This time Sergio was at home and only Andrea came to Hellana. Hellana is a convention only for players of historical wargames so Ganesha’s fantasy rulesets were not so appreciated here. I asked about a game with Song of Spear and Shield and Andrea satisfied me. It’s time that a skirmish game for ancients see the light because there are around a lot of beautiful 28mm that you cannot use with DBX or other games where you have to simulate an entire battle. Thousands of men reduced to formations of 28mms in tens is not the right look of a battle. Sometimes you want something smaller, a fight with only a part of troops. So you can even buy not an entire army but only the pieces that you want.

We set a game but something didn’t work. I have my ideas of what a fight with ancients is so I wanted to play in another way. All is too much simple for the period but complicated for some mechanics. There is the need of counters and this is bad. The mix of concepts from “Song of Blades and Heroes” with “Song of Drums and Shakos” and “’61-’65” doesn’t work. We couldn’t think about the scale to give to the game, how you can put in battle array your historical troops. No solution.

I was a hard playtester this time because I like ancient history very much. And I want a great game and not a watered to humans version of “Song of Blades and Heroes” with spear and shields. Andrea was very dubious after my remarks. Another game was set but with other people. They have fun with what I refuse.

Me and Paolo were walking around without a game to play, Andrea was free so we tried another game. And this time we put forward a lot of ideas. We change the mechanics, the overlap modifiers, how a man can die, how fight, how calculate morale status, how to regroup, how command troops. A lot of things! Now it was entirely another game. Andrea must prove it to test it. And we want to play again with this new version but with a lot of troops involved!

Obliviously no release date yet!

More reviews and report of this second day.

If you love London you will love this game! Graphically you have wood houses and cones of fire, on a board with a detailed map of London in 1666. You have to arson houses owned by your opponents and stop the fire in the areas near your houses. But the fire is so unstoppable and you don’t know which houses others own! A great game for a bastard play. He he he! We bought it!
More here

Do you want a more complicated Agricola? Do you want resources that running down and anxiety? Put all those things in a new game and you will have a German naval docks game. Too heavy for me!
More here

The theme is out of the context, but the game is great. An original form of positioning you pieces in areas. Very strategical but simple, fun and with possibility to gamble against your opponents. Maybe we will buy it.
More here

In the meantime there were a bunch of 3d wargames tournaments, among them the DBA.

Here you can see Di Bartolo’s Napoleonic demonstrative game.

Saturday there was a SDS tournament. During the fair there were demonstrative tables with Ganesha Games’s rules, and Sergio and Andrea.

Among other tables there were a lot about WH40k with huge scenarios and tons of miniatures.

I don’t understand what you can play in this scale with big cannons that fire infighting! Throw a bunch of dices to calculate wounds to big toys? This is a game for 2mm and not for 28mm… Stupid and a waste of money on overpriced models.

Lego is a serious thing and it is not only for children…

Laser sword learning course.

We are in Terni again, at Sergio’s house, also known as Palalaliscia!
Were a lot of time we wanted to do another gaming day with new productions in the works by Ganesha Games. So, me and Andrea played with giant monsters and Diego and Sergio played with little Napolonic soldiers.

Here can view Sergio during the rules briefing. This is the last version of Song of Drums and Shakos Large Battles. We tried it last year with an area movement approach and in this metric form.

I followed only part of the battle setted for the testing. It was the first day of the Tolentino battle of 1815. The play went on with debating about the rules and how to improve them. Diego is a fan of rules discussions and of Napoleonic era, so I think this session was very useful to Sergio to prove his game.

In another room another struggle went on. It was about giant Japanese monsters from cinema screens. I’m following this game from its born because I am a fan of kaiju. I have got a shelf full of 7cm mosters and a big Godzilla is watching me from a bookshelf while I’m writing on the keyboard.

Mighty Monsters is now almost ready. This latest version go on smoothly, only little adjustments are necessary. The wound system is brilliant: you have got 3 kind of dices, white to red throught yellow, every wound you have to substitute one dice with a worse one. If you fail your activation test with 1 on your yellow dice you must throw on a disaster table, while if you fail your activation test on your red dice you must throw on a worse disaster table. So you have wounds that effect your powers or your actions. Every monster have peculiar statistics and comportment, and you can build them with a point system. We had got some Toho’s monsters and you could watch them fighting like in a film!

For the gossip column I won the fight. Andrea’s Godzilla was lazy and without talent while his Ultraman fight well. My MechaGodzilla save the day with an heroic attitude.
Here you can see the Ipad with a page from the upcoming ruleset. We ascertain that a 90×90 terrain is the best, with a bunch of buildings as scenario. We must prove with Japanese Defence Forces another time…

Meka is a ruleset by Paolo. He is affected by megalomania and wants to create a system to play with 1:144 models of Japanese androids drawing inspiration from animes. After his former efforts now he realized something more reliable. We made this test to verify his ideas. And a lot of things seem to work out. There is something to improve, especially for a more fluid movement, but I think this is the right way for the game. He have to test what we have found out this afternoon and after he has to test again the game, with more pieces involved inside.

The great thing is that you can buy an action figure for a small amount of money, ready without painting and with a lot of possibility of poses and weapons, and instead to put it on a bookshelf you can play with it. There is a point system to built your mechas and so you can have different choices of play. While you are playing you can replicate the situations of the anime.

Here you can see Zakus, the best mecha design ever did. Look at the N scale scenario. It was bought in Japan during Paolo holidays.

The effort is to put inside the game all the weapons and mobilsuit types, so the datasheets are very large. With this game you could play even with other universes than the Gundam one. I hope to use my 1:144 Patlabors.

The testing was with me, Paolo and Franci. We made all versus all. I won the day. Next Sunday I will be in Terni to testing new Ganesha Games rules. Guess what I play with.

Quar are a fictional alien race, a concept for a world at the technological level of Europe during WWI. And they are a creation of Zombiesmith who together with Ganesha Games realized a gorgeous rule book for them. It is based on Flying Lead and Song of Blades. I bought it only for the extremely good graphics and for the love that the author put in it. This world, and the miniatures, are great. You can find more here.

Now there is even a computer graphic teaser of this saga. I like it very much, so I hope it for you.

The new issue is out. This is the Italian magazine about wargame with miniatures. It is bilingual, so you can read it even if you don’t know Italian but only English.

In this issue you can find an interesting article about Crusader and Foundry gladiators and how they are historically adequate or not, with notes about the real typologies of gladiators.

This issue is one of the best in the last times. You can find more here.

Luca is back in Rome from London to visit his parents, with wife and children. And so a new reunion of old chaps was setted! Here we are at the beginning of the evening, at work with forks and mouths. We ate (for each one): 1 crocchetta (boiled ground potato, then fried, with mozzarella inside), 1 fiore di zucchina (fried zucchini’s flower with anchovy and mozzarella), 1 oliva ascolana (fried minced olive with ground meat), 1 supplì (ball of fried rice with tomato and mozzarella), 2 arancini (big ball of fried rice with meat and other things and spices), 1 pizza (big like a roofing tile). I had some traditional sweets at home, but we only drink water and digestives.

After the dinner we played with Song of Drums and Shakos, 2 (I and Luca) vs. 2 (Paolo and Narciso), with a scenario managed by Diego. Turns was driven by playing cards. Glorious French have to sack some sheep (we simulated them with white dices!) to bastard goddams. You can guess which side I was. Well, more than skilful shepherds we were only dedicated to shoot enemies. At the end there were so many cadavers and sheep were almost useless because there were not more alive stomachs to feed.

Final photo! Outside the temperature is low so my chaps seem inflated to cover from cold. Or fried and pizza inflated we all!

Sergio Laliscia’s new rule set is out. It is about American Civil War but with some modifications it is utilizable even for Napoleonic period. This Summer we tried the rules with Sergio and we had fun with our English vs French. What I can say? Well, it seems to me like a SDS game with less pieces that move free around and more compact formations that fire and react together. So, it is a skirmish game but with the feel of a larger scale game. Try it!