Best watch ever. Why, because it came from some one who loves you.

Happy Sunday everyone, I’m looking forward to this week

I certainly won’t disagree that Doom from FFG captures a lot of the FPS feel, but I haven’t found it to be particularly frenetic. For the deathmatch feel on the tabletop, check out a game called Adrenaline from Czech Games Edition. For frenetic play, check out the Hawken card game from Cryptozoic.

This must be destiny (or just coincidence :p ) but I’m right in the middle of painting my Baccus 6mm American Civil War! I’ll post some pics in the WAYPN 🙂

Four influential games, well:

1. Space Crusade; My uncle had a copy of this game and I just played with the mini’s back when I was about 5 in 1993. The artwork and gaming pieces stuck with me and my parents got me my own copy. I even remember making drawings of Space Marines way before I even knew what they were of what Warhammer was. When I was about 14 my three best friends and myself started to play the hell out of this game, 12 to 14 hour long sessions of pure fun. We then also jumped onto Heroquest with the same experience. As much as those games are considered classics, it’s all the fun that I had with my friends that made them so influential on my gaming life 🙂

2. Warhammer Fantasy Battles, I got in right after the first Lord of the Rings movie hit theatres with the same group of friends. I felt like the natural evolution from Heroquest. This was also a much more niche hobby as there weren’t any GW stores around where we live in Belgium so it all had to be ordered from a classic model shop run by an old couple. I still remember ordering stuff from a catalogue list that just had names like ‘Night Goblin Fanatics’ thinking ‘hopefully those are cool models’ 😀 The whole ‘build your own world’ then really hit home and I’ve never looked back (by now I’m even writing up my own fantasy world background to game in as it makes me fit all my fantasy armies together).

3. Flames of War, I swear I’m not just copying you guys 😀 I got into FoW in my first year at uni and it’s then that I realized that I couldn’t just study history but game it as well. By now I’m helping set up the Belgian national FoW team for the ETC next year so the game has been really huge in my gaming life.

4. Hex and counter wargames. More recently I’ve been dabbling in these type of wargames with a good friend of mine and they’ve given me a new perspective on historical wargaming containing more realism and depth than certain other games out there.

Damn, this post was way more cathartic than I had anticipated 😛

I was going to start my 4 games with the original Runequest as it was the first RPG I ever played back in the early 80’s and if we were having a top 6 it would be in there but have left it out as would have been the Donald Featherstone book Battles with model soldiers

So on with the top 4

1. Command Decision by Frank Chadwick (1986) . A WW2 game that introduced me to the joys of 6mm. It was also the first game I had played with spotting ,opportunity fire a feel of combined arms on the tabletop

2. Fire and Fury by Richard Hasenauer (1990) An American Civil War game where for the first time each unit was s brigade enabling you to fight really big battles. More importantly it was the first game I had played where your units didn’t always do what you wanted them to do. A simple dice roll against unit quality compared to casualties to see if they advanced etc

3. Crossfire by Arty Conliffe (1996) This game changed his I thought about games.No move distances or ranges for weapons ( everything is done by what you can see on the table and movement is from terrain piece to terrain piece) and a fluid turn sequence that ran on interrupts of failed actions. A truly original game at the time

4. DBM by Phil Barker (1993) I have included this as for me this influenced me in knowing exactly what a ruleset shouldn’t be . Badly written,strange combat system and measuring unit movement to the exact millimetre and having to check zones of control of your enemy to the n’th degree, add to this some army lists that were just too complicated and for me you have a game that is everything wargaming shouldn’t be

That’s your lot

Why am I up so early on a Sunday? Oh, yeah. I have an 11 month old alarm clo… Daughter.

So what games influenced my development the most? Well it’s probably hard to say as it’s so all so intertwined with so many books, films and video games. However there’s no question that that the stones that started the avalanche were Hero Quest and Space Crusade. Both of these games are now sadly lost to the ravages of time however we did manage to pick up a complete copy of Space Crusade on eBay – sadly no luck as yet with Heroquest.

From there the next natural progression was into a GW store because that’s really what those two games were intended to do and they did their job well. At the time, being the 1990s there wasn’t much Internet and finding out about other games wasn’t easy so for most of that time it was 40k (starting with Rogue Trader) and 40k (starting with their first boxed version of the game. That lasted until around 1999 when I finished university and moved out on my own. Basics like food and housing took precedence over hobbies and it all fell by the wayside.

Then in 2009 I walked back into a GW store, for old times sake, and left with paints, brushes and a box of miniatures. I fell off the wagon and haven’t climbed back on since.

However since 2009 I have had a very different set of influences. Where before I was largely influenced by GW and whatever was new at the time, my influences since restarting the hobby have been significantly more narrative. Rather than being influenced by a specific game I find I am more influenced by ideas. So although I love 40k and will always have a huge soft spot for the setting the game itself is sometimes a little lost on me; its OTT nature lacks a level of verisimilitude that I find myself looking for. But if I have an idea that fits in 40k then I find that I will set about making it happen. My current preference for a more “clean sci-fi” has lead me to games like Infinity (which I still haven’t been able to get a proper game of) and the Mantic Warpath universe. This has definitely been influenced by video games like Mass Effect, Destiny and Halo as well as TV shows such as the expanse and Dark Matter.

My games are now also far more by time so a system that offers me a small, quick game will turn my head more than something that needs a day or a weekend to play – I’m keeping my hands in the 40k and AoS universes via Necromunda and Shadespire and Warhammer Quest at the moment. I think last year I had an epiphany that I simply don’t have the time for mass battles or painting whole armies. Quite a liberating moment because I have been much more able to set goals I can achieve and play more games with painted forces as a result.

For the FPS feel , I really liked AR.SE , I played these at the Hasslefree Table a few years ago at salute , and it really gave the feeling of a FPS.
http://akulasrules.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/bad-arse-modern-skirmish-rules-now.html

or

https://web.archive.org/web/20140530052319/http://homepage.ntlworld.com/roweller/ARSE/BAD%20ARSE%20rules.pdf

Happy Sunday!
Games that have influenced my life:
Runequest II. I had played D&D before this, but was never really satisfied with the strict class system. RQII though was the dogs b*llocks though! It was the game that started my career as a GM and the creation of my own world. 38 years later that campaign world is still going on, now and then, still with some of the original players in it!
WRG 6th Edition, when I first started proper gaming, i.e. not pushing marbles at lined up Airfix figures, this was the set of Ancient rules. They introduced me to the whole world of miniature gaming and to the joys of the wargames club!
Atlantic Storm/Pacific Typhoon, my first trip into card games and still a regular go to at gaming weekends with my RPG friends.
Spearhead WWII. Simple, somewhat abstract but gives a better overall feel of larger scale WWII battles than any other system I have played. This is the game that drew me back into WWII gaming after so many disappointing experiences with other systems.

I would also like to give an honourable mention to The Palladium RPG. This is what D&D should have been like in its early incarnations and is surprisingly similar to what D&D has now become! I have had endless hours of fun playing a longbowman, able to hit the bull at 250 yards every time in practice, but constantly breaking his bow string during combat!

1- 40k second edition, when I was very young. Don’t think I ever truly played a game correctly. My cousin used to just tell me what to role and in retrospect he was clearly trying lists out on me for his club evenings. I enjoyed the models, lore, aesthetic and stories I create, so it didn’t matter. This introduction lead to necromunda and all other gw games.

2- I’m torn between heroquest and advanced space crusade (Tyranid version). Both introduced to me just after 40k by my cousin. I’ll go space crusade to be different. It was one of the first miniature board games I had played (other than heroquest) and introduced me to alternative ways of playing games in my somewhat blinkered view of wargaming. I loved the Aliens-esque excursion into the hive, on a suicide mission, to destroy vital hive ship organs. We even intertwined 40k with it as two separate events that effected each other. The imperials had to get troops through a gene-cult to gain access to the hive which had operatives fighting a losing battle, that needed re-enforcing.

3- kings of war, after a extremely long hiatus I was drawn back to wargaming after roughly 10-12 years. I had looked at GW now and then to see the advancements but couldn’t justify the money. Kings of war popped up on my internet search and I went with it. This opened the flood-gates to the possibilities of other companies and games. During this time I wanted to play/collect everything and built up a lot of models. Mentally I became frustrated with this as I was buying more things than I could logically get round to with real life commitments etc. I grew annoyed with myself that my hobby was infringing on this, so considered jacking it all in many times. My quest became finding 1 or 2 systems and stick with it.

4- 40k 8th….. dropped and I went full circle. I have somewhat found my zen in the hobby but am still battling the shiny daemons. 40k is simplified, easy to find opponents for (if time permits) and I really enjoy the lore and model quality. I am blinkered but like a shire horse this calms me 😉 anyone else know what I’m saying? Back to the monster that wants my attention………

Thanks guys! Good video.

Much like @warzan Fighting Fantasy books were my first proper intro to gaming. There was a bookshop in Covent Garden London, that on the occasional Sunday my mother would take me to and as a treat she’d buy me a book. My two favourites were Demons of the Deep and Deathtrap Dungeon. I used to play them on the school bus when all my friends were playing Top Trumps.

There were some great other ones though, I remember getting for Christmas one year a special two player one the name of which escapes me, and a Mad Max Road Warrioreresque one call Freeway Fighter?.

Apparently my mother has all the books stored away somewhere, I’ll have to go over and dig them out.

For me my list would be….
Fighting fantasy books
Stratego
Civilisation board game
40k rogue trader
Hero quest
All of these gave sparked some interest in me somewhere. Still playing 40k now and eyeing up the latest version of civilisation.

Happy Sunday!
The four games that influenced my hobby are as follows
1. Advanced dungeons and dragons second editon.This was the first hook into the world of gaming whilst still at school, after reading fantasy books like the elric novels written by michel
Morecock.
2.Then the obligitary Games Workshop….warhammer fantasy for the introduction to miniature wargaming. Several of my school pals and i visited a club in south east london in the late 80’s and played a lot of RPG’s in one of the back rooms but there was always tables of wonderful wargames set up that we walked past every friday evening…..and that ooooh shinny sindrome we as gamers suffer chronically from reared its ugly head.
3.Dust. It was the one game several years ago that introduced my wife finally to the joys and cash flow problems of the hobby lol.
She joined me on her first Salute visit to support me in my hobby(He spends hours on his own painting figures/miniature for these games and enjoys playing them….i suppose i should go see what all the fuss is about. Whilst looking on the Hassle free stand for a specific figure,said wife stood watching a demo game of Dust……fifteen minutes late i returned triumphant with my one 28mm figure to my wifes beaming smile and her standing there with two FULL bags,proclaiming I liked that game,DUST,so much i got us a starter set each. I have never left her with money unattened in Salute again !!!! We discuss all purchases beforehand,mine included so we dont double up on stuff)
4.Infinity. It has introduced the skirmish level game into the mix with such gusto. There are now so many companies that have taken this step of wargaming on board. It makes getting into a game easier,low model count/cost,generally simpler rules/house keeping. May all of this continue.
I have followed many different paths within my gaming life,the list above just scatches the surface,roleplay,mass fantasy battles,scifi mass battles,historical gaming both ancient through to modern,pulp weird stuff,including air, sea, land ,space and cyber board games as well. One of the things that i have noticed in the years of playing is that our community can be welcoming to new social awkward people and help with that(yes there are some that are not so friendly but they are a minority).
BOW is a great platform for getting the news of what is going on within our world and long may it continue!
Added to save the editor time and effort. BUY BACKSTAGE to support it and BUY MERCH!
All joking apart i have visited the holy grail of BOW a bootcamp a couple of times and met the guys in person. They genuinely care for this hobby with a passion that cant be matched.
@warzan,@dignity,@lloyd Helena and i will be back to see you guys soon,that is a promise and a threat.
THANK YOU BOW

The reverse tower defence game is on its way: the Village Attacks Kickstarter. I’m in it and I’m very excited for it.

Happy Sunday!

Going to have to think hard to pick out 4 games, except for my first.

Diplomacy the board game. It’s the mid-70s and games for me either consist of the staple family board game or airfix battles. Then Diplomacy arrives with its longer, campaign style and some great mechanics. My favorite aspect is the mechanic of everyone writing down their orders and then all the unit movement being resolved simultaneously and conflicts identified that then need to be resolved. It’s this mechanic that allows the diplomatic, away from table interactions to take place; secret alliances and backstabbing are all possible leading to those moments back at the table when the orders are revealed as are any shenanigans. I struggle to think of many games if any which have quite managed to achieve that longer strategic campaign feel.

Casting the net a bit wider than just tabletop games like most, these are arguably my major influences:

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
First found this in my local library as well and then bought my own copy as it took me ages to actually defeat. It’s a well worn relic in my collection now. I played this around the same time as I discovered fantasy literature like The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, the Neverending Story, Narnia etc. Apart from the game and its writing, I particularly adored the artwork.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition
The hardcover rulebook was and is a holy tome, alongside the very much unholy Realm of Chaos grimoires. The first game I collected and painted miniatures and terrain for, this had me grow up to stop playing with toy soldiers and start playing with toy soldiers. The immensely rich and gritty Old World setting with its historical undercurrent struck a cord like none other. It was also fantastic to see the bunch of scruffy punks and metal heads who were playing and developing the game in the photos!

Axis & Allies
We played this a lot, and discussed it even more. None of the variants were available at the time I played this with my regular gaming group, so the opening moves became more ritual than tactical manoeuvre, but it was always tense and created epic battles. It was also an early historically based game and more of a board game than what we otherwise played and is a direct predecessor to the board games in my collection these days.

Shadowrun
We played a lot of RPGs over about 10 years and it became a matter of pride to buy and try anything we could lay our hands on. Shadowrun has a special place amongst these as it was the game I invested most into in terms of concocting convoluted storylines full of intrigue and deception as a GM. This is the one game we played beyond our school years and with a number of participants who otherwise we not such hardcore gamers. I read a lot of cyberpunk then and it allowed me to explore the genre for myself.

Happy Sunday everyone 😀 .
My list would be :
D&D
Risk
Heroquest
Space Crusade

Don`t bash the badger !!! was thinking of doing samurai with animals..

These games all hit my geek target and lead to me finding out about Rogue Trader and beginning the long journey down the wargaming rabbit hole that is our hobby 😀 .Final point, man i feel old, all those are thirty years ago now, with a special mention going out to all the Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf adventure books i have and still play through from time to time.

My top games that have most influenced me are:

1: Traveller 1st Ed. I love this game and it opened the whole space opera game to me. It had the Star Wars, Space 1999 feel to me without the sword and sorcery part of Star Wars. And the focus of the game could be small scale with you battling space pirates, traders and the authorities to massive space combats. It totally opened creative mind

2: Vampire the Masquerade and in truth all of the World of Darkness games. It was a good way of seeing the modern world in a different light and just how an underworld of supernatural might interact with our world. The background was amazing and it was the one of the first systems I had to have every book so I could fully understand the world of darkness. From this it open me to LRP and the Minds Eye version of the game and showed me that LRP was immense fun and so rewarding.

3: 1938 A Very British Civil War: This was the game, background really, that got me back into gaming after a very long time away from the hobby. In fact so much so that this game has got me so involved in the hobby on a personally level as I illustrated and created a lot of the books and background of this. It opened me to creating and maintaining forums, Facebook pages and organising events, games at shows and talking to a lot of very nice and lovely people over the years, including some that are on this site too. This game made me realise that the gaming community is very important and very varied and fun, so much so that I am actively involved on many sites and boards and demo games at shows.

4: Blood and Plunder . Simply put its Pirates but it is a good set of rules that work for land and sea combat. It is fun to play, fun to talk about and its a good skirmish game that is set in the 17th century that I had very little interest in and now cannot get enough of.

Video Games has to be

Street Fighter 2
Simon the Sorcerer (to be honest so many point and click adventures)
Dark Ages of Camelot
World of Warcraft

Board Games
HeroQuest – I can’t believe I lost this growing up and had to buy it again many years later.
BattleShip
Cluedo

But my tabletop hobby took off only a couple of years ago when I played my first game of Warhammer Fantasy with the Isle of Blood set and it has gone on from there.

A very recent love and I think is unsung is the DarkSouls game my boys and I have played many hours of this.