Update on Dad's Crusader Era Castle

I have second video of Dad's Crusader Castle. He wanted to demonstrate how easy the thing is to move.

The entire thing is modular, not in the sense of you can put it together in random ways, but in the way that you can take it down for transport and storage. It's actually 5 different parts which slide together. He's ingenious like that.

I'm still working on a basic Keep, but it's weeks away from being done.

Anyway, I am trying to get Dad to make a Youtube channel of this stuff.

Second Image Batch - British Cav and Support Units

This is the second in a series of posts. This time, we are looking at a series of 15mm British figures and associated support units. These figures must be from several different manufacturers as some seem "fatter" than others. The first image demonstrates this difference well. 



Tomorrow, I will update with the infantry.

Go, Dad, Go - Completed Crusader Era Castle

A few weeks ago, I posted an image series of my Dad's work on a Crusader era castle. It's all done. Check out the video the view below. 

You can follow him over on Facebook.

First Image Batch - Zulus

I thought I would have a lot to say about these minis but apparently the ol' grey matter is going soft. I painted these up over the past couple of years. My dad's friend Mike gave me a base set of painted figures to get me started at playing The Sword and The Flame. I loved it.

Many years ago, I could have told you a story about each and every figure and unit, but all of that is gone now. I will have to refresh myself. I can't even tell you what manufacturer. They are 15 mm. That's about all I remember. 

In reality, my dad's friend, Moko was running a series of home brew games which featured these figures plus a zillion of his. Moko was one of the Jogglers and he was an extreme gamer and made up his own scenarios and mini-games on the fly it seemed. He played fantasy, ancient historical, Tractics, StarFire, modern, WWII submarine warfare and on and on.

I'm only going to post a couple of images, since I don't have much information to share. And I am not a great photographer. I'm also not the best painter and while I know some research was done, the data is gone from the brain bank.

Game Review - G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.: Glorious Adventures in Science Loosely Involving Generally Historical Times

Title:  G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.: Glorious Adventures in Science Loosely involving Generally Historical Times
Author: Christopher Palmer and John R. "Buck" Surdu
Rule Set: G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.
Year: 1984
Pages: 36
Number of Players: 2+
Rating: ★★★★★

I stumbled across this 2000 printing of  G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T., a game of Victoria hi-jinx. On the first reading, it strikes me as a Victorian era Striker game. You create your hero, his extras, etc. and then go off to encounter something. It could be just like Chainmail with a few differences.

It's decidedly different. You'd think that the rules revolve around the hero but you'd be wrong. All that nonsense stops at page 7 when you get to design vehicles. The meat of the system revolves around modular system to create vehicles, monsters, and other contraptions right of the serials of the 1860s. It's nuts! Steampowered villains against dragoons and kung-fu powered fighters? Go for it!

I love it.

Now for this game, you'll want oodles and oodles of minis. It'd be expensive, except the rules seem to assume that you obtained your kit from the 99 cent store. Bags of dinosaurs, robots, spaceships, cars, tanks and those weird erector set want-a-be things from Dollar Tree would do nicely. You can match your designs to your minis which is awesome.

Once you have designed and assembled your minions, you need to build a deck of cards. This feature reminds me of The Sword and The Flame. The deck controls who goes when. Nerve racking. The system proceeds down the order of battle: card draw, morale, shooting/throwing, move, reload, lather, rinse, repeat.

The rules are simple, because things get hectic fast.
While I have reviewed the original set here on These Old Games, you can obtain a completely updated set over at DriveThruRPG. The Compendium runs 190 pages, which is quiet an update from 36. If you want the 36 page set, check out Amazon. (It lists 40 pages, which includes the covers, and the inside covers which are also packed with information. I went by the actual numbered pages.)

You should check out Buck's webpage. It's old school awesome.

Oh, G-d damn. It's always the scale and basing with you people. Movement for infantry 6" and for cavalry is 12". Looks like HO, 28 mm, 1/72, 1/76 or something like that. Formations are wavy lines and blobs, so basing doesn't matter except perhaps for one figure per base.