#board wargames

[bookloversofbath]

A Wargamers' Guide to the Arab-Israeli Wars Since 1948: With Chapters on Aerial Warfare and Aerial Wargaming by Mike Spick :: Bruce Quarrie

[canopiancatboy]

A Locust, with my rethought out bases. I've been playing Helldivers lately and there are some really pretty pastel palette planets around and decided to emulate one of those

I still don't have a coherent color schemes for my mercs beyond mostly light neutrals with large color panels and decals, but I hate settling on these things, I always change my mind

Anyways happy early Halloween

[oldschoolfrp]

Princess Ryan's Space Marines, William Lindsay box art for Mark McLaughlin's game of squad combat in the 23rd century, East Wind Rain Co, 1986. This first edition of the game included 48 space marines and 4 vehicles in 1/285 microarmor scale, all cast in lead by SIMTAC.

[hypothetical-colors]

Pukei Pukei Monster and Hunter from the MHW Board Game :)

[dreamchaserguild]

We recently backed a project on Kickstarter and I wanted to ramble about that.

(This is not paid promotion and I have no association with the team making this project. This is just me gushing about something I think is cool.)

I grew up playing Heroscape. This game was my childhood. If you don't know what Heroscape is, here you go:

It was a simple tactical minis tabletop battle game where you make a team of different heroes with their own unique abilities. But what really sold this game was the landscape you could build yourself.

I used to have a table that sat out on our front porch that was filled with Herocape stuff as I constructed and deconstructed and reconstructed my maps.

And I didn't just have the starter set you see above. (Above is actually several starter sets. You don't get quite that many pieces from one box. I'm guessing it's three starter sets since there are six ruins, and Heroscape only came with two.) No. I had the ice set, the volcano set, the castle set, a Marvel set. The second starter set with swampy environment.

Heroscape was an amazing part of my childhood. Then Hasbro let it die.

They tried to revive it in the form of Arena of the Planeswalkers, a knock-off with a flat cardboard battlefield. But it got cancelled after two expansions. They're going to try again, but I have no faith that they'll stick with the Heroscape revival.

Which brings us to SOURCE.

SOURCE is a hex system made by indie-developers who themselves were Heroscape fans and inspired by Heroscape. Rather than connecting at the sides like Heroscape, the SOURCE tiles are held together by edges as you can see here. (I sure hope they don't mind me lifting the images from their kickstarter.)

A disadvantage to this is that you lose some of the modularity in being able to build in any shape you want. The advantage though is that it allows for terrain to easily be added and removed throughout gameplay.

(They're also working on special grip mats for those who just really want to build in any shape they want without being confined to shapes of the edges.)

And in my opinion, the detail looks way better than Heroscape ever did. Just compare the lava tiles above to Heroscape's:

There's no contest.

The SOURCE hexes aren't just the same thing in different colors. They're actual works of art.

And I'm not saying this to put Heroscape down. Like I said, it was my childhood and was fantastic for its time.

The game on the Kickstarter, Timestrike, is very similar to Heroscape. But with so much more stacked onto Heroscape's foundation.

Characters have move, range, attack and defense like Heroscape. You have the six-sided dice where three sides are swords and two are shields. Only now there is a special lucky sword and a lucky shield. These aren't relevant for most characters, but some characters will have abilities where they'll gain some bonus on lucky rolls.

If that's not enough, there's also a Contest mechanic where you can push another player's figure. This is great if someone is on a ledge and you want to cause them fall damage, or if you just want to steal the high ground from them to increase your attack.

You can also mine materials, build roads with the materials you mined, and go fishing for buffs. (Literally. You can stand near water and try to fish. If you succeed, you take a card from the fishing deck.)

There are wild monsters you can try to tame. There are even large figures you can mount and ride. See this guy:

That's a base on his back for you to place a smaller miniature on and ride him around!

The game is centered around not just beating each other, but also fighting a boss called a Sentience with space for three figures on its back.

(Note: the Gorilla Brute is not part of this first set, and will likely come with a future expansion.)

The sentience takes full advantage of the destructible terrain, leveling any space he lands on.

And they're tossing in solo and co-op rules for people who don't want to fight each other and just want to fight the boss alone, or to team up to fight the boss.

Oh! And it comes with STACKABLE WALLS!

That's a small thing, but it's a cool thing. (Okay, this is technically a stretch goal for $200,000 that they haven't put on the official Kickstarter, but $200K feels likely to me.)

The creators also seem genuinely committed to making this a reality and keeping it going for a long time, with talk of several expansions in the pipeline, introducing more playable characters, more rideable Brutes, and more bosses which will each have their own abilities and their own solo/co-op modes.

And possibly boats.

That's a picture of a prototype boat that can fit three figures and will NOT be included in this Kickstarter. But it is planned for a future expansion.

I don't know if the boats will come to fruition. I don't know if they'll look like that when they are released or if they'll look completely different by then since that would be a long way off.

But I appreciate knowing that there are plans to make this a long-term investment. I'm not worried that the creators will give up on SOURCE and Timestrike like Hasbro did Heroscape and Arena of the Planeswalkers.

And it's not just Timestrike. The SOURCE terrain can be purchased on its own and the SOURCE system is intended to be used for a variety of games by different creators. And it's already naturally compatible with Heroscape, Arena of the Planeswalkers, Battletech and other hex-based games.

I am incredibly excited and hopeful for the future of this project!

Here's the Kickstarter for anyone who wants to see more of this.

And here's a video review going over the Timestrike rules and how it plays:

[fiendishneko]

Custom RumbleSlam Board: Completed!!

Took me a while but it's finally done! Super looking forward to getting a few games in soon and hopefully forgetting exactly how much time I spent trying to get the off-white on the stone tiles *just* right! :D

Anyway, this is your regular reminder to check out and maybe play Rumbleslam by TTCombat: it's cool, chill, easy to learn and doesn't cost a ton to get into either! Not sponsored, just want more rasslin' nerds around!

[pandaemoniumminiatures]

Hi all, I got back from UK Games Expo on Sunday - a fantastic weekend!

So great to spend time with good friends playing games, chatting and laughing. I travelled up with close mates and we stayed together in an Airbnb apartment which proved to be ideal (and far cheaper than us all getting hotel rooms!).

Our intention on the Friday was just to scope the place out and play some board games, which we did (though I did splash out on a paint set too), and very early on reached the Fighting Fantasy stand where I bumped into my friends Dave and Chris, which was great timing! It was lovely to chat with Ian Livingstone and Jonathan Green, and also Dan at Blue Giant Studios again and talk about the upcoming Fighting Fantasy Fest in September, the special miniature I'll be painting, and see that they've put my painted Bloodbeast on the box!

Ian also let me know that there will be a gallery of the FF minis I did for him in his forthcoming book, so that was an amazing surprise!

Another highlight was that I got to chat with Gav Thorpe and Andy Chambers and try out Zeo Genesis , their new sci fi skirmish game, which was a lot of fun - I got to take a free mech suit mini too!

I had lovely chats also with Bad Squiddo Games, Blue Giant Studios, Cerberus-studios, Realms of Tiberium, Moonstone and Louis Downs (Louis and I have been trying to meet up at the last 4 shows!), MODIPHIUS, Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy, and finally got to meet Man O Kent Games, Mike Hutchinson (Gaslands), Jon Hodgson Illustration, Lost Haven Art (who produced my logo and business promo material) The Thornless Rose, Rolltex Texture Rollers, and my friends Gonders, Julian Sparrow and Geordie Calgar who I know through Twitter etc. On the Saturday night, some friends and I had a big game of Grimdark Future One Page Rules, with Luke pitching his Ork horde against mine and Saul's Rebel Guerrillas:

A great game, very hard fought, and eventually the orks victory came down to one dice roll to see if a squig was shaken after losing a combat - it passed and so finished by contesting the objective on our side of the table!

Purchases...

I decided to mainly buy things I had been promising myself for a while, and take advantage of show discounts, so in an effort to divorce myself from Citadel paints, I got the Monument Hobbies Pro Acryl base set from Element Games, and a rechargeable lamp from Daylight, which will be so useful when I'm painting at shows! I also picked up The Art of The Miniature Painting Tutor from Warlord Games  because I had heard so many good things about it. I did get a few minis, but deliberately kept that to a minimum as I genuinely want to clear my backlog... (yeah, I know...) so I got a couple of brilliant new Halflings from Bad Squiddo Games, one of Duncan's Sir Coats minis, and after my painful experiences with those Anarchy stencils a few weeks ago, I was determined to get some diamond stencils from Steel Harpy!  Also, as well as the  Zeo Genesis mechsuit, I was given a free mini from the Onepagerules folks. And given all that, I'm actually not feeling too bad this week - I'm continuing work on the Striking Scorpions and I've finished the first five, with the others well on their way, so I would think they'll be ready to photograph later today:)

[eldoniousrex]

We’re a week out from the newest Tex Talks Battletech! The Hunchback episode is going to be a special one!

Per usual, a “Hunch-Pack” will soon follow! Check out the new coaster and sticker design. And, there is going to be a special additional sticker for this one!

[simonbreeze]

Games night is here again, this week was the continuation of the wh40k Kill Team campaign. Chaos legionnaires (me) into Chaos Daemons. Khorne was the winner in the end, more skulls for the skull throne! 💀 💀💀💀💀

[makapatag]

“Violence for violence’s sake is not the rule of beasts but the nature of divinity.” Gubat Banwa is a game of rapid kinetic martial arts, violent sorcery, heartrending convictions and bouts of will. Warriors that channel gods face sorcerers that master black arts, martial artists who have unlocked a new form of cultivation clash swords with those that perfect the night alchemies. When the crocodile’s teeth are cast, convictions are unsheathed, and steel sparks: the Umalagad must declare that: “The river of life ever flows! Rejoice in the glory of combat!” and they enter violence

SWORD AND ENLIGHTENMENT. LOVE AND GLORY. VIOLENCE AND LIBERATION. 

Gubat Banwa is a  Southeast Asian fantasy martial arts Role-Playing Game, inspired by the refulgent cultures of Southeast Asia. Raise your spears, KADUNGGANAN, you elite warrior-braves and asura-knights who travel The Sword Isles to prove their conviction and dictate the fate of the world. Revel in larger-than-life war drama like in Asian Dramas, ballistic tactical martial arts grid gameplay in the vein of Lancer or Final Fantasy Tactics, and find glory beyond heaven. Wield the Thunderbolt of Liberation! Rejoice! In the Glory of Combat!

Itch.io: https://makapatag.itch.io/gubat-banwa

DrivethruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/.../Gubat-Banwa-1e-Playtest

Gank: https://ganknow.com/services/18713-makapatag-gubat-banwa-1e

Included are!

A unique Southeast Asian-inspired Fantasy setting, with an emphasis on martial arts as a background for war drama and violence, from a Philippine-centric view. Garudas fight against unglu. Martial artist warriors master the Principle of Cutting by meditating upon the teachings of the Violent Bodhisattva. Rituals and superstitions must be performed or else risk the wrath of the ancestors. Vast kingdoms arise with God-Kings at their helm, claiming to be Shiva-Buddha incarnate. You and your warband stand at the center of this violent mandala!

A corresponding narrative system made to help play out war drama in this setting, along the veins of Final Fantasy Tactics, Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Malazan, Tigana, Game of Thrones, and Tactics Ogre!

Want to try out the Thundering Tactics Battle System that fuses modern narrative sensibilities with D&D4e style tactical combat and wargaming dice pools. The Turn Order is known as the Rhythm, and you don't activate a unit; you fulminate a fighter. The game heavily relies on terrain abilities and emphasizes movement, especially with it's 3-Beat System, which lets you do 3 Actions per turn (some actions might cost more than 1 Beat!)

A Discipline System inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics Jobs, Digital Devil Saga's Mantras, and Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne's Magatama. Mix and match your Techniques! Change Disciplines with a single Downtime Action! Be a Death Dancer that heals with alchemies, or a Tigpana (Spiritual Archer) that rides upon a crocodile! 

A narrative system wherein describing or doing dangerous and cool things is encouraged, as that is how you get Thunderbolt Tokens, which let you dictate your fate. This same narrative system prioritizes 5 Approaches instead of Abilities, in the vein of L5R, with each approach based off of the 5 Elements of Gubat Banwa's natural philosophies and esoteric tradition.

Said narrative system comes with a baked in Honor system that interplays with Debt, which is how you get others to do things for you. And NPCs can accrue this same debt, forcing you to follow them. If your Honor ever falls below 0, you must play a new Kadungganan!

An enemy system that allows for Solo and GM-less play! Roll an Enemy's Gambit Dice to find out what actions they do when they Fulminate. Adapt and act accordingly, make for dynamic fights!

Event tables and generators for every possible thing you might encounter while journeying in the Sword Isles, to fully immerse and play in its cultures! As well as Lore to fulfill any questions you might have.

Finally, baked in is the starter adventure: The Sword Devil. So you can jumpstart your games!

[professionalscrublord]

Arano Royal Guard

Good old House Arano from the Battletech videogame by HBS. Go play it right now if you haven't yet, it's a masterpiece turn-based strategy game even if you're not specifically a BT fan.

These minis came from the Alpha Strike box. I'd already done up the IS assault mechs in blue for the "Kestrel's Lament" post so I wanted to do the remaining scout lance in red for contrast.

Extra focus on the bases here. Blue team had rivers/marsh beneath so red gets lava rocks and magma.

It's some rubble flocking painted over with Night Scales metallic black. THIS is how it's supposed to look! Glitters of blues/greens/whites in with the black. Fittingly makes it look like magnetite here. The glitters barely showed at all on the Black Marauder. Maybe because that was painted over a black basecoat? Here it went on raw over un-primed brown gravel and turned out great.

Next I painted white in the gaps, then filled that in with water medium mixed with orange ink.

One more lineup from down low, like they're coming over a ridge. It's easy to forget what mechs might look like coming head-on when we're always looking down on the minis from above.

Also screw whoever made the Wraith's short designation "TR#". I guess "WTH" wouldn't go over well haha. But TR? For what, Troll?

WIPs here. Steps taken: -Platemail silver primer -Blood Red speedpaint -Gold/Night Scales highlights -Dark Tone wash (Only necessary over the non-speedpaints) -Blue, then watered-down white in jumpjets -Matte white, then inks on cockpits and lasers -Glued base flocking then prepared as mentioned above -Gloss varnish (extra heavy on cockpits/lasers)

Next for the remaining clan star, they're primed in black, I figure the classic bad guys of Smoke Jaguar should be a good opponent.

Mechwarrior 3 was my introduction to the franchise. "Die, Clanner!"

[aidenofneil]

Workbench update!

Up first, some Gallic cavalry I’ve been working on to ally with the Carthaginians, the Romans, or the Greeks. (Really anyone… there were a lot of Gaelic people at that time in A LOT of places.

Im happy with their color scheme, being quite bright but not too vibrant (except maybe the yellow)

Up next are Greek Peltasts:

I love how quickly these guys paint up! I’ve elected to use various earth tones for their clothing on accounts of light infantry being of a (typically) poorer economic class at this time, and to my mind brown and grey will help hide you better in rocky terrain than bright blue.

You can also spot some phalangite shields in working on. I’ve been sitting on em for a long time and it’s about time I finished them.

All these models I’ve been working on are from Warlord and Victrix. Overall like the warlord Macedonians better, but victrix just does plastic so well. I don’t think I’ll go back to warlord for anything other than Macedonians.

[canopiancatboy]

Kitbashed this Everest together for Lancer a while ago, and having recently played through Titanfall 2 again, decided on the basic BT look after I couldn't decide how to paint him

Tried to mimic the official Everest design I've seen floating around, but I'm partial to the blocky style head so I stole that from a Battletech Highlander

Actually a lot is from Battletech, the legs are an Assassin and the Torso is a Black Knight. I love the Vladof guns from Borderlands so I found one of those for my assault rifle, and the arms are from the free mech set Filamentio released. I think that's most of it...

Oh shoutout to Death Ray Designs for their shark mouth nose art and industrial decals, they're great

[oldschoolfrp]

The Beastlord, A game of Wizardry and Warfare (Yaquinto Publications, 1979)

[mikethinkstwice]

Played the board game Arcs for the first time yesterday! There are a lot of good things to say about this game's design. The turns are snappy, the trick-taking action system is genius, and declaring/scoring ambitions makes you think long and hard on the hand of cards you're given. But I wanted to draw attention to one specific design choice that likely went unnoticed by many, but is invaluable in my eyes.

The design choice in question is the way which HP is tracked on buildings and units! For those of you who have never played a war game before, HP can be a pain to track for individual units, and Arc's entire design philosophy is to deliver the war game experience while minimizing the busywork. And when you have up to a dozen individual pieces on the board per-faction, that can become a real problem.

How Arcs solves this is to use the geometry of the game pieces. Every ship can either be upright (2 HP), on its side (1 HP), or removed from the board (0 HP).

Likewise, every building token is double sided, having both "healthy" and "damaged" sides which you can flip over when taking damage. This also simplifies the math in the game to mere counting. No need to use a calculator here!

Choices like this, while not particularly impactful with how players interact with the rules of the game, are vital to how players interact with the experience of the game.

Simply put, when making a game, keep in mind the physical space your players will be playing in. It might alert you to some problems, and if you're wise, might even offer you some solutions!

[ghostpalmtechnique]

For those of you out there who play wargames, a reminder that Curt Schilling continues to own 1/3 of Multi-Man Publishing.

Consider spending your money elsewhere.