Using Airships! for naval battles.

 

Anybody that knows me knows I don't like naval games. Little terrain if any, unfun to paint minis and tactics are generally "line up and blaze away."

But designing Airships! for Glorious Adventures in the Age of Steam got me thinking people could use the same rules for water based fleets. So I dug out my favorite Dark Elves from Man-O-War and some Dystopian Wars ships (the original line, the new ones suck) and started thinking.

In Airships! there are altitude mechanics so airships can bomb and attack ground based targets so just use naval ships as being at ground level altitude. All the other traits and gun battery sizes should work the same.

For my Man-O-War ships (in this case dragons) I gave them d12s for Close Quarters dice to represent the sea serpents attacking the enemy ship and crew, and a light battery to represent their fiery breath. Easy enough to figure out the other fantasy fleets. Dwarves would have heavier armor. Their submersibles could used by adding another altitude "underwater". Underwater vessels can attack other vessel underwater but must be at the surface to use torpedoes or other weapons.

 Coming up with some of Orcy and Skaven weapons will be fun.

Wind rules (blech) for sailing ships will have to be added, but luckily Man-O-War has a nice simple system, with a Joker being a nice trigger for wind change.

I'm excited to give both these fleets a try.

 

 

Each year we gather round the old Snowbrawl tree for another Snowbrawl tournament. What's Snowbrawl you say?

It's a snowball fight mixed with dodgeball, based on the massive neighborhood snowball fights of our youth.

This game can be played with any miniatures you have, and for the most part use the standard Fistful of Lead Core rules. You can have fights between evil snowmen and elves, Vikings and trolls, anything you can think of! The game can be played with 2, 3 or 4 players. Four player games can by 2 versus 2 or 4 way brawls.

For the holidays Wiley Games is making Snowbrawl absolutely free so you can make it a holiday tradition.

Wiley Wargame Weekeend

 Last weekend was was our annual Wiley Wargame Weekend. We had a about a dozen people and played several games over the course of the day even with a mid afternnon taco/burrito break.

First off was a group favorite: Flower of Chivalry. Although over the last couple of decades I've modified it enough it's kinda it's own game now. Everyone just calls it Battlelust now even though that name is already taken.

This was a 4v4 affair. As usual, it looked pretty one sided until it wasn't. It ended up being a tie.

Moving along chronologically through our games, NotJay ran a game of What a Tanker. Again it started one sided and quickly swung over into an Allied victory. My Stug was the only survivor and quickly beat it.

Our final game was Battelsuit Alpha but with a twist. It was mech vs Bioengineered titans using the old VOR miniatures. Fun game, but I was busy cleaning up and didn't get proper pictures. Joel promised to run it aggain so I can get pics.

Sunday my son came over to video an Airships! battle from our latest rule book Glorious Adventures in the Age of Steam. I'll be posting that next.

TaktiCon

 Kansas City has a very large wargaming community spread out across the metro area, and since the demise of RECRUITs it's been tough to get the band back together. We have run March to Victory the last 3 years in attempt to provide locals with quality gaming. I was glad to see we weren't alone with the start of TaKtiCon (see how the KC is capitalized? Huh? huuuuhhh?), a new wargaming convention. It was a pleasure to be part of their inaugural event.

I ran several games of our new game Glorious Adventures in the Age of Steam. Available from Wiley Games here.

The Germans were trying to break the Anglo-French lines at an abandoned village with teh help of the nefarious Professor Nightshade.

British Naval troops chugged to the center of town and start blasting away.

The brave Unicycle Uhlans charge forward into a hail of bullets.

The Grenadiers stand up to the nightmarish contraptions of Nightshade.

A group of French Marines hold the center.

A great time and a good start to hopefully a long standing convention

Grandpa Gruesome's Weird War Stories

 It's that time of year again! The veil between the living and dead is at it's thinnest. Time for the World Revenent Hunting Social Club to meet once again and clear the ruins of Old Baronburg of the pesky living Dead.

As usual, we used Fistful of Lead, with the Tales of Horror Supplement for all the horrific extras.

The Hunters gather at the center of town.

The more bold hunters move quickly to "shut down" the zombie spawn points while the other are too busy taking trophies and causing far too much noise.

All the commotion has awoken a banshee. Her mournful howl puts shock on all the hunters in the area.

As almost always happens, poor coordination between hunter faction allowed the dead to accumulate into large groups and overpower isolated hunters. About half escaped before the sun rise. A great game as always.

Battles and Brews 2024

 

This year was the THIRD annual Battles and Brews held at our local brewery. Attendance was down a little due to it being summer and lots of folks were on vacation.

But that didn't mean the quality of the games was down. We had a Fistful of Lead Tales of Horror London game. The Vampires had to protect their coffins while 6 teams of players went about their own missions. The werewolves took a beating while the werewolf hunters scored the highest Renown points. 

We had a WW2 bombing raid game based loosely based on Starfighers!

Battlesuit Alpha was represented with mechs vs giant Aliens.

There was a Fire and Fury game as well as Warmaster.

Actung Panzers and Masters of the Universe using Galactic Heroes.

Finally, I ran a Victorian SciFi game using the upcoming Wiley Games title.

All great games, and I got to meet some new gamers. We'll be hosting Weird Wars in October. See you there.