Tuesday 25 February 2014

Evolution of a Roleplaying hobby: Part Two - I'm hooked.

Whilst I had bought Dungeons & Dragons in 1984 (as previously outlined in this blog), it wasn’t until 1987 that I really caught the Roleplaying bug.

In the September of that year, I moved from primary school to high school.  For a kid like me, this was a major upheaval, made all the more so (I now realise) through the fact that I have Aspergers Syndrome (of course, I wouldn’t know this until 2012, some 25 years later).  I have always had a difficulty making friends, and bullying was a normal occurrence to me.

Because of this, I would hide away in the library, ploughing my way through the seemingly endless supply of Asterix and Tintin comic books (there was also a series by Goscinny & Underzo that dealt with a Native American, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was called – answers on a comment please!), Biggles and Billy Bunter novels and various books on myths and legends.

It was during this time I met the group of guys who would come to be the constant in my life.  I already knew John as he lived over the road from me and Derek from a summer play scheme I had attended the year before, but the others, Paul, James and David were new to me. Over the course of the next few years, I got to know each of them, until finally, in 1989, Dave suggested we play a game he had...
That game was Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. 

Having already played a bit of DnD I thought this was great news! But Dave was quite scathing in the fact that ADnD was more complex, DEEPER than DnD. He was right to an extent - in ADnD you could play a race as well as a class - Elven Wizards, Dwarven Thieves - all possible in the more detailed rules of ADnD.
I loved it. I remember seemingly moving into Derek's parents kitchen to play long games, made even longer by their holiday absences, which allowed us to play though the night (a memorable 36 hour game resulted in a concussion for Paul, Derek having to use a calculator to add 5+3 and me scrubbing lipstick out of a sheepskin rug - don't ask). The game took us on adventures our small town childhoods could only dream of.
ADnD is still possibly my favourite system, with its closest competitor being Call of Cthulhu( of which I will explain more in the next article...).

The 2nd edtion of AD&D (which is more commonly referred to as 2e) captivated me.  Here there were two hardback books – the Players Handbook (PHB) and Dungeon Masters Guide (DMG) – hundreds of pages in blue edged script, interspersed with full colour plates from the likes of Jeff Easley (he of the dragon artwork on the Basic Set), Clyde Caldwell and Larry Elmore, showing adventurers fighting monsters, gazing a huge jewels, wizards casting mighty spells and priests praying to their deities.

And then there were the Monstrous Compendia…  Gone was the list of monsters I knew so well, replaced by whole ring binders full of monsters, all weird and wonderful in their descriptions!  Each page gave a new wonder (or horror) for adventurers to face, but more than that the MC gave them ‘ecologies’ – reasons to exist.  The various volumes concentrated on the different settings in which you could set your 2e games – from the classic feel of Greyhawk, to the oriental adventures of Kara-Tur, to outer space in Spelljammer and hammer horror in Ravenloft – all had their own monsters, each with its own ‘taste’.

With these three ‘books’ (in reality two books and a ringbinder or two) you could play to your hearts content, only restricted by your imagination.

I however, found that I was trapped – I needed more. More setting ideas, more adventure hooks, more everything!  And so it was I set down the road of buying a setting box…  FR1: The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, which I shall explore more in the next instalment.

Sunday 23 February 2014

Evolution of a hobby.. Part One

This game requires no game board becuase the action takes place in the player's imagination with dungeon adventures that include monsters, treasures and magic'

Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (authors own copy, with thanks to Neil Hubbard for donating it)

It all started with a trip to a school fayre...

In the late June of 1984, my brothers school held a summer fayre. It was the standard thing - tombola, games and lots of jumble stalls, selling everything from mismatch roller skates to tarnished silverware.

One of the stalls was selling toys. in amongst the Star Wars figures, Action Man kit and Cindy dolls there was a bright red box with a dragon on the cover... and the same name as one of my favourite cartoons!

I remember putting the Action Man that I had chosen back down, and picking up the box. It rattled... I opened the box, and inside there was two booklets and a set of odd looking dice - the rattle in the box.  I asked my Dad to buy it for me, instead of the Action Man.  He looked bemused as to why I would want  a box containing two booklets which would cost 75p rather than the Action Man, but he agreed.

I didn't put those booklets down from then until bedtime.  They captivated me.  The two booklets - 'Players Manual (emblazoned with READ THIS BOOK FIRST!) and the Dungeon Masters Rulebook (READ THIS BOOK NEXT!), both with the same picture of a warrior fighting a dragon (by Jeff Easley) on the cover filled my 8 year old imagination with ideas galore, which over the coming summer weeks my brother and my friends explored, until we wanted more - more monsters, more magic, MORE DRAGONS!

But, back to the Basic Set..

Written by Frank Mentzer, what the 8 year old me didn't know was that this was a new version of the game written by Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax.  Released in 1983, it was the first release in what became known as the 'BECMI' range (which stands for Basic, Expert, Companion, Master and Immortal sets) of boxed set rules.  You could happily play the game with just the Basic Set, but the ECMI sets added greater depth to the rules.


The Player's Book, within 64 pages, explained how to create a character, fight battles and cast magic spells.  The Dungeon Master's Rulebook in 48 pages, furthered these rules,  providing rules on how to deal with various situations, abilities for the various character options and most importantly, details on monsters and treasure - without these two the whole game would be a lot less exciting!

Looking back, I wonder how we managed to get so many games from so little.  The two book were black and white throughout, and the rules as the name suggests, were 'basic'.  Compared to today's games such as Pathfinder (which is the spiritual, if not actual successor to D&D Basic) it gives very little in the way of situational guidance or detail.

So why did it hold mine, and my friends attention for so long?  

Because, to a group of boys from a small Midlands market town (Birmingham is a 12 mile car journey away), there was nothing like it.  From these 112 pages we could explore dungeons and fight monsters that we had seen in the cartoon, and read about in the Hobbit (we were too young to have yet read Lord Of The Rings), without spending a fortune on boardgames or props.

Unfortunately, my original box is now lost in time - think I lent it out and never got it back...  But thanks to fellow hobbyist Neil Hubbard I have a new copy.

And the magic is still there.  Just opening the box filled me with inspiration and special memories, pulling me to run one more game...

Next I'll be moving onto Advanced Dungeons and Dragons - why was it called Advanced, and what's this about being able to play an Elven Fighter? That's two classes!

I'd love to hear how your hobby started, what inspired you to play the games we play?

Monday 17 February 2014

This Place Is Like Someone's Memory Of A Town & That Memory Is Fading... True Detective - your next favourite show.

True Detective - (c) HBO 


"I know the difference between an idea and a fact"

Every now and again, a show comes along that just grabs you by the throat, keeps you on the edge of your seat, and makes you want each episode more than the last.


TRUE DETECTIVE is such a programme.

On the face of it, it's pretty much just another cop show - two detectives, played by Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey,  investigate a series of gruesome murders in Louisiana.  

Shown through a series of flashbacks and interviews, the two men explain what happened 17 years previous, when the naked body of a woman was found, leading to kidnappings, drug busts and further murders.

So far, so procedural...

Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) & Martin Hart (Woody Harrelson)
(c) HBO

But then the writer, Nic Pizzolatto, throws the audience a curveball... and what a curveball it is.

It's hard to write a preview of a show as taught and full of twists without spoiling it.  As it has yet to be shown in the UK (Sky Atlantic have the rights), I don't want to ruin it for everyone!

Needless to say, if you like the same kind of fiction and games as I do, you'll LOVE True Detective.  I'll be revisiting the show week by week as soon as the UK airing starts.

The devil is in the detail - as will be shown over the next 8 episodes...


Thursday 6 February 2014

NEW MARVEL COMICS MINIS!


 I've been a comic reader for as long as I can remember, learning to read from the comics my father would bring home.

It's only natural then that I've been yearning for comic book character miniatures for just as long!  Whilst DC have now got a beautifully sculpted range in their Arkham City / Batman Miniatures game from Knight Models, Marvel fans have had to put up with the (somewhat shoddy) Heroclix prepainted figures - something that the painter in me couldn't bear.

Until now...


Knight Models, the guys behind the Batman Miniatures game (I'll cover that in a forthcoming post), have now started to release images of their 35mm Marvel Universe figures - Starting with Iron Man and Wolverine.

The Iron Man figure is a good resemblence of the 'Cinematic Universe' version of Iron Man, which in turn was based on the amazing artwork of Adi Granov.  It's a nice dynamic pose.

Wolverine however, isn't based on the Film version, which I suspect is due to the Hugh Jackman version rights being controlled by a different studio than the Avengers / Cap / Iron Man / Thor films. In this picture he's outfitted in the current yellow / blue suit, but I'm sure that a good painter could use this miniature to represent any period of Logan's storyline (apart from possibly Weapon X and Berserker Wolverine) with little or no work apart from colour changes.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Knight Models bring out next - they've confirmed a full range, so expect more over the coming months.  

I'm looking forward to grabbing (if they're released):

1) Captain America
2) Thor
3) X-Men (the original team)
4) Deadpool
5) Spider Man
6) Hulk (which should come with a Bruce Banner mini as well)

Make Mine Marvel!

Ps - talking of Wolverine, I can't recommend WOLVERINE #1 by Paul Cornell and Ryan Stegman.  Picking up after the climax of Paul Cornell's 'Killable' arc, which ended with 'The Wolverine Is Dead', the book promises to reinvigorate a character that has been a staple of the Marvel U for many years.  I'm going out on a limb here, but I think that what Paul is doing with Wolverine is on a par with Ed Brubaker's run on Captain America and Geoff John's run on Green Lantern - two runs which I hold in high regard, which brought their respective characters to new audiences and strong story lines.

Here's a page from Issue One that's been released as a teaser:

I'll be posting a full review soon!

Dipping a toe in Warmachine....



Warmachine, the popular table top wargame by Privateer Press has always eluded my interests for various reasons -

1) I am heavily invested in 40k and WFB, and several other systems

2) Most importantly, the aesthetic 'feel' of the larger 'Warjack' Miniatures didn't appeal to me.

I had tried in the past to build and play a force based around the Menoth faction, but after building a force, and painting it, I found the force wasn't the best for a player starting out in the game.... and promptly lost interest and cashed out of the game.

Until recently...  my local games store, Titan Games, has a large following for both Warmachine and Hordes (colloquially called 'WarmaHordes as the factions are interchangeable between the two games), and I've been watching with interest the various forces which the players have brought in to use in both pick up games and the new 'Journeyman' league.

Perusing the two rulebooks (which I held onto from the last time 'just in case'), I found that the Skorne faction for Hordes appealed - all reds & golds, with the added bonus of WAR ELEPHANTS!


They're great models - to me, they have a lot in common with the look of the Easterlings from Lord Of The Rings, which I've always liked.  I also like the back story of an ancient empire fighting to keep hold of its lands.

Now, I thought it would stop there....

Oh dear.

During a visit to Titan Games, I noticed in one of the display cabinets an army of robots, gleaming in chrome and blue, which had been excellently painted by Martin Jennings (the man's a machine himself, churning out whole excellent armies quicker than I can paint single squads).  

I didn't know which game these robots were for, but I knew I had to have them...!

Imagine my pleasure when he told me they were a relatively new faction for Warmachine - The Convergence of Cyriss


I was instantly hooked.

The only thing was, I'm an inveterate tinkerer...  the chrome had to go!  The miniatures just scream 'steampunk' to me, and that means one thing:

LOTS OF COPPER AND BRASS!

Armed with the Starter Battlegroup and Faction book off I scuttled, back to the Den O' Doom to prepare the clockwork warriors....

First up is the Warcaster -  Forge Master Sytherion:

Painting him has been quite fun, and pretty easy.  To get a nice, 'warm' brass finish, I started with a brown, rather than black undercoat (British Army Brown to be precise).  This gives a good solid base to the metallics, which doesn't bleed through (and is more forgiving if you miss a bit or make a mistake).  Then it's Games Workshops Brass Scorpion, washed with a mix of Army Painter Soft Tone and Games Workshop Carroburg Crimson, and the silver parts picked out with Leadbelcher.

The patina (which I've added to give a sense of age) is the new Games Workshop Nihlakh Oxide - effectively a wash which is heavily pigmented, leaving the colour behind in the recesses once applied.

As he's floating, I added a small amount of OSL in a matching blue colour to the patina to tie it all together.

I'm incredibly happy with the result - now onto the Warjacks from the box!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on both the game and my attempts - leave a comment!


My first ever fan fiction!

  My First foray into fan fiction - a Battletech short story!  I've been wanting to write short stories for a while, but never really go...