Shutting Down

 In the light of some recent personal events I'm shutting this blog down. I'm not erasing it, it will still be here but I'm not posting anymore. 

My heart is not in it anymore. 

Thank you for your attention, goodbye.

Further Praise for Simplicity

 Being without regular gaming sessions for almost 2 years has reinforced my appreciation for simple games. I initially overlooked a series of titles from one of my favorite game designers. The Hammer system of rules by Ivan Sorensen from Nordic Weasel Games. They are very old school in design. 2D6 rolls, hit points for damage and IGOUGO turns. Before the enforced break from gaming I was playing small scale skirmish battles, but now I wouldn't mind something larger. It would allow me to use the left over masses of figures from the boxes of figs I purchased for my skirmish armies. I have embraced the "just pushing around toy soldiers" trope of gaming and the style of the rules doesn't rub me the wrong way any longer. I was initially put off by the very things I now appreciate, odd yes? I took advantage of the bundles on Wargames Vault. If you want to not focus on details and just get down to gaming with lots of stuff on the table, then check them out. 

The rules are very adaptable. If you want to fight dinosaurs vs tanks you can, as it shows on the cover of one of the rule sets.

Back yard Battletech

 A short time ago I built a "portable"gaming table. Okay, portable is a bit of a stretch, but a decent sturdy table. Then a few days later I noticed two smaller tables I was gifted from a local brick and mortar gaming store closing. Holy unnecessary construction Batman! The stand for the larger table didn't fit through my back patio door and I had to haul it around the long way. Add to that the raised edge on the table prevented the terrain cloth form laying flat, so the smaller tables supported on plastic folding tables was they way it went this time. The previous game was just Martin and I, but more recently Jonathan joined us for some Alpha Strike in the outdoors. Alpha Strike is a larger battle version of Battletech.  

The first setup with large table. The cover prevents the tree from dropping crap on us.

The refined layout with Jonathan and Martin. Much better, and easier to move.

Sorry About The Wait

I have been absent for quite some time. Not entirely by choice. I had a mental health issues that necessitated an absence from being online. But after this delay I am moving on. I apologize for the inconvenience.

My computer hard drive crashed and as of this writing it looks like all my data is gone. I have a few really old backups but nothing recent. This has given me cause to reexamine my gaming habits. One of which is my hording. I have a lot of gaming stuff. Both physical copy and digital files. I use very little of it. I collect things like a mad man, thinking I might need it some day. Time to narrow the range of stuff I pursue. I will still follow and write about the great many games I like. However my personal collect will contract to include only the few games I want to play. This hobby is an important part of my life and I want to enjoy it more.

Jutland 100 Years and 100 Ships Later

A battle so big, it needs more than one sea cloth.

Jutland 100 years later, 100 ships later. This past Saturday The gang gathered to re-fight the Battle of Jutland in time for the centenary. After some extended set up time we managed to have over a hundred ships on the table. The rules were simple enough that we figured a 1:1 staging of the battle was possible. At the last minute we excluded some minor ships. Grand Admiral by Majestic 12 games is a bare bones hex based rules set. There were some minor hitches with the rules but with some tweaking they are usable for big battles. The British fleet got lucky on the draw sinking some of the German BBs for an exchange of some lighter ships. We called it at that point as time was running out.

In Praise of Simplicity

 About a month ago down at the library Martin and I play tested a set of rules that I downloaded and printed out recently. Called Panzer War, they are a free set of quite detailed but still I think playable skirmish rules. How we ended up play testing this set of rules is a bit of a funny story. Originally it started out as a quest to find a decent set of modern period micro armour rules, as I'm dissatisfied with the ones I have so far. I downloaded and read a few sets of rules but could never find anything that really clicked with me. So I went back through my list of files and some of the older games that I have downloaded a while ago and took another look. Remembering that I had a set of rules called AirLand War I took a look at them again. AirLand War is actually an expansion to Panzer War. So with the rationale that I should try the basic game first before the expansion set I suggested we try Panzer war to Martin. But owing to the complexity of the rules, with such factors as vehicle angle and turned rotation speed we decided that it would be best to try it out in 15 mm first. So there you have it they went from modern micro armor to 15 mm, so does that make sense?

The result? Well let's just say things didn't work out exactly as we planned. For a more detailed after action report I direct you to another club member my friend John and his blog The Minstrel Boy. But I can summarize here, the game went very slow and owing to the long range of weapons (we were not using the recommended ranges for that scale) it ended rather quick. I think perhaps there was too much on the table and perhaps not enough scenery. Although the tank combat results where more "realistic" I don't think the extra detail really added much to the game. And so it occurred to me that if the extra detail didn't add to the enjoyment of the game why bother with it? Martin imparted a wonderful piece of wisdom to me recently about gaming whereby he explained to me the difference between modeling the process and modeling the results. Or to put it quite simply how it happens versus what happens. I realized there was more interested in what happened then exactly how it happened. The house were still somewhat important and should be modeled realistically towards expectations but the process should not bogged down the flow of the game. The Panzer War experiment certainly ran counter to my personal trend of moving toward simpler systems. I have already switched to far simpler games in other genres. For instance instead of Full Thrust, which is a terrific system don't get me wrong, I now play Sunder The Stars. And instead of Dirtside I will try Laserstorm, by Nordic Weasel Games. In these two examples it's mainly because I want to spend more time playing a battle then designing units for it. Specifically in the case of Full Thrust I've seen battles lost or one in the design phase rather than on the table, and that was before the plethora of options opened up in the newer unofficial supplement Project Continuum which is over 150 pages long. My main goal with gaming is to get figs on the table, push them around and roll dice. And simpler games serve this purpose well. It will only be a balance between simplicity and detail. As too much of one and not enough the other can spoil your enjoyment of a game.

After purchasing the PDF of Laserstorm I splurged and bought PDFs of FiveCore the generic skirmish game and Five Men at Kursk their more detailed will work to skirmish rules. As well as some expansions and add on modules. So I'll be giving the FiveCore System some testing in the future. How it goes, I will keep you posted.

So yeah, a longer post and it's about gaming, yeah me.

Keep Smiling

Entry #54 May 11th 1916

Sir Douglas Haig inspected the battalion at work, and told our Commanding Officer Major Bowen- that he had "a devilish fine fine battalion". At night "The Merry Mauves", our divisional troupe, give a fine concert in the open air, which we all enjoyed immensely.