Thanks to Luciano and Valentina we had got a huge space for our Ganesha Games stand. Andrea was running a demonstration table for beginners with the new edition of Song of Blade and Heroes. So some people and children discovered the world of wargame. At the same place were possible to taste the water of the upcoming Of Gods And Mortals. We sold half of the book rules that we brought. And my Zen Garden game gone sold out quickly. Now I want to realise a little more luxury new version of it. Ready for Play Modena next year, I think. Only 15 copies and nevermore.

As you remember my arena was stolen in Lucca convention. Now I have built a better and larger arena by a Playmobil set. It is still needy of a paintwork to give a less toyish feel and some structure improvements. In the works, but good even now. A lot of children was attracted by it. Hey, it is not a toy for children, it is a toy for adults! ; )

Andrea stayed in Rome for 5 days. We playtested Song of Spear and Shields the day before, the first (desert) day of the fair and the day after. Andrea was not so happy about some aspects of the game so he wanted to stop it and to throw it away. But I insisted to save the core rules, leaving the group rules to a future game with more miniatures. I want this game a lot, I am almost a co-author of it. Now I’m waiting the feedback from the drafting of the version for external playtesters to have something more delineated to work.

This year the Ganesha Games team was composed by me and Andrea. We were in the Miniatures Island managing a demonstration table.

Every day Andrea chose a different game to show to the public. This one is Song of Blades and Heroes II. He was showing to people that you can play with just a bunch of miniatures and it isn’t necessary to buy tons of minis from a multinational game company.

My duty in the fair was to show the Ganesha Games concepts and rules to promote wargames with miniatures. I had my games side by side with Andrea’s games. Other tables were running their demonstrations at only few cm from us. But I was so busy that I barely glance at them!

Another game showed was a preview of the upcoming Samurai Robots Battle Royale. Tomorrow I will meet Andrea at my home for another playtest.

Some people had the opportunity to give a try to Of Gods And Mortals, that will be published by Osprey the next year. Sorry, I didn’t take a photo of it. You can only see a leaflet with its cover. Instead here again Go Nagai’s creations.

I sold all the Zen Garden copies that I brought with me to the fair. Girls are genetically attracted by my little beautiful garden. I demonstrated or explained this game to enthusiastic and curious people. The best selling was to an operator for autistic boys and girls. He told me that autistics have a lack of interest in larger and complex things but they pay special attention to details. My game, with its small and delimited elements, can be useful to create a play moment to communicate with these kind of people.
Now I have got only three copies for Ludica convention. They are the lasts of the 30 made. I’m thinking about a Zen Garden II for the 2013, but only in 15 copies. I prepared a demo version of Ferrum et Gloria too.

Gualtiero Grassucci was in Lucca with his “À la guerre” rules. And he was there even to take a prize for his activity as “wargame promoter” at school. Yes, he is really a promoter: while I was around in the fair, he explained my game to a father and son. He mastered a game without my help!

This is the last photo took to my gladiator arena. In the night between Saturday and Sunday someone stolen it! I leave it on the table after the fair closure of Saturday. They could steal miniatures or other more precious things, but only my arena was missing. I presume that a cleaner saw a box (the arena!) and threw it away… It is sad to be criticized in this way…

Another cover preview: OGAM. These rules by Andrea Sfiligoi will be published in the mid of 2013 by Osprey publishing. This game is about mythological deities who fight each other with the support of standard human troops and the help of minor level deities. We are still playtesting it. You will know more when we progress with its development.

More on the beautiful Alt si gioca convention. This time some photos and comments. There are some previews about Ganesha Games new games too. But if you want to see more photos go to the two Dropbox photo archives:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/upm85fpqbni2m3y/jmdS3HOhyL
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3hezsv8m5sm74as/-rvZ1WN1bT

Former city of Bologna fair manager, now author of SDS game series and other games, Sergio Laliscia at the convention organisers desk.

The huge Ganesha Games stand with the Origins prize among Napoleonic rules. A show of some of the rules produced by Andrea Sfiligoi. Some are still in the works. On the wall some funny posters about dance folk music performed when the hall is populated by local elder people.

A demonstration game and playtest of the upcoming Of Gods And Mortals, out the next year for Osprey publishing. A classic: Greeks versus Vikings. Another time we have to test it with Egyptians…

Monsters Island with Mighty Monsters rules. This is only a display indeed. An usual fight is with 3/4 monsters per squad.

Samurai Robot Battle Royale is in an advanced development. We are thinking about a Gundam style match at my home soon. We have the book cover and some posters will be ready for Lucca Games in Halloween time. The rules are almost ready for an open playtest.

A display with Apocalypticum miniatures. Andrea postponed the development of these rules because he wanted to dedicate himself to other books. But now he wish to fix the rules utilising the notes that he collected with playtests. To start a new and definitive playtest phase.

A game with Drums & Shakos Large Battle. I think that these rules don’t have the right attention that they deserve from the potential players. It is a really valid Napoleonic system. Well, it is a bestseller in Ganesha Games sales but I don’t read about it often on the web. Please, give it a try, it is revolutionary, historically determined, fast and fun.

My children: Zen Garden and Ferrum et Gloria. I sold two boxes of the former at the convention. The gladiator game instead was practically proposed in a display mode here, but at Lucca Games convention I will present a scenario to show it easily to people.

Sherlock Holmes display. A gracious scenario full of Victorian little scenes: lamps, cobblestone ground, coaches, tramps, dogs and cats and other life scenes. I fell in love with it! I like the houses very much too. I saw them in Salute a year and half ago but here they are painted better. I want them for my Flyton city.

The huge 15mm Napoleonic display. Almost 11000 pieces. Sergio spent 5 hours to place them on the tables! Maybe next year he will have got more miniatures…

Alt si gioca was a wargame convention in Terni who took place the 7th of October. When I was free from my demonstrations I realised with my mobile a movie to report the event.

Some main topics:
0:12 – Blood Bowl tournament
0:51 – Flame of War scenario
1:00 – Battle on Ice in 10mm from Aster
1:20 – Heroquest
1:38 – Bring & Buy
1:53 – A La Guerre
2:30 – Gino Pilotino
2:48 – Subbuteo
3:01 – Operation World War II
3:17 – Wings of Glory
3:54 – Drums & Shakos Large Battle
4:20 – Zen Garden
4:28 – Ferrum et Gloria
4:34 – Samurai Robot Battle Royale
5:05 – Mighty Monsters
5:43 – Of Gods And Mortals
5:51 – Zulu on rampage
6:08 – Weird War II scenario
6:23 – Sherlock Holmes scenario
6:44 – 6mm
7.07 – 11000 Napoleonics in 15mm by Sergio Laliscia

To view a better show of the Napoleonics array, here another video.

And to know more about this convention go to altsigioca.6sided.net

What do you do in your holidays? Sun, rest, sex, shopping? Well, I passed 5 days in Terni at Andrea’s home to playtest 5 new games. I thought that this could be a little boring but time flowed speedily. Absurdly I am relaxed with a lot of sleep and had some trips around looking for food and to visit the weapon museum, GiocaPerugia and Carsulae, as I said before in other posts. And now a short chronicle of the playtests.

We are working on it since a couple of years but we still have got a lot of problems. This test must be the final time to define the rules but we found some inconsistencies in the style of the game. The problem is about armies dimensions and a easy way to resolve individual and group fights. I want a game for more than 100 miniatures versus other 100 miniatures, with military formations and historical variations. At the end we have got two different set of rules, one for skirmish with 20 fighters each side and another one for 100 fighter each side, with a single engine, too big for small fights, too small for big fights. We have to make a choice. For the moment we are thinking to produce a smaller game more in the style of Song of the Blade and Heroes as perspectives. In the future we could try to produce a mass game with the aim to pit buckets of ancients in fight in hoplite formation.

Another playtest for my game. A table full of sheets to track movements and rules. It seems a command bridge of a warship! Well, it is just an impression because all is more handleable. This is only the playtest form of the cards needed to play smoothly. All is fine, only some tweaks are needed to the specifications of some gladiatorial types. This time I used my lego gladiators, a 6 figures team with interchangeable weapons and helms. They are very practical for playing away. And lego minifigs are very nice!

This set of rules for fantasy combat is still in development but Andrea has found the right way and I can say that I like it. The only thing to do is to test all the rules and to balance special powers. This is a project for the late 2013 so it is not a priority at moment. Just to say, we played with pieces that we had at hand because we have not the right miniatures, and the name is fictional. You will hear about it in the future.

Before the tests we celebrated the event hanging on the wall the poster of a film that you know for sure. I played with Ganesha’s superheroes two years ago, if I remember correctly. Andrea had a little neglected it to spend mental resources on other rules. However now it is more fluid. We played two different games to find extreme situations to resolve. Indeed we found that in some situations the fights were not so incisive. The development still run but I think that this year we can read these superheroes rules in the paperback form. And then we will have to wait for a supplement with more superheroes powers because them are too much to fill only a book.

We played games at all hours, even at night. This one was tested before launch, two full games. It is very fast and reproduce a Song of Blade and Heroes fight in a card game. It is still in a primitive form but I like the engine. He have to work hard on it to give depth to the game. Ten years ago Andrea was a Magic expert with a fixed column on a game magazine, so it is not so impossible to do it. It is even a production duty not similar to the usual Ganesha’s rulesets, you have to illustrate and print decks of cards. Now Ganesha Games have a lot of games to produce so I don’t know when he will find the time to develop the card game. In addition to those I’ve played in this playtest marathon, there are other rulesets in an advanced phase: Swatters, Apocalypticum, Samurai Robot Battle Royale, Tales of Blades and Heroes rpg manual series, Song of Blade and Heroes II edition, to name those I saw in a semi-definitive form. And before I left we have collected some ideas on what could be published in late 2014…

The day before the annual appointment with Hellana, the national wargame convention in Agliana, me and Diego went to Terni to visit Sergio Laliscia (Song of Drums and Shakos) and Andrea Sfiligoi (Ganesha boss). We did this visit to take some miniatures from Sergio for the demonstration game of the day after and to make some playtest for the new Ganesha games in development. We slept in Andrea’s house at night, so Sunday we could go very early to Agliana with a single car.

On the table the initial stages of a new big Andrea’s project. It is still secret so I cannot say more. You can only know that some miniatures are involved… ha ha ha : )
Sadly I felt asleep during the brainstorm and the playtest phase while some ideas were showed and tested for the first time. It was after lunch, so sand were in my eyes. I will playtest the game in the future because I have got some particular skills specifically for this game from my university studies.

A crucial moment! The new version (the forth!) of my Ferrum et Gloria gladiator game for Ganesha Games is tested in the hands of Andrea. Here you can see my portable cardboard arena and a fight of 3 thraeces versus 3 myrmillones. Every figure has got a card with the specific moves. There were 6 cards because every figure had different weapons and combat style: in the ancient times there were 4 different types for thraeces and 5 types for myrmillones. Some counters reminded the state of the figures. The wounds system is similar to the Mighty Monsters one. Three coloured dice are used for activations, fatigue, wounds, save rolls and fight. The play is more elaborate than SBH: here you have only few gladiators and the hype is on the fight with specific weapons. I don’t want to say more, I can’t explain the game here. You will see the development of the game in the following months, even on the bar on the right of this blog.

I was worried that something went bad because Andrea was judging my work and he is severe and the game have to like to him. All fine! Andrea played my game and suggested some things. Here while he was using his ipad to take some photos for an immediate posting on facebook during the play.

These mock up cards are the prototype of the SBH card game. I like the cards in this form, basic but charming. Sergio spoked about it very well. Andrea only explain us the principles of it but we hadn’t the time to play it. Next time…