Dubya, Dubya Two

I like to wargame Hollywood style.

So, you may have noticed, the next generation of wargamers are getting into historical, myself included. The "Old Guard" (and I don't think they'd mind being called that) started wargaming with Waterloo, D-Day, Culloden and Isandlwana. We started our tabletop gaming with Spam vs Orks and The Empire vs Chaos. In my opinion this has meant we are approaching historical wargaming in a different way.

The perfect example of the new type of historical gaming comes from Warlord Games. A company that has taken a huge chunk of the Games Workshop business model and applied it to Historical wargaming. Its no surprise that my current favourite companies, Warlord, Hasslefree and Perry Miniatures are all set up by ex- GW. I think this different approach to historical gaming means I prefer a more Hollywood style game. I got into Napoleonics because of Sharpe, a lot of my WW2 knowledge comes from reading Stephen Ambrose after enjoying Band of Brothers and I can't play a game in the Old West without hearing Jon Bon Jovi in the back of my mind.

 One of my favourite sets of rules is the Warhammer Historical, Legends of the Old West. These rules are definitely a representation of movie cowboys rather than accurate representation of the period. I have always dabbled with using existing rule sets for my own ends and felt that these rules could easily be adapted to make a Hollywood style WW2 skirmish. (The book itself even makes many suggestions for tweaking the rules for other periods including Tommie Guns in the Prohibition Era.)

To this end I produced an extensive set of rules with four factions for the period, Hellboy and the BPRD, Captain America and his howling Commandos,  Female Russian spies and their Werebear bodyguards and The Red Skull leading his Agents of Hydra. I added rules for various period weapons, some light vehicles and even rules for Steve Rogers ricocheting his Star Spangled Shield off multiple enemies. After a hardcore weekends gaming I felt it worked. The Germans couldnt hit a barn door, Captain America acted suitably heroically and the Russian Werebears (beatiful models from Warlord Games Konflict 47 range which my painting has not done justice.) were horrifically over powerful in combat, only one fell, after the German armoured car it was tearing to pieces exploded in his face.

We finished the weekend with an attack on the Hydra base. (I love my Terraclips terrain, go buy some!) The Red Skull and Captain America facing off at the end in classic fisticuffs. For our next time I intend on adding some tanks to the skirmish and maybe some more generic Germans.

Most of the models I used were from Warlord games. The Russian female spies were from Bad Squiddo. Hellboy was from Hasslefree with some green stuff to convert him slightly. The Hydra Agents were from a bring and buy, so sadly I don't know the manufacturer. (If anyone has an idea, let me know.) Apologies to any other manufacturer I have missed.

Where it all began

You can keep your D20's, I like to roll a D12.
It all started with a trip to a friends house. He had excitingly promised me a look at his "Space Orks." My first sight of some GW models, I immediately knew this was for me, I also realised he had done a terrible job of sticking them together and I definitely knew I could do a better job.
Not having access to a local hobby store, living in a market town in the eighties, my trip into town to look for something similar only presented me with something called Advanced Heroquest. I had previously dabbled with Gibson Games' Sorcerers Cave with my siblings so was familiar with the dungeon delving trope. I had a crisp £20 note from working one day at the local agricultural show, (I am sounding so English right now.) so I made what I can confidently say one of the best value transactions I have made in my life.

This dungeon exploring system took over my summers with two of my friends for a good couple of years. Yes the only monsters it came with were 20 identical Shaven warriors. (Ratmen to the un-initiated.) but that didn't stop us. We used cardboard standees for extra monsters, (a pair of scissors, cereal card and some copies of White Dwarf magazine came in handy.) I even managed to find a couple of Ral Partha metal goblins at my local Beatties store.
This was also the beginning of my Love of "house rules" although I didn't call them that then. We wrote our own magic items and spells, created stats for extra monsters and even came up with a sci fi version including beefing up our characters stats with "Bionics".
I still love Advanced Heroquest. I have recently played it again with a new group, with a proper mix of monsters this time from my now extensive collection. We even tried a new sci fi version I have rewritten. The system is a bit clunkier than I remembered, (spellcasters suffer from sitting on their hands until the "big boss" to save spell components. Doorways can become bottle necks.) but it still holds up. I have added to my dungeon tiles with Terraclips and now our heroes can kill Skaven on multiple levels. When my boys are older I hope to fish it out again and take them on a dungeon exploration of their own.