Wednesday, December 06, 2006
History Channel International
I’m fortunate enough to get both the Hisory Channel and History International and over the last several months, I’ve largely abandoned the former for the latter.
Tonight, for example, while The History Channel offered yet another pedestrian episode of Modern Marvels (which I’m sure is on at least half the time), History International offered a fascinating archaeological show called “The Naked Archaeologist.” On that episode, the host offered a fascinating theory about the possibility that early Christians were at Masada, and examined the archaeological evidence.
I must, however, be the only one that’s down on the History Channel’s current programming schedule, since they continue to offer more of the same. Someone - I guess a lot of someones out there—must like it.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Old Negro Space Program
If you’ve had it up to here with Ken Burns’ pretentious, self indulgent “history” films (and even more so of his less-talented imiatators), then you probably will enjoy The Old Negro Space Program. It’s got all of the trademark Burns trouches, including the overstuffed, unintentionally funny “experts.”
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Warhammer Historicals Legends of the Old West: Showdown
I just got my copy of Warhammer Historicals’ Legends of the Old West: Showdown and after flipping through it, wanted to offer a few impressions.
The primary thing you’ll notice is that it’s thin—both physically, and in content. There just isn’t much there.
The first two pages introduce a couple of new weapons: the lever action shotgun, whip, sword and several Chinese martial arts weapons. The next four are dedicated to a new posse—the Tong, plus stats for “The Man With No Name”, and the “Masked Avenger” (the Lone Ranger and Zorro, for example).
After that, there are three brief scenarios, a Dodge City campaign, a page of new special equipment rules, and a page with four prestige skills.
There is also some modeling advice and gorgeous pictures.
But what I bought the book for—and what I had big hopes for—were the new period settings. The book promises settings for the Wild Bunch, Prohibition, Gangs of New York, The American War of Independence, The French and Indian War, The Civil War, Naponeonic Wars, War of 1812, and Maximilian Adventure.
Unfortunately, those are pretty disappointing, too. The period information mostly consists of a large paragraph of elementary school history explaining the setting, and a couple of paragraphs of vague information on how to adapt the rules to the period. The adaptations consist mostly of telling you which of the other three rules books you should look to for rules ideas, and suggesting a couple of posse or individual profiles to look to for a starting point.
There’s nothing here that I hadn’t already figured out myself.
I’ll take a closer look at it when I use the rules to run French and Indian War and Boxer Rebellion games in a couple of weeks, but for now I rate this as a waste of money.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Praise For Gamers History
I just wanted to pass on a bit of praise for the Gamers History Bookstore in Fort Morgan, Colorado. I ordered a copy of Terry Gore’s Medieval Battles from them late last week, and it arrived today (Tuesday) —far faster than I expected. I was worried that it would come in an envelope that my mailman, in a fit of enthusiasm would try to stuff it in our box, but my fears were not realized. The voume arrived in perfect condition in a stiff, thin cardboard box.
Gamers History offers good, speedy service. I would use them again.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Beowulf and Grendel
I just got done watching Beowulf and Grendel (2005) and thought that it was an excellent retelling of the poem. Notice that I said retelling. It is, of course, not a literal translation and has many modern sensibilities. But all, in all, I really liked it. The costumes were excellent, the acting first rate, and the scenery interesting.
Of course, while watching it, I began to think about doing a wargame based on the story. My idea is to do a variant of Steve Jackson’s Ogre game. In it, you’d have a single monstrous figure (Grendel, the Ogre, would thus be the Ogre) versus a horde of lesser, one-hit point warriors (the GEVs). The gamemaster would play Grendel—who could soak up lots of hits in various locations—and the players would command the human warriors.
I have the Saxons/Vikings ready to play ... but I’m going to need an appropriate figure for Grendel.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Star Wars Starship Battles
I just saw the new Star Wars Starship battles miniatures at my local hobby shop. As a whole, they were pretty good looking. The ones I saw had good paint jobs and were well formed. A couple of the ships had permanently bent parts, but I because it was soft plastic, I’m pretty sure you could immerse them in hot water and bend them back.
The main complaint from gamers is of course, that the ships are all horribly out of scale to each other. I don’t see any way around that, though. Even if a Star Destroyer were three feet long, the fighters still would be miniscule.
Perhaps they should have found a way to break the game into two distinct portions, with a Capital Ships game, and a Fighter game. The fighters in the Capital Ship game could have been abstracted.
I didn’t get a chance to look at the rules, but the guys at the shop indicated that they thought they were simple, but fun.
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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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