More Alien Worlds with the 7 year old

Alien Worlds has been a BIG hit with my daughter. We've played a few games now.  This evening, the Dwarf raiding party struck the chapel of Clonrickert, there to sample the magic waters of its Crystal Pool, but of course a patrol has been alerted, and a group of soldiers are there to ensure the sacred waters are not defiled...

I've built on the original 'Quick Start Sample Game' from the book, and developed a few embellishments straight from there, on the fly. I'm intending to slightly revise and make reference to the rest of the book as we move forward, but at the moment we're playing that very simple version with the following tweaks:

• ranges are halved. We're playing with 28mm figures on a 2'x2' board with a movement range of 10cm
• we're calling movement range 'short' and shooting range 'long'
• close combat is an opposed roll. Models who look more heavily armoured get to roll 2 dice and pick the higher. Draws are rerolled. I made this tweak because it feels more like a fight to us, and because she remembered it from another game we played a while back, so it was instinctive. I suspect it makes the game a little less tactical, but that's not a concern for us yet.
• one model on each side is the Leader. He isn't better at fighting, but when he dies, every other model in his band rolls a D6, and flees on a 1. It's a very basic introduction to morale as an idea and my opponent grasped it quickly, and it's made for some moments of high drama!
• MAGIC! At my opponent's suggestion, I devised the following rules for wizards and an attendant magic system:

This was judged a great success by my opponent. We had a wizard each. She used all of her spells, and it caused much hilarity. including this sequence:

First, she decided against cravenly skulking behind obstacles, and moved her Leader (who her warband are pleased to call Sir Lord) boldly to the top of a pillar.

I thought to punish his hubris, and chose to use TELEPORT, and promptly moved Sir Lord to the very top of the Tree of Woe.

I used my second activation to begin climbing my own leader, King Krum, up the tree to meet him in single combat.

In retaliation, She used her own turn to cast TELEPORT also, and hoisted King Krum into the sky- but where should she set him down?

On the chapel roof of course. The sight of the two leaders' dignity so compromised was too much- evil cackling ensued...

I suspect we shall be fighting more battles very soon...

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.

A plastic Middlehammer warband for AoS Skirmish

Continuing my current enthusiasm for chunky GW monopose plastic from the early to mid '90s, here's a small 'Free Peoples' warband ready for a little Age of Sigmar Skirmish campaign. A mix of Battlemasters, Warhammer, Talisman and Advanenced Heroquest. All lovely to paint, and all looking good on those rounded bases, particularly the knight I think- really shows off a cavalry figure well.

As ever, bright and shiny is the order of the day! I used a different varnish this time though: Ronseal Ultra Tough Hardglaze Clear Varnish. Cheaper per 100ml than Humbrol Glosscote by a huge margin, and gives a subtle shading/warming effect to the colours, without staining or muddying like Quickshade.

Colours used (for my reference really!):
White spray
Averland Sunset spray
AP Daemonic yellow spray
AP Black
Mournfang Brown
Zandri Dust
Pallid Wych Flesh
AP Plate Mail Metal
AP Flesh
Reikland Fleshshade
Warboss Green
Averland Sunset
Celestra Grey
Dryad Bark
AP Ultramarine Blue

a small gathering of Khornishmen for AoS Skirmish

a little departure from the realms of the old-fashioned and the glossy to paint up some more current miniatures, ready to play GW's Age of Sigmar: Skirmish tomorrow. I finished these off very quickly with Army Painter Quickshade which, if used carefully with the right model and the right colour scheme, is incredible stuff.

Eagles

a trio of Eagles for Kow and Dragon Rampant, from Mithril Miniatures' Gwaihir models.

“Farewell," they cried, "Wherever you fare till your eyries receive you at the journey's end!" That is the polite thing to say among eagles.

"May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks," answered Gandalf, who knew the correct reply.”

old school wood elf

had a spare half hour so I dived into the ice cream tub of shonky old 25mm lead from decades of yore and fished out this chap to paint. I've no idea who he is or who made or him or when, but he'll do very nicely as an elven archer for my collection of shiny lads for old school RPGing and skirmishing.

Emhar Saxons

Yesterday I took delivery of a box of Emhar Saxons for playing Blood Eagle in 1/72 scale. They were about £8 for a box of 50, so they work out at 16 pence each. Once I've based them on a penny, that goes up to 17p!

Rather good box art

The two linked sprues that come in the box

A close-up view of the detail

Size comparison with an Airfix German, and an old Space Marine

Emhar have their own formula of plastic which they boast is easier to glue and paint than regular 1:72 stuff. That may be true, but it seemed very much like Airfix stuff in the hand- a little bit bendy with that familiar greasy surface, so I gave my test figure the treatment that Henry Hyde advises in his Wargaming Compendium- I washed him with washing-up liquid and painted him with a decent coat of PVA glue before painting as normal. As I'm going for the 'toy-soldier' look,  I just gave him a bright and clean basecoat and a coat of Humbrol Glosscote. In the photos the varnish hasn't even begun to dry, so he looks even more shiny and gloopy than he will do.

Lovely figures- I shall probably get some of the Emhar Vikings as well soon.

Creatures and Warbands for Frostgrave.

I've been playing a little Frostgrave lately, and I've been using it as an excuse to paint a lot of models from the 1970s in a very clean bright and shiny 'toy soldier' look that I think looks good and suits the era of the miniatures. I've also created a few larger scratch built creatures, painted in the same style.

Here's my Giant Spider, made from dressmakers' pins, bamboo skewers and Milliput.

...and here's my Giant Worm, made from Milliput again, and a child's coat hanger! The orc-for-scale here is an old Prince August one.

Lastly, here's some sort of slime monster composed entirely of bamboo skewers and hot glue. The other figure is a golem, probably by Minifigs.

I hope you can see the kind of look I'm going for with the paintjobs. It polarises opinion a bit I think, but I really like it, and it's QUICK! A huge plus. Here are two of my Frostgrave warbands which also sometimes see action in Song of Blades and Heroes and Open Combat as well as dungeon crawls and whatnot. I'm hoping to expand both into opposing good and evil armies for Dragon Rampant.

THE GOODIES

The Fellowship of the Red Wyrm

THE BADDIES

The Thrall of Kronos

These two warbands are mostly composed of old Minifigs, Ral Partha, Prine August and Minot stuff. The giant mushroom is a 'proof of concept' for a fungal forest I'm hoping to finish later.