With the Football/Soccer World Cup looming I developed a way to play OGAM with football models. Football is like a religion with worldwide followers, with a God (the ball), legends (football players) and mortals (football fans). I chose iconic players with great skills and character.

The Football 308 points
Q 2 C 4 ambusher, combat master, free disengage, superspeed

legends

Pelè 106 points
Q 3 C 3 unique, shooter (L), good shot, danger sense, legendary shooter

Diego Armando Maradona 106 points
Q 3 C 3 unique, shooter (L), good shot, free disengage, legendary shooter

George Best 110 points
Q 3 C 3 unique, shooter (l), good shot, drunkard, very difficult target, fire into melee

Éric Cantona 96 points
Q 3 C 3 unique, shooter (m), good shot, hammering blow

Roy Keane 94 points
Q 3 C 4 unique, shooter (s), dashing, hammering blow

Generic Golden Foot 80 points
Q 3 C 3 shooter (l), good shot

Generic Goalie 80 points
Q 3 C 2 invulnerability, rare (1)

José Mourinho 66 points
Q 3 C 2 unique, carrier, confound, smithy

mortals

Hooligans (OO or CO) 23 points
Q 4 C 2 dashing, fanatic

Pay-TV Subscribers (OO) 12 points
Q 4 C 1 fanatic

But how to build your army? Here some suggestions.

Subbuteo football players.

Eureka Miniatures’ football players:
https://eurekamin.com.au/index.php?cPath=87_126_708&sort=3a

Armorum & Aquila’s football players:
https://www.aandaminiatures.co.uk/categories/?c=20

Warmacre’s hooligans:
https://www.warmacre.com/shop/category/modern/

Ainsty Castings AGGRO’s hooligans:
https://ainstycastings.co.uk/index.php/cPath/69/osCsid/ccb1b0541dd44c08bad9771708da9a0c

Offensive Miniatures’ hooligans:
https://www.offensiveminiatures.com/catalogue.asp?RID=7&CID=3

Doggerland is a lost world in the North Sea that connected Great Britain to Europe during and after the Ice Age. This is the set for a new product line with comics, RPG and wargames. Andrea (and his team!) is going to develop the skirmish game! To know more hear the podcast interview to Andrea here:
https://www.adwgames.com/design.html

In the meantime some new miniatures are proposed. This is the first Kickstarter for figures (Ice Age mammals in a fantasy style, 28mm heroic) from the company doing Doggerland. Pledge here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/184938819/miniature-ice-age-mammal-adventure-set

After the part 1 here the part 2: more things about my holidays in Trieste.

This is the church in a Venetian gothic style in Muggia, a fishermen village at the south end of the huge Trieste harbour. Only some more kilometres along the coast and there is Capodistria, now Koper in Slovenia. Then Croatia, ex Italian Istria.

In Trieste there is a huge railway system. This was useful for the role of the harbour. Now some train deposits and railways are abandoned.

Inside an unused rail station now there is a rail museum.

This is the aspect nowadays.

Among rust, a German WWII wagon.

Some dioramas reproduce local railways in various years.

I did an amazing find! It is a tram for the line that I used to catch in my childhood! I live very near the terminus. In 1980, after more than 15 years of construction, an underground line substituted the tram line and these trams were retired. This is the Tram ACEGAT number 446, built for Trieste and used in Rome after production engineering. Moreover, this vehicle was used to test the actual underground line. On a window there is a trace of an advert with the name of my road. It felt so weird to find a piece from my past in a far city.

The sea museum. The strange thing is that on the walls there is an huge exposition about Austria-Hungary navy with pictures of victories against Italy! Yeah, that navy was constituted by Trieste people!

Far East museum. A samurai armour.

Japanese steel.

A sword made by coins. It was used as a kind of wedding gift.

The castle of Trieste is built on the top of the hill on the sea. Inside a Roman museum, and an armours and weapons museum. A medieval Syrian halberd is the Trieste’s heraldic sign.

More things that we watched in Trieste. Here some condoms with uncommon shapes. Look at that with the Big Ben rectangular shape…

Fashion toilet and bidet for luxury homes, with python or crocodile texture!

A very pleasant holiday. When the next?

My Italian holidays for 2014. This time in Trieste. I never stayed here before, it is a little far from Rome and no miniature or musical event was here, so I think to visit one for all this city on the sea, embedded among Alps, Venice and Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The architectural style is a mix of imperial gravitas and Slavic gusto, with some Art Nouveau added, proposed with an almost Venetian taste. A lot of faces and bare-chested women on building façades.

This is the villa just outside Trieste built by Mexico emperor. He died executed by firing squad in Mexico only a short time after he arrived in the place.

Under the unused throne room. After him, the villa was inhabited by a Savoia prince that after died in a prisoner camp in Africa during the WWII. I don’t want to live here!

Trieste is a multi-ethnic ex-imperial city. This is one of the two orthodox churches, the Serb one. Before I never visit a church of this kind. It is different than ours. A great atmosphere, cants, candles, kissed icons.

This was the empire harbour but, after the WWI, Italy occupied the place. This is the dock where docked the first Italian vessel.

The main square on the sea with the light of sunset on the windows.

The same place, the night with artificial lights.

The canal inside the city.

The old double church on the hill built inside the Iovis temple using even other pieces of Roman buildings and monuments.

The ground part of the Roman basilica. At the bottom the double church.

The Roman theatre. Well, but where is the arena?!?

The Roman arc along the cardus.

Roman eagles that were on the top of the Iovis temple.

Roman dices and pawns. No, you can’t play with them, it is not allowed…

Pontiarii low relief. You can view the retiarius on the top of the bridge with a stone in the hand. A secutor is approaching towards the other fighter. Wonderful!

More on part 2…

Still a day in Terni by train, still with an extensive playtest for upcoming Power Legion rules. What to say more? We are tweaking some mechanics but the core rules are established. The real challenge is to adapt our usual skirmish way of fighting with something more fluid and dynamic in the style of comic books. Those guys are unpredictable and capable of a lot of things against law of physics. Throw cars is an usual way to hit from afar…

While you can watch my brilliant combined action by Wonder Woman and Batman, I can add that in the afternoon, after gnocchi with pesto, salted vegetables from Andrea’s kitchen garden tossed by wine must, and a puff cake with apples and raisin, we tried some new mechanics for Project RS that will see the light the next year.

Last day and half to the end of this Kickstarter project. They have improved the look of their modules to compose the arena. In this way you can obtain an arena with a real decent look! I suspect that they showed before only rough prototypes. Bad move in my opinion. Now it express more potential.

An “only walls” version is available too. In this way is more easy to play because with all the full structure it is difficult to move the miniatures. In this way the arena seems a biscuits tin arena, even if larger but more frangible.

There a lot of stretch goal still locked. They aren’t unnecessary, they are necessary to give a better look at all! So if they will be locked how could we see them realised? Here the modules available to compose your mdf arena. I only disagree with the rough form of wooden terraces and with some other aesthetic and not so historical choices.
Pledge here before it will be too late: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hurlbat/28mm-modular-gladiator-arena-and-accessories

DBA 2.2 still lives! Another tournaments here in Rome organised by me and Diego. It was in the “open” formula, otherwise a match that don’t count for the Italian championship rank. Only few chaps were in the shop where we played because of the advancing Summer feel and family duties. However we had fun the same and we were more relaxed.

I wrote a complex scenario about Sea People period, with new stats and rules for HCh and LCh, and new terrain kind and displacement. Only 5 lists and almost all was well-balanced. I’m proud of myself… However I think to change something for the real tournament in September that we will play at the same shop but hopefully with 12/14 people. Here the dedicated webpage for the scenario: https://www.legiopalatina.it/grandeverde/

Another Kickstarter proposal: a modular gladiator arena! You can add which modules you want. The choice is among wooden or stone terraces, and some modules have doors or peculiar features. There is an imperial podium too. A 8 section arena, a circular one, is labelled 60 quid, an elliptic one made by 10 section is 75 quid, a longed one by 12 section is 90 quid. The ground is available with patterns according to popular gladiatorial game rules. I remember you that with Ferrum et Gloria you don’t need hexagonal or squared ground because there is free movement in the style of other Ganesha Games rules.

MDF is the new material for scenic objects on wargame tables. It is lighter and cheaper than resin, and the objects are not a single closed block but something that you can handle inside. So this proposal is something that follow actual tendencies. It is good, so you can have your huge arena for 28mm figures at a reasonable price. My only concern is about the style of some modules: they don’t know how a real arena was, indeed. Moreover, I wish a step system for the terraces but here there are only unnecessary doors and decorations. Pity! The idea is really great, the realisation is not so great. A more detailed study and attention on real arenas and this stuff would be the definitive arena. However now is maybe the best area that you can buy on the market. After some customisation it will be better. Pledge here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hurlbat/28mm-modular-gladiator-arena-and-accessories