Archive for the ‘ ferrum et gloria ’ Category

Playing cards: gladiators

I had got for the 2010 Christmas these playing cards based on gladiators. Well illustrated (even if retiarii didn’t fight against thraeces, and other inaccuracies), they are part of a series of publications by Lo Scarabeo. They are specialised in thematic playing cards for collectors and tarots. You can find their products here. So while I’m playing with traditional games with cards, I can say I’m playing with gladiators… Well, I don’t know poker, so it is better to play with miniatures instead. And with my Ferrum et Gloria indeed!
Under here you can recognise Charon, the Etruscan god of the underworld with his peculiar hammer (on the header of this blog there is my Charon miniature!), and the “game” with Phersu that I showed in another post.

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Happy Model +Libri +Liberi

As I said before, there are some things that are almost the same year after year, some periodic appointments that you can find on this blog year after year. So we have another Happy Model, the big edition before Christmas. I was there the last year, as you can read on this post. It is a national market for railway modelling and even for other related stuff. Here you can see a scene that recreate the railway near my house.

This year I found a large quantity of soldiers for collectors. I’m amazed from the quality of this delicacies. They are still little soldiers but you can show a lot of details. It would be a great thing to play with these soldiers but they cost a lot and you need bigger tables.

In the following photos you can see materials for thousands of euros…

…and a joy for the eyes!

The madness is always the same: I could buy only a bunch of them for a little skirmish, they are so beautiful,…

…but after rationality come back so you are free of absurd thoughts.

The real danger: play my Ferrum et Gloria with 54mm!

These times are even those ones for +Libri +Liberi, the national market for small publishers. Last year I was there. You can find pile of interesting books but you cannot find enough space at home to store just a couple of them. I found various titles but I restricted myself to only two book. The first one is an edition of Opera Nova by Achille Marozzo, a guide written in the XVIth century about sword fighting. A great document about techniques that you can find in those years but even for all that regards fight with hand weapons. I hope I find some ideas for Ferrum et Gloria.

The latter is a book about the months from the landing of Anzio and Nettunia to the invasion of Rome. This time watched from an Italian perspective! I’m tired of reports written by winners, history is another thing. The fairy tale told to us is about US soldiers (and the other people didn’t exist at all!) who wanted to give us liberty and only bad Nazis slowed them. So this one is another view, with Italians in it! I reenact every year the landing from the bad guys side, as an Italian paratrooper. You can read it on the last year post.

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Blood & Glory

The first time I watch the ad I thought: “They have stolen my game!”. I passed a lot of time to find the name “Ferrum et Gloria” and now exists a gladiator game called “Blood and Glory”! What a surprise! For my fortune it is only a computer game and not a wargame, so my name is safe.

You can see on these two promotional shots what kind of wonderful graphic it has, and even that the fighters only resemble gladiators because it is a fantasy version of what ars dimicandi was.

I downloaded this game for my Ipad. It is very nice because of the fighters great design and for the glamorous feel it give. But it is even a simple and classical coded fight between two digital puppets and nothing more. Boring to me. It is a feast for the eyes so I don’t care if I don’t play it, I see only the graphic and it is enough. It seems a free game but you can’t get past a certain point without spending real money to buy special abilities. It is another way to sell games: pay to have more levels, pay to play more. The sad thing is that at the end you will pay to play this game a lot of money little by little.

In the meantime I’m thinking about my gladiator game. Every time I re-take it after some time I find some new idea to improve it, so you are waiting to have something very special…

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Who is Phersu? He is this nice dancing man from the Etruscan times. But he is even the man who hold the rope in this funeral game where another man is bounded to a ferocious dog. From “phersu” (mask) we have the word “person”, so he is more important than you thought.

These little dioramas are inspired by real painted scenes from graves. Perugia is at the edge between Umbrian and Etruscan cultures, on the side of the latter. And there is a local miniature maker who call himself “Phersu Miniatures” because of this influence.

His production is based on resin pieces about rare subjects, as you can see here, almost entirely in 1:72 scale. But he has got Phersu in 1:72, 28mm and 54mm. In the next months he wants to expand his ranges with metal miniatures because resin casting is a slow process: faster in the casting means more time to sculpt. His work is targeted to modellers and not wargamers but I hope he is changing his mind because he could find a peculiar space in the miniature producer world.
In the following photos some delicacies in 1:72 scale. If you want to know more about it, you can visit:
https://sites.google.com/site/phersuminiatures

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Resin arena on e-Bay

In these times I’m looking E-Bay all days because I’m looking for some ancients troops to create armies for all Italic people around 400 b.C.. So in the while you can find a thing like this, even if Filippo find it before me! It is a huge resin arena from USA wide 2 feet and 8 inch high. Quick! This auction ends today!

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Steve Barber’s arena

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Here we have a Steve Barber’s arena. Very beautiful, very Roman! I saw it even in my local lead pusher here in Rome, situated near the Colosseum. It is made in resin (a little heavy I suppose…), a circular arena compounded by 4 parts. Three parts are the same, one have a place for the imperator instead. The price of this thing is imperial too: 150 quid… Well, the space to play is too little so I cannot buy it, it is useless for my game. Beautiful but not cheap and without a interesting size for the playground. But I like it.

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Steve Barber has a even a range of gladiators and spectators. And a chariot! 25mm and old sculpts, I presume. I have got more big pieces, 28mm, those by Steve Barber are small pieces, and they can seem their children…
You can find the range and the arena here:
https://www.sbarber-models.clara.net

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White Colosseum

This is what everyone wants if he has got space and a ton of polystyrene. Well, it is too much white, maybe you can prefer a more masonry touch like actual Colosseum, but in the ancient times it was all covered by coloured marbles. So its aspect was almost white, after all. But not so white.

You can know more on this Colosseum in white here. A bit rough but great. And it is 20 years old!

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Adventures in Lead

Another guy is under a spell: to make an arena for his gladiators! Here his blog: https://adventuresinlead.blogspot.com/search/label/gladiators

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Hexagonal terrain and detailed construction. He has chose the Morituri Te Salutant rule system and an hexagonal grid for its movements. I have my system in development with Ganesha engine inside. More on it in the future…

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