We faced the 2014 Crisis....

...and lived to tell about it! 

Once more we, my son and his girl and yours truly, visited the largest and most enjoyable of all continental wargame shows, hosted by the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp: Crisis!

Under a clear blue sky in  most un-November like weather we waited in line until we could plunk down our entry fee in exchange for the traditional goodie bag, the free figure and a day of games and chat (and some minor shopping, of course). 

 Usually the goodie bag is emptied of the free figure (a rifle-wielding king Albert I this time) and discarded, since it is usually filled with well-meant but useless commercial advice. This year however the bag contained a veritable treasure of 5 plastic figures, a field-of-fire template, six laser-cut bases and a bag of crisps! And the Crisis Gazette, which I only viewed once back home to discover that it had held a most comprehensive map of the event. If only I'd known....

I had subscribed to the Battle of Keren Game by the Newark Irregulars. Having seen pictures from Salute of this game, I was very much looking forward to it. The table surpassed my greatest expectations! It was an absolutely smashing table, beautifully painted and about 1.80 meters high and filled with lovely figures. 

The game featured a climactic phase in the Battle of Keren, the fall of Fort Dologorodoc, taken by storm by British and Indian troops after a prolonged bombardment. We used the Chain of Command rules and the British launched a susprise attack up the hill while the Italian and Colonial troops were supposed to hold as long as possible. 

 The view downhill

Above you see Scrivs tirelessly explaining how this game came to be. 

 Below you see the view uphill. 

A tremendous amount of research and ingenuity went into building the Keren game. Everything you see here folds up so neatly it fits in the back of a Mini!

Here you see me on top of the mountain (the Italian player actually has to stand on a stool to be able to see his troops) directing my ever-dwindling Italian troops.

HOW many casualties you say you just scored?

And finally the British troops reached the summit, ending the game with my Italians still unbroken and fighting (if largely killed)! My sincere thanks to James and Scrivs for the privilege to play this magnificent game, that not only looks amazing, but delivers a thrilling game as well! 

After the Keren game I immersed myself in the chatting. gaming and shopping crowd. I met a fantastic array of tables, paintwork.

A magnificent steampunky winter landscape

Goblin Town from The Hobbit

An undisclosed Victorian display. 

Most of these pictures were taken by Annemarie and everyone who knows her, knows she loves her purple....

Next year I will built ten houses, sit in the Bring and Buy for an hour and sell them for insane prices. Then I will have more to spend than any other year before....

Vikings pillaging and burning (hopefully in the right order) a hapless Dark Age village

An impressive breach in Jerusalem's walls.. 

Freebooter once again made a great entry with this pirate table full of shipwrecks. It was unplayed at the time, a view I saw quite a lot actually. A lot of games either weren't particiation games or lacked players and/or hosts. Too bad, since there was a lot to be enjoyed playing the games.

Above to the right you can see what wide expanses you can build when you play small scales like 10 or 6mm.

 Above my son makes eyes at the impressive Deadzone table. 

Prodos also presented the prototype  of their Alien vs Predator game. 

I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will release the figures separately....

PS:
My son informed with the Prodos people whether they were planning to release the figures separately and it turns out they are!!!

Ohww Golly, where wil I get the money....?

Some paintwork defied belief, so well was it done. 

The illuminated demon idol and the Amazonian dragon below were just a few examples. 

And finally: Da Loot! 

I came away with the barest necessities this year: the 7TV ruleset with cards, dice and counters and the paranormal exterminators by Crooked Dice, Indians by Redoubt for my Roanoke Witchfinder General project, 10mm musketeers and swordsmen by Pendraken to fill out my TYW army, the B-Team by Foundry just for the heck of it and a Warlord German anti-tank gun to better kill Jasper's tanks next time. 

Many thanks to the boys and girls of the Tin Soldiers, who made this a fantastic day!!!

Poldercon First Edition!

February 8th the first edition of Poldercon blasts off into the annals of history! The new format wargames event of the Low Countries!

Watch the trailer here: PolderCon 2015 trailer

Register here: register@poldercon.nl

Be there! 

Jugula game review and first game

A long long time ago my wargaming life received one of its first powerful impulses through the game of Spacehulk, now in its third (and second limited, haha) reincarnation. It was one of those delightful crossovers between board- and miniature tabletop wargames that played fast and furious and still looked terrific. Every once in a while another such game comes along and this year it is Jugula by Studio Tomahawk.

Unlike Spacehulk Jugula is not an out-of-the-box game. It is made up out of a rule set, a minimum of one card deck per player and a simple but pretty paper playing board suitable for playing  on with pieces like 28mm figures which you have to provide yourself. It is a game about gladiatorial combat, but it is more of a board game, not a war game in the strict sense of the word. It is played on a board of 64 squares (so a chess board would work just fine in a pinch) and played with a minimum of 4 different playing pieces per side. It can accommodate 2 to 4 players.

The 4 playing pieces per player represent 4 different Gladiators, taken straight from the heydays of the Roman Empire. You can assemble a team by choosing 4 Gladiator cards from a deck of 12 different types, divided in light or heavy gladiators. The well-known, like the Murmillo, the Retiarius, the Secutor and the Thraex are here, but also the more mysterious ones like the Scissor and the semi-mythical Crupellarius. 

I came upon an odd thing here; the Thraex (or Thracian), with his double greaves, leggings, arm guard, shield and helmet one of the heavier historical types, is a light gladiator in Jugula while the historically light Hoplomachus with his spear, small shield, arm guard and helmet is a heavy one. I am still wondering whether these two were not simply confused with one another ….

Each gladiator type has specific speed, attack and defense stats, which also depend on whether the opponent is a heavy or a light gladiator. Attack- and defense values are enhanced or penalized based on attacks from the front, rear or side and fighting multiple opponents. On top of that, some gladiators have specific traits, like the net-fighting Retiarius who can pin an opponent in place. When wounded, the gladiator’s card is flipped to reveal his (inferior) wounded stats. Finally, attacks have ranges. Swords can only attack adjacent squares, while whips, spears and bows range further.

The gaming cards is where the game’s tactical genius shows. Each player starts the game with a deck of basic cards with varying values that perform multiple functions. A card may be spent either to move or fight with one or more figures, to draw a variable number of new cards to your hand, to buy “Prima” bonus cards that offer enhanced values, to enhance your audience support (the “Vox Populi”) that gives you bonuses on attacks and a bigger hand of cards or they can double as dice throws in the combats. So managing your hand of cards requires you to balance a LOT of priorities and enables a wide range of tactics. Should you invest in increasing your vox populi and gain an Attack bonus? Or should you buy Prima cards to increase your chances in the long term? And of course you have to take into account the strengths and weaknesses of your Gladiators.

Combat is what wins the game in the end. Three points win a game, a wounded opponent being 1 point and a killed one 2 points. Gladiators attack opponents within range in their front when you spend a card on them with its attack function. Each player then draws a card from his hand with a die score, adds attack or defense values and bonuses to determine the winner, who must have the highest score. Doubling your opponents’ score means a wound, tripling it means a kill, simply topping it means pushing your opponent straight back. When it is impossible to move back, he gets a wound instead. So don’t let them gang up on you or get pushed against the wall!

Apart from stand-alone games you can also go completely Campaign and start a lanista, a gladiator school. You pick starting teams and play games with them, eventually developing new skills or traits and fighting your own gladiator stable to the top of the lists for fortune and eternal fame!

Jugula offers the suggestion to play with the paper board and 28mm figures. But of course you can always go completely overboard and build massive arenas with customized figures. I chose 1/32 figures and a big wooden board with a sand floor. In time I will build a circular gallery with Vox Populi counters to really make it look like an arena, but so far the big figures and the round arena board look spiffing, don't you agree? I thought you would. 

For our first game we both chose a team of two lights and two heavies. You start the game at your board edge and in order to avoid getting pinned to the wall you need to get into the arena ASAP. And we both did. I quickly invested in two expensive Prima cards and some Vox Populi points and tried to isolate one of my opponents' Gladiators. You spend quite some cards on maneuvring around, circling each other and looking to corner your opponent before you can strike and don't forget you only get to play one card per turn, so you can either move or fight or do something else. Early on I got lucky and wounded one opponent. Eventually I managed to sandwiched an enemy Provocator and killed him! Habet!

Jugula for two players plays in about an hour per game. With a few games under my belt, I can justly say it is a joy to play and I haven't even tried the Campaign game yet. And last but not least, you get the excuse to buy a few handfuls of Gladiators!

Jugula
Released in 2014
Publisher: Studio Tomahawk
Price: 20 GBP for the rulebook, 7 GBP or 9 Euros per card deck, of which each player needs one.

The Jugula Project in 1/32

After getting inspired for Jugula by enthusiastic tales from friends, I decided to do it in 1/32. Cheap as well as impressive. Here are the results so far:

I used the two 1/32 Pegasus sets for this project. These sets provide 8 different historical figures each, in suitably active poses. I also bought the Italeri set, which was a bit of a disappointment. It did contain 16 figures, but two of each and there was an unmistakable fantasy element added to the designs. Apart from that, only three of the figures actually seem to be fighting. The rest seems a bit too relaxed for a long life in the arena.....

It did contain however, a bear and a lion (two of each) 

The Retiarius (netfighter) and his tradditional opponent the Secutor, both by Pegasus.

A Pegasus Scissor and an Italeri Thraex ( I think, for he is missing his helmet). You can see that the Italeri sculpting is beautiful, but the details are more fanciful than historical. Given the strange greaves and mail leg- and arm coverings it seems modeled after a 19th century illustration rather than archaeological evidence. There are three historical figures in the Italeri set by the way which I have yet to paint. 

A Pegasus Thraex and Dimachaerus

A Murmillo and his victim (both Pegasus)

A Veles attacks a Murmillo (Pegasus)

Below some pictures of the board I am making. A 60cm MDF round arena. The board squares will be cut into it once everything is painted and dry. 

The rules have come in! And two card decks, one for each player. 

All figures are painted now! Ready for a game. Look here for a game review shortly! 

Escape from Amersfoort: Snake strikes again!

 Today I hosted another participation game at Ducosim in Amersfoort. Using my  Pijlie's Everyman's Wargames Protocol for Every War  (PEW PEW!) rules we played a game inspired by Escape from New York.

Commando Snake Plisskens landed by parachute in gang-infested Amersfoort to retrieve the diaries of the Prime Minister.

On the right the Gangsta gang, below Snake and his commandos.

To the right the local Cyborg club, below the Scraper Gang, who didn't get out much due to a slight shortage of players. Visitors were somewhat scarce today, perhaps due to a Fantasty fair on the same day.

On the right the Cannibals, below the Bikers

Here Snake's ride out of town hovers above the Amersfoort Red Zone, a gang-ridden radioactive hotzone crawling with zombies, radioactove monsters and debris.

Below some impressions of the games we played.

The event card calling forth the radioactive T-Rex didn't miss a single game. He ate quite a few gangers and even a Cyborg!

And when you leave a post-apoc helmet and goggles lying around, someone is bound to put it on....

By request here are the rules I use for demos like this: 

Pijlie's Everymans Wargaming Protocol for Every War! (PEW PEW!)

Figures walk the maximum distance between your thumb and little finger (small children get extra points for cover) or multitudes thereof for cars and fast monsters. You can evade 1 hit per turn by a succesful Stunta which gets you a free (re)action to seek cover or stage a counterattack. Most teams are made up of a main character, a second (these two have the best stats) and four Extras.
Weapons are either close combat wapens (various bonus on Fighta) and shooting weapons (Rifle 1D6, pistol 1 or 2 D6, MG 3D6 and -1 Shoota for every extra die). Shooting rangers are unlimited. Roll the Shoota number to hit. Cover means either -1 or -2 on the roll.
Activation is card-driven. Every team has two cards. Every team member may perform one action of choice on a card.
When rolling a 1 when shooting you draw a Trouble card. 3 out of 10 is no effect. The rest is assorted misery like shooting yourself, running out of ammo or a giant monster bursting from the nearest building, usually depending on the game theme.

Best used for action packed skirmish games with teams up to 6 figures. Every figure has six stats: Shoota (roll a D6), Fighta (roll a D6), Balls (roll a D6 to do something scary), Stunta (roll a D6 to do something hard, Hit points (2 for the main characters, 1 for Extras) and Oneliner (main characters only to save yourself out of a tight spot with some wisecrack oneliner to impress the GM or roll a D6 for the less confident).

These rules are heavily inspired by several other rulesets and inventions by others and myself over the years. The credit list should include people like Howard Whitehouse, Buck Surdu and Chris Palmer, Peter Schulein and Larry Brom.

On the left you see me throwing the paratroopers on the table. Plisskens men were equipped very well, but landed all over the place!

Many thanks for Sander for these last photos. As always I was too busy to take many pictures and missed some memorable moments.

We had a lovely day, some great games and a lot of response from passers-by, even if they didnt have the time to dive in and play. Thanks everyone for participating and making this a succesful day!

The Wargames Website: the new kid in town

You might already be aware of it, but there is a new kid in town regarding wargames fora.

I say welcome to The Wargames Website!

May much traffic and content be generated!