My first home terrain boards

These are 18" square so 6 can fit my 3 by 3 foot dinning room table. They will mostly be for 15mm sci-fi and 15mm fantasy. 

And here are the unfinished river boards. These ones are 18 inches by 12.

 And here is my pumping station and a few 15mm bits and bobs.

A couple of fleets of my bigger scale ships

Sorry the pic's are a bit blurry.  This is the painted part of my 3 film/TV themed fleets.

Star Ship Campaign: The battle for Cyrene Beta.

I thought its about time I ran a star ship campaign.  I am trying for a simple one with not to much record keeping.  The hand written map shows the single star system the campaign is based in, called Cyrene. The numbers on the map indicate the number of days it takes using normal engines to travel from point to point. The asterisk symbol is the jump points that allow movement to any other jump point. 

The minimal back story is that of the colony of Cyrene Alfa, that has been doing very well and has stated a colony off its own called simply Beta. That new colony (within an asteroid belt created by the destruction of several moons long ago) is now in revolt. By persuading the local defence force to come over to their side and by giving land to out of system pirates they have cobbled together a reasonable fleet.   Their advantage is two mining platforms within the asteroid belt that will supply the needs of their fleet and give them considerable economic power.  Their mother world has a far more powerful fleet but has it spread about the system and has lost easy access to valuable raw materials. This will be the starting point of the campaign. I am using my own two page rules for the ship combat and allowing the players to be as inventive as they want as long as its within the limits of the universe I have been slowly building over the last couple of years.

A few more 10mm AWI

Here are my 2 Battalions of Continentals plus officers and artillery.  All painted by Robert, who's painting skills never fail to amaze me. Hard to believe these are 10mm. All from Pendraken's range.

And to face them: The British with their Light company out.

A great history lecture on why the dark age came about

The best history lecture I have seen in ages.  It shows how the dark ages came about and how they may very well happen again. Watch and learn something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Qpy0mXg8Y

AWI 10mm

Here are some pics of my Pendraken 10mm AWI continentals. These were painted by my very talented friend Robert.  Enjoy.

I have written some rules that we will be trying out soon. Robert is working on some militia at the moment.  I have some British to be done and a few more continentals.  There are currently 4 of us down the club starting 10mm AWI but we are hopping that after seeing these sexy 10mm we will get a few more to join in.  I must say that the figures from Pendraken are fantastic having as much detail as good 15mm figures and they are very inexpensive.

Wargames fantasy world setting that’s........Different!

 

I have been looking for a fantasy setting for a wargames campaign that is very different to anything I have tried before.  A search that seemed to be going nowhere until I was babysitting my god daughter and was made to watch two Disney films: Frozen and Tangled.  To say I was pleasantly surprised at just how much I enjoyed these kids films is an understatement I am embarrassed about. Two very fun and grown up movies.  But what really struck me was the depth of the world each movie created.  And there it was; the world I have been looking for materialized right in front of me.  A world somewhat like our 1600’s to 1800 in style, clothing and uniforms.  The perfect location for a fantasy world with a difference.  On watching these films you will notice a lack of muskets but I put this down to (a bit of anti-gun lobbying) the guards seen being in effect police so being armed with crossbows only. The muskets must be kept locked away safe for if war comes. You can even research the worlds Disney have created on line. Check out these films and see if they might make a good location for your fantasy setting.

Thoughts on how to run my sci-fi campaign

Thoughts on how to run my sci-fi campaign

I have been thinking about running a sci-fi campaign down the club for a while now.  I have run campaigns before but they tended to take up a lot of time and energy. I did however run a skirmish (almost) role play campaign that was very successful that managed to take up very little time and energy.  So I have been revisiting some thoughts from back then.  

So how can I do this without too much paper work and time? The first thing I needed to think about was the level the campaign would be aimed at. Are we talking armies taking over worlds and struggles across star systems, with all the economic factors and resources management?  I did not want to have to worry about the output of a colony or how many men a colony had in its army.  And then it came to me: Space pirates and mercenaries.  If the player was a commander of a group of pirates or mercenaries then such concerns would be way above his pay grade. I realised I could take out nearly all the record keeping by simply saying each player was a combat commander.  He need not worry about logistics and neither had I.  All he had to concentrate on was fighting the battle and making requests to a higher authority when he wanted something outside his level of authority.  In this campaign I could fight battles with my 15mm forces with around a platoon to a company per side.   Each player would have a limited number or troops and vehicles at his disposal but would know roughly what extra he might be able to call on.  But that would be down to his superiors ( in other words me as GM).

Now as a rules writer I realised I have a tendency to get carried away with righting lots of rules.  It struck me that this was totally unnecessary.  I had considered writing a complex system for the time it would take and the cost of repairing mecha and vehicles. But this I can do away with. As the GM I can decide what the answer is to any question like “how long until my mecha is repaired?” or “How many anti-tank missiles do we have?”  I would take a leaf out of my style of very freeform role playing I GM from time to time.  I would just make it up on the spot and note down any decision I made.  Suddenly I felt free of the many constraints imposed by rules systems.   Now I could simply supply my players with the info they needed without reference charts and logistics.  A player does not need to know how the answer to his question is generated. Just like in real life.  A platoon commander simply askes his superiors when his casualties will be replaced.  He has no interest the cost or how they will be arriving.  All he needs is a when and how many. 

This method I think would work for many historical campaigns too.  The players need not even know you are making it all up.  If they ask a question just tell them to hang on a sec whilst you find out.  Then go off roll a dice, make up the answer and simply note down your decision.  It’s the end result the players have that matters not how you got there.  As long as it all seems fair and reasonable.