"Thats no moon! Thats a space station!"...Obi Wan (Ben) Kenobi

After a very busy week or so (what with interviews, college applications and the small matter of a family wedding) it was something of a relief to get back to the serious business of bargain hunting at our local Saturday boot sale. First up was a completed kit of the Death Star from Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope. This football sized plastic model has been assembled and painted but is sadly missing the base - a glass tumbler was used for the photo. I was particularly pleased to get hold of this as my gaming friend and disciple of the Dark Side - Darth Fox has a collection of Star Wars spaceship models from the collectible miniatures game produced by Wizards of the Coast. The model would be quite a small Death Star compared to the size of the other models but large enough to use as the centre piece of a rebel assault - the scale issue is largely representational after all.....................;-)

This cost me £1 which when you consider its galaxy smashing ability is not too bad!

Next up was a couple of paperbacks - one of which was a replacement and the other a new and welcome find. Starship Troopers is one of my favourite Sci Fi novels and I had been after a replacement for ages. The Master of the World I have not read and it was on my hit list for some time given my interest in Victorian Sci Fi. These two came to 30p in total!

Finally, a hardback copy of the Sharpe Companion by Mark Adkin. This is basically a guide to the Napoleonic Wars as depicted in the Sharpe novels and is full of interesting facts, maps and anecdotes - primarily covering the war in the Spanish Peninsula although the affair in Belgium in 1815 does get a passing nod! This was the princely sum of 50p.

All in all then, it was a great day out and a very cheap one as well!

Space Hulk 3rd (Limited) Edition

When my antipodean gaming chum, drinking partner (difficult given the 12K miles separation!) and first class chap Tas, of http://tasmancave.blogspot.com/ fame told me of the imminent release of the 3rd edition of the classic 'Aliens' inspired game Space Hulk I was properly excited at the prospect. This game is tremendous fun and I can remember many great sessions of alien mayhem when the first edition came out in the 80s. I had quite a large collection based on this version (now in the collection of Mr Fox) but missed out when the second came around. That has recently been rectified as I have managed to source a copy in exchange for my efforts in the previously mentioned 18th century ebay extravaganza. The number of models in the game is small and the subject matter for painting does not present too much in the way of a problem (even for me!) so as a mini project thus ticks all the boxes. Coupled with the copy of Tyranid Attack acquired in the same way as the aforementioned Space Hulk I have the makings of a reasonable 28mm Sci Fi set up that will not be a major hassle getting ready to use. With this in mind I took a gander at the GW website to see the 3rd edition and how it could be added in to my existing set up. I have to say, I was quite disappointed by what I saw.

The figures look absolutely gorgeous but they are character figures - not rank and file (at least IMHO) types. The components look fantastic but I have to say that they are really not what I am looking for - the marines seem to be too fussy with loads of banners and scrolls etc on the armour. This is a part of the WH40K I really struggle with as to me it looks plain wrong having all that flam and paradiddle stuck on a suit of powered armour. Some of the poses look great as one off figures but would you want a unit of marines pulling up floor plates or holding the skull and spine of a dead alien? The 2nd edition models are far more suitable for my low key and subtle rank and file marines (?) and so I shall pass on acquiring a copy of the 3rd edition.

I must confess to liking my sci fi game rules brash and noisy but the whole WH40K thing has never really ticked the boxes for me. I love the figures and support material etc but only where they overlap with my own thoughts on the genre. That said, Space Hulk is a genuinely tense and exciting game (especially with the timer in use with the first edition) and can easily be expanded to incorporate many varieties of sci fi figures. The fact that terrain is gridded as well makes it even more attractive.

"In Space, no-one can hear you scream....................................."

Wargaming in the Age of Reason

As many readers of my blog may already know, I am a great user of ebay - both for buying and more especially selling. I have also sold on ebay on behalf of many of my gaming friends and it has been great fun. Recently I disposed of an enormous quantity of material - books, figures, boardgames and rule sets for a friend of mine that was moving house and needed to downsize his collection. It was a fascinating exercise - seeing how tastes and collections have evolved over the years. In return for the not inconsiderable effort involved in listing, photographing and shipping the sold items received for my troubles a number of selected titles from the items he was dispensing with. I was pleased and so was my friend and it just proves that money does not need to change hands for a bargain! I am currently involved with a similar exercise for another friend and the main bulk of the material being disposed of is a large collection of painted 25/28mm 18th century figures - mainly Minifigs, Garrison and Hinchcliffe from the late 70s and early 80s, all painted to a very good standard, typical of the times.

The 18th century is a great period to game in and is almost de rigeur for those that wish to set up fictional armies rather than historical ones. This, one would suppose, is the legacy of Messrs. Grant, Young and Lawford and I have absolutely no problem with this. I have had many truly epic games using Charge! and using these figures (at least the Prussian) when multi player games involving 100s if 1,000s of figures were seemingly the norm. The two that spring to mind were a refight at Minden (where yours truly gained a wholly undeserved reputation for 'borrowing' cavalry reserves......) and also the Siege of Vienna. I was the garrison of Vienna and the action took place in the cellar at The New Model Army shop in Manor Park on an 'L' shaped table about 20 foot long. It was tremendous fun although the now Turkish speaking inhabitants of Vienna may disagree............;-)

I have listed the Prussians on ebay under my userid of drcroguejedi should you wish to take a look and the picture at the top is just one of the units up for grabs.

SIC VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM

I mentioned on the previous post that I would detail the latest additions to the Rayleigh Factorium Library during the recent visit to our preferred boot sale i.e. the 'Lazybones' boot sale at Rettenden in Essex, about ten minutes in the car from my house. The above three cost the princely sum of 50p each and are satisfying additions for the reasons listed. The Vietnam title is a single volume history of the conflict with lots of maps, photos, diagrams and details of tactics and hardware in use. It is an excellent primer to the conflict and from a gaming perspective the war can be tackled on a modest budget. There is a plethora of books kicking around on the war and so having this volume is, for me, a good starting point should I wish to pursue gaming it. Great potential for a credit crunch wargame!

The second title - Celt and Saxon - covers the so called Dark Ages in Britain and the ongoing struggles between the various tribes and invaders over the years of 410 to 937AD. I must confess that the study of this period of our nations history has grown on me over the years and it has much to offer from a campaign perspective and again, at quite a low level as the armies can be well catered for even using a DBA type of system. A couple of 15mm Dark Age DBA warband type armies for the period would not be beyond even my limited painting ability!

The final title is a potted overview of ancient warfare from Sumeria up to the fall of the Roman Empire. In a book of 250 pages it is certainly not by any means an encyclopedia of the period - more like an overview and primer and as such would be good for the newcomer dabbling in the period. I have a number of titles covering the ancient period and so this is a little on the lightweight side for me but I will read it and will probably then offload it - either at the club or on ebay. It did however, provide the heading for this post which translates as....................................."If you want peace, prepare for war."

A truism consistently forgotten down the centuries!

Life, the Universe, and Everything in it....

It has been a busy few days in the Rayleigh Factorium and most of this was of a non-gaming nature. To begin with (and I might add on my Son's 21st birthday....), we had a split water pipe in the garage that was leaking water (not excessively) over an electrical junction box with the result that for around six hours we had neither water (switched off at the mains) or power (also off at the mains). As we were also having some friends up from the West Country for the weekend I am sure you can imagine that SWMBO was less than impressed at this turn of events. All of the months of preparation (which made Desert Storm look like a Sunday school outing!) were coming unravelled at an alarming rate and the whole four days of festivities was fast descending into chaos. Luckily our tame plumber, electrician and all round good guy was able to rescue us. All was restored late in the day but as a result the huge weekend food shop for the descending throng (well both of them!) was delayed until Friday and so the whole weekend, whilst great fun, was pretty darned hectic - hence the lack of posts.

We did manage to hit our favourite boot sale on Sunday and I scored a couple of goodies - details of which will follow later. Apologies for the somewhat rushed nature of this post but what passes for normal service will be resumed in a day or so!!

WW1 In and around the Black Sea

Readers of the blog may recall a little while ago I was making campaign type noises for the Balkan wars and for the extension into the Black Sea during WW1. I have amassed the fleets in 1/3000th for use with both these conflicts and am toying with the idea of using the campaign system described in the boardgame The Great War at Sea: The Mediterranean (also featured in an earlier post). Imagine my surprise and delight when looking at the website http://www.kriegsspiel.org.uk/ I came across a game that had been run set in the Black Sea during the early years of the war - covering both land and sea aspects. I will copy this down and will study it further and see where it takes me but certainly it bears investigation. The picture above is the campaign that was used and full details of this, and much else of interest can also be found on the site.

Cry Havoc!...and let slip the Blocks of War!!!

I mentioned earlier that I would need to source a suply of blocks to be able to give this 'project' some viability and think I may have found it, albeit somewhat unconventionally. Colombia games (http://www.columbiagames.com/) produce a series of block based boardgames on a number of military themes. I own their game Napoleon (covering the my old favourite, the 1815 campaign) and it sudenly struck me that they might offer a replacement service for the blocks contained therein - in the manner of many games companies. Sure enough, after checking their website they sell hardwood blocks in both 20mm and 24mm square at 20 cents each for the smaller size. these blocks are very high quality and I reckon on needing perhaps 60 a colour so the cost would be modest - even allowing for shipping from Canada.

Suddenly this is assuming a life of its own.........;-)