History of Games Workshop

It finally arrived ...

I already browsed through the book, lots of interesting pictures.

Now to see how many games I recognize and how many events I have a vague awareness of ... ;-)

Lardwerp (Lard in Antwerp)

I went t Lardwerp today - a gaming event were the Too Fat Lardies showed and set up some games in the Tin Soldiers Antwerp clubhouse.

I arrived around 11.00, and had to leave again around 12.30. Some work in the garden was waiting for me!

Although I was only there for a short while, and the event was smallish compared to the yearly CRISIS convention (more about that later), it was a lot of fun. I bumped the many friends from the "old Belgian wargaming guard" (also more about that later) and had lovely chats with fellow wargamers I hadn't seen for almost 3 years (we all know why ...).

So, what was some of the wargaming news I picked up?

• Crisis most likely will never happen again, or at least not in the format we were used to. There are several reasons for this: the "organisational flow" was interrupted for 2 years, but there also is a lack of volunteers for people willing to help to put the thing together (this seems to be a common problem in many hobby organisations). People want to attend, but people don't want to help, or at least not in a structured manner ...
  A second big reason is Brexit. Many of the traders are UK-based, and Brexit has made it very hard for small businesses such as wargaming traders to cross the channel and set up shop in Antwerp for a day.
• A similar sentiment was aired w.r.t. Warcon, the yearly event that was scheduled in February or March and was organized near Ghent. Probably over as we know it.
• So, there were some chats with the "old Belgian wargaming guard" and some vague plan was uttered to organize a smallish gaming day (no traders, just games), in an effort to have at least one national wargaming event where the Belgian wargaming could meet and see each other. After all, although wargaming is a hobby that takes place in small unconnected gaming groups (apart from some larger clubs), it stil is important to have some sort of community feeling. We'll see how things will evolve ...
• Brexit again: rumour has it that some traders have lost upto 70% of their customer base. European gamers don;t want to go through the hassle of ordering from the UK anymore. It's back to the pre-EU early nineties ... I still remember fondly trips to London to stock up on gaming stuff, exactly to circumvent high P&P and import taxes. Perhaps the gaming trips will come back?

Overall, it was a pleasant visit, and great to egt the wargaming mojo back!

So, any loot?

Not so much. There was one trader present (https://www.tabletopper.nl/nl/), so of course I had to buy something, even though I don't need anything. But still, supporting the hobby and all that ... so I got a few explosion and smoke markers.

One of the TSA members also sold of some old wargaming books, so I got a couple for 5 euro each. The Featherstone title was still missing in my extensive collection of old wagaming books.The Terry Wise I have as a reprint from the History of Wargaming Project , but now I have the original. And I had the 1st Fred Perry book, but not the 2nd one ;-)

And here are some photos from the games, in no particular order. All quite spectacular, specially the last few photos, which are from a 54mm Arnhem game.

What is it with Warband Games?

Last weekend we played a fantasy warband game. See our previous post for some pictures. Although the game was fun, I felt that the full potential of the game was not unlocked.

In a warband game each player controls a handful of figures that move and fight individually. Nothing wrong with that. But I feel that warband games have the tendency to become too fiddly when to much emphasis is being placed on close combat. The game then degenerates into a brawl where a bunch of figures are cramped together on a few square centimeters, fighting in multiple rounds of close combat till one side wins. Sure, there might be some push-back rules, such as a figure being pushed back 1 inch or so after the result of combat, but this only adds to the fiddling. When orientation of figures is added to the rules it's even worse. Combats are decided based on the micro-placement of individual figures. Throw in some variation in basing and things go completely out of control. So we end up on staring for three hours at a few square centimeters, while we have a splendid 6x4 table full of scenery set up.

So how can this be avoided?

The scenario can certainly help. Eliminating enemy figures should not be a goal in itself, but merely a means to achieve another goal: finding a treasure, guarding a convoy, stealing something and running away. So at least one side should have an incentive trying to avoid combat. But even so, this is difficult if all your figures can do is to fight in close combat, or if the rules system is build around that mechanic.

A better solution is to focus on ranged combat as the primary ability of all figures. If all figures have ranged weapons available (and I'm talking about significant ranges, as in multiple movement distances), we can use the entire playing area of the table. Scenery becomes more important to block line of sight or to seek cover. Movement and manoeuvre (the fun part of most miniature games) becomes again a tactical decision maker rather than merely moving towards each other and battle it out.

It reminds me very much of the Wild West games we used to play quite a lot several years ago. Each player had a few shootists, but the fact that combat was primarily ranged and the table had a lot of terrain and cover, made the game fun.

So, warband games? Ranged combat!!!

Fantasy warband game

FInally, we managed to stage a game! JP was so kind to host a game for us. The game used the "Fistful of Lead Fantasy - Might and Melee" fantasy skirmish rules. We had 4 players (me, Wim, David, Eddy), each commanding a warband of 5 figures (Orcs, Hobbits, Humans and Goblins). JP was umpiring. Fun game!

The usual pre-game banter. Coffee and beer ready to go.

Contemplating tactics.

The cattle pen was an objective for some of the players.

The game starts!

The goblins knock on the door of a house and discover what's inside. Nothing! It's the other house!

Humans guarding the cattle pen.

Hobbits approaching through the fields.

Some more action ...

A wild boar suddenly appears!

Heavy melee between humans and orcs.

Orcs trying to run away with the cattle.

More cattle stealing going on.

The state of my wargaming room

I am lucky to have a dedicated wargaming room to play games in. I also have a garage in which I store my excess stuff and do my painting.

However ...

Back in february we ordered a new garagedoor. Delivery and installment was planned for May. So back in April, I started to clean out the garage and put all my wargaming stuff in my wargaming room.

Current state of affairs in my wargaming room.

Then the news came that due to shortages of steel and other materials, it was postponed to June.

Then it got postponed to September ...

That has left me without any significant space for my wargaming activities. So I'm currently confined to reading, hoping that friends will host a game at their home, or playing Wingspan with the missus.

Crisis 2022 cancelled

Earlier this week, there was a somewhat depressing announcement by the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp:

A more detailled explanation will follow later but we sadly have to announce that we are unable to organise Crisis 2022 in the current format.
We were still in the process of writing the communication but as it is out, we quickly have to address the news now.
Rising costs, lesser availability of volunteers and the announcement of restrictions already on the table for pandemic measures later in ’22 have made it a far too big financial risk for us to carry trough with the known format,hence the cancellation as organizing this can’t have us risk our club finances.

That would be the 3rd year in a row there will be no CRISIS show, arguably the biggest wargaming convention on the European mainland.

It's a real pity, since I was hoping to rejuvenate my wargaming mojo at CRISIS after the pandemic. Let's hope this cancellation is not the final nail in the coffin for a show such as CRISIS. Otherwise it will be back to smallish club events ...

Creating fantasy maps

A few weeks ago Henry Hyde's new book "Wargaming Campaigns" was published. I haven't read all of it yet, but it's definitely worth its weight. The book outlines various ideas on how to run wargaming campaigns and how to make them work in practice.

I've long toyed with the idea of starting some sort of fantasy campaign, and the book contains some useful pointers on how to build your own maps using software. One of the tools mentioned is Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator, a free mapping tool that runs in your browser. Sounds good, so I wanted to give it a try.

Last week I toyed around with the tool and trying out various options and what one could do. Then, it was time for some real work, and I started to create the World of Do, a fantasy world me and a few friends invented back in the 80s for a roleplaying game we published (more details about that game here).

I started out with an original hand-drawn map of our fantasy world (this map is over 30 years old).

Original map of Dor, drawn in 1990.

 

I then used Photoshop to make a quick (manual) mask to distinguish between land masses and water:

This was imported into Azgaar, and with some manual tweaking a height map was the result:

Then I started to define the various states and give them names. Here are some screenshots of my efforts so far. Some of the content such as city names, heraldry, etc. are still randomly generated, but I was very satisfied with the results so far.

Map with the various states.

Zoom of the region of Atumbar. All city names (except Atumbar) are randomly generated.

Same regions, but with some layers made visible.

3D view of the map

Map projected on the globe, which also allows for defining climate zones etc.

Heraldry layer made visible. I experimented with a few emblems myself, but almost all of them are randomly generated.

What to do with all those old Airfix figures?

Due to some construction in the garage where I keep a lot of my wargaming hoard, I had to clean up the garage ad move many of the stash to a different place. I took the opportunity to do some culling, but one thing remains on my mind: what to do with old Airfix figures?

I still have a fair amount of them (not only Airfix, but ESCI, Revell etc as well), some of which still on sprues, which we used in our old wargaming days. They haven't seen action for at least 15 years or so, all replace by fancier models.

The classic answer would be to donate them, bring them to the local charity shop, etc. But then again, who would be interested in that old stuff? Chances are they simply will be transferred from wargamer to wargamer over the years, always forgotten and never used. So, wouldn't it be better to throw them into the garbage bin right away?

Age of Sigmar start-up scenery box

One of my teenage nephews took part in a "Warhammer camp" during the Easter break, run by a (for him) local gameshop. Apparently, the camp lasted a few days (no sleeping overs), in which they learned how to assemble figures, paint them, and play games. As part of the event, they all got an Age of Sigmar starter box. 

Although I was a GW fanboy during the 80s and 90s, I for long don't consider myself as part of their target audience anymore, but I do recognize their potential and power for attracting new wargamers. And I do realize the focus teenage boys can have on using the "official" figures and rules. I was there, once. So I am not going to lure my nephew away from Warhammer and bombard him with sermons about why rulesystem X or figure range Y is more superior. I'm letting him and his friends grow into the hobby, at their own pace. The last thing they need is an uncle who tells them what to do or what to enjoy.

Nevertheless, when I saw my family during our Easter family get-together yesterday, I brought a box with "scenery items" for him. I have huge amounts of scenery, so a few items less is not going to make a practical difference. I put together generic scenery items I knew are going to usable in their games.

So, what did I give away?

• a large green scenery mat;
• A couple of Kallistra hills;
  
• a home-made fort, which I called an "Orruk Fort", to give it credibility to those Warhammer youngsters;
• A bunch of river sections, walls, hedges, trees, ... ;
• An "official" GW rules I had still lying around ;-)

 The response was enthusiastic ;-) 

Card-driven Narrative Wargaming (4)

Since the table is still "up" from last week's game, I decided to take a few more pictures, with all the clutter removed.

Most toy soldiers are 42mm from irregular Miniatures, but there are a few old Schneider flat figures, and even some older ones from unknown manufacturers (so far).

Very old (yet unidentified) toy soldiers - still untouched in their original paintjobs.