Finally some dusty looking target locks. These are designed for the X-Wing game, although it is always useful to have various types of tokens to hand for different reasons. You always need to indicate something in a game, whether it be an objective, or marking a unit as aiming or suppressed.
Sunday, May 4, 2025
TTCombat mystery box
Finally some dusty looking target locks. These are designed for the X-Wing game, although it is always useful to have various types of tokens to hand for different reasons. You always need to indicate something in a game, whether it be an objective, or marking a unit as aiming or suppressed.
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
Salute round up
When the show opened we decided to head immediately to the opposite end of the hall and work our way backwards. A great tactic to avoid the crowds at the beginning of the show (maybe I shouldn't be telling you all this for next year.) This choice did mean that we hit up Rogue Hobbies stand at the start of the show so I got to have a chat with Louise (Savage Orc Guy) who is on one of my favourite YouTube casts, Jugz.
Concentrating |
The basic set has a mousemat ring |
"So, I throw you out of the ring" |
I apologise that I cannot remember the chaps name, but he did his job well, as despite losing the game I opted to go all in and buy the core game and a couple of extra wrestlers. I also upgraded to an mdf ring and had it built the day after Salute:
Just needs a lick of paint |
I have managed to make a start on my wrestlers |
It's a quick fun game and I am already eyeing up some more of the characters.
I am looking forward to the release of the new model in the middle of this shot which I am sure will also intimidate me for a while once purchased.
I really wanted to get loads of close up shots of this, but they all came out terrible |
I managed to briefly say hello to some online friends from the blogsphere (very briefly as i wanted to get to the next panel) and we did also manage to meet up with the Illustrious Opponent as well. I had great fun even though as per usual it was an unseasonably warm day. I have heard on the internet grapevine that the day was a massive success for most folks, attendance numbers were in the post 7 thousands and close to maxing out the venue capacity, the South London Warlords should be proud of their efforts.
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Punk Wargaming
The world of wargaming has always been a little bit punk. Bear with me as I give my argument.
“The punk ethos is primarily made up of beliefs such as non-conformity, anti-authoritarianism, anti-corporatism, a do-it-yourself ethic, anti-consumerist, anti-corporate greed, direct action, and not "selling out".” - Wikipedia.
All right, maybe not all these things, but I would definitely say the non-conformity and do-it-yourself ethic have always been there. When addressing this topic it is difficult to not address the great big Oliphaunt in the room, Games Workshop, so we may start with them. Early days of GW were what I would call punk. The adopting of sci-fi and fantasy themselves in a wargaming setting were definitely not the accepted norm in the hobby at the time.
Up until that point wargaming was mostly re-enactment of real historical settings. The industry itself was still very small and a lot of hobbyists were casting their own soldiers in lead in sheds and kitchens across the country (something I think of as a little bit punk too.)
These actual punks appear in the first edition of 40k, Rogue Trader |
Going forward through the eighties with the actual birth of punk, we have the release of GW’s sci fi game Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader. Is it a coincidence that another British home grown success, the comic 2000AD had a similarly named title. Another company that had a punky anti-establishment feel to it.
Another image from Rogue Trader, real punk vibes |
Early GW games had their own limitations due to the range of products not covering everything required, so there has always historically been an encouragement of colouring outside the lines by the hobby including scratch building or “converting” as the slang was at the time. This was also partly due to the inclusion of randomness in some of the rule sets. I am guessing this is something that bled over from early roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons where players liked the dice to decide what their characters attributes were.
Random ability table from Rogue Trader |
Still a popular game today, Mordheim encouraged scratch building your gangs as well as buying the provided kits. |
The possessed gang could even gain mutations, definitely something that needed a bit of hobby converting! |
As GW became a shareholder led business, they themselves have become the corporate, consumerist entity that punk is “anti” so it obviously leads to these attitudes being less encouraged. I’m not completely against this, when a company grows and has to start ensuring that it has a guaranteed business certain decisions have to be made. The company still has a place in the hobby, it definitely is the gateway drug into a large community that definitely would suffer without it.
The Freebooterz expansion rulebook had a whole army list of Ork/Genestealer hybrids that could only be played with conversions. There were no models! |
So, what is Punk Wargaming now? Well, I think I have come up with a definition.
Punk Wargaming – Wargaming with the rule of cool. Not always using models for their intended purpose. Scratch building and converting models. Finding a way to play a game in your own budget. Playing to tell a story rather than win a game.
Not all of the above is required to be a Punk Wargamer. But having the attitude to accept these things in your opponent as well as yourself is probably enough to cover it. So, how do I join the gang I hear you ask? Well, luckily in this current world of the World Wide Web, PDF's, self publishing, 3D printing, it is easier than ever to be a Punk.
Firstly there are a lot of rule sets out there now for whatever your budget. There are free rules from the likes of the 28 community who I would definitely say are Punk Wargamers. There are various self published rules out there that expect you to find your own models.
Self published skirmish cyber-punk rules from Wargamer Punk Patrick Todoroff |
Thursday, January 30, 2025
New year new models
The leadpile of potential never seems to dwindle. I am forever getting distracted by new shiny things, there is always something on my painting tray.
I even got temporarily distracted by thus Gundam malarkey. I'll admit, the original cartoon is pretty good, even if I can't watch whilst painting. It's in the original Japanese, so I can't read the English subtitles whilst painting. For Christmas I did get my first kit and it have to say, all those comments on YouTube about the high quality of the kits is not an exaggeration. The amount of toy soldier kits I've tried to glue together (not mentioning any specific company) and things have just not quite fit right. Gundam kits are so precision they don't even need glue. Yet somehow they also stay together once constructed.
I went for a High grade kit which is 1/144 scale (not the simplest difficulty but far from the highest grade either!)
Strike Rouge |