Got wood?

A couple of quick WIP shots of a few buildings;

Below are the stable and outhouse kits from Warbases.co.uk which come as laser cut mdf and go together very well. Standard card tiles on the outhouse and coffee stirrer planking for the stables as I couldn't face cutting that many strips of card tiles.

The shot below are two plastic kits manufactured by Renedra, the North American Store for Perrys and their own bridge kit including the two pontoons which I thought I could use as objectives somehow or the other. Bizarre-o!

I've also spent the afternoon building barrels and graves cos' I'm just SO cool. All this will, along with the farm, will form the holdings of one Mr Peytersson, the first incarnation of St Peytersburg.

I've decided that the projects list will be dictated by imminent gaming so this stuff hits the top followed by various Gladiators and then any Star Wars stuff. Sort of a supply and demand thing!

As it's Saturday night I'll turn on the X-Box. Huzzah!!

Oh come all ye faithfull

Club night last night with the Enfield Gamers and a test run of Ganesha Games' "Fear and Faith" rules-set for AWI Zombies.

Many thanks to Ian, Charlie and Rob for subjecting themselves to my barely prepared scenario hastily cobbled together during my lunch break to the mantra of "It's only a playtest!"

Each gent ran a small section of British regulars or Militia / Bandits foraging through a zombie infested hamlet. I took the Zombies as an almost impartial GM. Victory points earnt as D6 per forage point gained plus another 2 per zombie re-deaded.

Plenty learnt, the rules do the job though, as mentioned within them, they will benefit from more detail and variation within the scenarios and characters deployed on both sides.

We all picked things up again quickly enough re-learning the value of Leaders, Mobs and chatted through potential tweaks. I've also picked up Songs of Drums and Shakos so will have a read through and see what mechanics might want to be transferred across.

The British, under Sgt "Deadeye" Sheppard, went for a powder and steel approach attracting and then dispatching a swathe of rancid Americans with a well drilled display of efficient close order drill. Foraging fell to the wayside somewhat.

With a combat rating of three, muskets and bayonets (counted as heavy hand to hand weapons) they were equally effective shooting or in combat as long as they stayed in formation with their Sgt. Pretty much as I expected though this approach didn't see them advance far.

Ian and Rob had to be a bit more mobile with their Militia and keep some range from the Zipper-Heads. This was ably demonstrated by Rob getting bogged down in a couple of fairly desperate melees whilst Ian, with a ring of Zs closing in on him chose to be away on his pins to pillage the village.

I didn't initially much best, or any, use of Mobbing up the Zs happy to let things play out as they might. Once I did I managed to get a decent nip in on one of Ian's lads. Seeing the obvious bite (6 rolled) "Zeek" got left behind and soon overwhelmed.

With time eventually called Ian's forage points just edged out Charlie's kill pile, they had also swapped a few shots at each other, whilst Rob was happy just to have survived. The Zs had claimed a couple of victims and given a few close calls but out-pointed 3 for 2 I was happy with their evenings work.

Plenty to work on, need to download the force generation stuff, but all details so no great problem. Next club night is two weeks time on the 10th and which point it's hot to trot....... or shamble!

Wheels within wheels

Hola people.

Not a lot of PP activity recently as I've been enjoying the weather, though not Wasps' drubbing yesterday evening.

The long weekend started with a Thursday night Star Wars session that despite not a shot being fired it was another quality event.

After claiming the battlefield with only moderate casualties the boys set off in search of their previously downed pilot. They found him in the tender care of the local yocals, previously encountered, lead by a renegade female wookie.

Negotiations went well even managing to trade in one of their speeder bikes for a less dented model. Apparently becoming more used to my methods they even found and disabled the tracker attached to it!

With the formalities dealt with the real fun could start!

Having a look at the data they got hold off last time out it proved to be a fairly poor fake implicating a well known black market middle-man as a full on terrorist. Cue twenty minutes of full on debate between the group as how best to deal with / take advantage of the situation. I just sat back and grinned.

As a GM I like to play things fairly loose and then feed-back off of the group. It can be more work in between sessions and on the fly during them, but it allows me to tailor events to the group's intentions hopefully creating something of the illusion of choice. It produces good results when it goes right.

This was such an occasion with the lads talking through potential conspiracies that hadn't even imagined yet. Never one look a gift horse in the mouth my grin grew larger.

In the end the boys decided to play both ends against the other and have been left planning an assault, mock or otherwise, on said middle-man's warehouse. Talk of blowing it up though no concern foll collateral damage!

Dark side point anyone?? 

The Odes of Frank "War" Arnus - Prt II

The value of a home crowd? Priceless!

That notorius self publicist Rogurius Caninus Secundus had invited all of the new Britannia Ludi to join his Britannia Premirius Leagusta and i'm not one to be left out!

Taking on each other home and away the top two Ludi will fight it out in the Super Pit, the winner being able to travel to Gaul to pit his gladiators against the best Rome has to offer during the official 'Round the Fringe' tour.

So taking on Charlius's Ludus, known for thier technical focus and careful fight strategies, at home seemed like a good draw. We also manged to attract the attention of some scribes from Rome, from the newly formed, SKYUS SPORTICUS organisation which meant an extra fee which a home Ludus was mine to split as I saw fit.

With all the extra attention both sets of boys were well keyed up and wasted no time getting stuck in. The bloodlust of the home crowd rose as Estaban, Retarius, claimed the victory in his first ever first bout.

Mehmet, Hoplomachus, walked out second. Both lads put everything into it but couldn't find a way through. Tiring badly the officials called the draw before the crowd turned any uglier. Mehmet's still undefeated from three but not Ludus champion just yet!

For the final bout I sent in Carlo, my new Thraex, with instructions to go in fast and hard. The boy done good rounding out the contest at two-nil. Get in!

With the scribes of Rome watching on and ahead of schedule Charlius and I quickly set up a beast fight as an added extra. Letting one of less vicious wolves into the arena we would each send in one fighter. I gave the honour to Andreaus, Secutor, as he was one of the new boys and though skilled with a blade somewhat weak.

Charlius' retarius made the early running but losing his net backed off. Andreaus took his chance using his skill, or luck, to taunt the wolf twice sidestepping it's wild lunges and using its momentum to run itself onto his blade.

So further glory to the Arnus Ludus and Andreaus suddenly has a name worth something. Always liked that boy!

Bandit Country?

See my SWAG!

Within the usual Salute goody bag was one of Kaiser Rushforth's waterproof shoulder bags for your general shopping that you could of course fill with one of their cases. Top move, hope it worked out for them. Though tempted I resisted and stuck to THE LIST.

So, scores on the doors;

1. Perry civilians - check

2. Perry Indians - nil poit. The ones they had were not the figures I was looking for.

3. French - check. Attacking fusiliers and command from Perry

4. Small scenery pieces - check plus plus;

a) Evil Scarecrows and scary statues from Crooked Dice.

b) New North American store, wooden bridge and gravestone set from Perry / Renedra

c) Flat pack MDF stables and outhouse from Warbases.co.uk (plus some 50mm round bases)

5. Paints, brushes, sprays etc - check. Black spray, matt varnish and some Vallejo Game colours

5.5 Extras - knitted Cthulu beast for the girlie, 2000AD graphic novel, Yorktown campaign book

6. INSPIRATION - check plus and in more ways than one.

Firstly, my first sweep through the hall took over 2 hours mainly because every 5 minutes I was bumping into an old gaming mate many of whom I used to work with during my time with the Evil Empire. Cue 10 minutes or so of comparing notes, general as well as hobby.

Despite being keen to play a couple of games, to maximise the £11 entry, once I'd had lunch and made my second, primary shopping, pass it was almost 4 and it didn't seem to matter any more. Well worth every penny and more. Really restored THE FAITH. RE-SULT!! :)

Secondly;

Turning Gold into Lead

Reversed alchemy? Not quite, Salute 2011 and my associated shopping list or more to the point how far off of it that I stray!

Being an increasingly good N.E.R.D. I am learning not to chafe so much at my self-imposed projects list and as such have spent some time reviewing what figures I have on hand for Peytersburg to establish what I first NEED and secondly WANT. Two very different things.

Digging out some boxes the other night I discovered that I have plenty of AWI British, LOTS in fact. About a section are actually painted along with a decent number of militia, non overtly loyalist or revolutionary.

Enough to start playing games with they were painted MANY years ago and it seems that my standards have improved in the intervening period. I'm sure this is a good thing other than the feeling that I should be indulging in some strip and re-paint action, though not for a while yet.

So, the shopping list;
1. Civilians. The Perry ones above are very nice indeed.
2. Indian. Perry again.
3. Skirmishing French. Will have a scout about for these ;)
4. Small scenery pieces
5. Paints, brushes, sprays etc
6. INSPIRATION

Last night Rich (of Jones fame) came round last night with someone else's football rules in tow, Corner Kick.

Despite it being a game for which I have very little passion, though I do understand the off-side rule, we had a good night of it. A simple set of rules, but vaguely gamey, I picked them up easily though winning 4-1 was always going to colour my opinion.

After Salute on Sunday I'm off to Adams Park to watch Wasps, those of them uninjured at least of which there are not many, take on Leeds. Academy boys all over the place and Josh Lewsey back on bench AGAIN!!

Beer, pies and good company though, both days in fact, which are always a BIG plus!

What's in the mix?

After what I feel has been a statistically excellent start to the hobby year PP wise I have recently reached something of a metaphorical eddy which hasn't been unpleasant.

I've currently got enough plot written and figures painted to cover the Star Wars RPG for a few sessions yet and, somewhat unusually for me, I can't get much motivation for the Steel Trooper and Fire Toad re-paints. Everytime I look at them I find myself searching for something else to do!

I got my extra Gladiators the other day and most of the way through the prep now needing to milliput and sand the bases which is a reasonable evening with a DVD. I do only need to paint three or four to cover my current Ludus so I can finish the rest at my leisure.

SO.... by the evils of sticking to my project plan that means doing some work on Peytersburg!

I've pretty much decided  on using Ganesha Games' Fear and Faith rule-set for whenever I have the first run-through which will probably be at the club in the next few weeks or so. I have enough figures for the moment so I want to focus on scenery and to this end I've been collecting coffee stirrers as if I've got a major league java addiction.

The tankard they're in was given to me by GW in 2003 for 5 years in...... scary! So that's rather a lot of insta-planking "foraged" with Greggs producing them in greater length than many of their competitors plus there's an opportunity for a steak bake or two. Top tip!

As previously mentioned I want to have a go at a barn and a few out-buildings first but also want to produce a couple of bridges, including a covered one! As many may know Salute is on Saturday and I'll be looking for inspiration as well as some more detailed scenery pieces.

Elsewhere, I recently wandered into a local Waterstones, ostensibly buying a gift, and ended up treating myself to these as part of a 3 for 2. Both rather tongue in cheek I couldn't resist, feeling that they would be a good read for almost any wargames geek. 40 odd pages into Germania I am yet to be disappointed.

Back to the present it's a club night and Space Hulk should be getting another run-out. In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium no-one can hear you swear bloody murder as you roll a jam yet again!!

Are these the droids that you're looking for?

Star Wars RPG last night and most of us got to de-rust our various recollections of the rules as we got stuck into a decent sized fire-fight.

Ian got caught up at work but then all his character had to do was unconsciously resist the possibility of internal bleeding so he didn't miss much.

Gatecrashing the "party" the eponymous heroes took the side of the blue humanoids against the droid assault in a disturbing display of common sense and set about turning them to scrap with a rather wide variation in result.

Charlie had previously nominated a point to be dropped off at, entirely blindly and soon regretted his trademark aggressive style as he became the closest target for a barrage of automatic fire. Thankfully, for him, it was being aimed by B1 Battle Droids but the grazes and micro-burns soon accumulated.

Elsewhere Mr Christian charged the nearest droid to him and set about it with his electrostaff. He had apparently failed to notice that it was an upgraded model which had already been demonstrated to be toting a personal defense shield. The paint scratches inflicted would need copious amounts of  T-Cut applied.

Said B2 Battle Droid opened up with its twin blasters quickly inflicting one critical and two other solid hits on his Quarren warrior of Ka' Pla' (many tentacled god). Ka' Pla' was obviously busy elsewhere and the result was a second party member unconscious and bleeding.

Reintroducing the vehicle rules was the droid walker that had previously shot Ian. I was fully intending to have a lot of fun with this as it advanced towards the downed shuttle with cold logical intent.

Jon's decided to use the force and ask me to check its Will Defence. Its a droid with no mind, I thought, so it must be pretty high. Ermm no, rather low in fact. Cue "Do or do not, there is no try" and the implement of my violet glee was upside down on another, now broken droid. Grrrr.....

On reaching the downed lander the Golgoth droid had the chance to take one weak stomp on it before finally halting to the massed fire brought to bear against. Its Damage Resistance of 10 had kept it going, despite its spill which delayed it badly, but it was now pretty much the only available target.

Post battle negotiations then took place though Mormar the rogue who did so from behind a bush. His shoot and hide tactic failed quite spectacularly and resulted in a close round exchange that saw one blue boy and Charlie floored and leaking vital body fluids. Jon only avoided this fate by applying another impressive Joda-ism!

The second attempt, without blasters and an impressive persuasion roll saw a particularly mercenary deal cut and the lads left with the spent battlefield and a data-slate of info. What info nobody yet knows!

Can anyone say "plot hook"? ;)

Blood and Sand

Just a quick post to show off my first three painted gladiators for Ludus Arnus.

The red and blue colours are traditionally East London and for Ludus Arnus I like to think them representative of the dock areas from whence the Arnus supporters hail and the blood they often spill within and without there community.

All Crusader figures of which I have recently recieved another 16 which gives me enough to run two schools should I so wish.

Ludus Motto:
"Vadis equus domum ducta ambulance"
"You're going home in a horse drawn ambulance"

Government Enhanced Zombies

A quick shout-out to any fellow ZOMBIES!! geeks who might be shuffling around out there as I've worked through my remaining AT-43 Oni Zombie repaints.

Very simple stuff once again as a bit of pre-highlight, detail work and a couple of washes. More than happy with the rather grimy finish as it suits the subjects rather well.

The Shogun here got a bit more detail work along with some quick and easy pea-dot and a few post-wash highlights. All pretty quick and easy so 1 PP each for a total of 22.

As an other shout-out I'd just like to express my appreciation to those of you who surf past on any sort of basis. Since the installation of the flag-counter I've been pleased to see a lot of unexpected results.

The AT-43 posts understandably got quite a few French hits whilst Polish, Chinese and Iranian readers were unexpected, though always welcome.

Many thanks to you all. Merry gaming!

Full Throttle

Last night we got back to the Star Wars RPG campaign proper.

 As an obvious recap & restart session it would be understandable if it wasn't a classic. Not a bit of it!



Starting the plotline is a mission to recover a downed agent and the information they're carrying.

Last contact came from an area of the boonies that produces a lot of background interference for comms and scanners. Our heroes have been out here previously and made a local contact whom they head towards.

So being GM I dangle the carrot a transponder contact, forcing a decision which the boys take in one gulp and head in at a rate of knots. Ian leads the way on a heavy speeder bike followed by Aaron plus 2 in the skiff with Rob and Charlie on a second heavy bike as tail end.

The contact is established as a firefight with a picket of drones. Rob loops out to the left as the advance to contact continues. The main group push through the picket whilst Rob swings back in and looks to engage a drone over the contact area as Ian commences his run.

Initiative rolls made. Rob (27) will just cut across Ian's (24) line just ahead of him and engages the drone, missing badly. Dice off to miss the droid to the left or right; right into the line of Ian's bike. Roll to hit Ian's bike; hit and damaged. Ian makes a pilot skill to maintain control and miss Rob & Charlie; passes well enough has to break left and dial off some speed.

The slower skiff watches all this unfold as both bikes take ground-fire from a walker in the ground combat. Rob's bike; big miss. Ian's bike; natural 20 inflicting 30 points of damage turning it into an even looser collection of parts!

I had started the evening stating that as the boys manage their own finances and have access to medical treatment and a range of bionics that any heavy injury would stick! Ian waited with trepidation for the result whilst Rob, with his party-killer reputation duly enhanced, supportively failed to control his mirth!

Turning to the rulebook I couldn't find anything immediate so worked from the speeder bike stats. Max speed 500 kph but you're bike's knackered so 400 and you had bled some speed so 300! Hmm..

Pilot check to control the crash at Difficulty Check 20. Base damage Set at 3xD12 reducing the dice type by one (10, 8, 6 etc) for each multiple of 5 the DC is beaten by. Additionally 1xD3 locational injuries. Maybe that sounds harsh but its a 300 kph bike crash!

The result was an unconscious, but alive Ian, with a left ankle injury as the session came to a close and further proof from the majority of the group that its always funny when it's not you. Maybe next session he can roll some dice for the other side..... then the boys really will be in trouble!!