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, February 01, 2009
French Military Victories Google Result
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
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
North American Stonehenge?
A professor at Northwestern Michigan College has discovered what appears to be a site of Stonehenge-like standing stones 40 feet under Lake Michigan. One seems to have been decorated with the carving of a mastodon
More on the Lake Michigan Standing Stones.
