And now always Hellana 2015 but with a view on Ganesha Games stuff. We had three tables. The first one with a Fightin’ Fungi preview. Miniatures aren’t the kickstarter ones, they are still in sculpting phase. Delivery is scheduled for June. Some items was sold by Andrea here.
The other table was about a new game with Old West rules. This project is based on SBH mechanics and is written in Italian language. So Andrea have to translate it in English before publication. Seeing the late about Ferrum et Gloria in English, I don’t know when we will see it.

This one is my table. Always the custom Playmobil arena. And an introductive Provocator scenario. I have to do something new for next events. On the left some Italian copies of the rules, and gladiator miniatures.

Inside the arena a preview of the two 75mm gladiator miniatures painted by Simoncini. I am trying to propose a gladiator fight with bigger pieces, using these two. A combat pair of a secutor versus a retiarius. I must build some kind of arena and measure sticks for the fight. However they are very fragile, so maybe I can’t transport them around for wargame conventions.

During the day I mastered a couple of demonstration games. It’s hard to follow two players. The game is not so easy for children, even if Simoncini play it with his child, and the child win always. In the other play, father versus son, the son was more brilliant with rules, but had very bad dice.

The Italian wargame convention of the Spring. It is the longest running convention here in Italy. I went the first time in 2004. This year we chose to go the day before, even for the change of the legal hour. It is almost 3/4 hour far from Rome. With this choice we had the opportunity to watch convention set works too. Diego’s car is in its last days, so our travel was offered by “Sua Eccellenza”. The return instead was by Minatore’s car. I took a nap during both travels…

In the evening a dinner with the local club members and vendors. All meat based, not so great for a not-meat, and not-wine, lover like me. Too much money spent, but a common meal with other wargame people is always a good thing. Night in a budget but fine hotel.

And so the convention day. A lot of familiar faces around. Inside a primary school gym, with vendors along the walls and demonstration tables in the middle.

This is the ARSM’s club game. ARSM is the club where Diego plays. Standing you can see “Sua Eccellenza”. With white hair, the other travel companion, a ferrets breeder.

This year is 200th Waterloo anniversary, and this is Waterloo game.

Siege and assault to a Japanese castle.

A year too late for D-Day, but still an enjoyable game.

A great Old West set-up.

Among other tables, this one with a large amount of 28mm miniatures. More tables around, but here I don’t pretend to show a full report.

Other things in Hellana were a FOW tournament and this one with DBA 3.0. This year I don’t play DBA, I haven’t mental energy to do it. However I’m always near to my tournament friends that play it.

Easter was another opportunity for a Legio Palatina reunion. Luca is back from London thanks to UK holidays and his wife researches for the new annual edition of Rome guide book. Narciso had to work for my house but his laziness produce no effort to finish house blueprints. However he appeared for dinner. Diego instead was near his house. Evening in the local miniature shop. After pizza. Last drink in a roasted good store.

Centuria is a new wargame by Massimo Torriani together with some mates of him. Based on his engine called Operation Squad, they are rules for ancient wargame. You can obtain better informations on it on https://www.torrianimassimo.it. I tried it at Lucca and some weeks ago a tournament was held here in Rome.

We were inside a school. Some other games were played in other classrooms. This is the vantage to have a school director as wargamer.

I know something about the rules and engine principles but I didn’t participate to the tournament. I followed all the matches, indeed. However I stayed more than 6 hours to meet my wargame friends from Arezzo and Firenze, and from Rome too.

It was even the opportunity to watch beautiful 28mm miniatures. Some old Romans by Perry, some newer by Aventine, some made in plastic by Victrix. I even have got various Romans in my private Army, from various producers and epochs. I like Romans so much! Maybe because I’m Roman…

Every year we try to meet with members of our club Legio Palatina who live outside Rome. Festivities brought Luca from London and Paolo from Switzerland, together with Narciso from nearer Canino. This time we officially accepted new members: Gabriel and Jack are our younger generation. Locals are me and Diego.

Stuffed with panettone, butter biscuits and chocolate, we played an Afghanistan scenario with rules by Narciso, previously used during Lucca Games. Our table was too small for the huge quantity of polystyrene houses crafted by Narciso, so we kept another equivalent city in the boxes. Real house provided by Diego, instead.

Infidels were taken by white hair, Talibans by children. Sugar and fat excess in blood and juvenile impetuousness made a confused play. More a cavalry charge with automatic weapons than an urban fight. Moreover I killed my troops with an hasty advance, but some lucky throws hit my enemies.

At the end a draw and pizza for all. To the next year.

Do you know I have got another blog? Legio Palatina is the name of my gaming club. We play DBA at most, but we were playing at tournaments with SDS and Anticamente. Well, after a lot of years without a proper website, but a lot of mini websites for tournaments organized by us, some time ago I created a space for our activities, in a blog form. Or better, for our past activities: I was writing posts about our history, starting from 2002! I have got photos and remembers to fill up the posts. It’s a strange blog, it is speaking only about the past at moment. I have put in it materials until the end of 2004, and I wanted to slowly proceeding towards the following years. But I had other things to think as Ferrum et Gloria. So I postponed the duty. However it is beautiful to think about what you did. We appear a bit younger and slimmer in those moments. I think I will appear younger on the pictures of this month of 2014 when I watch them in 2024 or so.

The Legio Palatina blog is in Italian language, my mother tongue, to show our things better than my maccaroni English. There are a lot of pictures, maybe you can have fun even if you can’t read the words. And there is always Google translator…
For the blog, look here.

Holidays are an heavy duty so less news on the blog. However I promised to myself that this year I had to spend less time on the blog because I need time to write rules for Ferrum et Gloria. Well, this year I published 86 posts instead of 88. Target achieved…
Some brief news. In a month I visited my fiancée, spent a lot of money in a couple of fairs in Rome (books and food), walked around a lot, ate like a pig during Christmas, worked at my bureaucratic job, wrote an article for Dadi & Piombo about gladiators (out in April). And I took this photo at another playtest for Song of Spear and Shield. The rules are still blurred as this photo. Every time Andrea is not happy enough with the rules, but even this time he think that he found the right way. Instead for my photos I’m thinking about a new camera at the start of 2015.

The last tournament of the year. DBA, as usual. In Terni, again. This time I chose the army list only after a look at the theme. No brush up of rules too. I picked up a list with more knights than other ones. And nothing more. Incidentally it was the Papal one, so I chose to combat with the colours of Rome. As usual. A bloody tournament! First game: I lose 3 vs 4, with the last throw of the dice to decide who between I and Mr. Gasbarri could win. Second game: I drew 4 vs 4, fighting until the end of legal time, even if I could win. Third game: I won 5 vs 4 with my general dead, and the last turn with 3 dead of mine. Forth game: I won 4 vs 1, a result obtained after the first impact of armies. I reached the forth place, so no cup but maybe a record for body count in a tournament.
The next year we are thinking to play with 2.2 edition again because we don’t know very well the 3 edition still. And maybe the 2.2 is more engaging. However in 2015 I wish to dedicate my free time to Ferrum et Gloria, so I don’t know if DBA will be a priority again in my activities as player.