 July 8, 2010 - 4:24am | I'm off to Historicon in 45 minutes, I've packed 2 small bags, planned my purchases, kissed the wife, got the old photos off the digital camera and just cleared out 90% of my email (I've been neglecting it for a few weeks). The kids are in Maine with my parents and my job was told, "See ya latter." It suddenly occurs to me that the reason for a vacation is so that you can ditch all the responsibilities, relax and stop worrying. Its surprised me that I've looked forward to this event for a year and have been excited about spending 4 days with 5000 other wargamers that are 99% men. I think its just the shedding of responsibility and truly relaxing- you just dont notice that you never relax if you go year after year without a vacation. Well, I'd bring you all back a miniature but it'd have to be a "virtual" one- I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 July 8, 2010 - 9:44am | Sounds like fun Jedi.. Post som pics when you get back...  At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
July 14, 2010 - 5:53pm | Took 2 painting classes and 1 sculpting class played a post apocalyptic convoy game called War Lands in about 18mm scale with converted hot wheels cars- won a package of bitz for converting a hotwheel and the game master threwn in a hot wheel. Played in a Mobby Dick game that had all the players running a whaling boat trying to take down the white whale, sharks showed up every time the whale was harpooned (which put blood in the water) and most players left crew knocked over board in the water to fend for them selves which meant if the sharks were close they was dead. The game was a "house rules" but a ton of fun and right up the alley for kids to participate in. I took a pass on the zombie drinking game that was held by the members of my club in attendance (I thought it was just going to be drinking till you were a zombie) instead it was a zombie be game with lots of drinking on the side. a few people ended up feeling as much pain as a zombie feels but it sounded like fun, wish I had attended. Was having some bar food in the hotel bar when a "girl" who was short on looks and trying way too hard to look sexy came in and ordered a Shirely Temple but asked the bartender to put a little vodka in it. After she left me and the bar tender cracked jokes about "Shirely getting her groove on" I did the the paint and take (you show up and paint a free figure then take it with you) on a lark I converted a Ral Partha "girls gone wild" figure adding butterfly wings from their bitz box of wings and donated it back to the Ral partha guy after painting it since he's been so good to me. If you're ever travelling through King of Prussia, Pa or the outskirts of Philly for goodness sakes dont stay at the Clarrion- its grungy and they dont fix anything- general rundown feeling, and house keeper shorts you towels, the staff is otherwise pleasent though someone at the front desk was a little snippy with me on the phone. I was also amazed, as a former employee at a 3 diamond hotel, that the working girls opening worked the bar and no effort was made to "escort" them out; but then I dont guess that the Clarrion rate anywhere near 3 diamond or stars. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
July 14, 2010 - 6:23pm | Aye, sheesh- just read through like 18 or so "What's Knew" threads!!!!!!!! Yeah need to get the pics off the camera. I'll take some picks of stuff I got- one of the paint classes used some 25mm lepracans from a game called Gnome Wars- they painted real easy and come in the King, the cobbler, a guy with a shilealegh (spelling?) and one with a sling shot. they look so good painted I may have to run down the company Bought the complete "King Philips War" line from Brigade games (pilgrims and indians) for my up and coming Witch Hunter RPG. and pick up 2 T-Rexes and a few other assundry big dinos (need to make a start on the cave men reall soon now). got a painting contract from a friend who is "disabled" form having an electric implant in his neck to control back pain and he cant paint minis anymore. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 July 14, 2010 - 8:25pm | Sounds like you're having a blast. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
July 14, 2010 - 9:57pm | Game Report This was a big player participation game with prizes (chosen randomly) http://www.aberrantgames.com/war/ They have a seriously cool looking wind surfer miniature (on wheels for cruising the desert) that I thought I photographed but sadly no- the GM had 2 model not yet released and as yet unpainted but they looked sweet. Let me preface this with members of my club played Car Wars with me in the past year and we had been thinking to use micro machines and play it with miniatures. This game has less tracking of details on paper (there is still some of that) but for the most part everything is on the board. One cool feature is that one action can have tons of unexpected consequences: I drove my "eater" (eaters believe that eating zombie flesh will make them live longer and they do seem to actually live past age 20 so...) vehicle upto and shot the trailer on the tractor/trailer rig with an RPG and that caused a control roll (failled) that lead to a jack knife and collision with an escort car with lead to damage to both and controll rolls (failled for the rig) which lead to the trailer breaking loose and it went carreening along (all according to the rules) and damaging other vehicles- all from one little or shot from yours trully. That was very cool and cinematic. This isnt a game to take serious as you're always one catastrophic damage roll away from the driver taking 1 hit and with out body armor driver's can only take one hit. Yet is was a lot of fun. The Eaters use a lot of grapple guns and the GM had little strings that attached to both vehicles with sticky tack and once a vehicle was grappled the attacker got pulled along and could reel itself in during the 2nd round and send boarders aboard. Melee combat was short, brutal and swift. The rules are in developement and being expanded slowly but you pay for them so I assume that you just get updates if you've paid for them. They have forums for discussing rules and developing material and feed back. They are offering their own miniatures line that matches your average Match box or hot wheels car, and the people are slightly larger than 15mm scale and slightly smaller than 20mm so their in a league all their own and not very compatible with anything else out their. The pack of weapons for converting hot wheels has enough in it to convert at least 10 or more. The buildings used on the table looked like they came from a comparible modle rail road scale. The setting is a bit dark with Eaters, zombies, desert runners, salvagers, and Texas Renta Rangers (after the fall even Texas Rangers have to eat so the hire out). Below is my command car with the grapple gun  Heres the layout of the game with the 2 guys running the convoy who got poorly used by the dice and pretty much got corn cobbed- though I think their Texas Renta Rangers survived to hire out another day.  Below is my chain reaction wreck that I caused with one shot and not stuff is burning   I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
July 14, 2010 - 10:09pm | Game Report #2 Not much to report as the rules were house rules. Mobby Dick moved and dived according to the dice and sharks showed when blood was in the water. dice determined how much blood was in the water (red poker chips) and for every poker chip the shark hex was randomly moved at turn end. if they reached a swimmer he was dead. Men went overboard fairly frequently and the sharks ate often. Every time a player opted to go back for a fresh boat the whale got stronger (more hit points) that the GM kept track of- I got a totall of 499 pts of damage on the whale which was due to 2 Nantucket Sleigh Rides, one of which was unusually long with out my rope breaking after harpooning nor did the whale dive during that time thus I got a ton of collateral damage. When he did dive the 2 boats along for the ride lost so much crew over board that neither boat was viable to continue hunting so I gave up my remaining crew to the other player and "went back" for a fresh boat. Very cool convention game and well suited to kids playing.       I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
July 14, 2010 - 10:21pm | Game Report: Battle of the Dunes Our club ran the above English Civil War battle using Nick Lunds: Regiment A Foot rules (famous for the buckets of dice required to play yet fun since people like rolling dice) normally most ECW games are cluttered with hedge rows and gardens and building and etc. which complicate tactical evolutions. Battle of the Dunes lacks this being fought essentially on the beach and played more like a game of WarHammer or DBM: line up your troops and advance to contact. Our Club President won a Game master award for it- which was nice because we got dissed a little last year over our Battle of Bunker Hill game- we didn't put in a Battle field feature that no contemporary account of the battle describe but first saw the light of day in an engineers map 100 years after the battle but is not considered canon. Instead they gave the award last year to another group that put that feature on the battle feild but ran a slow game where the players were not allowed to move their own miniatures (snoooze-ville) I played in the play test but opted for other activities since my command of the rules is light and I'd be little help running the game. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
