Poll Results

Firstly I must admit I have closed the poll 7 hours early, so if you were hanging on til the end to cast a vote I am sorry, but it is now closed. If this upsets anyone next time vote early, this is not eBay and there are NO last minute sniping actions allowed.

For the reat of you thank you very much for voting it is appreciatted and I have taken note of all the views expressed. Of the 17 votes, 7 (or 41%) voted for either 7TV or 7ombie Tv, making it a clear winner. The next highest was 15mm Wild West with 4 votes (23%). Bringing up the rear in a tie for third place with 3 votes (17%) were 15mm Science Fiction and British Colonial. It is possible that all these projects may go ahead given enough time. Given limited resoucses in time space money and motivation I will for now concentrate on the two most popular. That does not mean the others will be forgotten, just that they probably will not get done this year.

Over all I feel the poll was a sucess and think I should run more in the future.

As regular readers will know I have Karl of Crooked Dice Coming to the Rainham wargames club in 2 weeks time. I am currently talking to him about Raimham Club running a 7TV or 7ombieTv game at a few shows next year. SO I will want to have a chat with him and see if he has any strong prefference to either set of rules or settings. Or indeed if there is anything he wants to reserve for his self.

Some of my initial ideas are given in slightly more detail below:

One Step Forward Spy Fi Games

Dicefinger!

For those of you who don't recognise it, or who didn't notice the title in the bottom left of the picture this is the setting (Fort Knox) for the final show down in the James Bond Goldfinger film. As Crooked dice have already two games in the Jame Bond Universe, (You only live Dice, and O.H.M.S.S.) This game idea might be prefect for 7TV Spi-Fi. In Fact it might be a little too similar to thir own plans.

Fandicetic Voyage!

Yes I admit this is just an excuse for wearing rubber wet suits and looking at Raquel Welch. However I think making the terrain boards would be a real buzz if I can get them to work. Additionally I have never seen any game like this at any show. The chances are some one has already done it but even so a game set inside a human body, a team of players in either wet suits or space suits trying to carry out an objective while the evil umpire pits the bodies natural defences against the players. Raquel Welch or not I still think it's a good idea. And if nothing else it has got some eye candy on my blog!

Generic Spi Fi

Another idea is to build a generic Spi Fi set which is not based around a James Bond theme. This Observatory for example would make a great place for game. This picture is only an example, nothing more. A generic Spi Fi could equally well be in an Aztec Ruin as a Lighthouse on the Scotish coast. A game not directly linked to a film has far more options, the draw back is that both players and onlookers will find it harder to describe, at least not as easy as saying did you see the James Bond Game at that show. There are pros and cons to film and non film approaches.

BRING ON THE ZOMBIES

Dead or Alive.

Under the water, under the sea catching Zombies for my tea... Dead or Alive? Of of my younger club members suggested a zombie game on board a submarine! Sheer Genius if you ask me. So I had a quick think and (after suggesting he run it) looked for real life sunken Submarines. This is U 352 sunk off the coast of America as part of an artificial reef. Anyway the game idea would be a group of divers are sent to recover something from the sunken vessel. Yep you suessed it nazi U boat crew Zombies!

Slow Boat to Diner!

There is something evokotive about harbour settings. Let's be honest they look great, messy gritty dirty and run down. The setting being a Harbour, the game being that the players have to reach the place the boat can dock and hang around long enough for the rescue to take place. All the while the dead close in on them. The advantage of this type of game is that you can balance the number of zombies (even bring more on) to the people, the ammo supply and the time the boat takes to get there just for a tense ending where they are just about to get swamped or run out of ammo or health.

60 Feet Under.

A very simple idea stolen from Left for Dead (computer game) is to set the action in an underground/tube station. It's a travel game players have to move from A to B and survive in the process. You have confined spaces twisting corridors and stirwells. Open Platforms tube trains and the undead to contend with. But at least water is not involved this time. 60 feet under would be a memorable show game if only because it would need to embrace 3 dimensions.!

This Won't Hurt a Bit.

Just for compleatness a show game set in a Hospital during an outbreak. Probably the least inventive of the Zombie ideas. Desipte that it is without a doubt a classic zombie setting. Again At a show I have not seen a good zombie setting so even something cleched like this is worth another look.

I hope you found something of interest here. Club Day tommorrow so I'll post again on Monday. All the Best Clint.

Post Script: Spell checker does not seem to be working so forgive any mistakes pleae!

PBI (1)

36-28-19 points
Company Command

I am sure the title of the post gives it away. But for the moment I have been painting 15mm US infantry for Peter Pigs PBI (Poor bloody Infantry). It's all slowly comming together. It's also clear that I have concentrated on the vehicles, and not the Infantry. Under each photo is the points cost in Elite-Average-Raw quality. Given that the game is limited to 400 points and because the rules encourage it I shall only feild 1 tank section each game, probably not even a complete one at that. But at least I have some options. I also have a horde more troops to paint up.

113-80-52 points
!st Platoon

In this set up each platoon has g arand stands 3 bar stands and a command (smg) stand. It's pretty much organised in the same manner as the US Company in the rules is. That will no doubt change when I try to penny pinch the points to get something legal to field on the table. 

So we have Company comand and two infanttry platoons. For a total of 20 stands of foot sloggers. Add to that a Mortar platoon of 3 medium mortars and it's starting to look like a real force of some kind.



113-80-52 points
2nd Platoon

I have 3 tank options. Light tanks in the form of 4 M3 Stuarts. In a late war setting I don't fancy these will do to well if confronted with any real armoured opposition. I am however willing to be suprised. You just never know.

Or 4 M10 Tank destroyers. These have a decent gun but stil thin armour relying on speed to get them out of trouble supposedly! Being open topped they might not do quite so well against German infantry. Again I am willing to be suprised and if nothing else they will draw a lot of fire away from everything else on the table but possibly only for a very short tume.

69-51-39 points
Medium Mortar platoon



156-112-68 points
M5 Stuart

My final option is of course the 4 Sherman. I have only 3 of these which is not too much of a worry. If you play Ammericans in WW2 you just have to accept that German tanks can tear you a new one each and every time. These have neither the gun or the armour to go toe to toe with a German heavy tank. On the other hand the States could out produce the Germans quite considerably. I read somewhere that it was 50 Shermans to each Tiger in production terms. Personally I would like to see a game where the German player has one tiger and the American player has 50 Shermans just to watch the German Player sweat. (And worry that they might run out of ammo!)

That's it for tday. The Poll closses in a couple of days and ten I can start to get direction once more and sort out a complete game in stead of doing just bits and peices. All the best thanks for following (or at least looking at the pics) I'll Blog again on Saturday. Cheers Clint



204-148-88 Points
M10

171-99-69 points
M4

Paint it Black?

Paint it Black? Well actually NO! I know we all think of Ninja as being clad head to toe in Black, historically this was not the case. The reason we think they should be is that the traditional Japanese theatre portrays anything which the audience cannot (or should not be able to) see as black. Thus when Ninja do need to be acted out on the stage they were all dressed in black. I hope that explains it enough. Any questions should be addressed to the QI tv programme. All that goes towards explaining why this Ninja is painted very dark green (a more realistic colour from a historical perspective at least.) I am for once not going to criticise the photography it is that dark and the image has only been enlarged, not manipulated. The sculpt is an old Citadel miniature I found at the right price on eBay some months ago. It was always one of those figures I really wanted at the time, but either did not have the money for or had different priorities for. As I have no Ninja and as it is an option for 7TV cast I thought I should at least have it as an option.

The real news is that Karl from Crooked Dice has agreed to come to our club on 15th July to run a game of "You only live Dice!" Their show game from last year. The reason for this is that I have suggested that as a club we could put a 7TV game on at a few shows next year. This would be a trial run so we get to see how the rules writers get to use their rules in an actual game and not to read and interpret them from the written word cold on the page. Karl thinks he can run the game twice in our club day so we can get eight people involved in all. 4 people in each game. We  will need to start a little earlier than normal, but I don't see that as a problem, some of the club will of course find it hard to get up and to the club with family commitments and the like. So I will need to prebook the game slots this weekend. I already know that someone will turn up late or not show at all so I am thinking of dragging in a couple of non members who can be trusted to actually turn up on time.

That's today's news. Next post on Thursday til then take care and keep hold of the lucky dice!

FSE Full Thrust

 FSE Full Thrust.

FSE Starter Fleet

Must be 18months ago that I bought two starter fleets of Full Thrust ships. At the time if I remember correctly it was £25 for them both now, having checked the web site (http://shop.groundzerogames.net/) it seems that the price has risen to £18 each. Just looking at one intro fleet, this one being the FSE (Federal States Europa,). INTRO FLEET pack contains: 1 x BATTLECRUISER (BC), 1 x HEAVY CRUISER (CH), 2 x LIGHT CRUISERS (CL), 2 x DESTROYERS (DD) and 2 x FRIGATES (FF). They are nice sculpts with each faction having a distinct look which makes national identity in the game easy to fix.

Battle Cruiser, Heavy Crusier and Frigate.

I must admit I did struggle with painting these. Not the actual painting but the colours. My first thoughts were to paint them a wine red but is just did not look right. Maybe on another fleet it would work well, but for these it looked dull and uninspiring. Once cream, I prefer "champagne", they were still lacking something so a quick Flesh wash brought out the detail and then a blue stripe really did lift them and unite them. Overall I am happy with the colours now but I always find it hard to paint things which don,t have a face.

Frigates, Destroyers and light Cruisers.

The Frigates do look small when next to the larger ships but when clustered with the other small ships seem to fit in quite nicely. The only assembly was one join on the Battle Cruiser which is held in place with both green stuff and superglue. So no complaints about assembly at all. Having got this far I have enjoyed them. It has made a pleasant change in my painting and I would be willing to get more space ships. Graham at the club also has a couple of small fleets (NAC and ESU I think) so a game might be in order soon.
As a club we do like Stargrunt Sci-Fi rules so I hope this might also be something we could get into as it has a shared background. Not that there is a huge amount of background material, but there is enough to hang some games on. With Stargrunt several players have factions and seem happy not to encroach on anyone elses. This is great in one way, as it adds variety, the down side is that it can be fragmented, as we all like to use our own forces.

That's today's post. Thanks for reading I'll blog again on Tuesday. All the best Clint