The Bore Wars it shall be.... If we ever %^!#$! finish Tanga!

The poll on the blog and on facebook is over, and by a landslide, the Bore Wars will be the next project.

In 2013 perhaps.

I'll have plenty of time to assemble the extra Swiss, Teddy Bears, and Australians necessary to run the game. Of course, if integrate the Zulu Wars into it, we could make an expansive pre-Tanga history of Southern Gnome Afrikka.

Dairy Queen Presents: Hurricanes...ON FIRE!

I'm alive! No need to send out a Swiss medic, even if a Bier Nurse is available...


This weekend was supposed to be the great finale for part one of the Tanga Campaign. Even with the impending doom of Irene pounding down the door, I had a simple plan: If the forcasts stayed consistent, I could make a reasonable decision about travelling by 11am and still manage to contact everyone before they left AND make it down to Easton by 1pm.

Mother Nature, as we all know, is more fickle than my wife.

Despite some water in the basement and the flickering of lights, I checked with our Easton location and everything looked a go. I'll save the actual blow-by-blow details and go with a factual timeline.

At 10am, a tree fell on the the access road to the main highway. To add insult to injury, it was mere feet from a dirt road to the highway that could have been used as a detour. The tree took out power lines, destroyed a transformer and set everything on fire. Given that the fire and electric companies didn't arrive until 2pm to turn off the power (permanently) and put out the fire, I was screwed.

The access road does continue the other way, dumping you in an out-of-the-way location (and given that where I live in an out of the way location, that's really bad. The road is barely passable in good weather, and you would be putting your car in danger driving it, if, of course, you could cross the bridge that was three foot over flood stage!

Needless to say, I was bummed and had to abort the travels late.

Four brave souls did show up for gaming, Archi, Dalcin, Nichols, and Bob. I felt particularly bad for Bob as we haven't seen each other in YEARS and he drove all the way up from Trenton. The guys got in a rip-roaring game of Axis and Allies minis and another good game of Tannenhauser (sp?)

On top of that, the Day of Sloth looks like questionable weather, so I'm considering pulling back from that one as well. Which is a pity, we have a HUGE pile of wood to burn after the storm.

On the painting front: at least I got a unit of Sikhs primed. *sigh*

Next up: How I spent the previous day "gaming" with "normal" people.

Next up:

(Gnome Wars) The Michael Lung Gallery #4

Okay, as a special east coast earthquake double post day, here's today installment

The Swiss casualty marker is fantastic! Not all that usefull in play, but some nice scenery in case a unit encounters a slaughtered village.

I'm still trying to figure out what the use of a standard bearer is for Gnome Wars. Musicians move troops faster and there is little use for changing formation. Worst case, it's for show, best case, it's a 10-pt fig and it looks cool on the battlefield. Gotta love the pine cone.

(Legions of Steel) A whole lotta trouble showed up in the mail

My impulse buy off of eBay last week arrived in the mail yesterday.

Legions of Steel Mk I Assault Fiend

A ridiculous buy-it-now price, only a buck for shipping, I couldn't resist it. Now if I can only find some commandos on the cheap...

When I did get that LOS boxed set this winter, I found the space marines passable, but I was intrigued by the Star Wars battle droids included in the box. Nightmares will be impossible to acquire without some competitive bidding and a little extra fundage. The battle droids are a bit more available, and with Mk I Assault Fiend now in my possession, I need to find a Jar-Jar Binks figure to get hit with a k-pulse grenade.

Ain't mixing games fun!

Battlelords is alive? Again?

The Ram Pyton: Not as Cute as Kitten

Recently in my post raving about how awesome Lehicon IV was, I brought up Battlelords of the 23rd Century (henceforth known as Battlelords...) It was an imperfect game for the perfect time in my life, with a hyperactive salesman as its spokesman.

To the naysayers, Battlelords was just fantasy races... in space... with big-ass guns... with the supposed coolness turned up to 11. And unlike the grumbling fans in the D&D/video game argument, I completely agree with those people. It COULD be like this. It could very well have played as a Barrier Peaks meets Traveller, but it doesn't.

It plays like Phoenix Command meets a high five of awesome to your face!

In the 23rd Century, megacorporations run everything, including military operations. Well, sometimes we call them "espionage" but we don't say that around the Ram Pythons.

Ram Pythons, gigantic reptilian muscle bound behemoths who could rip off a human's arms, carry around weaponry designed for tanks, and had the brain the size of a shrivelled pea. I'm working this off of memory, but the primary order a Ram Python could follow was "If it moves, kill it. If it doesn't move, pick it up and kill it!"

The main rulebook (one of 5 editions?) was chock full of cool races. Orion Rogues, Ram Pythons and their less violent (and stupid) cousins the Pythons, Eridani Swordsaints, Zen Rigelns, and of course the Phentari, a squid like race that were combat monsters, but would spend all their downtime figuring out how to cook the humans in the squad. They LOVED human flesh.

Of course, there is secondary reason for the continued love. Their first (only?) licensed product was a module... "Don't Be Alarmed, This is Only a Test," produced by a small Canadian company called Global Games, ergo, an indirect LOS tie-in.

The system was clunkier than an arena of clumsy people trying to clog dance. There were multiple levels and types of armor, skills, etc, and to be honest, although I ran two sessions back in the mid-90's I had no idea if I was doing the system justice. The players had a good time, but not using the system relegates the core book to a weapons and fluff book. Does one try GURPS with this? I just don't know.

Surprsingly, the game's still kicking around. There is a playtest group (in Vegas!) working on a less-wocky new edition. You can still get most of the product, and even better, you can get it in pdf.

It's not for everybody... just the kids who wanna be cool. Check it out at www.ssdc.com

(Hackmaster) Player's Handbook Pre-Orders!

So, the Hacklopedia of Beasts is out! (hoo-ray!). Now, Kenzer & Co has announced the preorders for the Player's Handbook are open. Best yet, you'll get a pdf copy of the rules before the book even goes to the printers! It will be an alpha-copay with available updates, but at least players will get to work with it early, AND Kenzer is accepting errata submissions, so your $59.95 book has fewer errors within its Leatherette cover.

http://www.kenzerco.com/ for more details.

I've gotta get motivated...later

Ugh, it's been a rough couple of weeks at the Casa de Viscount. Two weeks of constant rain saps all of your motivation out of you. There are a million things to do before our annual Day of Sloth picnic, and I can't even find enough time to cut the grass in our yard, that varies between six inches and three foot high!

So, obviously, the minis aren't getting worked on. Which sucks, since we do have our final Longido Mountain campaign session next Sunday. If I can finish up the pack mules and at least put flesh tone on the purple Germans, the pics might look okay. Of course, if I can get some more confirmations besides Steve and Nichols I'd be joyous. Of yeah, it's in civilization for once (Easton) so anyone whose interested shoot me a message somehow.

With the ongoing poll, it looks as if the Bore Wars are going to be the winner. I have started a little light reading to familiarize myself with the actual Boer Wars. Like the Crimean War, if it doesn't have heavy US influence, it's not taught in schools.

After looking at a worthless series of wikipedia articles, I started reading an ebook of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Great Boer War. Let me just say one thing about anyone who tinkers in history during the late Victorian era: they are an amusing and enjoyable read. Perhaps not entirely historically accurate, but I've appreciated Teddy Roosevelt's writings in the same manner. For every nugget of information provided, there are two or three opinions and some biased analysis mixed in. Since I knew what I was getting myself into, it will be a quick read and I can look into more "scholarly" texts, if I ever get the time.

I've also snatched up a Mk I Assault Fiend for LOS,with shipping, for I think a dollar higher than retail price back in the 90's. That might be my painting project to jump start the rest of them. Fall-in! is coming pretty fast, and I never know if/when I'm going to receive the new figs from Brigade.