To add more terrain to your playground an original choice could be a billboard. It is easy to build: a flat vertical surface with a couple of poles to carry it. But I found a more sophisticated billboard by Pardulon, with a metal structure as poles, bolted to a concrete base.

Another view, from behind the advertise.

It has a 8x5cm surface that can be magnetised with strips. So, using metal card as base where to glue paper posters, you can change message and feature.

I made 10 posters using font icons and downloaded images, all elaborated through Photoshop and printed with a normal printer at 300dpi. They are themed for the future games that I will play. I’m thinking to do the same thing for posters to add to external houses walls.

I’m thinking to the next Lucca Comics & Games. Yes, it is for the 1st of November but I have to prepare something to show to the audience. I haven’t got Zen Garden boxes anymore because I stopped their production. Maybe a new release in cardboard? Well, I wish newer things to old ones so I don’t think to give new life to the garden. This year I must complete my gladiatorial rules, so I haven’t so much time to develop another set of rules. Neither a fill-in. I have a great idea and I have started to work on this new project, but now it’s not the right moment. I hope my long awaited Ferrum et Gloria will be ready for November. Yeah, I know that I’m saying this thing year after year… So what to do? A playable and simplified demo? Playing with bigger figures? Propose a larger table with special effects? However I and Andrea have to think to what will be ready at that date for Ganesha Games so we can focus our efforts on some presentation. In the meantime the old Lucca C&G 2013 strike back. I found this official video on our Miniature Island. Sad thing: I and my table is not on it! However you have a general view of our space and Andrea is on it. Enjoy.

We found that Of Gods and Mortals rules can be suitable as tournament rules too. They are more sophisticated, sly and depth than you could feel during the first reading. Tournaments are the final test for rules and OGAM is strong enough to allow a fast and interesting tournament play. This time we were in the games shop in Terni. I studied the rules to act better against other tournament armies. I was looking for a powerful combination of troops to win games. I chose Athena as god, Herakles and two generic heroes as legends, and Spartans and psiloi as mortals. I lose two on three games, but only for some mistakes, because I could win another game if I was more resolute. However I had a lot of fun and I think that I’m on the right way to develop better tactics for the tournament in Macerata: the next time I want to be on the top steps of the podium.

You can find every kind of Doctor Who toys. However until now we haven’t got a Lego version of our dear doctor. Sure, there is one made by Character Building. It is cool, but it is not the same thing. Why buy an imitated adaptation of Lego minifigs when you aspire to the real one?

Now the license to produce Doctor Who toys is expired or changed, so Lego can build a real version of him with a proper license. I hope that there will be a real interest in it. Here there is a full world of characters to be proposed as minifigs.

In the meantime I enjoyed very much the Lego Movie. I watched it in 3D and it was a real spectacle, maybe the best occidental animation film that I watched in these years. I found the plot very solid, interesting and fun. Spoiler: beware of the aliens from Planet Duplo!

I want to add more 28mm Chinese miniatures after the past proposal for adequate pieces to play with A Fistful of Kung Fu, published by Osprey this February. Around there are some beautiful minis that maybe you don’t know. Let’s start with NorthStar again. For their In His Majesty Name, always by Osprey, a tong is ready to be adapted to our game.

In the world of pulp fiction some exotic stories are setted in the far Orient. Pulp Figures produce YangZee Gangs, with henchmen, masters of evil and city life.

A range by Hasslefree Miniatures is dedicated to Chinese and Japanese martial arts, ancient and contemporary, with some incursions in fantasy. Who needs a gun when his fists and kicks are weapons?

More traditional are these Chinese pirates by Eureka Miniatures, useful to add hordes of yelling warriors to your wargaming table.

A good source for Chinese miniatures is the Boxer Rebellion. Traditional, exotic and pseudo-military dresses, and the use of guns, swords and lances are ideal to create particular armies. These are part of the Redoubt Enterprises range.

If you want bags of figures of the Boxer Rebellion can buy tons of lead by Old Glory Miniatures UK.

So you have the rules and you can have even a large choice for your miniatures. The only thing to do is to buy what you need and start to play.

A Fistful of Kung Fu brings the hyper-kinetic, bullet-spraying, demon-slaying, kung-fu-fighting action of Hong Kong movies and Asian cinema to the wargames tabletop. In a modern world walking a precarious line between the advances of next-generation technology and the tradition and mysticism of ancient cultures, Kung Fu schools face off in no-holds-barred tournaments, corporations hire agents and spies to steal each other’s secrets, overworked SWAT teams respond to gunfights between feuding Triad and Yakuza clans, and ancient artefacts are sought by hopping vampires, demon sorcerers and cyborgs alike. Combining the gunfights of John Woo’s Hard Boiled, the hand-to-hand combat of Enter the Dragon, the sheer mystical weirdness of Big Trouble in Little China, the wuxia action of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and everything in-between, A Fistful of Kung Fu is a skirmish wargame unlike any other.
Available by Osprey publishing in paper and digital format.

To play with adequate miniatures you can choose the official new range by Northstar miniatures! Here a gallery of all the 4 ready to play squads.

Black Hat miniatures, manufactures a full range of wuxia miniatures as wizards, zombie, phantasms, evil followers, dragons, human monkeys, warriors and so on! I cannot put here all the figures, they are a range with lots of sets.

For Ancient China, and lots of suitable henchmen, peruse the ranges made by Curteys miniatures. Various historical periods of the ancient China are available.

Do you want an huge crowd of modern Chinese civilians? And modern Hong Kong buildings? Pardulon makes 3 different sets with a total of 12 figures in civilian clothes. And modern fixtures building structures as doors, windows, drainpipes or air-conditioning units.

Ancient buildings in resin and MDF are available by various vendors. Look around for them. And play with A Fistful of Kung Fu!

Tomorrow is the release day for A Fistful of Kung Fu. More photos from a playtest session. At that time I was trying to create thematic squads to kill my enemies, but in vain because misfortune struck my dice rolling. We tweaked the rules but I lost 4 games that day!

We were in the ARSM headquarters. And this one is my jade mummy, moving slowly towards enemies. Too slowly, damn! Years ago I saw a real jade mummy in an exhibit in Rome. Very impressive.

You can recreate scenes from action movies like Enter the Dragon, Kill Bill, Big Trouble in Little China, Crouching Tiger – Hidden Dragon, and Hard Boiled. Here we try a mixture of ancient China tales and HK police stories. As the Osprey blurb says, “A Fistful of Kung Fu is set in a modern world walking a precarious line between the advances of next-generation technology and the tradition and mysticism of ancient cultures. Kung Fu schools face off in no-holds barred martial arts tournaments. Evil corporations hire hitmen and infiltrators to steal each other’s secrets. Overworked SWAT teams respond to street-level gunfights between feuding Triad and Yakuza clans. Ancient artefacts are sought by hopping vampires and cyborgs alike, each seeking to harness the power of the Four Dragon Kings and control the world. Bullets, punches, kicks and throwing stars fly in slow motion as martial arts heroes and gun-wielding cops defeat enemy after enemy in the pursuit of evil masterminds”.

In this game we created a scenario with a small bamboo grove. Characters can walk over them, use them as trampolines or as weapons.

Possible factions range from Chinese Triads, Japanese Yakuza to Ninja clans, martial arts schools, the men and women of the Hong Kong Police Department, demons, secret societies and almost anything else you can imagine! All struggle for supremacy – destroying the surroundings in the process.

Here the final struggle among our two rival groups. I didn’t score severe wounds to my opponents. Oh at least I tried.

Another game and another setting: more storeys for our houses and a venerated Buddha statue (bought on the same day in a local Chinese trinkets shop…) with an ancient treasure at its feet.

When we develop a game we never have the right miniatures or appropriate terrain. We use what we find because we have too many projects and we don’t have the time to build a pretty scenery. When we publish something we are just in the middle of another new project and another new setting. So no Chinese houses or modern urban hells but some ruined buildings instead.

In A Fistful of Kung Fu, mooks and supporting cast are swatted like flies, but can still be dangerous when given the advantage of numbers or automatic weaponry. Based on the popular Ganesha Games rules system, these rules introduce martial arts combat with manoeuvres that have different outcomes depending on the degree of success, and which allow for counter-attacks when they fail, giving a flowing, appropriate combat system. The game also includes rules for challenges and “gun-fu” stunts. And this hero cop moves forward to glory with his automatic weapons.

A pile of corpse after his passage. At the end of the day the cops won the fight. Only the hero still standing on the battle scene. Just like the style of an HK film.

Only two days to the official release of A Fistful of Kung Fu. So let’s go on with the countdown. Here are some more photos of our playtests. Here we are in Diego’s house on the kitchen table. And on blue ground!

Here a scenario with ghosts, sorcerers, and corporate thugs. While bodyguards defend the clan chief, a walk on the roof prepares a rear assault.

The miniatures are from my collection built before we imagined we would play this setting. Now official figures are sold by Northstar. I’m still happy with mine. I guess the message is, just buy miniatures, sooner or later you will find what to do with them!