Its live and has already passed its initial funding goals! Lots of shiny stretch goals there too, including the plastic nautilus model and co-op rules for playing with 2-4 players which would be a lot of fun. The first edition of this game was great and this promises to be even better - go check it out!
[EDIT - Note that ALL of the stretch goals have now been unlocked!]
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/567823005/nemos-war-second-edition
PS I am trying to organise a group buy for Antipodean players - if you are interested go have a look at this BGG thread: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/21336647#21336647
Whats the humdrum about Chaps? Adventures into Victorian Science Fiction and Steampunk with ramblings about Aeronefs, Dirigibles, Land Ironclads, Anarchists, Dinosaur Hunting, Terranefs, Aquanefs, Mad Scientists, and all manner of electric contraptions and steam conveyances. It may not make sense, but there will be claret and a nice cheese board at the end. Tally-Ho and "Vôtre dans une sauce au vin blanc!"
Wednesday 30 December 2015
Thursday 24 December 2015
Sunday 20 December 2015
Friday 11 December 2015
Imperial Skies update
Well the core rules are funded and the project is moving toward its first stretch goal. Just over a week to go, so go check it out here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rottenlead/imperial-skies-wargame/description
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rottenlead/imperial-skies-wargame/description
Sunday 29 November 2015
Imperial Skies
Check out this Kickstarter for a new Flying Game partnered with Brigade Models. Written y the guy who made Gruntz (15mm SF), its is set in WW1 vice a VSF period.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rottenlead/imperial-skies-wargame
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rottenlead/imperial-skies-wargame
Wednesday 25 November 2015
Saturday 21 November 2015
One More Gaming Project: HAWKs Run Memorial "The Sword and The Flame Game"
One More Gaming Project: HAWKs Run Memorial "The Sword and The Flame Game": Friday night, and their regular meeting, the HAWKs played a memorial "The Sword and the Flame" game to commemorate the passing...
Thursday 19 November 2015
Tuesday 17 November 2015
Kaiserin class Dig Carrier
New goodies this week for the relatively under equipped Austro-Hungarian Air Service, the very nice looking Kaiserin class Dig Carrier!
http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Aeronef/Austro-Hungary/VAN-713.html
http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Aeronef/Austro-Hungary/VAN-713.html
Monday 16 November 2015
HMS DISRAELI
Another great offering from those clever chaps at WestWind - clearly based on there HMLS GLADSTONE but with a twin Gatling turret instead of the breechloading cannon
The Disreali is the Empire’s foremost choice for situations when her colonial holdings are threatened by indigenous hordes – earning much respect during the Zulu wars, nothing says ‘British Might’ more than a Disreali Landship pouring fire upon the unruly masses. For ‘crowd control’ the Disreali is fitted with a twin linked Gatling Gun.
The Disreali is the Empire’s foremost choice for situations when her colonial holdings are threatened by indigenous hordes – earning much respect during the Zulu wars, nothing says ‘British Might’ more than a Disreali Landship pouring fire upon the unruly masses. For ‘crowd control’ the Disreali is fitted with a twin linked Gatling Gun.
Sunday 1 November 2015
Centre-battery ship
In Warship development of the 19th century, the transformation from broadside to batteries, turrets and barbettes was just as pivotal as the shift from sail to steam (and took less time too). The excellent Weapons and Warfare site recently publicised an article on this topic which I highly recommend. While I have reproduced it here in full from the original I strongly recommend you peruse the site for a range of other excellent posts: http://weaponsandwarfare.com/2015/09/16/centre-battery-ship/
Centre-battery ship
Redoutable was a central battery and barbette ship of the French Navy. She was the first warship in the world to use steel as the principal building material.
Compared to iron, steel allowed for greater structural strength for a lower weight. France was the first country to manufacture steel in large quantities, using the Siemens process. At that time, steel plates still had some defects, and the outer bottom plating of the ship was made of wrought iron.
All-steel warships were later built by the Royal Navy, with the dispatch vessels Iris and Mercury, laid down in 1875-1876.
Compared to iron, steel allowed for greater structural strength for a lower weight. France was the first country to manufacture steel in large quantities, using the Siemens process. At that time, steel plates still had some defects, and the outer bottom plating of the ship was made of wrought iron.
All-steel warships were later built by the Royal Navy, with the dispatch vessels Iris and Mercury, laid down in 1875-1876.
HMS Inflexible was a Victorian ironclad battleship carrying her main armament in centrally placed turrets. The ship was constructed in the 1870s for the Royal Navy to oppose the perceived growing threat from the Italian Regia Marina in the Mediterranean.
The Italian Navy had started constructing a pair of battleships, Duilio and Dandolo, equipped with four Armstrong 15-inch (381 mm) guns weighing 35 tons each. These were superior to the armament of any ship in the British Mediterranean Squadron, and Inflexible was designed as a counter to them.
Packed with innovations, Inflexible mounted larger guns than those of any previous British warship and had the thickest armour ever to be fitted to a Royal Navy ship. Controversially, she was designed so that if her un-armoured ends should be seriously damaged in action and become water-logged, the buoyancy of the armoured centre section of the ship would keep her afloat and upright.
The ship was the first major warship to depend in part for the protection of her buoyancy by a horizontal armoured deck below the water-line rather than armoured sides along the waterline.
The Italian Navy had started constructing a pair of battleships, Duilio and Dandolo, equipped with four Armstrong 15-inch (381 mm) guns weighing 35 tons each. These were superior to the armament of any ship in the British Mediterranean Squadron, and Inflexible was designed as a counter to them.
Packed with innovations, Inflexible mounted larger guns than those of any previous British warship and had the thickest armour ever to be fitted to a Royal Navy ship. Controversially, she was designed so that if her un-armoured ends should be seriously damaged in action and become water-logged, the buoyancy of the armoured centre section of the ship would keep her afloat and upright.
The ship was the first major warship to depend in part for the protection of her buoyancy by a horizontal armoured deck below the water-line rather than armoured sides along the waterline.
The centre-battery ship was a major warship and a development of the ironclad ships. The man behind the design was the newly appointed Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy, Edward James Reed. The centre-battery ships had their main guns concentrated to the middle of the ship in an armoured citadel. The concentration of armament amidships mean the ship could be shorter and handier than a broadside type like previous warships. In this manner the design could maximize the armour in a limited space while still carrying a significant broadside. These ships meant the end of the full deck broadside warships.
The development of major warships in the latter half of the 19th century was extreme. New designs were obsolete by the time of commissioning. The first centre-battery ship was the HMS Bellerophon of 1865. The previous Royal Navy ironclad design, represented by the HMS Warrior, had proven to be seaworthy, fast under power and sail – however, when under sail alone, she had left much to wish for in terms of seagoing qualities.
The disadvantage of the centre-battery was that, while more flexible than the broadside, each gun still had a relatively restricted field of fire and few guns could fire directly ahead. The centre-battery ships were soon succeeded by turreted warships.
Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino had its origins in a private shipyard founded by Giuseppe Tonello at San Marco, on the coastline west of Trieste, in 1838. In 1857, the shipyard was merged with a local manufacturer of marine engines to become STT. A second shipyard was also acquired, at San Rocco near the town of Muggia just south of Trieste.
STT was the largest and most important shipbuilder in the Austrian Empire and its successor state, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The company built most of the Austro-Hungarian Navy’s capital ships, as well as many merchant vessels. In the 1860s and 1870s, STT built five of the Austro-Hungarian Navy’s seven centre-battery ships (a forerunner of the battleship), as well as a number of ironclads, cruisers, frigates and corvettes.
Thursday 15 October 2015
Nemo’s Note in a Bottle
VPG have released an update on the 2nd edition of Nemo's War, now in development. Some may be dismayed about the use of Kickstarter, but nobody can deny the beauty of the components and new artwork.
http://www.victorypointgames.com/news/nautilus_nemo_update/
http://www.victorypointgames.com/news/nautilus_nemo_update/
- Posted On: Wednesday August 19, 2015, 5:33 pm
Beauty is Pain
By Alan Emrich
Susan, my friend in Jr. High and High school, was pretty and she was real-life a model; not the high fashion runway type, but a model posing for store catalogs, commercials, and such like. She was sweet and I wished her well as we went our separate ways after High School.
Fast forward to our 10-Year High School Reunion, which she attended – only now she was drop dead gorgeous. She had more fans around her than a Turkish harem, but she waved me over and wanted to find a quiet place for us to talk. She remembered me as a good listener, and she wasn't very happy; now competing at higher-end modeling, it was taking its toll on her and replaced much of her sweetness with bitterness. But that sweet girl I remembered was still in there somewhere, right? So I asked her about her life and listened while she vented. She really needed to let off steam and complained about the time and cost (monetarily, physically, and emotionally) of working so constantly and so strenuously to look beautiful. Being a guy, I had never really thought about that aspect of a model's life, but I remember how she summed it all up so succinctly: "Beauty is Pain."
Now, teaching art students, I often remind them that great artists must suffer for their art. If you want to excel at anything, if you want to achieve any kind of greatness or fame, sacrifices are required.
So my thoughts were firmly on the accomplishment (and its incurred pain and the suffering) of artist Ian O'Toole as we printed the first copy of Nemo's War second edition. Ian had outdone himself on the graphics. This game left VPG playing sweet, and came back looking drop dead gorgeous. As we sat around the luscious graphic presentation of Nemo's War second editionthat Ian had created, we felt about 20,000 leagues out of our depth and knew that Ian's presentation of this game promised a great adventure ahead. Staring back-and-forth at each other over the table displaying Nemo's War second edition exactly as Ian envisioned it, we came to the realization that our print-on-demand publishing model would not do this game's beauty justice. We would do a very good job with it, certainly, but it deserved the right printer to make everything publish as perfect as it looked.
A New Motto
Aboard the Nautilus, our heroes discovered Captain Nemo's motto was mobilis in mobili (moving in a moving thing), and that is what we were prepared to do with our print-on-demand version of Nemo's War that we intended to publish – get moving! But the look of the game that came back from Ian suggested a new motto for Captain Nemo: orbis non sufficit (the world is not enough). And so, after sufficient consideration, we have decided to print Nemo's War second edition out of house and raise the funds to do so via Kickstarter. This affords us the opportunity to really do right to Ian's art and Chris Taylor's design. This is a game that we can really showcase; beauty is pain, art is suffering, but the end crowns the work, and so we will go to the extreme to deliver the best Nemo's War game possible.
Nemo's War is a solitaire strategy game based on the roughly year-long adventure from Jules Verne's classic novel, 20,000 Leagues under the Seas. Featuring compelling narrative gameplay supported by strong visuals, the push-your-luck resource management system is packed with replayability and features four games in one based on Captain Nemo's different motives (Science, Exploration, Anti-Imperialism, and War!). These motives determine the type of experience you will have and the victory conditions you must achieve. As notoriety of the Nautilusand those aboard evolves from strange sea monster to enemy scourge, the pressure from the Imperialist powers filling the oceans builds to one of five possible finales punctuating the end of your adventure. At last, you can score your gameplay and read your story's epilogue. Thoroughly researched and skillfully crafted by those with a passion for this subject, the Nemo's War second edition team is thrilled to share with you their magnum opus, a true labor of love dedicated to adventurers everywhere.
"First Officer, a Status Report, if You Please, Sir."
And so the Nautilus begins a new voyage – from print-on-demand to professional printing by way of the Kickstarter Seas. Navigating by compass, pocket watch, and dead reckoning, the port this game just left and the one it's heading for look like this…
We set sail from a fine, gold-banner Victory Point Games product: An 8.5" x 11" (1.5" thick) red "pizza" box with a sleeve containing an 11" x 17" mounted map, several player aids around it, two full sheets of our laser-cut counters, and 60 poker-size cards. Our destination will take us toa professionally printed 8.5" x 11" (3" thick) traditional lid-over-base game box with a 17" x 33" mounted game board (map + player aids), more than two sheets of die-cut counters, and at least 60 poker-size cards. Other things that a Kickstarter campaign can bring in as stretch goals include content beyond a second edition of the original Nemo's War game and its expansion kit – such as additional Nautilus Upgradecards, an additional Finale card, lots of new Adventure cards, and we're even working on creating our first plastic miniature game piece (which will be the Nautilusas envisioned by Ian O'Toole himself).
This means sending the component artwork for the game back to Ian for a refit, to rejigger the counters to go from laser-cutting (which is a very tight and precise layout) to die-cutting (which requires plenty of space around the cut pieces) and to make the play area a unified game board. Ian is currently hard at work rolling on the Refit table while also sketching out the game's cover.
But while Ian's shipyard is in Perth, Australia and busy working on the Nautilus, the crew is in Costa Mesa, California, and are making the most of this down time. We have been diligently putting that printed gamma version of the game through its paces (above you see Jeremy"Darkest Night" Lennert giving it a go on a marked-up build of the original print-on-demand components). We're triple-checking all of the rules and set up instructions (additional blind testing has found some good questions that the manual could have answered better and those have been fixed), working on some additional stretch goal material just in case (our last two Kickstarter campaigns greatly overran their stretch goals, so we're going to make sure we are ready this time), and we are tweaking some of the numbers here and there to tighten up the play balance and ensure interesting trade-offs in every player decision. We are also pumping up the fiction in the game epilogue paragraphs and writing additional support material.
So, on both sides of the world, we have all hands on deck preparing and polishing up the Nautilus for your inspection on Kickstarter later in autumn (if all goes according to plan). Brace yourself for a solitaire adventure game of a lifetime: Nemo's War second edition.
Thursday 8 October 2015
Dark Skies
This is clearly a Crimson Skies inspired reboot of WW2 aerial gaming, but I think a few of these craft would make a fantastic basis for some VSF style platforms. Have a look at the Kickstarter page to see all the potential offerings. One hopes that if the project is successful, individual craft might become available in the future.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1768803006/dark-skies-1942-a-15-mm-aerial-wargame
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1768803006/dark-skies-1942-a-15-mm-aerial-wargame
Saturday 3 October 2015
HMLS GLADSTONE
Hot on the heels of the release of the lovely Hansom Tank (see here), Westwind presents the HMLS GLADSTONE.
A lovely bit of kit to be sure, but one does have to wonder why a Royal Navy landship has a crew in Army uniforms...
A lovely bit of kit to be sure, but one does have to wonder why a Royal Navy landship has a crew in Army uniforms...
Not to be outshone by the Army and its dammed Tankovsky, the Royal Navy commissioned the Jerusalem Iron Works to construct a new class of Ironclad - 'HMLS Gladstone!' It was the first in this new class of Land Battleship. ''We will take the Navy to the enemy wherever he hides, the lack of a sea will not be an obstacle!'' so said First Sea Lord and Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Arthur Hood.
HMLS Gladstone first saw active service in the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879. However it did not distinguish itself in combat as it became stuck fast in the Buffalo river close to a small outpost known locally as Rourke's Drift. What became of the crew is unknown!
http://www.westwindproductions.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=204_242&products_id=1924
HMLS Gladstone first saw active service in the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879. However it did not distinguish itself in combat as it became stuck fast in the Buffalo river close to a small outpost known locally as Rourke's Drift. What became of the crew is unknown!
http://www.westwindproductions.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=204_242&products_id=1924
Thursday 1 October 2015
Spiffy Machinegun Carrier
Saw this little gem the other day thanks to the Space1889 mailing list (thanks for posting the link Terry) - a splendid Canadian WW1 Machine Gun Carrier. Comes with 3 crew and 2 Vickers MGs - perfect to provide a bit of hard hitting support to any IHMN companies (or on the Red Planet for that matter!)
http://www.1stcorps.co.uk/buy-online/p/ww1v16-canadian-armoured-car/
US Stockist here: http://www.scalecreep.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=3723_1479_3403_3404
First Corps have a fantastic array of other WW1 vintage armoured cars in their lineup too, well worth your time perusing.
Warning - this will be hazardous to your wallet!
http://www.1stcorps.co.uk/buy-online/p/ww1v16-canadian-armoured-car/
US Stockist here: http://www.scalecreep.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=3723_1479_3403_3404
First Corps have a fantastic array of other WW1 vintage armoured cars in their lineup too, well worth your time perusing.
Warning - this will be hazardous to your wallet!
Sunday 20 September 2015
Gashants,Sandrunners or ?
Righto chaps, its time for you to help solve a dilemma of mine...
Having been a longtime fan of Hinterland Miniatures (http://hinterlandminiatures.weebly.com), last year I bought a brace of the excellent trencher figures to be my Sturmfraulein detachment. I also got some of the Lancer cavalry figs, sans horses so I could put them on something a little more exotic
So what choice of mounts? I have these two in mind but would love to hear about any other options
First up is the Gashant, the classic Native Martian mounts on the Space 1889 setting.
These are the Royal Mounted Gashant Corps from kmfrye's excellent Burning Sands of Syrtis Major blog here.
Alternatively, these caught my eye long ago but I never had a use for them. Urban War's Junker faction have these excellent looking 'sandrunner' mounts, which are available in these three variants sans riders.
So what do you think chaps? Help me solve this concundrum!
Trencher Character pack - pic from the Hinterland's website |
Trencher Lancers - pic from the Hinterland's website |
First up is the Gashant, the classic Native Martian mounts on the Space 1889 setting.
These are the Royal Mounted Gashant Corps from kmfrye's excellent Burning Sands of Syrtis Major blog here.
Alternatively, these caught my eye long ago but I never had a use for them. Urban War's Junker faction have these excellent looking 'sandrunner' mounts, which are available in these three variants sans riders.
Love the way these are painted |
So what do you think chaps? Help me solve this concundrum!
Wednesday 16 September 2015
The Queen's (24th) Martian Rifles
Direct from the North Star Military Figures FB page (here), this simply demanded to be reposted! No credit to me at all.
Figs are scheduled to be released soon....
Very reminiscent of this artwork which they posted back in July:
Figs are scheduled to be released soon....
Very reminiscent of this artwork which they posted back in July:
Friday 11 September 2015
Hansom Tank
Cracking new release from WestWind this month for EotD, perfect for any VSF setting.
Looks just the business for a sojourn on Mars I think!
Jedadiah Tankovsky built the first Hansom tank in 1875. Originally conceived as a mode of transport for important dignitaries and people of well-to-do the Hansom Armored Conveyor was an unarmed two passenger and driver machine, driven by twin three horse power Infernum compression engines built by Harrison & Harrison of 36 Leather Lane Holborn. However Lord Howell of Keffbourne Master of the Queens Armories saw another application for this most wondrous of machines. By the addition of a Gatling gun and a gunners seat he created the worlds first Tankovsky or Tank as the lower classes came to call it. Another excellent model designed by our master model maker Andy Rawling to add to your Empire of the Dead world!
http://www.westwindproductions.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=204_242&products_id=1923
Looks just the business for a sojourn on Mars I think!
Jedadiah Tankovsky built the first Hansom tank in 1875. Originally conceived as a mode of transport for important dignitaries and people of well-to-do the Hansom Armored Conveyor was an unarmed two passenger and driver machine, driven by twin three horse power Infernum compression engines built by Harrison & Harrison of 36 Leather Lane Holborn. However Lord Howell of Keffbourne Master of the Queens Armories saw another application for this most wondrous of machines. By the addition of a Gatling gun and a gunners seat he created the worlds first Tankovsky or Tank as the lower classes came to call it. Another excellent model designed by our master model maker Andy Rawling to add to your Empire of the Dead world!
http://www.westwindproductions.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=204_242&products_id=1923
Wednesday 9 September 2015
Long May She Reign!
Today Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II surpasses her great-great grandmother's record of 23,226 days to become to longest reigning British monarch in history. Splice the mainbrace with a bumper toast!
I wonder; in a hundred years time will wargamers be playing ESF genre games?
I think there are some things in which Queen Victoria cannot be eclipsed.
Long Live the Queen!
Tuesday 1 September 2015
The Anglo-Martian War of 1895
You may not have seen this upcoming release from Osprey. Looks like November will bring more WOTW goodness!
War of the Worlds
THE ANGLO-MARTIAN WAR OF 1895
DARK OSPREY 9
- Author: Mike Brunton
- Illustrator: Alan Lathwell
- Short code: DARK 9
- Publication Date: 20 Nov 2015
- ISBN: 9781472811561
- Format: Paperback
- Number of Pages: 80
On one terrible night in August 1895, the world changed forever. Grey metal cylinders, launched from Mars and hurtled through space, came crashing down in southern England. The next 15 days were marked by courage and despair, hope and shock, defeat and fleeting victory as Queen Victoria's army struggled to contain the terrible alien threat. The war, man against machines from space, was fought without mercy on both sides. And the outcome would be decided by the smallest of things…
This book covers the whole of the Anglo-Martian conflict, beginning with a look at the relative strengths and weakness of the two armies, both English and alien, and comparing the different strategies employed. It then takes a detailed look at the actual military struggle, covering all of the major engagements between the tripods and Victoria's army.
Monday 24 August 2015
US Naval War College Museum
I recently had the opportunity it peruse the Museum of the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. The Museum itself is housed in the original War College Building, which was adequate for the student body in 1884 but new facilities were soon built to accommodate the expanding program.
As the original college building, there is where Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, USN, second War College President (1886-1889) and subsequently a renowned naval historian, first delivered his lectures on sea power—lectures which were first published in 1890 as the epochal The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783.
While relatively small, the Museum has some great artefacts, particularly noting that Newport was also the US Navy's torpedo facility and training school. Here are a couple that caught my eye:
And finally, some interesting relics from the War Plan Orange wargaming which was conducted at the US Navy War College. In fact, all the Rainbow series war plans were developed, gamed and refined here. It is truly the home of Naval Wargaming in the US.
https://www.usnwc.edu/About/NWC-Museum.aspx
As the original college building, there is where Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, USN, second War College President (1886-1889) and subsequently a renowned naval historian, first delivered his lectures on sea power—lectures which were first published in 1890 as the epochal The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783.
While relatively small, the Museum has some great artefacts, particularly noting that Newport was also the US Navy's torpedo facility and training school. Here are a couple that caught my eye:
The US Navy Protected Cruiser USS Chicago. |
The USS Stiletto (1885) - wooden torpedo boat used for experimental torpedo development |
US Navy Torpedo Boat No 1: USS Cushing (1890). The first steel hulled, ocean going TB
|
Newport has been key in USN torpedo development |
Full size Fish and Howell model torpedoes - nose aspect. Quite different to the better known Whitehead design |
Full size Fish and Howell model torpedoes - stern aspect |
https://www.usnwc.edu/About/NWC-Museum.aspx
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