Historicals, Inspiration

To Delay Is Dangerous

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Via the US Library of Congress, this fantastic simple British recruiting poster from 1915.

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…To Delay Is Dangerous…

Really fantastic handdrawn typography and an eye for proportions. A classic of the type.

The whole Library of Congress WW1 Poster Collection is fantastic and well worth a browse. WW1 and post-WW1 posters from all over the world, not just the English-speaking world. Even better, copyright has long expired on almost all of these items across most of the world, so you can re-use them for your own purposes if you like.

Historicals

The Assault on St. Vodkanovich Monastery

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Last Sunday (15 March) got us another bash at using Chain of Command/Mud & Blood (I’ve taken to calling it “Chain of Mud”) for Russian Civil War adventures. I umpired the game for Mike, who has played RCW previously a number of times and once with the current Chain of Mud rules, and his brother Stewart, who was visiting from Vancouver and had heard interesting things about my RCW games and wanted to try it out.

We had a scratch White force of a short platoon of White Rifles (three sections), supported by two small troops (Teams) of Cossack cavalry and an armoured car attacking a hamlet around a small walled monastery defended by two sections of Red militia backed up by a single section of Red Guard and a single Team of especially enthusiastic local Reds lead by one of the Red Guard leaders.

It was a good game that saw the White rifles driven off by Red rifle fire before the Cossacks and the armoured car finally rout the Reds in a really, really tight game that saw both players convinced it was all over for them several times.

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Late in the game, the White armoured car (lower left) brings its machineguns to bear on the walled monastery compound defended by Red Guard.

I realized afterward that I’d gotten the Force Morale tests wrong in the heat of the moment, so the Whites missed two tests that would almost certainly have damaged their Force Morale and could have cost them the game.

I’m really starting to enjoy the Patrol Phase of the game and the use of Jump-Off Points. The tactics of the Patrol Phase, once new players catch on, can be almost as fascinating as the main game itself, with the limits on movement imposed on the Patrol Markers and the conflicting desires to set up good JoPs for yourself and also deny the enemy good JoP positions. This was the first game we’ve played where one Jump-off Point marker wound up right on the table edge, nearly halfway up one long side of the table, which gave the Whites a flanking position on the whole hamlet that gave the Reds quite a lot of trouble in the first half of the game.

I’ll be running an expanded and tweaked version of this scenario at Trumpeter Salute in Vancouver in a couple of weeks; I might swap the ordinary Red Guard out for a section or two of Red Sailors, just because they’re such a colourful set of figures to put on the table! With a bit of postal luck I might also have a tchanka from Eureka Minis to add to the fun!

Infinity, Terrain

A Building For Infinity

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I’ve previously shown my urban scatter terrain for Infinity, and after getting that assembled I decided to tackle something more challenging and larger.

Quite a bit larger, actually. It’s a two-storey building that wound up being about 10″ long, 6″ wide and almost 7″ tall!

The building is entirely made of mat board, usually used as picture framing board. It’s good quality cardboard, easy to work with and it takes paint and glue well. Our local art supply place, Island Blue, sells the offcuts from their framing business off cheap! The roof and second storey come off to allow full access to the entire building during games, and I think I’ve managed to make the building tactically interesting for games of Infinity.

Check out the gallery below; the captions have a lot more detail.

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If you’re interested in doing similar buildings for Infinity or any other skirmish game, I really like the ongoing “Cardbuilding” series of articles over on the Infinity news site Data Sphere: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 3.5, Part 4. Errhile is much more organized than I am, designing a whole system so that his buildings nest and stack for storage and reconfiguration, and he’s got lots of great techniques and ideas in his lavishly illustrated articles. I might well do some similar modular buildings, but for now it’s fun to just bust out a big, complex building — I haven’t done much terrain building recently!

Historicals

More RCW Patrol Markers In Progress

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I’ve been working on a couple of additions to my earlier collection of markers for Chain of Command-powered Russian Civil War.

As I was finishing up that first set I realized that I was pretty close to actually having a full set of markers for everything that happened in and around (western) Russia between 1914 and 1921 or so, with German, Imperial Russian, Red, and White markers. All I was missing was the Poles for the Russo-Polish War and the Austro-Hungarians for their front against the Russians in WW1.

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Polish and Austro-Hungarian markers (in draft form) for expanded Eastern Front/Russian theatre action.

The Polish eagle works nicely as a symbol, with red and white from the Polish flag in the background. The Austro-Hungarian symbol, like that Empire itself, is a bit of a colourful mess which incorporates a circular slice from the A-H Imperial Flag.

After I put the original markers up on Lead Adventure one of the other members posted some splendid but rough versions of his visions for alternate and extra markers. I especially liked his alternate Red marker, which used the hammer-and-plough symbol of the very early Russian Revolution, before widespread adoption of the hammer-and-sickle. I can easily see why the plough lost out to the sickle, it’s a difficult thing to draw well and tends to turn into a lumpy blob at the best of times!

Nevertheless, I sat down with Inkscape last night and finally produced a hammer-and-plough I’m happy with. Here’s an oversized version.

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The hammer-and-plough, as used early in the Russian Revolution by the Bolsheviks.

I’ve got a few more ideas for additional markers, and I’d like to add markers for the various international intervention forces (Britain, France, the Americans, maybe even Japan), especially as doing the intervention forces would pretty much also finish the Western Front marker set I’ve been considering making!

Asides

Pardon The Dust

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Decided that the blog had worn it’s old skin (WordPress’s functional but basic Twenty Eleven theme) more than long enough and have updated it to WordPress’s much more recent Twenty Fourteen theme. Still trying out features and playing with things, but the actual content hasn’t gone anywhere and neither have most of the navigational features. A few things have moved, though.

Twenty Fourteen also makes it easier and more interesting to use Featured Images and Featured Posts, so I’ve fiddled with a dozen or so of the older posts to make them more colourful.

For those of you who primarily read the blog via RSS or over the TGN Blog Network, mind you, this all makes no difference at all. Still the same content, I promise!

Infinity, Links, Science Fiction, Terrain

Links of Interest, 4 March 2015

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Another handful of links of interest!

James Ernest of Cheapass Games has a short video on three ways to make cards. Nothing earthshaking, but a good short video laying out three easy ways to make cards for your games.


Corrugated metal from disposable roasting pans, via Rusty Robot, which has all sorts of fantastic modelling posts. A lot of his stuff is too detailed/too fragile for wargaming, but the roasting pan thing looks like it would survive gamers if given basic respect!

I’ve gotten into Infinity recently, which is a game that uses on-table markers quite a lot. Corvus Belli has PDFs of the markers available to download and print, and the idea of using 1″ clear epoxy stickers (Youtube video link) to make tough and easy-to-handle marker tokens is inspired. (Clear epoxy stickers on EBay.ca. They’re a crafting thing originally, apparently.) I’m actually considering doing some tokens for Chain of Command up as 1″ rounds with epoxy stickers on top now too… might have to fire Inkscape up!

Also from the Infinity side of the gaming world, Toposolitario has a great website with all sorts of paper terrain and some tutorials. Great stuff and all free.

I’m mostly painting up Infinity models these days, getting ready for Trumpeter Salute at the end of March, and considering entering the 9th Lead Painter’s League over on the Lead Adventure Forum – I’ve been in the 3rd, 5th & 7th LPLs, so continuing the “every odd LPL” streak seems like a good idea. Plus it’ll be a kick in the butt to get painting again, I’ve done far too little actual figure painting in the last year or so!

Conventions

Another GottaCon Gone

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So GottaCon 2015 was last weekend; I managed to be at the whole convention, and it (mostly) good.

Friday night I ran a Pulp Alley game. The non-tournament miniatures games at GottaCon are perpetually under-promoted, under-supported, and (unsurprisingly) under-attended. The convention doesn’t even have assigned tables for non-tournament gaming, you can just set up whereever the tournament folks aren’t using, basically.

Kind of hard to promote a game to people when you aren’t even sure where in a large venue (Victoria Convention Centre) you’ll be running your game…

I got a grand total of one player for PA, but we still had a good game. His team of Intrepid Reporters completely and utterly beat my skulking group of Foreign Cultists, principally by being significantly more competent than them at the gathering of clues!

Saturday daytime and Sunday daytime I participated in the Blood Bowl tournament with my crocodiles (Lizardmen). Won two games out of five, tied one, had a great time in all five games. Got to face off against goblins (twice), Skaven, Vampires and Norse – these last three were all new teams to face for me and made for interesting games. Both goblin games were full of the usual explosive high-risk stupid awesomeness you expect from Gobbos, the high point of that being a gob Bomber who fumbled a bomb at his feet and blew himself over, as well as every single other player in the surrounding squares, two more goblins and three crocs!

The Handbag Factory – my crocodile’s amazing habit of getting themselves killed or maimed despite being among the most heavily armoured players available in BB – was in full operation. I lost Sauri every game, and even my Krox once. Thankfully it was a resurrection tournament, we started each game with exactly the same roster!

Saturday evening I ran a really good Russian Civil War game using the TFL Chain of Command rules. The defending Reds bloodied the White Cossacks good and hard, the high point being pulling off a series of close assaults on the White armoured car that ended in it being immobilized with both guns jammed in the centre of the hamlet, and the crew being bayoneted by the Red militia!

The VCC is quite a change in venue from the drafty and loud old Pearke’s Fieldhouse of previous GottaCons; it’s got a few issues of it’s own (no coffee before ten in the morning!) but being right downtown is convenient for more people than the out-of-the-way Pearkes Rec Centre. Mind you, I might be biased because it’s a ten to fifteen minute easy walk to the Convention Centre from my front door!

Looking forward to GottaCon 2016 next year, and in the much more immediate future, I need to start getting prepped for Trumpeter Salute 2015 at the end of March, just four weeks away!

Historicals

RCW Patrol Markers for Chain of Command

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In the run-up to this weekend’s GottaCon convention, I’ve finally gotten around to finishing the patrol markers I need to properly run Chain of Command-powered Russian Civil War games.

I’d done status markers back in January, and now I’ve got a set of the Patrol and Jump Off Point markers you need for each side in Chain of Command.

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Imperial Russia, White Russian, Red Russian and German markers – see below for PDF link.

Even better, I’ve done up German and Imperial Russian markers as well as White Russian and Red (Bolshevik) markers, so Eastern Front World War One is covered as well as the RCW. The Russian markers are based on the roundel used by the Imperial Air Force; the White marker is the Russian tricolour defaced with an Orthodox cross; the Reds get a yellow star on red background; and the Germans get the classic cross on a feldgrau background.

RCW/Eastern Front Patrol & JoP Markers for Chain of Command – PDF, 5 pages, 40Kb

Note that I included the previously-released CoC tactical markers as well, just to put the complete set of markers into one PDF.

Permission is granted to print & copy this file for personal use only. Chain of Command is © TooFatLardies, obviously.

Enjoy the markers! Feedback, suggestions or corrections in the comments below, please! Let me know if you actually use these things!

Conventions

Eight Days to GottaCon 2015!

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Just over a week until our local convention, GottaCon 2015 starts! I’ve got a ticket already, and I’m doing something I’ve never done before, which is enter a tournament – namely the Blood Bowl tourney with my Crocs. The BB Tourney is morning & afternoon both Saturday & Sunday, so I have Friday evening and Saturday evening free from the rigours of having my ambulatory handbags pounded into the pitch by other teams.

Friday evening I’ve put in to run a Pulp Alley pulp adventure skirmish game. We really haven’t been doing much pulp gaming lately but PA is a nice system and easy to introduce people to.

Saturday evening I’ve put in to run a Chain of Command/Mud & Blood Russian Civil War game. This one is going to require the most prep this weekend and over next week, as I need a batch of new Quick Reference cards for CoC/M&B hybrid and some other gaming aids that I’ve been putting off, mostly because I’ve been distracted by Infinity recently.

I’ll run a fairly simple scenario, and my RCW project is at a nice mature point where it doesn’t really need any new scenery or figures to work as a good-looking convention game. That said, I’m thinking of bashing another Russian-flavoured building or two together after GottaCon to show off at Trumpeter Salute 2015 over in Vancouver at the end of March, which is always the high point of my personal gaming calendar each year.

Terrain

Urban Scatter Terrain for Infinity

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So I’ve been persuaded (OK, it didn’t take much…) to get into Infinity, the fast and lethal science fiction skirmish game from Corvus Belli. I’ve been vaguely interested in Infinity for years, both by the high quality sculpting and because of the background and basic look of the game with it’s obvious influence from awesome sources like Ghost in the Shell, Bladerunner, cyberpunk, and a generally “hard science fiction” future – no skullz, no rusty Gothic goofiness, etc!

I’ve picked up a small Haqqislam force and started painting them up; they’re really neat figures that I’ll show progress pictures of later.

Being the sort of gamer I am, though, I also immediately started producing bits of terrain for the game. Infinity is a fast lethal game that demands a fairly high density of terrain on the table. Most of our terrain is fairly urban, lots of shiny new lasercut MDF buildings owned by the other players, so I decided to do some mixed scatter terrain to go along with that.

Planters seemed like a good choice – straightforward to build, plausible in an urban environment, a good chance to introduce some greenery and colour to an urban board, and a chance to use up some of my stockpile of scrap and offcut mounting board leftover from older, larger projects.

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28mm planters from scrap card for Infinity SF skirmish gaming. Figure is a 28mm Janissary heavy infantry.

The largest piece is 6″ wide and 3.5″ across, mostly because that’s the size of a scrap of foamcore in my leftovers bin. The four smaller planters are 4″ long and 1″ across at the wide end. The small piece at the end is based on a 3″ circle of mounting board I cut as an experiment — yes, my circle cutter will cut mounting board. But not happily…

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I’ll probably do another two or three of the long narrow planters, and then start exploring other shapes.

I did have to get into my uncut stockpile of large mounting board sheets for the end plates on the large raised piece, but basically everything else is from offcuts – total material cost so far about as close to zero as you can get!

I’ll get these painted this weekend, then break out the greenery to fill them in.

Wargaming & Such (formerly Brian's Wargaming Pages)