The unpainted shame...

With my local Dystopian Wars  tournament looming at the end of this week (it's Tuesday as I type this), I have to face a certain realisation. While this realisation is something miniature gamers are usually all too familiar with, it's also a source of a certain amount of shame and ignominy. It's like having a birthmark on your face in the shape of a rare and amusing vegetable, or a rash that is obvious to anyone, but kind of uncomfortable to explain; yes Nanna, the rash is looking particularly lurid today. How did I get it? Ahem. 

So rather than hide it behind some facade, conceal it beneath a shallow powdered foundation, I had better confront it now. The fleet list I had created to play in this coming weekend's tournament? It's mostly unpainted (mostly here is an apt description, not mere exaggeration).

Now, I'm going to try and remedy this. I have Netflix to watch and painting to do. I'm not under any illusions that I will get it all done, or even most of it, but I will at least get more done. So the challenge is on... how much can I finish before the weekend? It will be interesting!

Land of Tales and Heroes

I've been playing Song of Blades and Heroes, a small skirmish game published by Ganesha Games, for a few years now on and off. It's a straight forward miniatures game, with simple enough rules to play through quickly, but with enough depth and interesting systems to remain engaging and enjoyable. It's a system that is easy to get into, and as a result, easy to manipulate. You can play games in any setting that inspires you, with any miniatures you have handy.

Like many gamers I seriously lack storage space, but being a fan of the smaller scale of miniatures is a bonus in this regard. My favourite scales for figures tend to be 15mm or smaller. For Song of Blades and Heroes I bought a range of 15mm Orcs and Goblins from Splintered Light (and they are wonderful models). The only thing lacking was a good playing surface.

Being small scale miniatures Song of Blades and Heroes only calls for a small sized board. In the shed I happened to have a 2ft by 2ft piece of MDF that had served me many moons ago as a DBA board. It was time to re-purpose the glaringly green gloss surface to something that looked a little better!

Previously the board had been coated with a horrid dark green gloss spray. The first thing I wanted to do was to add some texture to the surface, so I sprayed it with watered down PVA, and sprinkled sand across the surface. After this was dried I sprayed it with a black undercoat, then painted on successive layers of brown, culminating in several layers of drybrushing, from brown, to a very light skin tone.

To add some colour and interest to the surface I sprayed on some more PVA, and then added static grass to finish it off. Once I had shaken off the excess I sprayed the lot heavily with a matt varnish.

I'm pretty happy with the result, now I'm just waiting to get a game or two happening!

If you're interested in Song of Blades and Heroes - it's well worth checking out. At the moment Ganesha are running a Kickstarter for the Advanced rules and a Dwarf source book. I am very much looking forward to getting my copies!

The History of World War II Podcast

I have crossed the line. Semi-exhausted, semi-elated, with a similar sense of accomplishment as having finished a grueling challenge. Not that it was unpleasant, far from it, but it is the denouement: the slightly sad afterglow of a long, bright day. A time to kick off the mud caked boots, rub the aching calves, prop the pack and sword belt by the door, and reflect with a melancholy satisfaction on the journey so far completed.

Around January or February I started looking in earnest for new podcasts to listen to, having come from the brilliant History of Rome I was ready for another journey through the annals of time, and found The History of World War II Podcast, by Ray Harris Jr. At the time it was up to something like 120 episodes, and as of yesterday, after listening to little else, I have managed to work my way through the now 138 back episodes and am completely up-to-date. That is not to say that The History of World War II is finished! Operation Barbarossa is just kicking off and there is plenty to be covered yet, but that for now, my journey with Ray Harris Jr., is done.

I really loved the History of Rome, which is a brilliant podcast and well worth listening to, and The History of World War II is similarly excellent. Ray does a very good job of covering, in detail, what is a complex and fascinating story. Altogether I would have listening to something like 90-100 hours of the podcast, and would recommend it to anyone with a passing interest.

If you do stop over and listen, I would recommend downloading a bunch and listening to them in groups. To be honest, I prefer to listen to history podcasts this way - a stream of audio following the story, however long, is preferable to small piecemeal chunks where detail may be lost or forgotten between installments. Ray will undoubtedly keep up with his schedule, but I won't be joining him again for at least a couple of months as I allow the bank of episodes to build back up. I very much look forward to it!

My one and only gripe with The History of World War II is the cover image. When I open my phone and I have been listening to the show, the cover image above dominates the screen, with the distinctive red colouring, swastika and the image of Hitler, it has drawn some interesting looks from those who happen to be nearby... but that is a small price to pay for such quality listening!

Organisation...

The promise of being able to capture the thousand fractures of light and colour that make up the kaleidoscope of ideas that traverse my mind is appealing. The alternative: saying dishonestly to myself, "I'll remember that tomorrow morning," always results in the same sad and frustrated fate come that morning, when the only thought rebounding in my head is, "There used to be a better one here not so long ago."

I have a bunch of note books that are badly organised and generally filled with a mix of various projects, drawings, notes and things the children did (which can hold multiple meanings). All of which, of course, makes them less than useful. I've always found the idea of being well organised in the note book sense rather engaging, being able to jot down ideas for blog posts, podcast topics, game ideas, setting concepts and flashes of story seems the sort of thing I should be doing, after all, I keep telling myself I should, but it's something I've never really mastered.

I have tried a great many organisational apps over the years, from Awesome Note, to Evernote, to Something Note to The Other One Note to Umm Note. Every time they take me on a sort of short lived mildly euphoric roller-coaster (well, more like an energetic miniature-train ride). That sense that 'this is one'! THIS is the methodology that will help me herd and pen all those cats I call ideas. I haven't found one yet that managed to live beyond that initial mentally salubrious beginning. I write all this nonsense because I spent that last twenty minutes reinstalling Evernote on everything I own that can be plugged in and has a screen. I am hoping that my foray once again into the realm of attempting to organize the mess I usually call my mind will be more successful than the last. We shall see.

Reanimation...

There are few tales of joy to be found through plots that skirt the reanimation of something long departed. It has been nearly two years since my last post here at Castle by Moonlight, and while the moon is imperceptibly different, the castle, and it's shuffling inhabitant is not.

Since leaving the virtual ink to dry and crack in the bleak lands of abandonment I have been busy over at the Element 270 podcast and blog and more recently writing for Spartan Games. But despite these happy opportunities I have long harbored the desire to brush the cobwebs from the castle embrasures, relight the odd candle and unpack the virtual inkpot...

When I started Castle by Moonlight it was to be a largely board game focused blog with occasional miscellany thrown in for good measure. However, in the intervening years the author has changed, and likely too the content of his outpourings...

I still have an abiding love for board games (though I could no longer name an Essen release or tell you what was hot on BGG right now), but I have also rediscovered my passion for other forms of gaming I had long given up; both miniature games and roleplaying. I also want to write about more miscellany, whether Tesla cars, NASA missions, historical infatuations, good books, good authors, good podcasts or good people. The question is: is Castle by Moonlight the place for that? Or should another place be founded to write about these things?

For any old readers who may have this pop up in an RSS feed long gathering dust, would it matter so much if the Castle was animated again but wearing a face both familiar and different? I don't really expect a reply, but am canvassing my own thoughts against future action... I think  it will be here, but perhaps in another place...

Element 270...

Some exciting news...

Several gamers here in Australia and myself have been planning a new podcast dedicated to Dystopian Wars, a fantastic miniatures game by Spartan Games.

  

While the idea started as just a podcast, we are excited to announce a multi-author blog, in addition to a podcast.  We're in the early stages at the moment, and it will be a few weeks before the podcast is launched, we have started work on what we hope will become an interesting blog site, and will eventually also be the home of our podcast - Element 270.

Each episode we will run through a couple of segments ranging through such topics as:

• Upcoming releases
• Nation backgrounds/setting
• Rumours
• Focus on a model/size class/area of the game/tactic/use of squadron etc
• Listener feedback and questions
• Scenario ideas, recommendations, suggestions
• Modelling segment - paints, painting, making terrain etc.
• Battle reports
• Web resource reviews/highlights
• Special guests

We're hoping that, over time, other fans of the game will jump in and consider becoming authors on Element 270, or submitting audio if they are so inclined.

You can find our fledgling site here, and rest assured, there will be plenty more coming along!

If you're a Dystopian Wars fan, or a fan of Armoured Clash or Dystopian Legions, and are interested in contributing, head to the About page on Element 270, and drop us a line!

Cheers, 

Giles.

Oh - and for those of you kind enough to ask about the other podcast I run with Donald Dennis: Games in Schools and Libraries - we ran into some troubles aligning our schedules with changes in times dues to day light savings and so on.  Happily, we have found a time we can both manage and still stay sane, we have a few episode recorded already, which will start going up again soon, and more importantly, we have a schedule... Happy times!

All in...

For months the Russians had been planning their assault.  It was a small series of islands in the middle of nowhere, innocuous enough, but intelligence from defectors had brought this tiny series of islands to the full attention of the Russian admiralty.  Plans were hatched, spies sewn, forward observers posted... there was much nervous waiting as a fleet was massed in secret and sent half way around the world to deal a blow the Russians hoped would rouse the puppeteers from their games and pull them into the open where the Russians could crush them.

How and when a Russian spy was uncovered is unclear, but when the hammer of the Russian navy fell, it would find an enemy fully awakened to their preparations...

There would be no finesse, carefully laid plans, months in the crafting, would be worth less than the paper they were mapped on... what had been touted as an ambush assault became a titanic bloodbath, and clever tactics were eschewed for a simpler and neater plan: kill, or be killed...

The Russian Armada deploys quickly out of convoy to face an apparently awake opponent... what had hoped  to have been a surprise assault vanishes, it is clear that both sides have a fight on their hands.

Across the narrow stretch of ocean the Russian opponent waits... A full naval armada, much more than the small defence force the Russians had hoped to find...

So much careful planning wasted... initial moves would be as much to avoid a traffic jam as to engage the enemy, clearly neither navy had expected to engage the other here...

In the opening moves the first casualties were some fast moving Covenant Thales... they managed to inflict some small damage, but were destroyed for their troubles.

The strange sound of the Sturginium engines running hot... some bombers and fighters move against the Russian flank.

One of the  unlucky Russian bombers suffers a magazine explosion, neatly taking out some nearby frigates.

Fighter squadrons on boths sides hope to leverage enough air superiority to allow the dive through to their targets with minimal damage...

The Covenant are happy to sit back while the slow Russian ships advance... with enough concentrated fire some the ablative armour of their fearsome enemy could be removed and allow the Covenant to close...

Heavy use of mines on the Covenant's right wing... it was hoped these might slow the Russian advance on this side down and keep the hulking Borodino there out of the battle, at least for the short term...

The Covenant throw their smalls and mediums into the fray, hoping to peel away the ablative armour from enough Russian ships to make closing with the large ships less like suicide...

The heat is on... the monstrous Russian middle move up with the Rudnitskys doing as much as they can to reduce the effects of the sustained Covenant barrage... the Euclid throws itself into the fray, hovering down at sea level and unleashing the might of its deadly particle accelerator...

Only a short way into the engagement and it's a bloodbath, fire, steel and energy whip the ocean into a froth of destruction and a tempest of death...

Despite the best efforts of the Rudnitskys, the Russians suffer serious damage at the hands of the monstrous Euclid...

A small Russian frigate tangles with an Iceburg... without its sacrifice... next turn the Russian Moskva may have come afoul its own defences...

The Aronax appears in a storm of lightning as the Time Dilation Orb generators unzip space and time and teleport it into the fray...

Nearby the unlucky Russians suffer another magazine explosion as a Pesets submarine goes up after heavy fire...

Heavy damage has been sustained by both sides, while the Covenant seems to have the upper hand for now... had both sides stayed to the bitter end it would have gone much worse for them... the Russian heavy guns were just warming up and there was plenty to target...


_______________

This was roughly a 3000 point battle between the Covenant and the Russians.  With something like 23-25 activations every turn, we only managed three turns in something like 5 hours (over an evening and the following morning) before we had to call it quits.  At that stage the Covenant were slightly ahead on the points front... but I couldn't have sustained it I don't think... my brothers Russians were only just warming to the task as we wound it to a close.

While it might not seem like we got in many turns, there was a massive amount going on.  Each flank was almost its own battle, and there were many little turning points, important engagements and desperate manoeuvres all across the board.

It was a great game - though the board was clearly to small for so many miniatures, it was also a heck lot of fun.  This was the battle we had to fight - throwing everything we had for our two main nations onto the table and seeing how the foam settled... it had to be done, and was a hugely enjoyable game!  I'm not sure whether I'll get to play as big a game as that again anytime soon, but at least we had a shot!

Cheers,
Giles.