We tried (and Diego bought it) this game with miniatures set in WWII with Russians against Germans in a Stalingrad type of landscape which can remind a famous flick with doors and enemies…

It is an interesting skirmish game with miniatures bigger than usual 28mm ones. You can have a good fight among destroyed buildings and ruins. The rules are simple and there is a smart system to alternate turns between the two players: you have 12 activation points, you can use one-six of them and after give the action to the other player, so you can strategically use your points to wait a better moment or strike hard. Every soldier is a well definite character with his arms, abilities and limit of activation points which he can use. If he take a wound, his stats change. With another wound he is dead.

You can consider this game as a application on WWII of fantasy miniature games where every piece is a character. The impression is good, you can have a lot of fun around Stalingrad with a real skirmish game, but miniatures games are another thing. Here you have specific pieces, a limited prospective of what you can do with miniatures. If you want a game with your army you must looking for other rules. Flying lead among these…

The result of this demonstration game? I win, Diego died!

More on this game here: https://1-48combat.com/

In Lucca we tried (and bought) this boardgame wrote by two young Italians. It is about the management of teams of gladiators. The fights are decided by series of throw of dices (fun and with a good feel of gladiator style, indeed), but the interesting part is about the interaction with the other players to cheat the fight and to compete to set a spectacle in arenas around the Roman world. It is a simple game complicated by the possibility of interact with the others, to compose temporary alliances and treason to set your spectacle in the best way. Playable only with four players, for 2 or 3 people is lame. Game’s historical feel of the art is very good. Nice box with good materials, but I changed quickly the D10 dices inside with two with Roman numbers!

Here their website: https://www.albepavo.com/en/munera-FG_overview-en.html

Here we go! The place for games was enormous, only it could be a full convention. I passed two days inside it and I can say that I haven’t saw it entirely. A long queue to enter, even with the rain. So heavy that sometimes inside you cannot hear the voices of other people.

A lot of game stands with the Giochi Uniti one as the biggest. You could play a new game with a master that explained the rules. I think that were almost 20 tables for Giochi Uniti, and a lot of other tables for other game editors.

Olympus was decreed like the best game of the show. It is a game made by Italians. It is about the development of your polis through prayers to Greek gods! I want to play it!

Another game that I want to try is this one about the fire that destroyed London. It is a game where you can direct the fire against the proprieties of your rivals to save yours. A good opportunity to know more about London and to have less friends!

And this one is a boardgame with miniatures, chtulhuian I suppose. Well sculpted pieces indeed. I want to give a chance to this game to enter in my house. I must know more about it!

In the same glass showcase I found this preview of the new wave of Wing of War planes from WWII. Italian fighters at last! And a new expansion with bombers of WWII. I like Wings of War, I have the WWI one, but I think that the scale is wrong for WWII dogfight. They are too big. The only good thing is they are very beautiful and they are prepainted.

A participation game was set with this Circus Maximus in cardboard and 1:32 miniatures. A good look! Throw the dice and see the result, this is the spirit of this type of games, and people have fun with a simple game. But when I saw chariots that run among gladiators, well, I wanted to vomit. All right, it is all for the fun, but please…

I’m here again! I had a holiday of four days full of excitement, a full immersion in my passions: lead soldiers, boardgames, videogames, comics, action figures, mangas, vinyl toys, gashapons, Japanese robots, cosplays, and all this type of stuff. My eyes were full of imagines that my brain couldn’t process immediately. Four full days among other 135000 people there for the convention, but no sense of fatigue in myself. My only regret is that I wanted more and more, but as usual I returned to normal life.

What is Lucca Comics and Games? Well, it is one of the biggest convention about comics. It started a lot of time ago, and it was confined inside a basket stadium. An occasion for people in the comics field to meet and talk to each other. Year after year more people came and the event had more spaces around the stadium inside large plastic tents.

A section about games was added and the people grew more and more. Comics was became not more a thing for people with glasses and dirty dresses but a lot of females joined the public of comics readers thanks to Dylan Dog (an horror comic with the highest number of pressed copies) and mangas. The first cosplayers were viewed around too. The place was too small and one time there was the apocalypse of the event: a heavy rain fell on people and comics, and there was a two hour queue under the rain for a ticket and none admission due to too many people inside the convention.

After this destruction a new idea brought the event outside the stadium and its parking: now Lucca Comics and Games was inside the city, it was the city!!!

Lucca is a precious jewel, with its huge and green bastions, delicate palaces, towers (one with trees on the top!), impressive churches for peregrines, remains of ancient times like a Roman amphitheatre developed into a place with rounded buildings. It is a rich city from ancient times, full of history, and now the city of comics, with a museum to decree this.

On this map you can see where the party was: sky for comics, pink for games, yellow for shows, meetings and events. In the following posts I will speak about things I saw and did.

Here the official photogallery (I think I will post some pics from it if I haven’t the right photo for a situation): https://www.flickr.com/photos/luccacomicsandgames
I will have even some pics took by my friend Paolo of Ronin Clan fama. See his blog for more photos!

Tomorrow I will go to Lucca for 4 days to participate to Lucca Comics and Games 2010. A terrific convention all around a beautiful town setted for this annual event. I hope I survive.
The website: https://lucca2010.luccacomicsandgames.com/

I will present my gladiator game there. You will see the pics when I return.

Dragon Paint is a panting service from China. My friend Bandini bring with him some surpluses to sell from his enlistment.

Here we have his magical IKEA metallic box full of Russians on sale.

My new Russian team while I was choosing which command group I have to bring with me at home.

They are Front Rank miniatures. I hope that this Chinese painters buy their pieces from Front Rank, I don’t want clones. An officer painted by Roberto Bagna (right) compared with an officer painted by Dragon Paint (left). The photo is out of focus but you can see the differences, especially for the uniform details, painted with more speed and sometimes not so historically accurate for the Chinese.
Well, I prefer the Bagna one, it is more realistic and well painted, but the Russians from China are not bad, cheap and Bagna is not my painter (sigh!). In the future I will have something little more from Dragon Paint.

I suppose there is something wrong in my matches… Today the Roman contingent went very bad: last (Paolo), almost last (me), almost almost almost last (Diego). Wake up at 6.40 in the morning on Sunday, 4 hours of car, 30 euros no more in my pockets… Something to think about!
Well, it was not bad at all. I have fun. Yes, fun. A day playing with my friends from all around (central) Italy is a fun.

Here some chaps at the results desk. Thoughts about tactics and the armies.

Are you saying that I cannot shooting him?

My heroic Dragone della Guardia among goddamns, looking for the life of their commander.

Evil frog-eaters in the safety behind the wall.

My heroics troops before to be overwhelmed by a (not so) suicide charge by the evil frog-eaters.

A charge against my heroes by the Ganesha boss. I died after one or two moves…

Another report here: https://drumsandshakos.blogspot.com/2010/10/todays-tournament-in-terni-results.html

And here: https://www.wargamespezia.org/le-attivit%C3%A0/torneo-sds-terni-2010/

A small but heavy box is now in my home. Some reinforcements for my SDS armies. My little warriors will mount on horses.
There are 3 layers of miniatures in the box but I have no time to take away them from it, too much work to do in these days. I have no time to sleep too, only 6 or less hours at day…