Brian and I avoid most post-WW2 gaming as a general principle (we just don’t find it all that exciting) but the one part that holds any interest for me is retro-future post-Apocolypse ala Fallout. Given I am a sucker for cars, I picked up these two on a lark during one of my many runs to the second-hand store. They have been completely repainted. Enjoy!
In commemoration of Canada Day, our former colonial masters have found some pictures of that place formerly known as their colony of Canada and very kindly shared them with us via flickr.
There are some great pieces here, including a tour by the then Price of Wales( the future Edward VIII) in 1919:
And domestic architecture in the 1920’s
An amazing find. The wholeCollection, imaginatively titled “Canada“, is up on Flickr.
(h/t to the Toronto Star)
Brian already gave a nice little AAR of our last game, but I thought I would make it a little interesting. Sadly my primary machine has been on the fritz for a bit now, so photo editing is a slow process (I own a Canon 40D and shot in RAW). But given I just bought a new 60mm macro lens, I figured I just needed to share:
Early in the game, the Red armoured car:
My Lledo truck with Brian’s armoured car and Model T in the background, about to unload Red Sailors:
…who promptly get chopped apart by my White cavalry.
The White baggage train (my Copplestone Yaks and Brian’s White infantry), right before…
…the Red armoured car chopped with up with its twin machine guns. It was ugly.
The end result fo the game is that we each massacred one part of the other force, but I got the General off, so a (very) minor White victory.
I have some Copplestone Chinese on the painting table, so soon we will have a fourth side
Enjoying the now-disappeared sunshine that we had here a week or so ago, I went for a bike ride and came across a fairly common sight in any city: boxes of stuff left on the curb. These boxes were of a slightly different breed. Rather than the usual pile of broken student stuff, these looked awfully like my grandfather’s basement once did. My curiosity led to me root around a little, and lo did I find but this: A blank telegraph form from around 1931.
(I have the full form scanned at 300 DPI but it is more than 50mb large in that size. The above images are smaller but still at 300 DPI)
Dating is a little hazy, but I surveyed the few others I could find online. These facts quickly became clear:
1. Canadian National Railways (parent of Canadian National Telegraphs) came into existence in 1918 but didn’t truly exist as a railway until when they took over Canadian Northern Railway in 1922, who had previously taken control of Great North Western Telegram. Notice the similar logo?
2. W. G. Barber was appointed General Manager at some point in 1923 or 1924. Canadian National Railways Systems 1923 Annual Report listed C. E. Davies as Acting General Manager, Telegraphs, and the 1924 report lists W. G. Barber. (All can be found on McGill University’s excellent Canadian corporate annual reports)
3. The 1930 Report is the last to list Barber as General Manager, but the 1931 is missing the executive list and by 1932, D. E. Galloway is now listed as Vice-President in charge of Telegraphs
4. Also in 1924, CN acquired some telegraph lines here in British Columbia. This is likely what led to the advertisement on the bottom of this form
5. In 1926, the form looked almost the same (source):
6. However, by the 1940’s the form cited D. E Galloway rather than our now forgotten Barber (source): 
7. All of this lead me to the holy grail: an identical copy of the telegram form I have (source):
Enjoy. Hope you get some good use of this.
Always looking for interesting new miniatures, I stopped at one of the local gaming stores the other day, Curious Comics, and I saw these deer and I just had to have them. Not only am I looking for obstacles for a racing game that I am designing (road pieces are on the way, inspired by this Lead Adventure thread), but at my work I am currently working on deer management.
These particular deer are part of MegaMini’s rather large animal range, some of which you can in their Animals catalogue (PDF). You get five animals, one buck and four antler-less animals. The Megamini’s catalogue claims that the feeding animal is the doe while the smaller one are fawns, but the size difference really isn’t large enough for me.
Given the inconsistent quality of MegaMinis, these deer are pretty good. The castings were quite clean and the two-piece buck fit well together. Their size is pretty good for deer too, although their large bases make them quite tall once you place them on a 1 1/4″ washer like I did.
Lastly, this allowed me to try out my new Canon 60mm macro lens for the first time, the results of which you can see below:
Always interested in a new gaming system and being pen and paper roleplayers, Brian and I have been playing a little bit of Songs of Blades and Heroes recently. Like many of our gaming experiences, this one has been long delayed in coming but it was well worth the wait.
Our first game was a wonderful and thoroughly-illegally built three-way match involving two groups of Orcs and my Reaper Mouselings, his Dwarves and my Mouselings have had it out. The game is interesting and fun and very fast (we played three games on an hour and a half ferry ride) but has a few weak points.
Our current warbands are both tricked out minimum figures, maximum damage warbands. Neither has more than 7 figures, each worth at least two dozen points apiece. Hordes of zombies these are not. My mouselings have half their 300 point standard warband allotment between my mounted-on-an-owl, magic-using leprechaun leader, Shamus O’Reilly, and his familiar, Mossy, a captive stone golem with shooter(medium) and combat 5. Brian’s dwarves are just as nasty, with the two flanking dogs and a leader with Quality 2 and Combat 5.
A note about the game: In order to get units moving and fighting, you need to score successes by rolling at or above the quality on a d6. Combat is a simple oppposed d6 + Combat Value + modifiers. Lower Quality scores are better, higher Combat scores are better.
The game itself plays well, with some bad break points. Specifically, magic-users are useless as ranged combat figures, but deadly when they transfix. Combined with Mossy’s powerful combat and throwing ability, this gave my team a one-two killing “punch” that was hard to beat. Add in the dwarves (and mouselings) short-move and you can see where it will go wrong quickly. Where the dwarves beat me was when they were able to get their dogs around into my magic user (only combat 2) and made him move did things go badly.
And then there was the rout. Or maybe I should say “The Rout.” Brian apparently cannot roll combat rolls. I cannot roll quality checks to get people moving. These two phenomenmom manifested in one game where I never made it more than one or two short moves away from the table edge (basically less than 4″). When Brian got my leader to book it off the table, this triggered a morale roll every other warband member. Which I failed. And so my entire warband ran off the table. In a single turn.
In sum, we do enjoy playing the game, but I am not certain if its simplicities truly make me happy. We need to try some different warbands, including zombies, skeletons and cheap soldiers and see how that works.
And where are the pictures? I haven’t taken any and Brian didn’t either, so no pictures for all of you. Besides, we were playing with basically no scenery on a cafeteria table for most of our games, so they wouldn’t have been great photos anyway…
And so the day began, much like the day before it, but with the promise of relief. Dust clouds had been seen along the road toward the main force, maybe the good Colonel could see fit to send us some more men. Yesterday’s fight was bloody but at sundown, we still held the hospital, if only just.
-Memoirs of the Zulu War, Col. Reginald Heathe (ret.), commander of the Royal Oak Bay Volunteers 1875-1891
Sunday marked our second Zulu War game, the first to include figures from all five players who have bought in (myself, Malcolm, Dale, Bruce, and Nathan). Also debuting this game was my hospital, built on an imperial-ized version of Matakishi’s detailed plans.
The back story I concocted for this game was that my Royal Oak Bay Volunteers had found themselves under siege yesterday and had narrowly carried the day, but were holed in the hospital and required relief. This explained my single company on the table (my remaining British and Zulu are unbuilt). A large relief column was moving towards the hospital in an attempt to relieve it.
It all began well enough. Zulus appeared at one of six random locations under a blind, usually two blinds at a time. Luck meant that most of the blinds started in one of the two locations nearest the hospital, representing the forces from the day before coming back. The column moved slowly, but ground towards me. As our Zulus are “AI controlled”, the random stance they choose was to stand back and fire their muskets and chuck their spears against me. All was well, the Royal Oak Bay were holding.
At this point, it all went off the rails. The relief column got bogged down in heavy terrain and by the time any numbers of them could have arrived, Zulus were already attacking the front of the wagon train, leaving the Royal Oak Bay all alone. And then the Zulu’s charged. Given the difficulties both of us had in scoring any hits through the windows and doors, I lasted a surprising long time, outnumbered and worse in melee than the Zulu.
The action was hot and close. The Zulus pressing on all sides of the hospital, finally testing their spears against our bayonets. With many doors and not enough men, I was forced to step straight into the breach, holding the door nearest our relief. I parried their spears thrusts with my saber, finally driving them back. I could see the relief column, but it appeared swarmed under with Zulus. As I turned to give encouragement to my men, I saw not a single standing red coat. What I saw instead was a wall of black Zulu warriors.
– Memoirs of the Zulu War, Col. Reginald Heathe (ret.)
With the hospital fallen, the Zulus ground the British back, forcing them to retreat inch by inch. More Zulus appeared in the right flank of the column, but those Zulus discovered the pain of a gatling gun.
By nightfall, the British were tired and bloody. They retreated in poor order, leaving the hospital and this part of veldt to the Zulus for a little while longer.
As with our last game, we used Triumph and Tragedy, albeit heavily modified. Besides the aforementioned AI Zulus, the action is driven by cards which specify a certain command, either for the British or the Zulus. These include the basic T&T Fire, Fire and Move, Double Move, but also Zulu Charge, Zulu Command (which may change their tactics), and Hordes of Zulus (which puts new blinds on the table). In an effort to bring an end to the game, we decided that each player that had Zulus could lose up to four groups before they could bring no new groups on. Still, with over 250 Zulus between the four, we still didn’t end up with all the Zulus on the table at any one time.
All in all, an enjoyable game. Our rules are still in flux, but they appear to producing a good result. Now we just need to win. There are a few pictures that haven’t been seen here, they can be seen in my A hospital unrelieved Flickr group.
Zulus sir, thousands of them!
Well, dozens at least. We have recently decided to start down the Zulu War path, but haven’t made it very far down that path. In fact, I think we made it about 1/4 across the table today, our first Zulu Wars game.
As my Warlord Games figures have not yet shown up, we were quite light on the troops. I borrowed the 4th Coy of the 14th Fernwood, Malcolm ran his 3rd Coy, Bruce had a wagon train, and Dale another unit of infantry and a gatling gun. We pretty much all died.
I got to lead the whole day, an “honour” for which my slain commander, Captain Bromhead, scored our first Victoria’s Cross. At first, the Zulus were just a hazy sight in the distance (made hazier by Bromhead having lost an eye in the Indian Mutiny of 1857).
However, the Zulus very rapidly became not-so-hazy. Very distinct as a matter of fact. They were kind enough to remain at a distance, allowing me to very sportingly shoot them. (Later arrivals weren’t nearly so accommodating. Hence the VC.)
Bored at being out of action, our gatling gun decided to go and discover some Zulus via running to our extreme left flank. Shortly Zulus were discovered, and sent packing. The Horns of the Buffalo card meant that “sent packing” actually meant “gone to get their friends.” Amusing result on the right flank was a herd of cattle. Horn of the cattle more like.
The left flank went from “Gee, I don’t think they should be all the way over there” to “Oh crap, we are overrun” in very short order. Colonel Spiffer, shiny white uniform and all, quickly found himself surrounded. Being a hero, he was able to extricate himself. Our gatling gun, on the other hand… Let’s just say that rumours of the Zulus using a gatling gun a month later are totally untrue. Slanderous treason, in fact.
All this action to flank quickly evolved into action across the entire front as Zulus, hot off their success against our gatling gun, attempted a front assault. Flesh was pressed, personal details (and bodily fluids) were exchanged, and everybody got screwed in the deal.
In due course this wave of Zulus was sent packing, but the next wave sent both my brave 4th of the 14th, and Dale’s scurrying for the rear. Which leaves only the 3rd to hold the line. I think the next two pictures tell the story.
And so ends our first action of the Zulu War. We can only hope that better painted troops will fare better (although that is likely to hold true for the Zulus as well).
Our rules are based very loosely off of Triumph and Tragedy (from the superlative Lead Adventure forums) with a great deal of rules changed. First and foremost, we ran our Zulus as AI-controlled with dice to determine action. There are many on the fly changes to the modifiers, as we sought to get the right “feel”. We also changed from i-go-you-go to alternating half-way through, again to test rules.
We also experimented where the overall commander, in this case Malcolm, handed out two order cards (from the standard T&T deck) to each player at the start of each turn. This led to a lot of jockeying for a specific card, especially as our situation became more desperate.
Figures are mostly Warlord Games, with some Empress, Wargames Factory and Essex. Terrain is a mixture of mine and Malcolm’s.
Everybody has played Cowboys and Indians before, but not many have experienced the insanity that is Pony Wars, a game designed deliberately to emulate the Western TV shows of the 20th century (now give the rules were written in the 20th century, this isn’t surprising). The miniatures (and the rules) were courtesy of one of the long-standing members of our gaming club, Dale, who like most other long-term gamers has all kinds of interesting things collecting dust. Joining in the fun were a few other regulars as well as Josh, a random walk-in we immediately made Colonel (that we couldn’t agree on who should be in charge made this decision much easier).
The table was laid out in a fairly basic pattern, with the US Cavalry fort at one end, two passes in the middle, plus a town, three homesteads, a mining encampment, and an Indian village. Unlike most adversarial games, all the players are nominally on one side: US Cavalry commanders of some rank or another. The Indians and all the civilians controlled through card-driven events and dicing on tables for reactions. In fact, the game was very table-heavy, as is common for games of the ear (1980’s)
I rarely take pictures of the whole table, so here is one taken by another player:
Given our inability to agree on a commander, our inability to agree on an overall strategy meant that we ended up streaming out of the fort without specific orders. David, who had US Indian-ally Dando with him, decided to head off to the far corner of the board to bravely burn out the Indian village, held by old men, women, and children. Malcolm headed off to hold the passes with his artillery and scouts, and the rest of us buggered off to do our own thing. Given the rules told us to head out in single file (it looks better), the looked something like this:
The game, like all good stories, has a few chapters in which our heroes get their asses handed to them. Ours included Dando, after heroically deciding not to burn down the Indian village right now, getting slaughtered in one-to-one combat with the Indian chief, Big Eagle, despite Dando have ridiculously good odds. Karma, not yet imported to America, was still a bitch. I got half of my cavalry troopers, on detached duty, chopped up by Indians, moments after telling my fellow commanders I risked defeat in detail. Ah details, never liked them.
Other hilarious moments included me failing to bring the wagon train under control (this required a dice roll, which I naturally failed many times) right up until the wagon train ,having crossed the entire board, spotted the Indians. They took a few potshots then freaked out and circled the wagons. Dando’s blunder also lead to the only civilians we lost getting massacred by Big Eagle, which sets us up for our climatic battle for the town.
With fresh US Cavalry that entered the board near the town, headed most of the board to the fort then turned around and headed back to the town, I managed to stream my troopers right into Big Eagle, fresh off his scalping of our brave settlers (evil land-stealers to the Indians). You can shoot yourself dry in this game in an awful hurry, which I proceeded to do. I then discovered I had retreated to the saloon. Needless to say, that was it for my troopers. They were “conserving ammo” in case more Indians arrived. None did, and other brave soldiers drove off Big Eagle, so we called the game at that point with no Indians on the table and turns before any would arrive.
All in all, it was a blast. The 15mm figures of Dale were beautifully painted, and his town was amazing. Playing with what amounted to AI-controlled enemies allowed us to see what our upcoming Zulu Wars game might be like, and added a nice level of aggravation for their players (Damn civilians, stop running around and get to the fort). The best part of the story-driven aspect was that it allowed all the players to feel involved, even when you could spend several turns do nothing but moving around. For those visual types, I have a few more pictures in my flickr set of the game.
I have managed to sort out the technical difficulties, and the RCW Cards are now released. Check out the RCW Cards Released post for more information.