In the past months I playtested some new games from Ganesha Games as you can see in these pages in older posts. Now it is time of some releases as Mighty Monsters, but now only in Italian language because Andrea wanted to have a version to present in Lucca at the end of the month. In Italian it is called “Mega Mostri”. Another released game is Flashing Steel, but I didn’t test it. Swatters, aliens against terrestrial colonials, is almost edited. Playtests are ongoing for a new game in a post-apocalypse set bounded to a miniature factory. And Sergio is at work with Drums and Shakos Large Battles for the final version, but I suppose it will be ready only in another month. And more rulesets are in the works, as Song of Spear and Shield! In the meantime the new website of Ganesha Games is on line, but its narrow band caused some problems for the downloading of the rules in some peak moments. There is a lot of work for the society of seated elephant. More on arrival, like my limited edition Zen Garden.

Do you remember my magic card for the fair of Rome? Even this time I went to a convention with free entry just for me. I was waiting for this event since last year because I never saw it and it is about bricolage, so I hope there were some interesting things for modelling and our little world of 3d wargame.

I made a mistake indeed. This is not a fair about “hobbies” but a fair about “women hobbies”. So you could find all about DIY necklaces, blankets, bags, decorations and all these sort of things. Last time I controlled I was a man, so all were a little boring. I looked for something for miniatures, but I couldn’t find something to buy. There were some things to watch, interesting techniques for decoration, paints with special properties, but I didn’t find them useful for me. The weird thing were decorations with a food appearance and food with a decoration appearance, so you didn’t know if some stuff were edible or not. There were even edible colours in a form of pen you can utilise to write on cakes.

The only thing that really struck me was a sculpt demonstration for fairies statuettes. She made its with the same production process of a miniature, adding a sort of green stuff (more like clay I think) on a skeleton made of soft iron wire. Great artistic work but for a wrong cause: fairies are for puffs, we want warriors instead!

I travelled with my sister to the fair, after two hours I left while she remained for other four hours. I took the train alone, but four ladies from other cities in the south of Italy were frightened by how to travel toward home so I escorted them for an hour. In the meantime, in another part of the city, someone was thanking our government for its work…

Another day in Arezzo, this time for the last DBA tournament of the year for the Italian championship. There will be another one but it is in Milan, too far away. Maybe there will be a special tournament in Rome in December, but now we are thinking about other things. The first time I was in Arezzo, I went for an holiday to do something new, the day before a DBA tournament somewhere more north. Now we go to Arezzo more than two times every year. And we pass our time inside a comic shop with a large room on the back for games, like GW ones and card games. On Sundays we always found a kindly lady, the mother of the owner of the shop. Among matches we can walk around comics and some boxes of costly GW products. Every time I buy some ancient Confrontation colours at sale prices. I like the tone of that flesh colours, and now you cannot find them. And just on the opposite side of the street there is a restaurant for our convivial lunches, because our tournaments are an opportunity to meet people from other cities that, tournament after tournament, are become friends. The only sad part is the menu, because I dislike meat but our men in Arezzo organise always a lunch based on meat…

I want to be short here, because I’m very busy. So I would say only that this time I risked to reach the podium during the last turn (my opponent reach the third position). The choice of the army list was almost forced because there was an army stronger than others. So it was a civil war, and if you were the defender you could, after the double switch, have a big advantage, positioning your stronger pieces against weaker pieces of the enemy. When I could make this I had great results. I broke my dice in the fight! It was a dice with runes around the edges and weird Roman numerals. Black with yellow engravings. It was like a demoniac dice who fears the enemy. It was wounded in the fight at an angle. Too much hard launches. It is dead while serving and now it is in Valhalla.

I’m beginning to repeat myself on this blog… Well, there are a lot of annual appointments, so even this year we have an edition of Romics, the Roman convention of comics and cosplay (with some boardgames, wargames, videogames too). It was spread on 4 days, but usually I’m very busy, so I went only to the last day, Sunday. It is weird, but you live in full mode only far events, local events are always discriminated because they are easy to follow. So I passed one day for Romics while I will be present five days in Lucca for Lucca Comics and Games at the end of this month. However Lucca is maybe the greatest event for comics in Europe, and for sure the more important event of the year in Italy for cosplayers, comic fans and maybe even for gamers, even if there are sectoral events for gamers that are more significant for specific games (historical wargames, boardgames,…). But here we are speaking about Romics! This is Rome not Lucca! So what can I say? Romics this year was bigger and better: three hangars, one for comics and some games, one for videogames and fantasy (and sci-fi) re-enactment , one for cosplay contest.

There were a lot of people, with a huge amount of cosplayers. Romics is the comic convention of Central Italy, for sure. The only weak part is the cultural one, because there aren’t seminars, presentations and these sort of things. And there are only a few publishers, because the structures are very expensive and they can wait 30 days for cheaper and bigger Lucca. However I had fun, I spent an entire day in that bedlam and I wasn’t tired of nothing. When you have fun you don’t feel fatigue, so I stayed inside for 5.5 hours always walking around, absorbed by thousands of visual stimuli.
The photo was took at the end of the day, so you can see the floor. Instead during the day there were more people, you couldn’t easily walk among stands.

I passed even a scary moment. The place of the event is in a nowhere land between Rome and the coastal part of the city hinterland. There is a railway to the airport with a stop to the new fair of Rome. Sunday there are less train available, although a big convention as this one can running. At the station the trains were late. After a long wait passed the train before. Full at doors. After others 15 minutes, our train. When we arrived, 40 minutes late for a trip of 30 minutes, at the Fiera di Roma station we found the people of the previous train still on the little train platform because they couldn’t easily exit. And so you couldn’t exit from the train. The station exit is a metal stair to a metal bridge, very narrow. People, to exit quickly, crossed tracks or climbed over fences between a small swamp, dry in this season. When I reached the stairs a third train arrived on the train platform. So I began to walk on the bridge. All the structure vibrated. Too much. For a bridge it is not the best. I couldn’t go back. So I went straight. No railwayman, no vigilant, no fireman, no policeman. This is the classical situation that you read on newspapers, with dead people in it.
Three hours trip from my house to the inside of the fair. At the return with a car in the middle of traffic only one hour and a bit more.

Let’s go with more easy stuff. I spoke about cosplay. I took some photos but they cannot give you the real aspect and atmosphere of the event. So if you want to see more go on flickr!

A company from ancient D&D roleplay times, but in 2011! With more women than when I played it…

Another transposition from world of games, a real life dimension for Cluedo.

Victorians in the future: streampunk…

Teen X-men, with a wheelchaired friend like Professor Xavier.

Star Wars is a real cult, even a religion in Australia (the Force. Here we have the 501st Legion, the Italian re-enactors. I like the imperial armoured troops and dislike the rebel scum in bathrobe.

An AT-ST (All Terrain Scout Transport), not in a real 1:1 scale as they said, maybe in 1:2 scale. However a great view.

Some cosplayers are real professionals. There are a lot of contests and some designate participants to finals. The girl in the middle was the Italian representative to a big contest in Nagoya, Japan.

The queue for the final parade only for who survived after various selections. For the tension of the moment a girl cried. And the make-up dripping.

Another view. The last adjustments.

A female centaur. Very sweet.

I admit that, other the appreciation for the work behind the costumes, the fantasy and the dedication to this hobby, I like girls. So here I had no difficulties to admire them.

At the end I was so used to see girls in bikini that I didn’t give attention to some of them, only the pretties…

I took photos that I cannot show here. A hard choice, I have to censure myself because this is not a porno blog with young exhibitionist girls. Instead I have no photos of comics, because I was distracted by costumes. If you want exposed sex, see what are doing Batman and Robin in the green castle.

The mess after the party. On the ground you can see a lot of cups for ramen (Japanese spaghetti). Japan is idolised so every thing from Japan is good, even ramen for two euros.

Appointment to next year for Romics, to next month for more comics, cosplay and games in Lucca. With a presentation of Zen Garden added to them!

The Anticamente tournament in Rome at last! The date was past Sunday in the glorious Miles Glorious club, a huge space for gamers here in Rome. If you don’t know what is Anticamente (a game for ancient and medieval periods based on area movement), you can go to the link on the right column.

I passed a lot of hours (and an entire day off work) to structure a scheme to sum the rules in a easy way to remind them, but something were out as I expected. I always make schemes because I have a visual memory, and with this form of study I took my university degree. So now I have this help to play, and another time I can spend less energy on the understanding of the rules.

Fabio, the mind after Anticamente, lent us his armies because there are always new players who haven’t the pieces to play. I haven’t an army too, so I took a feudal one, a heavy army, but at the end I don’t liked its composition. So at the start I didn’t understand what I could do with some pieces and I wasted them with bad moves. Gasbarri, the evil one who wins all tournaments, instead built his army with his soldiers. So, not only he is a great gamer, he has got even a tested army. The same day I bought from Fabio the rough pieces (his TB Line produces them in 10mm) for a Roman army, so the next year I will have got my army. And I’m thinking about a medieval army too. However the pieces are too small for my father painting skills, so I will give them to a friend.

We played three games. The first one was against Gasbarri. In the beginning I almost won, but I hadn’t the forces to give the last shot. So, with my army scattered around, this devil under man appearance, kill my pieces one by one. He plagued the loo too, because he is really a demon. The second game was against Paolo “Ronin Clan” with Mongols. I waited a lot to move my heavy cavalry while his light cavalry harassed my troops. I sweared a lot because of my bad dices. At the end Paolo thrown away his cavalry against mine and there was no story: I won.

Here you can see Bizio, the other man after Anticamente. He is under the curse of the creator of a game: he write the rules but he cannot win! And this was true even this time, with the last position of the day. He played a great game but my army was too hard to scratch under clouds of arrows, so I waited until the end to strike back. My victory was little because the time was finished, but I had all my tough troops available so I could do anything.

Here you can see a human figure compared to a Zen Garden board. I showed my game to Bizio. He promised me to do some graphics for the game. Instead Fabio forgot to take me some quartz dust for the boards I’m producing. Shame on him!

Fabio and Bizio came in Rome Saturday. We made a walk in the centre and ate traditional food. Sunday we all ate other traditional food for lunch in a restaurant near Miles Glorious. I even met a Frenchman who is looking for other players. I passed two days of carefree. I like tournaments with friends, I like those moments.

It was only a year ago that I put this blog online. In the meantime I posted almost a message (with photos) every 3 days. So, a lot of words and a lot of images. It is fun to speak to the world about this hobby of mine. But it is even a hard work to do. I hope you find interesting these my things. I browsed all my past post and I found a lot of memories. It was a happy year, a year of my life. Here you can find only a slice of my existence obviously, it is a portrait of myself with my hobby and related friends. I’m ready for another year of blogging. And today I’m involved in Anticamente tournament here in Rome. The report in this blog in the following hours. Let’s go on…

A brief note to say that we (me and Andrea “Ganesha Games” Sfiligoi) are thinking about the realisation of a limited edition of my game Zen Garden with some revised rules and better materials. It will be handmade but with professional elements. In the following weeks we will start the production. A demo will be present at Lucca Games at the end of October. You could see the real game ready for Christmas, I suppose. Now I’m a game producer too…

Another day in Terni, another day with Song of Drums and Shakos Large Battles (maybe in the final version the name will be without “Song”). The train left Roma station at 7.48 in the morning. This time Federico from Rome was with us. He is a veteran of Napoleonic battles. Our guest is Sergio as usual, with his game, his kindness and a powerful pasta with red and green pesto, red and green as Terni’s coat of arms.

I resulted in a very bad performance. I act as an amateur. I went straight ahead but enemy cavalry was not so convinced to permit this to me. It is true that in this manner we could destroy it because was alone in the field and under fire from our forces. At the end I put my soldiers at the will of my partner in the game, Sergio himself. But Sergio wrong move was that he didn’t develop early the reserves, especially the artillery.

As I thought, this is not the last version of SDS LB (from now DSLB). Other tweaks have to be do. Nothing so big, but something to improve the game in some situations. Linear games are even a bit complicated by geometric messes, and we don’t want a game for land surveyors.

Maybe we could see the complete game at the end of the year…