My scribblings have been published again

I don't think that I have mentioned on here previously that I am occasionally asked to write an article for one of the major wargames magazines - Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy published by Karwansaray Publishers.

My most recent missive was published in the latest copy of the magazine (issue 132) and is a stand-alone game involving two teams of hunters running down their dinner for the night.

As this is my fifth or sixth foray into being published, I thought I would start a list in this post and maybe a new page on the blog if things go any further (I have been asked if I would like to write another article for an issue of WS&S in about 6-12 months' time).

Here is a list of those that I still have a hard copy for. I think there were one or two other mini-articles (usually just one page) but I cannot remember where they were published, or even what they were about now!

White Dwarf

#26 (Aug-Sep 1981) - Potion of silent spell casting - a paragraph in Treasure Chest for AD&D

Crisis Gazette

7 Nov 2015 - Medieval Archers - a one page article on Medieval Archers

WS&S Magazine

#84 (Jun-Jul 2016) - Dynasty: Norman Style - a two page article introducing the Normans' rise to power

#84 (Jun-Jul 2016) - The Norman Godfather - a five page mini-campaign set in Sicily

#97 (Aug-Sep 2018) - Escape from Oxford - a two page bite-sized battle set during the Anarchy

#132 (Oct-Nov 2024) - We are all going on a Boar Hunt - a three page generic beer and pretzels game

My first foray into writing for gaming magazines was a short paragraph featured in White Dwarf when I was young and into AD&D in a big way. I submitted further items and monsters for consideration but none of them were published. I was very proud of my achievement back then and it still gives me a warm fuzzy feeling when I think back on how I felt at the time.

Before getting into writing full-on articles, I also wrote a small number of items for a couple of trade shows, but as those magazines are often lost to time (mine certainly are) I can only mention them in passing. I wrote a couple of one page articles for Crisis in Antwerp (I do have one copy left - see above) and maybe another but I cannot recall which show.

Most of my articles are historically based as my main area of study at Uni was history and archaeology with a focus on the ancient and medieval periods. I am looking to expand into fantasy gaming articles, but just need the right ideas. I have a lot of "history" with my fantasy gaming worlds, so maybe they could be consolidated and utilised somewhere? I also used to play a lot of sci-fi RPGs back in the day, so perhaps some of my old universe could even be written up for a campaign setting?

This blog kind of helps fulfil a bit of my writing passion, but I would like to write more often; full time work and very little time for myself leads to very little page time. I am hoping quite soon that the smallest bedroom at home will become free so I can move all my gaming paraphernalia in there. I miss the man-cave from my previous house, where I had stacks of room to store my games and miniatures and still have room for a decent sized table. I won't have the luxury of a gaming-sized room, but it could become a little haven where I can go write stuff.

Midgard

I am a sucker for new rules sets that I am most likely never to play. Over the last year or so I have been reading the splendid Mogsymakes blog where he has reported on the progress of a new set of rules he has written for mass battles called Midgard : Heroic Battles. There are several after action reports written for games he has played in a variety of ages and settings on the blog, and they look very exciting indeed.

 Midgard rules cover - used without permission from the Mogsymakes website

Anyway, on a whim, I decided to order up the rulebook on the pre-order system from Reisswitz Press to see what it was like. I was not disappointed.

I have had a quick step through the rulebook and I am deeply impressed with the production values; it is a beautiful soft-cover, full-sized rulebook with 132 pages in full colour. There are lots of inspiring full-page images of warriors and monsters in battle to whet the appetite for a game or two (if only I had the figures to do so), and numerous pictures of nicely painted miniatures to supplement the rules images. The book is well laid out, with an Index (very rare in gaming rulebooks) and a QRS (quick reference sheet) to aid the gamer so that fewer rules look-ups are required through play. From the limited reading of them I have done, I am thoroughly looking forward to the weekend when I can really indulge myself.

The main reason I was drawn to this rules set was the grandiose sweep of the pictures on the Mogsymakes blog of Tolkien's 1st Age Middle Earth. Being drawn to anything Middle Earth related I was easily swayed to part with my hard-earned. Upon reading further and finding it is age agnostic (well, until black powder is fully involved, which suits me just fine) I was more intrigued. Then, upon my skip through the rulebook earlier I noticed within the first few pages that one of the dedications is to Pat Mills (he of Slaine from 2000AD notoriety) I was completely sold (well I had the book by then but you know what I mean). 

After my initial glance through the book, I was drawn to those half-painted orcs I have sitting on the paint station. My imagination ran over with all the things I could do with them in a mass battle game. I will most likely be all excited about these rules for the next few weeks now, so I must use the impetus to get painting some more.

Orctober : the ending

I had wrought my plans and made a list of tasks for painting my band of orcs but, unfortunately, the fickle hand of Fate was raised against me. The painting for Orctober started well, I managed to get a few colours onto the orcs in a number of block-painting sessions only to succumb to the dreaded Covid which kept me out of the loop for several days. Along with my holiday taking up another week, I only managed around four actual sessions of painting during Orctober month, which equates to about four and a half hours of actual brush time.

Here is a picture of where I managed to get to...

I think they actually look pretty good for the small amount of hours put into them, but I will be hoping that November will be kinder to me and I will be able to finish them completely.

They only have basic colours put onto them so far; a combination of browns, what I thought was a dull metal that turned out to be a lot brighter than I wanted, and flesh in a light, sickly green colour. I didn't want to go for the usual bright green skin many people use for orcs, and tossed up whether to use "normal" skin tones and a variety of greys. None of them appeared to work for these figures except the green so I stuck with that.

To finish them, they need some of the wooden items painted (shields and spear hafts for example), all areas where I have "gone over the lines" need to be neatened up a little, and then they need to be shaded, varnished and based. Hopefully November will give me enough time for accomplishing that.

Orctober : the beginning

Orctober seems to be a thing in the fantasy gaming blogosphere, so I thought I would jump, albeit a little belatedly, onto the bandwagon. I have many dozens of orcs of various types in my Lord of the Rings collection, so I thought it would be a good idea to maybe try to get some paint onto them in order to be able to use them in any upcoming games I eventually get around to.

Looking back at some old posts, I could only find one picture of the orcs in my Lord of the Rings collection (there are plenty of second hand ones I repaired and touched up for the kids a year or two back though). I have presented it here again as an aide de memoir of how many I actually have.

Not to be daunted by such a huge amount of unpainted plastic and metal, I decided to take a leaf out of my work life book and cut the job down into manageable chunks. So, I decided to start on my Mordor orcs and only work on each unique pose that comes in the box. I have a couple of boxes worth of these figures that I mainly got with the Battle Games in Middle Earth part-work magazine, plus a small number from an eBay purchase to give me around 50 or so standard orc warriors.

There are actually only ten different bodies on each sprue, but switching around a few arms leads to a few more variants. As a result, there are fourteen individuals that I will try to complete by the end of the month...

Four Mordor orcs with hand weapons and shields (no variants here)...

Four Mordor orcs with two-handed weapons (two bodies and two arm sets gives four unique variants)...

Four Mordor orcs with spears (although there are two separate spears, they are identical so give no variation)...

Two Mordor orcs with bows (no variants here)...

Looking at what others have done over the years with their orcs, I am tempted to see if I can create as many individuals as possible by mixing them up with other manufacturer's products. I would prefer all to be unique poses, but my conversion skills aren't that great. We'll see. Anyway, not to get pulled away from the core of this project, I will leave the thoughts of any new purchases until these 14 are completed at least.

Back to the photos, I must apologise for the quality. They were taken on my phone early evening on an overcast day with very little natural light. These are more to be used as place markers than anything else, and I hope to improve the quality of the photos as the project moves on.

I am aiming to get some batch painting done to start them off and then try to complete one-a-day until all are ready to be washed, varnished and based. I am off on holiday for a week soon, so taking that into account I have about 13 or 14 days in which to accomplish this - i.e. give or take one a day.

Let's give it a week until the next blog post and see where I have got to.

Lone Wolf : Flight from the Dark

Well, I had a day off today and decided to do someting "gamey" with it. I don't usually get many days off just for myself - they are usually used either to do something planned or to go away on holiday. We have just come back from a weekend away to the city of Oxford (did lots of touristy stuff like visiting Oxford Castle, the Botanical Gardens and the Ashmolean Museum, as well as eating and drinking lots of lovely food) and I decided to book an extra day off for the hell of it.

After completing a few chores and doing the weekly grocery shop during the morning and just after lunch, I decided to pull out the Lone Wolf book and character sheet for the Kai Lord I had rolled up a few weeks back. As mentioned in a previous post, I have not played one of these book adventures in a very long time and I was quite excited to get involved in some solo gaming (albeit without miniatures).

The adventure began well, as I slowly headed eastwards (don't know why, I just decided to go that way) and found a number of artifacts that I thought might come in handy as the saga progressed. I avoided a few combats, skirted a few skirmishes and generally decided to only get involved if it sounded like it might be a plot advancing combat. I wound up saving the Crown Prince from an evil Gourgaz (a tough fight that I eventually won) and agreed to carry a message to his father, the King.

I defeated a Gourgaz - image taken from internet withjout permission

I was just beginning to really enjoy the tale unfolding as I thought I was getting somewhere but the last few sections I passed through railroaded me (i.e. I had no say in the last couple of sections) to an unavoidable death. This left me quite cheesed-off as I would have liked to have rolled my dice to at least attempt to save myself (I most likely would have lost the combat anyway as I had been so badly wounded against the Gourgaz).

Ho hum - I guess I will roll up another charcter and start again - this time I will head in a different direction and maybe partake in a few of the lesser combats along the way to get more of a feel for the game and story.

I was left a little disappointed by my ending as I felt that I had no control over the combat. I think the adventure is probably written this way in order to end the story at certain points and force more action from the player. I would like to see the grid used to show the best paths to use and how they all interconnect with each other, but at the moment I don't want to spoil the storyline until I complete it for myself.