Thursday 10 November 2011

Italian States Campaign

Have finally finished the write ups for this Hordes of the Things based Renaissance campaign and have put the final results on my blog.

The Pope Observes

Organised by Paul, the campaign managed to span over 6 weeks, or from 1494 to 1501 in game time, which is probably as long as it could last, and during it course expanded from six to eight players. Being one of Paul's campaigns the rules and units changed from week to week as new DaVinci inspired contraptions came into play.

Infernal Machines


Week 1 - Papal Bull
Week 2 - Venetian Blindsiding
Week 3 - Holy Roaming Empires
Week 4 - Papal Problems
Week 5 - Curse of the Jabberwocky
Week 6 - Italian Armageddon

Final Map


If any of the participants have anything additional information to contribute or just some heretical views, then email me or post it as comments on the above posts, and it might get included, pending Inquisitional approval.

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Warmonger 11

On Saturday, 15th October, the club held a Warhammer Fantasy Tournament.

The tournament consisted of 3 rounds using 1600 point armies with points and prizes for in game victory points and army painting. Due to a player pulling out and a non-show, the tournament was down to 6 contestants. However, with all miniatures painted and good looking tables, the games were a spectacle to behold.

Vampire counts smashed Dwarf, who in turn were crumbled to dust by Wood Elves (yes, you heard right, Wood Elves?!). Empire knights clashed against Empire gun lines and Tomb kings looked pretty ridding around in chariots whilst popping up from under the sand to snip and pound any troops foolish enough to stand still for too long.

All players enjoyed themselves (I think) and learnt a lot. As with many tournaments, the final points do not truly reflect how close some of the games were, being that victory points are only gained for those units completely removed from the table.

I would just like to say a great thank-you to all the players who not only turned up, but put in weeks (or even months) of preparation in painting and practicing for the tournament.


Empire Fight Empire in Civil Uprising

Evil Ghouls spring forward into the flank of Wood Elf horsemen.
Tomb Kings march on a dwarven shieldwall
 
Tournament battles in round 3

And if anyone wants to organise and run a similar tournament, I would be happy to help.

Warmonger 2011 Results:

1. Simon (3644 pts) Vampire Counts
2. Sean (3211 pts) Wood Elves
3. Ben (2129 pts) Empire
4. Tristan (1038 pts) Dwarves
5. Scott (660 pts) Empire
6. Mick (585 pts) Tomb Kings

Best Painted Army Results:
1. Ben - Empire
2. Tristan - Dwarves
3. Simon - Vampire Counts 

...And for those not of a Warhammer persuasion Martin ran a 6mm American Civil War game at the same time using his 'Cheer Boys Cheer' ruleset, resulting in the Union being able to just hold out against the Confederate assault.

Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy Subscription Offer

Hello,

I am just listening to the D6 Generation, and they mentioned Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy magazine in an advert. The magazine has a subscription offer on at the moment, plus if you input 'D6G' into the coupon entry on checkout, you can get another 15% off.

Therefore, 1 year subscription for 6 magazines for £22.21, which through current Paypal Euro currency convertion, worked out at £23.05. Much better than it was. they also do a digital subscription, which works out about £12 for a year.

If you like historic wargaming, I'd recommend this mag.


Laters, Phil Millard

Monday 10 October 2011

Paint for Profit


Hello.

Back in the day when I had more time and no money (not that i have any now- I just don't have any time either!), I used to do some painting for commission and also just to sell.

One way to cover the cost of buy new miniatures can be to buy two sets, and then paint one, to sell it to cover the cost of the first. This works particularly well with historic miniatures, as buyers will tend to be prepared to pay twice the base cost for a well/table standard painted model or unit. Due to the amount of Games Workshop miniatures and the type of buyer means it is a lot harder to get a good price. I am too slow a painter to ever actually sell models for profit - I worked out once I would make about £1 an hour!

If you have some time, and can't quite justify buying that new unit, give it a go.

Hopefully a few of the below pictures may be of your liking:

The Space Hulk Terminator miniatures painted on commision from a friend. Amazingly characterful models.


More termies.


Tau battlesuit and drone for commision.


Russian IJ-2s, Flames of War 15mm tanks. sold on Ebay


Warlord camel riders, 28mm. Sold on Ebay.


Victrix 54mm plastic British Napoleonic Line Infantry. Sold on Ebay.

Phil M article and pictures.

Thursday 6 October 2011

Pick of the Pods

I spend a lot of time at work being entertained by jolly good podcasts covering a wide spread of gaming (and sometimes I even do some work there!). Here is my Pick of the Pods. Not a definitive list, but the result of a few years of listening and searching of those I like to listen to:


The D6 Generation- a benchmark in podcasting. Great conversation and fun about a wide variety of gaming- from wargames, to roleplay and boardgames, all in American. They even cover a dose of computer gaming. These guys have been going a long time and know their stuff. If you are looking for general gaming entertainment, I would recommend this one. Only downside maybe the long length of the podcasts, however, for me, this is a good thing. Famous gamer interviews, family viewing and definitely ‘No hate’.


Meeples and miniaturesA very well established general podcast from the UK. This podcast is quite serious and from a wargames point of view, focuses on historic gaming, as well as board games. It is informative and has regular interviews with big names in the industry.

All Along the watchtower- a general gaming podcast from the Brighton area of the UK. Highly entertaining bunch of presenters covering a wide range, from Games Workshop games, Flames of war through to roleplay and board games. Thoroughly recommended, but has unfortunately not released an episode since the beginning of August. I will keep checking in hope…



Bad Dice UK based (Nottingham/Derby area) podcast all about Warhammer. This is a well produced and entertaining podcast. Up until a few months again, presented by the two Bens, almost the most successful UK tournament players around. However, Ben left, leaving Ben. Now the remaining Ben is now being joined by hilarious co-presenters. If you want to laugh along to Warhammer then listen to this.



Heelanhammer – a UK based (Portsmouth in fact) podcast exclusively about Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Informative and entertaining, but traditionally tournament based. It is trying to improve on this however.


World’s End Radio Charismatic Australians who made a podcast which was exclusively games workshop game based. It has now diversified due to the unpopularity of 8th Edition Warhammer in Australia. Focus is now mostly on Privateer Press’s Warmachine and Hordes as well as Malifaux.

 Podhammer- Another Australian podcast which was the first, but now not nessacarilly the best, podcast about Warhammer Fantasy Battle. If you like benile banter with offensive language, this maybe for you. It does not post that often nowadays.


Garagehammer – A US based Warhammer fantasy battle podcast. Lighthearted and fun, this is a good podcast well up there with Heelan and bad dice. It is not as tournament focused either.

What Would Patten Do? – this is a US based Flames of War podcast. I must say I have only listened to one episode and found it a bit dull. So, I will give it another try, but it has a long way to go to entertain me as much as many of the others on this list.
http://www.wwpd.net/

Article thrown to your mercy by Phil M


Friday 1 July 2011

Hex Games

In response to Jim's message on Hex gaming here's a few pictures from last week's Falkenstein Colonial game plus some from other hex games from the past.



Martin's Anglo-Dutch
Matt's Trafalgar
Indo-Pakistan

Thursday 2 June 2011

Phalanx 2011

(A follow up to Phil's post to the mailing list.)

The Club is arranging a trip down to Phalanx in St Helens on Saturday, 18th June.

This is now the only major wargames show in the North West this year.

We have also been invited to run a game down there, so it looks like a re-run of the St George's Day Trafalgar game will be happening. Please note that participating\press-ganged players will not be forced to stay at the table 100% of the time.

Martin says the club has enough funds to cover the £3 cost of admission, but people will probably have to make their own way down, or we can organise a convoy down or arrange a meet up at the nearby services. The Lesure Centre where it is being held at can be a bit hard to find for first time visitors.

The club has visited this 'local' show on a number of occasions and in 2007 even managed to win 'Best Demo game' with Matt and Alan's 'Eagle of the Ninth' table.

Monday 30 May 2011

How to Blog

In response to Marks request on the mailing list as to how to post on blogger here's a brief how to...

In order to use blogger you need an email and password linked to Google Apps, this can be done here https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount . If your using GMail then I think that this already done for you. It can be any Email address that belongs to you.

Second you need the blog admin (i.e. Me) to give you authoring permissions. ( I've already sent a few invites to those who've requested it.) Once this is done you can access the authoring functions of the blog by visiting http://www.blogger.com and logging on using your email and Google password from above.

There should only appear one blog in the list that appears, and it should be this one. You can then select New Post to create a new post (surprise) . Most of the fields are pretty obvious in their functions. Your post should be auto-saving regularly so no real worry in losing much info when writing.

Labels are a way of grouping posts together, best just to use a number of short descriptions seperated by a ',' or leave it blank.

The 'Preview' button is useful just to get an idea how your post will look.

Post Options, below the input box, allows the post to be timed for future posting (or for retro-actively posting)  or you can display it immediately.

In any event the post will not be displayed unless  the Publish Post button is used.

Additional help is available here.

Tuesday 10 May 2011

www site is active

Have switched the blog to use http://www.furnesswargamers.org/ so it now appears like a 'proper' website. The previous blog.furnesswargamers.org should now be inactive.

Can still create new blogs on other sub-sites on the Domain, so if any group within the club need their own private campaign blogs I can set it up for them (i.e. we could set up 40K.furnesswargamers.org )

Phil should now be listed as a moderator for the Mail-list and both he and Martin have been invited to be authors on this site so that they can post messages. Any one else who wishes to contribute just needs to get in touch with details of their Google Account email address.

Will also collect a list of addresses tonight at the club to add to the mailing list.

Saturday 7 May 2011

From Blog to Mail List

Have changed the blog settings so that it will email any posts to the FW mailing list; so hopefully everyone on the list should be getting a copy of this blog post.

This should work fine for any poster on the blog so long as the poster is also a member of the mailing list.

Think this will be useful in sending out announcements (The first proper one will probably be about Phalanx once we start recruiting more members onto the list.)

If this functionality annoys the majority of people then I can easily remove it.

Tuesday 3 May 2011

First Post

A first post on the Furness Wargamers blog, which is a candidate for being the FW's principle outward facing web presence.

The blog isn't restricted to one person posting on it, and I would prefer it not to be so. Up to 100 contributers are allowed. So long as the user has a Google account login (which does not need to be a GMail one, any valid email address can be used to set one up, so, for example, a yahoo mail address can be used) then the admin can set them up to post on the site and give them other privileges.

Permissions on comments on posts can be set to be added at multiple levels, and can be moderated if desired and\or restricted to members or those with a valid open id to prevent random spam.

If this does become the principal online point of contact I can set the web address to be www.furnesswargamers.org or blog.furnesswargamers.org rather than the blogger default (which will still remain as a point of entry).

Since I have control of the domain and have linked it to google apps, I can create unique email addresses for you in google mail with the format <silly-or-not-name>@furnesswargamers.org. You may wish this to obtain a level of anonymity or detachment from you conventional account. This also gives you access to other google apps such as Picasa and Blogger, but of course depends upon the continued existence of the FW domain. These mail addresses allow for email forwarding so you can re-direct the mail to your central mail address.