Month: August 2019

At Historicon I purchased four armored cars that look like they came from bags of green army men.  I bought these for a dollar or two each with the idea of using them in my science fiction Combat Patrol games.  First I disassembled them and painted them.  The barrel (top right of figure above) is how they came, but they were separate pieces, so they were easily removed and replaced.

I ordered two packs of Tesla guns from Company B miniatures.  They arrived very quickly.  Each pack has three different guns.  I put one type on the vehicle in the first picture and the same type on the two vehicles in the lower picture.  I was really only home for a day and a half from being on the road, so I didn’t do a lot of weathering.  Still, these are game table good enough.  I will look for some stowage items to add to them to give them a little more character.   I see these as “space Stuarts:” fast, light, okay gun, and armored with tin foil.  They will make good scout cars.

I also painted a couple of science fiction figures I found in my box of stuff to paint.  (I try not to buy figures at a convention unless I paint the figures I bought at the last convention, so my unpainted lead collection stays pretty low — probably in the 4th or 5th percentile of gamers.)  The figure in the middle is one of the Aliens colonial marines from Woodbine that I painted a couple of years ago.  I don’t know the manufacturer of the new figures, but their armor, uniforms, and cameras on the sides of their heads are an exact match, so they may be Woodbine as well.  I like the robotic machine-gun a lot!

Each year I have been running a New Year’s Eve game for the HAWKs.  We start about 1500 and run until a little after midnight.  This gives me plenty of beauty sleep and allows those inclined to find wilder parties for the rest of the night.  This may be our last year hosting the New Year’s Eve gala.  I am thinking of running a 6′ x 20′ science fiction Combat Patrol(TM) game as one of the two main events.  I have been collecting and painting science fiction figures for several years, and I need to get them on the table.

I have compared Gasland and Mad Maximillian for armed car racing.  I like Mad Maximillian better; although, the rules writing is somewhat cryptic.  I have all the Eureka Mad Max cars painted up, and I ran the game at a club night some months ago.  I need to try to run it again one of these days.

Right before Historicon, I ordered the set of jalopies from First Corps.  I really like them.  They didn’t come with weapons, so I had to add some.  For some reason, the tan piece of board I used to take these photos goofed up the white balance, so you don’t get to see the right colors, but they look okay anyway.

I hope to run a game with these and my other cars soon.  I think I have enough now for each player to have two cars.

In my copious free time, I’ve continued to think a bit about gladiator rules.  There are some nice sets of rules already on the market, and I don’t see this as a commercial project.  I am looking for something quick and easy for one-off games.  Greg has been looking at distinguishing special abilities to make the various types of gladiators seem different.  The working title of these rules is Blood and Sand.

I am pretty sure the game will be run on a hexagon grid to make it abundantly clear the gladiator’s facing.  The discerning gamer who already knows the unbounded joy of Blood and Swash, will find some of the mechanics very similar.

Above is a sample, working draft of a “character” card for a gladiator.  Note that gladiators can attack into their front three hexes.  When a player rolls up the gladiator’s attributes, one of the attributes is Attack.  That goes in the hex with the dark border.  The other two hexes have the Attack number modified as shown in the leftmost card.  Similarly, for defense, the dark hex contains the Defend attribute, and Defend is modified ginghams around the figure as shown on the right two cards.

Each class of gladiator (heavy, medium, and light) will have a different chart for rolling up attributes.

 

Gladiators were most frequently grouped by class (e.g., heavy vs. heavy) to provide the most even, balanced, and entertaining match (sort of like the forced mediocrity created by the draft system in professional sports).  I’m not exactly sure how that will work in the game.  Greg is working on the scenarios and matchup.  Like recent sets of rules like Jugula and Sons of Mars, Greg has the idea that a player will have a stable (ludus) of gladiators and select the right one for the upcoming match.  I’m sure that will appeal to many gamers, but for me, I am looking for some quick games to fill and hour, not a campaign where I have to manage resources.  That sounds like work, not play.  Also, while the head of a ludus sounds interesting as a gaming mechanism, apparently they were considered about the same as pimps or flesh peddlers in their day.

I have created a “middleweight” gladiator class that doesn’t seem to have existed formally.  Gladiators in this class include the Provocator and Hoplomachus.  These are armored like heavy gladiators but carry a much smaller shield.

Greg is also researching special abilities for the gladiator types within a class to distinguish them from each other.  Where Sons of Mars has a lot of special abilities, many of those are already taken into account in the attribute generation tables.  We are looking for things more like a foot sweep tripping attack, and shield bash (using your shield as a weapon), etc.  More to come on that.

You may note a Speed attribute on the character cards.  I envision two uses for this attribute.  First, it is the number of hexes a figure may move when it activates.  The second use will be to determine the activation sequence.  Instead of cards, I am thinking that at the beginning of each turn, players will roll d20 for each figure and add that figure’s Speed number.  The highest resulting number goes first and then on down the line.  I would like to do a d6, because that will make the Speed attribute more important than when rolling a d20, but I am worried about too many collisions requiring a “roll off.”

So that’s where I am today.  I am waiting for my sand-colored hex-grid cloth to arrive so that I can do the first play test.  Also, Greg is still working on the special abilities.  Stay tuned for more information as the concept matures.  I am hoping to have the cloth and be ready to run a game at Barrage, 27-28 September.

At Historicon I had a chance to look at the Black Sun figures from Bob Murch.  These are Vietnam figures but with two pulp science fiction forces added.  One are these Deep Ones, for of Creature from the Black Lagoon looking.  The ones for Black Sun come with AK-47s.  Very similar Deep Ones are available in the Cthulu range.  I bought the starter box of those and added a bunch of extra German WWII weapons.  I was also told that the next pack of Black Sun Deep Ones will be armed with rifles, instead of AK-47s.

I have a giant alligator from Reaper that is crying to have a German infantry gun or heavy machine-gun mounted on its back!

If you value the lives of your pulp figures, tell them to stay away from the water, or a lot of little lead widows will be getting sad telegrams.

I have been working on a Roman gladiator project recently.  I recently bought three sets of Foundry gladiators and painted them along with a bunch of Steve Barber Roman spectators.

 

I also purchased a Playmobile Roman coliseum / arena.  My daughter painted it for me.

I bought a copy of Sons of Mars and read through the rules.  I think they have a good amount of period flavor, and they seem to be okay.  I have been toying with a concept for a die progression system that is tailor made for something like gladiators.  Then today in a text conversation with Greg, I hit upon the idea of using mechanics similar to Blood and Swash.  I still have some of the details to work out, but I think I am going to call it Blood and Sand.  Stay tuned….

The HAWKs recently received an Email from John Spiess about his daughter and the Armies for Kids project.  With his permission, I am sharing the letter:

Hi guys,