Sons of Mars - the Match!

 Just a brief post today because I didn't take many pictures and chronic insomnia has made my recollection of finer details fuzzy at the best of times.

Yesterday, I brought two teams of gladiators and a felt battle mat to my buddy Rick's house, and played my first in-person wargame against another player since February 2020. Between the pandemic, my wife becoming seriously ill, and my formerly-friendly local game store no longer being welcoming now that I need to mask in public to protect my immunocompromised spouse...it's been solo games only for the last four years. But Rick and the circle of friends he and I play D&D with are all taking precautions to protect immunocompromised loved ones, so while our wives went out for pedicures together, Rick and I opened up the ludi and met in the gladiatorial arena.

We played an initial 1 vs 1 match for Rick to learn the rules of the game and get a feel for it; taking the Blue team, he put a Murmillo in the arena; taking the Reds, I responded by selecting a Retiarius, armed with a trident and net, for a classic matchup. It was a close match for the first couple of rounds, with my Retiarius scoring some impressive hits against the heavily-armored Murmillo. But eventually he closed the gap and his gladius drank deeply of my gladiator's lifeblood. 

Following this, we decided to go for broke and do a 3 vs 3 match. Keeping his Murmillo, Rick selected the Unmitigated Gaul (a dual-wielding Dimachaerus) and Spartacus the Thracian for his team; I swapped out my Retiarius, and fielded a Provocatore (a heavily armored gladiator built for staying power), a Thracian, and a lightly-armored Velites.

This ended up being a brutal match; Sons of Mars matches have a time limit of eight rounds, and we went right to the bottom of the 8th. We had a long stretch where the two Thracians were clashing, while the other four gladiators were in one big knock-down brawl downfield; the Murmillo and Provocatore pressed each other, with the Velites and Dimachaerus bouncing off them.

At one point, the Provocatore had the entire blue team attacking him at once, and he not only held his own, but delivered some brutal and near-crippling blows to the Murmillo and Dimachaerus before finally succumbing to a million small cuts; my Thracian took down Spartacus, which caused the brawl to sort of begin to separate out; by the beginning of the 8th round my Thracian and Velites were both holding on with just a single point of Vitality each. It didn't take long for the Murmillo (who was himself at 1 point of Vitality) and the Unmitigated Gaul (at 3) to finish them off. 

This was no sterile chess match; Rick played the soundtrack to the Spartacus TV series, and there were a couple points where we were both on our feet cheering for our respective fighters. We'll definitely be doing another day of gladiatorial games some time soon, possibly introducing obstacles and animals into the arena. 

Sons of Mars - solo play

Over the past week, I've dug out the gladiators I painted back in 2018, glued some shields back on and refreshed some bases (the texture paste I applied back in 2018 never made me happy, so I flocked over it with some ochre-y fine grain flock) and started refreshing myself on Joe Veltre's "Sons of Mars," a game of Roman gladiators. I'd played it a bit back then, and painted a ton of gladiators with the idea I'd run some demo games and maybe get a league going at my local gaming store. That never worked out because the people at the store who would have gotten into this all bought into "Arena Rex" instead. C'est la vie. 

A buddy of mine was asking about getting a game of something going, and most of my terrain has already made the move to my future basement. Fortunately, Sons of Mars doesn't require much in the way of terrain, so I decided to refresh myself so I could get it going with him next week. I've played through a couple of 1 v 1 solo games, and today I decided to do something a little bit bigger.

I rolled up some obstacles for the arena - two walls and two braziers of fire - and set up a 2 v 2 game. On the Blue team, we have Spartacus, a Thraex or Thracian gladiator, and The Unmitigated Gaul, a red-haired Dimachaerus - a wielder of two swords. The Red team was represented by Ursus Major, a large Provocator (known for their staying power in the arena) and Curio, a Velites - a lighter class of gladiator typically armed with javelins or a gladius and a light shield. 

Spartacus charged Curio, and the Unmitigated Gaul charged Ursus Major. The fighting pushed back and forth, with Curio trying to get away from Spartacus and Ursus trying to shove the Gaul away from him. The fighters inflicted minor wounds on each other, but largely clashed swords without major effect. 

At the beginning of the third round of combat, the Emperor was getting bored of the shoving contests, and ordered a very large bear released into the arena to spice things up. 

The bear charged Curio, clawing ineffectively at the nimble gladiator. For a few moments, Curio and Spartacus struggled with each other, each man trying to put the other between himself and the bear. 

The Gaul and Ursus clashed dramatically, ignoring the bear and their fellow gladiators, but as the fight drew on, the Provocator in his heavier armor began to tire, and the more fatigued he got the faster the Gaul's swords seemed to swing. With a dramatic flourish of swordsmanship, the Gaul cut the Provocator down just as both Spartacus and Curio broke away from the bear. The bear, bloodied and enraged, charged the Gaul.

Man and bear roaring with fury, the Gaul and the bear wrestled back and forth, the Gaul sinking his blades again and again into the bear's powerful body. Finally, the beast slumped to the arena sands. The Unmitigated Gaul had won out!

While this was going on, Spartacus, playing to the crowd to increase his favor, cornered Curio against one of the walls, and tried to push him into the wall and knock him prone. The lighter Velite held his own however, his blade clashing dramatically with Spartacus', both men tiring as they struggled against one another. However Curio managed a few good hits on the Thracian, leaving Spartacus clinging to life as he tried to continue the fight.

Fistful of Lead wound tokens here representing Fatigue.

With the bear slain and Spartacus struggling with the barely-armored Curio, the Gaul charged into the fray. His charge crushed the Velite, providing a flawless victory to the Blue team.

The Blues have won every solo game I've played this week; Murmillo v. Retiarius, Secutor v. Thracian, and now this one. It was almost not such a clean-cut victory; Spartacus was 1 Vitality point away from dying. I like how dramatically the fortunes of the gladiators can swing. A gladiator can be getting beaten badly one round and rally and come out the victor in the next. On paper, the Velite should have been easy for a tougher gladiator like a Thracian to take down, but in practice it was a little more difficult. Different classes of gladiator thrive with different tactics, and you have options you can pursue to make it easier to fight a difficult opponent. It's got a nice beer and pretzels lightness to the system, while also rewarding smart tactical play. 

I'll probably play through a few more solo games this week, and then next weekend I'll bring them over to Rick's for my first actual game against another person since February 2020. 

State of the Orc Army, May 2024

 Been a while since I've posted! Haven't done a ton of gaming since March; we're actually moving at the end of the summer, from our current one bedroom apartment into an actual house! In fact, the house I grew up in; my parents are looking to downsize as they get older, so my wife and I are buying their house from them. A lot of my wargaming terrain has already been moved into the basement at the house, just because it's delicate and I didn't want to risk anything breaking if I could help it. My painted miniatures will all be moved over in the coming weeks as well.

In the meantime, I did get my entire Oldhammer orc and goblin army out on the table this past weekend for the six-month muster. 

First things first, here's the entire* army:

So this technically isn't everything that's painted; my 3rd edition Hobgoblin contingent wasn't unpacked for this, and my Doom Diver catapult needs some repairs so it was left off the table this time around. Let's take a closer look:

Some miscellaneous characters; since the last muster I've added Grimgor Ironhide, Black Orc Warboss from Games Workshop, 6th edition WHFB on the left there, and a Heartbreaker Orc Shaman (now available through Ral Partha Europe) on the far right. 

Goblins! I've added a unit of Wolfriders from Warmonger miniatures (foreground) and a wolf chariot (in the back) from GW, as well as a shaman from Old School Miniatures (red hood). Someday soon I should bulk out that regiment of 12 up to...around 40. Maybe 48. 

These are really special. I painted the first 12 of Harboth's Orc Archers from 1987 back in 2021, and finished the remaining 8 (including standard bearer, musician and champion) in January of this year. They all have hand-painted face shields and I freehanded the banner as well. Behind them you can see one of my two 25-strong Orc regiments.

"The Old Guard" is 35-strong, consisting of orcs released between 1985 and 1996; a mix of Citadel, Marauder, Heartbreaker, Alternative Armies, maybe some I'm forgetting.

My Boar Boyz, from Knightmare Miniatures; have done a couple weapon swaps on these, including making the standard bearer.

Up front are my Black Orcs; these are "Barnorsk Great Orcs" from Black Tree Design, and the first figures I painted for this army. I have another 10 to add to them, and I'll be redoing shields. Also probably redoing the standard bearer, replacing the cast standard pole with a 4" steel pin and a new paper flag. Behind them is my second 25-man orc unit.

Trolls are from Satyr Art Studio originally; the molds were sold to Troll Soup Miniatures but I don't know if they're still in production; they're marked sold out every time I check the site. Next to them is a Warmonger Orc carrying a siege gun, which I'll be using as a Rock Lobber.

I have no idea if they'll ever make it on the table for a game, but I do still love the "Black Fire Boyz" - a group of orcs that have started wearing Imperial uniforms stripped from fallen foes and imitating pike tactics. 

And finally the baggage train; again, not something that'll ever see use past 3rd edition games (should those ever happen for me), but a characterful and fun addition. 

So that's it for now, minus the units I mentioned above. 

What's next?

I did recently score a complete set of the 2002 version of Ruglud's Armored Orcs, sculpted by Brian Nelson during the 6th edition era. These were kind of a "White Whale" for me - the issue of White Dwarf they were introduced in was one of the first issues I had as a teenager entering the hobby, and every greenskins army list I wrote up back then included them as a choice. Those are on my painting table right now. 

I have a bunch of chariots, more goblins, more black orcs, a unit of Night Goblins to do...

Really the biggest thing I should do is magnetize all these bases. I have 3D printed movement trays to adapt these base sizes to Warhammer: The Old World and I really should get magnets and steel squares so I can take these to a game without spending an hour ranking everyone up at the table.

Majestic 13: Operation Trailer Trash

 I've been feeling a lot of stress lately with the upcoming move and all, and my wife encouraged me to get the table cleared of and set up for a game. Given that I'd just finished two monsters for Majestic 13, I decided to get set up for the next game in my ongoing campaign. It's time for another installment of Keel's Killers versus alien monsters.

I rolled up a Poisoned Lasher as the enemy du jour; a clever hunter with long tentacles and poisoned attacks, with a special move that allowed it to drag Agents across the board and inflict all sorts of harm. Unfortunately, I rolled a FUBAR event on the first turn, and a second monster showed up. This second monster was a Jel Brute - a hulking, heavily-armored creature that can punch through steel plate and generate shockwaves by punching the ground. 

Activating first, the Lasher charged Agent Klass, hitting him with a flurry of tentacle strikes that left him Poisoned and Restrained. Meanwhile, Arnold and Barker II moved to engage the Jel Brute, firing ineffectively into the creature's armored carapace. 

Klass was unable to break the creature's grip, and the Lasher dragged him to the roof of the Atomic Gas Station; a journey that Klass did not survive.

The Jel Brute stunned Barker II, and then charged him, crushing him to a pulp beneath its powerful fists. Moseley sniped at the Brute with minimal effectiveness.

The Lasher and the Brute then convened on Agent Arnold; the Lasher struck the killing blows on her.

The Brute then turned its attention to Agent Keel, while the Lasher lunged for Moseley. Keel tried to Call for Aid without success, and before the end of Turn 3, the entire team was wiped out.

Ouch! I'd done fairly well through the last few games of Majestic 13, so I guess I was due for a game where nothing went right. As soon as the FUBAR result came up "second monster" I knew this wasn't going to be a game where Keel's Killers did well. I don't think I was prepared for just how fast the team would be put out of action. 

Rolling into the post-game phase, Keel, Klass and Moseley recovered just fine; Barker II has permanent brain damage (-2 to his Acuity stat) and Arnold is going to miss next game due to some persistent, questionable wounds. I tried requisitioning a Targeting HUD for Moseley and a VTOL with landing pad for the base, but both requests were lost in the labyrinthine bureaucracy of Majestic 13. 

I've got some more 3D printed monsters on the way for Majestic 13, and I've ordered a few more teams of operatives; a buddy of mine just bought a house and we were in his new basement man cave/gaming room yesterday. While showing off the new D&D table he'd built from scratch, he proposed getting some skirmish gaming in on it, and I feel like some co-op games of Majestic 13 would be a good fit.

Two More Aliens for Majestic 13

 I've gotten as far as I can with my cave people and cave bear right now; we've got some late season snow all of the sudden after a very mild winter so no taking them outside to prime. 

In the meantime, I've finished up two 3D-printed monsters for my games of Snarling Badger's "Majestic 13." These were purchased from "TranscendentalPrints" on Etsy, after Mr. Martin gave them a shout-out on his blog. These were really high quality prints, arrived super clean, well packed and quickly. I'm sure I'll be ordering from them again soon (much to my wife's chagrin, I think) and highly recommend them. 

These are both monsters from the Cthulhu Mythos which, if you've been around here for a while, you'll know is dead center in my wheelhouse; I've been lucky enough that I've been able to publish RPG scenarios for both the venerable Call of Cthulhu RPG, as well as more recently for Cthulhu Eternal, an open-source alternative ruleset. 

First up is a Flying Polyp - these creatures first appeared in Lovecraft's story "The Shadow Out of Time," in which they were mortal enemies of the scholarly mollusks known as the Great Race of Yith. Only partially existing in the physical world and capable of generating and controlling winds, the Polyps are a nasty threat to deal with in any game system. I got mine printed at 75mm tall, which ended up being big enough that it needed a 3" base to stand on.

The sculpt here seems like it was influenced by Loic Muzy's illustration for the 7th edition Call of Cthulhu rulebook, with its swirling, spiraling body and fang-lined circular mouth:

Over a black basecoat, I gave it a heavy drybrush of Reaper's "Deep Ocean," followed by progressively lighter drybrushes of "Marine Teal" and finally "Surf Aqua." I wanted the eyes to be kind of flat and deadened, so I gave them a simple coat of Vallejo "Gory Red" with no pupils or highlights; the tongue and the inside of the mouths were Reaper "Light Violet Red" washed with GW "Druchii Violet" then re-highlighted with Light Violet Red. Finally, I picked out the teeth in Reaper "Stained Ivory," washed with GW "Seraphim Sepia" and highlighted with "Creamy Ivory." 

I'll tell you right now, my wife is not a fan of this figure and has called it "Satan's sea cucumber" and told me I owed her ice cream for showing it to her. 

The second figure I got is a "Star Vampire" - these creatures first appeared in the short story "The Shambler From The Stars" by Robert Bloch (of PSYCHO fame), in which famously one eats a thinly-disguised version of H.P. Lovecraft. I actually did write an RPG scenario around this creature some years ago, but due to copyright issues I can't publish it. This figure was printed at 50mm tall and is on a 40mm Renedra round base. 

Again, the influence of Loic Muzy's creature design is undeniable:

The challenge in painted a Star Vampire is that these creatures are normally invisible; only becoming visible while feeding, as the blood they drink is pumped through their body, giving them a reddish coloration until it's digested. So I opted to just not worry about that.

I gave the whole creature a base coat of Reaper "Worn Olive" over a black primer coat, then washed it liberally with GW "Athonian Camoshade." Once dry, I gave it an all over drybrush of Vallejo "Dead Flesh" (the same color I use for my orcs). The mouth/feeding tube I gave two coats of Reaper "Light Violet Red," then washed with "Druchii Violet" and highlighted with Light Violet Red. I then gave it a light drybrush of Reaper "Heart Throb Pink" to brighten it up some; the color choice may have been a mistake because it kind of looks like the world's angriest rectal prolapse but maybe that just adds to the horror of it all.

In a nod to the source fiction, I used GW's OOP "Bloodletter Glaze" to glaze the tentacles red, with each coat getting progressively more concentrated towards the tips. A very light drybrush of "Dead Flesh" towards the base of each tentacle smoothed the transition between green and red. Finally I picked out the teeth using the same formula I used on the Flying Polyp: Stained Ivory - Seraphim Sepia wash - Creamy Ivory highlight. 

I'll get the bases finished today or tomorrow, and then hopefully Monday the weather will be warm enough that I can take them outside and hit them with some spray varnish. 

Also, my wife says I need to paint some puppies or kittens after this.

Beginning the Wolf Tribe

 So, I know I said I wasn't sure when I'd start on painting more prehistoric figures, aaaaaand...I've started. Well, getting them cleaned up and glued to bases at least. I've been struggling through a hobby slump - I've only managed to actually get paint on a single piece of scatter terrain this month. Insomnia's been a big issue for me, and that combined with day job and being a caregiver for my wife, who has an autoimmune condition...I don't have a lot of energy left at the end of the day so just sitting down at the hobby desk has felt a bit like scaling Everest lately. 

I've been really fixated on the prehistoric stuff lately - reading through rulesets, examining different companies' offerings in terms of mammoths and mastodons, watching "Quest for Fire" and "Clan of the Cave Bear" - and I'm hoping I can re-invigorate myself by getting work done towards playing more prehistoric games. 

 

Over the past two days, I've gotten 15 figures cleaned (even filing mold lines!) and glued to bases. These are all from Lucid Eye Publications' Savage Core line, and comprise two packs of Cro-Magnon warriors with javelins and atlatls, two packs of "Age of Ice" Amazons with bows (and one blowgun!) and some heroic leader-types. They're all anatomically modern humans (no Neanderthal brow ridges here) dressed warmly in tanned hides and fur cloaks so should mesh together fairly well. I'm calling them the Wolf Tribe, since one of the heroes is the shamanic-looking "Wolf Mother" clad in a wolf pelt. 

The goal is to have a pool of figures I can draw from for any prehistoric wargame I please; I can split these up into two opposing forces for Lucid Eye's "Savage Core" game, for example, or I can treat them as a pool to pull from when building a hunting party for "Tusk" or "Palaeo Diet." And what I've got right here can be a Warlord, two Heroes, and two Formations for Mana Press' skirmish game "Tribal." I've got an eye towards picking up another two packs of Savage Core Cro-Magnons for a more robust Tribal warband.

I'm also considering converting one Cro-Magnon and one Amazon to be holding torches; both Tusk and Palaeo Diet offer rules for starting fires to drive game, and I'd like to be able to play with those rules.

Tusk: Ground Sloth Hunt

 It's been a couple weeks since I've gotten anything on the table to play with, or even to paint for that matter. I did get another few sets of prepainted trees from Monster Fight Club, and wanted to get them on the table, so for simplicity's sake I set myself up for a couple rounds of Wessex Games' Tusk. I've got a lot of unpainted cavemen in a box in my closet and I hate playing unpainted, so I used the same batch of Lucid Eye cavemen that I used in my last game back in December. I still don't have a mammoth purchased or painted, but I did find a Reaper Bones giant prehistoric ground sloth that I painted a few years back so that was today's substitute megafauna. 

I played twice, but only took pictures of the first game since my phone was low battery. Both games lasted about 15 minutes and ended with the ground sloth being run down and killed; also in both games, Og the Hero (here portrayed by Lucid Eye's "Muok Mangod") got squished while trying to show off for his tribe. He's got a 50-50 chance of either killing the prey animal in one hit or getting killed himself, and so far on my tables it's been 100% "Og bites it."

 

The one thing I really haven't done that I should do for Tusk is get some fire and smoke markers prepped. Tusk offers rules for cavemen to start fires and try to hem prey in or herd them towards cliffs or marshes to kill them. The fires, once started, spread with the wind and can get out of control, even turn around and and threaten the cavemen.I think that would add a very different tactical element; as is, my painted cavemen run in with their clubs and on a 10+ on 2D6 kill the mammoth/ground sloth/Brontosaurus etc. which makes for very fast games. 

I'm not sure when I'll get more cavemen painted; my wife and I are moving to a new city this summer so I know I'll be winnowing down my collection somewhat over the next couple months to minimize what we're moving. I also want to work on being better about being less of a hobby mayfly and really focus on one project at a time for six months or a year; for 2025 I really want that focus to be on prehistoric wargaming. Tusk, Savage Core, and Mana Press' "Tribal" are all on my list of games I want to try playing with painted cavemen of various types, and I've heard good things about Ganesha Games' "Palaeo Diet" - it's been described to me as "Tusk on steroids" so I'll be picking that up at some point. Cavemen and various prehistoric animals will be a great painting project, plus terrain; not just natural stuff like hills and rocks, but villages, idols, etc.