork. Myself, Cheetor and TheOttoVonBismark had planned a weekend of Dracula's America. In Space. The posses were painted, the terrain was ready, the rules were read and the beer was in the fridge. Off we went.

I'm not going into a blow by blow account of the games we played, more a general overview of how we felt about the system, the posses we used and what we're planning next.

Sean (TheOttoVonBismark) brought a very tasty Slaaneshi chaos cult using the Crossroads Cult rules. This fit very well indeed, with a Keeper of Secrets (Major Entity) appearing in the first turn of the first game. That made me sit up and take notice pretty rapidly, as only a twelve foot four armed one-boobed skull-faced daemon can.

Paul (Cheetor) has a huge gang of Ratskins, which straddle the settings of Dracula's America and the quasi 40k sci-fi setting we chose for it perfectly. In this particulat scenario they are trying to protect a Jokaero from getting murdered by the other posses. The gorgeous terrain is all from Cheetor's collection.

My own posse are The Shadow Empire, Lo Pan's (from Big Trouble in Little China Lo Pan) underground criminal organisation. They match up seamlessly to the Shadow Dragon Tong faction. In this iteration of Lo Pan's existence he has managed to gain access to eldar technology and is retro-engineering it to suit his own foul purposes.

The Doctor will see you now.

We played two games of Dracula's America, Shootout and Escalation. What struck me immediately was how smooth the rules were. As with all reasonably casual rule-sets a modicum of common sense is required, but assuming that we got into the rules nice and quickly. Building posses is easy, especially when starting with a campaign posse. There are three levels of character, Novice, Veteran and Hero, each using a different dice for tests, a D6, D8 and D10 respectively. You buy the posse weapons (only basic weapons for a starting campaign posse) and that't it. The layout of the book jarred a little, flipping between historical and supernatural sections, but that's a minor quibble.

The card-bases initiative system is a lovely mechanic, even more so when you take the hunting grounds into account. The encounter rules for two players using the same card adds another interesting but not obstructive element, though Cheetor might disagree having been robbed of an opportunity to riddle Lo Pan with bullets when a gloom fell and reduced his weapon range.

We didn't use the hunting grounds in these games, but I like the rules for it a lot.

The progression system is very intuitive and pleasant to use. Rolling for injuries, advancements and so on is straightforward and entertaining, including robbing territory from your opponents. Even those who don't advance gain experience which makes it more likely they will advance after subsequent games.

+++THE NEXT MEATBAG TO CALL ME A FLOWERPOT GETS IT IN THE FACE+++

There is one expansion so far, Hunting Grounds, which introduces new rules and factions, including the Shadow Dragon Tong that I was playing, as well as outlaws, mercenaries, new skills, gear and so on. I'm certainly going to be playing more games using these rules, I've already got plans for an addition to the Shadow Empire, an 'undead drifter', or in my case a reanimated eldar that Lo Pan is plying for secrets.

What a jerk he is.

Cheetor is playing with the idea of something vampiric next, but I'll let him loose details on that as he fancies. TheOttoVonBismark is thinking of something orkish. Or genestealery. Or both maybe.

All in all I couldn't recommend Dracula's America highly enough. As you can see, you can play it Weird Wild West style, or go Weird Wild West in Space, or whatever you fancy yourself and it works just dandy.

Kickstarter - Bonefields

My good mate Chris from Macrocosm is currently running a kickstarter for his new game Bonefields. It's a skirmish game where all the factions are undead, starting with dwarves and goblins. As you can see from the image above, I've already gotten my paws on some of the miniatures from the game. The goblin vampire is pretty great, and also hilarious. There are some really nice miniatures coming down the line should the kickstarter do well such as the goblin poker and gobbers and the dwarf berserker king. It's a great project to be involved in.

The rules are being written by James Hewitt and Sophie Williams from  Needy Cat Games. James has previously designed such games as The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth, Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower and Gorechosen, Necromunda: Underhive and the upcoming Adeptus Titanicus.

So it looks like it could be a pretty fun game. You'll be able to progress the members of the warband, adding skills, picking up injuries and such. Models can be killed in game but don't leave play as they can be resurrected. There's a development blog for the rules here.

The project funded in two days and at the time of writing has already knocked down the first stretch goal, zombie dwarves. If you like your undead you'd be well served to take a look at what's on offer. Aside from the boxed game there are a lot of add on sets that can be used for pretty much any game, from undead pony and wolf riders to goblin catapults.

I love the character models. Look at that dwarf wight king. Isn't he... groovy? There are also several token, scenery and objective sets. The four you can see above are literally perfect for Legions of Nagash grave markers.

So there you go. Take a look, you can check it out here.

Macrocosm - Bonefields!

Over the last while I've been secretly beavering away on a project for Macrocosm, doing things like that there logo above. It's a game with a theme dear to my heart in fact, with both factions being undead. That's right, everyone in the Bonefields box is dead. Well, bar the dwarf necromancer, but necromancers are a hazy one. Alive? Dead? Or just badly in need of a bath?

Anyhow, Macrocosm are bringing Bonefields to kickstarter in early 2018. The set will contain two full warbands, and will be a skirmish style game (with Mr Jake Thornton offering some tips and looking over Chris's rule-set) where undead dwarves and goblins attempt to continue their bitter feuding well after they have all died. That's stubborn for you. There's a goblin vampire too, it's sweet. In fact, there are a load of units for both factions in the works. Skeletal wolf riders? Yep. Bony ponies? Indeed. Dwarf wights? Aye. It goes on kids. Alessio Cisbani and Darren Edwards, the sculptors on the project, have many treats in store. There are over sixty sculpts in the works, including more infantry, cavalry and even artillery. Paul Naylor (former Golden Demon winner) is also working on Bonefields scenery. I do hear that rules for Macrocosm's pretty huge fantasy range will be forthcoming for Bonefields also.

I was fortunate to have been sent some of the miniatures from the starter set for a little brush tickling.

Dwarf hero with wights and warriors.

Goblin hero with great axe, archers and warriors.

The minis are pretty characterful and paint up very easily. Getting a warband together for this game will take most folks very little time, and of course, easily slot into a pile of other games. My favourite minis so far are probably these lads:

Dwarf hero and his bros.

You'd think I'd be all about the gobbos, but I like the idea of dwarven wights. Mind you, when the heavy goblin infantry and wolf riders hit I may change my mind.

I've also been working on some bases for Bonefields, which will be a set of resin bases and look very much like the ones above. It'll be pretty cool to see my bases in production. Now you can all have a little Saturday in your life. There are a lot of other goodies in the works for Bonefields, but right now that's yer lot. I'll dispense more news as it's released from Chris' vault of secrets.

Also, that's Deadcember sorted. Hah.

KnaveCon 10 - Double Digits!

In a couple of weeks KnaveCon will reach double digits. They grow up so fast, so they do. I can recall when KnaveCon was called BastardCon, before we went all legit and respectable. It's grown from that motley collection of grognards into the shining beacon of gaming it is today.

If you've not been this would be the one to go to. Vic and the lads run a cracking con, and it's always a good time, so if you want a ticket you better get moving. For these tickets you can go to either the KnaveCon Facebook page or victorgannongames.com.

See yez there.

Wipsters, Oldhammer and KnaveCon 7

Piers Brand's superb greenskins

The internet is a funny old place. A lot of the internet is like a sneaky bowl of chocolate cereal. Briefly tasty, but then the guilt. The sugary guilt. Still more of it is like walking down an alley in Bangkok at 2am singing 'What shall I do with all this money' at the top of your lungs.

Now and again though it does yield gold.

The gold in this case is the way our hobby has connected the thousands of small metal and plastic man enthusiasts together. We all know how good the interwebs is for gaming, so I'll skip right on past that. What I mean is the friendships that can result from such shared obsessions over the net. The kind where a grown man you've never met before gives you a ten second bearhug, and you're totally reciprocating.

A deathworld never looked so beautiful.

That's what brought about the meet-up at KnaveCon 7.

There's already been some fine, fine reporting on the games of the day. You can catch the Rogue Trader report here, at Scale Creep, where some of the mightiest examples of the gaming elite hold court. Indeed, these, among some excellent others, are the very fellows that made the trip to Ireland to throw some dice and revel in the sumptuous miniatures there on the day. (Bar Captain Crooks, with his whole 'I live in Australia' excuse.)

The Frostgrave portion of the day was reported on here by Cheetor over at Sho3box and here by Asslessman at Leadplague.

The height of Rogue Trader fashion saunters through the jungle.

So my take on the day will be more about the participants than the gaming, as enjoyable as that was. Over the last couple of years the Wipster group has coalesced out of the Oldhammer scene. What started out as trades and comments on forums and posts turned into a gaggle of miniature nuts who constantly rant and ramble at each other about what excites them on any particular day in the hobby. From that Scale Creep was recently born, a pubic outlet for our mutual affliction. Online therapy.

Yes. That's a giant floating ballbag there at the back.

One of the most enjoyable things, hobby-wise has been the group projects. We've had several, and seeing everyone's work moving along has the positive effect of giving painting mojo a serious boost. Added to that the large amount of great work that comes out of the group keeps everyone pretty enthusiastic and churning out even more good stuff. See what I mean about gold in them thar internets?

Sneaking. It's what they do.

After a while, when you're speaking to folks on a daily basis you can't help but get to know them despite your best efforts. That eventually resulted in almost all of the Wipsters/Creeps showed up at KnaveCon 7. Getting nearly everyone together was tremendous in itself , and as expected, the games themselves were casual, friendly and full of laughs. It's always slightly weird meeting someone you know reasonably well for the first time, but a couple of the aforementioned bearhugs sorted that out.

More gorgeous Frostgrave minis.

The day went off super well, bar poor JB who was afflicted with something akin to the black death. The amount of fantastic terrain and models was such that I didn't get around to seeing all I wanted to see, but there's always next time. Again, it's one thing looking at a model on the web, quite another holding it in your hand and being able to turn it about for a good look.

Brewhouse Bash at full tilt.

So there you go. The internet. Not all weirdos and creepy bearded men. Sometimes it's weirdos and creepy bearded men with great paint skills who like to roll dice and have a laugh.

The Dire Grem - Concept to Complete

Over the last year or so I've been crossing the divide into miniature design, providing concept art for several new miniatures. I really get a kick out of seeing a concept of mine turned into a three dimensional object, and the idea that these miniatures will be gracing gaming tables for years to come gives me a little glow.

The original concept.

One model I've particularly enjoyed seeing move through this process has been the Dire Grem for Macrocosm. The Dire Grem is part of the Grem Alliance, which have just been released. Essentially a  sci-fi troll, it's not something I had seen done before, so it was great fun coming up with one. Added to that the sculpt was created by Diego Serrate, one of my favourite modern sculptors. Seeing the concept pass through his hands into a green was a pleasure.

The final painted versions you can see here below, with some of the variant heads. With their release, this trio of hungry nutters is now off into the wild to join armies and warbands in need of some muscle. Sniff! They grow up so fast!

Heavily armed, and not a braincell between them.

VGG Interview

Today, in a flurry of self-promotion, I point you over to an interview I did for VGG, run by the powerfully charming Victor Gannon. Vic is the man behind the mighty KnaveCon, a behemoth of the Irish games convention calendar, and a damn good time. Am I talking about KnaveCon now, or Vic? Both, in truth.

Anyway, here's the link. Victor is a boardgame nut, so anyone with even the mildest interest in boardgames should check out his sterling reviews. In particular, anyone from the Irish gaming scene should make it their business to get to KnaveCon for the BIG FUNS.

Also, if you are playing a game with Vic, never trust a word he says.

Painty Time 2

Last weekend I continued the tradition of getting some mates down for a bit of a painting session. We set up in the man cave and settled down for day's clipping, gluing, painting and basing while talking shite and listening to various stand-up comedy routines on the interwebs.

It's rather amazing when your hobby usually comes in one hour bursts of an evening, how much you can get done in a full day. I managed to build a 50x50mm base extender for my meargh, a small but necessary job I had been putting off. Plundering other folks hobby supplies is an unexpected boon as well. I was offered a stash of volcanic rock for tarting up the base extender which, due to whatever way it forms, scales excellently to 28mm miniatures. I managed to fix a fimm standard bearer who had been damaged in battle, a fiddly job as the standard broke at the top of the pin I had put in, meaning I had to pare back the plastic to reveal enough pin to allow me to glue it back into a newly drilled standard pole. A real pain in the h$*e. He still needs a little paint before he is re-admitted to the cabinet.

Finally, I painted three wyrm daemons which I'll be using as 'crew' for the hellcannon version of Crom. All in all a goodly day's work. My hobby brethren assembled manticores, artillery, hellpit abominations and terrain along with a bunch of other bits and bobs. I am still chuckling after one irate comment: "Argh! There's nowhere I can put my fingers on the plagueclaw catapult where there aren't f@$king spikes!!"

A very pleasant surprise was a box of dark elves that was presented to me as the owner had left the hobby some time ago and they were just hanging about. Delving in I discovered a cache of 3rd edition dark elves, warriors, command and characters, some Marauder, some Citadel. Lovely.

Some games were then played. The very simple bit tremendously fun Ribbit. A great game for kids as well as bitter veteran gamers.

Next up the excellent Letters from Whitechapel. This is a cracker. Similar to Fury of Dracula, it pits the London constabulary against the infamous Jack the ripper. Essentially a game of cat and mouse, Jack must escape from the scene of the crime back to his lair before the police close in. I did manage to do in all the girls and confound the coppers this time round. Muahhahahaaa...

After wiping off the blood of the innocent, we thought we'd give Triumph and Treachery another go. I enjoy this expansion, and this time proved no different. Skaven, Orcs & Goblins and Fimir (chaos warriors) played hold the centre using only 500 points each.

Over the course of the game it tooed and frooed with pleasant regularity, the skaven initially causing terrible damage with thier ranged weapons while the goblins shoved two fanatics in front of my chariot, smashing it to splinters. Of course, the next thing they did was panic off the table along with the spider riders. Heh.

The cards provided constant hilarity, frustrating skaven shooting phases and removing rank bonuses. Not before the warp lightning cannon blasted Crom off the table though. I managed to take the centre and rack up a couple of turns worth of victory tokens before charging Grunsgul into the remains of the savage orcs and getting butchered. MVP certainly went to the savages, who chopped their way through skaven globadiers, the lightning cannon, stormvermin and finally my dirach. Still, I managed to come out with the most coinage and stole the win. Great fun.T&T rewards aggressive abandon combined with ruthless back stabbing, so perfect for my group.

All in all a good weekend, we'll certainly be doing the painting/chatting/drinking thing again.

Cityhammer - Post Mortem

marlwyrms on the charge.

Last weekend saw the first Cityhammer, a small event in Limerick for a few folks to get together and play some friendly warhammer at 2,500 points set up by Jay McKeown, the wargaming honcho for BroCon. Well, I say friendly, but what I mean is non-competitive. Actually, more not a strict tournament than non-competitive. Just as well as I was more forgetful than usual with the old rules.You know what it's like when the dice start rolling.

The photos here are from his Craigness, you can see some more here. You can often catch Craig weeping softly on the Blog of Grudges.

I took my fimir (warrior of chaos). I took a lvl 4 Nurgle Daemon Prince on lore of death with all the toys, a defensive Nurgle  BSB with the Crown of Command, a lvl 1 sorcerer with Dispel Scroll, and Throgg. 17 Nurgle Chaos Warriors with halberd, full command and the Standard of Discipline, 3 crushers with ensorcelled weapons and the gleaming pennant, 17 Forsaken of Khorne, 5 Chaos Warhounds, Hellcannon and 5 Chaos Trolls.

Game 1: Bruce Sutton - Orcs & Goblins
I've known Bruce for a good while now, but we've never managed to play each other. We decided to finally consummate the relationship. Bruce was playing with a large block or black orcs, boyz, arrer boyz, a stone thrower, 2 orc chariots, doom diver, a unit of six trolls and a large mob of gobbos with 2 heroes with great weapons, shaman and fanatics. An bsb and fighty lord completed the army.

Things went awry for Bruce early as he failed all three required animosity rolls and had to charge with all three units, the arrer boyz, wolf riders and gobbos. None connected bar the wolf riders, who saw off my warhounds.

The fimir mean to teach them orcs some manners.

We juggled about a bit before the battle lines met. My warped (forsaken) took a charge from two orc chariots and a unit of black orcs and were wiped out to a man. Well, fimir. Rolling double six for the chariots impact hits was painful. In return the black orcs were murdered by the fimm (chaos warriors) and meargh (daemon prince). The goblin unit turned out to be a real pain, after unloading their fanatics with great weapon wielding goblin heroes actually managing to take down a few warriors. The eventually failed their steadfast roll and fled only to be run down. On the flanks a unit of trolls and wyrm riders (skullcrushers) danced about each other for most of the game. My hellcannon performed poorly, hitting bugger all before running off an orc chariot. My unit of fianna fimm with dirach, (Trolls with Throgg) which I'd never taken before surprised me with their ungodly kill power. Throgg is a murderer.

The MVP on my side was certainly the meargh. She was toting lore of death this game, and purple sunned her way through a high tally of orcs, gobbos and various heroes. We called it at the end of turn three, slow play (we were taking it pretty easy) dictating we call it. I came out about 400 victory points on top. A great game with a high blood content.

Throgg. What a pr*ck.

Game 2: Kevin Rynne - Bretonnians
Kevin is a great player to face as he is both gracious and merciless. He knows the game extremely well which is gold for someone like me who plays less than I might like to. He played Bretonnians (Game of Thrones themed), a tough army to win consistently with. Kevin fielded four units of knights of various flavours, two trebuchets, a big unit of men at arms, some archers and three peg knights as well as a couple of paladins, a heroic killing blow lord and some damsels.

The first couple of turns elapsed with Kevin lining up the optimum charges and myself trying to best line up to receive them. I did manage to get a purple sun through two units of knights, and the lord did fail his look out sir, but then managed to escape purpley death. Darn.

Two lances of knights including the choppy lord barrelled into the warriors, who took it well and would most likely have held if the bsb hadn't been cut down by the Bret lord. They broke and fled, and were cut down.

The trolls spent a few turns trying to avoid the flaming knight unit, but it was not to be. They were cauterised in short order, but by the end of the game the lord was down to a single paladin companion. Not before he employed his heroic killing blow on my hellcannon though. I did forget it's ward too. Sigh. The daemon prince got stuck into a unit of men-at-arms with a 5+ ward, and only ran them down in the last turn, ensuring her escape.

Once again the forsaken proved their worth (to me, anyway) and ran off a lance of knights a couple of times, but were never able to catch them, and the knights held them off long enough for reinforcements to arrive. The crushers were able to hold out long enough to down a couple pegasus knights, but in the end I was taken down piecemeal. Kevin has the movement phase pretty well down and it was good to see some great examples of how to get the most out of the phase.

A cracking game, Kevin seeing me off back to the swamps. He had a little glow about him after the game.

A spooky mortis engine.

After a break for some grub we got into the evening's entertainment, board games and a four player game of Triumph & Treachery, Games Workshop's new expansion for warhammer. Two dwarf and two chaos players duked it out. The dwarf players had a bad time of it, being run over by Jay and his unstoppable monsters. I for one have to apologise for faffing about in deployment, sorry Bruce! I played much too cautiously, only barely resisting the temptation to charge a unit of dwarf warriors in the rear after convincing them I was friendly. Why did I do that?! Jay ran away with it, easily amassing a fortune in tokens. The cards didn't affect the game as much as I'd hoped, but again I think we need to give it another shake.

Not the best first outing I think, but I believe the game works well, and I'd certainly be willing to give it another go, I feel it's a good expansion.

Angry dinosaurs.

The High Elf dragon known as 'Craig's Bane'

Asur vs Lizardemen

Good fun all in all, though I was totally wrecked by the end of it, but still managed to drive back to Galway through ice and freezing fog.

I'd do it again though.

(An oldhammer mate of mine brought me a very welcome package on the day too, some new fimi... ah, I means 'marsh daemon' sculpts just out from Oakbound Games. Check them out at here the Oldhammer forum. A review of these fellows soon.)

New Lizards - Over the Crest of the Hill

There has been a flurry of images of the new lizardman models over the last couple of days. The now mandatory big multi-kit, new flyers, characters and so on. They all look pretty good too. The Bastilodon with the ark of Sotek (I'm assuming that's the one with the snakes) looks a bit weird, but still interesting. It looks like the lizards are getting a major shake up, and not before time. This post is more about how lizards are the first of the army book I'm really looking forward to seeing, and the next few even more so.

The last few book, warriors, daemons and high elves and so on have been good, and I applaud the more balanced approach favouring multiple viable lists and high octane release schedule, but I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens from now on.

All the more popular books have been done, (bar skaven) and only the weak, boring or more unbalanced books remain now lizards are imminent. The new spell deck might help toward fixing the slann problem. I agree slann should be powerful magic users, but a build without a slann should be equally feasible. I don't play lizards, but I'm very much looking forward to seeing the new book. As to the remaining books, I can't wait. Here's the list of what's left in the order I think it might appear:

Dark Elves: Rumoured to be possibly next. The army is not as powerful as it was, and is still pretty solid, but the sacrificial dagger and unkillable pegagus lord should be nervous, as well as the current incarnation of the hydra. Though, I can see a massive hydra-based multi-kit.

Dwarves: These guys need an injection of fun, both for those who play with and against them. The rumour is golems and airships, but who knows. One thing is for sure, they are pretty boring to play against right now. Sorry dwarf players!

Wood Elves: Ah, the poor wood elves. I hear rumblings about the welves, who are set to keep the guerrilla fighter approach, with powers to affect the enemy army's formations. A veritable avalanche of new units such as monstrous stag cavalry and new tree beasties. I have a feeling there will be a lot of wood elf armies once the new book hits, possibly amongst the more experienced players.

Bretonnians: Crying out for a new book, though they have become more popular since the renaissance of cavalry in 8th. They desperately need some variety, the amount of units available seems very small compared to recent books.

Skaven: What can I say? Currently they have an awesome variety of hideously useful toys. Prepare the nerf bat for some stuff, (goodbye doomrocket) and big up some of my favourites such as the poor rat ogres. A delicate touch is needed here, no knee-jerk nerf everything, but a considered approach to balance.

Beastmen: They need their big monsters to not be rubbish, and some more tools for dealing with big enemy monsters. They're a ways out though, I reckon.

All Quiet on the Martian Front - Kickstarter Update

The All Quiet on the Martina Front kickstarter go off to a huge start last week with it achieving the base funding level in a few hours. Currently over at around $116,000, pledge levels have tailed off over the last couple of days, but since then, Alien Dungeon (one of the most responsive kickstarters I've been involved with) have totally re-jigged the stretch goals and some of the pledges, and the amount of free stuff has gone up several notches.

The miniatures (especially the Martian tripods, and let's face it, if they sucked, this would be over) look great, and as recent scale shots posted up have shown, are way, way bigger than I first thought for a 15mm game. The assault tripods are 6" tall, for example.

Anyone who has even a passing interest in War of the Worlds or general steampunkery should give this a look see, even more so now that the stretch goals have had an update.

BastardCon Lite - KnaveCon 1

 

BastardCon Lite, now christened KnaveCon, was held over Saturday 27th April last weekend in Limerick. €10 in on the day, it was a day of board game, coffee and casual gaming was the plan and we had an immense library of games for the day's fun. As with all new ventures, we had low expectations on turnout, but with twenty one gamers showing up we filled the room pretty rapidly.

Over the course of the day some of the games played were The Walking Dead, Axis & Allies, Smallworld, Blood Royale (I promise to read the rules first next time) Seasons, Spartacus (loved that), X-Wing, Death Angel, Mansions of Madness, Dracula and a pile of others. There was a large game of Werewolf and a now semi-traditional game of chocolate roulette.

Always hilarious.

The day was intended for playing those games maybe you don't get a chance to play often or at all. With the feedback from the day we'll certainly be having a KnaveCon 2, probably near the end of the Summer, and all are welcome! You can see more info over at The Drax Report.

BastardCon Lite - Boardgames Day

This Saturday the League of Bastards are holding a light gaming day, boardgames, card games and whatever you're having yourself. X-wing, Space Hulk, Dreadfleet, Settlers, The Fury of Dracula, Smallworld, Werewolf, and a million others. I'll be bringing along some old school games like Chaos Marauders and Blood Royale. If you're in Ireland and/or the Limerick area and fancy it, sure pop along. There's will be a bring and buy/trade if enough people are interested and bring stuff. It's €10 in to cover the room hire, and will be pretty laid back. The details are on the poster above.

Campaignhammer - Running a Long-Term Campaign

For some years now, myself and my gaming compadres have been trying to put together a system for running a decent warhammer campaign. We've had some successes, with mini campaigns run over a long weekends and some attempts at designing our own system. But the holy grail of campaign gaming eluded us, the long-term narrative campaign. Recently, it seems as if we have cracked this particularly hard gaming nut. The problems ranged against you doing this are manifold. Coordinating player's games and orders, people living in various parts of the country and thus the problem meeting for games, life in general and campaign fade out syndrome, to name a few.

Using a modified version of the original mighty empires rules plus various extra rules from old White Dwarf articles, we've set up a campaign running among nine players with a dedicated non-player gm. We've set up a blog for all map updates, fluff and general campaign news, as well as a dedicated email group. I think the key to it all is the gm. someone willing to run the campaign long-term. It's a lot of work, and we're lucky enough to have such a person. That in place, I have taken on the mantle of map-maker and updater (see the pretty picture above) which also helps. When we meet up for a campaign weekend, I have a large-scale version of the map printed out so we can set the game up easily.

We've so far been lucky with players too, everyone knows it's a commitment, but not overly so. Tabletop games can be resolved without playing the actual game due to an alternate system, but those the want to and have the time to play can. We've had only one player fall at the first hurdle and just not participate, and as we have nine, that's not too bad as we can compensate.

As a big fan of narrative games I'm loving it. There will be scenario driven games depending on the hex and various conditions, and it's way more fun to have the host of  the vampire lord Stephane Dreux send his rotting fleet to brave the magical storms and land on the island of Asur's Rest to assault the remote dwarven coastal settlement there than x vampire counts army battles y dwarven army.

We're still only in year 2, but it looks like it will run it's course. We still need to settle on specific victory conditions, as I think all good campaigns need to have a definite finish point, or they just fizzle. We're having a blast so far though!

Don't Listen to the Voices - Staying Focused on a Project

Of late I've had very little time for hobby. Work has pretty much sucked up all the time available, and then some. It doesn't help that my office is also my hobby cave, so I occasionally look over my shoulder and sigh forlornly at the batch of unpainted models waiting my attention. Poor little mites. It doesn't help that this is only one of a number of projects I have on the go, even I DID have time for it right now. I'm going to take a breather to write this though, so I feel I've had some hobby input this month.

I have noticed also, as the momentum on my fimir project has been mired down until it is now barely idling, that the voices have started.

Don't pretend you don't hear them too.

The little whispers that make you wonder if you should start that new project, surely you'll be able to fit it in? Just one new model, as a break? That gang/character/vehicle/unit/team won't take long. And look at all that new stuff, looks nice eh? Of course, the occasional rummage through the tower of lead/plastic/resin (you know what I mean there too) reveals a model or two you've really been meaning to paint for years now. It's all very distracting.

Personally I have three warhammer armies on the go, a pile of mighty empires campaign markers to do, some terrain to finish and a blood bowl team to assemble. Years of painting right there. I know this is a common phenomenon, as perfectly illustrated by a post in the excellent Iron Mitten. Check it out here. So, there's a whole plethora of reasons we do this, which is not my focus today. Rather, how does one combat these distracting little whispers? I have managed to dismiss all the notions of parking the fimir to work on other projects (when I have time again) and here's how I'm doing it:


1. Pick a project you're passionate about. The more you love it, the more likely it will get finished.

2. Keep up a decent rate of work. Give yourself short - term goals. "I'll paint ten rank and file this week." Small steps done regularly are better than nothing.

3. Don't take on too much at once. Concentrate on achievable chunks. Don't tackle all fifty goblins at once. Do them in batches of ten, or even five, and intersperse them with more exciting parts of the army.

4. Keep and eye on the reward. Keeping reminding yourself how great it will all look when done. How you will bask in glory and the wonder of your peers.

5.  Use the forums. The internet is FULL is forums running painting threads, army plogs etc. These are mostly full of people who will cheers you on. It also helps when you get pinged for updates. It's harder to give up if you've got folks egging you on. I've made huge use of this, and it's an ENORMOUS encouragement.

For those of you lucky enough to have local clubs or gaming stores, tell people how you're getting on, bring in what you have so far, ask for advice. It's all a big help.

6. Take a break.  

"What, but you said?!"

Forget what I said. That was then. I don't mean dustcover the whole project for weeks, but don't hammer away at it every night either. Take a night off, watch a movie, go for a bracing stroll (or a bracing troll, whatever tickles your fancy), take your partner out for dinner, all that good stuff. Hmm. This sounds a bit patronising. Still! it's no less true for all that. It'll revitalise you when you return to the painting table.

7. Talk to your minis. No, I'm kidding. Or am I? I am. Am I?


Hopefully there will be something here to help keep you from having six half painted armies while waiting for number seven to arrive in the post. Now, where's that fimm I was working on...

B*stardCon6 - Campaign Time

Once again, the con that isn't really meets up. This time, we initiate our warhammer campaign, so a weekend of campaign playtesting and grudge games await. We've been slowly gathering momentum behind our Sundered Isles campaign, which we're documenting on CampaignHammer. Hopefully this will be a mighty record of the war to come and an aid to anyone else hoping to run a warhammer campaign. If we can pull it off ourselves, that is.

B*stardCon5 - The Sunday Game

A few weeks ago the last BastardCon ran a multi-player game on the Sunday, as is our wont. For a much more detailed article you can head on over to The Blog of Grudges, where RedCraig will fill you in on how he stabbed me in the back after making an oath to ally until such time as we had sent the rest of the pack running. A dwarf! Breaking an oath! It was as well most of his band were slayers already.

The fact that I was going to do exactly the same thing to him the next turn is irrelevant.

Anyhow. We've had pretty poor luck organising a decent multi-player game at BastardCon thus far. Recently though, I've discovered in the BigRedBook, there is a section on multi-player scenarios. I'm so used to the LittleRedBook that I'd forgotten they were there! So, maybe that might be a runner for next time.

For this scenario it was essentially controlling objectives, i.e. the den of scum and villany that was brotheltown. We had quite the entertaining time naming the various buildings. six players duked it out to control these buildings, each of which conferred various bonuses on the owner. We had six turns, and the one controlling the most buildings at the end was the winner.

So, why didn't it work?

The table was too big. We should have played it on a 4x4 table instead of a 6x4. As it was there was too much footslogging to get to town. This prompted a bout of JK's legendary whining.

Not enough urban terrain. This is just a failing in our terrain set. We just don't have enough buildings. I aim to rectify this over the next few months. More alleys, line of sight blocks and killzones would have made for a better game.

Back-stabbing dwarves. RedCraig just couldn't help himself. In all honesty though, this provided the most entertainment of the entire game. All those slayers fighting up the steps of the ziggurat made for great tales of heroism. My vampire lord was a nightmare for the dwarves, the problem being he couldn't be everywhere at once. Still, turning dwarves to dust with my wight was great fun. It was also a great opportunity to try out various equipment combinations on my characters. Sword of Kings FTW.

We're well into starting up our Sundered Isles campaign over at CampaignHammer, which any veteran wargamer knows is the holy grail of wargaming, let's hope we can pull it off!

40K - Genestealer Cults in 6th edition?

I'm pretty much a warhammer fantasy guy. The fantasy game holds a lot of appeal for me. I'm a square base man, I guess the parlance is.

But it wasn't always so.

Like a lot of gamers, I played 40k when I was younger. There was a time I loved nothing more than hefting a frag grenade through a broken window to take out an Ork weapon team . Well, the space marine, not me. Well, not really him either, it was kind of how I imagined he would throw it. Space marines probably heft a lot of things. If they were real. Anyway.

I never really left fantasy, but I played a lot of 1st - 3rd edition 40k. I had a few armies, but the one I loved the most was the genestealer cult. 'The what now?' I hear you say.

The genestealer cult was essentially the extended brood of a single powerful genestealer known as the patriarch. All the humans he had infected, all their hybrid progeny and the eventual purestrains that resulted formed a secret organisation which slowly ate away at a host society until they reached the positions of power required to undermine it and pave the way for tyranid invasion. The patriarch was unaware that eventually the entire world would be eaten if he was successful. This included his followers, which added that extra level of horror.

This made for a great looking army. Infected humans, known as brood brothers, might look human, but were utterly loyal to the cult. Human/genestealer hybrids, ramshackle vehicles, even a limo for the patriarch. I love that. An alien four-armed monster, but dammit, he wants to ride in a limo. In the 40th millennium. Genius.

Sadly, the cult was abandoned in later editions, and ultimately I left the game to concentrate on fantasy, though I do still run a genestealer cult gang in Necromunda. Which brings me (eventually) to my point. I have heard some exciting little rumours that we may see the return of the cult with 6th edition. This is awesome news, if true. This would be the list that would make me take up 40k again. In. A. Heartbeat.

Hey, they brought the Jokaero back.

For a great cult army take a gander here: Chris Showers Genestealer Cult