What can I say? Almost perfect. With the right muscle body too. The only fault is the metallic sleeve with the articulation at the elbow, build according to a wrong concept. To have the needed flexibility at the elbow they wore leather plates. But this is a common fault.

According to me, this is the most beautiful gladiator 1/6 action figure. What I like most is the colour choices, perfect! Do you want to find a flaw? The sword is too long and the shield was a little smaller, egg-shaped and with a reinforcement on the end.

Another gladiator inspired by a famous tv show. If as myrmillo and provocator the result is really great, as dimachaereus we have got a fantasy puppet. The swords are right, the shin guards too, but the armour is absurd. Well, if you are a follower of a Hollywood soap-opera with sex and violence that claim to represent Roman times, you can think that is beautiful. I don’t think so. This is sold as an expansion kit, only head and armour.

Another dimachaereus, with the same name (?), always from Spartacus. The axes are purely fictional, but the helm is great, a real thraex helm! The shin protectors are not decorated but they better because they are really realistic. Give him a sword and a shield, so you can have a thraex. Still at preproduction phase, it will be out towards the end of the year.

The next weekend is Dadi.com time, the 13th edition of the southern Europe’s foremost wargame show. It is held in San Marino, an enclave State inside Italy. This is the first time that I will participate in this location. I’ll run Ferrum et Gloria and Zen Garden demonstration tables. Andrea from Ganesha Games will be with me and his new Of Gods And Mortals. San Marino is far from Rome, so I will be involved with this trip from Friday to Monday. On these pages a report as soon as possible, even if I think I will pretty tired after this holiday.

The opportunity to visit it was a temporary exhibition about Roman armours and helms. The materials are supplied by Archeos, an almost local reenactment and research group. So we haven’t real archaeological pieces but reproductions. It is good to see these things in a natural size shape to understand better what you can see only on books or monuments. My only remark is on some realisation are not so exact, as late Roman helm or other things for gladiators. But these are particulars. Enjoy the spectacle indeed.

Classical imperial helms and lorica segmentata.

Late Romans are a historical period not so represented in actual iconography. Trajan times are used as standard for all the Roman history. But what we generally know about Trajan is his column, while we have evidences about something different even for his epoch.

An armour for commanders. Vitreous materials could be used instead of gems for the helm. A way to save…

The kind of standard dress for foot soldiers. But this one is for a high rank soldier. Watch the crest and the richness of the vest.

On the left a secutor armour. I love this close helm. Near an arbelas, the weapon of the scissor.
On the right a middle Roman armour with a chest protector composed of rhomboidal plates.

The classical duel: on the left a myrmillo, on the right a thraex! In the middle, myself.

Some short graeves, a parmula, a sice supina and a falx.

A highly decorated myrmillo helm. Someone claim that this kind of helms were used only during the pompa magna, the presentation of gladiators to public before the fight. But if they are build to be used for a fight, then they were used for fights. None build a strong helm only for a parade. It is so simple. This is the helm of a champion.

I’m so tired and replete! Sunday I was in Canino (VT) for a wargame convention organised by Narciso, my wargame club mate who lives there. The opportunity was a countryside festival about asparagus. The municipal authorities gave us a building in the town centre to place our tables. So some demonstration games ran all the day.

The Napoleonic rules by Di Bartolo in a mastered battle. Only for grognards.

The Clan Conan of LuccaGames fame was there. Romans versus late Macedonians with easy rules: Battle of Cynoscephalae (364 BC).

The best demonstration table. Diego has got a real feeling for children. So he took Song of Blade and Heroes, mastered and simplified the rules to baby level, and a lot of fun were spread.

Vlad the Impaler always by Clan Conan. Playable by common men.

Another preview for Of Gods And Mortals. In these days I’m studying the rules to build a new mythological pantheon expansion.

This is a demonstration game season. So I was there with my Ferrum et Gloria. Now I’m writing the rules, at last! In this phase I’m editing all the game mechanics to add more fluency to the play and to clarify some situations. The goal is to have the published version in the late 2013.

Narciso is an artist too. His first attempt to make something about miniature sculpting: two 75mm gladiators that he sculpted with Milliput and realised with resin. I think that they are great! Remember, his first attempt…

And now, back to the countryside festival. Part of the long historical parade. Sorry, I didn’t captured the feeling of the thing, it was better than what you can see here. There were three horses too. Canino is a little town, so it is a big effort to have a lot of people with medieval costumes.

Asparagus, oil and artichokes, sold at bargain prices, especially the asparaguses, something like one euro for one bundle! This place has got an agricultural vocation, and they are famous for high quality oil and early production of asparagus.

All wargamers together for the lunch. And a multi courses menu exclusively based on asparagus recipes: with oil and vinegar, with pasta and fish, with potatoes and meat, with calamari, au gratin. Two hours and half for this duty. The ladies around the table (girlfriends, Andrea’s mother and Di Bartolo’s wife) went in the morning to visit an ancient Longobard stronghold in the surroundings, in a trip leaded by Narciso among tuff rocks and high grass. Narciso is the chap with sideburns.

In the main square of the town, the traditional Guinness omelet with asparagus, the topic moment of the festival. An eggs massacre for the joy of people.

And here a close-up on my slice of omelet. A great day, fun with friends and some dices rolled around. Later, after the greetings to the wargamers, we reorganised the place and the materials. After we take the dinner with some Narciso’s friends, again asparagus, but on pizza this time.

A new wargame convention will be held in Canino (VT) this Sunday during a fair about asparaguses and other traditional food products. It will be an opportunity to play and eat a lot. More, some visits to Etruscan and Longobard archaeological sites are organised for the day. All information on a mini-website that I designed: http://www.legiopalatina.it/lastoriapergioco/index.htm

I playtested it some time ago and I participate with ideas of mine to it. The cover, realised by Andrea, was created by my input. As an exclusive for my readers, the cover blueprint:

Here a synopsis of the game:
“SWATTERS is an exciting, fast-playing miniatures system for simulating battles between forces of humans and aliens. Using 20 to 50 (or more) singly-based figures per player and moving them as units, two players can complete a typical scenario on a 6’x4′ table in under two hours. Every figure represents a single man, vehicle or alien. Squads move and fight as units (they are placed on spare CDs or mini-CDs used as trays). Single models are removed as casualties.
SWATTERS is an infantry-centric game in which vehicles, gun emplacements and giant monsters play an occasional role. Combat is based on the roll of a single six-sided die for the attacking unit and one for the defending unit. The difference between the scores determines the combat outcome.
The two asymmetrical forces each have a limited pool of supplementary dice that may be spent to ensure success in key tactical situations. Humans use these dice to gain an edge in ranged combat, while aliens use them to spawn reinforcements and become deadlier in close combat. The book includes rules for: close and ranged combat; overwatch, ambushes, crossfire, reactive fire, support weapons, and orbital bombardment; 35 special rules; profiles for over 20 alien and 22 human troop types; 12 ready-to-run scenarios and two additional scenario ideas; guidelines for solo gaming; a point system for designing your own troops; ideas for using Swatters for other types of conflict.”

What to add to it? Well, give a try to the rules, they are very cheap too. To read a review you can go to “Wargaming with Barks” blog. To buy them you can choose pdf or printed versions, on Ganesha Games website or on Wargame Vault. In the following days you can find them even by Amazon in kindle and paperback formats. While Khurasan Miniatures is thinking about special starter bundles of printed rules plus figures as army packs.

The classic DBA tournament. I prefer to play with other games during a convention, so even this time I only supported my DBA community with photos and friendship.

A Russian view with snow. And Italian and Soviet soldiers.

A WWI naval battle with an interesting use of cotton to built clouds!

When railway modelling in HO scale meet wargame in 20mm scale: a WWII fight in Germany.

Bigger scale and bigger building. Another WWII delicatessen.

Using Comitatus rules to build a battle at the Roma’s gates.

This playable scenario displayed a view of the Porta Ostiensis near the ARSM club headquarters. This scenario recreate a specific Gothic War event.

A new presence in the convention was the Gundam Italian Club. I’m an orphan of eighties too.

Some models, even if the better one was the Zion vessel!

I did my duty with a couple of Ferrum et Gloria scenarios. This one was an opportunity to test the “duel rules” and to have a fight secutor/scissor versus retiarii. An experience to make some tweaks to something. Then some people wished to buy the rules, but I’m still writing them, pity. Now I’m a little distracted by this convention period because we will have “La storia per gioco” and “Dadi.com” in the following weeks, but I’m very involved with the rules writing.

The right thing to do is the privatization of the state funeral, that would be more according with her school of thought!