Song of Blades and Heroes tryouts

Hi all,

and sorry for posting so infrequently in the last months.
Still, me and my gaming buddies are planning some cool things for the next months: in fact we discovered a new brand of rules we all are really IN LOVE with: I'm talking about Andrea's Sfiligoi Ganesha Games rulesets.

We knew about GG but never tried anything before and... damn, these games are really good!
You can really play your game in a couple of hours and the mechanics themselves deliver lot of fun... in fact, while being incredibly easy to manage (a couple of turns to teach players how to play and bookkeeping near to not-at-all), you will spot some very subtle findings able to make your game quite unpredictable: in other words, you need some strategy or you are dead.

At the moment we played 3 or 4 times with Andrea's fantasy rules, and Affro recently bought a copy of Mighty Monsters and Samurai Robots Battle Royale... so you can imagine how we look forward to play again!

Plans for the future:

- other fantasy 28mm games with SoBaH

- a 15mm Sci Fi Project using Flying Lead (I already own a copy, I only think we'll need to trimmer rules down a bit since it is quite dense in our opinion compared with other GG rulesets)

Lastly, I put together some of the -horrible, I admit- pictures taken from one of our last games... please enjoy an example of punished hubris :D

Cheers
Andrea

End of 2012's Hero Quest

Happy new Year!

It’s been a long absence but I’m back - and we all are here, despite all Maya’s previsions...

Not much gaming in these last months, still I’d like to share few pics of the nice Hero Quest game me and few  friends had during the night of the last 2012 day!

Since I was very lazy around 2 am, my thanks go to Francesco and his mobile phone..

This is the crucial point of the game: the Heroes have found a Nurgle sorcerer (warhammer fluff is still fantastic fantasy background in my opinion…), coming with a personal guard of Chaos Warriors and a mutated dog (a beast that tore apart -and I mean dead, dead, dead- 2 players before being taken down... ok, here you see him down because of a "sleep" spell, but it woke up the turn after in a baaaaad mood)

 

A Mage summoned Djiin helped a lot in beating the bad guy but in the end the 2 surviving heroes were left just 1 Body Point each.. a very tough but funny game!

For this new year, I’d like to put together a couple of things:

-          Add some scenarios to Secret wars (if anyone tried it, please kindly send me a comment)

-          Maybe -I still don’t know - create a quick and fast conversion to play HeroQuest with WH40k background. I know there is/was Space Crusade –or StarQuest- out there, but it is does not have exactly the same feeling Hero Quest has... (WH40k HQ should in my opinion look closer to a very simplified “Inquisitor” game)

Cheers,

Andrea

Halloween is coming!

Hi,

as per title... Halloween is very close and we all feel the need to add something odd and strange to our homes! I know during this time there are usually lot of games and BatReps with scary themes... and I too chose mine for an incoming game: giant rats!
Big and nasty rats are classic fantasy/rpg monsters, and it is very easy to catch a bag of 10 toys rats and transform them in 28mm wargame models ready for a quick skirmish with your game buddies:

Bases are made of plasticard; I just sprayed black the lurking creatures...

 ... and finished themoff with some drybrush painting. Red eyes and gore might be a bit bad taste but... ehi, they're a must during Halloween!

 To exterminate the ugly monsters, I took some old GW models and painted them very roughly  with a dirty color scheme... These unlucky guys take care about giant rats, so you can imagine they might be not the most appreciated and famous between the SM!

I'm not sure about the rules we'll use. Both Space Hulk (the great 1st edition) and Chain Reaction from THW might be a good choice.

Cheers,
Andrea

Toys, 2HW and Mad Max

Hi,

might be because they're my job, but I love toys and think they are always a great resource for modelling and wargaming: they often offer very cheap still passable solutions for a geek everyday's needs.

I have been thinking for a long time about a 28mm post-apocalyptic skirmish (Fallout style) but did not know what to use for it, until..

1) I found Javier's Fallout campaing system for CR2 on 2HWyahoo group -fxxxxxing incredible.
2) got NUTS from Ed -fxxxxxing amazing.
3) buyed 5150 Star Army -fxxxxxing awesome.

Mixing the 3 things (campaign, loot/special rules from Javier GREAT work, scifi weapon armors from 5150, clunky gear and focus of a party of guys against all the world from NUTS) I'm sure it will come out a great game!

Now, back to the minis, I ordered for different pourposes a bag of 80 Warzone plastic minis from Prince August (I'm waiting for them to come). they look great in my opinion and are a perfect base for tons of conversions; then I took some cheap toys to create some further stuff...

This very ignorant brute for instance...

... is wip to become a Behemoth SuperMutant!

This nice toy car...

...is going to run on wasteland's roads!

 Will update,

Cheers,
Andrea

New terrain and Bugs

Hi all,

First of all, I'd love to say a big thanks to Mark from Dropship Horizon: he as been of great inspiration for all 15mm Sci-fi fans!
And now the minis.
Taking advantage from long week-end I painted some new stuff, and played a test FUBAR game! The FUBAR BatRep will come very soon, first I'd like to share the things I painted!
A ruined implant (its purpose is still a mistery for me too... I think they were making... yogurt or business cards from my former jobs ;))

Prima di tutto vorrei salutare e ringraziare Mark di Dropship Horizon: il suo blog è stato di enorme ispirazione per tutti gli appassionati di Sci-Fi in 15mm!
Grazie al lungo fine settimana sono riuscito a dipingere alcune cosette e giocato una partita di prova con FUBAR! Il resoconto del gioco arriverà a breve, prima... le cose che ho dipinto!
Un impianto in rovina (nemmeno io so dirne la funzione, credo vi producessero yogurt o biglietti da visita di miei lavori precedenti ;))


two objective markers (techno-stuff)
Due segnalini di obiettivo (roba tecnologica)


Big Bugs!! I'm quite proud of their look.. they do not have the same color scheme of my small bugs, but... ehy, why should they look like having the same uniform?
Bestiacce! Sono orgoglione di come le ho fatte; il colore è diverso da quello delle mie bestiacce più piccole, ma tanto mica indossano un'uniforme...


Big Bugs are Big...
Le bestiacce sono in 28mm...


A new exo armor for my 15mm (Tau from GW)!
Un nuovo esoscheletro per i miei 15mm (Tau della GW)!


Cheers,
Andrea

Incoming.... Bugs!!!

Hi all,

Finally I've found some time to post a couple of pics of the Bugs force I'm currently working on. My idea is to put together a number of small, medium and large sized beasts to engage battle with 15mm forces -which benefit of some reinforcement from GZG- using tiles made from Shuffler for Space Hulk like games (see my previus post).

I'm waiting also for some GW Hormagaunts which I think will look great with my Rackham monsters. Kind of brood "big ones".
Below some pics of what I started with:

Finalmente ho trovato il tempo di postare un paio di foto della forza di alienazzi che sto mettendo insieme. L'idea è di averne di diverse grandezze per usarli con le mie miniature in 15mm -che hanno appena ricevuto rinforzi da GZG- utilizzando i corridoi fatti con Shuffler per giochi in stile Space Hulk.

A giorni dovrei anche avere alcuni hormagaunt della GW che credo staranno benissimo insieme alle bestioline della Rackham. Sotto trovate qualche foto:

They're coming! The brain bug is a genestealer from the old Star Quest game, without his arms.
Arrivano! Il cervellone è un ladro genetico di Star Quest privato delle braccia.

I have rebased/repainted all Rackham bugs, still the decoration quality was very high...
Ho ribasettato/ridipinto le predipinte della Rackham, che erano comunque già ben fatte.

versus my ARC Fleet power armored guys!
contro le power armor!

To the last man!!
Fino all'ultimo!

not that great idea to wake up this morning...
non è stata un'idea furba alzarsi dal letto, stamattina...

Cheers,
Andrea

My new miniature display!

Hi all,

I received from my patient gf a very nice gift for my birthday: a brand new miniature display... all made by her with her own hands!
As I'm usually not able to glue together a couple of plastic kit components without making a mess, I'm still asking her how she made it...

La mia ragazza mi ha fatto un gran bel regalo di compleanno: una vetrinetta per le miniature fatta da lei! Dato che io faccio fatica anche solo a montare i kit in plastica le sto ancora chiedendo come cavolo abbia fatto...


I had a bad light for taking pictures, I know they're ugly...
la luce era quello che era, le foto non sono granchè..

And that's not all. She gave me another nice "miniatures themed" gift...
What? You'll see on my next post!

Prossimamente posterò anche l'altro regalo in tema miniature che ho ricevuto da lei!

Cheers,
Andrea

We'll be missing you, Rackham

Dear all,

I found very bad news on the internet: Rackham, one of the best miniature manufacturer I was aware of went out of business on fall October 2010.
Their metal models and skirmish rules were really well made and in my opinion set up a new standard.
We will miss your vision, guys.

Ho trovato una pessima notizia on line: Rackham, una delle migliori case produttrici di miniature in 28mm ha definitivamente chiuso i battenti a fine ottobre 2010.
Rackham produceva alcune delle più belle miniature fantasy mai realizzate ed un regolamento di schermaglie davvero buono.
Ci mancherete ragazzi...


Apart from my painting, the minis were wonderful..
a parte che dipingo col cxxo, i modelli erano proprio belli..

Cheers,
Andrea

BatRep: HeroQuest!!!

Hello!

just to start: ok, I AM cheating. This blog is supposed to be a Sci-Fi oriented one... and Milton Bradley's HeroQuest, The Greatest Boardgame Ever Made is not really even a "wargame"... but I can't resist publishing the game I have had last night with Affro and Matteo: thanking the great website Ye Old Inn I set up and played with them a nice adventure (Inn of Chaos) and we did had a lot of fun!

The adventure was about a Chaos warband that has established in a Inn after killing the Innkeeper and all the people inside. The Chaos sorcerer plans to build up an undead Army (starting from the bodies of the Innkeeper and other unlucky dudes!) and rule the Land.

But he didn't consider the four Heroes coming to rest in his Inn...





We used different minis from the original ones to add a bit color (my originals are unpainted).
HeroQuest is ALWAYS HeroQuest. A great game, the first I played and still MUCH more fun than a lot of others!

Cheers,
Andrea

BatRep: Battle at Monster&Co

Hi,

as promised here's my first batrep involving the terrifying Aberration Prime!
Unfortunately we made just a few pics, anyway, this was the situation:

An abandoned research site has been taken from a well armed group of rebels looking for a loot. They don't know about the experiments the Alliance was managing underground neither why the site has been abandoned... Before being locked down by AI systems, the site launched a desperade SOS request... Now a patrol has been send to investigate. But time is runnig out: the armour-plated doors connecting the undeground labs to the outside will not resist a long time against the frenzied Biological Weapons that are now crawling in the blood-stained corridors!

I played with 6 people (!) everyone having control of 3-4 troopers and divided between Attackers (the Alliance) and Defenders (the Rebels). The ruleset is CR3, with some material from CR2 and some draft tables and stats I made...






So... I think this will start a new adventure soon!
Stay tuned!

Cheers,
Andrea

"Biological Weapon" in my dictionary means "claws and fangs"

Hi,

I recently ordered a few miniatures at the Rackham store with my friend Affro, taking advantage from their summer discounts.
Years ago I was quite a fan of their "Confrontation" line of minis. The quality of sculpting and design was really high and the rules were quite epic and fun.

Some years ago they proved themselves to be skilled in differentiating their product and communication in the fantasy miniature wargaming market (and, by the way, they had their part in my degree thesis "Communication Mix strategies in the Miniatures Wargaming niche of market" -Yes, I really made it. Yes, I think I'm quite a lot nerdy-)

Now I'm not sure if they still produce/sell their line of fine metal minis but they started producing some wonderful prepainted miniatures both for their fantasy and sci-fi settings.

So... as I was looking for more CR3 action (I will soon buy 5150 -Ed's Sci-Fi System, but at the moment I'm using the basic system) involving biological weapons/alien style monster I ordered:

Aberration Prime, a WONDERFUL enemy for any 28mm figure. The prepainted model was so nice as it was supplied that I just added a very little painting and some work on the base (look at my former post to know where the sand comes from...)


I like it A LOT!
I think the pic above will give an idea of the impact it can have on a game... :)))
Then I ordered the Phemera Omega (I didn't take a pic but you can see them here).
Rackham produces also very nice prepainted sci-fi soldiers. A have a bunch of them:

Below, one posing close to a GW marine for size comparison:

I will probably post in the future some photos of my old fantasy Rackham miniatures.
Hope to share very soon a batrep involving my beloved ABERRATION PRIME!

Cheers,
Andrea

Some 28mm madness - Prepainted minis

Hi,

following up my former post involving 28mm minis I post here some photos of cheap prepainted models I found (from wizkids) and re-based to play CR3.
Some people love prepainted miniatures and some hate them... I personally like them a lot. They definitely cut away a part of the hobby, but you can have a lot of different characters ready to play in a very short time... and you can always take a brush and add details.

I found that especially Horrorclix and Halo Action Clix are very well made although HAC are not pure 28mm but taller.
Unfortunately, it seems that wizkids is kind of dead... on their website there's nothing more than Super Heroes Clix.

Below are a couple of "law bringers":

And here some psycho ^__^ :

then, some innocent bystanders:

With a decent base I think they can easily be accepted by most people...
The prepainted solution would probably fit very well for gamers who play zombie games (horrorclix sets have lots of zombies and EBay is a good source for them) or games involving civilians or so (It's boring to paint dudes without armors/rifles/swords, isn't it?)

Cheers,
Andrea

Neverending Dilemma

Hi,

I'm into the average nerdy wargamer dilemma: what is the best scale to play with?
Ok- there's no one scale which is better than another... still, I'm promising myself to follow these guidelines that should allow me to use the TON of minis I collected in 28mm, 15mm and even 20mm:

-I will use the nice, inexpensive and space saving 15mm minis for large battles in "open" environments involving vehicles and buildings
-maybe I will sometimes use 20mm instead of 15mm (just for the pleasure of changing something!)
-My 28mm minis will be used for a slightly better personal feeling to adventures, and will be employed for dungeon crawlings as well as scenarios involving detailed characters instead of squads of grunts.

There are simply too many minis in the market -and in my house...- to give up with a scale.
Then, I found that CR3 system is perfectly able to manage all the level of details I'd like to try.
Add some features to grunts and Stars and you have a lite rpg.
Use more generic pieces and the game will run fast with more combatants involved.
Wow!

As I started my little blog with the idea of reducing posts without pictures to the lest possible (pictures are what I'm usually looking at on other's blog... and all the blogs I follow have plenty of VERY nice photos or images!) and in relation to what I said above about playing "detailed characters when in mood for 28mm", I post here a pic of the party I prepared some years ago for Inquisitor game (GW specialist game).

From left: Blood Angel Sgt, Space Wolf veteran, Inquisitor, Imperial Guard Sniper.

I played "Inquisitor" once but the rules were uber detailed for my/my friends taste... guess what ruleset I'm going to use, now? :)))

Cheers,
Andrea