Bob Olley's Black Orcs: the best of Iron Claw Miniatures

December 23, 2014, 6:49 am

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It has taken me 3 years and much treasure to collect all 12 of the original IC601 Black Orcs sculpted by Bob Olley and released by Iron Claw in 1988. Immediately upon receiving the last orc in the mail, I set to work painting them. From priming to final varnish, it took me one month. I was anxious to add some muscle to the anemic ranks of my small orc army, Krapfang's Backwood Bandits. But more than that, I was looking forward to creating a colour scheme that would do these very odd miniatures justice.

Black Orcs by Iron Claw Miniatures, IC601 (sculpted by Bob Olley, 1988)

As I discussed last week, the virtue and vice of all Olley miniatures from the mid-1980's is that his sculptures rarely blend with other Warhammer miniatures. His figures are squat, swollen and big-headed. But they are also textured, bizarre and arresting. For my purposes, I relished the clash of styles. Black Orcs are supposed to be a separate race from their green-skinned cousins, so the strange, hairy physiognomy of Olley's figures would underline this biological fact. Indeed, I wanted my Black Orcs to stand out like super-beings from the rest of my army.

I tried to make my painting as strange as the miniatures themselves. The organizing idea of my paint job was a juxtaposition between the dark skin and dirty furs on one hand -- and on the other hand, a tight pattern of ultraviolet colours for armour, shields and accents. The skin tone is Vallejo's "USA Olive Drab" with small additions of orange for lips, pink for pimples and pale green for other highlights. I tried (perhaps unsuccessfully) to keep the skin tones mellow. Meanwhile, the blues and purples were meant to give these villains the illusion of phosphorescence, like a glowing fungus in a cave.

Painting a Bob Olley miniature is a constant process of discovery, as you notice new flourishes and artistry, especially around the face. I had a blast with their flabby lips, exposed gums, overbites, underbites and boils. At times, I felt like these models were painting themselves, since the highly textured surface would take highlights with very little effort -- I just had to let the brush find its own way across the surface of the skin and fur. From soup to nuts, they were a pleasure to paint. Thanks, Mr. Olley!

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Citadel's Paranoia Miniatures

January 4, 2015, 4:39 pm

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The Paranoia miniatures produced by Citadel from 1985-1987 are among the most under-appreciated ranges produced in the golden age of Games Workshop. Paranoia is a post-apocalyptic game set in a subterranean city combining the surveillance of Orwell, the bureaucracy of Kafka and the sensibility of Spaceballs. 

But more than this, Paranoia was the first meta role-playing game: a game that mocked and inverted the conventions of other RPGs. Nothing in that game was fair -- for instance, my first character was slain by a random encounter named "Wandering Damage". Indeed, player characters were actively discouraged from even learning the rules of the game, since that could be interpreted as seditious knowledge. The result was a game that promoted willful ignorance, uncertainty and betrayal among players, all in the name of good fun.

When Citadel obtained the licence for Paranoia miniatures from West End Games, it had a great excuse to explore the comic possibilities of miniature sculpting. The results are almost unequaled for humor: neat, simple figures in overalls or padded armour, each one convulsed with despair, terror or denial. Some models are attempting to defend themselves with vacuum cleaners -- some are paralyzed with indecision -- some are just running for their lives. They remind me of how I would look if I was being attacked by an alien menace. In this sense, these miniatures are a refreshing antidote to the grim, heroic figures that populate most fantasy and science fiction, including Warhammer and Rogue Trader.

Sadly I can't find any evidence about who sculpted these miniatures. My suspicion is that Aly Morrison is the guilty party. The pronounced cheekbones and gangley limbs in the Paranoiafigures are Morrison hallmarks. And the Paranoia figures also bear a striking resemblance to some of Morrison's early Imperial Guardsmen, leading to the intriguing question of how Paranoia's aesthetic influenced the development of Warhammer 40K's Imperial Army. In any case, Morrison was always the most impish of Citadel sculptors, so the Paranoia figures would be in his wheelhouse. 

Besides being used (of course) in a game of Paranoia, I've always thought that Citadel's Paranoia range make an ideal addition to any game of Warhammer 40K -- perhaps as civilians, crew members, or poorly trained units of a planetary defence force. In a proper game of refereed Rogue Trader, these miniatures could provide vital parts of a story or mission. Be that as it may, I was inspired to track down and paint a body of these miniatures for a very different purpose: I wanted to play Vlaada Chvátil's "Space Alert" with miniatures worthy of his superb game... 

So stay tuned for a brief discussion of Space Alert in my next post.

Hasslefree Miniatures: Promocode and the Art of Gesture

January 7, 2015, 4:19 pm

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Hasslefree Miniatures is one of the few contemporary miniature makers that I love. And for the next day, Hasslefree Miniatures is offering 11% off with the promocode HAPPY11. This is in celebration of their 11th anniversary. I didn't realize that 11th anniversaries are a thing – it brings to mind Sammy Maudlin’s 23rd Anniversary Special. Well, whatever the number, happy birthday Hasslefree!

I admire Hasslefree, and its principal sculptor, Kev White, for two overlapping reasons. First, they have a clean, simple style that really cuts against the modern trend toward overly detailed miniatures with lots of folds, fobs, straps, jewels, weapons, plates, layers and fringes. The simple, Hasslefree style instead emphasizes the human body, and the face of the miniature. Like the Citadel sculpts of old [steady, nostalgia rage], Kev White knows that the face is what transforms a miniature into a character - and so everything focuses on the face. 

The second thing I love about Hasselfree and Kev White is that they have a distinctive look: smooth lines, understated features and a well-rounded human form (i.e. a normal body fat ratio). But if there was one word I’d use for White’s work, it is gesture. He has a unique ability to evoke the personality of a figure through posture, poses and gestures. As I’ve said before (about a very different man, Bob Olley), a personal style is what makes a miniature sculptor into an artist. You know a White sculpt immediately upon picking it up.

I also have a soft spot for Hasslefree because my first (and only!) commission as a miniature painter was to paint a HF miniature. My friend Matthew asked me if I would paint a miniature rendition of his girlfriend Emily as a Christmas present. We both scoured the internet searching for a likely likeness, a task which is not too easy when you want a realistic portrait of an actual woman, and not an anorexic death nymph with breast implants. I suggested Matthew look at Hasselfree, and he immediately came up with HFA108 Lisa Lambaste, pictured in this post. 

She’s a great figure: resolute without being po-faced. I painted her outfit to match one of Emily's dresses. As with attempting to paint anyone real, the biggest challenge was getting the skin right in tone and shading. This took hours of experimentation, and one pixel out of place could destroy any resemblance to the real Emily. Anyway, this morning I met her for the first time since she received the gift, and she was very appreciative: she said it looks just like her! I couldn't be happier.

Anyway, if you haven’t checked out Hasslefree before, give them a look. They have a great variety of ranges, and are particularly rewarding if you're looking for (strong) female characters. I also like the fact that Hasslefree gives a name to all their minis... this touch gives the models even more of a sense of individuality. 

Below are some of my favourite HF miniatures.

HFA031 Kendra, Hasslefree Miniatures (sculpted by Kev White)

HFH060 Alicia, Hasslefree Miniatures (sculpted by Kev White)

HFE008 Luna, Hasslefree Miniatures (sculpted by Kev White)

HFG450G Grymn Walker, Hasslefree Miniatures (sculpted by Kev White)

Space Alert - a game of panic and failure

January 13, 2015, 5:20 am

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I often use the phrase "golden age" when referring to the period in the mid-1980's, when Citadel produced their best miniatures. But we are living in another golden age right now -- the age of great board game design. Even the mainstream press has noticed this renaissance, with the Guardian recently observing, "Games are simply getting better. Publishers are turning out products with elegant mechanics and impressive artwork as fast as their customers can snap them up."

I like to bask in both these golden ages at once, mainly by replacing the components in modern games with vintage miniatures. My latest project was enhancing Space Alert, a science fiction board game, by using Paranoia miniatures produced by Citadel and Mongoose Publishing.

What is Space Alert? A solo/cooperative game in which the players control a space craft with a very simple mission: arrive by hyperspace in an uncharted solar system and stay there for 10 minutes, until the ship's computer maps the area and then automatically jumps the ship back home. The players spend the game working together to respond to various threats, including aliens, asteroids and boarders. Their job is made complex by the fact that the ship itself is a piece of trash, with unstable warheads, faulty elevators and a slow computer.

Why is Space Alert worthy of your notice? Well, it is designed by Vlaada Chvátil, who (in my view) is the most creative game designer Europe has to offer. No one is better at giving a game that precious quality which sometimes goes by the name flavour: the ability of a game's rules/mechanics to evoke the underlying setting behind the game. Space Alert has flavour because it has an innovative set of rules that perfectly echo the setting of panic and incompetence on a 3rd rate space ship.

Your ship is specially designed to be crewed by morons.

The 10 minutes that your ship spends in danger is played out in real time, with threats appearing in accordance with a CD recording (or a smartphone app) mimicking the ship computer's announcements. But more than this, the game simulates the frantic bumbling of the ill-trained crew by making everyone plan out what they think they are doing for those precious 10 minutes, without giving anyone a proper chance to ensure that they are actually cooperating. The end result is a short but intense gaming experience, where the players face the high cost of seemingly innocent miscues, like trying to pile two people into the same elevator, or forgetting to shake the central computer's mouse before the screen goes to sleep.

The final judgment: a fast, hilarious game with lots of replay-ability, and a high tolerance for beer impairment.

The original crew

A final note about the miniatures. Space Alert requires miniatures for five crewman, each marked out with a different colour. When I was casting about for minis to use with this game, I quickly fell upon the Citadel Paranoia range. In general theme, both games are similar: science fiction parodies involving incompetence and failure. Even better, the Paranoia miniatures look like most players feel when playing Space Alert: terrified, paralyzed or full of hubris. But my search for the best miniatures led me to discover the excellent sculpts that Bobby Jackson made for Mongoose Publishing circa 2004 for "Paranoia XP". These sculpture are every bit as funny and dramatic as Citadel's original designs, and so I was happy to use Jackson's Praying Troubleshooter as one of my crew. (On eBay, you will often see these Mongoose figures confused with the Citadel range -- and indeed, they are completely compatible in scale and feel).

I filled the role of Blue Captain and the Red Security Officer using Citadel's Paranoia Security Guards. The three remaining crewmen are Troubleshooters wearing overalls, two from Citadel and one from Mongoose. I gave the crew unity of uniform by using the same base colour of blue-grey for overalls and armour (Vallejo Colour's Sombre Grey) -- and then personalized everyone by painting their T-shirts and accents in different primary colours. The result: a much richer experience of this great game!

The Computer Wants You to Have the Right Information

January 19, 2015, 5:50 am

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Since I've started collecting Citadel's Paranoia miniatures, I've realized how neglected these minis were in the 1980's and still are today. The range was introduced in 1986, coinciding with the release of HIL Sector Blues, a Paranoia supplement that included rules for using miniatures in the roleplaying game. However, pictures of the miniatures did not appear in the 1986 Spring Journal, the 1987 Spring Journal, Le Héraut Citadel 1986, or the compendious 1988 Catalogue. The low profile continues today: the page for Paranoia on the Stuff of Legends page is just a shell.

As a result of this neglect, it's hard to tell what is and is not a Paranoia miniature. As I mentioned in my last post, Bobby Jackson sculpted some hilarious Paranoia figures for Mongoose Publishing in 2004 - they are slotta based and similar in scale to Citadel, so it is easy to confuse the two from a distance (As I did once on eBay).

William Burroughs said, "Paranoia is just having the right information." And so, I thought I'd provide the right information by reproducing the only two ads for Paranoia Miniatures that appeared in White Dwarf. The first is from  #83 (Nov. 1986) and also appeared in the October 1986 Citadel Flyer:

The second ad appeared in White Dwarf #89 (May 1987) and featured a completely different set of miniatures, including my favourite mini of all time, "David-A-DWS with Hover":

Before leaving Paranoia behind, I wanted to tip my hat to Goblin Lee and his excellent post about the funniest Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader scenarios ever written, Vulture Warriors from Dimension X Meet Plenty of Cheerful Orks with Plasma Cannon from White Dwarf 112 (April 1989). The scenario was written by Ken Rolston (who also authored HIL Sector Blues)  and featured some illustrations by the fabulous Gary Harrod.

Although Games Workshop was already decadent and depraved by 1989, Vulture Warriors from Dimension X Meet Plenty of Cheerful Orks with Plasma Cannon is one of the last gasps of the classic Oldhammer spirit: a playful scenario requiring a Game Master and emphasizing simple DIY terrain and a spirit of role-play (In this sense, VWDXMPCOPC reminds me a lot of All the Nice Dwarves Luv a Sailor). 


The scene for VWDXMPCOPC reads like one of Shakespeare's dramas, although I can't remember which one: an expeditionary force of Troubleshooters from the world of Paranoia are instructed by the Computer to step through an experimental teleportation device, and they re-materialize in the Warhammer 40K universe. Unfortunately, the particular spot of the 40K universe they find is a small Space Ork outpost on an otherwise uninhabited Algae World. As you can imagine, fruitful intercultural communication ensues!

The GM prevents the Orks and Troubleshooters from knowing what they're facing when they explore the outpost (which is meant to be represented by nothing fancier than three box lids supported by styrofoam cups). 

If you're looking for VWDXMPCOPC (and I don't know why you wouldn't), I've posted the entire article HERE so that you can relive the glory.

Dwarfs versus Dwarves

January 24, 2015, 9:51 pm

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What's the proper plural: dwarfs or dwarves? And what does the Eiffel tower have to do with it?

Dwarves

Well, I love it when high culture and gaming culture intersect. And so I had a chuckle yesterday when thumbing through the latest issue of the TLS (aka the Times Literary Supplement). Nothing is too rarified for the TLS; as the missus says, it's the best source for news about latest Ph.D. thesis on the relationship between penises and pepper-pots in ancient Greece. And their letters to the editor are especially entertaining if you like watching academics bitch slap each other over questions like the number of biblical references in Proust.


Anyway, issue #5831 (Jan. 9, 2015) of the TLS contained the following letter to the editor regarding a review of the Italian novel Tutto il ferro della torre Eiffel ("All the Iron in the Eiffel Tower"):

Dwarves

 Sir, -- Adam Mars Jones' remarks in his discussions of Michele Mari's novel Tutto il ferro della torre Eiffel are interesting in making three references to "dwarves"... Look up "dwarf" in a decent dictionary and you will invariably find the standard plural listed as "dwarfs". It was J.R.R. Tolkien, in Appendix F to The Lord of the Rings, who revived the rare and obsolete form "dwarves", hoping by it to distinguish the "character and power" of the dwarfs in his own imagined mythology from the debased dwarfs of folk tales. From Mars-Jones' description, Mari's dwarfs, while serious enough to engage in murder, look to be essentially evil pranksters, and a long way from Tolkien's dignified "dwarves" -- which in any case have no evident presence outside his own works...

Mark O'Sullivan

Thus, the heavily Tolkien-influenced Dungeons and Dragons has always used (and continues to use) "dwarves" (a fact which O'Sullivan misses when he says that spelling has "no evident presence outside" Tolkien). On the other hand, Warhammer (from the 1st to the 8th edition) generally uses the more conventional "dwarfs".

What should you use? I like Mark O'Sullivan's approach. If the fellas in question are of low moral character, you should use "dwarfs". But if they are dignified and potent, use "dwarves". Grammar is easy.

Dwarfs (note shifty eyes)

When did Games Workshop Go to Pot?

January 28, 2015, 9:45 pm

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As a profitable enterprise, today's Games Workshop is a rusty turd. But I often contemplate the dim past and wonder when it was that Games Workshop first lost its way: not as a money making venture, but as a maker of games and miniatures that I want to use and enjoy. This, of course, is a philosophical question: when things went wrong depends on what you think Games Workshop first did that was right. All gamers will answer that question differently, but for me the answer is clear.

"When did it all go wrong?"

Games Workshop's decline began in January 1988. This was the month that White Dwarf #97 came out, opening with a short and obscurely written editorial by Sean Masterson explaining that the magazine would no longer publish articles about games produced by companies other than Games Workshop. In other words, White Dwarf (and indeed all of Games Workshop) was going inward and focusing exclusively on the promotion and development of their home grown games, namely Warhammer and Warhammer 40K. Here's the entire editorial:

There are a few interesting facts about Masterson's editorial. First, it didn't represent an abrupt change in policy but was rather a public acknowledgment of a gradual evolution that began earlier and intensified later. Articles about AD&D had already vanished from White Dwarf, the last being in Issue #93 (Sept. 1987). On the other hand, content for some other games (Stormbringer and Call of Cthulhu) didn't disappear for a few more issues after #97.

Some readers of White Dwarf immediately called bullshit on the new policy, leading to some exchanges with Masterson in the Letters page:

In Masterson's defence, he's quite correct that Games Workshop had every right to use its in-house magazine to promote its own games. After all, you will search the pages of Dragon Magazine in vain for any articles about Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay... so why should White Dwarf promote AD&D?

Why indeed. This brings me back to my initial point - isolating when things go wrong depends on what you think was going right. And in my view, the special quality that made the Games Workshop of 1985-1988 different from TSR, or Chaosium, or Steve Jackson Games was precisely that it did promote AD&D, as well as Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, Dr. Who, Runequest, Judge Dredd, Middle Earth Roleplaying and Paranoia.

a firm believer in ecumenicalism

Games Workshop was a mosaic. This incredible diversity was represented not merely by articles in White Dwarf, but by partnership agreements between Games Workshop and American gaming companies, -- and of course this diversity also played out in Citadel, which produced miniatures for all the above mentioned games in the mid-1980's.

This diversity was wonderful for the consumer.  But it was good for Games Workshop too. The crowded stable of games promoted a vast range of miniatures -- a range that was varied (ninjas! broo! timelords!) but also unified in style and scale. But more importantly, Games Workshop's ecumenical approach kept fresh ideas and influences flowing into their studio, leading to their own creations of astounding potency: Rogue Trader and the 40K universe (1987); the Old World as portrayed in Warhammer 3rd edition and Fantasy Roleplay (1986); not to mention Blood Bowl (1986). 

And although these games were unique and amazing, they were not particularly original -- rather Games Workshop's great trick was bringing together the best of separate, pre-existing elements. Thus the demonology of Cthulhu, the chaos of Moorcock, the magic of Runequest, the grandeur of Tolkien, the aesthetic of Judge Dredd and the humour of Paranoia all found their way into the worlds of Warhammer.

"Waddya mean ize past me prime?"

Everything that Games Workshop has produced since 1987 received its vitality from that early bang of creative energy. And the light from that departing sun lingered a long time in the sky before it began to fade. Thus, the Silver Age of Games Workshop (1988-1993) saw several top-notch games: the last half of the Enemy Within Campaign (1989), Space Hulk (1989) and Man O'War (1993), not too mention some great years at White Dwarf (until around 1990). But as great as these products were, they still didn't break any new creative ground. And after 1993... well we just got tinkering. Updated editions. Expanded armies. But nothing that broke the old molds. Nothing as radical and exciting as Warhammer or 40K. Games Workshop could only cannibalize itself.

The end of Games Workshop's golden age in early 1988 also teaches us something about the way all golden ages end. Games Workshop's undoing came in the very hour of its triumph, and indeed is inseparable from that triumph. Games Workshop turned inward precisely because it was enjoying marvelous success. They narrowed their miniature ranges precisely because so many people wanted to play nothing but Warhammer. They stopped innovating precisely because what they already had made promised endurance and popularity. The Age of Creativity was over. The Age of Profit had begun.

If you have any thoughts about how the creative process at Games Workshop changed, for better or worse, I'd love to hear about it in the comments. Cheers!

[Goblins illustrating this article are some of my paint jobs for Krapfang's Backwoods Bandits.]

Star Wars and Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader

February 12, 2015, 10:21 pm

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The most important invention of Games Workshop's golden age was the world of Warhammer 40K: a science fiction setting combining sword-and-sorcery fantasy with a bitter dystopian future. It was the ultimate sweet-and-sour combination. This fantasy-future has seized the imagination of gamers since Rick Priestly wrote Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader in 1987. But one element that hasn't be fully explored is the huge debt that Rogue Trader owes to Star Wars.

The influence hides in plain sight. The first words in the preface (page 6) of Rogue Trader read,

If you've ever left the cinema or turned from the TV screen wishing that you could invent your own death-stars, storm-troopers, whirring ornithopters and wild-eyed heroes then this is for you! ... Warhammer 40,000 is fantasy game set in the far future,

The most obvious link between Star Wars and Rogue Trader is the similarity between Storm Troopers and Space Marines: an elite force of heavily armoured shock troopers. These faceless warriors became the single most recognizable image for both systems. And for good reason. Both are a triumph of design: the stylized frown and teary eyes of the storm trooper, versus the avian menace of the "beaky" space marine helmet.

But the connections are more than skin deep. George Lucas' genius was to take the elements of fantasy and apply them to a science fiction setting: magic swords, desperate princesses, black knights and wizardly mentors. Rick Priestly pulled the same trick, but he used a different emphasis. Whereas Lucas drew from the chivalric myths of Arthurian romance, Priestly invoked fantasy in Tolkien's epic mold... and thus we have lots of magic (psychic powers), fantasy races (eldar, squats, space orcs, slann and zoats) and a well developed sense of history's sweep (The Age of Strife, the Dark Age of Technology, etc.)

But what interests me most isn't merely the fact that Rogue Trader borrowed from Star Wars... it's that Rogue Trader perverted George Lucas' vision. In both systems, there is a galaxy-wide Imperium. In both systems, a frail emperor sits enthroned in the centre of the galaxy, wielding mighty armies and formidable magic powers. In both systems, his greatest tool is the aforesaid legion of armoured shock troopers. In both systems, humans strive to dominate a universe crawling with alien life. In both systems, rebels cavil about freedom. In both systems, these rebels are led by psychics with strange abilities. But in Star Wars the Emperor is an authoritarian menace, and in Rogue Trader, authoritarianism is the only thing that preserves humanity from total destruction.

Star Wars is a Manichean world with a sharp line between good and evil. Rogue Trader has the same dynamic range (noble self-sacrifice versus soul-destroying evil) but the dividing line between these extremes is smeared with grease. The Imperial Inquisition tortures witches and exterminates whole planets... but is it evil or simply a necessary evil? The Emperor of Mankind consumes thousands of souls every day to keep himself alive... but without his life, wouldn't the Empire would collapse into apocalyptic anarchy?

I'm reading my way through Peter Ackroyd's superb book on the English Civil War, The History of England Volume III (2014). I can't help but view Rick Priestly's take on Star Wars as a product of English history. George Lucas' universe has the moral simplicity of the American Revolution (plucky rebels fight off British tyranny!). But Rogue Trader has all the ambiguity of the English Civil War... who was the "good guy" in that awful struggle?

The round-heads of Parliament fought for responsible government, but they also exhibited a Taliban-like prudery (what kind of an asshole do you have to be to outlaw Christmas?). On the other hand, King Charles believed in the divine right of kings and thought he stood above all laws... but he was also a religious moderate who tried to unite Catholics, Anglicans and puritans, not to mention English, Irish and Scots. Well, it didn't end well for him (see the woodcut above). But after years of war and an experiment with Republicanism, the English were desperate to get a King back... they realized that they needed a authority figure to help stave off anarchy.

And so, in a funny way, Warhammer 40K is like Star Wars minus the fairy tale. As the Rogue Trader books says "There is no time for peace. No respite. No forgiveness." In other words, the Force won't be with you. You're on your own.

Star Wars miniatures in this post are from Fantasy Flight's Imperial Assault. Next week: more pics of my recently painted Star Wars minis... 

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The Star Wars miniatures of Imperial Assault: a review

February 16, 2015, 10:38 pm

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When I heard that Fantasy Flight Games was releasingImperial Assault, a Star Wars miniature combat game, I became so excited that I darkened my trousers with a rich, fragrant urine. It was a dream come true (the game, not the urine). Star Wars has been long neglected in the world of miniature gaming (previous attempts include the underwhelming sculptures in Star Wars Miniatures Battles by West End Games, or the juvenile monstrosities of Star Wars Miniatures by Wizards of the Coast.)

I purchased Imperial Assault as soon as it hit the shelves in December 2014, and have been furiously painting up the miniatures ever since. After 2 months of work, I've painted 33 of the 36 miniatures in the box.

The miniatures in Imperial Assault are well worth the effort. They are sculpted by Benjamin Maillet with Jason Beaudoin, Gordon Robb and Nick Miller. Maillet and his team have gone for a lifelike look with realistically proportioned limbs. In this sense, they remind me of the Lord of the Rings figures sculpted by the Perry Brothers for Games Workshop -- a style of miniature very different from the "heroic" style common to Warhammer.

From foot to eye, the Star Wars minis average about 32 mm, although some figures (Wookies, Darth Vader) are much bigger. This variation in height is satisfying, giving some models a feeling of strength. Maillet's particular talent is capturing the personality of the characters in dynamic poses... so young Luke Skywalker seems almost afraid of his over-sized blaster, while Darth Vader's forward step lends him menace and power.

My only complaint is that the miniatures are made of medium-hard plastic (urethane?), rather than the rigid polystyrene used by Games Workshop. This is a pity: the softer plastic can lose some detail, especially in the faces. It also leaves a serious modeler with some problems: the molding lines on the miniatures can be quite pronounced, and require care to remove, since sanding this material doesn't work (files shred the plastic into a rough fringe rather than a smooth surface).

Also, thinner pieces of the miniature (like lightsabers) are very bendy -- to harden these bits and keep the paint from cracking off them over time, I covered them in layers of white glue and water (50:50 mix). Finally, because the plastic is quite light, I had to improve the figures' stability. So I glued 1/4 x 1" stainless steel washers to the bottom of each plastic base. Happily, these washers are almost a perfect fit with the miniatures' built in round base.

If these figures were just board game pieces, I could forgive the cheap plastic. But Fantasy Flight is contractually obligated to make Imperial Assault a miniature war game since they don't have the rights to Star Wars board games. Indeed, there is a rumour (picked up from my local gaming store) that Hasbro (who does own the board game license) has been jousting with Fantasy Flight over whether Imperial Assault is a war game at all (after all, Imperial Assault bears a striking resemblance to Fantasy Flight's fantasy board game Descent). My view is that if these models are truly war games miniatures, they should be made out of war game grade material: durable urethane, resin or white metal. 

But in the grand scheme of things, this is a just a quibble. Notwithstanding the soft plastic, the miniatures carry a lot of texture and detail (at least in their uniforms and weapons). I love the realistic sculpting style. They models have character and an authentic Star Wars feel. In sum: highly recommended! Stay tuned for my next post, when I talk about painting these miniatures.

Lethal Gravity: Painted Star Wars Miniatures

February 24, 2015, 9:05 pm

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Since I started painting the Star Wars Miniatures from Imperial Assault, I've tried to adjust my painting style. My normal approach involves lots of rust effects, stains, and acne... something that fits in well with the earthy and run-down atmosphere of Warhammer. But my image of Star Wars is not like that at all. There is nothing run-down about Star Wars.

The armour of the Storm Troopers gleams like a mirror. Uniforms are crisp. Interiors are bright and clinical. Although there are exceptions (Tatooine, Degobah), the Star Wars universe is generally neat and well vacuumed. (More modern Star Wars art, including the illustrations in Imperial Assault itself, often go for a grittier and more distressed feeling. I think this grimdark aesthetic is overplayed. My Storm Troopers spit-polish their armour in case the Emperor comes for a visit.)

So I've tried to make my paint jobs clean and crisp: simple colours, bleached whites, no dirt. In order to capture the highly polished surfaces, I've largely abandoned metallic paints (which have a limited dynamic range). Instead I'm using whites and light greys to mimic light effects. (This approach is probably best seen in the figure of Darth Vader below.) A superb example of this  simplistic style of miniature painting is a Jedi diorama painted by Florian Tuffskull - his work nails the monochromatic (but dramatic) feel of Star Wars.

I thought long and hard about how to base these miniatures. Like most hobbyists, my natural inclination is for a lush base. But the action in Imperial Assault mainly occurs inside spacecraft, military bases and bunkers. I decided to hold fast to the clinical aesthetic of Star Wars and use a simple, polished metal floor (in fact, the bases are the only metallic paints in these miniatures). In order to add a little interest and to help distinguish between different squads of miniatures, I painted simple traffic stripes on the bases in blue and red.

Another unique characteristic of Star Wars are the uniformly black mat guns. I find them quite menacing in the movies, and they create a great contrast with the white Storm Trooper armour. But they pose a challenge for the painter, since flat black can be quite boring. My approach has been to carefully highlight the weapons with gray - just enough so that the eye can pick up detail without losing the feeling of lethal gravity.

I've received some inquiries here and on Boardgame Geek about other painting techniques I've used, specifically about the Emperor's Guard. For the record, I didn't use any blending techniques or oil paints. The red robes in these minis is simply the product of 6 or 7 graduated layers of Vallejo Game Colours. I primed the miniatures in white, and then slathered on a couple base-coats of Extraopaque Heavy Red mixed with a little black (approx. 4:1). I layered up with pure Heavy Red, and then increasingly bright mixes of Heavy Red and Gory Red, until I'm using pure Gory Red. Whenever painting red, the key is to avoid allowing it to become too orange in the final layers - so I didn't use a bright orange as the last highlight. Rather I applied thin lines of Parasite Brown (a warm brown) on the tips of the creases. I didn't employ any washes, although I did apply a few strokes of pure black in the deepest crevasses of the cloaks, to add a sense of drama.

The helmets follow approximately the same technique, although I used a slightly different palette of red paints (Scarlett Red to Bloody Red) since I wanted to suggest (however subtly) that the helms are made of a different material than the robes. As the final highlight, I applied a few lines of light grey and white to show reflecting light. I hope this is helpful! Next week I'll discuss using oil paints on the Imperial AT-ST Walker.

Oldhammer Battle Report: Orcs vs. Skaven or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Man-Mangler"

March 4, 2015, 9:42 pm

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In my first battle against 24_Cigarettes and his horde of Skaven, my army of Oldhammer orcs decided that they would fight "without da sissy stuff"... no war machines, no magic and no goblin fanatics. Brave, brave, stupid orcs. After getting beaten like a bowl of eggs, the survivors reconsidered their position. Maybe sissies aren't so bad after all. There's a lot to be said for killing your enemies from a safe distance.

Da Sissy Stuff

Our second battle took place last Sunday, using 3rd edition Warhammer and army lists from Warhammer Armies. 24_Cigarettes suggested that we increase our forces from 1000 to 1500 points. I readily agreed, and immediately started dusting off my Man-Mangler, an over-sized catapult of hideous violence...

Krapfang's Backwood Bandits

Krapfang's Tin Kan Kommandoes
14 Orc Bigguns (+1 elites) with light armour, shields, spears + standard bearer and musician
(168 pts)

Lead by Krapfang Toothshyte, Lvl. 15 Orc hero with light armour and shield
(91 pts)

Gritstool's Nasty Gits
9 Orc Boyz with light armour, shields, spears + standard bearer and musician
(104.5 pts)

Lead by Captain Gritstool the Uncongenial, Lvl. 5 Orc hero with light armour and shield
(36 pts)

Harboth's Black Mountain Boyz
10 Orc Arrer Boyz with bows, shields + standard bearer and musician
(102 pts)

Vape Softbladder's Gobbo Greatmob
19 Gobbos with javelins, shields + standard bearer and musician
(73.5 pts)

Da Spear Chukka

Lead by Prince Vape Softbladder, Lvl. 15 Goblin with shield
(41 pts)

Smarmy's Swift Backtrakkers
10 Goblin Stikkas with short bows
(35 pts.)

Warspoor's Wulfboyz
8 Gobbo Wulfboyz with spears + standard bearer and musician
(100 pts)

Grogeye's Butt Uglies
3 Trolls
(195 pts)

Lead by Grogeye the Incontinent, Lvl. 15 Orc wizard
(163 pts)

Grogeye the Incontinent

Da Man-Mangler 

6-man stone thrower with Orc crew.
(93 pts)

Da Spear Chukka
3-man bolt thrower with Orc crew
(46.5 pts)

Rotwang Bawbag the Giant (mercenary)
(250 pts)

Total = 1498.5 points

As 24_Cigarettes unpacked his war host, I prepared the board. I wanted to give these armies something to fight over, so I set up a little human settlement ("Cold Crumpet Farm") for the victor to pillage and burn. The Church of Sigmar in the middle of the plain created a scenic obstacle, while various hills gave each army a chance to seize strategic highlands.

The Skaven chose to take the north side of the battlefield --  a decision whose main motivation (I suspect) was to prevent the orcs from setting up their Man-Mangler on the safety of the hill on the far side of the river. At first, the Orc general Krapfang cursed the Skaven position, but over time he realized that it might all be to the best. The open South side of the battlefield allowed him to stretch out his line, giving them room to maneuver and hopefully preventing the orcs from fighting amongst themselves.

The Skaven general Xerxes adopted an interesting deployment. He concentrated his massive units of infantry in a dense line in the centre, leaving his flanks guarded only by Jezzailachis snipers positioned on hills at opposite  ends of the battlefield. By weight of numbers, the solid wall of Skaven would be able to push back anything but a well-coordinated orc attack... and orcs generally can't coordinate themselves out of a ditch.

Krapfang's strategy was not complex: he would try not to get himself killed. Thus, the bulk of the Orcs and Goblins would hold back ("mindin' da fort") while the Giant and the Trolls moved forward to do the actual fighting against the waves of Skaven infantry. Meanwhile, the goblin archers (on the left) and the wolf-riders (on the right) would drive up the flanks to neutralize the Skaven jezzail teams ("Git going, yer gits! Iz easy! No probs! Wish eyez going wit yurz!"). Krapfang likes to avoid the words "suicide mission"... it seems to be bad for morale.

TURN 1: The opening of the battle was a mixed bag for Krapfang. His sissy artillery missed horribly ("sissies"), while the Skaven jezzailachis shot nice clean holes all over the wolf-riders.To make matters worse, the Gobboe Great mob took exception to the Orcs' views on continental epistemology, leading to a brawl in the heart of Krapfang's army. 

On the upside, the mercenary giant, Rotwang Bawbag, showed up for work sober - a fact which, on its own, might determine the course of the battle. With resignation, he lurched forward to meet the Skaven phalanx, which was advancing at half speed from the North.

TURN 2: Helmuth von Moltke the Elder famously observed that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Well, if you're an Orc general, no plan survives casual contact between your own units. On the second turn, Krapfang watched in agony as his whole line dissolved into a bickering riot. The ballista crew abandoned their post to hurl insults at the Orc infantry, who themselves were taunting Krapfantg's elite shock troops. The Goblin Archers sheered off from their crucial advance up the left flank and instead hurled homemade dungballs at the ballista crew, while the Gobbo Great Mob escalated matters by throwing actual javelins into the backs of Gritstool's Orcs. 

The only Orc leader who managed to keep his troops under control was Harboth. Hoping to hide them from both friend and enemy alike, he moved his veteran archers forward under the shadow of the Church of Sigmar.

Harboth's Archers cower behind the Church of Sigmar

Distracted by the lively philosophical debate among their fellows, the Man-Mangler again missed its shot. But, on the upside, the Giant continued to trudge forward -- and amazingly, he was followed by Grogeye's Trolls. Despite severe cognitive and digestive impairments, these Trolls overcame their Stupidity Checks and mastered the art of marching forward. Could they keep it up? Could they really? And even if they did, would it be enough? They were marching right into the teeth of 100 Skaven, two warpfire throwers, a wizard and a warlord with a Parasitic Blade.

TURN 3: As the armies began to clash, the Orc fortunes brightened. The Wolf-Riders, advancing like the Light Brigade into the face of relentless cannon-fire, routed the Skaven Jezzails on the right flank. From behind the Church, Harboth peppered the Clanrats with arrows, followed by Grogeye the wizard, who struck them with a fireball from his unit of Trolls.

Most importantly, the crew of the Man Mangler finally mastered the subtleties of trigonometry and landed a rock on top of the same poor Skaven sods. In a moment, nine perfectly nice Clanrats were transformed into tapenade. "Urk," bethought Krapfang to himself, "Dats purdy."

The Skaven hold back and form into a crescent.

In one of the most important decisions of the battle, the wall of Skaven opted not to close with the Giant and his Troll buddies. Instead, they held their position and readied the dreaded Skaven Warp-Fire Throwers. Green flame belched towards the Giant from two units of Clanrats... but one shot fell short... and the other sprayed wide. This was a godsend for the orcs -- not just because the Giant was still alive, but also because the stationary line of Skaven gave the Man-Mangler more time to do its thing.

But the Skaven still had some tricks up their sleeve. Festerlice, the wizard leading the Plague Monks cast Flight on himself and swooped down on the Wolf-Riders, tossing them like a salad with his enchanted Hammerhand. And the pack of Rat Ogres loped forward, preparing to charge into the Trolls. Crucially, the proximity of the Skaven triggered a loyalty role in the Giant, who was after all just a hired mercenary. Would he stay faithful to Krapfang? Or could the Skaven bribe him out, causing him to turn around and start bashing orc? It seemed the whole battle turned on that roll... but Rotwang stayed true. What a dupe.

TURNS 4-5: The next two turns were a blur of mud, blood and beer. Against all odds, the tiny unit of Goblin archers got within range of the final Jezzail team and riddled them with arrows. On the opposite flank, however, the wolf riders fled from the Skaven wizard, although not before tying him up for a couple turns. His leadership would soon be missed in the middle of the battlefield.

The Skaven attempt to surround Rotwang the Giant

There in the centre, the action was heavy. The Rat Ogres rushed the Trolls, nearly scalping their leader, the unhygenic shaman Grogeye. In response, the three Trolls prepared to unleash their most devastating attack on the Skaven monsters: synchronized vomiting. On perfect cue they retched up a toxic brew of stomach juices all over the Rat Ogres... but the Rats were unfazed. Krapfant stood in horror... if they could stand up to that sort of abuse, they were unstoppable.

But just before Krapfang began his strategic withdrawal, he saw the Man-Manger arc another rock over his head. This time, it landed smack in the middle of the Plague Monks, killing 15 of them in an instant. The surviving Monks wasted no time in hiking up their robes and sprinting for safety. In that moment, as the other rats began to waiver, Rotwang the Giant charged into the battered remnant of the Clanrats. This was too much for even the great Skaven warlord Xerxes. He broke, and by breaking he took a massive and untouched unit of Skaven Slaves with him. The other Clanrats would follow. The Skaven centre had collapsed. The battle for Cold Crumpet Farm was over.

Cold Crumpet Farm: there's something nasty in the woodshed (hint: it's Grogeye)

REFLECTIONS: One of the many things l like about 24_Cigarettes is that he was as gentlemanly in this defeat as he had been in his previous victory. Despite falling victim to some atrocious luck (i.e. his whole line collapsing in a chain of failed panic and rout rolls), my opponent was a complete sportsman. If you doubt me, check out his excellent battle report.

I felt a little embarrassed, insofar that my victory rested on two over-powered units: Rotwang the Giant and the Man-Mangler. But perhaps worrying about "game balance" is not what Oldhammer is all about. In any case, a great deal of this battle did hinge on dice rolls; in 3rd edition Warhammer, a stone thrower has only a 40% chance of landing on target; I got lucky in landing two direct hits in a row.

Leaving luck aside, I think the thing which characterized this battle was the hesitancy of both the armies' centres to advance. I know why Krapfang's Orcs didn't engage -- they were cowards and they wanted the Man-Mangler to do all the work. 

24_Cigarettes's reasons for holding back are more interesting. He told me he was waiting for my Giant or my Trolls to put themselves out of position by making an over-extended charge. By shaping his units into a crescent, 24-Cigs was were getting ready to engulf my most powerful units, like Hannibal crushing the Roman legions with his curved line of Carthaginians at the Battle of Cannae. But (unlike the Romans) my sober giant refused to take the bait and plunge into the trap. Instead, Rotwang held back until the Skaven had been bombed beyond repair. Thank you, Man-Mangler.

MVP

The Lightsaber's Riddle

March 12, 2015, 8:54 pm

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Behold the heroes of the Rebel Alliance from the new Star Wars miniature game, Imperial Assault. To celebrate finishing all these, I just watched the original Star Wars trilogy. And not just any version, but the recently released guerrilla edition called "Harmy's Star Wars Despecialized" - a painstaking reconstruction of the movies (in HD) as they first appeared in the cinemas. 

Watching A New Hope for the first time in years, I discovered a riddle that I had never noticed before. The riddle is: why did Obi-Wan Kenobi wait?

The scene is the Death Star, as Ben Kenobi and Darth Vader meet for the trilogy's first lightsaber battle. I have always remembered Ben's last words before his death: "You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." He raises his lightsaber as if in salute and allows Vader to strike him... but of course, he has disappeared and his empty robe falls to the ground. For me, it's the best moment in the whole series.

As viewers, we get the feeling that this was Ben's plan all along. And indeed, Darth Vader himself foreshadowed the event when he first goes to fight Ben. Grand Moff Tarkin told Vader that Ben "must not be allowed to escape," to which Vader replied, "Escape is not his plan. I must face him alone." Perhaps Vader thought Ben had come to kill him, a blinkered view consistent with his enslavement to the Dark Side. Ben, on the other hand, seems to understand that it is only by confronting Vader that he can attain the next stage in his being, just as Luke must confront Vader (in Return of the Jedi) before finally becoming a Jedi Knight.

But the riddle is this: Ben could have allowed himself to be "taken" by Vader at any time. But he waited. He waited until he knew Luke was watching. Only then does he lower his guard. Why?

There doesn't seem to be any practical explanation. Darth Vader wasn't barring Luke's escape. I was so curious about this part of the movie that I looked up the script. It doesn't throw any light on the question, but merely reads:

Ben sees the troops charging toward him and realizes that he is trapped. Vader takes advantage of Ben's momentary distraction and brings his mighty lightsaber down on the old man. Ben manages to deflect the blow and swiftly turns around. The old Jedi Knight looks over his shoulder at Luke, lifts his sword from Vader's then watches his opponent with a serene look on his face.

The script makes it sound like Ben's surrender comes from his being trapped and distracted. But in the movie, there are no charging troops. Nor is Vader beating him. Instead, Ben takes a long look at Luke, and then turns to Darth and smiles. The enigmatic expression on Alec Guiness' face suggests that Ben has waited years for this moment to arrive.

In order to come to an answer, I think it is important to understand what lightsaber battles mean in the original trilogy. There are only three of them (not counting Luke's short duel with the phantom on Degobah) and one important fact stands out in all of them: no one ever truly dies in a lightsaber duel. This is because these duels are not about who is the better swordsman or even who is stronger in the Force. Death is beside point. Darth Vader is never trying to kill Luke; he is trying to corrupt him. 

Thus every lightsaber battle is nothing more than an inner struggle, a spiritual temptation for Luke. (These battles remind me of the Temptation of St. Anthony. Artists like Hieronymus Bosch or Salvador Dali externalized St. Anthony's invisible internal ordeal by painting outlandish demons in the desert. Lucas did the same thing for Luke by filming laser swords on Bespin.)

What gives these battles dramatic tension is that we feel that Luke can't win. Either he fights back against Vader, releasing his anger and succumbing to the Dark Side. Or he extinguishes his lightsaber and lets Vader (or the Emperor) triumph unopposed. The genius of Lucas is to put Luke and the audience in the same place, asking the same question: what is the solution?

I think this is where Ben comes back into the picture. I believe Ben waited for Luke because he wanted to show him how to win a lightsaber duel. A Jedi wins by letting go. 

In The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, we see how this lesson plays out. In Empire, at the conclusion of his battle with Vader, Luke literally lets go, allowing himself to plunge off of the gantry on Bespin and free-falling into space. It's a desperate act without self-assurance or self-knowledge. Although this can't exactly be described as a victory, it does prevent Luke from joining his father on the Dark Side.

In Return of the Jedi, Luke achieves enough understanding to let go of his anger once and for all (symbolized by him discarding his lightsaber as he stands over Vader). At first this seems like a kind of capitulation to the Emperor, who is free to attack Luke without opposition. But like Ben's self-sacrifice on the first Death Star, Luke's act of self-liberation on the second Death Star has a spectator; Darth Vader learns from Luke that letting go is possible, just as Luke learned it from Ben. 

In sum, there are three things you can say about lightsaber battles in the original trilogy: First, they are an inner struggle not a battle to the death. Second, the path to victory is a mystery, for both the Jedi and the audience. Third, a true Jedi is always teaching. Sadly, such fascinating ideas were entirely lost in prequels, where Jedi duels are reduced to nothing more than acrobatics. As Count Dooku says to Yoda in Attack of the Clones, "It is obvious that this contest cannot be decided by our knowledge of the Force, but by our skills with the lightsaber."

*** UPDATE - I've changed the title of this post from "Heroes of the Rebel Alliance" to "The Lightsaber's Riddle". I woke up this morning and it just seemed like a more descriptive name.

Baggage Trains in Warhammer Fantasy Battle

March 24, 2015, 8:34 pm

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Baggage trains are one of richest elements in 3rd edition Warhammer. In my view, no fantasy army is complete without a colourful array of camp followers. And yet, it is an oft-neglected element of the hobby: I could find only a few references to baggage trains on other Oldhammer sites (the best of which was Mouse's Flo's Field Kitchen). 

In an effort to fill in the gap, here are some pictures of the baggage for my 1000 point Wood Elf Army.

Baggage trains add three things to any game of Warhammer game: realism, conflict and creative modelling. 

The realism is simple. Most ancient armies couldn't exist without baggage trains: food stores, armourers and cooks, not to mention the sick and wounded. In the Late Middle Ages (the period corresponding to Warhammer's Old World), camp followers were not merely servants, but the wives and children of the soldiers. A chronicler of the Thirty Years War described the baggage train like this:

A regiment of three thousand men usually had not less than 300 vehicles, and each wagon was filled to overflowing with women, boys, children, prostitutes and  plunder.

This massive impedimenta(as the Romans aptly called it) didn't just vanish the moment the fighting started. Unfortunately for everyone, it was part of the battlefield.

Thus, the second thing that baggage trains add to the gaming table is conflict. A baggage train gives even the most aggressive army something to defend. But even for a victorious army driving the enemy back to its camp, the baggage train can be a peril. 

As written in the 3rd ed. Warhammer Rulebook (pages 102-103), a unit close to the enemy's baggage train will be compelled (by a failed Leadership test) to charge into the wagons and start looting, even if self-preservation would dictate a wiser course of action. What a great rule! This sort of ill-timed plundering was common in the ancient world -- perhaps the most famous case being the first Battle of Philippi, when Brutus' victorious troops dallied after capturing Octavian's camp, giving Octavian and Antony time to rally their troops. No biggie, Brutus. It's just the end of the Roman Republic.

Other interesting (and perhaps overlooked) rules about baggage include the fact that halflings go apeshit when defending baggage (+2 to hit and strength - page 103); armies get extra victory points for keeping their baggage intact (page 142); civilians in the baggage are the only units in the game to use improvised weapons (page 84); and mercenaries are more liable to bugger off when they get too close to either side's baggage train (page 125 of Warhammer Armies).

And lastly, baggage trains are grand because they're an opportunity for creative modelling. This is because Citadel never released any official miniatures for the baggage train (although there are some tantalizing unreleased models). The lack of anything official means that we have to take matters into our own hands, selecting from Citadel's beer-carts, townsfolk and villagers -- or going outside of Citadel. My favourite source for extra-Citadel miniatures is Wargames Foundry. As the Ansells' reincarnation of Citadel, Foundry models will replicate the scale and sculpting style of any Oldhammer force.

For my army, I decided that baggage wagons were inconsistent with elvish mobility. Instead, I used pack horses, combined with Jes Goodwin's elves (slightly converted to transform them into messengers and grooms). To add flavour, I threw in a piping faun (the Talisman Satyr) and a pudgy halfling chef (Samwise from Citadel's original Lord of the Rings series). 

As brilliant as they are, baggage trains were only with us for a short time. They didn't exist in 2nd edition Warhammer, and were dropped from 4th edition. And yet, baggage can be so much fun. As a Welsh soldier cries at the Battle of Agincourt in Shakespeare's Henry V, after the French despoiled the English baggage: "Kill the poys and the luggage! ... 'tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offer't." For my own part, I love to commit arrant knavery whenever possible.

***UPDATE: If you have any pictures or posts about your Warhammer baggage train, please let me know and I'll gladly link to this page.

Hot Lead: Canada's finest wargaming event

March 31, 2015, 9:05 pm

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Wargaming conventions are like beds in a fairy tale -- they shouldn't be too big or too small. You want plenty of games but few queues. Lots of new faces, but no strangers. Here in Ontario we're blessed to have Hot Lead, a perfectly sized event. Hot Lead is held in Stratford every March. It's one of the highlights of my year (along with International Talk Like a Pirate Day). Last weekend I attended Hot Lead 2015, and this time I think the liver damage is permanent.

There are two things that make Hot Lead so good. First, it's run by a bunch of complete nutters. Second.... well. Hmmm. I've forgotten the other thing that makes Hot Lead fun. In any case, this year was a blast, with 67 different games held over 3 days, plus tournaments for Warhammer 40K and De Bellis Antiquitatis.

As always, my companion for the weekend was a particularly unhinged member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Our weekend started with a gorgeous game of Dux Britanniarum, a fast-action skirmish game set in Arthurian England. The game was run by Frank Kailik from the Kent-Essex Gaming Society. Frank is one of my favourite game masters of all time -- he has an amazing talent for creating gorgeous scenery out of rags, wallpaper and trash. For example, he hand-wove his fences (pictured below) using broom bristles and tooth-picks. 

Protecting the sty from some Saxon pigs

Frank's game involved a Saxon raid on a beautifully rendered British village. I had the good fortune of seeing my wing of the British force square off against an 11-year old. There's nothing that makes me feel more like a man that out-maneuvering a child during a wargaming event. Really, it's my only hope of victory.

The Saxon invaders bounce off my shieldwall like tennis balls

Saturday morning was a particularly twisted game by Dan Hutter, one of the Hot Lead originals. He created a 28mm pulp game set in a fictionalized African republic, involving various heavily armed factions facing off over a diamond mine. My government forces ("the Sovereign Morrowi Ubangi Regular Forces" or SMURFs) exchanged fire with the hated rebels ("the Morrowi Inter-Tribal Liberation Front" or MILFs) and various other homicidal militias. The highlight of the game were the gorgeous "technicals" (or improvised fighting vehicles) that Dan had created out of Hot Wheels and other models.

As their technicals surge forward, the MILFs take the high ground and prepare to unleash their rocket launchers on the SMURFs below.

On Saturday afternoon, I played an epic recreation of a Roman-Carthaginian battle during the Second Punic War. Games Masters Kris and Mark Koloff offered an incredible spectacle, with hundreds upon hundreds of finely painted 25mm miniatures. The star of the game, however, was their home-brew rule set. Notwithstanding 6 or 7 players and innumerable units, the game was fast and nail-biting -- with battalions disappearing with a single cast of the dice. And although their rules were simple, they presented the players with precisely the same problems that faced ancient generals: how to get at the flanks, when to throw in reserves, how to hold the line. Brilliant!

I led the Gallic allies of the Carthaginians on the left wing. My explicit instructions (which were fairly historically accurate) were to kill myself as quickly as possible. A colourful self-destruction on the left would distract the Romans while the Punic elephants and elites prepared to puncture the Romans on the right wing. Fortunately for me, my opposing Roman general was the same 11-year old I faced the night before in Arthurian England. Clearly the Gods of Petty Convention Gaming were smiling on me. Beating the odds, my Gauls overwhelmed the Romans and began to roll up their flank like a rug. It was, however, an empty triumph, since the rest of the Punic army was getting annihilated. My Gauls were left hanging. Vae Victis!

Punic elephants plunge through the Roman line, but the Romans would quickly reform.



Here's master model-maker George Duff's recreation of Roman chariot races using rules from Avalon Hill's Circus Maximus. Yes, those are hundreds of painted spectators watching from the stands (plus scores more in the galleries below the stands).

My last game was Keith Burnett's take on the Battle of Hoth. After trash-talking the Star Wars models from Wizards of the Coast, I felt pretty stupid to see how grand they look in living colour. The AT-AT Walkers and the AT-ST Scouts lumbered through the snow, trying to knock down the shield generator before the Rebels could escape. It was the perfect way to end the weekend. Too bad we let young Skywalker get away!

General Veers has failed

A big thanks to James, Patrick, Chris, Elizabeth and the rest of the Hot Lead crew for another bulls-eye!

Photo Courtesy of JoJo

My Favourite Miniature Paint Job

April 13, 2015, 8:52 pm

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I was digging through my old miniatures today, trying (and mainly failing) to get them organized. The job was brightened when I ran across this miniature -- a lovely sculp from Reaper by Werner Klocke. Out of the hundreds of miniatures I've painted over the last 8 or 9 years, I think this is the best one. By my lights at least, the skin tone looks natural, the shading in the fabrics is smooth, and the details pop. Most importantly, the little bugger has a sense of life. It's more Herr Klocke's sculpture than my brush, but he seems both scared and resolute.

I've been feeling a little depressed lately, so I haven't been writing or painting much. But looking at this mini makes me happy for some reason. The rum thing is that I don't even own him (I painted him for my friend Nicos to represent a character in a roleplaying game -- although now that the game is over, I've had trouble giving up custody). It's also a little unfortunate that, as a Citadel miniatures fanatic, I've wasted my best paint job on a non-Citadel sculpture. It's like a confirmed breast man falling in love and marrying a girl with great legs. Sad, but not that sad. 

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Epic Burn: Moorcock versus Tolkien

April 26, 2015, 9:07 pm

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Michael Moorcock does not like J.R.R. Tolkien. He calls him Tolkien a "second-rate schoolmaster". It's hard to imagine two authors who have been more influential on the development of fantasy literature -- so the reasons for this conflict bear some inspection.

Elric of Melnibone, painted by the author

Moorock's criticism of Tolkien is encapsulated in Epic Pooh, an essay he wrote in 1978 and revised in 1989 and 2002. He slashes at the Lord of the Rings on a number of fronts (infantile prose, sentimentality, and a happy ending), but his main thrust is that The Lord of the Rings is a "comforting lie" that glorifies meek obedience to the powers that be. Although it takes the form of an epic, the values it celebrates belong not to Hrothgar's mead-hall or the walls of Troy, but to the House at Pooh Corner.

Michael Moorcock

According to Moorcock, Tolkien's books are "deeply conservative and strongly anti-urban, which is what leads some to associate them with a kind of Wagnerish hitlerism." Ouch. By conjuring up a bygone era of  happy peasants and wise old wizards, Tolkien is telling his readers: "Don't ask any questions of white men in grey clothing who somehow have a handle on what's best for us." Ultimately, these books amount to "mildly anaesthetic British cabbage." Thanks to Tolkien, "the bulk of English fantasy seems to be written by rabbits, about rabbits and for rabbits."

Tolkien (who died in 1973) never had a chance to reply to Moorcock. But a thoughtful rebuttal was published by Brian Murphy at the excellent fantasy-literature website The Cimmerian. Murphy has no cheese for Moorcock. He strongly refutes the idea that Tolkien glorified war or shied away from portraying death. But his central point is that Moorcock misread the Lord of the Rings when he claimed that it was marred by a happy ending. For Murphy, the ending is anything but happy:

I would argue that the victory over Sauron is only a temporary reprieve against the encroaching dark. This is the great sadness of The Lord of the Rings... Magic has left the world. The great evil of the Third Age is defeated, but its void will be filled with other, more banal but equally sinister incarnations of evil.

There are only two problems with Murphy's analysis. The first is that he avoids Moorcock's main criticism. Although happy endings are part of the attack on Tolkien, Moorcock's focus is on Tolkien's political message:  the Lord of the Rings asks us to defer to old men in grey clothing.

J.R.R. Tolkien

Not that I think that there's no answer to Moorcock on this front. In fact, I think that Moorcock has entirely misread Tolkien on the issue of politics. In reality, old men in grey clothing don't fare so well in the Lord of the Rings. Saruman and Denethor are the prime examples: both pose as wise leaders, only to betray those who rely on them. But even Gandalf isn't infallible. He is frequently stumped (as in Moria), fooled (as by Saruman) and foiled (as when crossing the Misty Mountains). Indeed, one of the most striking things in The Lord of the Rings is that there are no authority figures on the side of good: no religion, little government and few leaders (Theoden is old, Boromir is cracked, Elrond is indifferent and Aragorn is reluctant). Middle Earth is a vast wilderness, not a well-ordered Tory estate. 

And this leads me to the second deficiency in Murphy's defence of Tolkien. He doesn't ask why Moorcock misreads The Lord of the Rings. For me, this is the most interesting question of all.

In my view, Moorcock's attack on Tolkien fits into a larger pattern in Western literature. Harold Bloom, the literary critic, pioneered an idea called the "theory of influences". Although Bloom was writing about poets like Keats and Yeats, his idea applies just as well to fantasy literature.

Bloom's theory is that when a young poet establishes himself, he is compelled to misread and criticize the very writers who influence him most. Without this misreading, the young poet  would be paralyzed by his own sense of indebtedness and un-originality. As Bloom wrote in The Anxiety of Influence (1973):

Poetic Influence--when it involves two strong, authentic poets--always proceeds by a misreading of the prior poet, an act of creative correction that is actually and necessarily a misinterpretation. The history of fruitful poetic influence, which is to say the main traditions of Western poetry since the Renaissance, is a history of anxiety and self-saving caricature of distortion, of perverse, willful revisionism without which modern poetry as such could not exist.

Harold Bloom

In my view, this is exactly what's going on here: Moorcock is employing a "self-saving caricature" of Tolkien, in order to give himself the elbow room to create his own art in the great man's shadow. To give just one example, both Moorcock and Tolkien are suffused with sorrow at the passing of an eldritch age of magic (compare the end of the Third Age in the Lord of the Rings to the triumph of the Young Kingdoms in the Elric Saga). Although this is the same theme in both authors, Moorcock mis-characterizes Tolkien's melancholy as mere sentimentality. 

However, this misreading gives Moorcock the ability to not merely imitate Tolkien, but to go beyond him in crucial ways. And so, the Lord of the Ringsends with the passing of the elves and their magic -- but Moorcock's best novels begin with such extinction. Thus Elric and Corum are each the last of a dying race, making them outsiders in their own world. Unlike Tolkien's hobbits and elves, these outsiders become rebellious, disaffected anti-heroes.

I know some people are horrified by Moorcock's attack on Tolkien. And I guess nobody likes it when mom and dad fight. But for me, I think Epic Pooh is actually a high compliment. Moorcock's misreading of Tolkien proves that both men are what Bloom would call "strong, authentic" artists.

(Many thanks to Stormbringer and others, who inspired this post after our discussion on the Oldhammer Forum.)

Painted Imperial Assault Miniatures

May 4, 2015, 9:28 pm

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Fantasy Flight Games continues to release Star Wars miniatures for their skirmish game, Imperial Assault. And as often as they release 'em, I'm compelled by a deep, salmon-spawning instinct to paint 'em. They could release a dollop of burning plastic, and I would have to paint it up. 

Lucky for me, the Imperial Assault sculptures seem to be getting better and better, with little touches that add a lot of character. So, for example, this model of Han Solo (from the "Han Solo Ally Pack") is transformed by one simple detail: the corner of his vest flares out, giving us the feeling that he's just whipped his body around to face a new threat.

A thoughtful person painting Han Solo is faced with an insoluble dilemma. Do I paint the hideous yellow shirt that he wore in A New Hope? Or the crisp white one that he wore in Empire Strikes Back? If you are indifferent on this issue, then ask yourself why you are reading this blog in the first place. 

Ultimately, I opted for authenticity -- this miniature looks like the younger Han, a man unafraid to commit crimes against both the Empire and fashion.

Chewbacca turned out to be a surprisingly difficult miniature to paint. This is because his fur is not a uniform brown, like Cousin Itt. Instead, the more I looked at Chewie, the more I realized that his pelt was a complex mass of colours. His face is a chestnut brown, but the top of his head is streaked with black as if he combs it with Brillo. And the fur under his arms is graying. Finally, his upper lip seems to sport a dark mustache. Painting these variations without letting them get out of control was a real challenge. In any case, I like this sculpture -- it has a nice sense of movement.

It breaks my heart that since the game is set right before The Empire Strikes Back, we are unlikely to see a miniature of Obi-wan Kenobi. I may have to brew up my own, if I can find a decent figure to convert. If any of you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

On the upside, Fantasy Flight has released some excellent models of the Rebel Troopers. These hapless soldiers are the first people you see when watching A New Hope. They (and their big hats) symbolize an insurgency that can't stand up to the power of Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers. I still can't look at them without wanting to bellow, "If this is a consular ship, where is the ambassador?!"

Another interesting Ally Pack is the Rebel Saboteurs. These green aliens are Duros, although their big red eyes are hidden behind some sort of night vision goggles. These visors are another lovely detail -- they look like something as much from Dune as from Star Wars. I painted these Duros with the same palette as the Rebel Troopers (buff trousers, blue shirts, black vests and boots) because I'd like my Rebels to have a consistent look.

It drives me crazy that Fantasy Flight has not yet announced a miniature for Princess Leia. Having miniatures of Luke, Han and Chewie (not to mention the soon-to-be-released C3-PO and R2-D2), but no Princess is maddening. Leia's sarcasm was the only subversive part of A New Hope. A game without her is missing a vital spice. And aren't women an important part of the gaming market? Besides, don't they know how good she'd look with a cocked sporting blaster? Is it hot in here? 

The Rough Trade: an Orc Baggage Train

May 15, 2015, 10:09 pm

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"The rag-tag followers that trail after an Orc & Goblin army are vile, destitute and quarrelsome beyond even the disgustingly low standards set by Orc warriors. Heavy and multiple-dugged Orc womenfolk make up the majority of the baggage train. Their mewling off-spring, the aged, whelps and assorted hangers-on make up the rest."

"Those too infirm, old or stupid to be drafted into the army can make a good living by 'workin' the baggage'. Drivers, leather workers, smiths, bunko-artists, and all manner of worthless scum can profit by hanging round the army. Taking advantage of the confusion, they loot pillage, burn and steal along with the rest of the army as well as sharing in the fun (torturing captives) and spoils (eating captives)."

Thus reads one of my favourite passages of writing in the entire body of Warhammer literature: the description of Orc & Goblin baggage trains contained in Warhammer Armies (1988) by Nigel Stillman. It embodies perfectly the colourful, grotesque and wry world of classic Warhammer.

As I've written before, I think a fantasy army is incomplete without a proper baggage train -- there's no better way to give your force its own unique personality. Certainly, my hapless and profoundly inebriated orc army, Krapfang's Backwood Bandits, deserved a suitably sordid group of camp followers. I wanted to give them a carnivaleque feel... one part Bruegel the Elder and one part Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

An orc army is spoiled for choice. The starting place is the range of Orc Villagers (C46) released by Citadel in 1988. Trish Morrison (now Trish Carden) is sometimes maligned -- and Crom knows, I've never loved her work for Marauder. But these Orc Villagers are the bees knees. They are especially gangly and awkward sculpts, even for orcs of the Kev Adams era. For Krapfang's army, I was immediately drawn to the blind drunk orcs, which I put together in a mini-diorama. I also wanted some looters, so I chose a male orc stealing a ham and a female orc stealing a halfling (it's the other white meat).

I rounded out the booty with one of the rare miniatures sculpted by game designer Rick Priestly -- a strong box from the C39 range of Treasure Chests. Who knew RP could sculpt very tiny furniture? The man's talents never cease to amaze.

But I wanted something special for the centerpiece of the baggage train. And that's when I hit on the idea of putting together a pathetic gang of human captives that the orcs are getting ready to sell for beer money. The slaves' presence would lend Krapfang a much needed air of cruelty -- and they can also function as a nice objective for any opposing army. The slave-master was an easy choice: a Goblin charioteer (from Marauder MM33), wielding a highly motivating whip. But finding the slaves was a harder matter - eventually I settled for some non-Citadel miniatures to fit the bill... some lovely sculpts from Iron Wind Metals.

Thrown together, I think they make a fairly unsavory tribe. The little touches in the sculptures are what I love the most: how the captured halfling is wagging his little legs, or way the eating orc wraps his lips around the leg of ham, like an octopus absorbing his prey.

Now, won't someone come and rescue those slaves?

A Review of Imperial Assault - the Skirmish Game

May 20, 2015, 7:35 pm

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If you've ever imagined what the opening scene of A New Hope would have been like if Darth Vader had boarded the Tantive IV ahead of the Storm Troopers, then Imperial Assault is the game for you.

And so, after writing a series of posts about the miniatures of Star Wars: Imperial Assault, it's time to take a look at game itself, and how the rules stack up against some of its competitors both ancient (Rogue Trader, Spacehulk) and modern (Saga, Bolt Action). 

Imperial Assault is interesting in that it can be played in a campaign mode (in which 2 opposing players play through a scripted set of encounters with ever-improving characters); and in a skirmish mode (in which 2 opposing players play a one-off battle against each other using custom built armies). After playing both the campaign and the skirmishs, I've found that the skirmish mode is much more fun, so that's what I'll focus on for this review.

The Imperial Medical Bay Tile

Since the battlefield is constructed out of a set of tiles (rather than a large, free-standing table top), the set-up is quick and doesn't occupy a lot of space. In this sense, the game is like Space Hulk, rather than Warhammer 40K. It helps that the tiles are so detailed, featuring artwork that's very evocative of the Star Wars Universe (much thanks to illustrator Henning Ludvigsen). The tiles also have an important influence on the game-play: they frame a compact battlefield, leading to games where violence and drama start right away.

Customization is another element of Imperial Assault that I enjoy. You build your army by assembling miniatures (whose point cost and abilities are set out on illustrated "activation cards") -- and then you build a second deck of special abilities (called "command cards") that you will get to play against your opponent throughout the game. Such cards might let you heal, hide or activate a character's special powers. The synergies are endless. Yet it's an easy system without book-keeping or army lists. Altogether this system furnishes great scope for new strategies and to experimentation.

This customization gets at the heart of something that Fantasy Flight Games has made into an art form: creating a dead simple rule set, but adding thematic flavour and strategic complexity through cards, which bend or enhance the rules. So, for instance, all characters are capable of dealing critical hits (called "surges") but each character's surges have different effects -- and these effects are all set out clearly on their cards. This system adds depth without complexity. (The army lists of Bolt Action or the battle boards of Saga are other ways giving your army unique abilities, but I find that these mechanics can get convoluted and tie the players down to a rule book).

But my favourite thing about imperial Assault (besides STAR WARS) is the way they handle luck. Many (most?) skirmish games depend on a 6 sided dice (something that goes right back to Rogue Trader). The main advantages of 6 sided dice are that they're simple and everyone has some. But there are problems: the d6 creates a highly random system (since there is no curve, as you would get with rolling two 6-sided dice for a total between 2-12). Plus, even the smallest modifier (+1 or -1) changes the odds a great deal. The result is a game without much nuance, and where the players are dependent on luck to kill or preserve the most important models on the table.

Imperial Assault breaks out of this paradigm by using a simple solution: customized dice. The game features a variety of differently coloured 6-sided dice to determine attacks, each with its own combination of pips representing attack strength, range and critical hits. The pips are distributed in a way that softens the naked randomness of a roll between 1 and 6 (for instance, no attack die has a blank face, and no die has a face with more than three pips on it). As a result, while luck certainly plays a roll in the skirmish game, most attacks deal a fairly predictable amount of damage, giving the players more scope to focus on strategy and card-play.

What are the drawbacks to Imperial Assault? Well, certainly cost is one. The game itself is expensive ($99 USD), and the additional miniature packs are not cheap either, especially considering that the figures are neither resin nor metal. Also, the range of miniatures is limited. To date, there are only 22 different miniatures sculpts (with about 10 more sculpts in development). I hope Fantasy Flight picks up the pace -- but given their commitment to so many other games, it's unclear if this will happen.

A more significant problem flows from the game's very strengths. The dependence on miniature-specific cards means that your investment in the game could evapourate if and when Fantasy Flight Games decides to release a second edition with new rules. (Something like this happened when Imperial Assault's sibling game, Descent, transitioned from the first to the second edition. Fantasy Flight ameliorated the situation by releasing a "conversion pack" that issued new 2nd edition cards for the old 1st edition miniatures). This risk, of course, is not really a problem for historical wargames like Bolt Action or Saga, where an army of Saxons can always leap from one rule-set to another.

I've written about how we're living in a golden age of board games. I see Imperial Assault as part of that picture - a conscious effort to improve on old games using new and creative mechanics. Like Dead Man's Hand, it uses a deck of cards to enhance simple rules. Like Saga or Bolt Action, it uses customized dice. And like classic games like Heroquest or Space Hulk, it uses colour tiles to create a beautiful battle-board that anyone can access instantly, without a whole lot of modelling and set-up. And finally, like Warhammer 40K, it offers great possibilities for army building. But what Imperial Assault does that's unique is combining these elements into one cohesive game. Frankly, I can't wait to bust out Darth Vader and take another run at those Rebel Troopers...

My favourite activation card

Reading along with the Lord of the Rings: the path of wisdom

June 2, 2015, 7:59 pm

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The Lord of the Rings is my favourite book, and I've decided that as I re-read it this summer, I'll write a chapter-by-chapter commentary. If you're also casting about for summer reading, I hope you'll read it along with me and leave your own thoughts and comments.

The Lord of the Rings, first edition (published 1954-1955)

My goal is to shine a little light on details in the book that might otherwise go unnoticed. Although The Lord of the Rings is a much read and much loved work, there's a surprising gap between what people see in the book and what Tolkien actually wrote. Our understanding of it is tinted by everything that has come afterward: illustrations, movies, games, and indeed the entire genre of fantasy literature as it evolved in Tolkien's wake. As I've written before, this legacy can lead to powerful misreadings. Discovering Middle Earth in its pristine state means unlearning 60 years of interpretations and expectations.

And so I want to use these posts as a way of forcing myself to read The Lord of the Rings with fresh eyes. This involves a close reading but not scholarly exegesis. I've modeled my approach on Tolkien's own advice about how to share and appreciate his works: 

...any reader whom the author has (to his great satisfaction) succeeded in 'pleasing' (exciting, engrossing, moving etc.), should, if he wishes others to be similarly pleased, endevour in his own words, with only the book itself as his source, to induce them to read it for literary pleasure.

Tolkien wanted the book to be enjoyed not dissected -- even citing Gandalf’s warning to Saruman that “He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.” (Letter 329, Letters of JRR Tolkien, 1981). 

And so in my next post I'll look at the the Forward to The Fellowship of the Ring. I'll hope you'll read along...