Chainmail's 50th Anniversary - A Video

This makes for a good watch. A lovely little glimpse into the wargaming world of the midwest in the late 1960s. Out of this culture, and countless others littered across the anglosphers, was spun the tabletop RPG community. It's a quick watch at just over 22 minutes, and includes some fairly candid recollections from Jeff Perren - the other author of Chainmail.

 

Primordial D&D

 Been thinking about this a lot.

Ever since watching this movie.

Which is great.  A must-watch for anyone interested in learning more about the evolution of tabletop wargaming and/or role-playing games. It's a deep dive into the roots of the hobby, and surprisingly even-handed.  But I can't shake the feeling it doesn't go back quite far enough.  This is no slight on the film, just a bit of wistful musing about the movie might have looked like had it been made by Brits as eager to discuss Featherstone and Bath as the film-makers are to discuss Arneson and Gygax.

Spoilers: the right answer is - no one invented fantasy campaigning, and everyone did.

Expect to see more on this subject when time permits.

Fantasy Campaigning Dun Rite

Using a Reaper Bones wood sprite figure as an evil personification of the deep woods and wilds are inimical to human life?  That's unpossible!

That's what happens in this latest episode of "The Joy of Wargaming" wherein four intrepid heroes wade into the wilds to put paid to a bunch of forces of night.  Including the little bugger shown above.  This is the second in a series of seven games of Nightwatch, a great little solo game that smacks of 'tower defense' style video games.  It works well, and the complexity and challenge really ramp up with each successive game.  Highly recommended.

Not a big fan of Reaper figures - the Bones were cheap, but the ones I got didn't take paint well, are squishy on the table, and the sculpts are mediocre at best.  Phasing those out when my next Alternative Armies shipment arrives, and replacing them with some proper metal alloy beasts. They look better, feel better, and play better.

Of Interest: Wisdom from an Angry God

"Gaming, at its core, is a hobby which seeks neither mediation or approval from Johnny-come-latelies."

Heavens to betsy, I do believe I have come down with a terrible case of the vapors.

This one is pretty complicated.  Basically, there is an in-authentic and ham-handed movement being orchestrated to remove the influence of Western Civilization from the gaming scene and replace it with the pink slime skinsuit.  Friend of the blog, Jeffro Johnson, wrote a phenomenally influential collection of blog posts for the OSR that turned into a fascinating study of the works listed in Appendix N, and how they relate to our culture.  The Johnny-come-latelies who spent three years saying Appendix N doesn't matter, watching with horror the burgeoning reclamation of the gaming space, have launched a counter-offensive whereby they hope to shift the meaning of Appendix N from "the books that built tabletop gaming" into a label with no more meaning than "books some rando likes"

This review from the good guys at DMR Books goes into things in more detail, and thoroughly demolishes one of those astro-turfed project in fine style:

So give Bebergal’s book a pass. Go big instead. Put your time and money into reading the works of Appendix N (find the old editions), the Players Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Masters Guide. Form your own conclusions. Jeffro Johnson’s Appendix N is far better company on this adventure. Johnson shows there is more treasure to bring up from his passionate, engaging delve... Bebergal, though, just stumbles into the first pit trap on level one. He needs to roll a new character, hope for a better wisdom stat, and try a whole lot harder.

As said above, there is a lot more to the story, and this review covers it all extremely well.

Go read it here. 

2x2 Napoleonics : A Bit of Eye Candy

 More black powder gaming using a neat little trick for roads and streams...

Simple yarn.  It's just the right scale for 2mm figures, and you can nudge it all about to make just the right curves.  Placed down on a fleece battlemat and it works a treat.

From Two-Deep to Three

It's not often that I work in 2D painting, but for a special project like this...

A friend asked me to find and paint him up a few Hawaiian Warriors. Always happy to share my love of the hobby - and always happy for an excuse to craft that won't lead to more clutter around the house, I was more than happy to oblige.  He's no wargamer, so instead of building a game that would never be played, I made a shadowbox that can be hung and enjoyed.

A new experience for me, and one I was glad to do.  Learned a lot about his culture, and stretched my legs into a new era of warfare.  Look for a full report on the wargame Tribal, over on the Joy of Wargaming early in May.

 

Who/Whom Shall be the Whole of the Law

 At dawn on the third day, look to the east.

The sun rises, and the shadows flee.

As for me and my house, we serve the Lord.