A Gentleman's Game?

Whats in a game?

Do differing types of games make us play differently, and behave differently whilst playing them?

Does how you win the game, thus affect how you strive to play it?

Does it matter if you have fun actually playing it, or are we just there as an exercise in trying to win, not necessarily at all costs, but the win is foremost in our minds, and without that win, the game is less 'fun'?

Do we sit there staring at our man dollies, trying to figure out the exact stratagem that will hopefully work, at the same time trying to run over in our minds the probability of what the Dice Gods are going to do us as our little chance-cubes clatter across the table... their results lifting us in joy or sending us crashing to the depths of despair...

Does it matter if our opponent enjoys the game, whether they win or lose? Does how the game makes us play and thus act, affect this?

Come on Smithers - your move ol' chap...

Having a physical opponent introduces a social aspect to the game, giving us someone to interact with as we play the game. This then to me should be an important part of the game, as if it isn't important, then I may as well just play computer game against a faceless opponent, whether 'real' or AI...

There's a whole gamut of games available to play out there, some perhaps by their nature being more competitive than others.

Anyone who has followed this blog will probably know I've been playing a lot of Flames of War over the last couple of years, with probably an average of roughly a game per week. Sadly my win/loss record is not the best, despite my best efforts to learn the game, its tactics and try and mitigate my luck. (It really bugs me when people say you can make your own 'luck', by learning the odds and playing accordingly, hmm, I'm not so sure... if you roll one dice needing a 6 and get it, that's lucky in my book! If you roll two dice, needing either of them to be a 3 or more and roll snake eyes, then that's unlucky).

Flames of War, is clearly a tournament game. You typically win the game, by either capturing an objective (or conversely defending one), or breaking (destroying) your opponents force... However, how well you manage to do this, scores you points for the game, that then can be thrown into the tournament pot to see who's the better player overall over several games...

... and I think its this tournament mechanism that can lead to 'frustration'... not only can you beat your opponent, which is fair enough, but you can morally grind him into the dust by getting the best score too...

... or perhaps it encourages ridiculous do-or-die defenses, when the game is clearly already won by one side, the other guy stubbornly refuses to give up, in some Hitler/Stalin inspired 'not one step back' approach... perhaps the hopes of stealing a point off the opponent for the tournament score level, encouraging this playing style...

Not one step back!

I think its this aspect of the game that's perhaps getting to me, as I like the game for the most part otherwise - I like the look, scale, miniatures, and game play for the most part - a couple of things niggle me but I can live with them...

For me I think, there is clearly a point a which the game is won, most people can see this a mile off... a gentleman at this point would concede defeat and resign, he wouldn't keep playing on manically. Having offered up his resignation, I wouldn't expect his opponent to force him to play on, just so he can score more tournament points... so maybe the game and I are at odds? Its not my opponents fault, its the way the game is making him play?

When this scenario is played out repeatedly, game by game, week after week... is it any wonder the player who loses the most becomes more and more frustrated despite his best efforts?

When you play the same opponent with the same army repeatedly and keep losing, how long before the nervous tick develops?

Cartoon fun .. inspired by Larry Leadhead - thanks Larry for the laughs!

The reality is some players have a better gamer's mind than others, perhaps simply being more intuitive, quicker learners, better able to assimilate the requirements to pull off the wins repeatedly; the optimum force composition, tactics and probability to succeed in getting these wins.

This is clearly shown by the same names appearing at the top of the tournament rankings, with us other lesser mortals down the other end of the tables as also-rans, patsies and whipping boys...

So I do not deny there is a skill level here, probably not something I will ever have in abundance....

So perhaps to stay sane in a leisure time activity that is meant to be fun and enjoyable, and distract us momentarily from the stresses of real life and work, I may have to find a game that better suits my approach to gaming? Or perhaps concede I am simply not a good player generally, resign my gaming commission, hang up my dice, rulers and templates and simply paint for fun, and perchance become what GW and Mr Johnson et al, wants me to be ... a 'Collector'... Perish the thought!

Or perhaps the game can still be fun and enjoyable if approached in a differing manner, must we strive to beat and crush our opponent...?

I am not just poking the finger at FoW here... I assume other tournament orientated games have similar issues; WFB/40K? I suppose any game which score you points for how well you did or didn't do, will be affected by the problem...?

I cannot help recall the introduction of the Black Powder rules, with its 'Gentlemanly' approach to the game... with units not even having a points value... the whole thing being scenario driven... and played out for the fun of the experience of the game, with the winner or loser, almost not seeming to matter... it certainly seemed a more pleasant environment to game in...

I say, can you see where I dropped my die? Darned things over here somewhere...

Please excuse this cathartic ramble... there are times when one needs to clear ones head...

I think a gaming break over the Xmas period and an indulgence of painting simply for the enjoyment of it, thanks to Curt's Painting Challenge, is the way for me to chill out and to return to sanity...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year... Hope you get all the man dollies, paints and brushes you need to keep you smiling!

The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug! The price of plastic...

Only a few days before the release of the much awaited sequel in the Hobbit trilogy...

Just thought I'd check out whats happening on the GW site, just out of curiosity.... BANG!

Sure enough, only one movie and one year on and prices have jumped again... info from GWs New Zealand portal...

One year ago and the price of 10 plastic toy soldiers had jumped, then, to an astronomical $NZ65...

To be totally eclipsed by the latest incarnation... 10 plastic soldiers now setting you back a cosmologically eye watering $NZ80 !!!

Sheer lunacy, and frankly taking the p*ss!

Oh well, I can still enjoy the movie, and look on bemused at the current price of a plastic soldier from the GW stable...

What do you predict for next years post movie releases? Will it crack $NZ100 for 10 soldiers, ...nah I reckon they'll go for $NZ120, for 8...

[UPDATE - had to share this -

brilliant! ]

Games Room Redux

I had hoped to get more done on the Empire of the Dead stuff over the weekend, but circumstance, and experience, led me in a differing direction, and I decided it was high time to 'adjust' the "Gentleman's gaming parlour"...

I was in a very fortunate position, several years ago, in being able to plan and have built, our home...  now this was a rather novel experience for a person from the the UK, where the norm is more to buy, and move house to house... Back in the UK the idea of having a house built never crossed my mind... after all, where would you put it? Anyone from the big smoke, or urban sprawl, will know what I am talking about...

Here, in 'God-zone'...AKA, 'New Zealand',  I was lucky enough to afford and find a plot of land to do just that...

So top of my list of must haves for my home was a dedicated games-room... wifey-poos attended to the rest ... ;-)
Bedrooms check, kitchen check, lounge check etc etc...

Having a realized man-cave/shed/zone/"get outta here its mine"- kinda thingy, with oodles of space, sent my space restricted Pom-ey mind into a frenzy of apoplexy... and with visions of grandeur I designed and put forth the biggest table I could muster, this being 12' x 6', or approx 360cm x 180cm, for you jolly ol' colonial types reading this ;-)

The idea being to be able to host those 'big battles' you see in magazines or on the web, or whatever...sadly such games have been as rare as  the proverbial 'blue moon' around here, and for regular sized games, the table has always been over sized, making 'regular gaming' a bit of pain, it being difficult to reach towards the centre, or end of the board, unless you are over 6' tall, which sadly I am not...

The games room was also a place I had hoped to foster gaming for my young son and I, but he has never had a shit show of reaching the table, and I guess always having had to have had Dad reach for and move the models for him, has dulled the experience... so hence additional boards were built and stuck on the dining room table, to allow him to participate... which the whole point of having the games-room built, was meant to avoid... (to keep 'SWMBO' happy)... he's 10 now, so I feel at that pivotal step, in really grasping gaming before being 'hard-wired' does for him forever...

So push come to shove, with most games being played in 'Chez-Bowman' requiring a 6' x 4' or 4' x  4' area... it was time to bite the bullet, and cut the over-sized grandiose table into three smaller 6' x 4' tables... This will allow 'No.1 son' to participate in the 'man zone', and to even have several differing games on the go at once, none of which need tidying away until completion! So perchance, FoW, LotR and EotD, could all be going on at once! Perhaps even a return to LotHS...

The mind boggles...

So here's a quick snap of games room redux...

... Three 6' x 4' tables, with enough space to move around them... heck I could perhaps host a mini-tournament too, should the desire so move me...

Biggest job today though was actually sorting the under-table storage as this all had to be reconfigured to fit under three smaller tables, not one big one...but we managed (No.1 son helping with the lifting and carrying, Gods bless his cotton socks), with Ipod blasting my ear canals with groovy sounds, and power tools humming!

I swear, a man needs nothing more than good music, power tools and wood glue to be happy! Though a bit of spray paint in a confined space works wonders too ;-)

I now relish the chance for some decent father and son gaming in the man-zone!

So that was Saturday... Sunday being the family trip to Wello for the Santa parade, fingers crossed, we get good weather...

Oh, just to prove why I need to move 'subsidiary' tables from the dining room, given any length of time unattended, they are immediately occupied by one of four, interloping unauthorized personnel... for some reason cats just love to be up high and hidden from view... it's a comfort thing I guess...

"Monica", captures Jerusalem, ... or was it Minas Ithil... I cant recall! ;-)

Happy gaming folks, and a very merry Seasons Greetings to you all... and for all those in Curts Analogue Hobbies Challenge - get prepping!  ;-)


Cheers
Scott

Corner Pub / Tavern - WIP - basic shape

Whilst working on the Empire of the Dead base board, and with the MDF side panels gluing into place one at a time, I made a start on the next building for my cityscape -  a corner site Public House or Tavern...

Again, 3mm MDF forms the basic structure. PVA glue is dry enough to hold it together after about an hour and should get to full strength over night...

Three level building again, measuring about 10" x 11", with an angled main entrance way, and rear yard area...

While this was one drying, I made a start drawing out the plan for the next building... this time a high street shop... I'll try and get it cut out and assembled over the weekend...

The beast is tamed!

Ha... think you can out expand me eh? Well we'll see about that... Take that! And this! Ha ha, not so clever now are we? Biff, bash, cut, hack, slash and saw!

Actually it was mostly saw and sand! But it worked...

Once set the material is fairly easy to work with. The outer skin is crusty , whilst the inner surface still retains a slight spongy quality.

So after a bit of work, we are back to this...

I had to be little careful during trimming so I didn't cut the ends off the uprights, just still visible poking up through the surface.

OK next job will be to clad the sides of the board in more MDF, for rigidity and strength and then skim coat the whole top surface in polyfilla. After that sand flat and smooth and, well... I still want a cobblestone pattern over the whole board... and am still leaning towards etching a pattern in with the dremel... it will probably take an age, but should look good in the end...

Cobblestones

I haven't found a cost effective way of covering the board in a suitable pattern. Several suppliers do cobble patterns in pre-made pieces or molds to make yourself... but these cost the earth in pre-made pieces to cover this size of board, or the rubber latex mold making material and then casting material will all add up and probably end up taking just as long to cast it all and fit it all together...

So I think the dremel will be the cost effective way to go... time will be the only factor...

Smoke

On the smoke making front I have run into a slight problem - getting the dry-ice. BOC in Wellington sell it, but thats 50kms away, and they are only open Mon-Fri , the same days I work. When I am free to go down at the weekend to get it, they're closed... what a pain! Shame I can't just nip down to the local store and grab a pack when I need it... curses! Plus even if you can get it, its time sensitive stuff due to storage conditions... it literally goes off. You cant keep it in the domestic freezer either as it could knacker the thermostat... it seems really a buy and use immediately type thing, which is tricky with the supply situation here...

I looked at another way... CO2 fire extinguishers can be used to make dry-ice; just wrap a pillow case tightly round the nozzle and set it off, the pillow case catches the dry-ice formed coming out the end. But CO2 extinguishers are not cheaply or locally available either...

So I am now exploring smoke machines... these things seem to run on 'fog juice' which seems to be a mix of distilled water and glycerin, both of which I can get from the pharmacy. Heat this mix up and it gives off smoke vapours... I'll have to have a play about and see what I come up with...

I have also made a start tonight drawing out plans for the corner pub/tavern... Just need cutting the bits out of the MDF sheet now and start putting it together...

[UPDATE - Millsy suggested split peas for cobblestones so I went to grocery store to have a look. I thought the split peas were too big, but did find some red lentil that looked a smaller better size - I'll have a play with these]

It Lives...!

It lives master, it lives... heck, that's what it feels like using this stuff...

With the poly sheet and piping glued down I decided to fill the void around the pipe with expanding foam filler... I'd used a can of this ages ago, thinking it might create some rather cool cliffs I could carve and sculpt, but I found it too uncontrollable, when used without a controlling frame of reference... and ended up with a huge uncontrolled and unusable 'blob' and just biffed it in the bin... that was quite sometime ago... I do recall it made a right mess and was a bugger to try and clean up, darn stuff seem to stick to everything...

So with that vague memory haunting me somewhat I set to again, read the directions... yeah I know, men don't read instructions ;-)... and even read the ones on the can of clean up spray I got too...

With latex gloves on, and hearty high ho silver, I let rip... is that it...? OK squirt a bit more... still seems a bit thin and hasn't reached the top of the poly sheet yet... hmm, squirt a bit more ... there that'll do... OK clean up time... wahay this stuff is pressurized spray acetone... wee ...nice smell,  splash it on all over, eh 'arry? 'arry? Wheres 'arry?

Thank the Gods I had opened the windows, or I'd be floating round the ceiling somewhere...

Anyhoo... I got cleaned up so I can use the rest of can for something else... gave it half an hour or so, (drying time on can) and came back, and its swelled like you can see below!

... by the end of the night, its just about doubled in size again... I foresee a hearty time with the bread knife and dremel tomorrow! Wish me luck!

If your gonna use the one on the left, make sure you get the one on the right as well! You have been warned!

Oh, and you can probably use about half the amount you think you're gonna need, coz yep, it expands, ...just not instantly...

A foggy day in old London Town! - WIP - Empire of the Dead base board

With Curts painting challenge approaching, over on Analogue Hobbies blog, I have been hard out all week prepping stuff to paint for the challenge... So far I have 5 15mm PSC Panzer IV F1's, a Battlefront 15cm sFH18 Howitzer battery of 4 guns, another pack of Battlefront Begleit Tank escorts, for my StuGs, my Hobbit set of 13 Dwarves and Radagast have been rescued from the back of the painting table, and I made a start on my Requiem EotD stuff, prepping the Gentlemen with Guns, Lycaons, and the character pack of Dracula, his brides and Renfield. I've also done the 4 40k terminators to go with the test Das Reich terminator I did sometime ago...

So if I get through that little lot over the next couple of months I will be thrilled. I am keeping an eye on the fortnight theme aspects of the challenge too, and have some ideas for civvies, casualties etc...

After all that figure prepping, I thought the weekend, should give me a little time to work on terrain, and a wet and windy Saturday gave me a perfect chance to make a start on my Empire of the Dead London base board...

Now since some fine fellows suggested I should try and add some fog effects to my terrain board to go with the Building lights and Gaslamps I did, I thought I had better make a start...

I got a sheet of 5mm MDF and a 2" think sheet of polystyrene, cutting both to 48" x 48". I also got some 15mm dia plumbing pipe, with simple screw-fit connections, and made a start on a piped sewer system. I blanked off the ends of the pipe and added an upright to each that will just stick up proud of the poly sheet for now. This will be covered with a pastic mesh that will look like a drain cover...

The pipework will allow dry-ice to be pumped into the game, giving a foggy ground layer to the game.


Here's the pipework in place, on the MDF sheet.

I also used the pipework as a template to cut out the poly sheet...

Then the pipework was glued into place, and the poly sheet glued down around it. This will all dry overnight, giving the PVA glue a good chance to dry out. The books weigh it all down while it sets... I knew all those rule books, supplements, magazines and history books would be good for something! ;-)

While all that is drying... I finished off my 'smoke machine'... an empty 900g powdered food tin, a 2.5" 2nd hand computer case fan, a 9v battery cap connector was soldered to this, to power it up, glued to the plastic lid of the tin, that I had cut a fan sized hole in, so it blows down into the tin. An off cut of plastic pipe, and a bought piece of flexible pipe from the plumb shop, and we are ready to go... hot glue and insulating tape finishes it off...

...so this is all connected to the pipe 'sewer' system, via a screw fit straight connector... all I am waiting for is a test run...

...I need to get some dry-ice... the trick is, put some boiling water in the tin, drop in some dry-ice, put lid on and whack the fan on and, hopefully, hey presto - a smoke laden gaming board...

...for the chemically curious among you, the dry-ice, sublimes, i.e. goes from a solid, straight to a gas, missing out the liquid phase... to create a cold ground hugging fog effect... common to all those 70's pop group stage videos etc. and cheesy horror movies...

Warnings! - the dry-ice is seriously cold ( −78.5 °C), handle with thick gloves to avoid frost burns, oh and the gas is  CO₂, so open the windows too, to avoid hypercapnia!

If I get it all to work, I'll upload a video... fingers crossed!