Rab's Geekly Digest

Mini-Rab #1 had just started at a new school and, as a way of getting to know the other kids, has joined almost every club going - a bit like a university fresher, but without the alcohol-fuelled excess. I hope. He is only nine!

Why is that relevant to this blog? Well, one of the clubs he's joined is run by his science teacher and seems to be a general "geek club", including lego robotics... and Warhammer 40k in its latest incarnation. Yes, despite my best efforts, he is desperate to join in as they push hordes of unpainted, badly glued lumps of expensive grey plastic around. Fortunately I had a squad of kroot in a box and his automatic assumption was that he'd paint them "at least a bit" before they saw table time to see if he likes the game. He wants to paint for about an hour each weekend until they're finished, so they're a bit more painted each week as he plays with them. Good lad! Perhaps 8th Ed will float his boat, perhaps oldhammer will keep him - as long as he's playing with his friends, and will indulge me in my oldschool gaming preferences from time to time, and having fun, who cares?

So, he sprayed...

Long time readers will know that I have two sons, the Rab-ble as it were. By nature, and certainly by nurture, they have a keen fantastical and chivalric interest - their wooden swords have slain many a fearsome foe and graced many a tournament field. All good stuff.

When we were at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge earlier in the week (absolutely fascinating exhibition on personal vs. public devotional items in 16th century Italy), they spotted these felt scabbard in the shop and, without nagging, made their admiration of them quite clear.

...the geeks will play!

The incomparably wonderful Mrs Rab is away this week, leaving me in sole charge of the two little'uns - we worked out it's the longest she's been away from them since they were born which caused her all sorts of angst! To take their minds off her absence, what else was there but to cook up a decent chilli, crack out the PS2 from the loft for a bit of LEGO Star Wars and Burnout - Takedown, and then get on with some good old pre-digital gaming? Nice!

Yesterday saw this:

No skeletons for you today.

I've had a good week or so on ebay, mostly gifts for others but a couple of choice bits for myself. I already showed you the copy of Ravening Hordes I got for a penny under £3, well now I got the rules for 2nd Edition Warhammer for £4. My Hammer just got slightly Older!

Box in pretty good shape - a little rubbing along the corners - but inside....

... the important bit, the books, in great condition, along with a roster sheet and one of the slann cut-outs

Ah, the galling bit - John Blanche and Gary Chalk posters on offer for £2.95, or miniatures for 30p. Even using a Mars Bar Inflation Index of exactly 1, this would only be £1.28 per miniature!

I unwrapped this with my boys and they were excited "Can we play this, Daddy?", so I have hopes that my Slightly-Older-Hammer will end up being Younghammer as well!

Happy bargain hunting,
Rab

Last time we left our heroes (Sirs CJ and EM) advancing up the stairwell from the store-rooms to the castle proper in the company of the rescued Sir Reginald and three of his retainers. They were expecting trouble, especially given Sir Reginald's tale of the monstrous orc champion with the blue face on his shield, and none of them were in peak condition. [Although we did discover that Sir CJ had been at a bit of a disadvantage as the d8 he kept repurchasing and then promptly losing again had 1-4 twice, rather than 1-8. Oops! So we buffed him back to a d10 in compensation before continuing]


The passageway was dark, but flickering firelight (and plentiful orcish racket) were clear up ahead as our party made their way cautiously forward...

Last time, we left our two heroes (Sirs CJ and EM) bloodied but unbowed after a run in with a troll and his smaller but equally vicious kin in their search for their missing friend, Sir Reginald.

Our soundtrack this time, thanks to a recommendation from fellow  dungeon-crawler Gaz, was some tasty dungeon-synth from Lord Lovidicus

No.

Sir Reginald had been missed at the Midsummer banquet at the King's high court. In fact, his fellow knights realised, no-one had seen him since they had all ridden home after the Christmas court. Concerned that something amiss might have befallen Reginald, Sir CJ and Sir EM decide to investigate, riding to his small but strong castle which they both knew so well from years of friendship. The entrance was barred and no-one answered their call, neither Reginald nor his servants - something was definitely wrong! The two knights pretended to ride away in case anyone or anything was watching, carefully made their way to the postern gate, drew their swords and prepared to adventure on behalf of their friend...

The king's enchanter, Marlin, was distraught. He had returned to his chambers in the white tower (safely distant from the great hall so that the unusual aromas from his experiments didn't spoil guests' appetites!) to find them ransacked. Sorting through the mess, he had found that four of his most unusual and powerful potions had been stolen! The only clue was a set of footprints that headed down towards some unused store-rooms under the castle. Bare footprints that weren't quite human...

Check out the newly painted black board we're playing on - it made the tiles 'pop' for us while playing. Ten minutes well spent!

Sadly for music lovers in the audience, this is not a post about an obscure early 90s indie band who counted the Beach Boys, Thomas Tallis and Hebridean folk music as their influences and had been brought together by a shared love of honey and nutella sandwiches. Although I now have a slight sadness that such a band didn't exist...

Fortunately I am able to console myself with more gaming time with my little 'uns, or specifically, the littler one. Sunday was a day of serial children's parties with both boys in full social mode. After EM was done for the day he demanded first, a rough and tumble, and then second, a game "but not with knights - I want to be the monsters, the BIG monsters, and you can be peasants." I was happy to oblige and got out the New Gaming Board (TM) which is a two foot square piece of some kind of ply, painted black on one side and with some grass mat glued onto the other, along with some BIG monsters:



The Mask of Rolling Really High Numbers on Dice (as modelled by Super EM) proved its worth, as plucky peasants were battered about like ninepins...

First roll of the game - 20

Second roll of the game - 19

Chaos knight on giant evil swan charges peasants in open formation, assisted by an orc, under the command of a boy in a superhero mask? Yeah, that's absolutely the quintessence of Younghammer right there!


Meanwhile, in the centre of the village, the giant was running out of Romans

Third roll of the game - 20

Any bird passing by would have seen the conflict splinter across the board, with nine brave/foolish peasants still striving to protect their cows...


... but a second bird in close pursuit would have struggled to spot a single breathing human. Sad times.



Lots of fun, with made up rules - everything moves the same distance (the length of a broken craft stick I had to hand), the larger the creature the "bigger" the dice (more sides) you could use. It all worked beautifully, with triumph and tragedy for each side. Admittedly I got the larger share of tragedy, but that's fair enough when indoctrinating introducing gaming to the nipper.

Have a good half term, fellow teachers, and remember it's just five weeks until Easter.
Rab

After nearly a week of half term I'd become human enough again to want to game with my boys. Even better, the request came from them! What large, lizardlike flying creature could be responsible for the recent spate of agricultural arson and princess-napping? Time to send in the knights...

Each boy took a knight and a retainer with crossbow, and I ran a wizard with three spells (Bless, Distract and Fireball) as the fifth party member. This was to give them the chance to get in a terrible tangle, to check that the order of Actions was correct, and to further test the Magic rules.

It wasn't long before the party of heroes encountered some goblinoids of various sizes that were in thrall to the dragon, and the Fireball proved its worth...


The dice by the crossbowman shows he needs to reload.

Not wanting to be left out, the two knights shouldered their way past their fellows and soon sliced and diced the remaining baddies into less combat effective sized chunks. This was to prove characteristic, by the way; their dice rolling was verging on statistically impossible!

After a quick check that everyone was okay, the party surveyed the room they were in. Two pillars held up the roof, making it difficult to keep an eye on the comrades of the slaughtered monsters as they rushed to take their revenge...


This was what I was interested in from a game mechanics perspective - a bit of tactical thinking required. As it turns out, the two little 'uns (Gawd bless 'em) had the idea of line of sight, fields of fire and the like immediately - more high rolling soon left the orcs as little more than arrow-filled and charred corpses, with the survivors minced by the two tanks. Did I mention their dice rolling? Sheesh!

The two knights had been racking up Hero Points (HP) from their slaying and had so far avoided even the lightest injury. The closest they'd come to harm was during one fight when EM had drawn a round but only thanks to a fortuitous Blessing boost to his score.

Would the dragon fare any better and burn up this crew who were metaphorically on fire?


An early blast of flame from the beast left Sir CJ a little scorched, but the rest of his band weren't far behind. Despite the dragon's Huge size and Toughness, there's little a monster can do against a minimum roll of 17 over eight consecutive dice rolls. Sad times for the big fellow...


... but medals and promotions all round for the heroes who had done the storybook double - slain the dragon and rescued the princess. Only the wizard was weakened by his exertions; the two knights had plenty of HP to spend. Both replaced their destroyed shields, Sir CJ acquired the Charge skill and Sir EM got two: Grapple and Parry. They were both delighted with their advances, with EM telling me he hoped there would be a bridge in our next game so he could Grapple his foes and throw them off the bridge into the water. Godd idea, kiddo!

Note to self - send more monsters!

Rab

...that has such miniatures in't?" as my old mate Bill Shakespeare would have said if he'd had time to be a gamer as well as a literary genius.

Actually, before I start, happy new year to one and all, may it be filled with good health for you, your family and friends.

And back to the geeking. It's been a couple of weeks since I posted, and a couple of months since I painted. Staff changes at work have led to me having more direct demands on my time, as well as in supporting inexperienced colleagues who are trying valiantly to fill the shoes of an excellent colleague who has gone on to pastures new. But I have not been geek-free, my friends, oh no! I have been making very satisfying progress with Knights' Quest, particularly with regard to tweaking wording and illustrating/laying out the rules. I got a fab graphics tablet for Christmas and have been learning its ways. More on that in a future post because, apart from card art, it's so close to being finished I can practically smell it!


Having failed to get my act together for the Oldhammer Legacy Warband challenge, even with an extended deadline (the shame!), I've signed up for the Resurrection Challenge over on LAF to expiate my guilt and will be completing the arena for 54mm gladiator gaming that I started waaaaay back in 2013, as well as a couple of pairs of gladiators.



Anything else? Well, there are plenty of bits I'd like to sort out.

I want to finish my giant:


I want to finish a few more orcs to use both as dungeon fillers and a little warband for Erny's Warband rules for a sort of Realms of Chaos path to greatness but for greenskins. They can also then bolster the ranks of my Bad Guys mob - chaos warriors, beastmen, orcs, goblins, skeletons, couple of sorcerers - for small games to bring my boys into the welcoming arms of Younghammer.

I'm going to declutter a bit as well and have already started making a pile of unwise purchases that will soon be available to having new homes.

I reckon that's achievable - one priority project, one pledge, and some things I would get immediate use from.

I plan to check back on this in a year to see how I get on.

TTFN,
Rab

Dragons? Love 'em! Whether they're friendly or fierce, winged or wyrm, fire-breathing or not, symbol of wisdom and nobility or of the devil himself... Doesn't matter, I think they're great and I've passed this on to my two boys. I've already painted a dragon that I'm rather pleased with...

Nowadays the dragon is on a standard rectangular base, and did sterling work during the BOYL 14 Siege

The life of a noble maiden in times of yore was evidently a rather alarming one, given their propensity for being kidnapped by evil wizards, jealous step-mothers, ogres, trolls, dragons, fallen knights, faeries, etc. Today proved no different! The fair lady Marian had been spirited away and none knew to whither. Acting on rumours that a boy out hunting in the forest had heard the sweet and mournful singing of a young woman, two knights errant and their retainers converged on the ruined and apparently abandoned house in the deep wood from different directions...