While we are waiting for the new part of the Doctor Who television series, I wish to show you some Daleks that I own. Thanks to Alessio and Emily that bought me this Doctor Who Adventures issue, I laid my hands on a plastic set with Daleks miniatures, incidentally in 28mm scale. These are from a children magazine that give away some Dr Who themed toys every week, and these Daleks set sold very well so they presented them for 3/4 times.

The sculpt is not so fine and some details are fainted, the assembly sometime is a little approximative, but they are very cheap. Now I don’t remind exactly prices but as far I remind you can have got a box of Daleks for the price of a single Dalek from Shapeways. If you live in UK could built a large Dalek army with these miniatures. So I create a newDaleks squad with an official in black armour and five troopers in bronze and gold. I panted a black skullcap for them to add some contrast. I don’t like these pale metallic newDaleks so much, I prefer the classical design and strong coloured patterns. Moreover now they seem too much powerful and invincible too.

Another new design in the set is for iDaleks (or “paradigmDaleks”) with their bright five colours. It is the revolutionary form for these pepper shaker aliens, with more soft lines. Since sixties we had a design that evolved principally through colour patterns so something new had to be added, even if Daleks are a national icon like double-deckers or telephone boxes. However was the time to say something new about Daleks.

And now a parade of the various Daleks that I own. From left to right: renegadeDalek, imperialDalek, newDalek, iDalek, Spider Dalek. And this evening a new adventure on BBC with the Jenna-Louise Coleman mystery!

Last November I saw 3D printing in Ludica fair in Rome. So I thought about to buy something made in this way to touch a future feel. A special offer with free delivery from Shapeways gave me the opportunity to spend money for a Spider Dalek.

Some days after, in Christmas time as you can see for the towel, I received a huge parcel with inside a little transparent sprue. It was pretty viscid and the details were fine but a little crispy. 3D printing is not perfect, you cannot have a resin mould quality. A method to obtain smoother surfaces is to scratch them with a acetone light wash or other acid substances. I’m lazy so only wash the sprue with a lot of soap.

A Spider Dalek is a fictional Dalek – the others are real, aren’t they – an aborted hypothesis for a character development. There is not a definite design, only some sketches. So I was not so sure about how to assemble it. A fast painting on the first Daleks colour pattern complete it. Now it is ready to spread terror among the galaxy.

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…

Again on Ludica. Friday and Saturday viewed scarce public presence but Sunday the people arrived even if many were stopped from crazy disposition by our unreal mayor. But the hall is huge like a hangar for aeroplanes that even a lot of people seems a small group. If you organise the same inside a smaller place, it could be felt like a success with an overwhelming crowd, while in this hangar all is scattered as you can understand viewing the photo above.

Ludica in Rome, a convention about games parachuted from Milan without a clear awareness of what Rome is. Add the snow. The result? Almost a disaster.
It was clear that this was a first edition so it cannot be perfect and a lot of problems were waited, but there was too much ingenuousness in the building of the convention. Beside this, goodwill and sincere people involved in the operation show promise for a better second edition in October this year (even if it will be dangerously positioned only two weeks before the bigger comics and games convention of Italy, more than 150000 people…).

Leaving organisation problems, I wish to speak about some things of the wargame area, a part that I helped to bring to life because I was the person that created the contacts with the Roman realities. Among other things there were slotcars (with beautiful girls to cure the stand), boardgames (a lot of them), Star Wars reenactors (“the fist of Vader” Legion), videogames (but with a low profile due to small care from producers like Nintendo) and bayblades (59 children in a competition the day of the snow!), an exhibition on old traditional games (do you know “lippa”?). But I haven’t got any interesting photos, so I speak only about wargame clubs that was present at the convention.

On the photos above you can find the beautiful scenario made by ARSM club, a Viking raid full playable mounted on real terrain! A great realisation for one of the scarce moments that ARSM come out from their humid cellar.

And this is a Napoleonic battle in Portugal by Le Grenadier. If you want to see more delicacies of this type go to http://www.massimomoscarelli.it/leadaddicted/?p=390

Another club from Rome is Miles Gloriosus. It was present with this large participation game about chariot racings in Roman times, but there was even a game based on samurai in Japan. In the middle of the convention there was a Shako II tournament too. Well, I hope in a better and safer Ludica in October, with a larger wargame presence.

Perugia is in Umbria, the same region of Terni that is also know as the city of Ganesha Games. So it was easy to them to arrive in the game convention Magna Con Phersu. Me and Diego, with the special guest Nunzio, were from Rome, far 2 hours by car from Perugia. Here you can see the Ganesha Games area in the first morning.

Flashing Steel is presented with a special setting that utilise Ainsty Casting ships and new boarding rules for a Flashing Steel future supplement. No sails because models arrived only few days before the convention so there wasn’t time to make them.

Another setting. Here the wonderful vineyard made by Sergio. He prefers red wine because he made purple grapes. After I saw this beauty I discovered that I need a vineyard for my miniatures too… My surname comes from the name of grapes!

Drums & Shakos Large Battles is in the final translation and layout stages. You will have it for the beginning of the new year for sure. Here another demonstration table without rules to show to people in a definitive book form. And another game with Diego who wanted to try the latest tweaks.

We are waited in Terni for testing other new rules and rulesets, among these a game about space vessels and another one about giant robots… And in the middle of this we have to test Song of Spear and Shield for its release… Instead the game about post-apocalypse for Lead Adventure miniatures is tested locally in ALT club of Terni.

Who is Phersu? He is this nice dancing man from the Etruscan times. But he is even the man who hold the rope in this funeral game where another man is bounded to a ferocious dog. From “phersu” (mask) we have the word “person”, so he is more important than you thought.

These little dioramas are inspired by real painted scenes from graves. Perugia is at the edge between Umbrian and Etruscan cultures, on the side of the latter. And there is a local miniature maker who call himself “Phersu Miniatures” because of this influence.

His production is based on resin pieces about rare subjects, as you can see here, almost entirely in 1:72 scale. But he has got Phersu in 1:72, 28mm and 54mm. In the next months he wants to expand his ranges with metal miniatures because resin casting is a slow process: faster in the casting means more time to sculpt. His work is targeted to modellers and not wargamers but I hope he is changing his mind because he could find a peculiar space in the miniature producer world.
In the following photos some delicacies in 1:72 scale. If you want to know more about it, you can visit:
http://sites.google.com/site/phersuminiatures

Someone think that Lucca Games is a fair for gadgets, boardgames or videogames, but there is a large attention to miniatures and modelling, you have to look better to realise it.

Here we have a heir of Blood Bowl: another ruleset, different miniatures, but the same result. I like this playing field, it has a a refined taste, with the square subdivision only suggested on the ground.

I like original ideas. These ones are skeletons on a tracker, but with a baywatch theme! Great!

Huh, the Doctor is in the fair. Old Black Tree miniatures brought to life in the painters section of the fair. They passed all the time painting. The next time I have to bring a miniature with me for them, just to have something well painted to remind the fair. This year there was a Sandokan miniature as miniature of the event, but I didn’t buy it, maybe because I don’t have plans for a pirate set. I’m stupid, I could buy it and have it painted just at the desk in front of Ganesha Games stand…

Cosimo Auricchio is the sculptor of TB Line miniatures. He is a free lance, a real artist, which sometimes sculpt even in 28mm format. Here you can see this skeleton pirate. Great miniature and great painter who highlighted the piece.

Cosimo sold dummies for sculptors, but there were others. I have not expectation on my skills as sculptor so I didn’t buy them. Narciso instead wants to try.

Inside Lucca Games there is Grogg, a coontest about modelling and painting. Here some examples of the historical type.

Do you want a bust of Thor? Every house must own its Thor bust. It is only 800 euros, limited production I suppose. Not so discreet.

WOG is the new incarnation of WOW. From the sense of wonder to an insult. Now Ares Games produce these aircraft for the popular game that was Wings of War, because Nexus Games went bankrupt. New production, some new fighters and bombers, a lot of bombers.

Preproduction models from China, that bomb us with cheap plastic toys.

Yamato in space. Huge ship, more than a simple model, it is big as a small torpedo…

Pikachu in a human form, as Japanese puppets imitate human forms. A play of mirrors…

Saint Seiya are puffs. I like only the temple in this scene, but a lot of people like these gold puppets more.

Inside Lucca Games we were a little part of the convention called “Historical Island”, a space where you could play wargames with miniatures. A large part was for Clan Conan, where there were participation games. Our part was called “Autori 3D” and I was in the programme under Andrea Sfiligoi section, as a sub-author. Historical Island people were all in the same hotel, so in the morning we did breakfast together and spoke about wargame world. Saturday was held a public debate on wargames organised by Lorenzo Sartori, with Andrea (Ganesha), Sartori (Impetus), Conan (Clan Conan), Torriani (Operation WWII), Cavatore (GW & Mantic). I filmed it almost entirely.

Along with our space there was a showcase with some scenarios and a place where very good painters showed what you can do with miniatures.

There was even 1-48 Combat with some new pieces for this game. I spoke about it before. Search my blog for it!

This is the beautiful terrain for the demonstration game of 1-48 Combat. Under there is the preview of Baroque, Impetus for Renaissance.