Review- Echidna Games' Alien Worlds

I've done quite a lot of stuff in the past months that I've neglected to record here. Today, my daughter and I played a simple skirmish game using Echidna Games' ruleset 'Alien Worlds', which is billed as 'fast paced miniatures rules you can enjoy with your children'. I'm happy to report we both enjoyed them as advertised!

I set out a simple scenario. A raiding party of dwarfs have heard a rumour that the fabled jewel- the Dragon's Eye- had been hidden at a crofter's cottage and they attempt to retrieve it, only to run into a band of soldiers who have anticipated their attack. My daughter took the Humans and I took the Dwarfs.

Her humans consisted of 4 archers (one of whom was absent for this picture!), a warrior and the leader.

To keep things simple, my Dwarfs functioned identically, but I had two fewer shooters and two extra warriors.

We played a slightly modified version of the super-simple introductory game.  Each player chooses two figures which move up to 'short' (10cm) and either fight if in base contact with an enemy or shoot if within 'long' (20cm) of a target. Shooting is a single D6, with some extremely simple modifiers, and a success is a kill- this game is quick and bloody! If the leader of either band is killed, I decided, the other models in his band should immediately roll a D6 and flee on a 1.

I tweaked combat to make it a basic opposed roll but with more heavily armoured warriors always rolling two dice and picking the higher.

These rules gave us a very decisive result within about 20 minutes. My opponent won, saving the Dragon's Eye from the greedy dwarfs, and she is keen to play again soon. I'm already thinking about ways the two sides can be differentiated and made more interesting. Alien Worlds is a simple and solid set of rules which does what it sets out to do and can be built on and expanded easily- heartily recommended if you want a game you can play with young children, or if you just like very simple rules.

Oathmark Goblin

I picked up some of the new plastic Oathmark Goblins from Osprey/Northstar over Christmas. The kits is excellent.

It's been thoroughly reviewed elsewhere but one thing I knew I wanted to do something about was the integral basing. Each mini stands on a little lozenge of plastic, which presents a modelling problem if you use the thin little Renedra bases included in the box, so I used some recessed 25mm square bases. This allows the model to beglued in place without trimming the plastic, and the base is then easily filled to foot level with sand.

I gave the model a bit more of a modern paintjob than usual, and enjoyed it very much. The shield is a brass drawing pin- I like the included shields, but wanted a smooth surface for the freehand insignia.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle 2nd edition

I've just taken delivery of a little eBay bargain- a copy of the second edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle from 1984. I didn't know much about it before now. I have the 3rd edition from 1988 already and that's the one that the Oldhammer lads usually rave about. First impressions are that is a more slight production than 3rd (that book really is visual and lore feast), and the Old World is less crystallised than in future editions, but several things have already piqued my interest. It has a more laissez-faire approach to army building and a formula for costing just about troops or monsters you might have minis for. The army lists are very vague. Later on the Ravening Hordes supplement brought the army lists closer to what we'd recognise, but I quite like the fuzziness of the lore at this stage in Warhammer history. I'm going to have a closer look and see if it's something I'll look at playing, or whether it's just a nostalgic curio for the shelf.