How to find some vehicles for my armies? Well, go to a train modelling convention, buy a cheap car from car collector, re-paint it.

Here you can see a Bounduelle van. I don’t want a salad but war, so a touch of dark grey-green paint and it is ready for my BUF army. I don’t know what kind of van it is, but it appears to me like a design that fit in VBCW 1938 scenario, even if it is more probably from later years, around late ’50s I suppose. I don’t care about cars or vans, I prefer tanks.

It is a little small in scale, maybe 1:65 instead of 1:56, but it is good to the eye. I painted red crosses on it because I wanted an ambulance to give to the play another variation. Rules about pick up of wounded…

And speaking about me, I have problems with my ADSL connection since Friday, so I can use only an emergency substitute (steal not protected WiFi from neighbourhood, briefly and only when I find it). I need an ambulance too because I’m addicted to lead and to internet…

I’m not a playing card collector, but I have just a couple of decks that a friend of mine gifted me. One of them is about Chinese posters, those strongly coloured images with propaganda scenes that years ago were very popular in China. Now maybe they are used only in North Korea. Their style is almost the same for all, a mix of comic art and realistic panting. I love these images, they are so naive even if their subjects are not so.

I choose some cards for you, reporting the scene in the brackets and under in italics the unintentionally funny legends. Left to right, obviously.

(Stalin and Mao, against the world, forgetting war between them)
Celebrating the longevity of the friendly alliance between China and the Soviet Union

(Haircuts with rifles)
The army and the people are all one family

(At school, ambushing among teaching post and desks)
Learning how to prepare for war

(Thoughts wearing military uniform)
Ruthlessly criticise the bourgeoisie

(Camouflage with leaves on a moving bike is a great weapon if used with a standing boy with a rifle on your back)
The red dawn lights up our parade ground

(The only good boy is a militarised one)
Be a good child of the Party

(Reading books is good for the apparitions of red ghosts)
Read revolutionary books, learn from revolutionaries and become an heir of the revolution

(People is red, the Mao’s red book is white)
Familiar with the life of workers, peasant and workers

(Bulling young geeks is good)
Don’t talk with him!

(Mockery and torture before a death sentence)
A bad element is publicly criticised

(Killed by a telephone pole is a great thing)
Learn from comrade Lei Feng

After Zen Garden work I’m back on Ferrum et Gloria, my old project for a ruleset about Gladiators. This time is the fourth attempt to built something very easy, fast and with a strong adherence to historical situations. Diego is helping me with playtesting and ideas. I’ll keep you informed about what is happing.

And now a revamp of the “arena” series, camps for your gladiators. Bigger is better. This is the believe of U.S. people. A giant country hasn’t space problems, so them have huge constructions when smaller proportions are more functional. Indeed, this must be true even for wargame conventions, as you can see here. This one is the arena presented by Vul-Con, a madness 5 foots wide. Gladiators are in 90mm scale, Chinese plastic soldiers that in Rome you can find in souvenir shops that sells them to tourists. You can understand the real dimensions of the arena only with the men behind it. They aren’t dwarf, it isn’t an optical trick, is the arena that is big! Look at chairs too! And in the photo there is a hippodrome too… more than 20 foots long… A real madness!
In wargame conventions you have to show something that can emerge from the wideness of the show, because a DBA terrain is invisible among those spaces and other scenarios. But this thing is decisively unreal, however is a great view. I envy them! A day I could do the same but with 12 inch gladiators…

More here: https://vul-connews.blogspot.com/2011/04/gladiatorial-coliseum-and-ubi-es-vulcan.html

Again on Ludica. Friday and Saturday viewed scarce public presence but Sunday the people arrived even if many were stopped from crazy disposition by our unreal mayor. But the hall is huge like a hangar for aeroplanes that even a lot of people seems a small group. If you organise the same inside a smaller place, it could be felt like a success with an overwhelming crowd, while in this hangar all is scattered as you can understand viewing the photo above.

Ludica in Rome, a convention about games parachuted from Milan without a clear awareness of what Rome is. Add the snow. The result? Almost a disaster.
It was clear that this was a first edition so it cannot be perfect and a lot of problems were waited, but there was too much ingenuousness in the building of the convention. Beside this, goodwill and sincere people involved in the operation show promise for a better second edition in October this year (even if it will be dangerously positioned only two weeks before the bigger comics and games convention of Italy, more than 150000 people…).

Leaving organisation problems, I wish to speak about some things of the wargame area, a part that I helped to bring to life because I was the person that created the contacts with the Roman realities. Among other things there were slotcars (with beautiful girls to cure the stand), boardgames (a lot of them), Star Wars reenactors (“the fist of Vader” Legion), videogames (but with a low profile due to small care from producers like Nintendo) and bayblades (59 children in a competition the day of the snow!), an exhibition on old traditional games (do you know “lippa”?). But I haven’t got any interesting photos, so I speak only about wargame clubs that was present at the convention.

On the photos above you can find the beautiful scenario made by ARSM club, a Viking raid full playable mounted on real terrain! A great realisation for one of the scarce moments that ARSM come out from their humid cellar.

And this is a Napoleonic battle in Portugal by Le Grenadier. If you want to see more delicacies of this type go to https://www.massimomoscarelli.it/leadaddicted/?p=390

Another club from Rome is Miles Gloriosus. It was present with this large participation game about chariot racings in Roman times, but there was even a game based on samurai in Japan. In the middle of the convention there was a Shako II tournament too. Well, I hope in a better and safer Ludica in October, with a larger wargame presence.

Snow in Rome. Only few centimetres and it was an apocalypse because we are unprepared to this type of meteorological events because we see real snow only every 20 years. Furthermore Rome is without a real mayor so panic spread in the city. We wanted to be in Ludica at any price. So we travelled among panic measures that stopped trains and escalators without real snow around, and at the end of a journey started at the 6.30 a.m. (and before that an aborted tentative the day before) with an arrival at 14.00 p.m., along the last part of the road, snowed on us. We thought that the night we could sleep on the floor of the fair because no train or car could travel from the fair but later we were saved by Sun. Here you can see our clothes for the snow and our luggage.

Our Ganesha Games stand was present only Saturday afternoon and Sunday. It was very cold but we were there. We could take with us only few things however, Andrea travelled on foot from Terni so he couldn’t bring with him scenery elements for pirates (two big vessels). But we had Zen Garden and all the rulesets.

Zen Garden on display, with a exhausted myself. Andrea had cards and the booklets with the rules, I had all the materials: the game was complete for the first time! People was very enthusiastic about it. We sold 6 copies. We have just a lot of fans! Thank you!!! We made it only for passion and not for profit so it is a joy that people like it.

A photo about a mother and son while Andrea showed the world of wargames to them for the first time. That child a day will be a player?

We had got attention by the press. Well, it was only a Ludica internal service to promote future conventions, if it was from a normal television they probably would showed us like freaks. Andrea explained what wargames are and showed some basic mechanics. In the future there will be a YouTube channel for Ganesha Games with this and other videos.

Again in Terni. This city is in another region but the travel is so smooth and brief (little more than one hour with train) that is more simple to go to Terni than some areas of Rome. Me and Diego are a sort of wargame commuters! This time wasn’t a playtest for Ganesha Games but a DBA day.

I seriously started wargaming with DBA competitions. Saturday was only the last tournament of a long series since 2003. The last for now, indeed. When I see the old photos I can see the same faces but younger and with more hair. We are a championship built on friendship and almost all are here since 2003. Well, the child is a second generation player, he is the son of the champion. And this time he arrived second. A great family but I’m thinking to create a championship only for them so we could play freely.

To play we choice sad places as this dance hall for elders outside the city centre perimeter. You can observe two posters on the wall with the last sensations of accordion music, probably on programme for one of the following nights or afternoons. However here there will be a big wargame convention in October too.

The best moment of the day is always the convivial lunch. This time we ate pizza and gnocchi. Huge portions and cheap cost!
Under a game of Zen Garden between father and son during pauses among phases of the tournament.

Almost I forgot. It was one of my worst performances. Total misfortune. In the last game I lost 6 pieces against 1, half of the army! My dice was very scarce about numbers higher than 2… (put here a lot of swearing).

I’m very busy so I haven’t time to show you a Ludica report. While you are waiting, remembering that today is Giovedì Grasso and we are during Carnevale: and now something completely different! You cannot live only with miniatures of soldiers, little reproductions of men, there is other in the world. After a lot of time after its diffusion in the world I viewed this thing and I’m sure that someone of you don’t know it, so you have to know. Please, stay calm while you are viewing it…

Well, what is it? It is a children programme on Russian television, where young people can even see and dance the last pop-dance hit of the moment. The children of the show are really weird, more weird than the situation. I think about their parents that want to see them on television because they are little stars. Awful. Instead Angina is the fictional name of a young female artist. She has a cute little face and two enormous boobs. His song is called Кому какое дело (who cares?), so we couldn’t care about Russian cultural concept of decency and we can enjoy the view.

And this one is a fake backstage of the famous singer, known better for what she has under his throat than for his voice.

At this moment I would be in Ludica Roma, a wargame, boardgame and videogame convention here in the Rome Fair (it is not precisely Rome, the Fair is in the middle of nowhere outside the city). Indeed, I wanted to demonstrate Zen Garden and Mighty Monsters at the Ganesha Games stand for three days, but Andrea is blocked by snow among mountains with a car not suitable to it. He have to come from Terni and it is a long way to here. So sad. I’m here stuck with my camping backpack ready with a lot of copies of Zen Garden, miniatures for a quick SSS playtest, food and water. At this moment we don’t know what to do. The fair is for 3 days, snow in Rome it is not falling now, maybe we will see something for afternoon or night.

On these pages you will read the report of what we will do. Andrea is thinking to travel by train tomorrow. We will be present without big scenarios because of this. We want to present for the first time in its definitive form my wargame Zen Garden, maybe the smallest wargame in the world. Sergio of Drums and Shakos fame cannot be present with his new game because of a flu.

We will survive snowing? If yes, a large selection of boardgames are offered to public to play with them together a volunteer demonstrator for free. All Roman wargame clubs are in the fair (thanks to me!). It is cold, the fair is in the middle of nowhere, but we are a lot of people who wants to play, so if you are around come and give a try to our games. We will be here, I hope!