Friday 23 March 2018

It's Good To Be Back!

The forced abstention from gaming, along with precious little painting, has left me champing at the bit to 'feed the habit' - almost all of the 'distractions' went according to plan, but the plumber turned up last Friday afternoon and never waved a spanner in anger ........... hence my longer than expected absence! He took one look at the old boiler (no, not the wife - the heating appliance!) and decided he needed a different flue to the one he'd brought along in the van, so although I was hoping to get my gaming space restored a WEEK ago ahead of the upcoming gigs, I've had to wait until this week for the plumbers return!

All done now though, and this is by way of a 'restart post', since I'm a bit worried that I might previously have done the wrong thing by just posting the 'happy snaps' of me collecting my birthday 'swag', and I thought I'd better do a quick reveal to prevent the suspense leading to a complete anticlimax!

First off, the major items on my wishlist were all due to a batrep by fellow blogger John (Vagabond) on his excellent blog here - https://vagabondswargamingblog.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Samurai
So, a big "Thank You" is in order for setting me off on yet another new project (but old passion), and prompting the visit to Nottingham with my good lady in tow, and armed with a "10% off when you visit us in store" voucher from a previous mail order purchase at Warlord Games.


To get take best advantage of the discount, I picked up the Test Of Honour starter set which entitled me to the free Geisha Spy mini, plus the Bandits and Ronin boxed sets. The extra dice and cards will be useful to expand the game, and the very nice "Giants In Miniature", Oda Nobunaga was from over at Northstar Miniatures to complete the 'project swag' - though I also picked up a few mini's intended for the Witchfinder General campaign while I was there! 

The painting table hasn't been very busy - I've either been 'otherwise engaged' or just too knackered tired after a pretty busy time work-wise involving long distances and late nights (I'm definitely too old to rock'n'roll!), but all things considered after the recent flurry of activity with the ECW armies, I'm quite happy to have at least achieved a steady output (and prevented inertia setting in).

Here's the two C-in-C bases I need for Victory Without Quarter, and an extra stand of pike which will allow the red coated unit to be fielded for both VWQ and Pikemans Lament.........


and another Bladerunner operative out on his first assignment, interviewing some, err, 'working girls' down in the Lotus Sector.



That's all for this post, but now I've reclaimed my gaming space, watch out for some upcoming game reports (at last!!!)




30 comments:

  1. Great to have you back posting Greg, a very nice haul from your birthday, the test of honour figures look great.
    Great painting on your ECW and blade runner pieces

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    1. Thanks Dave, I'm looking forward to unboxing the Test Of Honour stuff, but supressing the urge to "dive in" at the expense of the other ongoing projects ;-)

      BTW, it was Steve's review of the game on TGC that helped me decide whether to try the game or not, so please pass on my thanks to him if you get the chance :-)

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    2. Will do when I can for you Greg

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    3. You`re very welcome, its a great game and you will have a lot of fun with it I think.

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    4. I'm certainly looking forward to getting stuck into it :-)
      Really great to hear from you Steve, and I hope you and Hils are both doing well!

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  2. Good to see you back, Greg, and what a cracking project the "Test Of Honour" stuff looks too. Marvellous update :-)

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    1. Cheers Simon - Test Of Honour looks like a neat 'standalone' game, but I've got a few other sets of rules on my bookshelf if it needs spicing up ;-)

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  3. I have missed your posts recently, Greg, so it's great to have you back. I very much look forward to seeing what you do with "Test of Honour" - a game I'd love to play myself.

    I have two questions for you regarding that last picture. Who makes the guy in the long coat? I recognise the three street walkers but not him. And, where does you scenery come from? It looks very effective.

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    1. Many thanks Bryan :-)
      I've thought long and hard about "Test Of Honour" since its release, and finally decided to take the plunge!

      The guy in the long coat is one of the Black Cat Bases detectives
      https://blackcatbases.com/shop/figures/figures-police-cops-detectives/the-detective-2/
      and the scenery is the Infinity "Neon Lotus Scenery Pack" which is available from several individuals on ebay for £7.65 including postage :-)
      https://www.waylandgames.co.uk/infinity/38645-neon-lotus-scenery-pack

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    2. Much appreciated, Greg. I am very tempted to buy those Infinity scenery sets to use for my Judge Dredd games. What do you think of them? Would you recommend them?

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    3. I'd recommend them 'at the price' (ie I think they're cheap-n-cheerful). The set is basically two sizes of fold-up boxes and a pair of fold-up walkways, plus a double sided poster / game mat.
      The design and decoration are quite well thought out, and the "Neon" colours make for a nice contrast to the greys of the 'rest of the city'.

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    4. Thanks, Greg. Order placed on eBay. :-)

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  4. Well great to have you back too Greg! Really looking forward to seeing how you get on with Test of Honour, but I need to ask who makes the splendid ladies in the Blade Runner picture?

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    1. Hi Michael, (and fellow returnee!).
      There's a couple of 'campaign games' I need to set up and play, so that I can see how things are progressing and plan accordingly, so Test Of Honour will "ease it's way in" here on the blog ;-)

      The ladies are Reaper Chronoscope Townsfolk "Ladies of the night" : 50157
      https://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/Chronoscope/latest/50157

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    2. Thank you for the link, they might be just what I am after - so to speak. :)

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  5. An addiction is a terrible thing. Hahaha who am I kidding. Great to see you getting into another period. It's good that you're back.

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    1. Thanks Tim - it's not really been a long layoff, but it's seemed like AGES!
      Plenty of stuff to get "finished" (Ha ha ha) for the ongoing projects before I get stuck into the Samurai, but I'm looking forward to it :-)

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  6. I concur it's good to have you posting again. Samurai, sorry to get you going on another project and looking forward to see it progressing, thanks for the mention as well.
    You've got so many interesting things going on it's difficult to know where I should like to see you progress next.
    I'm curious about the Blade Runner aspect, you've hinted at it but I've not seen much here, what are you thinking of using for rules and background. I've only seen the film a couple of times but the scene eating noodles in the rain has quite an oriental flavour if I'm remembering it rightly.
    I bought some Japanese market stalls recently that might do for this. I might just be following in your footsteps on this one:)

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    1. Many, many thanks John - the Samurai thing was really always going to happen, but your game write up just pushed 'em to the top of the list :-)

      You certainly remember the scene correctly, and it's a combination of that very one, and a similar scene in the new film (where the officer K meets 3 working girls) that prompted me to pick up the Neon Lotus scenery pack and Chronoscope mini's ;-)
      The Bladerunner games are going to be set between the original film and the new "2049" (including the 'prologues' Nexus Dawn, Nowhere To Run and Blackout).
      The 'main' rules will be the unofficial Blade Runner rpg by Jonathan Hicks, and The Department noir investigation skirmish by Joseph Dragovich.

      Those market stalls sound interesting, are they from one of the mdf terrain suppliers?

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    2. I'll look out the rules you reference - thanks.

      The stalls were Sarrisa I think. They do two sorts, I bought both, a geisha cart, some lanterns and they came with a measuring stick which was for Test of Honour. So maybe they are the official scenery!
      I've only opened the cart which is nice but the poles to pull it are set very wide apart.

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    3. I'll stick my email onto my profile for 24hrs (I don't like the idea of leaving it on there permanently) - drop my a line and I'll get you sorted with the rules ;-)

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    4. Hi Greg I've just been reading about The Department Rules and they sound interesting. IveI often thought about gaming detective fiction - you know the sort of thing Raymond Chandler, Micky Spillane Dashill Hammer, and these sound as if they might do that. A sort of Cluedo on steroids and solo.
      Have you used the rules and do you think they would work for clue gathering and detection, solo without a GM?

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    5. I'm hoping to post my first game with them this week :-)
      I'm quite happy to use ANY rules solo (though some are obviously better than others), and from the read-throughs I'm confident they'll work - I'm also very sure they can be modified by having some Two Hour Wargames mechanics (like PEF's etc) 'bolted on' to them.

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    6. Ok - mail sent. Thanks I'll try and pick it up tonight.
      Cheers

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  7. Test if Honour looks amazing but I’ll stick to Bushido for the time being **desperately tries not to rush to the Warlord site**

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    1. I can fully understand why you'll wand to stick with Bushido Andy, especially after building up your excellent clans for the fantasy-orientated game.

      You've got the terrain though, so if you fancied using some of the more 'regular' looking mini's in cinematic samurai action scenarios, you could always download the rules for free from the Warlord website - make sure to grab the "optional rules" at the same time as they contain card templates you'd need ;-)
      The "Battle Dice" could be replaced with regular D6's along with a simple chart :-)

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  8. Glad your heating and plumbing is sorted (finally), as with my own, it's no fun at all and puts a serious dent in one's hobby activities.
    I dabbled in Samurai skirmish games many years ago and couldn't find (or write) a set of rules that I liked or reflected the period, so I'm looking forward to seeing your birthday swag inaction!

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    1. Cheers Joe, yes it was a pain at the time but we're now enjoying having central heating that works properly :-)
      I've only done Samurai 'battles' and rpg in the past - I'll gloss over my box full of Legend Of The Five Rings cards ;-) so I'm REALLY looking forward to skirmish gaming.
      If you've got Samurai mini's, the rules are available as a free download if you fancy trying them, and I'll be mentioning another very interesting set of free rules in an upcoming post :-)

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  9. Nice to see you posting again. Loving the ladies of the night.

    I look forward to seeing your ToH stuff I don't have the room for it but it has some ace figures.

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    1. Thanks Simon, the 'Ladies' were an impulse buy after watching Blade Runner 2049 - but if my wife finds out I've been 'paying for prostitutes' I'll be in trouble! ;-)

      I'll be tackling the ToH painting as soon as I can clear the decks, and yep, I'm impressed with the mini's so far!

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