Archive for May, 2012

My name is Pond, Amy Pond

If you haven’t a girl you can always buy one, a plastic one, indeed.

Amy Pond is the cutest Dr. Who’s companion and you have the possibility to have on your desk a fine reproduction of Karen Gillan (the actress) in her stage dress.

Another great toy in 1/6 format (12″ or 30cm high), with a lot of options and gadgets, and a signed limited edition availability too. The price is not so cheap, it is in pre order at only £150 from Big Chief, the producers. If you are a real fan…

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Tokyo apocalypse

I have got my copy of a ruleset to fight battles with giant monsters in small scale. I even have got the miniatures (gashapoon), so what could I do?

On a very cold Saturday afternoon, I visited the Reeinder club, in the suburbs of Rome, relatively close to my place. I wanted to test the complete Mighty Monsters ruleset in a 4-players game. Lorenzo set up a tennis table with a urban landscape. I added some Monsterpocalypse buildings. They are a bit sparse because the play area was larger than I initially thought. One player didn’t show up, so this was a three player game and I was the umpire. I explained the rules. If I read them more before the play maybe the game could run better, especially for the victory conditions at the end… My bad…

Well, all this was a lot of time ago, it was cold, very cold, I was half frozen. You can see Lorenzo (of Zerloon blog fame) wearing only a t-shirt, while his friends are less impervious to low temperature.

There were three factions: “Mechagodzillas” (one model for the first movie incarnation and another one from a later flick), “Space Aliens from an evil planet” (Megalon, Gigan, and the little Mogera), and “The stomping forces of good” (Godzilla and Mothra).

Godzilla is the king of monsters (King Kong is only the king of Skull Island…) so all the enemies thought to stop him and take the crown for themselves. The fight was a gang up over poor Godzilla, who fought back vigorously. Mothra could help him but the player was unlucky and this over-sized butterfly did absolutely nothing! In the meantime, the huge mechanised monsters kept at a distance striking with long range missiles and energy beams. And then all the aliens were in the fight. Godzilla still stood — barely. The game emphasizes this type of fighting, just like the films. The alien player forgot about the mechanised menace at his back. So, in that cloud of destruction, the steel monsters joined the fray virtually undamaged. The end was nigh.

I have to set up a game again in this club. They are very friendly fellows. In the photo, you can see some of the games on their shelves…

Their website is: https://www.reincorp.it

For another chronicle of the play:
https://zerloon.blogspot.it/2012/01/diario-di-gioco-173-mighty-monsters.html

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Ludica: the Ganesha Games video

It was snowing on Rome, and we were frozen inside the Ludica event in Rome fair. You can read more on this old post of mine. At that moment, the organisers asked to made a video of us to promote their convention. I refused to speak because you have to be concise and professional, leaving to Andrea the duty to do it. Then they filmed a long interview about Ganesha Games and wargames, with a small talk about Flashing Steel, the game that Andrea was presenting during that fair.

We were waiting the edit of the video, but after a while we forgot this thing. Last week, while I was checking the dates for the next Ludica in Rome in November (I have to program the next appointments, in Autumn I will take part to 4 tournaments and 4 conventions), I found that only few days after they edited the material. I told Andrea the news and some instants after he spread the presence of the video on You Tube via his social networks contacts. So now you can see Andrea speaking while some inserts show my hands that throwing dices and move miniatures. He is the orange guy, I am the hands from black and grey sleeve. There is even the first Zen Garden presentation of the game. Sorry, all the dialogue is in Italian, but even if you don’t understand a word you can always view the images.

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Projects: viaduct and arena

I started to speak about these two projects a long time ago. Now I can give you some updates. The former is the project for an arena for my gladiators, the latter is the viaduct for Flyton, the fictional town where I want to set my battles with miniatures.

At the last Hellana I could meet some friends of mine, as Filippo, that gave me this present, a prêt-à-porter arena made of cardboard from a box for computer equipment, a sheet for railway modelling with engraved regular stones, a touch of spray paint that create the stone effect. And his skills for assembling all in this attractive form. Three doors are made with toothpicks or other little wood bars. The final touch is the waterproof wood-like coating of the external surface with some sort of adhesive sleeve. I will utilise this arena for presentations or other similar contexts, because it is built to be portable. I have to give it some final touches to complete the global aspect. Now all is flattened on a single tone. I want a sand colour for the base, the same of the gladiator bases used for my fighters. I must buy more Vallejo “dark sand”, I suppose. And I wish a reddish brown for the walls. When I will do it? I’m thinking to bring with me this arena to explain the rules to my future playtesters. So very quickly! I’m almost in the external playtest phase.

Do you remember the viaduct? Fabio was building it with his family help, but he is always so busy with his job (and the TB Line, and Anticamente) that these polystyrene blocks were remained at the bottom of the to do list. Finally he gave me the unfinished materials so I can realise the model. Fabio printed some sheets with the brick motive to create the missing parts. The work is not so complicated to complete, there are some pieces to be glued. Flyton city is still without houses and gladiators are more urgent, so this viaduct is something that now must wait for better times. Maybe next year, this is the year of “Zen Garden”, “Ferrum et Gloria” and “Song of Spears and Shields”, only to mention the main Ganesha Games rulesets on the works where I am “slightly involved”…

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This is my Gruppo Combattimento Folgore action figure. It is a custom figure created with spare parts from other figures. I made the badges using photos of real badges, reduced in size, than printed and put on a tape with a double adhesive surface. So, on a side I attached the badge, while the other surface was attached on the battle dress. With a black marker pen I darkened the borders. I obtained some good badges, I solution than I would like found before.

As you know, I have got a real battle dress of this kind for reenactment. It is more practical than the other uniforms than I own, that of Italian design. On the photo, as “bookcase guardians”, all my action figures. It is a complete series of Folgore uniforms of the WWII. The new figure is a reproduction of the paratroopers operating in the 1944-1945 for the South Reign of Italy. On the extreme right there is the paratrooper of Italian Social Republic always for 1944-1945.

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I wrote a lot of posts about this reenacment event. It was an intense experience for me and I wanted to show you that large amount of vehicles and uniforms. Mine is a replica of those of Gruppo Combattimento Folgore, the paratrooper troops of South Reign of Italy in 1944-1945. They are the English Battle Dress with Italian badges, because the old uniforms were lacerated by wear.

Here there is the same uniform but with the paratrooper suit and a more practical combat cap.

And now some images from our stop on the way to home. This is the tablet at Case Grizzano, a place, some houses on a hill, where Italian and German paratroopers found death only a few days before the end of the war, in a failed attempt to break the front in the plains from the lateral side on the mountains.

The cippus. Sad that there is nothing for the Germans.

The valley where Italians attacked.

A country cemetery, place of a German machine gun position. Now a empty cemetery.

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This event is a mobile one, it is a column made of vehicles, so you need a historical vehicle. Our little group prevently found four seats on a camion but a nice gentleman (Mario, thank you again!) offered us a passage with his jeep, a Ford GPW. It is a replica of the car of the commander (general Arturo Scattini) of the Gruppo di Combattimento Friuli, that fought during the 1944-1945 years in this area. The specific white livery is distinctive of the command role.



A little problem with the klaxon. And the possibility to view the motor.

Here a post on a forum with the official presentation of the refurbished jeep to Mario’s friends.

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We travelled to Cesena, a town near our base. We were welcomed by the mayor and an elder partisan.


After a lunch for 350 seats, we parked in Pinarella di Cervia and prepared a more choreographic entry in Cervia, with people dressed as Germans (and who speak German, they are very pro!) who waited us and after fled to the sight of tanks (two Sherman and other vehicles). I was on the jeep, at the end of the column, so I couldn’t see the action, I have to wait for the release of the official dvd of the event to understand what happened.

More videos. I saw a lot of people who took photos and films of us. The availability of mobiles with great cameras turned people in media producers. Here the entry in Pinarella di Cervia parking. You can see me while I’m using my mobile on a camion. And finding on my video who is filming me.

Half an hour after we left. And some tanks were with us.

Here we were in Cervia, in the main phase of the event, with more audience, more reenactors who reached us, another authorities speech, displays. And a lot of chatting with other people: locals and lovers of reenactment. It is not only a show with strange people dressed as military troops, but the opportunity to confront ourselves with other people, and to know more on history, personal history and passions.


Fuel of a different kind.

Heavy steel…

This one was a rattletrap used as artillery target, now reconditioned after a lot of hard work. Probably it is the only exemplar of marching AB 40/41/43. This one is the last type, the AB 43, built in North Italy under German occupation for RSI forces and also known as Panzerspähwagen AB43 201(i).



Later we reached a huge restaurant with more than 500 seats. At the end we finally fell asleep. The day after there was a long trip along the Via Emilia but we went back home, with a stop. More on a next post.

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