Archive for 2012

Weapon museum in Terni

I must write a report about my holiday in Terni, but I have to write the rules for my gladiator game too, therefore I will be a little slow with this duty. At the moment I show you some images that I took in the weapon museum in Terni.

It is not a real museum because they haven’t the money to structure it as a open exhibition. To visit that rooms, strictly only in the last Saturday of the month, you have to send a fax with your name to a military authority. This space is inside a barrack, the Italian Army centre of weapon servicing, so it is clear that you cannot enter here easily.

You can find a lot of light weapons, pistols, rifles and machineguns. There are even bigger guns around. Some pieces are curious, some are old, some are experimental items. I have only a superficial knowledge of this world, so I can appreciate only the design but I don’t know the history of single weapons.

I appreciate and know some models as the MAB one (Moschetto Automatico Beretta Mod. 1938) that I use as reenactor but I can’t go further. Here you can find all the history of MAB, from its firsts forms to the post-war models, but unfortunately there was running a special event on a military hero born in Terni and the panels with his history were on the glass showcases with my preferred machinegun. Pity!

Some long and short barrels. A pistol with that length is not so practical. Other weird things are the silencers, so bigger than the weapons that is incredible how you can use and store them. And if on this signal pistol they put a handle it means something for sure.

Under you can view two different kind of magazines: only a few bullets against a supply for a more intense firepower.

The usual posh weapon, a gun plated with gold.

If you want to know more and if you want to visit the museum go to their website: https://www.museodellearmi.com

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Tests for DBA in Rome 2012

A couple of Sundays ago we received a visit from our friend Paolo who is now living in Switzerland. So we had the opportunity to set two DBA games to test a tournament list proposal for the next DBA event in Rome.

Since 2004 we are a 6 men club devoted to DBA tournaments at most, with some great results in 2006. But life reserves obstacles to players: Luca now lives in London, Narciso returned to his little town near Viterbo, Maurizio is missing with wife and two little children in an obscure somewhere in Rome, and now Paolo is feeding himself only with chocolate and cheese. But we are still involved in Italian DBA circuit, so even this year we are organising the Rome annual tournament. We have almost lost the enthusiasm for doing it because after exactly ten years of DBA events we wish something different. But a lot of friends are from the DBA circuit so tournaments are the pretext to meet them.

For this year I thought to something very different than usual: a choice of each of a kind of the DBA troops (Kn, Cv, Lh,…), until to 12 pieces. The only fixed troop was Cv as general. We tried this scenario that afternoon. It worked and it is a heavy duty for players because you have to manage your troops very well. But at the end we choose to do things in a more orthodox way: people could not find this of their taste even for the unreal historical feel of the thing. And DBA is a historical game, you know, if you can conceive a historical meaning in the usual line formation of DBA armies…

For the refinement gentleman I show you the Paolo’s personal measure instrument for DBA paces, a elegant compass used for maps. Paolo is a geographer, do you know it? And he now has got an iPad to shoot photos.
Well, the evening ended as usual, with pizza and beer in a near restaurant. Only few days after I received the invitation for his wedding during this August. We are projecting the upcoming trip to the land of clocks with birds inside…

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My name is Pond, Amy Pond

If you haven’t a girl you can always buy one, a plastic one, indeed.

Amy Pond is the cutest Dr. Who’s companion and you have the possibility to have on your desk a fine reproduction of Karen Gillan (the actress) in her stage dress.

Another great toy in 1/6 format (12″ or 30cm high), with a lot of options and gadgets, and a signed limited edition availability too. The price is not so cheap, it is in pre order at only £150 from Big Chief, the producers. If you are a real fan…

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Tokyo apocalypse

I have got my copy of a ruleset to fight battles with giant monsters in small scale. I even have got the miniatures (gashapoon), so what could I do?

On a very cold Saturday afternoon, I visited the Reeinder club, in the suburbs of Rome, relatively close to my place. I wanted to test the complete Mighty Monsters ruleset in a 4-players game. Lorenzo set up a tennis table with a urban landscape. I added some Monsterpocalypse buildings. They are a bit sparse because the play area was larger than I initially thought. One player didn’t show up, so this was a three player game and I was the umpire. I explained the rules. If I read them more before the play maybe the game could run better, especially for the victory conditions at the end… My bad…

Well, all this was a lot of time ago, it was cold, very cold, I was half frozen. You can see Lorenzo (of Zerloon blog fame) wearing only a t-shirt, while his friends are less impervious to low temperature.

There were three factions: “Mechagodzillas” (one model for the first movie incarnation and another one from a later flick), “Space Aliens from an evil planet” (Megalon, Gigan, and the little Mogera), and “The stomping forces of good” (Godzilla and Mothra).

Godzilla is the king of monsters (King Kong is only the king of Skull Island…) so all the enemies thought to stop him and take the crown for themselves. The fight was a gang up over poor Godzilla, who fought back vigorously. Mothra could help him but the player was unlucky and this over-sized butterfly did absolutely nothing! In the meantime, the huge mechanised monsters kept at a distance striking with long range missiles and energy beams. And then all the aliens were in the fight. Godzilla still stood — barely. The game emphasizes this type of fighting, just like the films. The alien player forgot about the mechanised menace at his back. So, in that cloud of destruction, the steel monsters joined the fray virtually undamaged. The end was nigh.

I have to set up a game again in this club. They are very friendly fellows. In the photo, you can see some of the games on their shelves…

Their website is: https://www.reincorp.it

For another chronicle of the play:
https://zerloon.blogspot.it/2012/01/diario-di-gioco-173-mighty-monsters.html

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Ludica: the Ganesha Games video

It was snowing on Rome, and we were frozen inside the Ludica event in Rome fair. You can read more on this old post of mine. At that moment, the organisers asked to made a video of us to promote their convention. I refused to speak because you have to be concise and professional, leaving to Andrea the duty to do it. Then they filmed a long interview about Ganesha Games and wargames, with a small talk about Flashing Steel, the game that Andrea was presenting during that fair.

We were waiting the edit of the video, but after a while we forgot this thing. Last week, while I was checking the dates for the next Ludica in Rome in November (I have to program the next appointments, in Autumn I will take part to 4 tournaments and 4 conventions), I found that only few days after they edited the material. I told Andrea the news and some instants after he spread the presence of the video on You Tube via his social networks contacts. So now you can see Andrea speaking while some inserts show my hands that throwing dices and move miniatures. He is the orange guy, I am the hands from black and grey sleeve. There is even the first Zen Garden presentation of the game. Sorry, all the dialogue is in Italian, but even if you don’t understand a word you can always view the images.

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Projects: viaduct and arena

I started to speak about these two projects a long time ago. Now I can give you some updates. The former is the project for an arena for my gladiators, the latter is the viaduct for Flyton, the fictional town where I want to set my battles with miniatures.

At the last Hellana I could meet some friends of mine, as Filippo, that gave me this present, a prêt-à-porter arena made of cardboard from a box for computer equipment, a sheet for railway modelling with engraved regular stones, a touch of spray paint that create the stone effect. And his skills for assembling all in this attractive form. Three doors are made with toothpicks or other little wood bars. The final touch is the waterproof wood-like coating of the external surface with some sort of adhesive sleeve. I will utilise this arena for presentations or other similar contexts, because it is built to be portable. I have to give it some final touches to complete the global aspect. Now all is flattened on a single tone. I want a sand colour for the base, the same of the gladiator bases used for my fighters. I must buy more Vallejo “dark sand”, I suppose. And I wish a reddish brown for the walls. When I will do it? I’m thinking to bring with me this arena to explain the rules to my future playtesters. So very quickly! I’m almost in the external playtest phase.

Do you remember the viaduct? Fabio was building it with his family help, but he is always so busy with his job (and the TB Line, and Anticamente) that these polystyrene blocks were remained at the bottom of the to do list. Finally he gave me the unfinished materials so I can realise the model. Fabio printed some sheets with the brick motive to create the missing parts. The work is not so complicated to complete, there are some pieces to be glued. Flyton city is still without houses and gladiators are more urgent, so this viaduct is something that now must wait for better times. Maybe next year, this is the year of “Zen Garden”, “Ferrum et Gloria” and “Song of Spears and Shields”, only to mention the main Ganesha Games rulesets on the works where I am “slightly involved”…

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This is my Gruppo Combattimento Folgore action figure. It is a custom figure created with spare parts from other figures. I made the badges using photos of real badges, reduced in size, than printed and put on a tape with a double adhesive surface. So, on a side I attached the badge, while the other surface was attached on the battle dress. With a black marker pen I darkened the borders. I obtained some good badges, I solution than I would like found before.

As you know, I have got a real battle dress of this kind for reenactment. It is more practical than the other uniforms than I own, that of Italian design. On the photo, as “bookcase guardians”, all my action figures. It is a complete series of Folgore uniforms of the WWII. The new figure is a reproduction of the paratroopers operating in the 1944-1945 for the South Reign of Italy. On the extreme right there is the paratrooper of Italian Social Republic always for 1944-1945.

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I wrote a lot of posts about this reenacment event. It was an intense experience for me and I wanted to show you that large amount of vehicles and uniforms. Mine is a replica of those of Gruppo Combattimento Folgore, the paratrooper troops of South Reign of Italy in 1944-1945. They are the English Battle Dress with Italian badges, because the old uniforms were lacerated by wear.

Here there is the same uniform but with the paratrooper suit and a more practical combat cap.

And now some images from our stop on the way to home. This is the tablet at Case Grizzano, a place, some houses on a hill, where Italian and German paratroopers found death only a few days before the end of the war, in a failed attempt to break the front in the plains from the lateral side on the mountains.

The cippus. Sad that there is nothing for the Germans.

The valley where Italians attacked.

A country cemetery, place of a German machine gun position. Now a empty cemetery.

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