Archive for April 2015
Brooklyn Wargaming
Photography has been a personal and professional interest of mine for more than twenty years. One particular area of photography that has long fascinated me is frontier photography of the United States. I was turned on to the period in the 1973 classic Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy which frames a late 19th-century town’s life in photos ranging from the deeply personal to the macabre. Given the complexity and expense of early photography, I’ve always thought of the personal, logistical and financial choices made in people capturing images in the late 19th through early 20th century.
Photographs of American frontier people and their possessions have always held a big pull for me. In the photo at top (from the Nebraska State Historical Society’s Prairie Settlement collection) a family has chosen to hire a photographer to document them on the new frontier. Aside from the family in the foreground…
View original post 1,298 more words
The Second part of Barbarian Conspiracy campaign using the excellent Sword and Spear Rules! Will the Barbarians be able to hold off the Romans and defend their ill gotten gains? This time the Picts have been upgraded to mighty Attecotti Warriors but the Romans have brought real soldiers led by the Elder Theodosius himself. You can read about the game and see the photos of the battle by clicking the link.
Magnus leads the cavalry forward
Aelle, the Saxon High King and Barbarian General
The battle field with the Romans deployed in front of their watch tower.
The Barbarian Conspiracy of 367AD: First Scenario. River Crossing.
You can read all about the Battle here complete with Gallery images of the Battle itself.
Octha on the Barbarian left wing
Fullofaudes in the Roman Centre defending the ford
The view down river from the Roman right.
Planning for a Sword and Spear game, depicting the barbarian conspiracy of 367 AD.
Details can be found in the Barbarian Conspiracy page.
We began with Mike’s innovative scenario for his World Cup game based on the CIS CUP. Mike and Bruce fought it out to a close finish whilst Phil was left behind. In the end Bruce won on points after grabbing first and second place. Phil came a distant last consistently losing out in penalty shoot outs.
Next up was another great game of K2 which Phil managed just to win with Mike second and Bruce last. Bruce got a man to the highest point but could not get him home safely.
Finally Phil introduced Mike and Bruce to the storytelling The Hobbit green dragon inn card game. Everyone had quite a tough time finishing their narrative successfully but had fun trying.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/dungeon-saga-the-dwarf-kings-quest
Mike and Darryl took on Phil’s Necromancer in this playtest of the Beta rules for the above Kickstarter game. We printed out the rules and cards and took on the introductory adventures A and B. These are really designed to introduce new players to the basic mechanics against simple skeleton warriors. For terrain we used our Dwarven Forge Dungeon and Cavern tiles and added some painted figures.
In adventure A the two Fighters raced through the corridor smashing skeletons. As they were re-animated the players realised they could block the corridor very effectively with the dwarf’s Feat whilst the Barbarian headed towards the door. The skeletons were thus trapped by the dwarf whilst the barbarian forced the door open and it was an easy victory.
In adventure B the players realised the mage and the archer were much more fragile. Still once they had dealt with the initial wave of skeletons they soon had the sense to advance along to the main room. This was in fact no problem for them and whilst the mage held up the skeletons with feat of stone spells the archer eventually was able to get the final door open and it was another victory for the players though perhaps a little harder this time.
Overall a promising game and once we have more variety with different monsters, characters and items I think this will be fun to play. Works very well with the Dwarven Forge terrain to give a true 3D feel. I’m not sure I would ever get round to painting the KS figures now though. Have some proxies ready painted (from LoTR, em4 and Dungeon Command) and the figures unpainted should do for the monsters.
wargamesdiary 