May the Fourth Star Wars gaming

 

In honor of one of my favorite holidays, I hosted a series of Star Wars games last Saturday. The first was a Fistful of Lead: Galactic Heroes game, and the second Fistful of Lead Starfighters! game.

The first game had Rebel leaders having a clandestine meeting on Covid Prime. Which of course was detected by the Empire which dispatched forces to capture them.

 All was looking good for the Imperial Forces (me) until those Rebel scum slowly got the upper hand, mostly due to poor shooting from the Stormtroopers (who'd have guessed that). 

First one, then in a contested hand to hand battle, the other leader were secured by the rebel forces. Rebel victory.

After lunch we had a game of Starfighters! A squadron of rebels led by Han Solo were sent to blow up an Imperial asteroid base. Again, Darth and the boys looked like they were going to wipe the floor with the rebel scum, but the last turn saw TIE blowing up like popcorn kernels.

Even though I lost both games it was a lot of fun. You can watch game one here.

March to Victory 2025!

 I had a great time this past weekend at March to Victory. Less of a convention, and more of a get together of wargamers for a couple days of fun.

Friday night I ran my Glorious Adventures in the Age of Steam game. An Anglo French force was trying to stop German rampage. The Thin Red Line managed to hold. The same was repeated Saturday.

We also had 54mm French and Indian game using Fistful of Lead Bigger Battles. Cluck Amok's games always look so nice.

Finally Friday was a game of Blood and Plunder.

Saturday had lots of games. A search for Pirate gold, What a Tanker, Underhive gangs playing a deadly game of Shootz em and Ladders, A sink the Bismark game, a WW2 Pacific bombing game, and early jets game and two games of March Hares to Victory. Right out of medieval manuscripts, rabbits attacking monks! 

Plenty of board games and wargamer talk too.

 

What I found very satisfying was how many of the games were Fistful of Lead that people had made their own. The pirate gold game was done using Horse and Musket. Necroplunda using Galactic Heroes, March Hares using Might and Melee, and the 54mm French and  Indian war game used Bigger Battles.

Talking with McMurray, the GM of Medieval March Hares game, he had used Arena Blood to run a 3 Musketeers game. Now I'm thinking...

 

Love me some 10mm Imagi-Nations, but I was trying to find a way to use them with Fistful of Lead: Bigger Battles. I designed these wooden slot bases to hold the troops and track their strength. I can pull the individual bases out make them in line for attack or in column of march. Nifty!

Designed them in Adobe Illustrator and then lasered them out. These could work for a number of games.

Starfighters!

 There are several reasons why I love Fistful of Lead: Starfighters! and not just because I'm the author.

In a world where so many games are tied to a miniatures line, this one is not. Starfighters! origin story begins with huge sale of X-Wing miniatures at my local 1/2 Price Bookstore. They were dirt cheap because they were "first edition" and no longer compatible with the newest version of the rules, even though the miniatures WERE EXACTLY THE SAME!

 So I made a rules set where you could use anything you can find: old toys, plastic game pieces, 3D printed miniatures, and yes, defunct X-Wing miniatures. A very easy build template allows you to design the ships  the way you think they should be.

The next reason I love them builds on that ship creation system: Versatility. Our Facebook Group has made mods and pre-built Battlestar Galactica ships and other SciFi genres as well as a WW1 mod called Dogfighters! and my own Pulpfighters! for use with my embarrassing large Crimson Skies collection. It has spawned racing games and even yes, naval games.

Starfighters! has allowed me to get a bunch of old plastic and lead out of the pile and into the light all while making "pew, pew" like a little kid.

Starfighters! is available here.

Fantasy Gladiators

 

As some of you may know we released Arena of Blood last year and it turned out to be more versatile than I hoped. After a few historical tournaments, I started running The Great Goblin Games. An Olympic style day of different games between the goblin tribes to decide who would be the best tribe and making their chief the Great Goblin.

 There was a Wolf Chariot race, a joust, Squig Tickling, a Doom Diver distance contest and finally a gladiatorial match. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I simply matched existing Gladiator types to fantasy creatures. A heavily armored Murmillo makes an excellent ogre type, while a bow Sagitarius makes a nice Elf Bowman. Simple.

 I soon realized this worked across other genres. I could easily run a John Carter type match on Mars or stage fights between Gamorrians for the enjoyments of the Hutts. And post Apocalyptic matches are perfect!

If you're interested in the rules, the pdf is cheap, and you can check out our YouTube videos on how the game works.