Thursday, November 05, 2009
Halloween 2009 Game Report
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Every year near Halloween, I present a horror-themed extravaganza for my gaming group. Past games have featured Cowboys versus Victorian Horrors, Weird War II, Science Fiction Horrors, Victorian Werewolf and Vampire hunters, Dr. Frankenstein’s Monsters versus the Villagers and a Cthulhu Monster Hunt.
This year, I was inspired by Ambush Alley Games’ Ambush Z rules and the excellent 15mm Zombie figures from Rebel Minis, Khurasan, Splintered Light and 15mm.co.uk. In the end, I painted about 200 zombie figures—far more, it turned out, than I needed for the Ambush Z rules.
The scenario involved three squads of troops—Special Forces, Police and HazMat specialist charged with leading groups of survivors out of an infected town. The police began in town; the HazMat team just outside, and the Special Forces on the other side of a large stretch of fields and woods outside town.
The police and HazMat teams moved quickly to hook up—there was only a foot of heavily zombie infested tabletop between their initial positions. Once in support of each other, they were able to amass a large quantity of survivors from the buildings and quickly dispatch any zombie hordes that appeared. But a lucky roll for the Zombies increased their die quality from a d6 to d8, making them more difficult to kill. The zombies were, however, no more focused than before. Taking advantage of the angles between the buildings, the human teams were able for the most part to keep them out of the line of sight, and thus milling about aimlessly.
In the meantime, the Special Forces team was having a hard time crossing three feet of open terrain. Their player was too cautious, and that allowed the zombies to build up between his position and the police and Hazmat teams. The Special Forces killed Zombies by the dozens, but were unable to clear a comfortable path to town. We decided later that in this game, you just need to keep pushing forward, creating a pocket of safety around you with firepower.
But even as the Special Forces failed to make headway, the other two teams kept slugging forward, each losing but a single figure in getting out of the town. Finally, they managed to dash into the open terrain, leaving the confines behind.
Then disaster struck. The police unit had a run of extraordinarily bad luck, allowing a couple of zombie units to close and ultimately eat all of the police and the citizens they were escorting. The Hazmat team and its citizens, however, finally managed to settle under the covering fire of the Special Forces, who by this time had also lost a man to a zombie assault. Finally, they managed to beat off one last zombie attack and pull back off the exit end of the board
The Ambush Z rules played very well, and within a couple of turns we no longer had to reference the QRS. We did run into a couple of points of confusion, however, concerning how to proceed when multiple groups of zombies are close enough to react into contact with the living players. I’m still not sure we did it right. The rules were good enough, though, that I’m planning on painting some Rangers, Delta Force and Somalis and using the sister set of rules, Ambush Alley for a “Black Hawk Down” game . I also think they’d do well with a Colonial marines versus Alien Hordes game.
The buildings in town were created with the help of Evan Designs’ Model Builder software. While the software has a 15mm scale setting, I found that it looked too small, so the ones you see are in a 1/76 scale. The images were printed out on a HP inkjet on 110lb paper, then folded, glued and taped. I had thought about gluing the printed images to foam core frames, but ran out of time. The fieldstone walls and piles of debris are from Tactical Conflict Systems (which I believe are no longer in business).
The figures came from a variety of sources, including modern zombies from Rebel Minis, zombies of an indeterminate period from Khurasan, and fantasy zombies from Splintered Light and 15mm.co.uk. The Rebel minis were the best for my purposes, being clearly modern figures. They were smaller than the others, but had a nice amount of detail, considering that they are 15mm. My only regret is that there isn’t even more variety. The Khurasan minis were slightly larger, and reminded me of the sort of zombies you’d see on a Scooby Doo cartoon, with long hair, snarling faces and tattered, draped clothing. The Splintered Light zombies were designed for fantasy games, but at 15mm they worked well enough. At any rate, they were very nicely sculpted and cleanly cast. There were, however, several unusable figures, such as the “dwarf” zombie in a helmet. The zombies from 15mm.co.uk were the largest, and most crudely sculpted of the bunch. They also were clearly medieval, with period clothing and belt purses.
In addition to the metal 15mm figures, I also bought a bag of railroad figures on Ebay from a company in China. They were slightly smaller and thinnner than the 15mm figures, but painted up and based, looked nice enough. I used these for the civilians.
You can see more photos of the Zombie game here.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Walkerloo Napoleonic Miniatures Review
The Walkerloo Napoleonic miniatures are the most unique and wonderful toy soldiers I have seen in a very long time.
The figures are large (1/20 scale), die cut from heavy cardboard and printed in vibrant colors. They are kept upright by placing them in round plastic bases. They may be flat, but the illustrations are animated, colorful and full of character. You can’t help but smile when you hold one.
Creator Christopher Walker writes:
I made the first figures for my nephew and myself. I’m not a marketeer. I try to make pictures, perhaps beautiful (the widest definition of the word) ones(?). I wanted to create a romantic object in the spirit of my interest and fascination with things ‘military’. I also loved the notion of an expansive floor filling battle… in colour… like that in final scenes of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!
... of course they have historic resonance in the costume research and poses, (I posed for them all myself! - I’ve come to realize this makes it a weird type of self portrait… ha! Walkerloo) - but its still all just pretend… and made of cardboard 200 years after the event… The costumes are accurate.. and not. After a day and and night of rain not to mention the previous engagements the costumes would have been very scruffy… Philip Haythorthwaite told me that many of the British Dragoon jackets had not had their dye ‘fixed’ ... and so their trousers and horses after the night of heavy rain would have been streaked with red dye.
The scale was an instinctual decision. I wanted sufficient detail so as it could be read easily. Later 1:20 seemed to work well regarding the blade manufacture for the die-cut process. And 1:20 was familiar from my time as an architectural student… that was also where I began making card models! I coloured the first soldiers in marker pen… but yourre restricted with colours so I experimented with paint… Gouache pigments made the colours really sing and gave the pictures an attractive solidity… The original paintings have been getting bigger with each new regiment as my eye for detail becomes more attuned. The figures are now about 50% of the original art work.
While I wouldn’t roll pots and pans at the figures like Grandpa Potts and Lord Scrumptious, the figures surely will stand up to regular tabletop (or floor) play. My seven year old has been playing with the samples I was sent, and the only damage they’ve suffered is a little bit of dirt dulling the vibrant colors.
A table full of Walkerloo Napoleonics would make a spectacular game at a convention show, or as a neat change of pace for your regular group. They’re perfect for a skirmish game (assuming you can find appropriate trees and buildings—but I think you can), or given enough space, a larger scale encounter. I’d love to see a dozen of these in each of several units massed for combat.
These figures would lend themselves well to two games I’ve been planning for years. The first is a cavalry - swordfight skirmish game. With each player controlling two or three figures, the sides would charge together, and the fight would devolve into a whirling skirmish. Turning templates would help control the movement of the horses. The second game would involve battery and counterbattery, like a tabletop version of that old computer game where two cannons blaze away at each other from opposite ends of the screen. My game would use actual, but scaled down artillery tables.
For those short on time, or weak on eyesight, the Walkerloo figures would be a great way to get started in Napoleonics. I’ve always wanted Napoleonic armies, but have not had the time to start painting. Now I can have them ready made. I’m going to order a bunch of these figures as soon as I scrape together some extra cash.
You can find the Walkerloo figures here.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Supplier For Specialty Bottles
I like to mix my own figure washes in various colors using Future Floor Wax, water and acrylic hobby paints. It’s an integral part of my painting system. I typically waste too much of both floor wax and paint, however, because I inevitably mix much more than I need. It’s occurred to me that the thing to do is to mix a standard set of colors and store them in small bottles. But I never have because I could never figure out where to get the bottles.
Then I ran across a site called Specialty Bottle. They carry bottles in a wonderful variety of sizes, in glass, plastic, and tin. I think I’m going to get a bunch of smallish ones with eye droppers.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Speed Rally Car Race Game Review
Speed Rally gives you the opportunity to use your kids’ 1/64 scale Hotwheels and Matchbox cars and pit them against each other in a fantastic auto race. You can think of Speed Rally as a cross between Car Wars and Formula De. It’s not nearly as combat intensive as Car Wars, but offers more trickery than the latter (which has no combat options at all).
Speed Rally is easily learned and quickly played and thus is an ideal game as a filler when your regular game ends early. Gamers can just leave the previous game’s terrain in place and designate points for an off-road rally. For more complicated races, there’s always the option of printing, pasting and cutting out track segments to create a road track course.
One of the most clever aspects of the game is the car design process. Author JP Trostle has identified a number of toy car type archetypes—the “Bug”, Muscle, Stock, Formula, Wacky and so on. When picking a car to race from your kid’s car box, you match the car against a silhouette in the rules to determine the general type. Then, you build the car with various racing modifications and weaponry. Each has a point value, so cars can be made evenly matched.
The points values generally work well, but we thought that the “double engine” option was a game imbalancer.
Players also need to create a driver. Each has two basic stats: Skill and Reaction. The basic driver score can be improved at a points cost. Other advantages can be purchased, and the costs offset with “disadvantages” as with the GURPS role playing games. There also are rules for a campaign game that lets you improve your driver over time.
What I did to speed setup was to use a spreadsheet to create a score of cars in different classes before the game. After each player chose a car from the box, we agree on what silhouette best represents the vehicle, and a random vehicle of that type is chosen.
In terms of the racing mechanisms, it feels a lot like the board game Formula De. Each gear in the car is assigned a dice size, from the D4 representing first gear to the D12 representing fifth. A roll on the d4 will move you one or two spaces; on the d6, two to four spaces; the d8, 4-7 and so on. The lowest roll on each die will move you the maximum for the previous gear. A chart is used to determine movement, but the author encourages players to make a special set from blank polyhedral dice.
Movement is measured by a standardized car length and width—1.5” x 3”. The rules recommend that you attach the cars to the bases with blue-tac and this works well. For races on a track, you simply move the required number of spaces. In free form games, there’s a special ruler that you can print out use.
Turning is done either in the curved marked spaces on track, or with a turning template. The tightness of a turn is restricted by the gear that the car is in. Trying to make a tighter turn requires a dice roll check against the driver’s skill.
As a basic driving game, Speed Rally is moderately fun. The good times really begin, however, when the “combat” elements are introduced. In addition to basic maneuvering, drivers also have the option of blocking or bashing passing cars by expending an action. Cars with weaponry can use the action to attack other players. Drivers also can use their action for defensive maneuvering.
Another nice touch in the game are options for playing on the floor of your living room. Rules are provided for driving on various types of flooring and furniture.
If there’s one thing I’d like to see done with the game, it’s having some more options to bump up the combat. While it was fun shooting machine guns and rockets, we didn’t inflict nearly enough damage to satisfy the more bloodthirsty players in our group.
Overall, I think this is a terrific game. At just $10 for the pdf, it’s an affordable buy—and you likely already have all the “miniatures” you need to play in your kids’ (or your own) Hot Wheels car box.
You can buy it at http://www.speedrally.net
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Blitzkrieg 2 Anthology Video Game Review
Blitzkrieg 2 Anthology Review
Blitzkrieg 2 is a fun, fast-paced historically flavored game that takes you through several theatres of World War II.
Gameplay is what you’d expect of a real-time strategy game. You issue orders to your units, and them watch them peform on the screen. Battles for me often evolved into a furious clickfest, giving orders to one unit, and then sliding the screen across to issue new ones to a unit that had finished its mission.
The campaign game consists of a series of connected scenarios. Each starts you with a set of units—infantry, armor, artillery and what-have-you—and a set of objectives to meet. The objectives consist of either moving to, or defending a certain location.
What’s missing from the usual real-time strategy formula is the resource gathering. Instead, each scenario comes with a set number of reinforcements. When they become available, you can select from a list that varies from scenario to scenario.
While the game is set in World War II, I wouldn’t call it historical. While the units are recognizable, the mix of units available and their performance often defies expectations. Infantry, for example, is useless, getting mowed down in seconds by enemy units. When dug into a building, the enemy just brings it down around them. Infantry in a trench doesn’t fare much better.
Tanks, on the other hand, appear far too frequently, and are way too tough. Japanese armor strength—both in numbers and in individual toughness—seemed to me way too strong. And there were a couple of European scenarios where I can’t recall seeing a single German infantry unit.
The game is so armor heavy, that when you get reinforcements, there’s no reason to settle for anything less than the heaviest tanks available.
Still, the game is a lot of fun. It’s got that addictive quality where you keep saying to yourself: “just five more minutes.” And then before you know it, it’s 3 am and you realize you’ve been playing for eight hours.
As a casual gamer, I appreciated the ease of play—I ran through the tutorial scenarios and then was able to jump right into the game. There are a lot of “hot keys” available, but I didn’t have to remember any of them because there always are icons available.
A final word about the graphics and sound—aspects which concern computer gamers, but to me are secondary to gameplay.
The graphics are just right for the game: not overly intricate, but with a lot of flavor. You clearly identify each of the units, and they look quite a bit like the real-world things they represent. It’s a bit like watching little toy soldiers and tanks on the screen.
It’s also a lot of fun to watch the damage that the weapons wreak on the terrain Trees fall down, buildings degrade and then collapse, artillery turns ground into moonscapes.
The sound also is fine, but I turned the music off after a few minutes and eventually turned off the sound effects so I could watch television while playing.
In all, I thought the Blitzkrieg 2 Anthology was a huge amount of fun. It’s a nice diversion for those weekends where you can’t get together with your buddies to play with lead and dice.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Warhammer Ancient Battles Viking vs Norman Battle Report
I recently finished the second phase of my 1066 Campaign project by basing and clear coating more than 300 Norman infantry and cavalry. To celebrate, I ran a large Warhammer Ancient Battles game featuring Vikings and Normans. There are some photos of the Viking, Normans and the table here.
The scenario involved a Viking attack on a Norman province. The Viking force was approximately half Hirdmen, and half Bondi, with a smattering of bows, Ulfhednar and berserkers. The Normans consisted of about 1/3 each of cavalry, knight infantry, and medium/light troops. There were also several contingents of mercenary crossbow.
The main body of the Vikings advanced behind a screen of bow and ulfhednar skirmishers. These took heavy casualties from the Norman crossbowmen, whose range was much longer.
Still, the skirmishers did their job, and the main body of Vikings advanced with little damage.
Then the Norman cavalry charged. The Viking players (myself included) were convinced that the Normans would sweep away all in their path. It didn’t work out that way. The Normans had some incredibly bad luck, and the cavalry actually lost all of the combats; they then failed their leadership tests and fled.
At this point, the beserkers in the Viking ranks ran forward and hammered a couple of Norman knight infantry that got too close. They didn’t break, but lost enough figures to lose future rank bonuses.
The main body of Vikings next came into contact with the Norman knight infantry. More incredibly bad rolling for the Normans followed, and the Norman infantry began to slowly fall back.
In Warhammer, however, the tide can quickly change. One unit of Viking hirdmen lost a combat, then blew a leadership test. Adjacent units flubbed their panic tests, and the entire left wing of the Viking army fell back.
The right wing, however, continued its slow, inexorable push. One by one the Norman knight units—both mounted and foot—fell back. They recovered, but always losing ground, and running out of table.
After several winning turns on the left, the Normans returned to form with their luck and began losing again. Two Norman medium infantry units were destroyed, as were two units of peasants.
By this time, the Vikings had a numerical advantage—not necessarily in figures, but in units. That meant that they could pin the Normans with one unit, while flanking them with others.
It was hopeless. We all agreed that at this point, the mounted knights would head for the hills, leaving the hapless foot troops behind to get slaughtered.
We all like Warhammer Ancients—its fun, but as one 30-year veteran wargamer said, “it’s very Games Workshoppy.” There are plenty of bits in the game that leave us scratching our heads.
The main complaint was with the armor saves. After rolling to hit, and then to wound, it was one roll too many. We had quite a bit of discussion about whether it’s really needed. A much more clean solution would be to adjust the toughness of the figure to reflect armor. An unarmored human for example, might have a base toughness of 2. Add a shield, and it’s a 3; light armor makes it a 4, heavy armor and shield is a 5; and so on.
Of course, the real problem is Games Workshop’s decision to base all of their games on the d6. The three different rolls are necessary to provide sufficient granularity distinguishing between troop types—especially with different races in the fantasy and science fiction games.
I’m kind of surprised that they haven’t switched to 10 or 12 sided dice. As part of their business model GW makes their old system obsolete every few years, introducing “new” rules, army lists and models. It would be easy for them to make a clean break with the d6 system and to go to two rolls (it also would cut out people like me playing with a Squat army painted twenty years ago, and still using the same stats; I’d have to buy a new rule book to play with current players).
One argument for keeping the armor save is that it keeps the defender involved. We rejected this; the defender could make the toughness roll as a “save.”
Finally, a few notes about the figures and terrain:
The vast majority of the figures in the game are Gripping Beast. The exceptions were a “horde” of Foundry Vikings that I had bought one year on sale. They’re all painted with Vallejo paints, and heavy doses of wash made from Future. My technique is to paint an area in its base color, then to apply a wash of a deeper hue.
Figures based on 1 inch washers, which are coated in superglue and then dipped in mix of several different shades of fine model railroad ballast. When that’s dry, I apply a couple more dabs of superglue and then dipped into green flock.
The movement trays were made of cardboard and magnetic vinyl. To speed play, I stuck small bits of paper with the unit’s stats to the rear of the bases.
The table is covered with carpet squares I found at Big Lots. The squares were sprayed with various shades of acrylic spray paint to give an uneven look.
The buildings are all Hudson and Allen. The roads are hand made from brown acrylic caulk. I squeeze some out on wax paper, then smear it to the proper width with wet popsicle sticks. Just before they set, I use the same sticks to put rut impressions in them, and doss on a couple of pieces of gravel and small sticks. When the road pieces are dry, I trim to size with scissors.
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About the Miniature Wargaming Hobby
Miniature Wargaming is part of the "adventure games" hobby, which includes r ole p laying and board games. Wargamers recreate battles on the tabletop with toy soldiers, like a more complicated game of chess. Models range in height from 6mm to 28mm tall, with 15mm and 25mm being the most popular. There also is a growing interest in toy soldiers and military models, such as the 1/32 and 1/35 scale plastic soldiers from Conte, and Marx.
The most popular miniature wargames are fantasy and science fiction based, such as Warhammer, Warhammer 40K, Warmachine and The Lord of the Rings. World War II games such as Flames of War and Axis and Allies are new favorites. Other favorite historical periods include Napoleonics, the American Civil War, and ancients, such as Romans or Greeks. Other gamers enjoy miniature naval wargames, recreating battles like Trafalgar, Jutland and the Coral Sea.
Hobbyists research historical periods and paint their tiny soldiers in accurate uniforms. Others develop "historically realistic" rules sets or build scale battlefield terrain using model railroad techniques.
For pictures, visit the gallery.
Some of the bigger hobby companies are Games Workshop, which produces Warhammer, Wargames Foundry and Old Glory Miniatures. Wizards of the Coast produces several lines of pre-painted miniatures games, such as the Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons miniatures games, and a historical game with pre-painted miniatures: The new Axis and Allies game. Wizkids produces a fantasy collectable miniatures game, such as the Mage Knight and Heroclick fantasy games, the science fiction games MechWarrior and Rocketmen, as well as the quasi-historical Pirates of the Spanish Main.
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