Legends of the High Seas Yahoo group

Well,

Just a quick post, I have started a Legends of the High Seas Yahoo Group to discuss LotHS, this will be the official group for the book. There isn't much now, but once the book comes out I'm sure there will be a lot to talk about. So here is the address,http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/LotHighSeas/ I will be happy to answer any questions about LotHS over there, but will still be active here with whatever comes to mind or new modeling projects.

Been busy painting my home, it seems that my wife has decided that white walls are boring now after 5 years in our house. So since I paint figures, I get to paint rooms now, How Fun!

Here are a few pictures I took awhile ago while at Disneyland. Below the Mighty Sailing Ship Columbia, the first American ship to carry the Stars & Strips around the globe.

Here I am with all the money I will get after LotHS comes out! Yeah right!

TK

Proof Reading

Well,

As the release date for Legends of the High Seas approaches, I have been doing proof reading of my manuscript into book format. I just recently received a update manuscript from Rob Broom over at Warhammer historical and the book is shaping up very well. I only received a black & white copy, but the pictures look awesome and the layout looks very clean.

Now proof reading may sound like fun, but it's not really. I have to go through every line in the book to find errors. Thankfully a few folks are also helping out with this (Dave Smith and Guy Bowers as well as Rob Broom). Obviously the goal is to have a top notch book when it comes out & there is a few things that will change. As Rob pointed out to me, English is not every ones first language and that means it will be translated into other languages (probably French, German and God knows what other language). I have to say it is work to do this, I thought it would be pretty easy, but I have to keep going back to my main manuscript to make sure it is all in there.

So it looks like I have some work to still do before the book sails onto shelves. I will be very happy once the book finally comes out, that way I concentrate on other games that I'm working on. A friend that does not game asked me if it was worth writing the book and I had to tell him I had mixed emotions about it. On one hand, it is very rewarding seeing something that I spent so long on finally come out. And what gamer doesn't dream about having his own set of rules out there? But on the other hand, writing did take away a lot of time with my family and friends. That's one thing that I never realized would happen, the time spent in front of the computer. I know my wife was a bit upset at times with me being on the computer writing rules. (Really I think she hated me play testing & rolling dice by myself at weird hours of the night). It also took time away from friends since I had to focus only on Pirates & for those folks that know me, I am the sort of person that loves to do something new every week. So staying focused was at times very hard.

So if Legends of the High Seas does well, there could be another chance to write a second book for the series, not saying that will happen, but anything is possible. Will I do it if the opportunity is given? Yeah I will in a heart beat. Will it drive my wife crazy? Yes I'm sure it will. Will I have the same feelings like this first one, yep I'm sure I will feel the same. Why will I do it? Because it has always been a dream of mine, and when dreams get to happen, you have to go with them!

So now back to proof reading!

TK

So what has been going on?

Well I have been slacking on posting, so here is an update.

In the beginning of the month, we took our son to college in the Manhattan Kansas, where he will attend Manhattan Christian College (MCC) to become a youth pastor. We drove from Phoenix to Manhattan and back crossing 5 states (New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas & Colorado). Here are a few pictures of our trip.

We dropped our son of & after many goodbyes & allot of tears we headed home. We did make a side trip to the Grand Canyon since my wife had never been there. here are a few more pictures from what was one of the Seventh wonders of the World.

So the trip to Kansas took about a week and when we arrived back here in Phoenix we started changing the house around. You see, with my son off in college, we now had a free room. So I asked the wife if she would allow me to use our son's room as my new game room. Well she gave me the okay & we started moving things around. With that I had to convert our computer room into a spare bedroom & I had to paint the room. So after having a garage sale, boxing up our sons stuff, he didn't take with him, I had space for a game room. Here are a few pictures of what it looks like. The only thing that I will be adding is a 4'x6' game table, and in the pictures you can see blue tape on the floor showing where the table will be.

So there you have it, that's what I have been up to, now to get painting and gaming...

TK

A Contest to build a Ship

Well,

I frequent the Lead Adventures Forum http://forum.backofbeyond.de/ and an interesting subject came up. While discussing Pulp stuff, a thread was started about Tramp Steamers. Well Richard Johnson of Rattrap Productions http://www.rattrap-productions.com/ and Pulp .45 fame thought it would be a neat idea to have a Tramp Steamer model building contest.

Here are the guidelines for the contest:

1.) Steamer must be at least 12" and can be no more than 24" (60cm) in length.

2.) Participants must chronicle the steps in its construction.

3.) Hull and cabin must be scratch-built, though detail pieces can be purchased.

4.) The members of Lead Adventures will vote on a winner and I'll come up with some prize for it (though I will also build one so I may get to give a prize to myself).
5.) Deadline September 15th
6.) Primed only

We will be documenting the event on the TLA and I will also document mine here on Cursed Treasures. So with that in mind I started looking for good Tramp steamers to model, i think I have narrowed it down to 3 ships I will try & model or just use as inspiration. Those ships would be,

SS. Venture from King Kong

The Bantu Wind from Indiana Jones

Or the Tramp Steamer from The Mummy, but having a hard time finding pictures of that. So I guess tonight I will be watching a few movies for better pictures of said ships.

I also plan on building the ship either out of Wood (3/8" MDF and thin Plywood) or I will build the ship out of PVC plastic and regular styrene, will have to see what I have more of. So now I'm off to build me a boat!

TK

Its a Small World after all...

No,

I'm not going to be talking about the famous Disneyland attraction, but I just realized that the Web makes this planet very small. Last night I was talking with a friend of mine, Rob, and we were discussing our hobby of war gaming. Now as a few folks know, I wrote the soon to be released Warhammer Historical book, Legends of the High Seas. What were discussing last night is how are hobby is such a small global community, because of the web.

I never really thought about it until today when I was doing my usual Google search for topics on LotHS. I came across many forum hits (in a few different languages) discussing the soon to be released book and it dawned on me, that even this little spot in cyber-space is getting read in different parts of the globe. It also dawned on me that when the book comes out people all over the globe will be playing this game! Wow!

I guess I really never thought about it until now. I remember back in the day when I used to go to Brookhurst Hobbies http://www.brookhursthobbies.com/ and I would marvel at the different GW games that I never had heard about. Now there is a buzz all over the globe for a game that has not come out yet due to the Internet.

I also realized that I now have friends all over the globe not just here in my town. Because of this LotHS, I now communicate with folks in Germany, UK, France, Australia, New Zealand and all over the USA. I never would have thought about that before I started writing this book. I have also been in contact from a rather large gaming convention in the east to come out & demo the game (as well as play in some tournaments). Also I have been in contact with many figure manufactures that produce the figures I buy.

All this because of the web & the Internet. It truly is a Small World...

TK

Legends of What?

My pirate project (LotHS) is moving along well, I'm going to be sending 15 figures across the pound for photos over at GW Headquarters. It will be nice to see my stuff featured in the book that I wrote. Now I have to give credit to Brandon Forrey for painting 10 out of the 15 figures that I put together for this project. Also the book is still on track for a late October release so lets keep our fingers crossed.

So now that the Pirate project has run its course, I've started thinking of what I would like to do next. I have been searching for a good set of rules to cover the "Pulp Era" (1930's - 1940's). I have played or have read many of the current rules that are out there and none seem to do anything for me. Perhaps my good friend Rob is right, I'm turning into a Beardy Old Guy" that only wants to play his own rules. Although I would disagree with that statement, I think writing my own rules is in my blood since I did just do LotHS.So what do I want in a set of rules that I can't find anywhere else?

Well I want a simple streamline set of rules that can be learned rather quickly, but take some time to master. This set of rules must also be something that can be played within a hour or two. It must also be something that characters can advance in experience or get worse due to injuries. It must also be something that is story line driven and allow games to be linked together into a cohesive storyline.

So after looking at these requirements, it looks like I will be heading back to where the Pirates game came from, Lord of the Rings. This set of rules seems to cover every option on my list as well as a few other folks I have talked too. So do I think this set of rules will make it to GW as a new Legends of the book, probably not. Will I have a set of rules that my friends & I like to play, I think so. Now I must get to writing and start becoming that "Beardy Old Guy"...
TK

Back from Camp!

Well,

We survived another Jr. high Camp this year. You see my family and I volunteer at our church (Christ Church of the Valley http://www.ccvonline.com/ ) in the Jr High ministry. My wife, Son & myself are all leaders and once a year we take a few Jr. Highers to camp. This year we had 306 kids & 50 leaders that went up to UCYC (United Christian Youth Camp).

Since the kids are Jr High age (12-13) you can imagine what sort of fun this is. You basically have very little sleep & run yourself ragged all week long. But the payoff is that we baptized 45 kids this year which is the whole reason we go.

Here is a group photo of our camp, see if you can find me in the picture!

TK

Black Cats & the Police

Well, As the title states I have a few things to write about tonight. First off would be these guys,

My wife happened to surprise me with an awesome Fathers day present of getting tickets to the Police show at the US Airways Arena on Monday June 18, 2007. She got the tickets from a guy in our church that was selling the tickets for just over $4.00 over face value. So we spent $97.00 or each ticket, which was allot better than some of the prices I saw on the Internet. So how good were the tickets, well we were in the second deck & could see the stage very clearly and we could tell there were people on stage, but thankfully they had three huge screens above the stage that showed close ups of Sting, Stewart & Andy.

So how was the concert you ask, well it was AWESOME!!!!!! It has been 25 years since the Police last performed and it sounded just like they never stopped. They played all there hits and the show lasted for about 2 and half hours! It was well worth waiting 20+ years to see them and I only hope they continue to make records together. I'm glad that I got the chance to see them play, it made my Fathers day great!

Another Fathers day present I got a week early was this cabinet for all my painted figures. I have been looking for something like this for years.

We found this at Ikea for a nice amount of $59.99. I added a light to it for an additional $9.99 and this now resides in the computer room while I wait for my "Game Room". Here are a few pictures of some of the figures in the cabinet. First shot is of my Pirates that I painted. I have a bunch more but was being picky as to which ones I have in there.

The next shot is a mix of Cowboys that I use for Legends of the Old West (One the Left) and on the right is my slowly growing Pulp figures that I have painted. You also see some o my Sisters of Battle in there since most of the army is over at a friends house right now.

Also today I received a box from across the pound from Black Cat bases ww.blackcatbases.com Here is what was inside the box:

I have been in contact with Jo over at Black Cat for awhile now about getting some of there stuff in the LotHS book (which they will be). So as thanks they sent me a few figures. I was surprised that they sent me so many, I was only thinking I would get two or three, not 14 figures plus some of there bases as well. Upon looking at the figures they are a tad bigger than Foundry & Old Glory Figures, but as many folks have mentioned, it is not that noticeable. In fact I like varying sizes on my models, real people are all different sizes so why do all figures need to be the same?

The figures have very little flash (if any) and are nicely sculpted. They will all fit in nicely with my collection and I can't wait to get started on painting them. I would highly recommend them to folks and I can't wait to see what else they come out with. Also these figures will mix in well with Black Scorpions figures as well as GW's militia figures that I used for my own Pirate Crew. Go out and buy these, they are worth every penny.

TK

Some Pulp

Here are a few Pulp figures I finished up the other night...

TK

WAB and writting books!

I have been visiting many fourms looking for info on LotHS and what people have been saying about it. For the large part folks can't wait for it to be out (neither can I!). But I came across a few folks on a certain forum that see to be disgruntled at the fact that Warhammer Historical is even doing these legends books.

It seems that they would rather see WHH focus only on WAB (Warhammer Ancients Battles) supplement books before seeing anything else come out from them. Now as I posted here a few days ago I wrote the LotHS book. Now I had a unique first hand look at how WHH or even GW gets books out there on the shelves. And I can tell you it is a long process and what makes it harder is that Rob Broom of WHH is really a one man show. So I thought I would give you and everyone else a look at how a book comes to the shelves. now you must understand that this is what I saw & this is only my point of view. Much much more goes on after the author turns over the manuscript.

So a little background info of me, I'm a regular guy, with an ordinary family (Wife, Son, 3 cats and a mortgage payment). Writing is not my job that brings home the bacon (as my wife & friends will attest too!) I work for a large Auto Finance company by day, and play with toy soldiers by night.

This idea for a Pirate game started out way back in when I purchased GW's Lord of the Rings game Fellowship of the Ring. After looking over the rules and playing a few games with friends, I decided that the rules system would leaned themselves to a Pirate game. Now the local guys here in Phoenix would often host participation games for the rest of us and I wrote the rules after playing Tom O's home brew game called the Good, the Bad and the Dead (which he used for Old West & Pirate games).

Well after tinkering around with the LotR rules I set about creating a modification of the rules for Pirates. Well as most folks know, I tend to start things but never get them done in a timely fashion. So the Pirate rules fell by the way side as something else peaked my interest. Well that something else was when the Disney company released Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl. I remember as I walked out of the theater I told my wife and son "You know, that would make an awesome mini game" They both shook there heads and dismissed me as crazy. On the ride home I remembered that I started a set of rules and that I should see where I was with them.

It was a few days later that I had lunch with Tom O and I told him about my idea for a set of rules. he said why not submit the rules to WHH. So after going home that night I put together a proposal for a game based on LotR for Pirates much like Legends of the Old West that Mark Latham had just written. The other thing that Tom told me was to keep writing the rules, even if I don't hear anything from Rob Broom, keep writing. So I did, I kept writing and sent the proposal off to Rob which was sometime around late 2004 or early 2005.

I finally heard from Rob and was being considered for the job but he had other proposals to look at. In the meantime, Tom kept saying "Keep Writing" so I did. Sometime in mid 2005 I heard from Rob B and he said i should start assembling a play test group together, this was of course after I sent him a 40 page word doc with what I had. I then started asking guys if they wanted to play test a set of rules I was working on based on LotOW rules and I had a yellow light from Rob B to proceed. The reason I had a yellow was the fact that Rob B was still trying to sell the idea of the book to all the GW sales folks. Even though Rob is head of WHH, he still has boss' above him. Well the sales folks at GW gave the thumbs up around the end of 2005 and Rob passed the info on to me. Rob then asked how soon I could have the final manuscript to him, I told him I could have it all ready to go by the first weekend of December 2006. So with that target date I set about to finish & get the rules out for folks to play test the system.

Now a word about play testing, for those of you who have not done it, it basically means that your trying to break the rules of the game that was written. I had guys all over the globe playing my game & one guy in person was always complaining about everything. Now this would usually bother me, but this was what was needed for the rules, I had to have folks see if it was broken. So I appreciate the one guy (who I will not name) for always pushing me to fix this or that.

We now flash forward to December 2006, target deadline, I finally had the document ready to send off to Rob (86 page Word document, size 10 font, no double spacing) ready for him & I sent it off. it was a relief and also frightening at the same time. Now obviously it was relief because I had no more deadline, but now I knew that Rob B would be doing the final editing and that I was one step closer to getting the book out there.

So that brings us to June of 2006, right now, where do we stand, well that's a good question. I heard from Rob B last week and the book is in final editing and in the layout stage. Rob will be sending out an email about needing figures & scenery for the book. that will be in the next few weeks. I can also expect to do some re-writes due to editing, which in fact I did one small edit to the non player character section of the book. From what I heard from Rob, the book is expected to be out by September in the UK and October here in the states. That's if everything stays on track. We were supposed to see the book by now, but Rob had new additions to his family and was also ill for about a month, this pushes everything back and I can only imagine he has a ton of work to catch up on as well.

So whats the point of this, well to bring this back to the beginning of this huge post, it takes time to produce a book! It takes alot of time, as a gamer of WAB, I would love to see a steady flow of books coming out every month, but seeing how long it took for my own book, I understand why there isn't a steady flow. The WAb community is huge, and there are many folks out there that write books, but there isn't enough people to do a steady stream of books like the community would like to see.

So there you go, to quote a friend of mine "If you think you can do better, have at it! Otherwise, shut the hell up!" and I would add, be appreciative for what you have and what you get...

TK

Well it's been awhile since I posted and I need to bring some folks up to speed on whats been going on. So here goes:


Lord of the Rings Campaign - We got started on this last weekend (June 3rd) over at Lonnie's place and we had a great time. The players that were there were Myself playing Easterlings, Rob playing Isengard, Carl playing Moria Goblins & Tom F playing Mordor Orcs. The Good side that was opposing us had Howard playing Elves, Mike playing Dwarves, Lonnie playing Rohhan & Tom O (who couldn't make it) playing Gondor.

For this campaign I'm Using the Fantasy Flight map from their game War of the Ring, and each player had to nominate a capital and place there armies. The good side & their capitals were Howard's Elves in the Grey Heavans, Lonnie' Rohan in Edoras, Mike's Dwarves in Erbor & Tom O's Gondor forces in Minas Tirith. The Evil sides captials were Tom F's Mordor Orcs in Gorgoroth, Rob's Urkhai in Orthanc, Carl's Goblins in Agmar & I was in the South Rhun.

Turn 1 of the campaign saw all the armies redeploying to strike later except Rohan vs Isengard fighting for the Westemnet with two 500 point armies playing the High Ground Scenario. The Urk hai barely got a Minor Victory but they had a huge moral victory with the killing of Emor who was leading the Rohan force.

Turn 2 saw more movement with armies and once again Rohan decided to push the fight against the Urk hai in Westemnet again but by sending 750 points against a 500 point Urk Hai army. The battle fought was Reconnitre and Rohan had a Major Victory. The other battle that took place was between the Dwarves against the Easterlings in North Rhun. The battle was Contest of Champions and the dwarves surprised the Easterlings and massacred them to a man in this fight and took the Noth Rhun territory.



All in all we had a blast, the guys that didn't play campaign games played pick up games and we had a blast. Also I must mention that we were playing in Lonnie's garage and it was about 100 degrees out, but Lonnie had a portable swamp cooler and it made it nice inside the garage. The only thing that was hot was when I was out BBqing the food, but hey it was worth it!


On to this past weekend, we had our 5 Warhammer Ancients tournament http://wab.bluedream.com/ over at Imperial Outpost games. It was an open tournament which meant that anyone could fight anyone. Usually we try and keep same historical opponents matched up together, but this won meant you could be playing Romans vs Vikings in any game.

Well I took my Vikings again and I did pretty well going 1 tie, 1 win, 1 loss. My first game was against Mike playing a Danish Viking army and it was Meeting engagement. The game was close and I thought I had a loss, but it was only a tie.

My second game was against Rob and his Saxon army and we were playing Take and Hold. Rob surprised me with a huge (64 man!) unit of Saxons that he marched up & parked 3" away from the center of the table (and the objective). It was a hard fight and it looked close until that last turn which I broke his Generals Unit and caused them to flee. With that I secured a victory.

My last game was against Tom and his Late Romans. Now I have to say I hate playing out of period play and this game showed that. Tom played a great game and had control of the battle the whole time, but what can a Viking army do against Cav and being outnumbered on the table.

All in all I finished toward the top of the pack, although there was only 10 of us playing. I got to take home a pack of Gripping Beast Pict Nobles that Darren at Gripping Beast had sent as a prize. So it looks like I have my first new unit for my Pict army. Also I have to say thanks to Tom O for running this event & to all our supporters that sent Prizes, Warhammer Historical, Gripping Beast, Perry Mi natures, War Games & Darren at Imperial Outpost. We had enough stuff to give everyone a prize.

Oh had to include this photo because I thought it was too funny! This is the Saxon King I played in the second game, I think he was trying to get his victory dance on before the game started!

Here are two more photos that set the tone of the event, Al (the guy smiling) likes to watch!

And here Tom is trying to bribe Rob with some sort of Lood Scottish suggestion.

Also things on a Pirate front have been moving along well, my Pirate Project officially has a name now, it called Legends of the High Seas, which I wrote for Warhammer Historicals. It is going to be released sometime around September or October of this year by Warhammer Historical. It's based on the great game that Mark Latham wrote, Legends of the Old West, but this set of rules deals with Pirates & ship Battles. I have heard that this week the book starts layout work and set ups as well as the pictures will be taken for it. So I'm looking forward to seeing this hit the shelves and with the Pirate craze of Pirates of the Caribbean At Worlds end, this book should sail right off of the shelves.

Well that's it for now, will try and do a better job of updating...

TK

Lord of the Rings Campaign Start

Well,

It looks like we will be getting our LotR War of the Ring campaign going this weekend. So I have posted the rules that we will be using here. I have been busy getting my Rohan force ready and look forward to seeing how the other side (good) feels in a game. I usually play Mordor Orcs, so this will be a learning experience for me. Any how here are the rules for the Campaign:

Lord of the Rings Campaign Third Age

The main purpose of this campaign is to have fun! We are also playing more of a narrative game as opposed to a competitive game. We will be using a map, but this is to keep track of where armies are on in Middle Earth.

Each person playing will have up to 2000 points for armies under their command and will be broken down as follows:
3 - 500 point armies2 - 250 point armies
You will also have a capital nominated on the board that generates reinforcements, see below.

Each army must be chosen following the rules found in the LoME book. You may include heroes but only one here may exist in the campaign (there can not be two Gandalfs or two Aragorns).

Also you will only be fielding up to 500 points at one time unless your playing a game with allies, see below.
Models do not need to be painted, but it’s highly recommended. Also we will be playing WYSIWYG, so models must be armed appropriately so as no confusion occurs during games. Also if a Hero is taken (such as Gandalf the Grey or Gandalf the White) then the correct model must be used so as not to cause confusion.Map Set Up
The initial set up of the board will be as follows. Each player will have a token for each army and the players will take place placing them on the board. The Good team will go first by placing all there armies on the board. The Evil team will then place their tokens on the board and will be making the first moves.


Campaign Map & Turns

Each person will populate the map with their armies and these will be moved during the campaign turn. Before the start of the campaign, armies will be placed by each person. Each territory section of the board may only have 500 points total in it, but there may be up to a 1000 points as mentioned below. A word of warning, if you place a 1000 points in a territory and you do not have the models, than you will battle with whatever points you have. So please make sure you have enough models to fill the points. Each army will be represented by either a token or a marker but it will be up to each player to know what army it represents.

The Campaign is divided in to a series of Campaign Turns. Each campaign turn will consist of the following phases:

1. Priority
Phase Both sides roll a die to see which has priority this campaign turn. In the case of a tie, priority passes to the side which lost priority last campaign turn. Evil has Priority on the first campaign turn. Basically each team will nominate a player to roll for Priority and it will be up to the team as to who moves first.

2. Move Phase
Each side take turns to move 1 army, starting with the side that has priority. The side with priority moves an army; then the other side moves an army; and so on until all armies are moved. An army may move into any adjacent territory. If an army moves into a territory containing an enemy army, the forces engage and will fight one another in the Battle Phase. The army that was present in the territory may not move on the campaign map that turn if it has not already done so. It has been engaged by the enemy and must fight.

3. Battle Phase
Resolve any battles generated as a result of the Move Phase. Players field the armies recorded in the rosters they prepared earlier. Setup the battlefield using the rules in the SCENARIO Section, then roll for a scenario, and play the battle. Record whether the scenario resulted in a Victory, Draw, Minor or Major Defeat for an Army. This will be used in the End Phase to determine retreats.

The players must keep track of casualties. Roll a D6 for each Captain removed as a casualty. On a 1 – 3 the model is slain or so badly injured it is removed from the army permanently. On a 4 – 6 it recovers and is returned to duty in the army with all its original Might, Will & Fate points as well as wounds. Hero’s must also roll but on a 1 they are slain or so badly injured it is removed from the army permanently and may never be recruited for another army. On a roll of 2-6 the hero returns as above.

4. End Phase
Campaign Turn is over. Conduct the following operations (in order)Victorious Armies gain control of disputed territories. Any defeated Armies must now retreat: If the scenario resulted in a Draw roll a D6: on a 1 – 3 the Evil Army must retreat, on a 4 – 6 the Good army must retreat. If an Army suffered a Major Defeat, it must retreat to an adjacent region of the opposing player’s choice. If an Army is retreating as the result of a Minor Defeat or a lost Draw roll, the Army retreats to an adjacent territory of the controlling player’s choice. If a defeated Army is unable to retreat without entering a territory containing an enemy army or impassible terrain, that army is considered trapped. The victorious army may choose to engage that army automatically next turn, and force it to fight another battle in the territory. If the victorious player chooses not to automatically engage the trapped army, the defeated army must either engage the victorious army in the territory or move out of the territory at the first opportunity in the next turn.

The outcome of a battle will determine what happens to the army. If a army is reduced to less than 100% but more than 50% of its original point cost, than the army starts the next campaign turn at full strength. (this represents reinforcements being added) If the army suffers more than 50%, than the army is permanently reduced to half its original point cost. (example, a 250 point army looses 130 points out of the total, than the army strength is now 125 instead of 250) If the army suffers more than 75% of its cost, than the army is destroyed or disbanded. Armies that are reduced due to defeats may combine with other armies, see below. Heroes that survive the battle but have had their armies destroyed or disbanded may join another army.

Report results to the campaign moderator so that the map may be updated as well as the army info recorded.

Begin the next Campaign Turn at Phase 1 – Priority.


Additional Rules

Merging armies may be done when you have two armies that have been reduced due to defeats. An example would be combing two 125 pt armies together to form one 250 point army. To do this the two armies must move into the same territory as each other and may do nothing else the rest of the turn except defend it self. On the next campaign turn, the army may move and battle as normal under the new organized army.

Armies may be combined in a territory for a battle; however an army may never be larger than 1000 pts. After the battle is fought the armies must be separated again. This is only allowed for attacking a territory or defending it while there is an opposing army is present and there is a guaranteed battle. If there was a threat of battle which has never materialized (because the opposing army never challenged this territory), in the end of the movement phase one of these two allied armies (chosen by the controlling player) must withdrawn to their original territory.
The above rule means the maximum force allowed for a side in a battle scenario is 1000 pts. If moving two or more friendly armies into a territory would violate the 1000 pt limit, only a portion of the troops may move into the territory.
Reinforcements

You start the campaign with only five armies as noted above and here,

3 – 500 point armies
2 – 250 point armies

You may only ever have three 500 point armies at your command during the campaign, but you may have any number of smaller armies at your disposal due to an army being reduced to half strength. Every time you drop below having three 500 point armies, you may generate another 250 point army from your capital with the intent of reinforcing an army up to 500 points. As long as your capital is still under your control than you may reinforce your armies as normal. If you should loose control of your capital, than you may not be able to generate any reinforcements until you take control back again.

Campaign Victory Conditions

The main purpose of this campaign is to control the opposition’s capitals. Meaning that the Evil side is trying to control the Good capitals and the Good is trying to control the Evil capitals. The campaign will end as soon as one side controls more than 1 of the opposition’s capitals than the other side.

Scenarios

Scenarios will be played from the Legions of Middle Earth book with a few special ones from time to time determined by the Campaign moderator.

Terrain will be set up using the terrain tables found in the LoME book for the area being fought over.

Scenarios will follow all special rules found in them as well as victory conditions.

Whats been going on???

Well it's been awhile since I last posted and I thought I would bring folks up to speed with whats been going on, so here you go...

Our son Mychal will be graduating High School and in August will be going off to College in Manhattan Kansas, so we have been pretty busy getting ready for this. What does this have to do with gaming you ask? Well once Mychal spreads his wings and heads off to KS, I will be taking over his room for my game/painting room! The wife has no problem with this & neither does the boy. In fact when he comes home for Holidays and breaks he will be staying in the guest bedroom. So I have plans to build a nice 4' x 6' game table as well as a nice painting desk set up. So while it will be bitter sweet to have him leave, I'm excited about the new room! Selfish yes, but he knows I love him.

Also things are progressing on my Pirate Project and I look forward to seeing it hit the shelves in September of this year. For those that don't know, I wrote a set of rules for Warhammer historical based on the Legends of the Old West system but for Pirates. From what I hear, there is a coming soon add in the Wargames Illustrated that mentions it. Rob Broom of WHH has told me that they are now starting the Layout for the book, so we are close now.

Been assembling some armies for friends Mike & Lonnie. Mike's stuff involves a GW Lizardman army that is coming along. Lonnie has me working on a Chaos Army for 40k, so that is keeping me busy putting things together (which I like to do). These are trades I did with these guys a few months ago and it looks like there may be more coming my way.

Been Planning on launching a Lord of the Rings Campaign in June, I have about 8 guys signed up & it will be a blast. We are only planning on playing once a month and the kick off will be on June 3rd. It looks like I will be playing Rohan for this and I will be borrowing Robs army for the campaign with a few figs painted by me. I will be posting up here as time goes on.

Been busy with planning our Church Camp for church, once again what does this have to do with gaming? Well our theme is going to be called Battleground. It will be an all military theme to the camp & I'm thinking of taking a board game or two to play while we are up there. You see I volunteer in our Jr. high ministry and this will be a good way to get in a few games while I'm up there. We shall see.

A rekindled hobby has been brought back thanks to Mike & Rob! That hobby would have to be model railroading, a hobby I left when I moved from CA. Well it seems that Rob has been bitten by the MR bug and has asked me for help to build an HO shelf layout. Mike has an interest in N scale and this weekend we will be modifying his game table to house an N scale layout inside of it. So you would think with helping them my lust for MR would be sated, but remember the game room above, well I have come up with a plan to build a ceiling layout to run whats left of my MR stuff (mostly passenger trains). So it looks like I'm slowly being pulled back into the hobby.

Also a few weeks ago the wife & I took a weekend and went to Disneyland without the boy. We had a blast and the lines were not to bad (longest we waited was 25min). We both love the park although it took me awhile to start loving it again after working there for so long. We are planning on another trip dunning the fall with friends, which will be fun.

So there you have it, been pretty busy, and it looks like I will be for awhile...

TK

Finally Painting again!

Well,

I finally picked up the old paint brush last night and painted up two Copplestone figures, one of which looks like Indiana Jones. I also finished 10 Indian (from India) troops that I started a few months ago. I also painted up 8 Orcs for Lord of the Rings on Sunday. I still haven't gotten around to taking pictures of them because I'm not happy with my lighting set up.

But I have been wondering why I haven't been painting lately, I guess it's the "Painters Wall" that most painters seem to hit. That's were you loose all interest to paint anything and just let stuff sit. I really don't know why I hit this "Wall", I have been busy planning & Playing LotR. I have had interest to paint, but just couldn't get motivated to do anything.

I must have gotten over that wall last night since I finished 12 figures. Now some of my friends will give me grief, because I dipped the figures and didn't "Really" paint them (Rob!). But I like they way they look. So I think I will explain my painting method so folks can better understand what "I" do.

When I get a figure, the first thing I do is clean up all the mold lines & flash left on them, once that is all done I mount most of my figures to a 1" depth gauge. After this I spray the figures in either Flat White, or Flat Black Krylon spray paint. I don't use GW or other companies primers, just regular old Krylon Black or White. Once the primer is dry I then will use Liqutex "Stucco" on the bases to add a ground cover of sort. Then I'm ready to paint.

I usually use GW paints or Old Ral Partha paints, and only recently have I started using Vellajo paints. I generally do some "Color by Numbers" sort of painting, which means just painting the base colors on. Once I'm satisfied with the look, I will then "Dip" the figure in MinWax Satin Tudor. But I'm not really dipping the figure in, I brush on the Polyshades. I keep a bowl filled with mineral spirits right next to me while doing this so I can control were the stain goes. I have had allot of people ask me about that, you just need to watch were the stain pools up at & use a little bit of mineral spirits. Once the figure has dried i then shoot the figure with Testors Dullcoate. now some people stop there, but I then go to painting on the figure by highlighting the colors with the original base color & sometimes even use a lighter shade of color. Once I'm satisfied with what the figure looks like I then will finish the base by adding color & ground cover to it. And there you go, figure ready for duty on the playing table.

Now this gives a more realistic look to the figure in my opinion and doesn't have that cartoon look that seems to be so popular. So all in all there you go. I hope to get pics of the figs soon, but will be out of town this weekend with the wife at Disneyland. So hopefully when I get back I will take a few pictures.

Hmm, come to think of it, know I know why I painted the Copplestone Indy figure, the wife & I were talking about the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland! Hey, who would have guessed that Disneyland would get me to paint again...

TK

Why & How

Last night I went with my wife to listen to an author by the name of Donald Miller ( http://www.donaldmillerwords.com/ )whose book I'm currently reading called Painted Deserts. I won't go into details about the book, but I would like to talk about something he mentions in his book, Why & How questions.

First off, in a nutshell there are really two kinds of questions that we all ask, and these could be broken done into a Primary Question (Why) and a Secondary Question (How). So how (or why) does this have anything to do with gaming? Well let me explain.

I happen to frequent a few game forums and I see allot of people asking How do I do this? how do I win?, How do I build this? How do I paint this? Etc, the list could go on and on. Heck there are a ton of books and websites as well as a ton of folks willing to give advice out there to on How to do these things people are asking about. It seems that allot of people want the answers given to them without having to figure it out for themselves. Now I'm not saying that this is bad, Heck I have even asked "How to" questions and I have read and listened to advice given. What I'm trying to say is the How is not as important to the Why.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is Why do we game? Why do we build? Why do we paint? the question must first be answered before we ask How. Am I getting to deep here?? Maybe, but lets think about this for a minute and take a look at the3 Why questions I just asked.

Why do we game? Or better yet Why do I game? Well I game for the enjoyment and the adventure of creating a story. I enjoy spending time with friends that have the same interests as me. I like to recreate glorious tales on the table top and it speaks to the adventurer inside of me. I want to be like the characters on the table top, struggling for some greater good that only the Lead & Plastic minds can comprehend. But really I can't put my finger on Why I game, my brain can't wrap itself around Why I do this. Best perhaps to move onto the next question.

Why do we build tiny armies or put together figures or terrain. I suppose some folks like to feel like God, creating things (if you believe in that, which I do!). I guess we all like to create things, it gives us a sense of accomplishment and in some way we feel good about that. I suppose that we are created in Gods image than, since He liked what he created and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree (unless it's the Tree of Knowledge!). So in a nutshell, we like to build armies & terrain features because it feels good.

Why do we paint? Well I guess this is just like the above question in a way, but I really do not like seeing naked lead or plastic on the table! lets be honest, painted figures always die last on the game table, unless your not painted very well, than someone whose better looking than you dies last. A friend & I did an experiment of sorts a few years ago now, we watched gamers at shops & at cons and watched how they pulled off there casualties. The unpainted or poorly painted figures were always the first to go! So I guess we all like to paint just so are stuff stays on the table longer. But really I think it's more to do with the creation theme though.

So I guess after we ask Why we do these things, than we should ask How to do these. Maybe I'm over thinking this and it really doesn't have anything to do with gaming. But just take a moment to ask Why first instead of How...

TK

Lord of the Rings

Okay,

I have been wondering about the Games Workshop game Lord of the Rings. What I have been wondering is why it hasn't really taken off here in the states. I have spent some time snooping around some other forums and came across a post that stated GW has moved 30 slots in their LotR tournament at Grand tournaments, to 40k. Now I understand 40k is a popular game but why dosn't LotR catch on?

So here is what I came up with,

1. LotR is not pushed in many shops. In my local shop, LotR was never given a chance because of the store employees. I had one employee tell me that he didn't like the gmae because of the one dice roll to see who won combat, he dismissed it as a childs game because it wasn't like Warhammer or 40K. Also the store owner dumped all his stock because it wasn't moving. Now I wonder if he knew his employee was the one telling everyone just how bad the game "sucked" to all potental people interested in buying the game. (Said employee no longer works there thank goodness). But the damage is done & the locals in the shop all feel the same way now.

2. The movies are not playing in theaters anymore. I think since the movies are now out, the Lord of the Rings fever has now subsided. While the movies were comming out, there was a huge marketing blitz that kept JRR Tolkens work in the news just about every day. Now that it's not, most people have forgotten about the movies. I only hope Peter jackson decides to do the Hobbit as a movie, this may re-awaken people to the game.

3. Cost. I think that the cost of the minis seems hard to believe for most folks. Lotr stuff is by far the cheapest figures out there by GW. Most gamers can't believe you get 20 plastic figures for $25.00 bucks were a WHFB unit of 16 figures cost $30.00!

4. GW's organazation of the line. GW has a huge line of figures for LotR, but the way the Website is organized is terriable. It's hard to navigate and find what your looking for, you can find it, but it takes time. It looks like they are starting to get things inline, so this shouldn't be a problem in the future. Also the rules are scattered over a few different books. You have the big "One" rulebook, but then you have supplements all over the place. but like I said, they are taking steps to bring this in line. The Legions of Middle earth book, Ruins of Arnor & the new Dwarf book seem to be headed in the right direction.

These are just a few things that are causing LotR not to be played here in the states, but this is just my two cents, I could be wrong. All I have to say is that this is by far the best game that GW has put out in a long time and we see off shoots of it coming out already like Legends of the Old West & other legends titles are sure to follow.

So basicly this is my attempt to try and get more folks to take another look at one of the best fantasy game out there...

TK

The Local Gaming Scene

Well, it's been awhile since my last post, I was supposed to be covering & playing in a local team tournament for 40K. but my teamate had to cancel and all my back ups were busy, so I didn't get to play. But instead of feeling disappointed in not be able to play, I was a little relieved that I didn't play.

Let me state that it wasn't because of my teamate, I have played this type of game with him before & I had a blast. I think what was worring to me was the attitude of the players at this particular store. You see I have heard rumablings that this store has had some players that like to win at all cost, even to the point of bending some of the rules. I have seen this in person when I used to play WHFB many moons ago at this shop and I have seen this in 40K as well. This attitude also seems to be tolorated or overlooked by the shops employees. So I guess the question is this, does the store breed this type of power gamer or is it my imagination?

I have been thinking about this for a while now and I'm not sure. How much control does a shop have controll over it's patrons that frequent it? Can the store lay down some sort of moral conduct for games or is the shop overstepping it's bounds? I'm not sure what the correct answer is or if there is really a problem.

Perhaps it's me, maybe my attitude is changing and I just have a short tolorance for this sort of attitude. I do admit, that I am a very picky gamer now, I could even be considered a snob because the way I game. You see I only like to game with folks that have the same sort of ideas for games, thats to have fun. We don't get all hung up over who has the better army or who has the better win ratio, we just play to have a good time.

Now I know tournaments can bring out the worst in people, but I have played in a few Historical & LotR tourneis that have not had this attitude about them. Perhaps its just me, maybe I'm getting too old for this, who knows...

TK

Some Quick shots

Tonight I finished up my Sisters of Battle for this weekends tournament, here are a few pics I just took, First up the Saint

Followed by a little Exorcist action,

I also took a few pics of a Pulp Figure, someone rom the Mummy perhaps?

And one Pirate captain for my Pirate Project made from GW Militia parts,

So there you go, just a quick update...

TK

Been busy

Well, I have been really busy in the last few weeks, so much so I haven’t had time to bust out the camera and take pictures of anything.

So here is what’s been going on,

1 - Been working on getting my Sisters of battle ready for the team tournament this coming weekend at Imperial Out games here in Phoenix. I had to paint up 12 sisters, 1 Saint model & 2 exorcist tanks, got everything done but bases to paint.

2 - Pirates from Brandon. My good friend Brandon was painting up 15 pirates for me for the Pirate project I have been working on. But due to personal & work issues he was not able to finish all of them. So I have had to do some finishing on about 7 models out of 15, noting to hard, just doing all the small detail stuff, still have 4 models to go.

3 - Lizard men - Well a few posts ago I mentioned a trade I was doing for Mike with his New Plastic Empire figures that I was assembling for him. Well Mike now doesn’t want to paint them due to the over detailing the basic figures have on them, so He asked if I would assemble his Lizard men for him (which are the old Plastic). So I have been working on getting them together.

4 - Chaos marines - Well Lonnie finally called in my services to assemble his Chaos Army for him in trade for the SoB's I got from him last year. Just allot of Chaos marines to assemble.

5 - Toms FoW - Still working on Toms FoW Germans for him, God I hate 15mm stuff! The problem I'm having is that I want to paint all the really cool detail on them like I would for a 28mm fig, but the problem is that it takes forever to do! Tom just said to paint them quickly, but it's so hard to do that with all the cool detail, Oh Well.

6 - Got a new kitty! - I posted also a few weeks ago about having to put down my cat, well we got a new one just 3 weeks ago (Jasmine) and she has been a blast to play with. She is a very time hungry cat to boot, always wants to play, which leads me to not working on any projects!

7 - Friend in hospital! - A good friend of mine Jim went into the Hospital last Tuesday for Appendicitis. The surgery went well, but he is having issues with getting his insides to work again. It seems that his digestive system is basically asleep. We have been to the hospital to see him over the last week and it's hard to get back into the groove of doing anything. You see Jim is only a few years older than me & he was a really active person, and to see him like this hurts. I have had no real interest to do anything but pray for him & his family.

So there you have it, been really busy and I hope to get to adding some pictures soon...

TK