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

If you are still a bit of a traditionalist but want to be a bit punk, well Opsrey do a whole range of miniature agnostic rules. Some which cover historical periods as well as sci-fi and fantasy. The best way to be a Wargaming Punk however when it comes to rules is to write your own. if you aren't confident enough yet maybe use an existing set of rules and write a set of house rules or a campaign. Be inspired. (As long as you don't start publishing and making money from this, being a Punk does not mean being a stealing douchebag, Respect copyright laws)

If you want inspiration for being a Hobby Punk, you are advised to go and watch all the videos from Trent at Miscast. I can heartily recommend his channel, it's great fun. If the written word is more your preference, then go read 28 magazine for inspiration from a whole host of hobbyists. Or if you don't think you can cope with making a mess with hot glue guns and resin, then maybe try some 3D sculpting, you may surprise yourself.

Or, if you just want to buy some different models for your games, then start looking around on the internet for alternatives. Maybe visit Ramshackle games or The Still Tower, two companies who I would say are Punk Wargamers. Or buy something from one of the hundreds of smaller companies out there. Why would you want to have exactly the same models as everyone else in your army at club night, you're a Wargaming Punk now, be individual. (Although I don't recommend putting a safety pin through your nose, Sepsis is still a thing.) Next time you are at a show and you see a model on display, when you say to your friend "That's cool, but I have no use for it in my games". Buy it anyway, you will find a good use and it will look cool on the table.

Zulu wars Perry Plastics

Its been a while since my last post here. I haven't been idle though. Regulars will know I have been taking part in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge and posting there instead. Post Christmas I managed at least one post a week, so not too shabby if I may say so myself. So, apologies to anyone that saw these models in that blog  but I thought they warranted another posting here with some different accompanying words.

As I have previously said many a time, I love historical gaming, but I am slower at painting for it due to the self imposed stress of historical accuracy in uniforms. (Yes, so much has already been said about "Do your own thing" This is just my own issue, let's move on.)

So, I greatly enjoyed sticking together these Perry Miniatures plastics, then they sat on my painting tray for a long time. A very long time. Inspired by the Father in Laws love of the Victorian era in toy soldiers, I picked up a copy of Ospreys, The Men who would be Kings rulebook. They are skirmish rules and using their half size unit rules, you have enough for two forces if you buy two boxes of Perry Plastics, one for Brits, one for Zulus. (You are actually just a couple short, but the free Warlord sprues from Wargames Illustrated I have got recently covered the shortfalls.)

After these were all finished I decided to add a Gatling Gun to the Brits.

The gun carriage colour was inspired by checking out these guys here.

I also remembered I have a couple of the Wargames Illustrated limited edition figures that fit in nicely.

I'm probably going to paint up another box of Zulus if I can bully myself around to getting to it.

The British box comes with casualty markers. The rules I have don't specifically require any on-table markers but I decided to future proof myself by using green stuff to make some dice holders with them in case something crops up in the future that they are useful for.

All the models were finished with Coat D'arms Super Shader which gives them some nice shading, as well as an old school gloss finish that I kinda like for this project.

The paints used were (For those interested):

British.

Citadel paints:

Zandra dust, Corax White, Cadian Fleshtone, Eshin Grey, Dawnstone, Ironbreaker, Abaddon Black, Retributor Armour.

Coat D'arms:

Pale Sand, Horse Tone Dun, Beige Brown, Blood Red, Supershader Light Brown.

Zulus.

Coat D'arms:

Beige Brown, Dark Flesh, Pale Sand.

Citadel:

Zandra Dust, Corax White, Abaddon Black, Agrax Earthshade.

For the bases:

Tamiya Grass Effect Khaki, Gamers Grass Dry Steppe tufts.

The gun carriage is Citadel Russ Grey.

Now, anyone know if I can get an mdf Rorke's Drift kit in 28mm that folds down for easy storage?

Dragon Rampant Mammoth time!

So, as promised, back to me to tell you a bit more about our attempt at Dragon Rampant. Well last blog post I allowed the Distinguished Opponent to tell you about his Dragon Rampant army. Well, how did we get on? Well, often with new games I have spent most of session reading one book between two people, so ensuring both of us had a copy in advance was a great help. (The affordable Osprey price helps here.) There are some great how to videos on Youtube as well so we were both confident we could make a good start to our first game without too many false starts. The table was set up the night before, army lists were written. We were good to go.

 

 You've seen most of my Barbarian army, but here is the final result:

Yep, that is a big Mammoth in the middle of the army. Yes I did originally say my Leader was the Bad Squiddo Lathgertha shield maiden on horseback, but I wanted something with more of an impact. The model is still there and joined by some of her fellow horseriders. I've also added an old GW giant, some giant wolves and some Black Tree Design vikings that fit in really well with the Frostgrave barbarians. The wolves are led by a hammer wielding fantasy viking from Hasslefree miniatures that I am sure I have shared on my blog before.

Table from Bad Squiddo, stones are made from air dry clay.

 

I added this wizard to the back of my Mammoth and gave him the Wizardling bonus. This means he doesn't have access to all the magic spells a wizard does, you pre choose just three from the list but for less points. Don't get me wrong, my Leader is still the Shieldmaiden, I also added Lathgertha on foot to the back of the Mammoth. I also gave her Cause Fear as she was on the back of a giant Mammoth! In hindsight, I wouldn't use this combination again, it felt a waste to be both a spellcaster and a giant lumbering combat beast, you can't do both in the same turn.

 

 

I set up a simple table with a small farmstead in the middle and we agreed the field and any hills or woods would be difficult terrain to slow things down as the table is unfortunately only 3' deep. To also help with this we both deployed off table and rolled to activate for each unit from turn one to see when they actually arrived on the table. The table layout really just meant we ended up with two separate battles either side of the farm with just some scouts creeping through the field in the middle. (As scouts they suffer no penalty.)

Scouts advancing on the farm

 

 

 

 

Although we had visually two completely different armies, because we were theoretically picking from the same "army list" (to pick a traditional wargame idea) the game felt very fair and balanced. There is one magic spell that is slightly overpowered compared to all the others (I'll not say which, I don't condone metagaming) but if it becomes a problem that you keep only using that spell, you could just nip it from the list as a house rule, problem sorted.

 

Lathgertha and the shieldmaiden rally after being driven off by the skeleton cavalry. Who then get driven off by the giant wolves led by Thor Wolfrunner.

The giant happily stomps towards the undead pigs, who fortunately aren't bothered that he causes fear, being undead

It's all too much for Tiny the giant, and he loses the combat and stomps off.

Barbarian bezerkers face off against my opponents Leader (excuse the naked bottom!)

 

I love the simplicity of the Dragon Rampant system. It is easy to learn and adapt to your own choice of models. Advantage can bounce back and forth between either side as the game progresses. As units lose strength they become less effective but can still make a difference. My opponent and I happily just made two fantasy armies that made us grin and then adapted  the rules to fit them. You don't even need to necessarily conform to certain unit sizes really if you don't want to, I just found it easier to indicate 12 strength points with 12 models, but it's not necessary.  My Distinguished Opponent just used dice to indicate as such. I would also recommend having on hand a handful of tokens too to keep track of the status of your units.

Finally I thought I might show some evidence of what the Mammoth looked like when it arrived. Technically it is a Dwarven War Mammoth but the Dwarves have gone in the bitz box for another day. (Although no-one was stuck down in the howdah, I'm not buying something this cool and not using it every opportunity I can). It was fun to get really stuck into such a large project, although every time I even slightly knocked the tusks I had a tiny heart attack.

My saviour was this new product I found. The kit actually fit together really well, but with any large resin kit there will be some gap work to be done and I had recently bought it to try it out. It squeezes out similar texture to oil paint, then dries solid. Weirdly the most use I had for it was when I was looking for a base for the mammoth. I actually glued together two plastic boards together that were the right size but a little thin. I then filled the gap all the way around with the putty.

 

 So what now? Well, lately I have always said its a good idea to always have two armies ready for any system. That way you can always offer a game to any opponent and not have to wait a couple of months for them to paint the models. Well, progress with army two continues with some halfling archers:

 

 

 

 

Well, hopefully Dragon Rampant will be making an appearance again at some point. Maybe I can persuade the Illustrious Opponent to put together a fantasy force and when we can safely get together for a game give it a go.

Another Dragon Rampant army

So the Dragon Rampant painting continues. I start with a Bad Squiddo "Jarl Lathgertha". I swapped out her axe though for a plastic spear from the Frostgrave Barbarians sprue. I felt she needed something more intimidating to match the drama of her rearing steed.

In both shots I have since noticed that she looks like she  is wearing sunblock on her nose. I assure you, she is not. After going all fancy with laying out flock for the photo shot I'm not retaking.

My first unit for her to lead are a twelve man two handed weapon bearing set of barbarians from the Frostgrave Barbarian box. I love these gruff looking guys, its hard not to give them all grey and white hair.

 

I've pretty much used the same technique I used for the other Frostgrave plastics. A base paint of colours and then covered with Coat D'arms dark brown wash. They were a joy to paint with lots of detail in furs and shaggy beards. The weapons look suitably hefty like they really could do some damage if you didn't get out of their way quick enough.

 

I kept the head with the helm for just one of the guys so he would be a clear leader. Not that it is necessary for Dragon Rampant, but in case I want to use them for any other system. 

I kept the palette of colours for them to a limited number and they all share the same pallette. They may have them in different places, but they all share the same colours with Jarl as well. Her only addition is the blue on her shield and horse blanket.

  

 I've been contemplating my painting lately. I love sharing online with others, but it is a double edged sword, I also see the highest of quality painting that people share that is far superior to my own. Then I decided it was okay. Luckily I have experienced nothing but positivity from the online wargaming community since I started my blog. (I think I'm just too smallfry to attract the weirdos)  I realised that just some peoples models are painted as one off highest quality pieces for display, or painting competitions and some are painted quicker. If I even tried to paint a whole army to that higher level, I'd never get the whole army painted. It's okay to paint to different levels of quality. A unit of 60 redcoats painted to basic standard looks amazing on the table all lined up, you don't need to paint the pupils in the eyes of each individual one.

Save the effort for when you paint Wellington, that is when you can take the week to paint the model. (I will admit though after a week my Wellington still looks like I spent a day on him) I love getting inspiration from other painters online, but I don't have to compare myself to them. I'm happy with what I paint, I love what you all paint.

So, I accidently painted an army

This lockdown is starting to feel like being under house arrest, but without a known end date. It all seems a bit in the UK, some things are starting be less restricted yes, but we definitely aren't out of the woods yet. So I continue to stay at home working at my dining table during the day, moving my keyboard to one side in the evening and painting models at the same spot. I count my blessings that my friends and family stay well and I have a job. 

I made a comment recently on facebook about Eldar in Warhammer 40K being a cheesy army. Now although my comment was definitely made in jest with tongue firmly in cheek and was taken in that context I was called up on it by a friend and rightly so. The reason being it has been a long time since I've actually played any Warhammer 40,000, so I'm probably not actually in a position to comment on the current balance of the system. I was wrong to make the comment and so should have been corrected. Thinking about it, the period of time since I last played either Warhammer is probably actually longer than the time I spent playing them.

I still pop in the store and read the odd book and sometimes maybe buy the odd model as you may know if you are a regular reader. I just haven't kept up with the rules. I started playing so infrequently it didn't make sense to keep buying the latest books as they came out for them to just collect dust on the shelf. When you you have multiple Space Marine Codexes (Codices?) slowly taking up more and more valuable bookshelf space it does make you feel old too.

I mention this because it reminded me of a podcast I listened to recently which I thought I would share. The Cast Dice Podcast, Episode 91 was an interview with Rick Priestley talking about the creation of Rogue Trader. ( Link here) He himself in the Podcast states that the current 40K is something that he doesn't keep up or recognise. It was fascinating listening to him talking about how he created this thrown together lore with ideas from all over the place that has now become this huge lumbering beast of a game. (I myself came in at second edition so I learnt even more than some Longbeards may.)

Another reason I haven't picked up a Warhammer book in a while is the excellent range of alternative non specific model rulebooks from Osprey. One of these titles, Dragon Rampant, makes an excellent alternative to Warhammer Fantasy. The rules are specifically written so that you can create your army to match whatever models you have, whether they be a GW army or just some random things you've picked up at trade shows and like the look of.

Now I did only have one fantasy army, (painted that is, countless other ones sit waiting to be painted up of course!) an old GW Chaos army made up of Marauders, Knights and Warriors. I love the models and would like to play with them again, but I didn't have another army for them to fight against. So, one evening armed with the book and some unbuilt plastic sets I built an army.

A box of Frostgrave Wizards, Frostgrave Female Warriors and Perry Men at Arm's that the Father in Law had presented me with for my birthday were all built with a few head swaps, tweaks and the addition of a single bushy bearded head from a Landschneck sprue that had come free with Wargames Illustrated. 

First set of Wizards

Second set of Wizards

Final set of Wizards, all twelve make up one unit

Light Cavalry

Light infantry

Heavy Cavalry with Leader on distinctive base

I've tried to give the army a vague sense of uniformity with a pale blue colour cloth among their clothes, but then the wizards turn up wearing whatever they feel like. I'm already thinking about extra units to add. Possibly some hounds, or maybe something a bit more fantastical, maybe something more draconic?
The fantasy has been a nice change from historical painting, not having to get exact colours right with research is a lot easier. On the historical side I have painted up another unit of Prussian infantry but they look exactly the same as the last lot, so if you want to know what they look like, I refer you to my last blog post.

Oh and finally, I hope the photo's look good. Thanks to top tips from Wargames Illustrated editor Dan I tried something new and I think they look really good if I may say so myself! (Although the paint job could probably still do with improving!)

Newbury and Reading Wargame Society Colours 2019

So, another year, another traipse around Newbury Racecourse. Well, I can definitely say I had a jolly good time. The day started out with grey skies, but the weather held out and I got to the Racecourse nice and early, coffee in hand to join the front of the queue. Once again the team of volunteers from NRWS (Do they call themselves by that acronym?) have done themselves proud with all their hard work. A perfectly professionally looking run show. The venue was great, the volunteers were all really helpful and friendly and everyone I chatted to seemed to be having a fun day. I managed to meet up with the Illustrious Opponent and have a good natter with him as well as some of my other wargaming friends. I rolled some dice, chatted to some traders and some other gaming groups and enjoyed my favourite show of the year.

So, what did I see? What caught my eye?
Firstly, I was intrigued by a new game, Contact Front by Gods Eye Games. From the chaps that brough Sons of Mars, this system covers modern warfare from 2000 to 2016. It was described to me as a rules light platoon level system, where after a short while one double sided reference sheet is all you need to play. As a wargamer who struggles with overcomplicated rulebooks this idea did appeal.

I was impressed by the multi-level table for the participation game to introduce the new fantasy skirmish game Thud and Blunder from the Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare. http://bit.ly/TNBebook . I didn't get a chance to try it out (something I definitely will seek out in the future) but it was fun to see a table that wasn't on one plane.

Talking of tables that aren't flat, this participation game of Romans vs Icenci also impressed me. With a massive campaign map showing Boudica's progress across the south of England.

The Boscombe Down & Amesbury Wargames Club (why are all club names such a mouthful?!) had a mightily impressive tower for their fantasy siege game. My son pointed out it was as large as he was.

On that note I must add that yes, I brought my youngest son to his first wargame show. Earlier in the year on a video call to him on the way back from Salute he told me how much he missed me and wished he could come to the wargame show with me. I had explained that London was a long day for him, but he could possibly come to the more local show later in the year. So, after lunch, Father in Law very kindly brought my son over for the experience. (He had a good browse of the book stalls as well though.) Earlier in the week my son had read a book from the library about chocolate, including the history of his favourite food. He is now obsessed with conquistadors, I'm not sure if the uniforms and weapons, or if he just likes saying the word. So, we go upstairs to see what game to play and Crawley Wargames Club are running "Escape from the Aztecs." My son is sold when I tell him he gets to be a conquistador.
We had so much fun playing this game I only remembered to take one photo.

The idea of the game was to avoid the Aztecs, various wildlife, (giant snakes, crocodiles etc.) and quicksand and get to the fort at the other side of the table. Most of the adult players didn't make it and lost all three of their lives, but the three junior players had decided early on to try and stick together (the photo doesn't show it but they did stick close together most of the game) and they made it all the way across the table. In a wonderful act of kindness, the young lady playing on her last but one turn had the option to move another player an extra move. Instead of moving my sons piece nearer the Aztecs to distract them so she could escape, she moved my sons piece into the fort so he escaped. A wonderful demonstration of kind gaming.

The final game I managed to photograph was from South London Warlords. I had a brief chat with John Treadaway from Miniature Wargames ( a lovely chap and may I add an excellent publication.) who told me about the Dark Side of the Moon. A US Marines versus Chinese Peoples Space Force game based on the old tv series Space 1999. Figures and vehicles for the game are from Ground Zero Games. My photos don't do it justice, a mightily impressive table.

So, what did I buy? After all, that is the main reason we all go to the shows, to add to our lead mountains. Firstly I did as previously mentioned grab some of the new releases from Bad Squiddo.

God Bless Bruce for giving me the last Action Heroines blister. I am so grateful, I shall begin undercoating forthwith!
I picked up the following from crooked dice, now bear with, but I think they are actually perfect for my western town.

I have been promising myself a copy of this book for a while, after being impressed with Frostgrave I have high hopes for this follow up from the same author. Now I have a copy in my hand I can confidently say it really is a doorstop of a rulebook and I actually got it a bit cheaper than the cover price from Paul Meekin books. From a quick flick through I  can tell already I am going to like it, any book that mentions Johnny Mnemomic as inspiration gets my vote.

Finally, regular readers will know there is a tradition for one of my fellow gamers to always buy me random models of livestock. previous purchases have been pigs, buffalo, (useful) chickens and dodos (not so useful.) This year he has not failed. I shall now be imagining four Liverpudlian voices in my head asking each other "Whadya wanna do?" repeatedly as I paint these vultures.