Book Review: Sci-Fi Skirmish Scenarios by John Lambshead

 

Sci-Fi Skirmish Scenarios by John Lambshead is an excellent selection of wargames scenarios that offer a great supplement for any rules set and, despite the Sci-Fi title, they could be used with any skirmish rules, certainly from say Steampunk through Modern and on into any variety of Sci-Fi.

The book starts off by laying out a few different terrain types from city centres through sub-urban settings via industrial and finally ending up in wastelands. So covering most terrain types that would suite the setting.

Most of the book is made up of page after page of different scenario ideas. Each scenario taking up between two and six pages to flesh out. Now reading the book straight through does get a little dry and repetitive, however, that is not really how this book is designed to be used ( although it is a handy way to find some of the more interesting scenarios). The book is best used by simply dipping in and picking random scenarios when you are stuck for ideas for your evenings game.

After the scenarios, the book looks at ways to use run a campaign and then also how to use it for solo play.

All this is extremely useful for the modern slim, miniature agnostic rulebooks that are out there and it gives a vast resource of scenario ideas that can easily be adapted to any game. I will probably even end up adapting scenario ideas from the book for my historical or fantasy skirmish games. I can see this book being reached for every time I am planning a game in future.

An excellent addition to any wargamers collection.

Get the book HERE!

Book Review: Painting Wargames Figures - Allied Forces in Northwest Europe 1944-1945 by Andy Singleton

 To give it its full title:-

Painting Wargames Figures - Allied Forces in Northwest Europe 1944-1945, British & Commonwealth, US and Free French

This is the fourth book in this series by Andy Singleton (and the fourth that I have reviewed on this blog). Generally, I find that they make a good introduction to the subjects covered and if not a complete guide, they are a good starting place.

This book is no different, giving a great insight into where to begin when painting your allied troops.

It starts with the usual section recommending tools, brushes and basic techniques for assembling your minis, as the other books did. I must admit that I skimmed this section, as I am sure most experienced mini painters will, still, it is very useful for beginners and I think that it is justified to have it repeated in each volume.

The one error I did spot in this section is that the book states the the figure used in the assembly guide is described as the Warlord Games Fallschirmjager. Now, I may not be the most knowledgeable when it comes to WW2 uniforms, the photo on the opposite page (and the following pages) looks to be a US figure, there is even a very recognisable Thomspon machine gun in the photo.

I assume that this was simply missed when the section was lifted from the previous volume (last year's Axis Forces on the Eastern Front) to be used in this one. While we are on the subject of errors in the book, the cover mentions Free French, however, that appears to be the only mention of them in the book. I am sure that they probably wore a mix of uniforms, probably based on the US or British ones, however, as they are not mentioned in the book it may come as a shock for collectors of Free French forces if they buy this book to use as reference.

Moving on to the good things! The brief histories at the beginning of each section are really useful for explaining how uniforms evolved over the period covered in the book.

The other thing that I am very pleased about is that the photography in the book has improved dramatically from previous volumes. This may be down to the photography, or possibly the design of the layout on the page. Whatever the reason, the actual figures in the photos take up far more page space than in previous volumes. this makes all the difference to being able to see the development of the painted mini as it progresses. 

As with previous volumes, this book covers normal and camouflaged uniforms in separate sections and this is very useful.

Towards the back of the book, there are sections on skin tone and basing. Both of which will be very useful for beginners, and I would recommend that experienced painters at least have a look through the basing section as you can always pick up new tips to add to your armoury of modelling skills.

 

I am very please with this book. The improvements over previous volumes have made it far more useful. 

Highly Recommended!

Get it from Pen and Sword HERE!

Book Review: Wargames Terrain & Buildings - WWI Trench Systems by Douglas Hardy

 

The latest addition to the Wargames Terrain and Buildings series of books from Pen and Sword is WWI Trench Systems by Douglas Hardy. It is good to see that they are expanding the series with different authors (not that there is anything wrong with Tony Harwood's books). As the title suggests this book concentrates on trenches which means it is more aimed at terrain boards rather than scatter terrain.

Firstly, it is worth pointing out (as the book does in the introduction) that, although it is aimed at WWI trench systems, the techniques shown will work just as well for any period that uses trenches, whether it be late ACW or right through to sci-fi games. 

The book is divided into several sections that cover using (and improving) commercially available trench terrain, scratch building trench systems, specific projects, and finally a great selection of reference photos of either original trenches or reconstructions at various museums across Europe.

The first thing that the book looks at is the materials that will be needed. These run from simple items like cocktail sticks and coffee stirrers to specialised adhesives and insulation foam.

Then we get into the guts of the book with building a trench table using commercially available trench systems. Douglas covers a selection of different commercially available systems, both foam-based and vacuum formed.

The book covers improving the bought pieces by adding details and also the painting process.

The next part of the book looks at scratch building a trench system. This was the section that was of most interest to me as I feel it will offer the opportunity to produce the most realistic-looking table and it also gives me the freedom to design a system that fits my needs, rather than assembling a bought system. Now clearly there is going to be more work involved in creating your table from scratch rather than buying a pre-made system. However, as I am a professional model maker it is just the way I prefer to go.

The book covers everything from the layering up of foam sheets and cutting the trenches into them through adding planking, sandbags, barbed wire and other details. Then finishes off with the painting.

Next up we move on to "Projects" which covers adding specific terrain items to your trench table to add a little more interest (and possibly objectives for games). Again a very useful chapter that is well written. However, I did find it a little odd that Douglas chose to base one of the projects around a piece of commercially produced terrain that has been out of production for many years and is therefore going to be extremely difficult for readers to get a hold of.

The final section of the book is an extensive collection of photographs of original trenches or reconstructions. This is something that I feel has been missing from the previous books in this series. This is a real boon for anyone wanting to build a trench system as it gives us an accurate picture of what the real thing looked like rather than just ideas from our own imagination or captured from movies etc.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. I found an easy and quick read. It will be invaluable for any wargamer who wants to create a trench system for their gaming table and I highly recommend it.

Wargames Show: TARGE 2018

I went along to TARGE in Kirriemuir on Saturday. I had some stuff to sell at the Bring and Buy and was also hoping to get in a couple of participation games.

I have always enjoyed the Kirriemuir Wargames Shows, both originally SKELP and it's more recent replacement TARGE. However, this year it turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment. On a surface level, I don't have anything to complain about. I sold most of the stuff I took down and bought a couple of things that I hadn't expected (and still came away in profit on the day).

However, the display tables that were there were all very familiar and I had certainly seen most of them before. I can't really complain, it is the last show for the season, so most of these tables should be retired now, with new ones appearing for the next year, but it did make for a less interesting show.

There were also quite a few empty tables in both rooms. I don't know if this was down to participants not turning up, or the organiser overestimating what they needed. If it was the former, it is a shame, but if it was the latter, I feel it would have been better if the occupied tables had been spread out a little more.

I must admit, the whole show seemed extremely quiet this year. I held off taking the photo of the hall, hoping to get a shot of it looking busier, but it was very quiet all day.

My son and I also only managed to get in one participation game (the, always quality, Leuchars Veterans) Carry On Up The Khyber, which we had already played at Carronade earlier in the year.

Anyway, that is enough of my moaning, here is the photo dump:-

 Leuchars Veterans Carry On Up The Khyber game!

A lovely table with a Batman game on it. Unfortunately, the rules are apparently quite impenetrable, so the game was purely being run as a demo...

I really like the look of this table, it is very simple, but it catches the feel of the territory and works really well.

This Stalingrad table was lovingly produced with scratch built scenery and 3D printed vehicles.

 

This was an amzing collection of beautifully painted miniatures.

So, that is my very brief round up of TARGE 2018. Hopefully, it will be back to its normal standard next year, as I usually really enjoy it!

Book Review: The Knights Hospitaller A Military History of the Knights of Saint John by John Carr

In an effort to kickstart my hobby work I have just read The Knights Hospitaller A Military History of the Knights of Saint John by John Carr.

I have not previously had much interest in the Knightly Orders, especially with their religious connections, but as I am planning to start playing Lion Rampant in the near future and have invested in several boxes of the lovely Fireforge Games Templar Knights, The Knights Hospitaller seem like a good fit.

Not knowing much about the period I felt some research was in order, so I tracked down Pen and Sword Books The Knights Hospitaller by John Carr. The book is written in a very easy to read, conversational style and I found it to be most interesting, from beginning to end. This is not a simple listing of historical events, but a more enjoyable journey through the history of the order. Taking the story from the inception of the Knights of Saint John (the order is known by several names, The Knights Hospitaller, The Order of the Knights of Saint John, The Knights of Malta ...) in Outremer, as a protective escort force for Christian pilgrims and hospital, through their more militaristic battle against the Ottoman Empire and right up to charitable organisation in it's modern form.

The book mainly concentrates on the medieval period, when the Hospitallers were at their height, and clearly where most readers interests will focus. The book does have a few black and white photos in the middle, but generally, this is not a good visual reference to work from (see below for a better choice on this one).

My only real criticism of the book is that it could have done with a little more careful editing. Clearly, with a history of a sizable organisation, some important moments may well be going on in different places at the same time. John Carr has tried to cover this, but it has lent to some repetition as the book flows along. With a bit more editing I feel that this could have been resolved in a slightly better way.

I would highly recommend the book for anyone interested in medieval knightly orders or the history of the Crusades.

For those looking for some more visual reference, I would recommend Pen and Sword Books sister company Osprey Books Knights Hospitaller books (Volume 1, and Volume 2) by David Nicholle. I have volume 2 and it gives me most of the information I need to get my retinue painted for Lion Rampant.

I have assembled my retinue for Lion Rampant, quite a task as the Fireforge Games miniatures require assembly and can go together in endless combinations. They very nice miniatures, but you do need to take some time to get them looking nice.

No doubt you will be seeing more of the minis in coming months as my project progresses...

Book Review: Tabletop Wargames A Designers’ and Writers’ Handbook

Pen and Sword Books very kindly sent me a copy of Tabletop Wargames: A Designers' and Writers' Handbook for review. I was very pleased about this as, like a lot of wargamers, I have,  over the years, considered putting pen to paper and trying to come up with a set of rules of my own.

The book is well written and lays down a lot of different aspects of rules writing that need to be considered. It doesn't go into the nitty-gritty of calculating all the intricate maths needed to balance a game, but it does give a few suggestions on how to approach that.

There are times when it becomes apparent that the writers are approaching things from their own experience and guiding rules writers to create similar rules to their style of games, but this is only to be expected and is easy to spot when it happens. The book does get very "wordy" in places, especially when the authors use terms that relate to specific game mechanics design aspects and then combine those into long descriptive paragraphs. There were several places where I had to read bits two or three times to get my head around them properly.

Setting these criticisms aside, the book does quite a good job of explaining the mindset needed for a games designer and also points out some of the less obvious considerations when creating a wargame that is planned for publication.

The book is an interesting read for the average player of wargames too, as it gives an insight into the mind of the designer, and answers some of the "Why did he do it that way?" or "What was he thinking?" kind of questions that most gamers have had when reading different sets of rules.

Even if I had not been sent this book to review, I would have ended up buying a copy. It is a bit wordy in places, but nothing compared to some older rules sets that are out there. In my opinion, it is well worth a read for both players and rules writers.

The book can be found at all the usual places, or direct from Pen and Sword.

The Song of Blades and Heroes Campaign moves on...

I played my third game in our revised Song of Blades and Heroes (SoBH) campaign last night.

We had originally started the campaign using the basic campaign rules in the main rulebook, but soon after I bought the Song of Deeds and Glory book with the expanded campaign system, so we decided to restart from scratch.

The table layout, the third river section was designated as a ford.

I had my Dark Elf Warband facing off against Jeff's Orc. I have won all my games so far, and Jeff has been struggling to get the Orc to work effectively and has lost all his games. Still I never going expecting to win, as I am prone to a severe lack of strategic thinking and also make the odd silly mistake that usually lands me right in it!

However, the gods were certainly on my side last night. We were playing a take and hold scenario, there were three objectives and we got victory points each round for holding them (uncontested). The game would be over when either of us held all three objectives or when one of us wiped the other out...

I advanced across the field and soon had two of the three objectives and was advancing on the third. One of my crossbowmen landed a bolt in one of Jeff's Orc, it knocked him down and more importantly reduced his quality by 1 (sneaky Dark Elves and their poisoned weapons). Then I charged my Dark Elf Lizard Rider into a group of three Orcs that Jeff had sent to push me back.

My Goblin Sneak guards the first objective.

Now, my Lizard Rider had proved to be totally useless in previous games either standing their doing nothing or running in and getting killed, so I didn't hold out much hope for this tactic this time. How wrong I was. In the first round of combat he pushed one Orc back and then ripped a second one to pieces (a Gruesome Kill in game terms). This forced Jeff's whole force to take morale checks, of which half of them failed, and as we were quite close to Jeff's edge of the table they ran right off it...

The next round of combat proved just as successful. Jeff's fallen Orc failed to get up and my Lizard Rider finished him off in similar fashion to the first one, causing another morale check which drove the rest of Jeff's force from the table!

Red "Splat" Markers indicate Gruesome Kills...

So effectively I had completely routed Jeff's entire warband with just the one miniature. Now I must say that on the whole I was extremely lucky with this one, and Jeff made some very poor dice rolls just at the wrong time. However, my Dark Elves struted off the field with suitably smug looks on their faces!

The after battle campaign resolution went fairly well too. I managed to aquire a small cash reward of 25 gold pieces, taking my purse up to 54. I decided not to spend any on adding new equipment or a new recruit to my warband, prefering to save the cash for a expensive purchase later on! I did however have some experience point to use. I upped the quality of a few of my characters and decided to take a risk and let two crossbowmen attempt a Quest. To have a successful quest the figures sacrifice three XPs and then roll on a D6. If they get a 6 they can roll to see what reward (usually an improvement to the figures abilities in some way) they get. My first attempt failed, but I got very lucky with the second attempt and one of my crossbowman aquired the Leader special ability (giving me two leaders and a hero now)...

Song of Blades and Heroes

I have been pretty much bogged down over the summer, not much time to work on any
projects.  Well, that is not exactly true... I have been working on a commission, a very
small commission that should have only taken me a week or two,  however I seem to
have discovered the sculptors equivalent of writer's block. I have been slowly working
my way through it and I have finally almost finished it. When I have a commission under
way (even when I am procrastinating with it)  I can't work on other things,  this is the
main reason I haven't done any blogging for a couple of months.

Now that I have almost finished that project I feel ready to get back to everything.
I have managed to keep up a regular game session most weeks over the summer. We
moved on from playing Warhammer 40K and have moved into a Song of Blades and
Heroes campaign. This is the first time we have played SoBH, so we played three or four
games before getting into the full campaign. It is a really nice system, simple and easy
to pick up, but it still manages to capture the essence of the different races and fighting
styles.

Using the three expansions, Song of Gold and Darkness, Song of Wind and Water and
Song of Deeds and Glory gives a varied and interesting selection of scenarios to play
but it does mean that we need a good range of terrain and other scenic pieces to cover
everything from swamps to deserts and everything inbetween. You also need a several
statues, monuments, pentagrams and also magical terrain items.
I didn't have a great selection of fantasy terrain, in fact I didn't have a great selection
of standard terrain, whether it be trees, rivers etc., so I have been busy over the last
few weeks putting together some stands of trees and now I am working on some rivers,
swamps and other odd scenic pieces.
Once I have finished them I will put together some photos and a tutorial going over how I
have made it all.
In the meantime I will just say that Song of Blades and Heroes is a fun system that offers
simple rules and a flavoursome campaign system. It isn't perfect, but as long as you're
not looking for a seriously competitive game it is well worth a look!
One of the other players in my group, Jeff, has posted some photos of our games this
blog you can see them HERE, HERE and HERE.
 Jeff has just bought Song of Arthur and Merlin and Flying Lead, two variants on SoBH. So it will be interesting to see how they develop too...