A Fistful of Kung Fu brings the hyper-kinetic, bullet-spraying, demon-slaying, kung-fu-fighting action of Hong Kong movies and Asian cinema to the wargames tabletop. In a modern world walking a precarious line between the advances of next-generation technology and the tradition and mysticism of ancient cultures, Kung Fu schools face off in no-holds-barred tournaments, corporations hire agents and spies to steal each other’s secrets, overworked SWAT teams respond to gunfights between feuding Triad and Yakuza clans, and ancient artefacts are sought by hopping vampires, demon sorcerers and cyborgs alike. Combining the gunfights of John Woo’s Hard Boiled, the hand-to-hand combat of Enter the Dragon, the sheer mystical weirdness of Big Trouble in Little China, the wuxia action of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and everything in-between, A Fistful of Kung Fu is a skirmish wargame unlike any other.
Available by Osprey publishing in paper and digital format.

To play with adequate miniatures you can choose the official new range by Northstar miniatures! Here a gallery of all the 4 ready to play squads.

Black Hat miniatures, manufactures a full range of wuxia miniatures as wizards, zombie, phantasms, evil followers, dragons, human monkeys, warriors and so on! I cannot put here all the figures, they are a range with lots of sets.

For Ancient China, and lots of suitable henchmen, peruse the ranges made by Curteys miniatures. Various historical periods of the ancient China are available.

Do you want an huge crowd of modern Chinese civilians? And modern Hong Kong buildings? Pardulon makes 3 different sets with a total of 12 figures in civilian clothes. And modern fixtures building structures as doors, windows, drainpipes or air-conditioning units.

Ancient buildings in resin and MDF are available by various vendors. Look around for them. And play with A Fistful of Kung Fu!

Last but not least, the part dedicated to Ganesha Games of the Ludica Roma 2013 full report.

Space is not a big problem in the pavilions of Ludica. So we obtained lots of tables to show rules and games. A DBA in 1:72 scale was organised by Diego.

On your wargame tables in 2016! One of the first playtests of some new ideas for a game by Andrea.

The first public preview of A Fistful Of Kung-Fu. Out by Osprey Publishing in February…

A photo from the first day in the fair. Building modular walls for my arena.

And after the masonry work, a chocolate snack. The candies stand poisoned the air with a terrible stench of chocolate. You couldn’t resist it for long. So I bought my waffel stick!

And here my arena. A lot of people appreciated it.

Those days my father was painting more spectators. However these are just all very active.

Among reenactors there were some involved in gladiatorial fights. A nice chap illustrated to people the specific disciplines of arena. I took advantage of the situation to brandish weapons and touch helms. So I could have a direct experience of what I studied and applied in Ferrum et Gloria.

Do you recognise the different kinds of helms? In Ferrum et Gloria you can understand why these are made in every specific way.

Shields and greaves. Due to hits, you can see as these are used in real fights.

In front of you an arbelas, with its crescent blade.

Back to Ganesha Games space. On the right a preview of the second volume of my rules: gladiatorial fights with ships.

A more detailed view.

An OGAM tournament was held the Saturday. I was very nervous because I only play it in playtests with Andrea mastering. Moreover I didn’t know the final version and how to build a winning strategy. Indeed this is my year: another great result, the third place! A Ludica gold dice and a book from Osprey as prize.

Another preview. I’m planning another game after Ferrum et Gloria. With this photo I suggest the topic of it. We knew in Ludica a reenactor of this historical period that is even a wargamer. An interesting meet.

Now we are waiting for Ludica Rome 2014. And the organisers are waiting for an analysis of the fair that I have to write to them. And you are waiting for other fair reports that still I have to write. In the meantime: Merry Christmas!

Still the Ludica Roma 2013 report. Aiming to our real interest: wargame.

Well, the thing that you can easily note on the photo is the candies stand. However we were there. Ganesha Games was situated where is the bunch of people at the extreme bottom, on the left part of the photo.

Another view. The previous photo was took on the balcony where are the escalators. The moment is dramatic: a lamp on the roof turned off so they are working on it.

A dream that we realise was the Samurai Robots Battle Royale game. Instead here we have a wargame by Bandai in the Gundam universe. The Italian Gundam club organised this display with gashapons, among other games and things. I’m almost thinking to join this club…

Two-dimensional wargame goes 3D! There was a large display with two-dimensional wargames like this.

Samurai. We all need some bamboo fences, Japanese houses and other related things: we have to be ready for a Japanese wargame, ever.

The last production by Torriani: rules for western battles with miniatures.

A huge scenario by Games Workshop staff. The colours of water were amazing.

Di Bartolo’s Napoleonic rules made their debut in Ludica, published by Chillemi editions. Here while a game was held.

Look at this vineyard!

Some time ago I saw the huge Napoleonic miniature collection by Di Bartolo’s club. Every time I wonder for their beauty.

Last days to OGAM’s Nickstarter! This is the last chance to pledge for miniatures of the upcoming Of God And Mortals. You can watch the available range on this post.
Osprey is shipping rules copies too. I touched a preview copy a month ago but now I can have mine.
On past posts you can follow some development phases of them, published more that a year ago. As here when it was only an idea, or here where is concealed under the name “One Game About Miniatures” (=”OGAM”).
Have fun with this game!

North Star, miniature producer and vendor, have started another Nickstater. It is a program to build pre-orders for miniature lines useful for new Osprey wargame rules. It gives free figures, discounts and free postage. If they manage to raise certain target amounts of money, they will release either free figures or new models into the design schedule. This time they are making sets of licensed figures for Of Gods And Mortals by Andrea Sfiligoi. When the game is released in October 2013, they will have eight box sets to accompany the rule book. These will be four different gods, and four different legends sets. This will give you the myth content of pantheons inside the book. If the rules and miniatures manage to get the attention they deserve, there will be more figures and additional army lists available. Maybe Osprey could even be convinced to give us a full supplement for OGAM. I am involved in this project (I am one of the playtesters) and I hope you like it!

To know more on this project or to pledge, go to the OGAM Nickstarter page:
https://nstarmagazine.com/OF_GODS_AND_MORTALS.htm

At last! I’m so busy these days that I couldn’t write about this great convention. Here we go.

San Marino is a small republic inside Italy. It dominates a fortified mountain so with natural and artificial defences they obtained a form of independence along centuries. Moreover it is only a mountain, a not so important land to conquer. It was ever used as free port, so its existence was a safeguard to balance of power and economical interests in the area.

Today San Marino is a tourist trap inside real medieval walls and houses. Very beautiful indeed. You can find tourists shops, stamps and money minted only for collectors, an amazing view, some fake museums (wax museum, curiosity museum, torture museum, vampires museum,…), weapons sold almost freely, castles, money recycling in local banks, Russian female shopping assistants. However it is worth a visit.

Under the main city there is a luxury hotel where our games convention was held. Huge spaces and great treatment. I never stayed in a place so beautiful. It is too much for our wargamers habits!!! Because we were out of season, we pay for this hotel an extreme bargain price. A paradise…

The convention was held in a two storey hall. In the photo you can see less than a half storey, so think about the rest! There is a cinema inside too. At the first floor we had the boardgame convention, at the second floor the wargame section. Dadi.Com is a convention funded by Lorenzo Sartori in Crema, his city at the north of Italy, but since 2011 it is held inside another convention in San Marino, because of higher money necessity to run it in the original place. More images on Dadi & Piombo website. And these are the pages on the convention Dadi.Com, while these ones are for the San Marino Game Convention.

The location was great but the public was scarce. San Marino is out of main routes, moreover the economical crisis cut trips of wargaming people. We had the place, we had Italian vendors, we had 2 UK and 1 German vendors, we had great wargame tables. But we had only some local visitors and too few grognards too. So we had fun but there weren’t the numbers to foster this convention. This was my first time in San Marino, I like it very much, but other people said me about the loss in participation.

I’m in a hurry so I can’t describe everything that I saw in this trip in San Marino inside this two day convention. I can only briefly speak about what I loved of it.

Manorhouse is an Italian maker of buildings. Here a rather passable scene made by their products…

The big game was this Peach Orchard wargame. I’m not into ACW but the spectacle was great.

Instead here we are in Castelfidardo 1860, an Italian affair…

What I like most was this game by Bizio, an house rules version of Starfight by Beer & Pretzel Games. I found this game very easy to understand and with interesting play mechanisms. No sheet necessity, all is done with dices! Brilliant rules, a smooth mastering by Bizio, a lot of fun. A space (naval) game with the right ideas to play it speedily. A must have! Look at the miniatures: they were made by a friend of Bizio with every kind of materials.

My battle against Diego. I lead a Klingon vessel against a Federation ship. My vessel was weaker than that feeble human scum warship but my heroic aptitude win the day!

Follow the next week…

While we are waiting for the new part of the Doctor Who television series, I wish to show you some Daleks that I own. Thanks to Alessio and Emily that bought me this Doctor Who Adventures issue, I laid my hands on a plastic set with Daleks miniatures, incidentally in 28mm scale. These are from a children magazine that give away some Dr Who themed toys every week, and these Daleks set sold very well so they presented them for 3/4 times.

The sculpt is not so fine and some details are fainted, the assembly sometime is a little approximative, but they are very cheap. Now I don’t remind exactly prices but as far I remind you can have got a box of Daleks for the price of a single Dalek from Shapeways. If you live in UK could built a large Dalek army with these miniatures. So I create a newDaleks squad with an official in black armour and five troopers in bronze and gold. I panted a black skullcap for them to add some contrast. I don’t like these pale metallic newDaleks so much, I prefer the classical design and strong coloured patterns. Moreover now they seem too much powerful and invincible too.

Another new design in the set is for iDaleks (or “paradigmDaleks”) with their bright five colours. It is the revolutionary form for these pepper shaker aliens, with more soft lines. Since sixties we had a design that evolved principally through colour patterns so something new had to be added, even if Daleks are a national icon like double-deckers or telephone boxes. However was the time to say something new about Daleks.

And now a parade of the various Daleks that I own. From left to right: renegadeDalek, imperialDalek, newDalek, iDalek, Spider Dalek. And this evening a new adventure on BBC with the Jenna-Louise Coleman mystery!

Last November I saw 3D printing in Ludica fair in Rome. So I thought about to buy something made in this way to touch a future feel. A special offer with free delivery from Shapeways gave me the opportunity to spend money for a Spider Dalek.

Some days after, in Christmas time as you can see for the towel, I received a huge parcel with inside a little transparent sprue. It was pretty viscid and the details were fine but a little crispy. 3D printing is not perfect, you cannot have a resin mould quality. A method to obtain smoother surfaces is to scratch them with a acetone light wash or other acid substances. I’m lazy so only wash the sprue with a lot of soap.

A Spider Dalek is a fictional Dalek – the others are real, aren’t they – an aborted hypothesis for a character development. There is not a definite design, only some sketches. So I was not so sure about how to assemble it. A fast painting on the first Daleks colour pattern complete it. Now it is ready to spread terror among the galaxy.