Here the report of a long weekend with Andrea in Rome at my new, and still almost empty, house. We rallied a lot of things and events in 4 days. To begin, we held some playtests about next Ganesha games. This one is about mutant apes.

And this one is about that old project that we are developing through these last years. Maybe this one is the final effort. However we are speaking about 2017.

Other things were tested and other ideas were submitted. Diego join us for a couple of half days and this is a moment of relax in a patisserie.

We passed the Friday night at a game shop in the opposite part of Rome. Andrea presented his kind of games with a demo of Advanced Song of Blade and Heroes.

Here the Mjolnir shop and an exposition of Ganesha Games books. They are too much to show, indeed. Free apple pie for everyone. However chatting went from Friday to the first hours of Saturday…

Saturday afternoon was the time for the class on game design. In this photo Andrea seems a priest on a pulpit.

After the lesson, a direct check to the game projects of the people. There are very different ideas and kinds of games, with Andrea and the organisers that are trying to address them to their realisation.

And the Sunday was the time for Romics. But that is another post…

After 5 years I’m in Modena Play again. A lot of things changed in my life but some are always the same.

Here I’m with an anthology of adventures for roleplay game Kata Kumbas on Savage Worlds game engine. I’m one of the 8 authors. Out just for Modena Play. Read and play in an medieval Italy where Brancaleone da Norcia rode.

Modena Play is the annual appointment for boardgames and roleplays in Italy. Furthermore you can find card games, 2D wargames, 3D wargames, videogames, reenactment and cosplay. Players illustrate games so you can play with it freely after few minutes. And in these two days you could play even 20 games if you are an hardcore player.

While I was walking around I was approached by two chaps who were playing around. It is so simple to find mates to play here. So we formed a temporary player group of 3 people to play with what we could find around. This was a game about the management of Roman provinces.

Another game that we played was about the training to be a knight.

Sometimes there is someone that do it bigger.

Card games can be designed for adolescents with hormone storms. Like this one with an ass as advert. More sexy poses inside…

The ritual auction for games. Gems and garbage mixed in a crowded and fun moment.

I met Paolo in the fair! Now he is full involved with videogames as profession. Here he was in a play-by-play together with a mate of his. Good luck! ; )

A more traditional game than games on videos: a foosball table, but a very small one.

A more traditional game than foosball: wooden tops. Bigger ones were made on request with a lathe. Cool!

A more traditional game than top: war!!!

I found this book in the reenactment part of the fair on fighting with armour in ‘500. He is the curator of the modern edition of an ancient work. I bought Fluxx Cthulhu, MDF terraces for a new gladiatorial arena and 35 vallejo colours too.

After 5 years I could eat tigelle again, a kind of soft bread made with lard filled with a mix of lard and parmesan cheese. Available only in Modena. A long wait…

Here can view people who eat and the corridor between the two main pavilions. Moreover there were the upper storey, another pavilion and a tensile structure.

Unexpectedly you could find a lot of cosplayers around. A stage was setted for them. Every opportunity is good to show your costume. Even during the play of games.

And now some of the best cosplays that I picked from an unofficial photographic report of the event:

Next time Modena Play and wargaming!

After the Miniature Island review, the Ganesha Games one.

This was the Fungi year and Advanced Song Blades and Heroes rules were played in the convention.

During a pause Andrea drew a sketch of Norindaal world.

A couple of rules explanation and demonstration moments.

The Friday table of Heel Creek, the Ganesha Games spaghetti western rules. Now only in Italian. The first pressing was sold out. When Andrea will find the time, you can have the English version. If you are still waiting Ferrum et Gloria in English you can understand schedule priority…

This man is the author and he could kill Andrea in the following months. In a western time style indeed.

This couple is Crazy Factory, a miniature company that is realising a custom version of Andrea future science fiction rules. You can find a beta version on their website.

An official photo of our hero in Lucca outfit.

Animal rules are practically ready, only some tweaks are needed. I need more tests but now I’m involved in a new project due for the end of the year. More news in a next time.

And here while I’m was testing some food available at the canteen: beans and tomato, together with fried potatoes.

This is a Roman amphitheatre, now a square. And inside it, the pavilion with the event theme of this edition: Star Wars.

However other Star Wars pavilions, shops and events were scattered in the city. Here an hooded Andrea as a Star Wars character.

Our preferred restaurant, “Gli Orti di Elisa”, changes in “Star Wars Restaurant”.

The cake called “May the Force be can you”.

An event based on the more numerous quantity of laser swords in a place.

Lego and Star Wars. I want a lego AT-ST walker for Christmas!

A weird kind of cosplay for Star Wars.

And a sexy one.

Every year we try to meet with members of our club Legio Palatina who live outside Rome. Festivities brought Luca from London and Paolo from Switzerland, together with Narciso from nearer Canino. This time we officially accepted new members: Gabriel and Jack are our younger generation. Locals are me and Diego.

Stuffed with panettone, butter biscuits and chocolate, we played an Afghanistan scenario with rules by Narciso, previously used during Lucca Games. Our table was too small for the huge quantity of polystyrene houses crafted by Narciso, so we kept another equivalent city in the boxes. Real house provided by Diego, instead.

Infidels were taken by white hair, Talibans by children. Sugar and fat excess in blood and juvenile impetuousness made a confused play. More a cavalry charge with automatic weapons than an urban fight. Moreover I killed my troops with an hasty advance, but some lucky throws hit my enemies.

At the end a draw and pizza for all. To the next year.

Something that I like to show you even if it is not directly related to miniatures. Carnivorous plants are common in pulp or sci-fi on jungle planets, indeed. But how they are? During a really recent trip to Padova I went to the Orto Botanico di Padova. Founded in 1545 by the Venetian Republic, it is the world’s oldest academic botanical garden that is still in its original location. In the new wing of this garden, inside a new greenhouse building, there was a convention about carnivorous plants organised by Associazione Italiana Piante Carnivore. I’m used to miniatures or comic conventions and I found this one with the same spirit. So I could admire these strange plants that drink distilled water and eat rotten insects. Lots of kinds of carnivorous plants exist. I show here some together with their trap system.

It is like a beartrap, and it uses the same activation method. Every pair of closed leafs is a victim more.

Small spheres made of glue along leafs. And insect that slowly are absorbed on them.

The following three are based on the same principle: one way cones or recipients where insects are attracted and cannot escape, plunged into a sticky liquid.

Bigger recipients. They remind me a vagina. Attraction and death.

Dangling recipients big as 1/2 litre bottles! They seems threatening…

I’m losing weight. After some years of constant little fat accumulation (too many pizzas…) I was out of my target weight. Moreover I have other problems as colitis and kidney stones. So I decided to stop this situation with a real diet. After two months I lost more than 4kg. It is not so much but it is a result. Now I weight a little less than 78kg and I want to reach 73kg. The goal is to obtain this result just before Lucca Comics and Games convention, together with a printed copy of Ferrum and Gloria in my hands. And after my example even Andrea is following a diet! A healthier way of life is necessary to gamers…

On the same topic is what concern my lead mountain. I weigh all my unpainted miniatures and I found that they are almost 2.3kg. I have a few more in the post, so I could say that the total amount is 2.5kg. Comparing my fat to my miniatures I understand what those 4kg I lost really are! I reorganised what I still have to paint, bonding the figures within a same theme, taking notes about the pieces, packing all in labelled boxes. I wish to start a diet for my miniatures too. It is a non-sense to own a lot of miniatures that you can’t utilise because they are unpainted. So I want to hold purchases back, keeping my lead mountain under control. I want for it a weight loss. I can obtain it as I can lose fat.

More on the modelling fair in Macerata. On this post the focus is on miniature soldiers. In the photo you can find my mates Diego & Diego while they are looking for something to buy…

Some games were played around us. Here even a dungeon.

In the fair there was a chap that sculpt some lovely miniatures, but he didn’t know the world outside his region. Pity, he has great possibilities.

During these occasions you can found the same people from our circle, the vendors that trip around to sell wargaming related stuff. This is the lunch of the first day, before the opening of the fair. A fast but surprisingly good meal. Moreover that night our friends, that organised the fair, brought us to a wonderful restaurant on the hills around. Not so good the day after for the food, but the third day, in Col Fiorito on the way to home, we ate at an inn that we will remember for years to come.

Here our stand in the fair. A game of A Fistful of Kung Fu to refresh the rules in our minds.

Chillemi publisher’s stand. Speaking about some future collaboration.

I haven’t photos about the Of Gods And Mortals tournament. I have only this one about the winner of the third place, that curiously look as me. Even this year I have earned a cup, I can be pleased for the 2014.