The Weekender: Off to Spain & Evolving Your Gaming Table
April 26, 2014 by dignity
Warren and Lloyd are jetting off to Spain to visit the guys over at Infinity, but in the meantime get ready as we are waiting for a super secret announcement this Sunday! Today we have a chat about our hobby time this week including; fan made rules for Spartacus (coming soon), Warren's find going to a local car boot sale, and finally, Lloyd still working like crazy to get all the cool stuff we filmed at Salute out the door!
Yup and I meant HG Wells 😉 duh!
Just as a quick update were setting off to the FicZone venue now, so will let you guys see what’s happening next week!
Proper stoked for your FicZone coverage, just got into Infinity recently and scrabbling around for as much info as poss, gawd bless your Infinity week vids.
Happy travels matey.
great show! had a look on the prince august site, and yes they still sell starter sets, but couldnt see that specific one, this is the closest I could find
http://shop.princeaugust.ie/casting-starter-kits/budget-starter-kits/napoleonic-wars-budget-starter-kit/
on a different note these guys do the old warzone plastics, 80 (8 sculpts) guys for 25 quid, could be handy for your chaos as cultists, or as imperial guard (or whatever they are called these days)
I use those old Warzone minis for Traitor guard and they always get compliments, though they were even more of a bargain when I bought them 3 years ago, £15 for 80! They are a very hard plastic that means you have to use superglue and they are a little tough to cut for conversions, but on the plus side the thin details like bayonets are strong and not as bendy. Even though they are old minis they look OK with GW weapons and alongside GW ones, just a little more true-scale, like forgeworld humans.
Was there an announcement of the Dropzone artwork contest?
Watch the end of the show 😉
That’s what I get for asking before finishing the vid.
Sod the Salute and the FicZone coverage… When’s the bloody Deadzone game coming out ya bunch of buggering buggers?
😛
Scorchio!
You should be fine casting 60% lead minis. I had my JR Hartley moment when I found a copy of Slaves to Darkness in a second-hand bookstore back in the mid 90s. I was at school and too poor to buy it when it was available at retail and thought I might have missed my chance forever.
For anyone concerned about the lead, there’s actually lead-free casting metal available, but they are more suited for larger(40 mm, 54 mm)figures and may require some venting of the moulds to get all the details right.
Nice to see that Prince August kit. I started casting miniatures when I was about 10 and now I’m 35 and still do it from time to time. Maybe it’ll be too much work casting a whole army, but I can’t see why not do it for small skirmish games. For example there’s a 25 mm fantasy range that could be used for that.
Here are some orcs from that range:
Try http://io9.com/5916534/during-world-war-i-fake-trees-for-snipers-would-pop-up-overnight
Yes iron trees for snipers in WW1 with pictures
Sod planes, would rather go in a cage with a bear for a wrestle lol
To add to the barbed wire rules chat. You would need rules for the different deployment of wire.
For instance WWI British trenches were on the whole offensive. The wire was layed out in a low lattice pattern which was designed to only slow troops down, as our own troops had to step through it as they went OTT.
The German trenches as the war moved were more defensive, the wire was deployed to be almost impenetrable and laid out so it would funnel the advancing enemy into kill zones.
We then shelled the German wire, thinking the explosions would break the wire up. It just threw it about, tangled it up and made it even worse!
The problem with the British shelling the German Wire especially in 1916 is that they didnt have enough heavy artillery to shift the stakes and the majority of shells they used were shrapnel which would never have cut the barbed wire as they wanted
Talking of car boot sales I got HeroQuest for £2 (complete) from a charity shop 😀
Stabby and Cutty. Probably the funniest descriptions I have every heard for barbed wire and razorwire.
Evolving terrain: fire a load of artillery into a forest and you get fallen trees, shattered stumps, lots of tangled pieces and maybe even a forest on fire (napalm anyone?)
Artillery fired at roads, bridges and buildings – of course it should cause damage and degradation – bridges damaged by airstrikes might be passible for infantry but not vehicles; The depth and weight of rubble should reflect the size and type of building that was hit – so a 2 up 2 down house is a small pile but a 10-storey buidling should produce a huge pile of impassible rubble.
Damaged and destroyed vehicles and aircraft: one thing I hate about some games is the total removal of vehicles that have been taken out. It is unrealistic. Destroyed vehicles, knocked out vehicles, even those that broke down or ran out of fuel became cover for infantry and other vehicles. The same goes for downed aircraft (think Black Hawk Down).
@warzan My father had a kit exactly like that in the early 90’s. From memory there was a mail order sheet inside the box. Have you opened it yet?
Talking of Ebay, I’d be interested in people’s views on this..
I put this up on Monday for a week, thinking it’s almost as well painted as the studio paint job (I painted it to compare myself to the GW studio job), and am suprised to have 0 bids, and only 1 watcher. Anyone any ideas why?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261459429058?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649
Your pics are not good enough.. you need better close up pics. Also the model itself is not very dynamic.
In the new BF Italy books, there are units that lay barbed wire/terrain.
I guess I could be more obscure but I don’t have my book at hand. 😀
….’is a unit’? Don’t want the Grammar Stasi coming after me. (Two points for my use of Stasi)
DUDE!!!!…How great and dark and melodramatic would a set of rules made by Orson Wells would have been!!
H.G. Wells wrote in the preface for his “Little Wars” game in 1913 … (shamelessly copy/pasting here):
“And if I might for a moment trumpet! How much better is this amiable miniature than the Real Thing! Here is a homeopathic remedy for the imaginative strategist. Here is the premeditation, the thrill, the strain of accumulating victory or disaster — and no smashed nor sanguinary bodies, no shattered fine buildings nor devastated country sides, no petty cruelties, none of that awful universal boredom and embitterment, that tiresome delay or stoppage or embarrassment of every gracious, bold, sweet, and charming thing, that we who are old enough to remember a real modern war know to be the reality of belligerence.
This world is for ample living; we want security and freedom; all of us in every country, except a few dull-witted, energetic bores, want to see the manhood of the world at something better than apeing the little lead toys our children buy in boxes. We want fine things made for mankind — splendid cities, open ways, more knowledge and power, and more and more and more, — and so I offer my game, for a particular as well as a general end; and let us put this prancing monarch and that silly scaremonger, and these excitable ‘patriots,’ and those adventurers, and all the practitioners of Welt Politik, into one vast Temple of War, with cork carpets everywhere, and plenty of little trees and little houses to knock down, and cities and fortresses, and unlimited soldiers — tons, cellars-full, — and let them lead their own lives there away from us …
Great War is at present, I am convinced, not only the most expensive game in the universe, but it is a game out of all proportion. Not only are the masses of men and material and suffering and inconvenience too monstrously big for reason, but — the available heads we have for it, are too small. That, I think, is the most pacific realisation conceivable, and Little War brings you to it as nothing else but Great War can do.”
H.G. Wells, Little Wars, 1913
I find it ironic that he calls actual combat “Great War,” and warns how nations should not do it, just a year before World War I breaks out … which of course many people remember as “The Great War.” Maybe Nicholas, George, and Wilhelm should have gotten together over a miniatures table instead, well … you know.
Enough of such ponderings. Back to the little painted toy soldiers! 😀
I feel compelled to link to “Imaginative Strategist,” a great wargames site (albeit not really a miniatures site), where I got the text for H. G. Wells’ “Little Wars” game.
http://www.imaginative-strategist.layfigures.com/
Check it out. Some great .pdf downloads for us (brace yourselves for shock) hex-and-counters people. 🙂
How to recreate WW1 in WH40k:
1. Use martyrs trench system.
2. Play Tau
3. Find enemy who plays guard
4. Firefight
A John Blanche paintjob would be worth more than the bare assembly (the same might be said for Klee or Hirst but they don’t have the same relationship to the subject). Although Prince August might be soft on details the range is enough to create a good portion of DBx units which had I known that at the time I might not have transitioned to 40k. Also look into food grade tin as it doesn’t go the way of old battletech. Add to that some 2 part hotcasting silicone and you’ve got a decent yet small homebrew kit. The primary reason a single spool of barbed wire looks less menacing in a modern (ie non crowsnest) setting is that we’re used to multiples of loose concertina configurations (concertina-fence-concertina in prison settings or concertina-fence and sandbag or gabion/hesco depending on military installation.) coincidentally a probable cause for the reemergence of carborne suicide charges.
If it was good, you dont remember.
@lloyd – I know that episode of Reginald Perrin, haha!
@warzan – The kilted loon who literlly gob-smacked you, was non other than John – Water745 on youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnTdaO6eM9xMeAxeFpUycQw Check his channel out. 🙂
My dad used to make his own tin soldiers. Mind you, he’s 76 later this year, so that was bleeding years ago for him! 😀
Does Justin’s knowledge of the world only begin after the year 2000? XD
Good show.
I could be wrong (again) but I saw/heard that the first barbed wire was standard farm wire from the US then the military started making more with the barbs closer together so it couldn’t be held in the gapes.
I love interactive terrain! My Primeval Abyssian ruleset will have rules for both extra-dimensional and inter-dimensional terrain, so weird anomolies and events can occur in-game due to the corrupt nature of the artificial universe it’s set in.
So is there an XLBS on Sunday – Warren normally plugs it at the end of the Weekender but didn’t this time.
Yup there sure is! It’s not very long tbh but were talking about next steps on the live stuff, which should please @cursed13 😉
I made those Prince August soldiers back in the day. The metal to make them was very very expensive. We had to visit building sites late in the evening when the workers had gone home to “Liberate” some roofing metal. I remember being chased out of a few places and running a lot slower than usual due to my pockets being full of lead 🙂
This vid brings back a few happy memories.
Warren seemed to like that kiss 😀
Warren quoting his other half is epic: “Awwww … you have your eyes closed!”
How romantic. 😀
Well Warren since you kindly asked.
Infinity
Barbed Wire
Normal Move, models passing through it must pass a PH-6 test or be immobilized, models may try to reset themselves, but each failed attempt causes a DAM 10 hit, engineers may try to free models, their failed attempt does not cause DAM to the model trapped.
Razor wire
Normal Move, models passing through it suffer a DAM 12 hit, may use cautious move to pass through it and avoid damage.
In both cases, dead models mark the section of the barbed/ razor wire as clear, HI, REM and TAG units pass through it without any effects, destroying a section of the wire equal to their base size, engineers can try to destroy a section of the wire by spending a short skill and making a successful WIP check, they neutralize a section of 3″.
Models can use enemy models entangled in the barbed wire as a passing point causing the trapped model as many hits as their starting W profile and damage equal to their PH.
Barbed wire:
Scary and crunchy… just call it “Scrunchy”… sorry… “Scrunchy and Stabby”.
Mechanics:
The point about a lot of obstacle terrain is that it also usually provides cover… something that barbed wire definitely doesn’t. So usually combined with a machine gunner nearby.
tracked vehicles would usually drive over/through it, so often combined with mines. tank obstructions (which potentially provide cover.. &%$@). Some were built to lay something over the wire.
How about a mini having to take a turn to cut the wire, creating a path for other minis?
I’m sure some of the WW1&2 ruleset must have plenty of rules.
Re: de-gradeable terrain, collateral damage to the corridors in MERCS:Recon is an important mechanic as a squad may block themselves in if not careful.
Growing up I had a Tincasting set that was made by Hansa here in Australia under licence from Prince August. Again the cost of metal and even getting more moulds made it unsuitable for a whole army but ok for a unit or two.
Few years back when in the are on holidays we popped in to the factory/store and I suggest anyone in the area do the same. Can pick up some nice models (dragon etc) and also casting kits as well as looking over the factory and the range they have.
Hi folks,
Just some general ideas on the use of barbed wire.
In general games using barbed wire to mark out ‘military area terrain’ like mine fields etc .In the same way you can use hedges to mark the edges of natural area terrain like fields, and fences/walls to mark the edges of urban terrain.Is a simple and effective way to use barbed wire.(I think Lloyd suggested this.)
We tend to make ‘linear obstacle terrain’ in 6,4,2 lengths.This allows us to vary the length and shapes of the linear obstacles.
We also use the removal of linear obstacles in 2 4 or 6 sections.
Eg Engineers can remove a 2″/cm section per turn to allow free access for infantry.
A tank can ‘scrub out ‘, (just driving over barbed wire in a tank is not enough to remove it.It tends to spring back up.)A 4″/cm section per turn, to allow wheeled vehicles and infantry to cross freely.
Allowing artillery fire to remove barbed wire, is fine if you replace the barbed wire section with a suitable sized crater, that still slows down infantry and wheeled vehicles.(lol.)
Eg So 2 ” break allows free movement of infantry, but not wheeled vehicles.
A 4″ break allows all units to cross without penalty.
Leaving gaps in the linear obstacles is good enough for clear game function.
But modeling flattened /broken linear obstacles would be cool.
Most games treat barbed wire as a linear obstruction that slows down movement for infantry and wheeled vehicles .EG reduces movement by X inches/cm.
And tends to include its use with other battle field engineering , like tank traps, minefields, trench systems and pill boxes/bunkers and booby traps.
All these features are often available to be bought by the defender in attack defence games. (Usually played down the length of the table, to maximize the strategic use of military obstacles,eg hedge hog defence points that funnel attackers into kill zones.)
As terms of WWI charging over no mans land in to heavy machine gun fire/war of attrition.
I thought that was how Andy Chambers described 3rd ed 40k back in the day.
Modern units and weapons of massive destruction , used with ancient command systems and methods of conducting warfare.
I have a Prince August casting kit as well. When I ran out of the provided metal, I just used old New Year’s tins (which are actually about 95% lead). It works okay, though casting quality will suffer somewhat — but this stuff won’t match professional spincast ones anyway…
Prince August has some fantasy type moulds too, but they are very old school 25mm and will look tiny compared to modern figures. I guess some of the non-human types could usable.
on their website, the kit you bought, is still on sale
http://www.prince-august.net/details.php?pid=19
http://shop.princeaugust.ie/casting-starter-kits/
Warren you asked if Tanks or other vehicles could be caught in barbed wire. The answer is a big YES. I am currently a retired US soldier (Cavalry Scout). I spent near 3 yrs in South West Asia, and can assure you that I have seen Abrahms and a few other tracked vehicles get caught and immobilized in barbed wire. Now, its actually Concertina wire or Dannert wire, very similiar to razor wire. But, its gets caught on every F*ing things. Clothes, rifles, tanks, trucks, everything. Just thought I’d through some real life into the mix of table top war. LOL . Love you guys!