Archive for October, 2011

Lucca Comics & Games: last call!

Lucca Comics and Games (October 28th to November 1st, Lucca, Italy) is one of the major geek-cons in the world, covering anything from comics, manga, action figures, anime, undressed girls (cosplay), RPGs, miniature wargaming, gothic lolitas, modelling, junk food, medieval arts, videogames, cardgames, aikido, boardgames, and so on.

I will be with the Ganesha Games crew (Andrea Sfiligoi and Sergio Laliscia) in the Historical Island wargaming area. There will be demo tables of Flashing Steel (pirates and privateers fighting over treasure on a beach), Mighty Monsters (monsters fighting on Monster Island as a volcano erupts), and Drums and Shakos – Large Battles (an army-level Napoleonic scenario played in 15mm scale). I will demo Zen Garden, the world’s smallest wargame (a small, handmade, play-right-out-of the box, super-condensed version of Ganesha’s core rules, played with 10mm samurai which I will sell only at conventions).

If I find a wi-fi point there will be some twit. See you here after the show with a full report and ton of photos!!! I hope I survive!!!!!

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Measure the garden

Zen Garden production is running fast. In the past days, as those who speak Italian can read on the new twitter box on the right, me and dad made some pieces for the game, as the measurer for the weapons at range and that one for the troops movement, in the form of a rake. I’m thinking about two versions of the game, one with glued sand the other one with sand that you can put by yourself, with the rake to design grooves. So the black rakes have got spikes.

In the meantime some dices arrived by post. Now I must only to custom them. And from Narciso I’m waiting for the first pagodas made in resin. I saw the prototypes in green stuff form. For Lucca I will have got the old game but with some new materials.

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Sic transit gloria bunga bunga

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News about Ganesha Games

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.

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Hobby show 2011

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…

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DBA Arezzo 2011

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.

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Romics 2011

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!

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