Empire of the Dead!

Okay,

It has been a while and I think I am coming out of my funk finally and one reason may be this new game I am going to talk about, West Wind Productions Empire of the Dead. You see I have been a fan of the Gothic Horror fan and I have been looking for a good set of rules. When I saw that West Wind released a Quick Start rules on their site, I downloaded them. They look really good and look like they follow a certain style of rules that I enjoy. Also the figures look awesome!

Anyway here is a description of the game taken from the West Wind site:

Taken from the West Wind site:

Empire of the Dead is a 28mm tabletop skirmish game for two or more players.

Set in a darkly Gothic Victorian Empire populated by Heroic
Gentlemen and Fiends of unmentionable evil.

Choose from 4 starter factions which can be expanded from a range of special character models.

Built in Campaign system gives each game its own unique flavour.


Welcome to the Empire of the Dead. It is 1888 and much of the world is in turmoil. The great discovery of the age, Infernium, has brought technological advancements barely dreamed of just a few years ago. Its discovery, however, has stirred the basest instincts of man and nature alike. The lines between right and wrong or good and evil have become blurred as factions battle not only for control of the streets but the very future of mankind.

From the forests of Eastern Europe to the rookeries of London, factions have come together in
their quest to defend the natural order of life or to simply achieve their own ends. When you step into the world of Empire of the Dead you enter a place where only your wits and tactical thinking offer hope of survival. As the leader of your Faction your task is to ensure that those who serve you survive whatever fate has to throw at them. In that way lies the route to your own advancement and enhanced power and influence. Your
position, though, requires you to also serve your own masters, the leaders of your clan, club or order. Only by doing that, however obscure their purpose may seem, can you hope to avoid the assassin’s knife or well placed bullet.

Whether your allegiances lie with the Holy Orders of the Church, the Lycaon and their dedication to the protection of the natural order, the ancient evil of the Nosferatu or the gentlemen of the Clubs; the world that you are entering conceals many dangers and challenges for the unwary. In the Empire of the Dead nothing is as it seems. Today’s allies may be tomorrow’s sworn enemies and even the local populace may turn at a moment’s notice from a placid flock to an angry mob. Fame, fortune and unbelievable power will find those with the cunning and tenacity to survive the fortunes of the fight, ignominy and death await the rest. From the polluted streets of the city’s rookeries to the calm tranquillity of the countryside, nowhere is immune from the intrigue of the Empire. So set aside all that you know, be afraid of every corner and remember that myth and legend are just a way to hide the true horrors of the world.

Needless to say, I will be getting this set of rules and busting out my Gothic Horror figures that I purchased a while ago. I also plan on running Demo games and have already started thinking of terrain for said such games. I have also started working on my friends to help out, we will see. but the good news is that you will be seeing more of this game here at Cursed Treasures.

Also you will be seeing more posts now that I am getting out of my funk (still playing my PS3 though!).

TK

Been in a Funk!

Well,

The title speaks for itself, I have been in a gaming funk for the last few weeks. I think it started after Gathering in the Desert, or more to the point, during GitD. You see I have been doing GitD for the last 5 years and to be honest it is starting to feel more like work than a hobby. So what does that mean for GitD? Not sure, I have been kicking around some ideas and we will see how those pan out.

I then got the Flu that has been going around, it put me out of action for almost two weeks. The cough is still with me and my doctor said it may be another week or so. Having the flu and not working would have been a great time to paint or do something, but all I did was sleep. Heck, I had no idea what day it was, let alone what happened in the world.

The other reason I have been in a gaming funk has to do with my wife. Well as some know, my wife has taken up a new hobby, shooting guns! She has now acquired two pistols as well as all the other gear that goes along with them. Well since she bought two guns, I off course had to get mine (.357 S&W revolver!). This is not the reason for the funk, but when she purchased her second pistol, I made the comment about getting a Playstation 3. Well she bought me one a few weeks ago along with a very cool classic game, Fallout 3! So my regular painting time (not SPS commissions though) has taken a big hit thanks to the PS3.

So there you have it, some of the reasons for my funk, I have started working on a few projects as well as painting for Saguaro Painting Service. So stay tuned, I will be adding more posts in the future.

TK

"The board is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at last, the great battle of our time.

Well,

Tomorrow Gathering in the Desert 2012 kicks off at 5:00pm with the March to Mount Doom. But for me and the staff, we will be getting a start on moving all the terrain to the venue (Imperial Outpost Games). Then it will be set up and getting everything ready for the whole weekend. My wife has to make sure the lunch is ordered for the weekend and then there is the important stuff, making sure we bring the M&M's to the event!

My wife who has been helping with GitD for the last three years (yeah you married guys are jealous, I know it!) hit upon a great idea a few years ago, she brought big bags of M&M's to give out to the players. while she entered all the stats. And speaking about that, my wife enjoys data entry sort of things, so it was pretty easy to get her to help out.

Well Saturday the real battles begin, this year GitD is doing something a little different. I am matching up players Good vs Evil. I had the players sign up for either side and will be awarding Best General awards to the best Evil and Good General. This is something that few tournaments in the states do, hopefully it catches on.

Once this weekend is over, normal posting will happen here at Cursed Treasures, and there are a few new things that I am itching to show off, one being a new paint challenge, so stay tuned...

TK

Build it and they will come...

Okay folks,

Well we are now under way with 2012 and for this update I wanted to show off some new buildings that I recently picked up for Gathering in the Desert and other projects.

The name of this awesome company is Game Craft Miniatures and they do terrain from as small as 6mm all the way up to 28mm. Mike over at Da Green Skins pointed me to these guys. Well after looking through their online store, I decided to pick up two kits for GitD for my Harad table. They offer middle eastern buildings that have that Harad look to them and they can also stand in for Pulp games or anything else. I also picked up the Gallows for some Legends of the Old West/High Seas gaming. All of these kits that I purchased were made out of MDF and cut with a laser.

It took about a week for my order to get to me and this is what I got below (all three kits).


First up is kit #28mmdf012 Middle East One Story Building.

Here it is all laid out, pretty simple.

Here is the building test fit together, total time to assemble, less than a minute! Nice thing I like about this one is the window and door openings, they have that Middle east feel to them, which once again is perfect for Harad.

Here is a 28mm figure to give you scale.

Here is the second kit#28mmdf015.

This one went together in the same time frame, less than a minute!

One other thing that I like is the brick effect that is laser cut into some of the spots on the building, here is a close up shot.

The last kit #28mwest014 took a bit more time to assemble as seen by the parts below.

One thing I did to change my kit up, was to install wood slates on the sides of the stairs. I did this for two reasons, one it would make the stairs a bit for sturdy and two, I broke some of the railing while assembling it. I always like to do some sort of modifications so it works for me.

Here are a few figures for scale, now all I need to do is make up a nice noose (that has the proper number of wraps) for it.

So there you go, a couple of new buildings and a nice Gallows. I really love these kits, they are sturdy, look good and are pretty cheap. All three kits cost $32.35 plus shipping. I will be doing some work on the Middle Eastern buildings tomorrow and will post up what I got done. so stay tuned...

TK

New Year and New Ideas!

Well,

We are now on the third of January and I have beaten to the punch by my fellow local gamers/bloggers, Oh well.

Anyhow, as my good friend Drunkensamurai pointed out to me the other day, my last blog post really did not say what my plans on the gaming front will be in 2012. As he put it, I was very vague in my post, so I thought I would go more in depth on this post. No surprise most of the things that Drunkensamurai mentioned in his post are going to be on my list, but with a twist. So here we go...

Terrain

Well, as Drunken mentioned, terrain will be a major focus this year. When I game, I want the table to have a Wow Factor to it. My obsession with nice terrain started many moons ago when I was big into Model Railroading and Military Modeling. I have also been inspired by many fellow gamers on the Lead Adventure Forum (LAF). Well I want to do some cool looking terrain for a couple of projects, WW2, Old West and a Caribbean town for Pirates. So stay tuned for more, but it looks like Drunken and I will be working on the WW2 stuff pretty soon.

Games

Well, I did cover this in my last post, but as of last night, thanks to my son, I had an interesting proposition thrown out to me. My son who is 22 (and home from college) said it would be cool to play Bang (a Old west card game) using miniatures. Well he and I talked and I brought up Legends of the Old West. Well my sons favorite game was Mordheim and he expressed interest in LotOW.

Also I saw that Drunken had mentioned that he was a little bummed that some of the guys moved on from LotOW. A good friend used to host a LotOW campaign day at his house where we would get together and play a few linked games. Well I think I will pick up the gauntlet and host a Legends of the Old West Campaign here at the old SPL.

Also I will be waiting to see what Warlord Games puts out for WW2 rules. I am hopeful that these will be a good set of rules that I can jump behind. I will also be trying a few other rule sets. We will see what the future holds.

One last thing, I did host a few games on New Year's Day, had a few guys over to play Blood Bowl (2 had never played it) . Everyone had a good time and I busted out the BBQ and we all did lunch together. Have to say, to me that's what gaming is all about, a good game, good food and a good friends rolling dice! I have to say that this was a great way to start off the new year!

TK

What Was, What Is and What Will Be!

So,

It is that time of the year again where we all take a look back on what we did in our hobby for the year. I always love to look back to see just what I did over the year, because to be honest, I can't remember just what I did! So this year, I will look at what I did, what I am working on and where I intend to go. So lets take a look back shall we?

Lord of the Rings
Well once again this game seemed to be at the fore front of things. Gathering in the Desert 2011 went off without a hitch (except for the Ear Infection I had at the event!). Once again it got rave reviews from all that attended and everyone had a great time.

I also got invited to attend Games Workshops Throne of Skulls in Las Vegas (as a special invite for all the work I do for LotR) The only good things about ToS was getting to hang out with friends in Vegas and the fact that I got all of my Uruk-hai models painted.

This year I also convinced a couple of buddies (Rob, Jerry & Mike) to do a little painting challenge (Tale of Four LotR Gamers) and it was a great success! We each got 700 point new armies painted. In fact I got ALL of my Goblin models painted, that being well over 100 models!

I had planned on giving away my Easterling army to a buddies son, but as most teenage boys, he found girls more appealing and moved onto to that as opposed to playing with toy soldiers!

So what does 2012 mean for LotR, Well GitD 2012 is coming and I have been thinking of adding another Evil army, we will see. but 2012 will have more LotR in it for sure!

Legends of the Old West
Well I had ideas of grandeur of doing a Wild Bunch project with Rob using the LotOW rules. Well I got about as far with the project as blogging about it here and that was it. In fact Rob asked me a few weeks ago what happened with this and I was like "What Old West Project?". Wow totally blew this one!

Well I did do something drastic for my Old West gaming this year, I sold my Cowtown collection of buildings to the local shop. The reasoning was that I have a huge collection of Resin Old West buildings that I have been wanting to use. But the only problem was I kept pulling out the Cowtown buildings to use. So by selling this set it will hopefully get me to build and paint up the resin buildings, we will see.

Legends of the High Seas
So I actually got to play a few games of my own game this year. Over the summer my son wanted to play a few games. My buddy Jance and my son started a little campaign and actually got another guy to play. So there were a bunch of games played over the summer. Jance loved the game so much that he bought and painted his own Crew and also jumped into LotR as well.

I also started working on my Wicked Wench ship model a few weeks ago and it is almost ready for paint. it will be making the trip to Chicago to be used in the LotHS campaign game! And since I will be going to Adepticon in 2012, I plan to build and paint up a new Pirate Crew for said event. So LotHS will be played again in 2012!

Warhammer 40Kmunda
Well, this project was sort of worked on. I got in a few games of 40Kmunda with Jerry and we both loved it. Other than that, not much happened on this project. In fact 40K was not played as much this year as in the past. It dose not mean that I am done with this project (or 40K), in fact I am hatching a plan to do a War of Da Teeff project using the old Gorka Morka Rules. I am thinking of doing another Tale of Four Gamers sort of thing, but more on that later.

Gothic Horror/Pulp
Well I did move forward on this project, in fact I got a ton of figures painted for this. I even did a practice game with Jerry this year that was a blast. I had wanted to get the rest of the guys over to play, but the time got away from me.

Well 2012 will see me and Mike running a Pulp game at a local convention (Vul-con). So we will be running two games ( or Chapters). I will be using a modified Legends set of rules and I will be posting pics and details next month. So at least I did something for the Pulp/Horror gaming.

Other Gaming
Well this was a wide range of gaming mostly focused on WW2. The surprise game this year was the rise of Flames of War interest. In fact I played a ton of games of FoW with the rest of the guys. I actually got two armies finished up. I finished up my US Light Tank army as well as got my DAK German army finished. I actually bought a bunch of Plastic Soldier vehicles (Shermans and Half tracks). So FoW was the second most played game this year.

As for other games, I dabbled in a few new games (Infinity, Heavy Gear) but not enough to really keep my interest. Also Blood bowl has crept back onto the table (in fact as I write this I played a game just two days ago!) and it looks like it may be back strong for 2012. In fact I am running a small Blood Bowl tourney for a few guys and my son on January 1st, so we will see where it goes for 2012.

So what lies ahead?
Well, as last year, I think the theme will be Skirmish games again. Being a gamer for many many moons, I have decided that smaller games are the way of the future. So it will be interesting to see what happens and what my buddies are doing. So drop me a line telling me what your doing for 2012.

TK

What is going on????

So,

As many of you know, I have a certain fondness for the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle game by Games Workshop. In fact I enjoy the game so much, I wrote a little pirate game based on the rules. I also run a Lord of the Rings tournament called Gathering in the Desert and it is going into it's 5th year.

But today I need to do a little ranting for a minute. It seems that Games Workshop has no clue what it is doing with the Lord of the Rings game. Let me explain, for years while the movies where out we (the LotR community) had support from Games Workshop with them releasing Source books. We also had articles in White Dwarf (which many WHFB and 40K players hated!) Times were good for Lord of the Rings players.

But recently GW has been doing some strange things with their 3rd Core Game (Yes GW thinks of LotR as a Core Game!). I started noticing that it was getting harder to get Source books. In fact many were taken off the GW web site. As someone who runs tournaments for the game, this made it hard to get new players into the game. But there was a bright spot, GW released a PDF of the special rules and stats for entries that were found in the source books.

The bad thing was that they did not include points cost, but we still had Legions of Middle Earth. But now, LoME is out of production! So where do players get the point cost? What the heck are they thinking??And how the heck do I as a tournament organizer, recruit new players? It seems that Games Workshop is letting LotR die a slow painful death.

So where does this leave us (LotR Players)? Well there is always hope that with the new Hobbit movies there may be a re-do of the game. I am hopeful that the new movies will be an new resurgence in the game. Although I am worried that GW's track record of late with rules may see some drastic changes to the game that I love. Only time will tell, but for now, I will be left scratching my head and wondering what the heck GW is doing with this game!

Sorry rant over...

TK

Heavy Gear Blitz! Say What???

So,

What the heck is this you may ask, well I asked this of myself as I was walking out of my local store this weekend. Well, I have had my eye on this game for a long time, in fact about a year ago my buddy Mike G brought this over to my place to give it a spin, and I liked the game.

You see, way back when, I played a little game called Battletech (or Battle robots for those old enough to remember that!) I loved Battletech, I collected a ton of Mechs and had just about every source book and novelsthat FASA put out. The only problem was that my game group never really got involved with it. So the only time I got to play was in local Battletech tourneys. Soon I had shelved the game and moved onto something else.

Well when Mike G brought over Heavy Gear a year ago, I thought why not try it out. I fell in love with the game and was ready to jump into it with both feet. But life has a funny way of changing ones priorities. So alas I did not get into Heavy Gear.

Then this past weekend, while at my local shop, I kept eyeing the starter sets. So I decided what the hell, I have the money I better jump into this now. So I took the plunge and brought home the Northern Army starter box as well as a set of counters for the game.

So what did I get, well I am glad you asked, inside the box you will find two rulebooks, Locked and Loaded and the Field manual. You also get a set of dice and a tape measure. Also there are 4 Jaguar gears, 4 Hunter Gears and 2 Grizzly Gears as well as 2 drones and optional weapons.


The nice thing is that there seems to be a ton of support from the company (Dream Pod 9) . The other thing is that the scale of the game is 1/144th or N scale, so there is a ton of terrain out there (Model Railroad stuff!).

So stay tuned while I suit up into a Heavy Gear and give the game a whirl and building and painting some Gears.

TK

FoW US Armored Company

So,

Way back in in August of 2010, I started my second Flames of War army, a US Armored Company. I took the plunge and purchased a ton of Old Glory Command Decision vehicles. Recently I picked up two boxes of the Plastic Soldier Sherman Tank kits.

For those who have not bought these awesome kits, I highly recommend them and the cost is perfect! (5 tanks for $30.00!) I got the M4A2 kit and M4A1 kits.


Once again these kits are perfect for building a quick force for very little money. While at my local shop I took a look at the price of the FoW tanks and I almost fell over, Plastic Soldier company will be getting a lot more money from me with there kits.

Now onto the US force I have been working on for about a year now. Now I approached building this force I went with a historical bent. You see when I first started this force I was reading a great book called Army at Dawn, which is about the US involvement in North Africa in WW2. There is a great part in the book that talks about how when the US force landed in North Africa they could not get the Sherman tanks out of the hold of the transport ships. The only tanks that hit the African coast first were light tanks.

So I decided to do M3A1 Stuarts as the main back bone of the army. So here is two Combat platoons of 5 M3A1's and the HQ with two Stuarts as well. These are all from Old Glory and are great little models with a lot of character.

To give the force some punch, I added in 5 M3 Lees with the shorter 75mm guns. These are from Old Glory as well.

Now we have the Sherman tanks from Plastic Soldier and will only be added at a later date to the list. These models are the M4A1 kits.


Here are the other Plastic Soldier kits, the M4A2 kits which like the other Sherman tanks will be added later.

Next up is my artillery command, Forward Observers and Staff teams. All the models are from Old Glory.

For my artillery I went with T19's which are going to be tough to play in the game do to the Awkward layout, meaning they can only move or shoot. So while they will be tough to play, it makes the force very historical. Once again these are from Old Glory as well.


Last up is some Anti-tank platoons, these are M3 75mm GMC half tracks. This unit is not done yet because I still have to finish painting 3 jeeps and the command stands for the unit. These are also from Old Glory.
Now this past weekend I got to get this force out onto the table against Robs Fallshirmjagers
that he is working on. Well I would like to say the US won, but it was a draw, which is not bad and is not a loss. Playing a all tank army for FoW is going to be tough and it is very different from a combined arms army. I am happy with how it is looking and is nice to learn how to play some different.

So there you go...

TK

Pulp Time!

So,

For a long time I have been interested in doing some Pulp gaming and have been acquiring Pulp figures for a few years now. My particular interest has been to do some Egyptian gaming, or more to the point, some sort of game using Mummy's!

Well thanks to my good buddy Jerry of Jerry's Big Picture and a discussion we had last week I have started planning on doing a few games. Well our discussion lead to me coming up with a basic storyline and what characters I would develop for the game.

Next up would be the rules, this is something I have been wrestling with for years (see my other blog The Pulp Project ). Well I have decided that I am going to adapt the Lord of the Rings rules for a set of rules. The LotR rules or the Legends rules have enough variety that I am looking for and I am most familiar with.

So anyway, here are a few pictures of some of the figures that I will be using in the game. I of course will post up here as I work out d=some of the story arc and rules. But without further ado here are the figs (which are a mix of Artizan, Copplestone, West Wind, Blue Moon and a a couple of old Ral Partha figures).















So stay tuned Pulp adventures, there is more to come...

TK