GNN special report

This just in to Galactic News Network: The Avarian United Worlds Bureau of Information is reporting that the Avarian Homeworld Flight has destroyed the Terran Transsolar Federation Navy galactic dreadnought Noble Knight Prince in a battle along the Angle-Vertex shipping corridor.  A spokesbeing for the Terran Admiralty would not confirm this report, but sources inside the Admiralty who wish to remain anonymous told GNN the navy has lost all contact with the starship. 

It is not known how many crew are aboard the NKP; other ships of the Valiant class can carry up to 3,100 spacers and 800 marines.

The Noble Knight Prince set out with the super galactic dreadnought Chancellor three weeks ago on a mission to interdict Avarian weapons shipments and prevent a massive arms buildup at Angle.  The vessels apparently went their separate ways at the start of the mission, and the Chancellor recently skirmished with Avarian forces near Vertex. 

More from GNN as this situation develops.

Superior Models' Wargamers Forum

A while back on this blog, THE HESSIAN asked about Wargamers Forum.  This publication was a house organ put out by Superior Models in 1979.  The magazine billed itself as addressing "space, naval and armor wargaming with miniatures."  Issue No. 1 had a cover price of $1.75 and was dated October 1979.

Articles in Wargamers Forum No. 1 relevant to this blog included a Starfleet Wars background story "The Five Worlds-A History Part 1: Terran Contacts with the Entomalians and Avarians," pieces on starbombers and super galactic dreadnoughs identical to the rules in SfW Book 2, an article on kitbashing Terran and Carnivoran models to create a new starship, details about the Mantis and Leviathan classes of starships billed as "excerpts from a forthcoming starfleet recognition manual," and Starfleet Wars/MAATAC Q&A (intended to be a regular column to clarify or correct the game rules).   The issue also had articles on historical naval wargaming.

As far as I can tell, there never was an issue No. 2 of Wargamers Forum.  Too bad.  I would have loved to see more details on the ships and background of the Starfleet Wars setting.  Someone should start a 'zine ...

Another gaming bargain

This time, it wasn't at Half-Price Books, but at Dragon's Lair in San Antonio, which has a clearance table with games, comics, and other merchandise marked 75% off the original price.

I don't actually play GURPS (the Generic Universal Role Playing System), but I'm a big fan of the Vorkosigan series of SF novels by Lois McMaster Bujold.  So the chance to snag a $40 hardback detailing the setting of those books for ten bucks was one I had to grab.  So I did. 

The sourcebook from Steve Jackson Games has a lot of background on the novels' locations, characters, technology and history.  It also contains a streamlined version of the game called GURPS Lite.  I don't think I'll be starting a GURPS campaign anytime soon, but I'm enjoying reading this supplement.

I'm curious, has anyone else ever bought a game product just for the background material?

Happy Birthday, H.C.!

So last week marked the third anniversary of the Hill Cantons campaign.  To commemorate the event, my wife and I brought a cake to today's game session.  Just for fun, we decided to adorn the cake with some plastic figures I happen to have laying around the house. 

Also, since the grocery store decorates it for free, we got them to write "Happy Birthday H.C." on the pastry (we were in a hurry and figured "birthday" is easier and quicker to spell than "anniversary," and we didn't want to cause confusion by having them write out "Hill Cantons").  Here's a shot of the writing:

 

The session itself was fun, except that we got into a fight with a whole bunch of Eald who did not want to give up and rolled incredibly well, while every player at the table could have rolled a six-sider instead of a d20 and probably gotten better results.  They wore us down, but we prevailed in the end, although it cost the NPC cleric his right foot.

By the way, that cheetah mini at the top is not to scale--it actually represents my magic-user character's familiar: a tabby cat named Steve.  Yeah, those are the kinds of rolls we made.  Anyway, Happy Birthday to the Hill Cantons, and thanks, Chris, for running the campaign.

New Blog (of Void and Stars)

From the Void and Stars blog.

One of the creators of Song of Void and Stars, the upcoming starship combat rules from Ganesha Games, has started a blog to chronicle the game development.

Called, appropriately enough, Void and Stars, the blog only has a couple of entries so far.  The introductory post describes the game as a "task force"-level set of rules, with one or two capital ships and several escorts on each side.  Unlike most spaceship games, SoVaS also has character types (admirals, captains, engineers, and so on) that can affect play.

Of particular interest is this Song of Void and Stars playtest report.  It describes ships with characteristics such as "superior" or "assault" (and also launch missiles and fighters--successive missile salvos have a cumulative negative affect on their target) and "legendary" characters that can ensure automatic successes.  The game also has morale rules, so vessels will warp away to escape instead of fighting to the last ship.  I look forward to learning more about this game.

The Lost Platoon (part 2)

Yesterday I blogged about my WH40K army I converted for Hordes of the Things.  As I stated in that post, I had plenty of additional figures, which I used to bring my Imperial Army (it's from back before it became the Imperial Guard) up to 48 AP. 

At the time I was adding elements to this army, I had never played an army with a hero element.  I figured an Imperial Kommissar would make a good hero, and based him with a medic figure for support:

I also had this great Ogryn mini that deserved some playing time, so I based him as another hero:

At the opposite end of the spectrum, I had a ratling (space halfling) figure that doesn't look like much.  I based him as a lurker, and my opponents found out--you don't mess with him!

I still had some rank-and-file Imperial army troopers to fill out a few more shooters elements:

I still like these sculpts from the late 1980s.

And remember when the Emperor let beastmen serve in the Imperial Army?

My collection included a couple of cyborgs or mechanic-type figures, so I decided to base them as blades.  The machine-men serve as bodyguards to the general:

Finally, I had some vehicles which, although they don't function as well in the HotT fantasy dimension as they did in their plane of origin, still perform on the tabletop.  First is a pair of old jetbikes, which I use as elements of flyers:

Finally, I have an old Imperial Army landspeeder, which for my purposes makes a damn fine airboat:

I need to get this army on the table again.  But first I need to repair it--pretty much every mini came off its base when I knocked the box on the floor.  Something else for the to-do list ...

The Lost Platoon (part 1)

Since February marked the 25th anniversary of the release of Warhammer 40,000, I thought I'd trot out some photos of my own Citadel Miniatures figures from that game.  My force was the Imperial Army (that's right, Skippy, these figures predate the Imperial Guard!) back in the day.

I bought these miniatures back in the late '80s and played a few games of WH40K with them until I moved away for school.  The figs sat gathering dust at my parents' house until a few years ago, when I rescued them from oblivion.  Because I don't play 40K anymore, I rebased these minis for use with Hordes of the Things.

As you can see in the top picture, my initial HotT army started out as nine stands of shooters (troopers, including general with standard bearer) and two artillery elements (heavy weapons).

Most of the paint jobs on these figs are from the 1980s; I just touched them up a little and maybe added a wash.

My dudes are not painted as well as this guy's figures (go check them out here, here, here, and here), but they look decent enough on the tabletop.

 

The in-game backstory for this unit is that a shot from a warp cannon blasted the force into another dimension where their weapons don't work as well as they should.

That and the desire to conserve ammo explain the now-limited range of the technologically advanced weapons of the shooters and artillery.

I also salvaged from my childhood home my original Rhino APC, which I had painted in a weird camo scheme for use of my Rogue Trader mercenary force, known as Bastard Squad.  I affixed it to a base to use as my Imperial Army's stronghold--it's out of fuel or the engine doesn't function in this reality, but even immobile it makes a good fortress.  I even added a couple of figures to this stronghold to represent support personnel.

After assembling this 24AP army, I had plenty of minis left over--enough to bring the Lost Platoon up to 48AP--and field elements besides shooters and artillery.  I'll show you those photos tomorrow.