Bones from the past
Painted the four skeletons from the ’89 HeroQuest box using the Midwinter Minis tutorial on youtube. I’m pleased with the result and take it as a re-entry into painting.
The next parts will hopefully follow soon.
Err…, well, what is this?
That’s why I love flea markets! I was very surprised to find this game on a flea market in Rheine in summer 2021. A german cosim? Obviously quiet old. The name of the author is written on the box, what I consider a rather modern development. Who knows any boardgame designers from the times before Klaus Teuber? In addition, topic and partially the mechanic of the game is explained on the front cover. What makes this cover rather look like the backside of the box (Which is completely white!) as if the producers wanted to explain what the spectator is looking at. I had to have it!
For 2 Euros I couldn’t go wrong, I thought, without having any big expectation. And what a bummer! Now that I had the leisure to have a closer look (Nearly a year later!), I found out that it is incomplete. Some dice, markings and, most importantly, some of the ships are missing. It’s really not a nice affair to sell old games without any infomation that it could not be complete. Well, that’s how it is now but, in a way, it paid off.
So I found out that Seeschlacht, maybe Naval Battle or Battle at Sea in English, really has an entry on Board Game Geek. I never expected that for old forgotten games published very long before the internet era. But you can all find them there. All the games from my earliest childhood days! You remember Gran? What a bother! Ever heard of Captain Future? The boardgame, I mean? How much I wanted to have that one! But our toys store (Late Vorgerd.) was unable to order it. Unimaginable nowadays when everything is just a few clicks away. Anyway, according to BBG it’s quite boring and has nothing to do with the animated series, besides of the name. Thank you, BBG, for solving that trauma! 😉
Back to Seeschlacht, published in 1975, BBG describes it as an „abstract naval combat and merchant game“. Well, „abstract“ is not what is usually on my wishlist and at the moment I really do not know what to do with this one. I guess I can substitute the missing parts somehow and might game with it a few times. But that’s for a later date…
The best game ever!!!(?)
Well, some people call Heroquest like that. Surely in one or the other way it is the role model for all modern dungeon crawler boardgames and the nostalgia around it can not be denied. A gamer’s expertise would somehow be incomplete if you had never played it at least once. Nevertheless, I think, you don’t have to like it! But it’s cult!
This 1ed. box was another gift from a fellow gamer. Intended as a Christmas present, it went on its own quest. Delivery services were so busy in December that the service person put a wrong name on the delivery card (We weren’t home that moment.) and that simple mistake made it impossible to retrieve the parcel from the post office. So it went back to sender, was resend and, finally, weeks after Christmas arrived safely at my place. That taught me a lesson about Heroquest: You may not love it but you don’t want to lose it!
Dating back from 1989 it is in great condition. Nearly nothing is broken and what is, can easily be repaired. Even the furniture is complete with all the small parts, mice and skulls, that are much sought after on Ebay, I was told. With it came the add-on Karak Varn with some of the figures still on sprue. This box was long forgotten in a barn full of many good games, the story goes on, only to be found by a true believer in the best game ever!
Now, what to do with this rediscoverd treasure? Certainly it is going to be painted one day though that might be in the far or very far future. The other plan is to play it via internet as my benefactor and me are far away from each other and meet only rarely nowadays. The machinations of the game make it easy to play it via camera and microphone. Time will come!
A Retro-Gaming Weekend
While the world keeps debating about sustainable living, recycling and reusing, we are bringing this concept to the gaming world. Nothing we played with last weekend was younger than 20 years… and it still works! 😉
Amazingly this was the first time we met face-to-face for gaming this year. First our timetables were against us and later lockdown struck – though we played several scenarios of Descent via Skype during this time.
We started this gaming weekend with some 1989 SpaceHulk. I had never played this classic before and I felt there was a gap to be filled. However, my mate had lost the rules but now he brought them from his parents‘ place… along with some other stuff and we played an introductory mission twice.
First time I ended up with the choice between blowing my flamethrower Termi myself or going into close combat. I opted for close combat and lost it… expectingly! Second time, the same mission, I had learned my lesson and managed to fulfill the objective in short time.
Still a nice game but before going into SpaceHulk any deeper I’d rather go for KillTeam. However, I like the idea of moving blips which turn into groups of ‚Nids and I was surprised how much the whole concept reminded me of Descent which came some 15 years later.
Next morning we started out with BattleTech which we hadn’t played for over a year. Shameful! However, to keep it short(er), we decided for one Recon-Lance each. An encounter I lost bitterly! I hate a crazy Spider in my back!
Along with the SpaceHulk rules my mate brought some other gaming stuff from his parents‘ attic and one of his old gaming friends who wanted to clear his cellar. First thing was a group of old FASA tanks for BattleTech. I purchased these for a fair price for my growing BattleTech army.
Something else that was on offer was an old 2nd edition SpaceMarine-box, today better known as Epic.
Epic is on my list for building an army since a long time but I did not have much hope it would ever come true. At least as long as GW does not release a new edition. Now, this offer came quite as a surprise and could be the first step of a long gaming dream come true. Though there will be a lot of work ahead and as the minis are all oop, this could become expensive when finding additional troops on ebay.
However, a great bonus: While my mate rummaged through his left-overs in his parents‘ attic, he found an old box of BattleTitans with five Warlord Titans still on sprue which he gave me for free! A bottle of gin was the least I could give him for this. Cheers! 🙂
Descent via Skype – In Defiance of the virus!!!
From all over the world I read gamers‘ stories on the net how they keep up their hobbies in times of containment. Yesterday, a mate of mine and I, we wrote our own chapter into that book: Playing Descent via Skype.
We both had a map layout of the scenario on our tables and turned our webcams on them at our places. This way we could see our’s and the opponent’s setup.
The whole thing needed some preparation because I don’t own a copy of the game. We decided on a scenario. My mate scanned all the tiles and cards and sent them online. I printed them, glued them on cardboard and cut them out. Alternative figures weren’t a problem to find among my myriad of boxes of gaming stuff.
We thought about how to improvise the dice but Descent uses a lot of different dice with complicated layouts and so we decided that my mate, the Overlord, would do all the rolling at his place in front of the camera.
While my mate was the Overlord, I played Grisban the dwarf and Avric Albright the cleric. The scenario was from the 2nd edition starter box (german title: Der Kardinal in Not, first scene). We started that campaign some three or four years ago but never managed to play much as we live more than an hour driving time from each other.
For miniatures I used some older Ral Partha figures for heroes and cultists and some Zombicide undeads for zombies and spiders. The role of evil Lord Merick (With a fire aura!) went to a Games Workshop Boromir.
To conclude, this was great fun! Not only in times of containment is this a good way to play but also in the future when time is scarce and driving not always fun. We didn’t have any technical problems and after a short while the flow of the game felt completely natural. Maybe this way we will play more often now than in the past.
By the way, Lord Merick is history now (But hey, didn’t he say something like he’s not so easily defeated?) but the Cardinal is still in need. So, hurry up, guys!
On the Workbench: BattleTech and Zombicide
It’s my plan for the next few days to finish this somehow weird mix of minis:
All painting patterns are going to be fairly simple so I hope this project will not need much time. The Mechs‘ bases are already prepared with white pumice and some stones. The bases were 3D-printed with grey PLA filament. The Jenner is a 30 year old model which comes from a sealed box. Despite of this, the model looks fairly oxidized and I wonder how the colour will look like.
Airfix Battles – The Introductory Wargame
Airfix? Wargame? Maybe playing a wargame with your old plastic figures and tanks from old childhood memories? That was my first thought when I read about Airfix Battles for the first time. Well, this is not exactly it but it comes close enough.
First of all, Airfix Battles is not really Airfix but Modiphius, probably better known for roleplaying games. Maybe the producers were just clever to use the Airfix logo on their game to get more attention. (It worked!) Otherwise, Airfix Battles could be just another wargame which would work quite well without the logo. But as the author, Chris Birch, once said in an interview, he also had thoughts about childhood memories when he created the game.
For several decades the brand Airfix was a synonym for the hobby of scale modelling. I think in most boys‘ rooms there were Airfix-planes, -ships, -tanks or -figures. But during the 80s their success declined as scale modelling became less popular. Only in recent years, Airfix was sold to another company, the brand is more on the go. Maybe this a reason why they let Modiphius use their logo on their Introductory Wargame.
Airfix Battles is a simple to learn wargame which can either be played with the cardboard counters from the box or with plastic soldiers and tanks from any company. Of course Airfix figures in 1/72 scale (20mm) are recommended but I made another choice, which I will explain later. The game includes two 59,0 x 41,5 cm two-sided poster-maps on thick paper as well as buildings and obstacles on cardboard counters. All information about units are printed on so-called Force Cards, which go to the players‘ hand. This way stats and special abilities don’t have to be kept in mind. Preparation for a typical game takes only a few minutes time.
The rules are easy to learn with a scenario-based tutorial system. Ideal if you want to play with kids (As long as they know enough English!) or people who don’t have much experience with wargames. But also experienced wargamers will have a lot of fun with Airfix Battles. However, some limits of the gameplay will become obvious after a while if you are used to more complex games. A lot of reviews are already around on the net (e.g. boardgamegeek.com). No need to repeat that but here are two aspects of the game I would like to single out.
Command Cards
This is not a new idea in a game but adds a lot to the fun of Airfix Battles. Usually a player knows the opponent’s possible moves and by counting and calculating can plan his own moves. Command Cards bring the element of surprise. Each player has a certain number of these cards which grant Special Orders, which are unknown to your opponent. This brings more tactical options, for example, some cards give the option to move further or move AND shoot, what is usually not allowed. Some cards work as Interupts and can be used any time during your opponent’s move. This way the usual ‚I-go-you-go‘-conecpt is broken up. But of course, that means, luck and coincidence play an even greater part in the game.
Valour Counter
The Valour Counter is only a small detail in the game but the idea is genius! Only one player can own the Valour Counter at a time. If you have it, you can decide to re-roll a roll of any number of dice. After that the counter goes to your opponent, who has this option now. The second roll has to be accepted. In our games the Valour Counter already contributed to a lot of fun. When bad luck strikes again there is at least a second chance.
Figures and models
Airfix Battles is recommended to be played with the cheap and easy to get figures from Airfix, Revell or similar companies. Using figures adds a lot of fun and depth to the game. However, I felt 1/72 (20mm) is too big a scale for the maps. The houses look too small in contrast to figures, tanks would use up more than a single square on the map. As a cosequence I decided for 1/100 scale (15mm) models. A nice side effect: When storing the game components, they use much less space.
For infantry I use figures from The Plastic Soldier Company, which offers a wide array of choices for a reasonable price. For tanks and vehicles Zvezda offers very nice models in 1/100 scale for their own World War II wargame. These are cheap, easy and fast to build and do not necessarily have to be painted. The choice of models in this range is limited but it is growing and if still not available, models can still be purchased from The Plastic Soldier Company or Flames of War.
New Material
Airfix Battles is open for a lot of expansions which will hopefully come. Additional Force and Command Cards are available from Modiphius and new material was published in Modiphia, Modiphius‚ new free house-magazine. The first two editions offered new scenarios and cards for home-printing. Modiphia is available by download via drivethrurpg in pdf-format.
Conclusion
Airfix Battles is a great game. It brings back memories from a long time ago. Frankly, a lot of childhood memory revivals end up in disappoinmtent (e.g. TV shows, ice cream). Airfix Battles did not disappoint me and brings new worthwhile memories and fun in form of building new models and having great gaming sessions.
Experienced players will definitly see the limits of the game mechanics but, nevertheless, playing can still be fun when there is no time for larger games. Airfix Battles could also be a nice choice for fathers and sons to find a common interest and for introducing friends to the world of wargames, who did not have the luck to play such games, so far.
Zombicide – Wanda and Phil finished… eventually!!!
This paintwork already started several weeks ago and after a long pause I added the last streaks of paint and varnish last night to get it finally done. Usually I don’t like longer pauses between painting sessions on one project because you start to lose „the feeling“ for the miniature. However, this time it just happened due to several reasons. Now we are generally satisfied with the result.
These are the first Survivors and Zombivors we finished for Zombicide. We, that is my better half and I, started to paint all Zombicide-minis in our possession at the beginning of this year – our first joint painting project. 🙂 We started with the zombies from Prison Outbreak and went on with the zombies from the core box. With one exception: we saved the Mutants for a later time. Nevertheless, that is nearly a hundred zombie-minis so far.
The inspiration for colours and painting techniques came from different youtube-videos. It’s astonishing how artistically some people are able to paint miniatures and how much effort they put into producing videos about it. Thanks, guys!