Every year we try to meet with members of our club Legio Palatina who live outside Rome. Festivities brought Luca from London and Paolo from Switzerland, together with Narciso from nearer Canino. This time we officially accepted new members: Gabriel and Jack are our younger generation. Locals are me and Diego.

Stuffed with panettone, butter biscuits and chocolate, we played an Afghanistan scenario with rules by Narciso, previously used during Lucca Games. Our table was too small for the huge quantity of polystyrene houses crafted by Narciso, so we kept another equivalent city in the boxes. Real house provided by Diego, instead.

Infidels were taken by white hair, Talibans by children. Sugar and fat excess in blood and juvenile impetuousness made a confused play. More a cavalry charge with automatic weapons than an urban fight. Moreover I killed my troops with an hasty advance, but some lucky throws hit my enemies.

At the end a draw and pizza for all. To the next year.

Do you know I have got another blog? Legio Palatina is the name of my gaming club. We play DBA at most, but we were playing at tournaments with SDS and Anticamente. Well, after a lot of years without a proper website, but a lot of mini websites for tournaments organized by us, some time ago I created a space for our activities, in a blog form. Or better, for our past activities: I was writing posts about our history, starting from 2002! I have got photos and remembers to fill up the posts. It’s a strange blog, it is speaking only about the past at moment. I have put in it materials until the end of 2004, and I wanted to slowly proceeding towards the following years. But I had other things to think as Ferrum et Gloria. So I postponed the duty. However it is beautiful to think about what you did. We appear a bit younger and slimmer in those moments. I think I will appear younger on the pictures of this month of 2014 when I watch them in 2024 or so.

The Legio Palatina blog is in Italian language, my mother tongue, to show our things better than my maccaroni English. There are a lot of pictures, maybe you can have fun even if you can’t read the words. And there is always Google translator…
For the blog, look here.

Another year! Toward the future, looking back to the past. 6th year of blogging about miniatures and life. Like every year I read the last year statements and I found what I was thinking about new targets. Something is waiting to see the light since a lot of years, and more ideas and projects are born in the meantime. However in the 2014 I published my gladiatorial rules, Ferrum et Gloria. And this is a great thing. Now I’m working to the English translation (out in March?) and to book 2 and 3 of the rules. I hope to obtain the Italian version of book 2 for Lucca 2015. I have to produce more things as OGAM supplements and other Ganesha Games rules. My work is mainly to playtest things and support Andrea to publish them. I hope to see Song of Spear and Shield ready because we are working on it since 3/4 years. In January we will run our first Kickstarter and I put a lot of efforts in it. And in 2015 we have to achieve three new books for Osprey, ready for 2016. My new Viking rules have to wait 2016 or more.
In 2015 I wish to participate to wargame conventions in Italy (Milano, Agliana, Macerata, Roma, Empoli, Lucca,…) and England (Salute). Instead DBA tournaments are not my priority. As holidays another visit in Umbria. And a lot of long train trips to visit my fiancée.
My lead mountain is smaller than last year due to big efforts to paint what lied in the dust. A new smartphone with a new camera in January, so better photos in the blog. Maybe in 2015 I will buy a personal house. But I will be alone or together with another person in it? Only time will tell. Happy New Year!

Holidays are an heavy duty so less news on the blog. However I promised to myself that this year I had to spend less time on the blog because I need time to write rules for Ferrum et Gloria. Well, this year I published 86 posts instead of 88. Target achieved…
Some brief news. In a month I visited my fiancée, spent a lot of money in a couple of fairs in Rome (books and food), walked around a lot, ate like a pig during Christmas, worked at my bureaucratic job, wrote an article for Dadi & Piombo about gladiators (out in April). And I took this photo at another playtest for Song of Spear and Shield. The rules are still blurred as this photo. Every time Andrea is not happy enough with the rules, but even this time he think that he found the right way. Instead for my photos I’m thinking about a new camera at the start of 2015.

Do you remember where I took this photo? I was in the Ancient History museum in Trieste this May. And this is a bas relief with Pontiarii.

While we are preparing the English translation for Ferrum et Gloria, something new is on the arena sands. I’m laying down and playtesting new kinds of gladiators for the second book. This time I have better player sheets and rules summaries from the book. More stylish and handy than notes made with simple wordprocessing.

Pontiarii is a peculiar combat set between retiarii and contraretiarii utilising a bridge. Who hold the bridge win the fight. You can throw stones from the top of the bridge. And all is more three-dimensional because gladiators can fight from top to down or from down to top. And the bridge is a peculiar terrain. A lot of situations that were clarified during the test.

In the same session we had a combat between velites. Other situations, other rules. And more things to play with gladiators.

Mainly I speak about gladiators and fairs. This time I want to show something about other wargame stuff of mine: resin stone walls. The best around.

The attention to painting soldiers have to be employed for terrain too. Instead terrain in wargames is subsidiary to miniatures, so soldiers usually fight on a flat surface, green coloured. Some small trees simulate woods, broken houses are randomly scattered around. We have to invest our time and money on terrain. The only complication is the space required to store terrain, less flexible than the necessary space to store miniatures. I’m still building my city for wargames. Space is what I need. Rather than large buildings I dedicated my attention to walls, that are a vertical obstacle on the battleground. I chose those ones by Stronghold, a small Germany company.

A friend of mine brought me these colours with earth tones. They are pastels with watercolour feature. I and my father draw every stone of the walls with a random effect. The result look a bit too heavy as contrast.

Then I washed all with my personal magic wash paint, obtained by acrylic wax for parquet, matt acrylic paint and chestnut ink. Due to watercolour feature, the coloured dusts melted. Moreover the paint amalgam them with surface. So the contrast was attenuate. Every stone has its characteristic tone, but all look realistic.

A photo with a RSI Folgore soldier with his camouflage uniform. You can look at painted walls and their available variants: a destroyed wall with broken and deformed railing; a gate with moving doors with a curved shape. However this railing with upper points is awesome. And absolutely not boring.

I like these walls so much that I bought a long circuit of them. Their modular system allow walls to be composed in various ways. I’m sure that they are a nice touch to my battleground. And now I stored them inside a old rigid plastic case for video beta tapes. It’s not this on the photo, it’s a very compact box.
If you want similar walls go to Stronghold shop.

The last tournament of the year. DBA, as usual. In Terni, again. This time I chose the army list only after a look at the theme. No brush up of rules too. I picked up a list with more knights than other ones. And nothing more. Incidentally it was the Papal one, so I chose to combat with the colours of Rome. As usual. A bloody tournament! First game: I lose 3 vs 4, with the last throw of the dice to decide who between I and Mr. Gasbarri could win. Second game: I drew 4 vs 4, fighting until the end of legal time, even if I could win. Third game: I won 5 vs 4 with my general dead, and the last turn with 3 dead of mine. Forth game: I won 4 vs 1, a result obtained after the first impact of armies. I reached the forth place, so no cup but maybe a record for body count in a tournament.
The next year we are thinking to play with 2.2 edition again because we don’t know very well the 3 edition still. And maybe the 2.2 is more engaging. However in 2015 I wish to dedicate my free time to Ferrum et Gloria, so I don’t know if DBA will be a priority again in my activities as player.

The boom of a flintlock musket, a cloud of acrid black powder, and the drumming of feet as they rush towards the fallen foe. A knife is unsheathed, and with a few quick movements, the enemy’s bloody scalp is ripped free. Warfare in the Eastern Woodlands of America was one of raids, ambushes and sudden violent encounters. These are the skirmishes that Song of Drums and Tomahawks seeks to recreate. The French & Indian War is the most well-known conflict of this period, but these rules cover from the time of the European arrival until the mid-1800s. Players will generally control less than a dozen figures in multiplayer games, perhaps more in one-on-one contests. The fast-paced play, the tense decision making using simple, easy-to-learn rules, will lead to many fun and gripping games.

This book includes:
•All rules needed to play.
•Historical background detailing the Native American tribes and their Europeans foes (and sometimes allies).
•A map showing the locations of the major Native American tribes.
•Timeline covering the major and minor wars from European arrival in North America until the 2nd Seminole War.
•Army lists for the Native Americans, as well as the French & British.
•Complete list of Traits to individualize your troops and reflect the various fighting styles of tribal warriors, European soldiers, or frontiersmen.
•Suggestions on how to set up games and scenarios.
•Detailed description of warfare in this period.

You can buy it here as pdf or here as paperback.