Love/Hate Saga Relationship

So,

Been doing a lot of thinking about Gripping Beasts Saga game of late and I have been trying to figure out why I feel the way I do about it. Now I will have to give credit to Robert over at Drunken Samurai Painting Blog he is having the same thoughts but for Bolt Action.

I have been playing Saga for a few years now, but have not been to serious about it. Yeah I do have three armies now, but I have sort of been flirting with the game for years. I don't hate the game, but don't seem to love the game either, it is just there in the middle. That's why I have been thinking about it a lot, why have I not moved it into the Love this game category.

As most readers of this blog know, I love skirmish games of all types, heck you don't have to look to hard to figure that out. Also readers will know that I absolutely love GW's Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, which to me was the best skirmish game out there. I also love anything that deals with the Dark Age period, my first Warhammer Ancient Battle army was an Orkney Isle Viking army. So when Saga came out, I saw it as a mix of my two loves, Skirmish and Dark Age period. But for some reason I kept Saga at arms distance. I remember seeing an article in Wargames Illustrated showcasing Saga and I remember being turned off by the this new dice mechanic for activating units and abilities.

I eventually caved in and started playing Saga using my Vikings from WAB. A few of the other guys I game with picked up the game and we started playing, but once again the game was just there in the background for me. Perhaps it was the fact that I was using models that I painted for another system or it was the fact that I was struggling to understand just how to use the battle board and the rules. Not sure why I was having issues with it, was pretty simple.

Another thing that most readers will pick up on is that I like to organize events and with that I build a ton of terrain for said events. Just look back at all the tables of terrain I built for Lord of the Rings, most which I still have. When it came to terrain for Saga, it was easy to re use LotR terrain. I did pick up a few buildings from 4Ground for Saga, but nothing much. So once again, I had terrain for Saga but still was not feeling it.

Maybe it was the fact that there were no events for Saga going on locally. When I last attended Adepticon a few years ago, they had gotten the Gripping Beast Grand Melee for the US. I happened to be in the same room as this event and was blown away by what my friend Eric Hagen had done for terrain. Also the format looked awesome for the event, but unfortunately I had other commitments for Adepticon and could not play in it. Then I found out that Eric and his crew run an event called Saga Storm, basically a small Saga event held outside somewhere up in the Frozen North!

So here were two awesome looking Saga events that were run very well and it spoke to me inside that I should do something for Saga locally, because as people know, I like to organize stuff! So with the help of Mike, we organized a "Non" event for Saga called Ragnarok back in 2015. We had support from Gripping Beast and had about 8 players. Everyone had a great time playing in this "Non" event. But I was feeling burned out on running events, so I did not really push doing something with Saga. I still had that non committal feeling about the game.

So, after thinking about all of the above items mentioned, I think I finely figured out what is wrong with Saga, it is me! It would seem that I have been the biggest reason why I was wanting to think there was something wrong with the game. I was letting past experiences cloud my judgement of this very cool and popular game. I even know the point when I finally figured out it was me, last Sunday when Robert and I got in a game. It was a very close, challenging game and after Robert packed up and left, I had this lightning bolt of a realization that I do love this game! I have been thinking about this all week and my mind has been trying to tell me differently, but I think I fully have embraced Saga.

So what does this epiphany mean for me? Well it means that I will be working on a few new armies, building a few new terrain pieces and it may, that's a big may, mean I will run another Ragnarok event in the near future, we shall see. But it has been eye opening to me to fully come to terms with this game and realize that I was the one in the way of it. Self realization is an important thing in life, I think it makes you a better person and why not have the self realization in our hobby as well?

So now who wants to play some Saga???

TK

A Tale of Two Kitties

So,

Last week Robert over at Drunken Samurai Painting Blog, pitched me an idea for a big game that he would like to do sometime next year. It is sort of a top secret game but what I can tell you, it will require a few tanks in 28mm and use the Bolt Action Rules (I'm not going to spill the beans just yet). So with that said, I needed to start picking up a few vehicles. About two months ago, I started selling off all my 1/48th scale armor kits and started to switch over to 1/56th vehicles to be more in line with 28mm figures.

One of the kits I picked up was the Rubicon Models Tiger I Ausf. E tank to replace my Tamyia Tiger. I love the Rubicon kits and have a few now, so it was a no brainer that I would have this kit. In fact I was so excited that once I got home, I built up the kit! Now with this secret project, I knew I was going to need another Tiger, but after talking to Robert, I decided to pick up the plastic Tiger from Warlord Games this past weekend.

So last night I had some free time, so decided to build up the second Tiger to see how it matches up to the Rubicon kit. Now I have to say, if your in the market for a Tiger model, either one of these great kits will work and you will be satisfied with the results. I will be reviewing each kit below, but hear me on this, both kits are very well done and I really can't say which one is better than the other.

So first up is the cost of each kit:

Warlord Games Tiger = $32.00
Rubicon Models Tiger = $37.00

Now you can get both of these kits cheaper if you go online, but these are the suggested prices for both.

Next up is assembly, the Warlord kit gives you two plastic frames, while the Rubicon comes with three plastic frames. Each kit took about 45min to put together. Now the Rubicon kit allows you to build three different versions (early, mid or late variants), while the Warlord only allows you to build a late version. The instructions for both kits are easy to follow and pretty straight forward if you have ever built any sort of model kits in the past.

Now it is worth noting that the Warlord kit comes with zimmerit paste already sculpted on, which the Rubicon has none.

Another thing you get with the Warlord kit is a commander figure, while the Rubicon kit dose not come with a commander. Now this is not a big deal, but it is always nice to have a figure to add to the tank. On the Rubicon kit, the tracks have no real detail to them but the Warlord kit has actual track detail (you can see the track links and such). Once again its a minor issue, but not it was something I noticed when I assembled the kits.

Overall size of the kits is pretty good, but the Rubicon kit is just a hair larger than the Warlord kit. I noticed it with the gun barrel sizes, the Warlord kit is shorter than the Rubicon kit (and we all know barrel length is important, sorry!). But overall you could easily run both of these kits together on the tabletop in the same platoon without seeing an issue.

One other thing I would mention is that the detail on the Rubicon kit seems much crisper than on the Warlord kit. I am talking about the molded on detail like the tow cables and track equipment rear deck detail. Its minor and once the model is painted it will not be an issue. Both kits do come with decals, although the Rubicon decals are the same ones you get with the Panzer III & Panzer IV kits, would have liked to seen a different set of decals. The Warlord model has a generic set of German numbers and cross' which is nice.

So which one is better? Well I don't know, both kits have their strong points and low points, but as I said at the beginning of the post, these are very small issues. With saying that, I like the Rubicon kit much better since I have the option to build three variants as opposed to one version. But I think I will be buying another Warlord kit for our super secret project since the Tigers would have zimmerit on them and I do not want to green stuff up the Rubicon kit. I hope this little review helps you with deciding on a Tiger to purchase. Stay tuned for painting these big kitties.

TK

Operating on the DB&AJ Railroad.

Well,

This past weekend we took a trip out to CA for a Dierks Bentley concert at the Irvine Meadows amphitheater on Saturday night. Well I got an email from a friend  Bill Meyer inviting me to play trains on his HO DB&AJ RR, which is a freelance layout depicting the Santa Fe railroad in the Fullerton area mid 1980's. I have been helping and operating on Bills layout since the mid 1990's.

A few U boats that I got to run this weekend.

If I remember correctly, he is now on his 115 operating session and he can host at least 6 operators with one playing as Dispatcher and the rest being either Road Crews or Local Switcher crews. There are about 25+ jobs to run during the session and takes about 3.5 hours for each session. Now I have operated many times in the early days and at that time we did self dispatching, meaning we just ran trains in order on his Job list.

Extra 6378 West bound.

 But now Bill is using a true Dispatcher (who sits in another room all together separate from the layout) and track warrants issued by the dispatcher. Meaning you must use a radio to call the dispatcher to get a track warrant to operate on certain sections of the layout. I will confess, I was rather flustered by operating like this but it does make it feel more like the real thing. With saying that, their is a lot of paperwork to fill out and waiting around to actually operate. At one point I got to sit and wait for a local crew to clear the main for about 15minutes. Like I said, it felt very much like the real thing.

Extra 2866 Sweeper train

 The nice thing about the layout is that Bill is always adding new things for his operators to challenge them. Bill uses a Waybill system that tells you where everything needs to go, this session he has added Blue Flagged cards that say Do not move Unloading, which is something that real railroads use when cars are not meant to be moved, the really railroad would fire you if you moved a blue flagged car, Bill just would make you buy him a Pint afterwards!

He has also added Re Spot cards, which means you can move the car, but have to put it back where it was at. These little things make the layout much more realistic and fun to operate. Most operating layouts do this, it was just new for Bill's layout.

The Colton CA ATSF station I made for Bill years ago, I am the Station Agent!

All in all I had a great time operating on this layout and I am lucky that Bill still invites me whenever I am in the area. For all of my non Model Railroading friends, picture operating a layout like a game, except that the playing pieces are HO cars and locomotives. If you ever get a chance to operate, take the chance and do it.

TK

Band of Painters Sept Installment completed!

Well,

My first installment of the Band of Painters challenge is completed and below you will see the efforts.

248 Points, 1 Spinne Walker and 6 Veterans

Spinne Mechpanzer

6 Veterans, 5 with Assault Rifles!

The hardest part was trying to figure out where to put the decals on the Spinne Walker, I had a tough time trying to figure out placement of the markings, in fact it took me over an hour to decide what insignias to use and where to put them.

So I started assembly on September 1, paint followed on the next few days and they were completed on Sept 5. I like how they turned out and look forward to filling in the ranks in the following months.

TK

Band of Painters Challenge - Month One

Well

Today we start our four-month paint challenge called the Band of Painters which will focus on four of us building new Bolt Action/Konflikt 47 armies. As I mentioned I am building a Late War forces and will be focusing more on the Konflikt 47 army first.

248 points for Konflikt 47

So here is my first batch of 248 points of models:

 1 NCO with Assault Rifle (Veteran)

4 Infantry with Assault Rifles (Veteran)

1 Infantry with Rifle (Veteran)

1 Spinne Light Panzermech  (Veteran) 

That's it, 248 points which will be pretty easy to paint up.

TK

Big Time Painting

So,

A few months ago, my friend Jeff up at my local game store had a few larger (54mm) scale model on his paint desk. I asked where did these come from and he said Andrea Miniatures, which is a company that does larger scale figures for display. Jeff showed me their website and I was totally blown away by what I found.

Now a little back story, when I was much younger, I used to go to my local shopping center/mall and visit a store called The Military Shop in Lakewood CA. I remember that they had tons of models on display and a ton of Historical miniatures on display (as well as a few nude miniature models too). I would spend hours looking at all the models and dreaming of being able to paint just like those.

So when I saw these Andrea Miniatures, I was transported back to my younger days of youth. So I told Jeff that I would order a model to try my hand at painting one of them. Jeff told me, that painting these models helped him immensely with his painting and that I should give it a go.

Well after looking through the online catalog, I settled on a very iconic figure, another from my youth, their 1930 Adventurer, which has a strange resemblance to a certain Doctor Jones from a certain set of movies. (Okay lets just admit it, its Indiana Jones!) 

Doctor Jones I presume?

So after plunking down just this side of $30.00, I awaited my figure. It arrived the following week and I took it home to inspect my new purchase. The figure is 54mm and was rather nice with very little flash on the figure. The only issue was his whip, it was a cast piece of metal and was nearly broken already, so I knew I would have to replace that.

All laid out for inspection.

As you see from the above picture, it would need some assembly but it all went together perfectly. The nice thing is they give you a little instruction booklet for assembly and painting if you have never worked with metal figures before. Only reason I mention this, is that a few of my none gamer friends wanted this same model, so the instruction booklet would be perfect for them.

I think there is something in my foot?

Red mark is mounting for original figure, pin hole I added.

I was not happy with the way the model mounted to the provided base, the red mark on the above picture was were one foot attached to the base. I added a pin to his other foot and drilled a hole to mount him there as well.

All mounted up

Size comparison, on left, 28mm Pulp Figure, on right Infinity 28mm figure.

You can see in the first above picture the model all mounted up on the base, minus his whip. I forgot to take pictures of how I made the whip, but basically it is two pieces of floral wire wrapped together and then bent to desired curves. In the second picture above you can see the size of the model next to a few 28mm models (the scale I usually work with). He is a much larger figure that's for sure.

Base color for the base

Base all finished up after a few hours of work.

I primed everything in a flat white and then decided to start working on the base, I wanted to start with something easy first! One thing I kept telling myself was to take it slow, I am a pretty fast painter, but I really wanted to take my time on this whole kit, the base alone took me well over two hours to do! Why you may ask, well you cant see it, but there are 6 different colors on the base and I use a couple of washes, I waited until each one was completely dried before starting the next color.

Hey I got some sun on my face!

Another size comparison

So once I was done with the base, I tackled the man himself. After priming white, I mounted him onto a piece of balsa wood to make it easier to handle while painting. I started on the face since that would be the real focal point of the model and that this was a very recognizable figure. I will admit, I painted the face about 5 times until I liked what I was doing. The first couple of times it looked like crap and I started over, but once I got a nice smooth base coat down, I started in with washes and lighter tones of flesh colors. The face really drove me crazy doing because I wanted to get it right. Also Jeff came over one night, and said, "You know, its not going to paint itself" and that comment spurred me onto getting the model finished.

Getting closer to being done

Are we ready yet?

 Once I got over the hurtle of the face, the rest of the model painted up rather easily. One thing that I really like about this model was the highlighting on his jacket, the detail really pop and for some reason I just dug painting it!

So after about two and a half months, here is the completed model!

I have to say, this was a real challenge for me and I think my painting has gotten much better, at least my brush control has. I am now looking forward to my next model from Andrea Miniatures and I am leaning towards a certain Hollywood Pirate form a certain set of movies, but we will see. I would highly recommend these figures for any level of painter and if you are not interested in painting, you can even order the models all assembled and painted up for you, so take a look at Andrea Miniatures.

That's a wrap!

TK

Band of Painters Challenge

So,

Coming in September, Myself and three other folks are going to be participating in a little paint challenge that we are calling Band of Painters. It will take place for four months and we will each be building and painting new Bolt Action Armies as well as Konflikt 47 armies (which we will add the new units to the armies we are working on).

Each month we will be building and painting up 250 points of models, with the goal after four months being 1000 point armies. Now realistically we will be doing more than 1000 points if you add in the new units for Konflikt 47, but the main goal is to get a new army for Bolt Action first.

We are doing this with our local shop, Imperial Outpost Games here in Phoenix to help promote Bolt Action as well as Konflikt 47. As we finish each 250 point allotment, they will be on display at the shop in one of their glass display cases for the world to see.

So, what will I be building you ask? Well it looks like I will be doing a brand new German army (surprise surprise!). This army will be built as a late war army and will be a perfect fit for the Konflikt 47 army. I really wanted to do a different army, because I have a huge Crusader/Black Tree German army already, but once I saw that the Germans in Konflikt 47 get Zombies, Werewolfs and some other cool stuff, I was done, it would be a new German army for me!

So with that being decided, I picked up the new Konflikt 47 German Starter box set you see below. 

So for $112.00 here is what you get in the box set:

An A5 sized Rulebook
1 Spinne light panzermech
1 Pz IV-X medium tank
24 Grenadiers
8 Totenkorp (Zombies!)
6 Pin Markers
6 D6 dice
6 Order Dice

Not a bad little set and it comes up to around 650 points give or take. Nice thing is you can add your regular Bolt Action army to this and easily get you well over 1000 points. That's the one thing I am excited about, I can now get two uses out of one army!

So there you have it, what I will be doing for the next few months, the hardest part will be to not start painting it up now! So keep checking back here for updates and if you are in the Phoenix area, stop by Imperial Outpost games to see the figures in person. We will also love to show you how to play Bolt Action and Konflikt 47.

TK

Blood Bowl Returns!

Well,

It seems that Games Workshop is going to re-release Blood Bowl in the fall and I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas morning to arrive! I am totally stoked about this, Blood Bowl was one of the first GW games I picked up and I have a love for the game that I can't really describe. I love the game, I hate the game and whenever I find people selling teams or models I pick them up!

The rumor's have been floating around for years that GW would re-do the game, but word is getting out that the rules are pretty much going to be the same that folks are currently playing now. (Yes there are still people playing Blood Bowl at big events).

So here are a few pictures I grabbed off of Twitter this morning showing all the cool models coming out!

 

 

 



 

 

The new models look amazing and the fact that they have announced that they will be in plastic is great news! One source from Twitter mentioned that Humans, Orcs, Elves, Dwarves and Skaven will be the first releases in plastic. Star Players will be in resin more than likely released through Forge World. And if sales go well, there will be a second season release with even more models. The future looks bright for BB fans.

 

So I know I will be giving more money to GW in the fall, time to start saving my pennies for all the cool new BB stuff that will be coming out. Hmm now I need to make a Buccaneer team for Blood Bowl, hmmm...

 

TK 

Legends of the High Seas turns 10!

Wow,

My little pirate book un-officially turns ten years old this month, reason for the un-official tag is that I started writing it in May of 2006. Last night I stumbled onto my original notes when I started writing and it took me by surprise that it has been ten years.

So I figured with the game being ten, I should give some background on how it came to be and where it is going. So take a seat and listen to this salty tale of pirates and plunder.

Well as a few readers know and a few folks that have the book, it all started with a the First Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but the allure of pirates started further back with me. Living in Southern California for most of my young life, I would make frequent trips to Disneyland with my family. Pirates of the Caribbean was & still is one of my favorite rides in the park. Ironically when I worked at Disneyland, I was never trained on Pirates, learned just about every other ride on the west side of the park, but never Pirates.

When I moved to Phoenix Arizona back in 1999, I joined up with my current group of gaming buddies and started doing historical gaming. One buddy of mine, Tom of Ponatowski's Legions ran a big Pirate game using rules that the group had created. It was a huge multi player game with all kinds of pirate drama going on, I loved those games.

Then in 2001, Games Workshop released Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle game. Many in our gaming group, including myself got into this game. But as I played it, I thought this would make an awesome Pirate or Samurai game. Also at this time our game group had Warhammer Ancient Battles in heavy rotation and my buddy Tom had connections with Rob Broom of Warhammer Historical.

I can't remember when Mark Lathams Legends of the Old West came out, but once I saw what he did I was blown away and thought GW had some sort Servo Skull following me around stealing my ideas for adapting the LotR game for historical uses.

Then June 2003 and the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out, after walking out of the theater with my wife and son, I knew I had to do something with pirates. I went home that day and started thinking of how to write a set of rules for pirates.

Flash forward to early 2005 and I finally had gotten a rough draft of Pirate rules done. In fact all these were was the Lord of the Rings appendix break down in the back of the Lord of the Rings SBG fellowship book. At this point, Tom and I got in a game of pirates using the LotR rules. Tom mentioned he was in direct contact with Rob Broom and that he was looking for authors to expand the Historical line out from WAB. So after a few brief emails back and fourth, Rob Broom asked me for a proposal on writing LotHS. I then waited. I finally got word in 2006 that I was given the contract to write the game, but I had to have it ready in about 6 months to write it. Luckily I had started with basic writing before then, so I had a jump start thanks to Tom prodding me about writing.

From that point onto 2008, I was writing and play testing the game with a small world wide group of salty dogs. Also during that time, I was put into contact with many game companies that produced pirate models off of some of the stats and crew types. Black Cat Figures, Black Scorpion Miniatures, Crusader Miniatures were just a few folks that did figures for the game. I was in nerd heaven having some of my favorite companies talking to me about sculpts for the game. Many other companies also sculpted up new pirate figures to be used for the game as well.

In late 2009, early 2010 I started working on a follow up book to LotHS and the working title was going to be called Shipwrecked. It was going to add in a few more crews, Spanish, Dutch as well as some other types. Would have more scenarios as well as more campaign elements. But that's when Warhammer historical started having internal troubles. I was told that there would be no other books for LotHS and that this could be the end of Warhammer Historical. Well the end did finally come when GW pulled the plug on Warhammer Historical. I can't go into the issues, but I was well aware of what was going on and was told to keep it hush about it.

Now many folks have asked about why I didn't just put out the new stuff I had written for Shipwreck on my own. Well there were two main reasons, first, the computer I had written it on had a melt down and I was not able to get the files recovered from it. Secondly and more importantly, I was done with thinking about and writing about pirates! I wanted to move onto other hobby projects and after the let down of not getting a second book, I was just done with that chapter of my life. You see writing a book and getting it published was a bucket list thing for me, so I can cross that off the list.

So what now of Legends of the High Seas? Well I wish I could say that GW is going to put it back into production, but alas that is not the case. But what I have been thinking about is starting to re-write Shipwreck and make it available here on the Ole Cursed Treasures blog. Why the sudden shift you might ask? Well that's a good question that I had to ask myself. While out with a Robert, Jeeping in the desert, Robert asked me, "So, what do you want to do hobby wise?" Well I after spending a few days to think on it, I want to play pirates with my rules! (as well as a few other games).

So my plan is to start writing up a few lists, working on a few Pirate models and finally getting around to building me a proper Caribbean town to play said pirate games on. I want to get back to having fun with my friends and possibly dragging a few of them back into pirate gaming. I think enough time has passed for this old salty dog to head back to sea with the other bilge rats!

So last night, I painted up a few X marks the spot tokens as well as pulled out all my pirates from there little container homes. It seems I still have a ton of Pirates that need paint! So stay tuned folks, there will be more LotHS content coming along. now I must get back to digging out all my pirate booty and press ganging a few fellow gamers back into the Pirate Kings services!

TK

State of Gaming Locally

So, been seeing a trend that I wonder is just not limited to here in the Valley of the Sun. From my little perspective, it seems that miniature gaming is on the down side of popularity. It seems that card and board games are on the upswing.

Let me explain why I think this is the case. At my local shop (Imperial Outpost) out of the ten or so game tables, you would see a plethora of miniature games being played. Everything from 40K & Fantasy to Flames of War and other miniature games. Heck it used to be hard to get a table due to all the miniature games being played. But in the last few years I have seen a decline in games being played in the shop.

Now, certain companies have not helped with this either by changing up their rules or discontinuing rules. Some companies have also raised prices to a level you would think you were getting solid gold figures instead of plastic and resin. And before you say it, there are many companies that have raised their prices, I can think of three companies that have product on my local shops walls that have suffered from price creep.

So I wonder if this has caused the miniature gaming community to look for alternate games? Has the miniature player base had enough? I don’t know, it is just that I am not seeing the same level of gaming activity like I did in the past.

Now part of the problem may be with games like X-Wing and Attack Wing, while these are miniature games, they really are not. Yes, you have miniature ships, but its more about the cards you have. I watched a local tournament recently, and I was shocked at just how many cards most players had. And listening to players talk about tactics, it was more about what equipment card you needed to make a certain ship be unbeatable. It was more about the cards that the miniatures.

And speaking of the miniatures, they are great and well painted. That may be one reason in regular miniature gaming. The ships are pre painted and ready to go out of the box. I overheard one young player (17 – 19 years old) say the reason he got into this games was that he could not paint, he sold off all his 40K stuff to get into X-Wing. In fact, one time when my buddy and I were playing the Spartan game Halo, we had many people walk up to the table and ask if the models came out of the box painted like X-Wing. You should have seen the looks we got when we said you had to assemble the models and paint them, it was like we threw a sunk at them.

Maybe that’s the problem in decline in miniature games, the time commitment to building and painting. I have noticed that the younger gamer (younger than this old 47-year-old man) that they do not have the attention span to commit to painting a whole army or project. Perhaps that is the allure of other games. Another store here in the valley had a ton of Magic players, while the store owner was a huge miniature gamer. He often told me that his customers had no money and little time to buy and paint miniatures. But man, they had money for the latest Magic card release and man they could shell out a ton of money for snacks!

Board games are at least trying to keep miniatures alive, you are seeing more board games that are coming with actual miniatures. Games like Zombicide and others have entered the market to take their place in the board game world. But these are really more board games than miniature games. Yeah, you can use your zombies in other games, but they were made for the board game.  A certain company has started to release special miniatures with these basic games, capitalizing on the board game phenomena. I guess you can blame them.

So I wonder if other folks are seeing this in their neck of the woods or is it me just going a little bit crazy (could be that!). Are you seeing more board and card games being played over miniatures? All I know is that I will keep doing what I enjoy and that collecting, painting and playing with miniatures.

TK