Archive for October, 2012

Lucca Comics & Games is coming!

I’m leaving for Lucca for a 4 day convention, the third biggest comic convention in the world. It will be a tour de force among 160000 people and piles of beautiful things as comics, wargames, boardgames, videogames, gadgets, toys, music and much more. And a huge cosplayers presence! I’m the partner of Andrea Sfiligoi for the Ganesha Games stand. He will run some demonstration tables: Song of Blades and Heroes II; Samurai Robot Battle Royale; Of Gods And Mortals. I will run my Zen Garden and Ferrum et Gloria demonstration tables. I’m so thrilled because they will be great days among my passions. I hope the weather is good! Come to say “ciao” to us!

I will take lots of pictures for multiple posts on this blog. Maybe a video too. Be patient, after the convention I will be dead tired. In the meantime you can follow the convention on https://www.gioconomicon.net and
https://lucca2012.luccacomicsandgames.com

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DBA Arezzo 2012

This was the right time! Third place in the Arezzo DBA tournament of the Italian DBA annual championship. Yeah, I’m a champion again…

After a lot of time Legio Palatina, my club, humiliated the Compagnia della Chimera club! They humiliate us every tournament indeed. However this one was held in their city and they were in full formation. So we are more happy. Gasbarri, the Italian 3D wargame champion and leader of the Arezzo club, ate humble pie, prostrating himself in front of our club.

We lined up on the field a larger team than usual, with the new entry Gabriele. I always try to intimidate our adversaries remembering them his physical presence. In lots of competitions I team up only with Diego, so we could combine only two scores to built our team score, when you can add the best three scores as team result. And this time Diego reached the first place.

Another humiliation moment for Gasbarri. He is desperate viewing Narciso deployment! Great photo! : D

We were 13 people, 5 from Roma, 2 from Canino, 1 from Firenze and 5 from Arezzo. We played in the Fumettopoli store. As every time I bought one skin colour paint bottle of the Rackham range, remains of a old supply. The owners are very kind but their loo is permanently almost out of order for something. The loo and the paint, two constants of my Arezzo tournaments. However this time we looked for something more exotic to eat instead of the restaurant in front of the shop. There was a big fair about international food along the streets of Arezzo but too many people had crowded it so we chose another restaurant. To close, a photo of my small DBA camp. Or rather the reason why I won with my army: I had got hidden troops inside the fort!

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Of Gods And Mortals: the cover

Another cover preview: OGAM. These rules by Andrea Sfiligoi will be published in the mid of 2013 by Osprey publishing. This game is about mythological deities who fight each other with the support of standard human troops and the help of minor level deities. We are still playtesting it. You will know more when we progress with its development.

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Alt si gioca 2012: the report

More on the beautiful Alt si gioca convention. This time some photos and comments. There are some previews about Ganesha Games new games too. But if you want to see more photos go to the two Dropbox photo archives:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/upm85fpqbni2m3y/jmdS3HOhyL
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3hezsv8m5sm74as/-rvZ1WN1bT

Former city of Bologna fair manager, now author of SDS game series and other games, Sergio Laliscia at the convention organisers desk.

The huge Ganesha Games stand with the Origins prize among Napoleonic rules. A show of some of the rules produced by Andrea Sfiligoi. Some are still in the works. On the wall some funny posters about dance folk music performed when the hall is populated by local elder people.

A demonstration game and playtest of the upcoming Of Gods And Mortals, out the next year for Osprey publishing. A classic: Greeks versus Vikings. Another time we have to test it with Egyptians…

Monsters Island with Mighty Monsters rules. This is only a display indeed. An usual fight is with 3/4 monsters per squad.

Samurai Robot Battle Royale is in an advanced development. We are thinking about a Gundam style match at my home soon. We have the book cover and some posters will be ready for Lucca Games in Halloween time. The rules are almost ready for an open playtest.

A display with Apocalypticum miniatures. Andrea postponed the development of these rules because he wanted to dedicate himself to other books. But now he wish to fix the rules utilising the notes that he collected with playtests. To start a new and definitive playtest phase.

A game with Drums & Shakos Large Battle. I think that these rules don’t have the right attention that they deserve from the potential players. It is a really valid Napoleonic system. Well, it is a bestseller in Ganesha Games sales but I don’t read about it often on the web. Please, give it a try, it is revolutionary, historically determined, fast and fun.

My children: Zen Garden and Ferrum et Gloria. I sold two boxes of the former at the convention. The gladiator game instead was practically proposed in a display mode here, but at Lucca Games convention I will present a scenario to show it easily to people.

Sherlock Holmes display. A gracious scenario full of Victorian little scenes: lamps, cobblestone ground, coaches, tramps, dogs and cats and other life scenes. I fell in love with it! I like the houses very much too. I saw them in Salute a year and half ago but here they are painted better. I want them for my Flyton city.

The huge 15mm Napoleonic display. Almost 11000 pieces. Sergio spent 5 hours to place them on the tables! Maybe next year he will have got more miniatures…

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Alt si gioca 2012: the videos

Alt si gioca was a wargame convention in Terni who took place the 7th of October. When I was free from my demonstrations I realised with my mobile a movie to report the event.

Some main topics:
0:12 – Blood Bowl tournament
0:51 – Flame of War scenario
1:00 – Battle on Ice in 10mm from Aster
1:20 – Heroquest
1:38 – Bring & Buy
1:53 – A La Guerre
2:30 – Gino Pilotino
2:48 – Subbuteo
3:01 – Operation World War II
3:17 – Wings of Glory
3:54 – Drums & Shakos Large Battle
4:20 – Zen Garden
4:28 – Ferrum et Gloria
4:34 – Samurai Robot Battle Royale
5:05 – Mighty Monsters
5:43 – Of Gods And Mortals
5:51 – Zulu on rampage
6:08 – Weird War II scenario
6:23 – Sherlock Holmes scenario
6:44 – 6mm
7.07 – 11000 Napoleonics in 15mm by Sergio Laliscia

To view a better show of the Napoleonics array, here another video.

And to know more about this convention go to altsigioca.6sided.net

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Romics 2012

The Roman convention about comics, cosplay and games: Romics. This time I was together with Andrea Sfiligoi in the quest for Japanese giant robots miniatures. He want to use them with Samurai Robots Battle Royale rules. I spotted the gashapons, Andrea bought them! I’m an hardcore comic fan since my early childhood, before I learned to read. So every year I’m here to buy some comics and gadgets, spending some time in this really exciting atmosphere. Oh, I almost forgot, and to view beautiful girls too.

Speaking about the buyers view I could say that in the current world of comics the most important things nowadays are the gadgets (t-shirts, costumes, bags, figures,…). Comics – and anime – seem to have a secondary role. However these two things live side by side, helping each other, as you could see here. Instead the game sector was marginal in this convention: this is not a place for gamers, there are too many people who are looking for other things. In spite of this there were Games Workshop demo tables, game vendors, a boardgame area cured by Reindeers, Magic card players.

I don’t want to bore you with piles of dusty old comics or with phantasmagorical superhero covers. I told you that the place was full of comics and it is enough. Comic conventions are cosplayers crowed, so now is better to show something more coloured.

Cosplay is the main reason to go to a comic convention by now. As a matter of fact a third of the space available was dedicated to a cosplay theatre. It is a new form of expression generated from comics. Some people show their love for this world becoming a comic – or anime or magna – character.

These two guys stayed a lot of time three meters above the ground in this position to draw attention to their costumes. The cosplayer hard life.

A nice nun with gun: cosplay is for men (!) too. I saw many men who challenged the weather temperature to show their muscles, and sometimes they were dressed only with their underwear and little more to create a costume. Well, however I prefer girls.

Every time I see lots of Catwomen, Lara Croft and Lamù. Cosplay is a way to give vent to female exhibitionism too. Human females always compete each other with methodology employed to increase sexual attraction towards human males. So a comic convention is an arena where they can show their beauty increased by costumes.

Even this time I censure myself. Some crazy girls without shame were throwing at you their asses and boobs. I can’t publish photos of extremely undressed women, sorry. I just give you an image about these tits-pads to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome. I own one, it works.

It’s always the same old story. The convention closed at 19 and we left at 18.30. Then we tried to reach the railway but some railwaymen stopped us at the bottom of the stairs of the unsafe bridge that take to the platform roof. It was overcrowded. So we had to wait under a storm. We spent an hour here, in a queue toward that stairs, squeezed by people and water. Umbrellas were our canopy. We were freezing due to rain. The railwaymen allowed us to reach the platform roof after the passage of a couple of trains. After we had to wait another hour. Two trains didn’t stop at this station because they were only for upper class travellers. When the next train arrived with a 25 minutes late, it was assaulted by the crowd. Andrea’s bag was ripped when he got up the train. No wounded people, a miracle. So he lost a couple of gashapons. We could leave at 20.30, other people left only with the next train. 40 minutes more for them. This is the only public transport to reach the fair buildings of the capital city of Italy, a fair in the middle of nowhere, near only to swamps and fields. Commuters live similar situations every day.

In the photo you can view the platform roof as soon as we could reach it. More people were arriving. You can view, lighted by neon lights: a half-naked cosplayer wrapped up with a borrowed sweatshirt; another girl who wears the boyfriend’s jacket; a girl consoled by a boy; people eyes that reflect their powerlessness. Italy…

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A year ago, Ganesha Games published the Mighty Monsters miniature rules for battles between giant monsters.
Andrea Sfiligoi is adapting the same engine to giant robots. I am the main playtester. This s not just Mighty Monsters under a different name, but a different and fully compatible game. Monsters are biological creatures while robots are mechanical constructs and take damage differently. The rules go to great lengths to differentiate A.I. robots, piloted mecha, bio-armour types, transforming robots and so on in the usual Ganesha “toolkit” philosophy.

We played a few test games but more are needed. Ganesha is trying to have the rules out for mid 2013. For the moment, we can enjoy a stunning, dramatic cover illustration drawn by Giandomenico D’Amoja and colored by Greg Bain.

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Alt si gioca 2012: call-up

This post is only to set it about the upcoming “Alt si gioca” convention in Terni organised by our friends from that town, obviously with a huge presence of Ganesha Games. So there will be a lot of demo games and previews of new games, together with boardgames, other miniature games and a Blood Bowl tournament. I’m preparing my games for a demo: Zen Garden and Ferrum et Gloria. It will be the opportunity to view a display of 11000 15mm Napoleonic miniatures from Sergio Laliscia collection too. If you live in central Italy come to visit us in Terni!

To know more go here: https://altsigioca.6sided.net
To read a report, look here some days after the convention…

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