Anatoli's Game Room

Upcoming Q&A with Uncle Mikes (Strange Aeons)

2012-02-10T10:39:00.002+01:00

Just wanted to inform you guys about an upcoming feature on my blog which I have been planning for since New Year's. The Q&A will be a written interview with manufacturers that have been featured on my blog and who have (or are about to) release a new game or set of rules.

In other words I thought it would be interesting to learn a bit more about each manufacturer, their background, their games, their thoughts on upcoming projects and detailed questions about rules and miniature range.

I also want to involve as many of you readers as possible in these Q&A's so if there is anything specific you want me to include in my Q&A session - post it as a comment and I'll try to get it answered :-)
.............
First one will be with Mike of Uncle Mike's Worldwide. Creator and manufacturer of Strange Aeons, the Lovecraftian themed skirmish game. He's also currently working on two upcoming releases, one being a scenario book for Strange Aeons, the other being a standalone Strange Aeons universe rulebook with focus on cults fighting each other.

I'll give you guys a week to come up with questions. I'll gather anything posted in the comments and add that to my Q&A document on the evening of Thursday the 16th and send it to Mike for answers.

For those wondering, I have already asked Mike if he's up for it and he was happy to do this. So start posting questions. Also don't forget to write your name/nick so I can add that in the Q&A!

Polish Pancerni company painted up (BF&S)

2012-02-09T11:31:00.000+01:00

First company of the Pancerni medium cavalry painted up. The name "Pancerni" means "armored" in Polish, and stems from these guys being dressed in chainmail shirts. Their durability is quite good compared to most other units, only Reiter and Winged Hussar armor has better defensive value. The durability stat in this game for units is actually best when fighting in close combat as hand to hand weapons don't really inflict any drop in durability when taking hits (except when charging/being charged). Gunpowder weapons on the other hand are a lot more dangerous as they lower the durability stat, especially when you move within the "short range" where they are the most accurate and have the most punch in them.

In this case the Pancerni have a durability of 5, which means they roll a D10 when taking a hit, and any result between 1-5 is a "save", anything from 6+ means you take a wound. The really nice thing with this game is that each base has a strength value which is equal to the number of models. So most bases require 3 wounds before they are removed from the board as a casualty and forcing you to roll for unit morale.

I hope to play a tiny demo of the rules with two of my friends who are also starting out with this game, this weekend. So I hope to shed some more light on the rules sometime by the end of this week/early next week.

Up next, the unit probably everyone has been waiting for - Winged Hussars!

I really hope to get a company painted before the next weekend, it could be a bit tricky since I have to study like mad for an upcoming exam while writing a paper at the same time....
At least expect a detailed look at the box contents of the winged hussars, since they have a few unique details that explain the slightly more expensive price tag.

Polish Pancerni cavalry box review

2012-02-08T11:46:00.000+01:00

Here's my third unit type and another "backbone of the Polish cavalry" unit, the "Pancerni". Pancerni were essentially cossack style cavalry dressed in chainmail. Not my favorite unit of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth aesthetically, however I changed my mind when I saw the miniatures which were pretty damn cool.

The riders come armed with cavalry muskets, bows, warhammers and sabers. The horses are similar to the cossack style cavalry horses - which come with double pistol holsters and great sense of movement in the sculpts. I counted 8 different sculpts in this box as well when it comes to the riders. So that is two pairs of commanding officers and banner men, and 6 individual soldier sculpts.

Very nice detail on the chainmal shirts and faces, the command miniatures also come with bear/wolfskin cloaks. This particular box also happened to be filled with the "cleanest" castings out of the 3 boxes I have reviewed so far. Especially the riders. Like the cossack style cavalry you get 6 stands of cavalry, of which 2 are command stands. So 2 full companies, or 1 full squadron.

Beside the customary brass banner pole and flag stickers you also get shields which are optional. Some army lists allow you to field elite cossack style/Pancerni cavalry companies which have this additional piece of equipment which increase their durability in close combat. So if you plan on fielding your cavalry stands as elite cavalry companies the shields are in the box.

As for the flags (in all boxes so far) you seem to get a sheet with 3 different flags. Both the Pancerni and cossack style cavalry had 2 Polish flags and 1 that I think is Lithuanian - you can field both Polish and Lithuanian divisions when playing the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Though they do not mix units within the same division or regiments.

All in all, I had fun painting these guys. Check in again tomorrow to see how they turned out :-)

Polish armored train, baptism of fire AAR

2012-02-07T11:06:00.003+01:00

This weekend I finally got around to try out my Polish armored train for my early war Polish army. The initial idea was to play one of the scenarios from my campaign book which included the Polish train as a featured unit. I actually built my army with the idea of playing the "Modlin Fortress" scenario which is part of the siege of Warsaw operation. But on location we realized that the desert train I had figured would be a nice proxy for the old medieval fort was not present, and there were not enough rivers for the scenario either so it ended with me and my buddy Thomas just playing a regular "Breakthrough" scenario from the main rulebook. Both armies were 1500pts.

My armylists was not really made for a generic battle, it was a pretty poor list to be honest. 3 infantry platoons with anti tank rifle add-ons, the Polish armored train with 1 light and 1 heavy artillery car and a platoon of FT-17 tanks. My infantry battalion HQ had the two mortars attached to it.

My opponent had a Schützen company, with 1 platoon of Pz38t's and 1 platoon of Panzerjägers, 2 platoons of infantry riding in trucks, 1 small platoon of AT Pak36 guns and a pretty large mortar platoon (6 mortars).

I kept my crappy FT-17 platoon in reserve, no way I was going to have the train wait as a delayed reserve when it was both my only artillery and AT gun platform. My opponent kept a platoon of infantry in reserve.

....

I messed up in the deployment phase without even reflecting upon it, placing two platoons along the edge of my deployment so close to the enemy lines was pretty stupid. I ended facing the entire German armor force with a single infantry platoon which had a single anti tank rifle ....

Germans had first turn, so they beat the crap out of my lonely platoon on the northern flank with a nice tank assault. I decided to fall back rather than stay in the fight and pulled what remained of my platoon (8 out of 14 stands) across the railway line, I had to leave 1 rifle stand behind as they were out of coherency due to enemy fire. The rest of the German army drove at full speed along the road and started to cross the train tracks, using stormtrooper move they dismounted their trucks and AT guns.

Polish turn 1 provided me with two choices. Either enter the train from the south, which would mean at least 3 turns of driving along the tracks before making contact - with poor visibility among the trees and unable to fire artillery bombardments due to lack of LoS and spotter teams. Or - I could enter from the north right in the middle of the German force.

I figured option 2 would be pretty dangerous to the train, but I thought I would at least knock out 2 tanks with each artillery car, all I needed to do was to hit the Germans and they would be destroyed by my AT8 firepower 2/3+ guns. Also this was a unique opportunity of making a armoured train "drive by" and blast enemy infantry up close with all the machineguns lining the sides, front/back and the roof of the train!

The train arrives, one funny thing that we both realized now was that the train created a shield cutting of half of the table from the advancing German army - it also cut off the enemy C.O.!
Machineguns rattled to the sides, managing to wipe out the AT guns belonging to the Pak36 platoon, 1 transport truck and bailed 1 Panzerjäger. It also pinned down the nearby infantry platoon. However... when time came for the big guns to open fire the light artillery car failed to hit anything, and the heavy artillery car had 1 turret without LoS to the enemy tank teams, and the turret which could see enemy tanks failed to hit anything. The most depressing and pathetic moment of the entire battle was that one of the heavy artillery turrets opened fire out of sheer frustration at a nearby truck column - hit one truck - which managed to save and remained unharmed.... W..T...F.....

During this turn all my infantry failed to hit anything and my mortar teams failed to range in. My infantry also performed a failed assault, lost 4 teams and became pinned down.

Turn 2, with the train blocking the way for my opponents tanks he naturally tried to rid himself off the threat imposed by the artillery cars. His 2 armored platoons opened fire at the train which took several hits, somehow it only lost 1 light artillery car - so there was still a bit of hope left.
The German infantry decided to dig in to avoid being massacred by the next shower of Polish train mounted MG's.

Time for the Polish again, down in the south a single platoon was moving towards the German objectives to set up some sort of defense against the German reinforcements which would be arriving shortly, while in the north both infantry and mortars excelled at firing blindly towards the enemy - hitting nothing. The mortars actually ranged in but made absolutely nothing except inflicting a "pinned down" result on the infantry. The train was still in a awkward position with the small forest blocking LoS, so it moved forward a little to be able to fire both heavy guns at the enemy tanks. This ended in 1 destroyed 38t tank, the MG's did not inflict any casualties at all....

German turn 3, Germans failed to enter with any reinforcements, so they entertained themselves by shooting up Polish infantry teams with absurd accuracy and efficiency - and topped the turn by blowing up the remaining artillery car and the locomotive, leaving the assault car locked in place.

The Polish too fail to bring in their reserves, not that I think a platoon of FT-17 tanks would be of much use at this point. The only thing I could really hope for was to delay the Germans and hope for them to fuck up somewhere up in the north because I was sure I could handle a single German platoon with my Polish platoon that had just arrived and set up a nice defense of the two German objectives. The Assault car platoon jumped out of the train and moved away, not that there were anything to shoot at on this "safe side" of the train. At least they would not be blown up with the assault car.

As turn 4 starts, the Germans roll for their reinforcements and move their infantry platoon onto the table. They moved straight towards the Polish infantry, managed to pin them down - killing 4 teams in the process and then assaulted them killing another 4 teams....
My infantry held their ground, I wished they would have fled off table at this point. In their counter assault they killed 1 German stand.

At this point the whole situation would have made a nice explanatory picture for the acronym FUBAR. So I gave up. The whole battle was a clusterfuck for the Polish side, not only did I roll piss poor with everything - my opponent rolled such surrealistic results that it gave me a headache. Stuff like rolling 5 hits, which became 4 kills at least 3 times with his infantry (at one point his lonely C.O. killed 3 stands by himself firing his SMG...). Granted my deployment and army list sucked but the absurd die rolls pretty much killed the entire game. I'm OK with shitty rolls now and again. But when each roll is crap, it breaks the immersion and you realize you are just rolling dice and feel like stupid when everything fails no matter what you try to pull off.

As nice as it was to hang out with Thomas and the rest of the gang down in the FoW "bunker" in Lund, this particular game was an epic fail. I think the train deserved better than this, even though it is a really expensive and fickle unit. I think the train is better for specific scenarios and/or larger battles. Playing a train in a 1500pts game is just crippling.

At least I took a bunch of pictures of the game and table which looked good, so that's always something. Oh, and Patrik will be holding another Early War tournament on the 18th this month - really looking forward to that as the last tournament was great fun :-)

Cossack style cavalry painting guide

2012-02-06T11:50:00.000+01:00

This is not a real tutorial as such, but I thought I would share some insight into what paints I used to paint these guys and some of my thoughts regarding color choices.

We can start with the horses, I did take a couple of pictures of the horses before riders were attached. I spent a little extra time on these, and will most likely do just that on all future companies. The horses are pretty much painted according to my "15mm horses" tutorial posted a while ago - with the difference of me adding a third layer of horse flesh to make the contrasts even stronger. They were also given a slightly more thinned down coat of Vallejo Umber Shade.

As this unit type is a lot less regular than the Dragoons I wanted to make sure that both the details on the horses and the clothes of the riders were as different as possible. This does take a little extra time - but we are talking something like an hour of extra work which really pays off in the end.

The reins on the horses for this troop type and all following light cavalry type units will be painted in blue. The reins are as such basecoated with black, then painted with Vallejo Imperial Blue, then Vallejo Ultramarine blue, and given a final highlight of Ultramarine Blue with a bit of white mixed into it. I really wanted "texture" in the painting thus once again used the "patched" painting style which I think work really well for 15mm scale. Other blue areas, such as blue horse blankets and blue clothes are painted like this as well.

The red color on clothes and horse blankets in this case is made up of a black basecoat, Vallejo Scab red and then Vallejo Blood Red. Vallejo Blood Red is a bit too orange for me so I also give the area painted with it a wash of GW Baal Red.

For this game, as the stands are made up of 3 riders each, I'm trying to sort the riders into groups of 3 so that each group has the right mix of miniatures. When it comes to painting the cossack style cavalry I also wanted each trio of riders to have mixed colors on their clothes, and having the riders painted in colors that made a good contrast to the horse blankets.

To have a bit of sense in the unit I decided upon a limited palette of colors. Red, Blue, Green and Purple was used on vests, coats, pants and hats. The unifying color was white - in which all the shirts were painted. I find that having one such binding color in a unit like this is a good idea to at least have one common thing among the miniatures.

The green is painted with GW Orkhide shade followed by Knarloc Green and Knarloc Green mixed with white. In some cases I also gave the green clothing a wash of GW Thraka Green.

When it comes to the purple clothes, I used GW Hormagaunt Purple, and mixed it with white when painting the second layer of highlights, followed by a thinned down wash of GW Leviathan Purple.

Some of the pistol holsters, and bow/arrow containers are painted to simulate fur. The area was basecoated with Vallejo Charred brown, then dotted with Foundation Calthan Brown, followed by Dheneb Stone dots.

Gold areas were painted with Vallejo Shining gold straight on top of the black undercoat, and then given a thin wash of Badab Black to darken it. Swords and metal details/areas were painted with Boltgun metal and then given a wash of Badab Black as well. The only exception are plate armor pieces such as the armor pieces on the lower arm, which is painted with Boltgun metal only. I have an idea of how I want to paint polished plate armor (such as on Winged Hussars), but I'll need to try it out first to see how it works.

Painting a bunch of irregular riders might sound like a pain, but it was actually a lot smoother than I might have anticipated. I also painted the riders one trio at a time from start to finish before moving on to the next trio. This made the painting of the riders a bit more fun and it did feel as if stuff was painted up a bit faster.

Generation Kill review

2012-02-05T11:16:00.000+01:00

My top 3 favorite HBO shows are Deadwood, Generation Kill and Band of Brothers. It is hard to pick which one of those I like the best as they are all fantastic. However Generation Kill has that crazy dark humor of portraying mayor clusterfucks in contemporary warfare.

This is a 7 part miniseries about the invasion of Iraq, told more or less from the point of view of a reporter who tagged along the spearhead of the invasion - the US Marine Corps recon batallion. It stars Alexander Skarsgård which imo does a vastly superior performance in this show compared to the awful crap "True Blood", we also get Lee Tergesen who was superb as "Beecher" in another really great HBO show called "Oz" which I'm also a fan of.

There is a great number of very likable, hilarious and serious characters in this show. From the "straight" character of Skarsgårds character Sgt Colbert who is just longing for a real recon mission that he has been trained for, to his goofy sidekick corporal Person, the little trigger happy and gun horny young kid Trombley who just wants to get to fire his SAW at something or someone and constantly spawns morbid onelines - and of course the reporter played by Tergesen.

Other memorable characters is the commanding officer of the marines called "Godfather" who talks with this low husky voice (apparently that is not the actors real voice, which is pretty impressive). One of my favorite reoccurring characters is another officer that the marines call "Captain America" who is pretty much a loose cannon of insanity, constantly screaming panicky commands over the radio about them being ambushed and blown to hell, at other times he scavenges enemy AK47s which he uses to "disable enemy vehicles" (firing at civilian cars and animals). The madness and surrealism of the whole situation that the marines go through is both entertaining and shocking at the same time.

You really get the impression that the grunts just want to do their job, while command and higher officers sends them on shitty missions with little information about the enemy to earn fame and glory. At one point the marines sum it up that "if the target we were storming with our HumVee's out in the open was actually manned by enemies, we would have been dead already". The lack of proper equipment and vehicle armor is another mentioned detail, Sgt Colbert resorting to ordering a gunshield for the vehicle turret from Ebay!

And of course the random nature of modern warfare with confusion, weird intelligence reports, friendly civilians, pissed off civilians, Iraqi militia fighters, roadblock fuckups and collateral damage to civilians and civilian property.

Almost every scene in every episode is memorable, at one point the marines are resting and talking about how peaceful their current location is and watch kids play near a house. Two minutes later a bunch of reservists drive by in trucks howling and firing their guns at the building and call in an airstrike to blow it to hell. In another one of the idiot officers in the company tries to call in an airstrike 200 meters from their own location against the recommendations of his junior officers - their asses are only saved by the moron calling in the airstrike having the wrong grid system on his map. The show has the perfect mix of humor, serious content, is anti-war without being on the nose and a pain in the ass about it - I think it simply shows a no bullshit version of events. It is based on the book written by the reporter who tagged along with these guys. It neither glorifies nor really condemns anything, but shows the problems and troubles caused by war.

A truly must see show with high production quality, fantastic screenplay, excellent performances all round and a rare flawless gem among TV entertainment.

Blood Bowl Humans vs Orcs AAR

2012-02-04T11:45:00.000+01:00

As it so happens one other Swedish member on the Lead Adventure Forum (Mattias/"Preedh") also lives in the same town as me - and he too plays Blood Bowl. So we met during the week and played a friendly game of Blood Bowl. His Orc team vs my Humans. This was also the first time I met Orcs IRL, in the PC version of Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition I have always found Orcs to be a tough opponent when playing humans so it was quite interesting and fun to finally get to play against them on the tabletop.

And for once I made sure to bring pen and paper to make proper notes so that the flow of the game could be described with more accurate detail. Perhaps a much more traditional AAR than the usual stuff, but here it goes.

The teams looked like this:

Humans
6 Linemen
3 Blitzers
1 Catcher
1 Ogre
4x Re-rolls

Orcs
4 Blitzers
2 Catchers
4 Blockers
1 Lineman
2x Re-rolls
1x Apothecary
…………….

First Half

Humans receive the kick-off. Orcs get 1 extra re-roll due to winning the kickoff event.

Turn 1 Humans
Humans moved about and tried to punch holes in the Orc line. The human Catcher was the designated “runner” and made to pick up the ball with intention of running along the right flank once opportunity allowed it. The humans managed to score a K.O. on a Orc blocker early on as well

Turn 1 Orcs
The Orcs had a really bad time with the dice, just kept pushing the human players around along the line.

Turn 2 Humans/Orcs
The pushing and shoving was almost comical. Frustrating for the humans who wanted to punch through the right flank, annoying for the Orcs who wanted to get to the Catcher and steal the ball.

Turn 3 Humans
Finally the humans got a break and punched a small hole at the very right flank, a tiny hole enough for the Catcher to make his way through. To make the hole one of the human players had to spend a Re-roll, which proved to be a fatal disaster just minutes later when the Catcher ran past everyone as if his ass was on fire – and in his greed tried “going for it” and of course rolling a 1, tripping and completely messing himself up. The fastest human player managed to roll an injury on himself and was removed from the game…. A real dud.

Turn 3 Orcs
Not rushing to pick up the ball, the Orcs decided to bide their time and soften up the humans with a bit of old fashioned ass whoppin’. An Orc Blocker managed to score a K.O. on one of the human Blitzers.

Turn 4 Humans
Trying to regain the initiative the humans wanted to punch their way back to the ball, of course the Ogre decided it was time to become dimwitted and just stood there drooling with a blank expression. A re-roll is wasted on this birdbrain as well. The rest of the human team pathetically fails to get anywhere near the ball.

Turn 4 Orcs
The Orc thrower picks up the ball and makes a short pass to the nearby Orc Lineman who catches the ball effortlessly and starts moving down the pitch in the human direction while the rest of the Orc team slap around the human players standing in the way leaving 4 of them knocked down.

Turn 5 Humans
The Ogre snaps out of his daydreaming and grabs a nearby Orc Blocker whom he slaps so that the Orc ends up face down in the grass, the human team tries to move back towards the Orc with the ball to intercept him.

Turn 5 Orcs
Orcs keep moving, an Orc Blitzer blitzes the human blitzer (lol) and punches him hard enough to send him face down into the grass as well.

Turn 6 Humans
The Orc thrower with the ball was finally cornered and the humans managed to knock him down and pick up the scattering ball which was quickly moved up the pitch while the rest of the human team made sure to block any possible Orc pursuers off. The ball is now just a few spaces away from the TouchDown zone.

Turn 6 Orcs
In an attempt to stop the humans an Orc Blitzer darts away in the human players direction and tries to tackle him only to knock himself out and causing a turnover, leaving the humans to score.

Turn 7 Humans
The humans waste no time, and just move the ball up to make a touchdown. It had been a very tough first half. The speed of the human Catcher was greatly missed. Still, 1-0 to the human team at this point.

Turn 7 Orcs
None of the teams receive manage to get their Knocked Out players back. The Kickoff event was “changing weater – Nice weather”… so pretty much nothing happened.
The Humans kick the ball like amateurs, making it scatter wild and off the pitch. The Orcs naturally put the ball in the hands of one of the forward Orc players, and as the turn starts the Orcs move the ball down the pitch, 7 spaces from the TouchDown zone.

Humans Turn 8
The situation was a bit unexpected, and the Orcs had a realistic chance of scoring a TD the next turn. The Ogre punched a nearby Orc Blocker hard enough to cause an injury – but the Orc Apothecary made that a minor injury which meant the Orc player ended up in the reserves. Trying to block off the Orcs some human players positioned themselves around the Orc with the ball, hoping it would cause the opposing player to trip if he tried to get out of their tackle zone.

Turn 8 Orcs
Orcs throw some punches around again to loosen up the human lines, this is followed by the Orc Blitzer handling the ball first successfully jumping out of the human tackle zone and then run down to the TD zone passing a “going for it check” scoring a 1-1 in the last minute of the first half!

Second Half
Humans kick the ball, and then roll “Perfect defense” as their kickoff event, pretty good.
Both teams also get back their Knocked Out Players.

Turn 1 Orcs
The Orcs set the theme for the second half of the game by brutalizing the human players along the entire line of scrimmage.

Turn 1 Humans
Not much the Humans could do but stand back up to prevent the Orcs free movement. Of course the Ogre rolled “stupid” again and just stood there when he was needed to throw some punches…

Turn 2 Orcs
The beatings by the Orcs continued, this time knocking out one human Blitzer. Meanwhile in the background the Orc thrower fumbled around with the ball and failed to pick it up. A common and dreaded phenomena in the Blood Bowl Universe.

Turn 2 Humans
Humans stand back up, the line is being pushed back 1 space at a time but no real gaps have been opened for the Orcs to fully exploit yet. Ogre decided it was for the best if he kept standing around like a gentle lobotomized giant again.

Turn 3 Orcs
Orcs slap around more human players, knocking out a human Lineman with a well placed Orc Blitzer slap.

Turn 3 Humans
Another really bad turn for the humans, nothing happened. Poor rolls with the dice, Ogre just puched back an Orc while the rest of the human team, probably still sore after the repeated beatings, didn’t contribute much either.

Turn 4 Orcs
More beatings, this time the Orcs manage to smack all human players but the Ogre and a lonely Lineman.

Turn 4 Humans
Payback time, thought the humans – and in their rashness did things in the wrong order. Instead of standing up with all players first – a human Blitzer decided he would do his best to kick some Orc ass. Some Orc ass out of reach. Of course the human Blitzer tripped, rolling a 1 when trying “going for it” and caused a turnover while pretty much the whole human team was still on their back in the grass.

Turn 5 Orcs
To entertain themselves, the Orcs first beat up the remaining standing human team players, including the Ogre and move the ball down the human side of the pitch.

Turn 5 Humans
Human players stand back up on their feet, those that can move freely are positioned in blocking positions to annoy the Orc players. One of the human Blitzers perform a daring last minute Blitz against the Orc thrower standing next to the Orc handling the ball, this managed to inflict a K.O. !

Turn 6 Orcs/Humans
The Orcs protect the ball and move it down the pitch while smacking around the human players causing trouble, leaving the humans in no position to do anything or cause any threat in their following turn.

Turn 7 Orcs
Orcs sprint down the final few spaces towards the touchdown zone and score 2-1.

Turn 7 Humans
The state of the team was abysmal, there might have been a chance to maybe score a TD, but being realistic about it the humans just wanted to throw a few punches before the game ended. The Orcs also kicked the ball pretty far down the human side of the pitch so it would have been impossible to get the ball past the Orcs and score a TD in 2 turns anyway.

Turn 8 Orcs
The Orcs cause a turnover by failing a block action, knocking down one of their own players.

Turn 8 Humans
Not much to do but congratulate the Orc team to their 2-1 victory.

…………..
The game was really tense and exciting in the first half. The humans made a remarkable recovery managing to run back and forth down the pitch and score a TD. Equally impressive was the last minute dash of the Orc team. Second half was just a disaster for the humans. Granted that the Orcs failed miserably with their armor roll but the human players pretty much started each turn by standing back up from being knocked down into the grass during the previous turn.

But it was a fun game, and it was very nice to play against Mattias. Hope to meet his Orcs again soon.

Cossack style cavalry company painted up (BF&S)

2012-02-03T08:07:00.000+01:00

First company of the light cossack style cavalry that makes up the backbone of Polish cavalry regiments. These guys look like a band of brigands with their mixed clothing and weapons but they have pretty good close combat abilities and come with pistols, bows and short cavalry wheel lock muskets. They can fire on the move from horseback, even if that causes a pretty severe accuracy drop. Still, good for harassing and softening up slow moving enemy infantry units before they are charged by heavier and more durable cavalry types such as Pancerni or Winged Hussars.

Despite the mixed nature of their uniforms, the riders were fast painted. The horses which I put a little more effort into this time around were the part that took most time. As I wanted to have another company ready before the weekend I painted the horses and riders over two days.

There is a bit of color coding on my part here as well, the cossack style/light cavalry horses will all have blue reins, while the medium and heavy cavalry will have red with more gold details. I'm also thinking of painting up the horses of the Winged Hussars in a single color throughout the companies - probably off white.

Next up is company of Pancerni cavalry. Painting one unit at a time like this I can cycle through all the boxes I bought and get great variation :-)

I will write down a small guide to color choices for these light cavalry stands soon as well so you get to know how I painted mine.

By Fire & Sword: cossack style cavalry box review

2012-02-02T10:04:00.001+01:00

Moving on to the next boxed set, the Polish cossack style cavalry. These guys make up the bulk of any cavalry regiment and will most likely be the most numerous company type on the battlefield when playing the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth.

The box looks identical to the previously reviewed Polish Dragoons box, and the inside is also identical. Horses in one zip bag, riders in another and bases/flagpoles in a third. The horses are completely different sculpts from the Dragoons, but these are more dynamic / look like they move at a faster pace.

There is a great variation in riders, this formation was quite irregular so it is nice to see a real mix and match of equipment and clothes. I counted at 8 different sculpts including the commanders and banner men. Taking into account that you get 6 stands of cavalry, and each company is made up of 3 stands you do get a very nice mix of riders in each company.

Like any other boxed set or blister this one came with a sheet of flags. I really like this feature, getting both banner poles/lances and flags. It's annoying when you have to get those kind of things on the side.

One thing I should mention, which has already been touched upon, the contents of these boxes make complete units / companies. Most companies in this game are made up of 2-3 stands. You can form multiple companies into squadrons to get larger units . Cavalry squadrons can be made up of a maximum of 6 bases, while infantry 12 bases. So pretty much all cavalry boxes give you 2 companies/1 maxed out squadron.

Check in again tomorrow to see how a painted up company of these guys looks like.

Pictures from a Dystopian Wars game

2012-02-01T11:05:00.000+01:00

There was another gameday down at the club this weekend, I was completely exhausted so I did not play anything - actually I mainly went there to get a glimpse of Dystopian Wars since two of our local gamers, Peter and Micke, had painted up their fleets and were going to try out the rules.

Naturally I brought my camera. Micke played Kingdom of Britannia while Peter fielded a mix of Rising Sun and Prussian ships. From what I could see the rules played rather easy and well. There were a few interesting features, the ship turning template was a nice touch of adding realistic turning rates to ships. There also seemed to be a fun mix of long range weapons, weapon field of fire requirements, AA fire, fighters and bombers, dogfights using up fuel units etc.

One thing I really liked was that each ship required a specific amount of direct hits before damage was applied - so most of the time the small escorts had to link their fire to have any chance of damaging the larger frigates and battleships. Once you reached the damage value the ship lost hull points - and you could also score critical hits if you surpassed the required damage threshold with enough dice.

The only thing that got complaints was the rulebook which seemed to have a clunky layout which made finding specific rules a bit too time consuming.

The battle ended a victory for the Kingdom of Britannia.

Before heading home me and another buddy, David, went to the best burger place in Lund - "Viggo". It's located next to the train station and has phenomenal homemade hamburgers the size of a fist and amazing French fries. Lots of "toppings" on the hamburger menu as well. Nothing beats this place when it comes to hamburgers.

So, if you are in Lund, make sure to check this place out (and come hungry as hell)!

MDF bases from Warbases.co.uk

2012-01-31T07:46:00.000+01:00

Just a short review of these bases. I placed a tiny order last week to see if this was something I would be interested in using for my By Fire and Sword project as a substitute to the metal bases - and something cheaper (and precut) to the plasticard I used for my Polish dragoons.

Instant reaction to everything goes something like this:

Bases are very cheap, and the shipping is equally dirt cheap. I just placed an order for two packs, 1 pack of 20 4x2cm bases and 1 pack of 18 4x3cm bases (infantry and cavalry standard for BF&S). I think I paid 5 Euro in total, shipping included (think it was 1.5 or 2 Euro).

Beside the bases being cheap Warbases.co.uk also managed to please all areas of concern. Email on order status, and again when the bases were shipped. Easy payment. Fast delivery (5 days). And overall friendly customer service.

So two thumbs up for these guys. Check them out, they have all sorts of bases for all kinds of games (FoW included) and movement trays, markers and a bunch of other stuff.

Polish cavalry regiment command (BF&S)

2012-01-30T10:18:00.000+01:00

The guy in charge of all the cossack style cavalry, winged hussars and pancerni that make up the Polish cavalry regiment. Really enjoyed painting this stand, and it was in many ways a warmup for the more irregular uniformed cossack style cavalry that I will be painting next.

The miniatures are from the "Polish leaders" blister from Wargamer just like any previous and upcoming units for this project. You get two command teams in the blister - with two different commanders, standard bearers and musicians. As this is the "big boss" I figured I would use the drummer instead of the bugler for this team which I will save for the 2iC.

You also get flags and banner poles just like in the Polish Dragoon box. And the quality of the miniatures was once again top notch. It is worth mentioning that you get a nice variation on the horses - blankets, saddles, pistols and other details make the various horses fell unique even if they share the pose with other miniatures.

Painting 15mm horses (tutorial)

2012-01-29T12:51:00.000+01:00

This is a tutorial for painting horses with a fair amount of contrast between layers. It's moderately time consuming but it looks (imo) great at tabletop distance (50-100cm). You can put more effort into the details such as blankets, satchels, belts etc if you wish. With this particular unit, Dragoons, I stuck to putting most of my effort on the horseflesh - I figure I will paint the blankets and other details with more effort on the elite units such as Winged Hussars and the commanders.

To tell the truth, half of what you paint on a 15mm miniature is lost to the view once it stands on the table. The only reason to put a little effort into these tiny soldiers are for pictures that are posted on blogs and forums, and to make your battle report pictures look nice.

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As these horses are intended for a unit not belonging to the nobility I focused on 2 shades of brown for their flesh. I use a "patched painting" method for these miniatures as well, this was a bit hard to get used to since I'm usually trying to make smoother highlights.

Step 1)

Models are undercoated with black, and base coated (drybrushed) with Vallejo Scorched Earth. The bases are also painted at this stage. Follow up with a generous wash o Devlan Mud on the horses.

Step 2)

Mix Scorched Earth with either Khemri Brown or Calthan Brown depending on which shade of brown you want for your horse. The mix should be 50-50. As you can see the painting is a bit "rough" and "patched".

Step 3)

Repeat the above but reduce the ratio of Scorched Earth-Other color, to 20-80.
If you have the time and will, you can make a 3rd layer using pure Calthan Brown/Khemri Brown and really highlight areas of your choice - just keep it "patchy".
I also gave the models a thin wash of Vallejo Umber Shade for a more matt finish.

Step 4)
Time to paint the mane and tail. I used 1 layer of pure Dheneb Stone and Vallejo Khaki for this purpose. The painting should still be "patchy" although a bit more controlled.

Step 5)

Additional details on the horses such as markings were painted with Skull White.
After this is done, hoofs are painted with Charadon Granite. You can make the horses a bit more individual by not painting every single leg with that white "sock".

Step 6)

Reins and saddles are painted with black.

Step 7)

Horse blankets in this case have been painted with Vallejo Imperial Blue followed by Vallejo Ultramarine Blue. Saddles have been given an additional layer of Charadon Granite.

Satchels are painted Scorched Brown and then Khaki. Bedrolls Scorched Brown, Calthan Brown and washed with Ogryn Flesh.

Metal details are painted with Boltgun metal.

Step 8)

Now just add some flock and tufts, or whatever basing material you wish and you're done.

Polish Dragoon box painted up and ready

2012-01-28T11:40:00.004+01:00

First box of Dragoons painted up, it will take another box to get a core company of dragoons - this is so far 2 small companies and the regiment command. I will however try to paint up a bit of everything from the other boxes I had ordered before I return to the second box of dragoons. This was also the first time I had mounted riders on sticks, up to this point I had gotten away with painting either the rider held in my hand or painting riders directly on the horses. But as the setup on each base is rather tight this was not possible. In the end this method worked out really well and I resolved to holding the stick on one hand while painting with the other and got a nice 360degree. Miniatures were held in place by Blu-tack which was easy to remove from the miniature and which was not affected by any paint splattered onto it.

Next up the company command for the Polish Crown cavalry regimentfollowed by cossack style cavalry, Pancerni and naturally a few stands of Winged Hussars.

Models are all "Wargamer" - By Fire and Sword range miniatures.

I will shortly also post a basic tutorial on painting horses in 15mm scale.
Stay tuned for more 17th century goodness!

Kill List review

2012-01-27T07:22:00.001+01:00

Kill List is a weird movie with a solid fanbase from what I have gathered, joined recently by Brad Jones of the "thecinemasnob.com",(a really fun site where bad, crazy and weird movies are reviewed). This movie also has a lot of fans on various movie review sites, and has almost 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. I was made aware of this movie by a reader of this blog who said I should watch it as it could be a movie I might enjoy. All I knew before watching it was that it was about contract killers and had a weird atmosphere. So I was refreshingly open minded and rather unspoiled by trailers and the like before I watched the movie.

Spoilers ahead!

Well what can be is that I agree with almost everyone about this movie certainly being different. It begins as a very slow ride with lots of character building for almost 30 minutes. The main character is in economical trouble, his wife is bitching about it, they invite some friends over for dinner which spirals out of control due to an argument about money yet again and pushes the main character to join his buddy for another hitman job to make some cash.

They meet this creepy guy who gives them their contract and seals the deal in blood by slashing his own hand and the hand of the main character - after which the both hitmen travel to the location of their first target which happens to be a priest. Upon whacking him, the priest thanks the main character for some reason - which is something of a start of the weird track of the movie. The following hits they perform all get more vicious and brutal, their targets more and more depraved, and the main character becoming increasingly violent.

Towards the end the two hitmen track down the last target and end up in the woods outside of a mansion where they watch some freaky hedonistic cult performing human sacrifice, maddened by what they see the hitmen go out guns blazing and start mowing down the cultists. This part of the movie was probably the highlight for me, since there is a very tense sequence where the two hitmen flee through the forest and through a sewer system chased by these crazed naked cultists who are wearing straw masks and making messed up noises.

The main character loses his friend to the cultists down in the sewers and is himself captured shortly after. In the final moments of the movie the main character is dressed up like one of the cultists and encouraged to fight someone hiding under blanket - the shape of a hunchback. After a rather halfhearted knife fight the main character stabs the hunchback, which falls over and turns out to be his wife who has his son tied to her back - so he killed his own kid. And the movie ends.

This left me with a tingling "WTF?" sensation. You see the entire movie is filled with clues, and details, symbols, characters and notions but very little is resolved, described or explained. Usually I like to piece together stuff in my own head - but I think this movie went too far and left so much for the viewer to fill in on his own that it comes off as rather lazy imo. To me a good example of an open ending is something like the ending in "The Guard", which I recently watched as well. A movie where you can make up your own mind whether the main character lived or died at the end and the movie included tiny moments which could leave you thinking one way or the other without being wrong and still being satisfied.

The directing, acting and the atmosphere is great. The violence that is shown and the effects are also great. The shortcoming of this movie is that it builds up slowly towards something that never comes. It goes from being a weird hitman movie with eerie atmosphere and mystery thickening mystery plot - to a "crazy cultists in the woods action movie" during the last 15 minutes - to an unresolved "wtf" ending during the last 3 minutes.

I ended up checking the internet on what other people thought about the plot and the ending to see if their thoughts matched mine. Some of those people who watched the movie somehow made up this elaborate detailed story which I could not really identify myself. Maybe this movie needs repeated viewings - but I can't say I thought it was so enthralling during my first watch that I would look forward to watching it again.

Basically the hitmen were hired by a cult who specializes in killing people, who I think may not dare commit suicide and need outside help - which is why they thank the one who kills them. It might also be that the targets were so disgusted with themselves that they wanted to suffer and die for what they had done - what speaks against it is that don't themselves say anything to trigger the increasing violence. The increasing brutality from the main character is fueled by evidence of depravity found in the houses of the targets. Anyone would have reacted with hate and disgust to what he found.

Then there is the cult symbol, which appears on a dossier later in the movie and I also think that the woman who was "sacrificed" by the cult was hung in a way so that it looked like the cult symbol. But early on in the movie, a character etches the cult symbol behind a mirror in the house of the main character. And that does not really lead anywhere and is never mentioned again.

The final showdown is also an enigma for me. There are very few alternatives. Either his wife was in on the cult and wanted the kid to be killed. However she was seen shooting cultists with a pistol just two minutes ago. And if she was in on it how could she be sure she would not be killed by accident instead of the kid? If she was not in on it, why did she laugh? Perhaps she was drugged but I don't know, that would not make any sense. If she wasn't drugged and not in on it , would she still not recognize her husband despite the mask? I mean she probably knew how his body looked after a couple of years of marriage.

And why did the main character, who did not seem to be forced or threatened in any way by the cult towards the end just kill the main "villain" - the employer and what looked to be the leader of the cult as he was standing just yards away?

There are also other things that are hard to explain, stuff that can be written off as hallucinations or very effective medication.

While I did not outright hate this movie, it did annoy me slightly towards the end because I think they lost themselves is this ambiguous notion towards the end, it could have been a much better movie with just a few elements of linearity and half an explanation instead of none. At least have the movie make a statement instead of just feeling as if you were riding along on a aimless journey.

Though I would be interested in watching more from this director in the future as he clearly has talent. Just give him a bit more structured screenplay to work with. I also think it was wrongly marketed as a "horror" movie. Even though it falls close to what "I saw the devil" was , a horror-thriller, it still comes off as a straight hitman movie with a twist ending because the horror elements just make up such a tiny part of the very end.

Battles of Westeros: Raid in the riverlands (skirmish)

2012-01-26T12:49:00.000+01:00

Played another game of Battles of Westeros at a friend’s house during the weekend, we decided to try out the "skirmish rules" which we had not tried out at all to see how that plays.

There are 2 skirmish scenarios in the core game, apparently you get more skirmish scenarios in the expansions. Each skirmish scenario has a set of predetermined factors, such as the maximum command level on commanders, how many commanders you can have, how many troop cards you get, what kind of terrain is generated and which side of the board you use as well as all the details surrounding amount of command points, order cards and order tokens.

What happens is that you start off by sorting out all the commanders that have a command level above the command limit. In our scenario each player could have 2 commander that had a command total of 4 points. Beneath the commander were also a set number of troops and terrain generated. Terrain was placed according to setup rules and players take turns in placing terrain on the board - and then take turns to place units on the board much closer to a pure miniature wargame compared to the fixed scenarios. Each player also get additional troop cards so the amount of troops, and the quality of these troops, differ depending on what commanders you have and what troop cards you have drawn.

This makes the forces asymmetrical - my Lannister army was slightly smaller and my Lannister commanders slightly less tactically inclined. You pretty much have to try to make the best out of the situation with what you got. These skirmish scenarios are also all about killing opponent units, you score 1VP for each destroyed unit - there are no objectives like in the campaign book, so this is as close to a "pitched battle" as you can get. In a way this was pretty exciting since the battles in the campaign book don't include this simple "clash of armies in the open field".
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Lannister army: 14 units, Kevan Lannister and Gregor Clegane as commanders

Stark army: 16 units, Greatjon Umber and Rickard Karstark as commanders

Setup of armies, Lannister side divided on two flanks, Kevan Lannister and Gregor Clegane deployed in the middle of a cluster of units. Stark army set up on a long line with a couple of units on both flanks being outside of command range.

Lannister had momentum in turn 1 as the battle started.

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Turn 1

Gregor Clegane barked orders to his troops, Footmen and Lannisport guards moved up and occupied the buildings in the small village and the small forest on the right flank. The stark army started shifting about on the left flank under the orders of Rickard Karstark, impetuous Lannister cavalry on the left flank reacted by charging the Stark cavalry killing a few of the enemy and making them flee. This took the Lannister cavalry out of command range and would have them fending for themselves from now on.

Lannister center and left flank moved forwards, slowly, harassed by enemy archers some of the Lannister units broke and started fleeing towards the friendly table edge. On the right flank Gregor Clegane made slow progress moving towards the enemy, his towering persona and heavily armored Footman entourage eager to bash some Stark skulls in. He was still a few hexes away when the Stark forces attacked the village on the right flank and forced the Lannister troops out of the buildings and sent them fleeing with heavy casualties. The Stark forces were on fire, rolling really good from the start of the battle. About the same Stark cavalry also charged the Lannister troops hiding in the nearby forest, inflicting severe casualties upon the enemy but the Lannisters held their ground and hoped for reinforcements.

Rickard Karstark charged the Lannister cavalry deep behind Stark lines that was still pursuing the the fleeing Starks and made sure to destroy them. The first banner had been captured, and it was embroidered with a golden lion.

Turn 2

Lannisters kept momentum, already the battle line was in disarray, enemy counterattacks had succeeded far beyond expecations. The Lannisters now had to recapture lost ground, a renewed attack was performed towards the village on the right flank. Lannister cavalry and infantry made a push with poor results, despite focusing all their units at a few weak spots only a single Stark unit was destroyed, the rest managed to fall back safely without casualties. The counterattack was once again very brutal and the village was lost for the second time to wolf banners.

Kevan Lannister tried to capture the nearby forests on the left flank to get both cover and deny enemy movement. His infantry were attacked by enemy archers and cavalry once again. They managed to hold their ground but made little progress - Stark troops outmaneuvered the Lannisters and took up positions in the woods surrounding the approaching Lannister force.

Lannister troops that clashed with the enemy made once again a poor effort of inflicting casualties upon the enemy, and pretty much the entire left flank was left in a standoff with the Lannisters standing in the least favorable position.

Turn 3

Stark gained momentum. A renewed cavalry charge on the left flank together with infantry support smashed through Lannister troops and hacked down one unit and Kevan Lannisters bodyguard leaving him standing alone in the open. Lannister troops retaliated and finally managed to push into the forests and the building on the left flank but the halfhearted fighting attitude was still allowing most of the Stark units to retreat with little or no harm.

Rickard Karstark galloped with his retinue through Lannister units and the ongoing slaughter and managed to capture Kevan Lannister, severely reducing the command abilities of the Lannister army. The left flank of the Lannister army was disintegrating. On the right flank Gregor Clegane advanced burning with fury, managing to reach a building guarded by Stark troops Gregor slayed half the unit and sent what remained running towards the Stark table edge. Other enemy units operating in the area made sure to stay clear of him. Battle for the village was still ongoing, and in the center the Stark army had deployed their archers that now started to rain down arrows on the disorganized left flank of the Lannister army.

Cut off and leaderless, the Lannister units on the left flank were badly battered and most were lost that very turn.

Turn 4

Stark kept the momentum. As Stark focused on destroying what was left of the Lannister left flank Gregor Clegane moved up and challenged Greatjon Umber - proceeding to slay one of his bodyguards and send the retinue running in the opposite direction of the raging madman. The last unit of Lannister cavalry was defeated and annihilated, encirclement was inevitable. Fighting with their last strength in defiance the Lannisters managed to destroy one more Stark unit before they were forced to withdraw.

A crushing defeat, 8 Lannister banners captured while the Stark had lost but 3. Also one of the Lannister commanders were now a Stark prisoner.

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Thoughts after the battle.
I think the skirmish rules are great fun and add something different to Battles of Westeros. I also think that you could create "real" objectives of your own for these battles fairly easy and come up with your own stories and events. For instance, this game does not include reinforcements in any form, so it would be fun to set up a village for one of the players to protect from overwhelming enemy forces while waiting for reinforcements to arrive.

You could also add extra Victory Points for not only killing enemy units but also capturing their commanders and key areas on the board. These key areas could perhaps be allocated to 2 hexes by the defending player and 2 hexes by the attacking player.

I think this game has a lot of "skirmish game" potential if you have had a few games and understand how it all works to make creating your own content easier.

Painting Polish Dragoons (tutorial)

2012-01-25T12:19:00.000+01:00

This is a tutorial on how I paint the Polish Dragoons, I used the dismounted dragoons for this tutorial but the mounted dragoon miniatures are painted the exact same way. There will be a follow up tutorial on how I paint horses fairly soon as well.

I always like to wait with writing a tutorial like this when it comes to army painting projects since the first couple of miniatures/stands are always a learning process. You kind of figure out which steps are completely unnecessary after a few stands, so this tutorial is a slightly improved version of the initial paintjobs.

As always, I start by undercoating the models black, then drybrush the base in whatever color I find appropriate. I want this dirty drybrush work done before I start working on the miniatures.

Step 1)

Starting with the skin, models are painted with Vallejo tanned flesh, this is then washed with Ogryn Flesh Wash - I try to hit the facial area with the wash so that the area around the eyes get extra dark. I then use Vallejo Dwarf Flesh to repaint the face and leave the shaded eyes untouched.

During this step I also paint the hair, moustache/beards.

Step 2)

The coats/jacket areas are painted with a mix of Vallejo Scorched Earth and Vallejo Scarlett Red. Make sure you try to do this as tidy as possible and leave the black undercoat as natural "blacklining". Then apply a second layer, this time a mix of Vallejo Scarlett Red and Blood Red, and to give it a bit of shading wash these areas with Ogryn Flesh wash.

Step 3)

All leather straps, bags, boots, gloves and the wood on the muskets is all painted with Vallejo Scorched brown.

Belts, straps and satchels are then painted with Vallejo Khaki.

Boots and gloves are painted with Foundation Calthan Brown and then given a wash of both Devlan Mud followed by Gryphonne Sepia.

Step 4)

Wood on the muskets is painted with Vallejo Bestial Brown, the sword sheaths with Vallejo Ultramarines blue. Buckles, sword pommels and handguards as well as the metal on the muskets is painted with GW Boltgun Metal and then given a wash of Badab Black.

This may be a bit time consuming and you can probably trim this tutorial down even further - but this is how I paint them.

The September campaign - printer friendly version

2012-01-24T12:41:00.000+01:00

Got an email from a reader who wondered if I could provide a more printer friendly version. I have no idea why I did not upload such a version from the beginning - but here it is. All the color backgrounds have been removed and are now completely white. Not as fancy as the original version perhaps, but more economical if you want to print out scenarios and parts of it.

You can get it HERE

Remember that the correct download button is the one at the bottom or if you just click "Download" next to "Save file to your PC".

Polish Dragoon company taking shape

2012-01-23T08:36:00.000+01:00

First few stands painted up, my goal is to have the Dragoon box painted up by this weekend.

A tiny bit of info on Dragoons in "By Fire and Sword". They are truly meant to be infantry mounted on horses for transportation only - to keep up with the cavalry companies. Dragoons in this game have very poor fighting skill in close combat when mounted, and also suffer from bad discipline in that mode which works against them when resolving who won a close combat.

Dragoons can dismount in 2 ways. Either everyone dismounts, and they lose their horses for the remainder of the game - or 1 in every 4 stands remain mounted and "guard the horses". The unit can dismount and mount as they see fit over the course of the game.

While dismounted they can use "fire and advance" drill , or if the Dragoon unit is of a good rating they can also fire "salvo".

Dragoon companies are also good for sending out on reconnaissance prior to a battle.

By Fire & Sword: Polish Dragoons box review

2012-01-22T12:01:00.002+01:00

My order of "By Fire and Sword" miniatures arrived this Friday so expect a lot of posts related to that game over the next couple of weeks. I will make a review of each box separately (Dragoons, Winged Hussars, Cossack style cavalry and Pancerni cavalry) - but they are essentially all the same in terms of packaging and quality from what I could see.

I decided to begin with the Polish Dragoons since this is my only infantry unit at the moment and it contains both mounted and dismounted miniatures - which would be perfect to show how both types look and paint up. Also the rules for Dragoons and the artwork was quite intriguing, but don't worry all the pretty cavalry units will follow shortly :-)

This is how the boxed sets look like, they have both text in Polish and English on front and back, describing the unit and box contents. There are also a number of "blisters" in the range, and they come in the typical hard transparent plastic container.
The box is made out of hard cardboard, and has foam pieces stuck to the top and bottom keeping the contents in place.

Infantry, riders and cavalry are separated in zip bags, you also get metal bases for the unit stands, banner poles/lances/spears and unit banners.

Quality of the sculpts is very nice roughly 4-5 poses on the troops with unit commanders having a unique look/pose. The metal itself of decent strength, neither too hard to make it hard to trim, neither too soft to bend easily. But you should be careful with the sword hilts and other stuff - which are all perfectly cast but quite thin. I could not see any horse, rider och infantry figure in this first box to have any defects due to bad casting.
As far as mould lines go, there were fine mould lines on all models but nothing that you could not trim away by one stroke of the hobby knife.

The molded bases are a bit thick but not as crazy thick as Battlefront infantry bases. I managed to mask the bases by applying 2 layers of sand instead of 1 onto the base. I tend to avoid using modeling putty and such as I am too impatient.

The horses have great size, they are actually as big and imposing as real horses would be, seemed to be 3-4 variations of sculpts on the horses - none of which was completely static (standing still).

I asked what the deal was with the metal bases provided with the boxed sets (and which can also be bought loose) from Wargamer, the answer I got was that the metal bases were used with magnets for easy transportation between games. It does sound like a clever idea - but I thought really long and hard about all the pro's and con's of metal bases and could not really convince myself to use them. As such I will be using alternative bases of the same dimensions.

Lastly the flags, you get flags with all boxed sets, the Winged Hussars also get pennants for their lances. The flags are based on historical sources according to the notes, and they are the same company banners that are used in the Order of Battle of the By Fire and Sword rulebook. Beside looking very nice the flags are actually stickers, that you cut out and then double fold and shape into desired look, so no need to use glue or anything like that.

All in all I'm quite impressed. With the metal bases, brass poles for lances/spears/banner poles and sheet with flags the price tag seem to be quite reasonable. The contents of each box also match how the units and companies are built in the rules. So you do get "complete blocks" of cavalry and infantry, making it easy to plan your purchases and army building.

Stay tuned for some painted Dragoons, and more By Fire and Sword reviews!
And if you have not checked it out yet, the 3 part rulebook review for this game and these models can be found in the "By fire and sword category".
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Models are bought straight from the Polish store "Wargamer", on their site you can also find alternative retailers such as Frontline Games. More information on where to buy these models can be found by clicking on the "Wargamer" banner. The "Wargamer" site can be toggled to be in English.

Additional information

"Wargamer, producer of 'By Fire and Sword' ruleset, created special email address for all enquiries about their game in English. If You have any questions in regards to 'By Fire and Sword' game, rules or minis please write to:
byfireandsword@wargamer.pl and we will answer asap."

And also - make sure to check out fellow blogger "Yori" and his By Fire and Sword blog for awesome pictures of painted models and AAR's. His blog is both in Polish and English: http://yori-hobby.blogspot.com/

Dungeon Lords part 2: Gameplay and review

2012-01-21T11:48:00.000+01:00

Dungeon Lords is described as a game for ”veteran boardgamers”, I don’t know if I would agree with that as the game is fairly easy and have lots of tutorial examples in the rulebook and these awesome “tutorial boards” to help newcomers. What may create a barrier between players who already know the game and people who have never played this game is that there is a lot to be learned before you start the game. The rulebook characters talking next to each paragraph pretty much encourage whoever is most experienced to perform “learning by showing”. Basically Dungeon Lords is 70% management of your dungeon with bidding and using action cards and 30% combat which uses a clever puzzle system where players have to really think how to best deal with raiding adventurers. Combat is probably the most complex part, which is also why it has the most examples and training scenarios in the rulebook and the tutorial boards.

All players start with 3 food, 3 gold, 3 imps and 3 tunnel tiles. Each player also have 3 “minion” meeples which are used when players bid for various things on the main board using their action cards. You have a little window on your player board which makes up the area where you can dig tunnels and build rooms in your dungeon. The dungeon must always start from the area leading up to the surface (from which adventurers arrive). There are specific requirements for how rooms and tunnels are placed so you can’t be too sloppy. Most rooms also require to be placed in certain areas of your dungeon, like the outer walls or close to/far away from the surface.

Tunnels can be used to mine gold, rooms produce various resources. Both tunnels and rooms can contain traps and monsters that are used to thwart the adventurers who will be troubling you. The game is made up of 2 “years”). Each year is made up of 4 “seasons”. I’ll try to break down the game and describe how one year plays from start to finish.
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The nicest player (yes you have to decide that within the group) is handed the 1st player smiley face token. This token is passed on at the start of each subsequent season so that everyone becomes the 1st player at least once per year. Players have 8 action cards showing symbols of money, food, imps etc. Each season the players pick 3 cards from their hand and place them face down on their player board. These are the actions they want to perform this season and this moment acts like a bidding sequence. All players turn the first card face up, and starting with the first player they allocate their minion meeples on the master board in resource areas of interest - to increase their reputation, gather food, mine gold, dig tunnels, buy monsters, buy traps, buy rooms etc. Each such resource location only has 3 slots, but most importantly the game has a small tweak here which makes the player who comes first often getting the worst deal, while the second and third player will get increasingly better deals on whatever they are bidding for. (This is explained with great sense of humor, such as imps selling traps – they sell the first trap to the first player for 1 gold, then become excited and discount their traps down to 0 gold to player 2 only to realize their mistake and revert to charging 1 gold per trap but selling twice as much to the 3rd player).

Once the first card bidding has been resolved, players continue to flip and resolve their 2nd and 3rd action card. Players have expanded their dungeons, stocked up on food and other resources and at this point they may also place any leftover imps they have inside any production rooms to create additional resources. When the season nears its end, two of the used cards become locked and cannot be used during the next turn. So players will both have to be careful with what they do – and when they do it, but also make sure to check what cards their opponents have “locked” and try to work out which resources will have few/potentially many bids the upcoming turn.

Each season starting with Spring, also sees the gathering of adventurers. These are sorted out so that the most powerful adventurers head for the most evil players dungeon, and less powerful adventurers head to the second, third and fourth most evil player. This is a way for the game to balance things out as the most evil character is usually the one who has bought most monster or gathered the most resources (hence added to his “evil ranking). Even at this point players have a chance to influence where the adventurers end up, as you have 2 chances of lowering your “evil” by increasing your good reputation each season either by sending minions on propaganda errand into town or by building a room with a printing machine (also for propaganda making lol). So if you see a powerful adventurer coming up you can dodge that bullet by focusing on lowering your evil.

There is also one BIG deal with the evil ranking, once you cross a certain line you will attract the attention of the Paladin. This is a very powerful hero that will become the leader of the adventurer party heading down into your dungeon. So not only will you have to fight 4 instead of 3 adventurers, one of them will be extremely problematic to deal with.

As seasons pass there are also a few reoccurring events, like having to pay “tunnel tax” or “paying your monsters” with resources required. You know one season in advance what’s coming up so there is once again room for maneuver and focusing on upcoming events.
Once 4 seasons have passed, the players should have stocked up on resources, monsters and traps – built tunnels and rooms and be ready to deal with the incoming adventurers that have gathered above your dungeon entrance. Time for the second half of the game – the combat.

There is much to be told about combat, adventurers, monsters and traps.

First of all, the adventurers are divided into year 1 and year 2 adventurers (so are your monsters). Year 1 adventurers are pretty weak, while during year 2 they are a lot more challenging with more health, and power abilities. The adventurers are divided into 4 classes. “Warrior”, nothing special about these, they act as meat shields and always take first place in the party and as such often take the first hit. Rouges, these are annoying since they have a “disarm trap” ability which negates damage dealt by your traps. Wizards, cast spells during each phase of combat – spells can only be cast when there are wizards in the party. Priests, priests heal – so this is also very annoying as they will keep their party going and reduce the amount of damage dealt by your monsters and traps. The challenge of this game is to have a good mix of traps and monsters to deal with all kinds of threats. Just focusing on traps might be your downfall if you face multiple high end Rouges rendering all your traps useless.

Defense of your dungeon takes place in both tunnels and rooms. Tunnels can hold 1 trap and 1 monster each round of combat, while rooms can hold 1 trap (if you pay 1 gold to use it) and 2 monster at the same time. It might be a good idea to try to plan the layout of your dungeon to max out on your traps and monsters in your service. Adventurers always enter the first tunnel/room closest to the entrance, and then you can direct them to move towards the next room/tunnel of your choice. The main thing is that the adventurers are TRYING to invade each tunnel or room, so each round of combat is them trying to advance into your dungeon. If your traps and monster fail to annihilate the adventurers they will “conquer” the room/tunnel they meant to invade – this room/tunnel is then counted as lost and cannot be used by you for the remainder of the game.

Adventurers also take “fatigue damage” at the end of combat just before they conquer a room/tunnel so there is actually a chance to wear them down with traps and monster and have them drop dead of exhaustion as well. However if they survive they will keep going until the 4 rounds of combat are over, or if they have raided your entire dungeon. Defeated adventurers are claimed as trophies and saved for later. Should you be unfortunate enough to have your entire dungeon raided and conquered don’t fret – since you don’t auto lose in this game. Instead you can keep expanding your dungeon with new tunnels and room in subsequent seasons the next year.

There is a bit more finesse to the combat, such as a set order of combat actions, traps are sprung before monsters attack, adventurers can cast spells in between which may affect your monsters, adventurers heal at the end of combat if they have a priest in the party – but they also gain fatigue as the last thing to happens each round of combat. Combat is more about problem solving and maximizing your chances by pulling of combos of traps/monsters, taking out the right adventurer first and wounding the rest enough to have them die from fatigue. It is not as complicated as it may sound, and is quite refreshing to just rolling a pair of dice to work out combat.

And that’s pretty much how the game works, but before I talk about the numerous ways to win this game I should talk about how it plays if you don’t fill out all the player spots with human players. The game is 2-4 players. If you play 2-3 human players then the game will have 1-2 “AI” players taking part in the game as well. This is to make the bidding on various resources harder as it would be way too easy if you only had 2 players, no competition at all. AI players only take part in the game during the bidding process, they always place their “minion meeples” at the center of each resource category blocking the (often) best option, and if 2 AI players end up on the same category they take the 2nd and 3rd spot leaving the human player to take the (often) crappy first slot.

Having played the game with 3 players I can say that the AI player rules work rather well and doesn’t feel tacked on. Playing with less than maximum amount of players you also decrease the amount of adventurers turning up each season by 1, meaning that there will be 1 adventurer for each human player and 1 adventurer will be discarded. This is so that the changes of “good/evil” levels can still be used by players to affect which adventurers head towards their particular dungeon.

Winning the game -
At the end of the game players count points. You receive points for having the most tunnels, unconquered rooms/tunnels, having the most resources left, having the most monsters in your service, having the most adventurers, being the most evil player and so on. There are both points directly awarded for specific categories – and there are “Titles”. Titles are earned player positions in the game, such as being the “Tunnel lord”, the player with most tunnels in your dungeon. Titles only held by a single player are worth more points than shared titles. Victory points are all counted up, and then you decrease your points for such things as conquered rooms, and unpaid taxes. So there are really a lot of ways to win this game and it isn’t clear who won until you really do count all the points at the end of the game. You will be surprised how the scores jump back and forth on the board as everything is counted and accounted for. Winning is equal parts good planning and management of your dungeon as well as having a good defense against adventurers who will drag your score down with their yearly raids.
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There are additional rules for this game which are not included in the main rulebook but have online downloadable rules. These include special events that further impact the game (like tunnel tax and paying monster salary) and a bunch of special item tokens that I have honestly yet to try out.

The core game is quite fun, and not as chaotic as it might seem at first glance and not as hard to figure out as it might sound. The rulebook is great, and the already mentioned numerous tutorials and tutorial boards on which you can train combat situations and get familiar with adventurer/monster/trap functions.

I think the playing time would land at something like 2 hours if you are all experienced, maybe 2.5-3 hours if you have to explain everything during the first play through. The light hearted gameplay, the great sense of humor in game, on the board and in the rulebook and very smooth and solid game mechanics makes this game one of my new favorites. Just as with Automobile which I had reviewed a couple of weeks ago – I find the predetermined game length just perfect. Neither too long or leaving you feeling it was cut short.

Can’t really compare it to any other game I have in my collection or that my friends own. But the spirit of the game is similar to PC games such as Dungeon Keeper and Overlord. It is meant to be and to look funny, and I think it succeeds. I guess that if you like worker placement games, use of cards/bidding action mechanics and solving puzzles (during combat) this is a game for you. You also have to be a fan of the hilarious "cute" artwork as it is a big part of the game and humor.

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You can get the additional rules for event cards and special items from the manufacturers site: http://czechgames.com/en/dungeon-lords/free-expansion/

You can get this game from GameManiacs

Dungeon Lords part 1: component breakdown

2012-01-20T11:27:00.000+01:00

I had ordered this game before Christmas and it also arrived earlier this week. Probably the funniest looking boardgame and funniest written rulebook that I have come across. The whole game is so silly and "cute" that it is hard not to smile or laugh out loud when you see it. Every component crawling with details, small imps taking a dump in a corner, buildings traps, family photos in the "Office" of the chief imps, the monsters drinking in the bar etc. You can spend an hour just looking at all the boards and cards and rulebook and have a laugh.

As with all other somewhat complex boardgames I will divide this review into a component breakdown and a review of the game itself. I will get into the details of the rules in part 2 but you will be able to find brief descriptions of the core components next to each picture.

First of all, a brief quality rundown of the components. The boards and cardboard tokens/cards are all high quality. The cards are also very nice. The tokens are easy to punch - but you have to be a little careful not to be too rough as some of them I found required a little more careful handling else they would be torn in the punching process. You also get two bags of plastic components, the imps and injury markers. The imps are fun, but not nearly as cool as they might look on pictures. They will their purpose though and it is fun to have components that are not all made out of wood. The other markers are made out of wood which have been painted so you can keep track of the player owning the markers or in a single color (green food and yellow gold). There is really nothing to complain about in regard to the components and boards - the only thing I would love to have seen included would be some zip-bags like I got with Automobile and Merchants & Marauders. It should really be included by default with all games that have a bunch of small components.

The rulebook, first thing that you will notice is that it is written with a great sense of humor. Both examples and the "interaction" between the imp and the demon who are guiding you through the rules is full of funny jokes. This is actually quite clever as you remember rules better when they have this joke explanations around them. The book also provides numerous examples of combat, gameplay sequence's and other stuff. There is a lot of variation and I think this might be one of the best examples of how you really show off all the game mechanics in the rules.

There is also a summary on how the game plays, on monster abilities, on dungeon tile abilities etc. This is a really good rulebook.

Then of course the numerous components, I will get into more detail about each and every one in part 2. But sufficient to say you have Monster and Adventurer tokens, dungeon tunnel tokens, dungeon room tokens, troll counters and a bunch of other stuff (some of which are not used in the "basic" game but have additional rules for download online).

There are several boards coming with this game. You have 1 master board that contains all the resources that players are placing bids on and which also contains all the resources you can obtain, currently available dungeon rooms and monster available for hire. Then you have the

"Distant lands" board which functions as a storage for all the monster and adventurer tiles, cards and whatnot not currently in play.

You have the "season board" that keeps track of the game turns and events, and keeps track of gathering adventurers. At the end of each year you flip the board and it becomes the combat board divided into 4 rounds of combat each with a special event that affects both adventurers and your own dungeon contents.

Last board is the player board, there are 4 of these, here the player keeps track of his current resources, here you build your dungeon and fight off adventurers which have gathered above your own dungeon. This board can be folded and have 2 additional sides when in this mode. One of the sides is used for "training combat in the dungeon" - simply a tutorial board. The other side functions as a "AI player" if you play this game with 2-3 players. The AI fills the empty spots so that there are always "4 players" taking part in the game.

Imp and injury tokens, both made out of plastic as already mentioned. And also the wooden tokens that make up the food, gold, turn track, current player token, and player "chief imps" that are used for bidding on various things on the master board.

This brings us to the cards. The cards contain a deck of traps, a deck of player actions with each player having a different color, victory condition cards, spells used by adventurers raiding your dungeon during the combat rounds and a couple of cards with additional events that are not used in the basic game but also have extra rules on the internet.

Stay tuned for part 2 and the actual review and walkthrough of the game and rules.

Polish 7P tank (1:56) painted and tutorial (sort of)

2012-01-19T08:43:00.000+01:00

And here's how it looks painted up and ready to go. Still need a cut out a plasticard base for this model but other than that it is finished. There are a few changes to the paintjob/camo pattern on this vehicle compared to the rest of my Polish stuff. I compiled a rough walkthrough on how I painted this model which has been added to this post just below.

The entire tank was basecoated with Foundation "Orkhide shade" as with every other Polish vehicle. Then I tried out a new technique to mimic sort of "airbrushed" camo, I painted this tank by kinda making this "stabbing" motion with a worn out brush to form the rough layout of the camo patterns using Foundation "Dheneb Stone" and Vallejo "Scorched earth".

I then gave the model a wash of Vallejo Smoke mixed with GW Devlan Mud Wash. I then proceeded to add a second layer on the camo pattern, starting with the bright areas - which I now painted in a similar fashion as before but this time hitting them with Vallejo "Dark Sand". The brown pattern was a mix of Foundation "Calthan Brown" and Vallejo "Scorched Earth".
Finishing the camo pattern by cleaning it up a little on the green areas with a something like a 40-60 mix of Foundation "Knarloc Green" and Foundation "Orkhide Shade".

Outlined/highlighted all the edges with a mix of black and scorched brown. Tracks were painted Scorched brown, and then drybrushed with Foundation "Khemri brown".

I also wanted this vehicle to have proper 1939 markings as opposed to the other vehicles I have. And I don't remember where I read it but according to some historical source the Poles covered the tank markings of their tanks at the outbreak of the German invasion. Don't remember why, but there was clearly a lack of visible tank markings - which if you check historical pictures from the September campaign you will notice this lack of markings to be quite clear. Still, I wanted something and I searched the internet for a little while until I remembered I had an Osprey book on Polish tank units during WW2 which I had found in pieces on the internet and saved on my hard drive. One of the pages showed the tank markings of 2nd and 3rd Light tank battalions.

I went with the 3rd tank battalion marking since I thought it looked cooler, it is a "Zubr"/"Wisent" or "European bison" painted in white inside a white circle. I also marked the side of the vehicle to belong to "3rd platoon". On the other side, instead of mirroring the 3rd battalion insignia I wanted a name for the tank so I chose "Husarz" which the Polish spelling of Hussar (most often associated with "Winged" hussars).

Really love this model, though I am biased, I think it looks so damn cool. Also attached below is a picture of the tank layout which I found when using Google picture search while trying to find some tank markings (annoyingly enough I found more stuff from my own blog than of what I was actually looking for...). The big fat round thing next to the cannon is the 7.92mm machine gun, the round thing is actually a metal case meant to protect the gun. Also, the "hump" on the turret is where the radio is mounted.

Polish 7TP tank from Warlord Games review

2012-01-18T12:11:00.000+01:00

As some of you might have noticed, Warlord Games recently expanded their range of WW2 miniatures with the Polish 7TP tank. I've crossed my fingers for some years now waiting for its release and I placed an order as soon as it was up in their online store. This tank could be used both for early war games as well as fictional conflicts set during the late interwar period.

So it arrived yesterday, and while I forgot to take pictures of the individual pieces I took a bunch of pictures "pre undercoat" for a little product review.

I have both good and bad things to say about my particular cast.

The good first:
This is as far as I know the only 1:56 Polish 7TP tank on the market, so credits to Warlord Games for making one! The sculpt itself looks good, and the resin also seem to be of high quality. What little flash there was between the wheels and tracks I easily peeled away with a knife. Resin parts are quite crisp.

Few parts make it quick and easy to assemble, the pieces have been cast in a way so that they interlock with each other and make it easy to know exactly how to fit them together. The whole model is made up of a hull a turret and the tracks all cast in resin, while the 37mm cannon, commander hatch and the tow bar are made out of metal. The cannon has a small "pin" and there's a hole in the resin turret where it fits together.

The bad:
A few air bubbles, these are present in pretty much all vehicles that I have bought from Warlord Games so nothing new but it should be mentioned

But the main thing that let me down a little was the "wobbly"/misshaped tracks. And as the moulds is brand new I have no idea whether this has to do with the mould or the casting process of the batch of models from which I bought mine. The exact problem is the whole piece that makes up the tracks is bent in such a way that the tracks look "bowlegged" while the area which has contact with the tank hull makes a gap both in the back and in the front. I tried to fix it as good as I could with warm water, I'm no expert when it comes to fixing misshaped resin. I did snap the tracks on the track pieces (they are very thin) in 3 places while trying to reform the piece that looked the worst but fortunately you can't see that.

Also the tracks themselves seem to be slightly misshaped as well, the angle looks just a bit off compared to the metal plates surrounding the tracks.
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I'm sure the miniature will look great when painted, but by enthusiasm was slightly subdued due to the problems with the track pieces. I hope this will get sorted out in the future because it would be a shame to have such a nice model dragged down by this issue.

The pictures show the model from all angles, and a few size comparisons with the Warlord Games Polish infantry/cavalry as well as one of their Cromwell tanks. I will put this model on a plasticard base just as I did with the rest of my 1:56 vehicles to bring them up a bit to the level of the infantry.

Games with single player possibilities

2012-01-17T08:35:00.000+01:00

As I was struck down with a cold for pretty much the whole of last week it reminded me about how much this hobby depends on other people. It also reminded me about numerous comments on the blog and forums but also a few emails I’ve received since I started this blog about “solitaire gaming”. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have friends who are interested in miniature wargaming or boardgames. Or as I experienced last week, sometimes you can’t even go out and meet other people.

So I thought that it would be kinda nice to put a post together about boardgames and miniature wargames that you can play by yourself. Of course, nothing beats the interaction with a friend or a group of friends whom you are playing with but just going through my own collection of games I found a few that you can play by yourself either because of game design including a single player option, or because the game is written in such a way that it can easily be played on your own.

Each entry below will be a short description of the game and a rating of how well it plays as a single player experience and a fun rating for single player games. You can find detailed reviews of all games mentioned by clicking on the title in each entry.

Arkham Horror
1-8 players. This boardgame is based on H.P.Lovecraft’s novels and the lore surrounding those tales of ancient evils, cults, monsters, unspeakable horrors and people investigating mysteries only to go mad from what they discover. Arkham Horror is a game about moving about on the board, collecting “clue tokens” which are spent to close down portals to other dimensions. Players have to fight monsters spawned by these portals, travel to and investigate other dimensions, prevent too many portals from opening in the city Arkham – and sometimes when everything fails – fight the big bad boss monster which appears and wants to take over/destroy the world.

This game is extremely geared towards co-operative play, players always have to talk what to do, who will do what, and really work together to beat the game. As such the game works extremely well when playing solo. It clearly states it is a 1-8 player game on the box, and is probably the game on this list which is best when it comes to single player. Playing this game solo means you are playing it by yourself – but you will have to take control over multiple investigators (3-4 recommended) as the game is not meant to be played by a single investigator character. This on the other hand does not pose a problem, and you may find the game flows smoother when you don’t have to consult with other people on what to do next. (It is still one of my favorite multiplayer games though). There are numerous expansions to this game, and they all add additional themed content which sticks to the formula of the core game and can still be played by a single person. Only problem may be to keep track of all the cards, abilities and stuff going on with your characters if you play this on your own.

Single play functionality 8/10
Single play fun factor 8/10

Incursion: SNAFU expansion
1-2 players. Incursion is mainly a 2-player game, a Weird War version of Space Hulk would perhaps be the closest and most frequent description of the game. But it stands on its own with additional features such as the battle deck (cards of events and perks). Incursion on its own is a pure single player game, but the SNAFU expansion book contains additional scenarios and among them there is a single player section containing a bunch of varied and fun single player scenarios that are very well written for the purpose of single player. One team is controlled by you, and the oppositions is completely controlled by “AI rules” so you don’t have to experience the “playing chess with myself” syndrome.

This might be a economical long shot for the single player alone, and my recommendation would still be to get this game primarily for the 2-player mode which dominates the content. Though if you have a lively imagination, the game mechanics are of such character that it should be possible to design your own single player scenarios if you put some thought into it. As each single player mission have a completely new set of “AI rules” and requires working out a new battle deck it takes some time in between scenarios and disrupts the flow of the game if you plan to play multiple scenarios in a row.

(Based on the single player section alone)
Single play functionality 8/10
Single play fun factor 9/10

DungeonQuest
1-4 players, this game is actually made for game with a single character if you wish to play single player and only have control over 1 character. The nature of the game is also more geared towards random fun and “trying to survive” which makes it a light hearted and quick paced gaming experience. The game is about dungeon crawling, trying to find your way to the middle and steal some of the dragons treasure. Your toughest opponent is the random nature of the game, as dungeon tiles are generated randomly, meaning you could generate a labyrinth that goes in circles or moves around the center of the board. It’s also a race against the clock as you only have a limited amount of turns to get to the center and to get out before the doors to the dungeon become sealed for the night.

This is also a game where, if you play with multiple players, you kinda compete against each other – the player who survives and exits the dungeon with the most loot will win. A single player experience with only 1 character will as such be robbed of the fun you can have when 3 out of 4 players have perished and the last player is robbed of his victory 1 square away from the exits by stepping into a trap. There is very little to keep track off in this game making it easy for a single person to control multiple characters.

Single play functionality 10/10
Single play fun factor 6/10

Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of Ashardalon
1-5 players. Another co-operative game which makes it a perfectly suited candidate for this list. A fantasy dungeon crawling game, a lot more sophisticated than DungeonQuest though. The game comes with a campaign book filled with scenarios, all of which can be played single player. But just as with Arkham Horror it is advice to use multiple characters unless the scenario clearly states you should play it with 1 character alone. Just like Arkham Horror this game takes lots of planning, discussion and co-operation when played by more than 1 person, this is not an obstacle for single play though.

It can be a bit of a hassle to keep track of every character and the monster attached to it, as the game design uses special rules for when each particular monster activates and sometimes you swap monsters between characters and such. This is a bit easier to keep track off when playing more people, but should not prevent you from having a good time if you play the game on your own.

Single play functionality 8/10
Single play fun factor 8/10

Gladiator (by Warhammer Historical)
I think some miniature wargames can be played solo as well.
The Gladiator rules are clearly written for 2 players, but the game is meant to play on such a small playing area, with so few models and with such simple rules that this game can be played single player if you want to. It does take a bit of “split personality”-mode since you have to control both teams by yourself. There are though a few things that can improve the single player experience – such as playing the game as a campaign to give it more meaning – it will also allow you to tweak and work with 2 gladiator teams at the same time.

You could also make one of the teams your “own” and the opposing team something of a “obstacle” filled with high end boss type gladiators, animal fights, high odds etc to make it more fun and experimental.

Single play functionality 7/10
Single play fun factor 7/10

Strange Aeons
Another miniature wargame meant to be played by 2 players, but which I think would work as a single player experience as well. This is mostly due to the nature of the game, where one team play the good guys in campaign mode while the other team is generated anew in each new scenario to match the point’s value of the “heroes”. As such most of the focus is put on one player (Threshold team) and the restricted playing area, skirmish level amount of miniatures and easy but solid rules for gameplay and campaign mode makes this an easy game to play by yourself – if you care to control both sides.

This game is really fun when played by 2 players, and you will miss out on not being able to share crazy stuff such as dice rolls sending heroes into crazed panic or lowly minions killing mighty characters . But that does not mean you can’t play this on your own, if you play this with a predetermined “goal” for your heroes at the end of the campaign it can be satisfying enough.

Single play functionality 7/10
Single play fun factor 7/10