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Sonntag, 6. Februar 2011

Some SYW Game pictures

Last year in October I had my first SYW game, after having finished my miniatures months before. One of our players in Berlin is a great game master and prepared some scenarions using the "Songs of Drum and Shako" rules.

I can' remember enough of the rules to write a review, but the rules played quite well. Nevertheless I got the feeling that some combinations of units are a bit unbalanced. Although my knowledge of this time period is limited, what struck me odd is that Grenadiers are just stronger in melee than normal soldiers. I will still use them, because they just look great in their yellow uniforms.

 At the beginning of your turn, you make a command role (1 to 3 dice) for your officer, to give a group of soldiers an order.

I screwed up every single dice roll and my whole force stood around 4 whole turns. Perhaps I could have played a bit less risky (3 dice gives you more activations but increases the risk of ending the turn without activation). So my opponent won the game, before I even had the chance to do anything. To add insult to injury my opponent collected the mission objective and shot most of my (lazy) soliders.

Without further addo, now some pics (we forgot to make more pics while trying to understand the rules):


                    My full force of Württembergers plus a French officer to keep them in line.
                                        
                                          The Freikorps giving a volley..
One lone Jäger is fighting for his survival
                                 The Generals discuss the subtleties of the rules.

Samstag, 5. Februar 2011

"Black Death" with Sean Bean

Just saw "Black Death", good movie, but very dark. If you expect chivalry, the heroe fighting a dozen enemies single-handedly and a happy ending, this is the wrong movie for you.

Except Sean Bean all the actors were, at least to me, unknown, but they did a really good job at being a rag-tag bunch of soldiers. The well chosen location (English forests, as well as German ones, can be creepy) was essential to the athmosphere, but as I said very dark and the whole movie was dead serious.

The movie reminded me of "The Name of the Rose" (which is of course in a higher league) in its grim portrayal of early medieval England.

At last I have to say, that Sean Bean everytime strikes me as a fantastic actor and I'm really looking forward to seeing him in the "Game of Thrones" show on HBO.

Spartan Games Mechanical Ika (Squid) Preview is out

Here is the picture:

http://www.spartangames.co.uk/dystopian_preview_page_ika.html

Sadly I have to say, that I'm quite disappointed. The body is ok, but not really anything more. The tentacles are what really bothers me. The "square" design of them just doesn't really fit the rest of the model. The fact, that two tentacles are longer than the rest may be anatomically correct, but it looks odd here.

Furthermore why do you place guns on the longest tentacles ? This makes them useless for the thing, that the Ika does best (if you don' want bent gun barrels): Grab ships. I would have preferred to have the one gun in the mouth of the Ika, grabbing a ship, drawing it close and firing it's mouth gun at close quarter. I think overall the tentacles look quite short too.

Still to be fair, I will wait for the final pictures of the miniature.

Glad that I purchased the base model for my next "giant sea creature":



Just imagine him with smoke stacks on his back, sending out dense clouds of black smoke, a cannon in the belly and stomping through the water to tackle enemy ships.

Freitag, 4. Februar 2011

Mechanical Octopus !

As the Mechanical Ika for the Blazing Sun Fleet is quite far away, I started building my own.

I used a GW (new style) bottle cap as base structure, I added a lot of green stuff some nail heads and wire for the tentacles. The eyes will be painted like glass. The inspiration for the beast came from this great piece of art. Posted without permission.
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/io9/2009/04/SteamOcto_Final1280.jpg

The green stuff work is quite sloppy, but I hope a little brushwork can help out here. I still don't like working with green stuff, perhaps I should once try one of the many alternatives.


                              
                                            *insert Dr. Zoidberg noise*
                                 "Fire damnit ! Give this wretched beast a volley !"
                                           "He's got the munchies now"

Hangar 18 FASA - Great source for terrain and bombers/airships

Hi,

found this great manufacturer on TGN and I really like this stuff. They offer Weird World War II giant bombers/flying fortresses plus some cool Airships. They also have a nice Flash Gordon Range with a fortress for every race.

The models are made from resin and are quite a bargain for their size. Fast/friendly contact and 6 $ shipping to Germany is very fair.

Yesterday I placed a trial order for one German bomber and some terrain pieces. I'm quite sure they offer a great terrain/proxy potential for Dystopian Wars. I will write a short review plus show painted pictures of it, when the models arrive.







You can find their shop here:

http://www.hangar18fasa.com/page_48.html#

Donnerstag, 3. Februar 2011

Blazing Sun Fleet - Dystopian Wars

Hi,

here is the first half of my Blazing Sun Fleet.





Mittwoch, 2. Februar 2011

Seven Years War - Württemberg skirmish force

Down below you can see one of my historical projects. This was the first time I actually tried to paint uniforms as close as possible to the historical ones. It took some effort and I have not used so many bright colours for a long time, but I'm quite satisfied with my Württemberger.

All of the miniatures shown, are from Front Rang Figurines. Great sculpts, nice service and price (to make a little advertising). Sadly as of now I only played one game with them. We used the Drums&Shako rules, that have not yet convinced me entirely.

The information for the uniforms was mostly taken from this great page:
http://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=W%C3%BCrttemberg_Army

One soldier from the "Württemberger Garde" plus one Grenadier from the same regiment.
One Gorcy Hussar.
Officer and one "Jäger" added.
Another Hussar.