Prepping for Salute

Well, we're nearly there. After another Sunday afternoon, this time with Rob and Carl from the club, we have most things done:

Six terrain boards, all of which still need edging so they don't look quite so... um.. blue. We tried black gaffer tape, but it really doesn't stick to the foam. They also need magnets inserting into the slots Andy cut in the 3mm board they're based on, just as soon as I get time to find where I put them!

 Rob's masterpiece: the graveyard.

Hardboard base, most of two packs of Renedra gravestones, lots of Javis Spring static grass (by contrast with the Summer grass on the rest of the boards), lots of assorted Woodland Scenics underbrush/bushes.

Personally, I think it's brilliant.

And it did inspire Carl and I to knock this together.






 The pub.

Not quite finished - I have about an hour or two's work to get the roof on, the windows and signage painted and some ivy up the walls.

The base is a spare piece of hardboard the club had no use for, the walls are a set of 28mm 4Ground walls I'd forgotten I'd bought. The ivy is Woodland Scenics clump foliage (usefully hiding several places where the walls don't quite meet :D), and the grass is Javis Spring again.

Some of the débris of construction. By my reckoning, by the time we're done we'll have used:

• a six pack of 600x600x50mm Craft Foam
• 1800x1200mm of 3mm board
• 6 packs of Javis Summer static grass (buying out Trains4U in the process!)
• a pack of Javis Spring static grass
• a pack of someone's fine grass flock (for the village green)
• half a big container of Woodland Scenics fine gray ballast
• about the same of assorted grades and shades of Woodland Scenics clump foliage/underbrush/bushes
• several different types of flower/grass tufts
• at least two or three other kinds of static grass
• about half a tub of Evostik PVA
• a quarter of a can of cheap brown emulsion
• from the Warbases VBCW range
• 4 terrace houses
• one church
• one general store
• one post office
• one pub
• one warehouse
• one stile
• one five bar gate
• two post boxes and a phone box
• 10 4Ground roof tile sheets (at least)
• one pack 4Ground stone walls
• one pack Ratio GWR fencing
• half a dozen panel pins, two cocktail sticks and a wooden meat skewer
• two cans of Boots unscented hairspray
• a whole bottle of Army Painter superglue
• from existing club scenery
• one pmc.games manor house
• about 10' of Last Valley hedges
• half a dozen Last Valley trees
• many mugs of tea and most of a superb homemade red velvet cake (thanks Anne!)

And that's not counting a large platoon of Home Guard, just shy of 60 zombies and a squad of Germans.

See you at Salute stand GL10!

Indiegogo watch... Tabletop S3

Not Kickstarter this time, but still something of which I'm very fond.

If you're a long time Meeples and Miniatures listener, you'll no doubt be aware that the podcast covers board games as well as wargames, and, indeed, that's one of the reasons I'm a fan.

The other boardgame-related show I'm also massively fond of is Tabletop. If you've missed it, Tabletop is a YouTube-based show in which Wil Wheaton and a number of guests play various boardgames: brilliant fun, very entertaining (even if they sometimes get some of the rules wrong!).

Anyway - the root of all this: Tabletop Season 3 needs funding - apparently the first two seasons were effectively funded by Google, but this next season needs a cool $500,000 to produce (and is already nearly halfway there). If you're a fan, like me, the link is here.

Another busy Sunday ahead...

Having spent today being "Dad's Taxi Service", as usual for a Saturday, tomorrow's a wargaming day, once i get back from playing bass guitar in church.

Specifically:

• we're finishing off the boards for the club game at Salute - mostly this involves edging them so the blue foam doesn't show, but I'm also going to add a little more variation in the grass (some dandelions etc), and maybe build some front gardens for the buildings. I also need to assemble two more buildings, which I'll probably try and get a start on before church.
• As I have a game of WAB with Andy on Monday, I really need to finish the repairs on my Saxons!
• I'm off to Ayton for another round of Henry Hyde's Imagi-nation campaign on May Day Bank Holiday weekend, and I have 18 cavalry and 2 guns to build (from the good folks at Wargames Factory's WSS range). I may see if I can at least get them assembled.

Designing a setting: part 2 - Fluff

Finally making my way back to the series I started on the way to Seattle - designing a setting. Several people made very useful comments on the introductory post, and I'll pick up on those in the inevitable articles that happen after the one's I've planned :D

Not taking things in quite the order I listed them at the start, we'll begin with:

Fluff. Fluff is that stuff that isn't essential to your setting in terms of rules, army lists etc. The peripheral writing, the backstory, the art, you name it...You can play in your setting without it...

...well, actually you can't.

Ok. You can. But all you're doing at that point is pitting two sets of statted up miniatures against each other and having a battle.

The best settings, the ones that draw you in, are the ones where the fluff grabs you and draws you in, inspires you. It's the stuff that gets you immersed in the setting, wanting to be a part of it.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

Like or loathe the business practices behind it, the Warhammer 40K universe absolutely rolls in fluff on an epic (see what I did there? :D) scale. It might not be your cup of tea, but I guarantee you that it wouldn't sell half as well if people didn't like the backstory.

On a more personal note - I adore the pre- and early Clans setting of Battletech, and all its history. Two particular bits of its story grabbed me - one was the character of "Snow Fire" (after which one of my character's[1] 'Mech's got named), the other the mercenary unit the 12th Vegan Rangers. The latter scored at least in part because it wasn't as well-fleshed out as the more 'famous' units in terms of having books written about it (See? whole books! Fluff! And THEN some!), while having enough tantalising hints dropped to draw me (and a number of other players) in and want to create more in the setting. (We'll come on to sub-creation and open-endedness later in the series.)

And a question: those of you who read this blog and play or intend to play Dux Brit. How much have Andy and my campaign narratives helped to draw you in? (Dux Brit has some other features, setting and campaign wise, that we'll discuss later, but for now... :D)

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[1] I'm 20 years the better writer since that story was written. Be gentle :D

Salute Blogger Meetup

Are we doing one this year?

If so, can I suggest the usual time and place - 1pm, seating area in the middle of the wall at the right hand end from the main entrance?

Failing that, I and the club will be on stand GL10 for the day.

Battle Report - 31-Mar-2014 - Chain of Command Brécourt Manor

I really am losing track of days of the week here! It is Wednesday, right?

As you'll have seen from Monday night's blog, Gary and I had another crack at Brécourt Manor for Chain of Command. This time I took the Germans, and we tweaked a few things from last time, mostly moving the Germans more into one corner so we could have a proper patrol phase.

I think we're going to have to tune the force morale levels or something a bit (perhaps make the German gun crews not count) as it seems it's impossible for the Americans to take all four gun points before the Germans break :D

Takeways?

My dice still suck - I had two of the weirdest and least useful dice rolls for command dice - 1,1,4,4,6 as my first roll, and also a roll of 1,5,5,6,6.

As Rich pointed out in the forum recently, close combat is unbelievably bloody, especially if you're attacking a team in hard cover. The maxim is "Pin, Pivot, Punch" - pin 'em, move round to avoid MG fire and assault, but in CoC the pin is absolutely key. A pinned opponent in close combat loses half its dice, which means you lose (on average) half your casualties.

Match Report - 24 Mar 2014 - Dreadball

Time for round two of the club's monthly Dreadball league, in which I got to play newcomer John's Kawazaki Krushers, a bunch of Orx. Over to the usual commentary crew, who seem to be facing some technical difficulties:[1]

"Welcome to Valhalla Stadium once again, where you find us about six rushes from the end of a gripping game between the Asgard Valkyries and the Kawazaki Krushers: it should be more one-sided than it is, but tonight the Valkyries apparently can't throw for toffee, but are still four-zip up. We're also suffering from a loss of picture feed, so we're going to be doing this old-school." 

"Vish not sure he like sound of that, Jason."

"Why not, big guy?" 

"Hard enough for Vish to get word in edgeways as it is." 

"Too bad. You join us as Valkyries' striker Ola Gunnarson picks up a scattered ball, and ducks between two Krushers guards, in to the three point zone. This for a whitewash - she can't possibly miss from there. Must score! And she... misses..." 

"Bwhaha... Vish think that absolutely priceless." 

"Indeed. Gunnarson pings the throw off the stanchion of the strike target, straight back at her, clean between the eyes. Quite how she's still on her feet I don't know. End of the rush... Here come the Orx." 

"Ooopsie. Ola not on her feet now." 

"Indeed not. Gunnarson's being 'ported off, and if she wasn't seeing stars before, that big guard made sure she is now. And here comes one of the Krushers' goblin jacks to clean up the scattered ball... oh. Dear." 

"Vish starting to think that bar of soap, not ball." 

"He fumbles the pickup. It's like a game of pinball there, as the ball rebounds off the ref bot, the arena wall, the ref bot again and the arena wall again. And since the Orx have lost possession, here comes the second last rush for the Valkyries. Oh dear." 

"Ugh. Ugly, ugly play. Ugly like Vish's grandmother." 

"You could be right, big guy. Ho. What a mess. The Valkries try to get a couple of jacks in range of the ball, but nothing doing. Over to the Orx: a jack manages to pick it up this time. Passes it - can the Krushers get downfield and take this game into overtime... no!! missed pass. Loose ball, last rush for the Valkyries. And here comes Valkyries' stunning blonde backup striker Freya Sigurdsdottir, at a flat run from the bench. Sidesteps a guard, stretches the run to grab the loose ball, clean pickup..." 

"Vish getting that strange thing again. Can't remember phrase. It on tip of tongue." 

"Post-concussion syndrome?" 

"Not funny. Vish have doctor's note for that." 

"I've seen it, folks. Not so much a note as a novel..." 

"Ah. Vish remember. Déjà vu. Vish pretty sure we were here a rush or two ago." 

"Long legs take her into the three point zone. She must score... Oh my goodness..." 

"Vish note for viewers - thudding sound you hear is Jason's head on desk. Jase fancy Freya. Jase was looking forward to post-match interview." 

"How on all the planets this side of Azure IX did she miss that? How? I mean - it was an absolute sitter..." 

"Vish not sure. But Vish think Valkyries coming down with something." 

"What?" 

"Don't know. Vish pretty sure it not catching, though. Or throwing."

And on that note...

My thanks to John, whose first ever game of Dreadball it was, for a really fun game.

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[1] translation: guess who forgot his camera?