Last of the Geohex ...

Last week I parted with the last pieces of the Geohex terrain system I still had.

I bought a master set of Geohex somewhere in the mid-nineties, along with a mountain set. It was a major purchase at the time, and we used it extensively. However, I always felt the tiles were a bit too large to be flexible, and were also fragile, made of styrofoam.

Somewhere in mid 00's, I switched to the Kallistra terrain system, which I still use, and which is much more durable.

But anyway, I sold the master set some time ago, but somehow never got rid of the mountains et. I still used the mountain set last february, in my 42mm game at Warcon. But now it is gone as well.

The Geohex era comes to an end!

For old time's sake, here's a picture of the Geohex terrain in action, probably 96 or 97 in the Lonely Mountain gameshop in Leuven - our gaming HQ at that time:

All Along The Watchtower

Now that the lockdown measures are being relaxed, it was time to play a game again.

Bart was happy to host a game at his place: Romans vs Celts, with a watchtower being the central focal point of the scenario. Rules used were Hail Caesar.

Bart took on the role of plumpire (very handy, since none of us knew the rules too well). Eddy and David took command of the Celts, Jean-Pierre and myself took command of the Romans.

The game went very slow, since we spent quite some time chatting in between turns: small and big worries about work or home; corona adventures; how to make cocktails; etc.

Still, the game progressed, with a unit of naked Celt Warriors able to occupy the watchtower by turn 4. By then, the clock said 23.00, so it was time to wrap up, although we still kept on talking till shortly before midnight.

Here are the pictures. Notice our Corona-proof face masks! Funny enough Jean-Pierre is in none of the picture ...

David, Eddy, Bart

David and Eddy

Roman Legions approaching the watchtower.

Naked Holliganni near the watchtower

Roman Cavalry facing the Celt chariots

More action near the watchtower

David and Eddy

Me trying to take a selfie

Holliganni Supremus in the watchtower

Crisis 2020 cancelled

I only heard it yesterday, but apparantly the news has been out for some weeks. Crisis 2020, the annual wargaming convention in Antwerp, has been cancelled.

Announcement here: https://www.tsoa.be/crisis_general.html

Playing solo ...

Despite the lockdown and the working-from-home regime, I didn't find much time to play some solo games, although I tried a few things.

First was a game using Victory - The Blocks of War, an older Columbia Blockgame. The picture below shows the starting position. I played a few turns, but somehow, it feels rather empty.

Then I tried a few turns of Ludus Gladiatorius, but the rock-papers-scissors aspect of that game made me quit after a few turns.

But I still have the plastic model of an old Colosseum set lying around (I had this since I was a kid, and always kept it). Perhaps I should give that a paintjob and try the game again?

Some new acquisitions

I've been working from home for the past 2 months. To break the monotony of endless Skype sessions, video-recordings of lectures, hammering out corona-policies for our Faculty, and constantly feeling like I'm between 3 anvils and 5 hammers, I need some escapist reading material.

So this arrived in the mailbox a few days ago.

Two new units

I finally managed to finish 2 units which have been sitting on my painting desk for quite some time.

The first is a unit of 4 flats, to be used in the 42mm imaginations setting.

The second is a unit of plastic beastmen from the old GW/MB Battlemasters game. I modified them by a few simple weapon swaps and adding a spear+banner using a decal that is from the same time as the figures, almost 30 years old by now ;-)

So, how to run an Hyboria-styled campaign?

My recent entries on Tony Bath's Hyboria have started me thinking about running something similar. Mind you, this does not mean there will be an Hyboria-style campaign. Especially with my current workload at the university, it's not something for the immediate future, but it's always nice to think about future projects.

Back in 2000 I participated in a campaign called Hyperborea, run by long-time wargaming friend Alan Huyton. The whole thing was run in the philosophy of matrix-gaming, with players submitting orders on anything each campaign turn. I was living in the USA at the time, so I never participated in any of the miniatures battles that resulted, but maybe other participants did, I'm not sure.
Our internet records in 2000 were not as good as they were today, so I don't have lots of archives left, but I still have the map Alan made, along with some maps I made myself (I played Laconica). I still remember that near the end of the campaign, I struck at Bartaventumnium, the capital of Latini, run by co-author of this blog Bart Vetters. That event might have well ended the campaign, I don;t remember exactly. It has been 20 years ;-)

The campaign map

My own rendering of LAconica

A fun map, outlining the voyages of Thales, but it was really a spying mission.

In 2006, Alan tried to set up a similar campaign, again called Hyperborea (with a handful of posts on this blog). But this time we never got far. The campaign sizzled out after 1 or 2 turns ... I played Kemet in this one.

So suppose I would run such a campaign. What map would I use?

There are of course many possibilities .. there are plenty of imaginary continents from (fantasy) games or literature one can use. One of the maps that I always found attractive is the old map from Wizard's Quest:

It has a nice subdivision in regions, but perhaps the whole affair would become more a RISK-like game rather than a proper wargaming campaign. The lack of cities, roads and other points of interest make it less suitable.

A better idea might be to use the map of the imaginary fantasy world Dor, designed for the roleplaying game Schimmmen & Schaduwen, which I co-authored back in the early nineties.

The continent has many different countires, each with their own geography and culture. See also these blogposts (written in Dutch) on my Schimmen & Schaduwen blog:  Kaarten Van Dor en De Grote Atlas van Dor. Perhaps I should consider using this setting?

Hyboria (11)

Another article about Hyboria, penned by Tony Bath, but this time from White Dwarf #4, December1977/January1978. In publication date, it precedes the series of articles in Battle For Wargamers by one month or so. It is well known that Tony Bath kept extensive chronicles of his campaign, so these articles were probably summaries or compilations of what he had written already.

Mighty Empires (2)

I played 2 campaign seasons with the Mighty Empires setup I described a few posts ago, using the original 1990 rules.

So what did I learn?

• There's a lot of dice rolling. A lot! 
• There's more dice rolling!
• And even more!

To summarize, a lot of dice rolling on all sorts of tables: to determine the content of a tile when scouted; to determine whether you can move over mountains and how much troops that will cost you; to determine the strength of independent settlements; to see what happens when an army banner doesn't have enough subsistence; and so on...

So is Mighty Empires  a good game? Hmmm, no, not so good. But then, it was never meant as a standalone game. You should really see it as a campaign world generator, with a lot of unexpected events happening, and for that, it does the job.

Here are pictures after campaign season 1. You see each of three empires has spent most of the time exploring.

Here's the situation after campaign season 2.  There has been quite some fighting near the borders, and as a winter event, a Dragon Rage happened, razing some tiles in the middle of the board.

Hyboria (10)

The last article in the Hyboria series as pubished in Battle For Wargamers in 1978. The articles about Hyboria continued in Military Modelling magazine, but sadly, I do not have those issues. I tried a web search for scanned content, but no luck so far. If someone can help me out, I would greatly appreciate it!

What's still to come? The article written by Tony Bath about Hyboria, published in White Dwarf #4.

See also the page I made about Hyboria.