Absolutely 'Blast-Tastic!'

Just like to mention a new wargames show that's coming to Bristol, UK.  
'BLAST-TASTIC!'.  A Sci-Fi wargames show.  
It's scheduled for 04/10/2014 - NOTE: Next year.

Take a look at the blog site to see how it's shapening up.

http://blast-tastic.blogspot.co.uk/

I will hopefully be putting on a 
participation game if there is 
enough space to squeeze me in!

Any way, I will be there no matter what.

Good luck to Michael in his new endeavour.

Were missing someone - Get to the Chopper - again part II

While writting the post, Get To The Chopper - Again and looking back on the game, I felt that something was missing.
Then suddenly I suprised myself by remembering what it was.
ANNA! (see here).

In fact although she does not fight she is an important character as in the movie she actually Gets To The Chopper!

So how could I incorperate her into the game?

First I decided that she would be a NPC.  As I asummed that the players would want their characters to generaly run around and shoot at things!

So here's her card with the new rules.

For original size CLICK on image

Have a go with it, any comments or changes let me know.

A figure I use for Anna

I am the king of the ring!

A couple of years ago at Reveille we had a space for a small, very small game, so I decided to have a go.  This being my first solo attempt to put on a participation game, in fact any game!

I needed something quick and easy to learn (to keep the kids happy) and again emphasis on small - you get the theme?

I decided to trawl one of my favourite sites for inspiration and freewargamesrules.co.uk came up trumps again.

Here I found Kings of the Ring! It's a simple game with a board divided up into squares. The idea is to move and fight with your figure using a deck of playing cards. The player who looses all 10 endurance tokens is knocked-out.  The combination of suit and colour determines the direction of movement and punches.

With the rules you get a ready to print-out board.  But looking at some of the home-made boards in the rules pages I decided to build my own.

This was achieved with a hardboard base, lots of balsa wood and a whole tube of ready mixed masonry filler - you know the one?!

The symbol reminder from the rules was printed out and laminated, one for each contestant.  As well as these I gathered together some poker chips brought from a local £1 shop, to be used as endurance tokens and a handful of fantasy miniatures, without weapons of course - play fare!  I decided on a fantasy theme as most wargamers have the odd figure lying around.

After paining the board I added a couple of specific details.  The first being the water transfers of crossed swords in the centre of the board.  This is to donate 'The Kings Square' used in the additional rules.  The next was a barrel of tomatoes for the rotten tomatoes rule - purely for artistic reasons.

I have also been working on my own additional rules as follows:

Over the ropes

If a fighter is pushed and is next to the rope/corner and fails to parry it then he is thrown from the ring and misses 2 turns.  He can then re-enter the ring on ANY free space adjacent to the rope.

The free rules can be found here.

Here are some pics.

Game layout

One of the symbol reminders

Tough guys only!

Old Bones v Mad Paddy

In the background the fight promoter guarding the chest of money for the winner

& in the foreground the road for the long walk for the looser (if still able to walk that is).

Has any of the fighters moved in the last 10 mins?

In the top right - glamorous girl holding up final round board. 
May use her in another additional rule I'm working on. 

Get To The Chopper - Again!

Last year at Reveille, I decided to put on a fun little game called, wait for it 'Get To The Chopper'.  It was originaly and still is a board game based on the first 'Preditor' movie.  I decided to go one further and develop it into a 3D game!

First of all I needed some suitable figures. Searched high and low but alas none that I could find looked sort of over the top Hollywood style or had the weapons similar to the characters. Then one Sunday at my local wargames club (Lincombe Barn Wargames Society) a fellow gamer was selling off some Warhammer 40K figures.  Just what I needed. Some Slight filing here and cut there made their weapons somewhat similar to the film characters. I also had an old plastic Warhammer 40K figure that I added a bow,wooden spear and arrows to.

           Blaine                 Billy                  Mac          

Butch (boy scout) with mud                Butch      

Next a Predator figure was need.  BIG problem!

I already had some Ground Zero Games figures of said alien (under a different name), but these were 25mm and were just too small up to the other figures.

Copplestone does some nice figures, but a bit pricey and I only needed one figure.

E-BAY my saviour. Some one was selling a limited edition 'Hero Clix' predator for £2, bargain!

Now I know it's bigger than the other figures, but the film predator was and It also gives a more menacing feel to it!

The Big guy

As you can see I tarted up his base to hide the 'Hero Clix' numbers etc.

OK now needed a target to reach. Yes the chopper. Nothing special just to visualize the extraction point.  Well on the way home from Turkey last year I found just the right thing in the duty free shop. A plastic helicopter attached to a tube of sweets (which were pretty tasty as well).

Placed on a wire stand, to simulate hovering and a quick paint job and done. Also made some medi-packs out of round base and couple of old ammo crates.

Chopper and medi-kits x2

All I needed to gather then was some tokens to use as life tokens, couple of hands full of D6's and the original character stat sheets from the game, which I laminated.

The terrain belonged to the club and was set out as per the original game map/board.

The games went well and especially the kids loved it.

It says in the rules that either none or only one of the characters will 'Get To The Chopper' and in all the games this was true. The game needs team work and it took some time for the kids to grasp this!!

Anyway a great game and I recommend it for beginners and seasoned wargamers alike.

Here's some pics of the game - sorry about quality as forgot camera and had to use mobile phone!

The four are ready to make a run for the chopper

There may have a bit of a way to go, as it's at the other end of the table!

There's something hiding in the undergrowth and it's not David Bellamy (one for the older UK readers).

"If we can just get across the river, there maybe a chance." You wish!!!!

The original free, yes free boardgame can be found HERE at Board Game Geek.

I have also designed a new character card.  Take a look HERE