Buck's Blog

Jason Moses of Hinterland Miniatures posed a picture recently of my Death Jaw-riding female hussars.  See the customer gallery at http://hinterlandminiatures.weebly.com/customer-gallery.html for some nice pictures of his figures in action.

The Harford Area Weekly Kreigspeilers present our annual gaming day yesterday, 15 September in the Havre de Grace Community Center.  It was a huge success, with a number of firsts:

• A new, larger, better-lit venue
• A Flames of War tournament (with 18 of 24 available slots filled)
• Expanded food service for lunch (hot dogs, drinks, chips, candy, and other snacks at a reasonable price)
• Record attendance (which was exciting, given a new venue and the threat that folks from Northern Virginia wouldn’t drive to Northern Harford County.
• Record number of dealer tables (Age of Glory, On Military Matters, Lost Battalion Games, and The War Store (Havre de Grace)).  All dealers reported a successful weekend and said they would return next year.
• Record number of games for kids, including a table dedicated to kids all day
• Record number of kids (6 or more youngsters who stayed all day and played in a wide variety of games)

This year’s attendance was 104, which does not include the HAWKs.  In HAWKs tradition, we pushed as many players as we could into games run by non-HAWKs who supported our convention by offering to run games.  I do not think that any GM who came to run a game didn’t have enough players to run it.  We cancelled two HAWKs-run games to ensure this was true.  There were no players turned away from games; everyone who came to Barrage was gainfully employed all day.

We think that the number, breadth, and quality of games were about right this year.  We need about 20 more gamers next year to fill all games.  If everyone brings one more friend next year, we’ll achieve that goal.

As is HAWKs tradition, we try to encourage younger gamers.  While previous Barrage game days have always features a large number of games for kids, this year we dedicated a table to kids games.  These included:  my War Rocket spaceship game, Rob Dean’s Hannibal game, Eric Schlegel’s ACW game, and Geoff Graff’s Lego pirate game.  In addition, Ken Frost ran the Lego pyramid game for which he won an award at Historicon 2012.

People often think the HAWKs are a much larger group than we are.  There are really about 12-15 regulars.  What makes us appear bigger than we are is the large percentage of folks who run games.  Just about all the HAWKs are active GMs in HAWKs meetings, in local gaming events, and in large HMGS East conventions.  What makes the HAWKs work is a dearth of hierarchy and bureaucracy.  Barrage is not an event run by a “convention team.”  It is a group effort in which everyone contributes to they extend they are able and comfortable.  Whether its organizing the event schedule (me), organizing the dealer area (Duncan), handling the back end logistics (Geoff), running games, setting up, tearing down, making sure non-HAWKs games are filled, donating food and supplies, working the registration desk, or whatever needs to be done, HAWKs manage Barrage in a decentralized manner with a minimum of fuss, angst, control, or organization.

As a new feature, we think we’ll offer a small number of Friday night games next year as well.

We are checking with the Recreation Center now to see when it is available for next year, but we’d like to do it a week later in September to avoid potential conflicts with Antietem and Defenders’ Day.  We’ll publish next year’s date as soon as we confirm it.  We hope to see each of you next year.

Two nights before Barrage, I still had people signing up to run games.  In fact, I was worried about not having enough tables.  This GASLIGHT War of the Worlds game was one of those last-minute additions.  I think this was the first time these guys had run GASLIGHT at a convention, but by all accounts it was hugely successful.

This was a really interesting game.  When the game began, the players’s force were on these big tiles.  Because of the fog, the players didn’t know who was on their left or right.  As the game progressed, tiles were moved, and the table was finally filled in with additional tiles.  It’s a very interesting concept from some of the nicest people in the hobby.

Aerodrome is popular with both kids and adults.  My kids go to conventions largely just to play this game.

Tank debuted this game at Historicon 2012.  He built a representation of a cowboy train that is large enough to move figures around inside it.  The game is a cowboy Blood and Swash game.  People can run along the roof of the train, fight inside, and even gamble.  This has become a crowd favorite.

We want to maintain the friendly, low-stress feel of Barrage, but the new venue provides room for growth.  In this picture you get a feel for the size of the main room.  There is a second room about half this size.  With enough growth we have flexibility to move tournament play into that room or put large, mega games in there.   We will grow slowly so as not to sacrifice the local nature of Barrage.  We need to add about 20 more games next year.

From left to right:  Geoff, Eric, Steve, Duncan, me (seated), Dave, Kurt (Charlie Brown shirt), Don, Chris (seated), Mike, Greg, and Tank (kneeling).  Missing from the picture are Rob, Ken, Norman, William, Don S., Bruce, and Jennifer.  My wife, who worked the food service with Jennifer most of the day, took the picture.  You’ll be hard pressed to find a more active, friendly, or productive gaming group anywhere in the world.

You didn’t go to Barrage?  Get up so I can shoot you again!

See http://www.bucksurdu.com/Buck_Surdu/Barrage.html for more information about the best gaming day in the area.  Don’t miss this tremendous day of gaming fun.

The Barrage gaming day run by the Harford Area Weekly Kreigspeilers is just three days away.  It will be held on 15 September in Havre de Grace Maryland, just off I-95.

See http://www.bucksurdu.com/Buck_Surdu/Barrage.html for detailed information, including a list of vendors and  a complete listing of games.  We have a nice selection of games from a variety of historical periods.  This year we even added a Flames of War tournament.  Barrage is typically an enjoyable, low-stress day of gaming.  Food will be available on premises, and there are a number of places to eat within short driving distance.

We’ve moved Barrage to a new venue with twice as much space and room to grow.  Don’t miss this event.  Bring a buddy or two!

After our successful LSNC: Fantasy, Ancients, and Medieval game last weekend, I’ve been motivated to paint a few more fantasy figures.  These centaurs are from Eureka Miniatures, which has a nice line of 10mm fantasy figures.  There were enough figures in the bag that I was able to create the two bases of figures plus a leader/headquarters.

I really like the Eureka figures.  They have some interesting figures not found in other lines.  These minotaurs come in three poses.  I thought about mounting them on two bases, but they looked a little crowded, so I went with four minotaurs to a base.

This is another interesting set from Eureka.  These are elves riding on stags.  I think what is shown above represents two bags of the figures.  This gave me enough for two bases of lancers and one base of mounted archers.

In the bags of elves riding on stags, I ended up with three extra mounted figures.  I found these little dragons at a toy store in Annapolis.  They were soft rubber, but once I sprayed them with Krylon, they were stiff enough to paint. I think the three mounted figures look like they were made for these little dragons.

Earlier in the week, I won a big on Ebay for a painted Warmaster High Elf army.  I’m anxious to see how they look on person.

A few months ago we were playing a GASLIGHT fantasy game, run by Dave Wood.  He had some tremendous figures that we all coveted.  They were orcs riding on dinosaur-looking creatures.  Dave had the stock number from an old Ral Partha catalog on the bottom of the bases.  We found that Iron Wind has all the old Ral Partha molds.  After a little work and a little luck, Jim Fox, the current owner of the molds, agreed to make a bunch of Death Jaws for us.  Most of us didn’t want the orcs.  I wanted mine for VSF games.  Anyway, Iron Wind made a bunch of them for us, and we were able to get our hands on a bunch of them at Historicon this Summer.

The figure came in five pieces:  central body, left body, right body, a bag of stuff, and the reins.  The bits went together, but green putty was needed to fill in some gaps.

Below is a picture of a Death Jaw after the first coat of paint.

They look even better after the second coat of dry brushing.

I plan to use them in a Mars or desert-based Victorian science fiction game, so I wanted them to have an orange hue to them.

The Death Jaws have skulls hanging from the back of the beast.  While they looked okay with orcs riding them, I didn’t think that my lady hussars would travel with skulls on their mounts.

To cover the hanging skulls, I made some boxes and bags from Fimo.  I molded them around the skulls and then carefully pealed them off.  After cooking, I primed and painted them.

Hinterland sells the mounted female hussars with or without horses.  I ordered a unit mounted on horses and another set without horses, specifically to mount on these Death Jaws.

At the same time I was painting two units of mounted female hussars, I painted a few dismounted ones to go with them.  I really like these figures.  They look like women without being pornographic.

A GASLIGHT unit consists of 10 figures.  This picture shows just four of them, but I have a full ten-man (or woman) unit.  I can’t wait to put them on the table.  They will be quite an imposing sight.

I highly recommend both the Death Jaw figure and the entire line of figures from Hinterland.

Yesterday, Chris, Dave, and I ran our first play test of Look, Sarge, No Charts: Fantasy, Ancients, and Medieval (LSNC: FAM) rules.  We were assisted by Tommy.  As this was our first test of the rules, we hadn’t even had time to affix the data labels to the bases.

I built a point system for the game.  We don’t intend these for tournament play; however, fantasy is so broad that we felt a point system was needed in order to give game masters a first-order approximation of the “value” of forces in order to help design interesting scenarios.  For this game, we basically just used the point system to total the points for the forces we have painted.  It turns out that a good player’s worth of figures was about 1000 points.  The play test helped us refine the point system a bit, but considering that this was our first game and the first use of the point system, the forces were surprisingly well balanced, and the scenario turned out to be very even.

Most of my forces are from two Games Workshop Battle of Five Armies sets.  Those two sets allow you to create a lot of units of Eagles.  I added a set of Eureka Miniatures elves riding on eagles.  It turned out to be a formidable force.  We are going to increase the point cost for flying units.  Despite their very light armor, and the fact that skeletons have better protection against edged weapons (like eagle talons), my eagles were able to defeat the skeletons after several turns of fighting.

For this first play test, we kept the group small.  This allowed us to stop and make changes along the way.  It worked well enough that we think our next game can be at a club meeting.  In early play tests in which you are making changes on the fly, it is counterproductive to have a large group.  Four players were the right amount.

We were happy with the overall look of the battle.  This picture is from near the beginning of the game.  While most of my figures are Battle of Five Armies, you can see my “tree trolls” from Eureka Miniatures in the foreground of this picture.  Eureka has some nice 10mm fantasy figures.

This picture is from late in the game when Tommy’s high elf cavalry had worked its way around the flank of the evil forces and were preparing to fall on their rear.

I am still working on getting the Napoleonic rules written and off to the publisher.  I have to be careful not to get too distracted by this new project.  I hope to have the Napoleonic book written by the end of September so they can be released in time for the HMGS East Fall In convention.  That means we’ll probably be ready to start public play tests of LSNC: FAM by Cold Wars in March 2013.  Keep your eyes out for them!

The HAWKs will host their annual gaming day, Barrage, on 15 September.

We’ve added even more games to an already packed event schedule for Barrage on 15 September. See link for details.

In past years, Barrage has been a tremendous one-day gaming event. This year promises to be even better with a larger venue, more games, and even a Flames of War tournament.

Come early. Stay all day. Bring some buddies.

Buck Surdu

I didn’t get much hobby work done this weekend, but I did manage to finish a handful of Hinterland figures.

I thought they would look good with blue skirts.  Many of the WWI uniform pictures I say had blue tunics but white trousers.  Then I found this picture of a WWII German sailor.

With the dry brushing, the blue on the females got too light.  I guess these women have been on active service too long, and their uniforms have faded.

I can’t wait for this unit to see action in an upcoming game.