Warhammer-stuff is notoriously expensive. As my son has grown into the hobby, I've tried to help him conserve his pocket money: Taught him to work with OnePageRules as they're free and more liberal in statting things and crossing army-boundaries. Started us out with skirmishes, six or eight fighters per side. And he taught his friends. Some of the boys spend more than my son does on miniatures. That's okay. But I've constanly been looking for ways to make more out of what we have.
My son has two squadrons of Tau soldiers, a Kroot warband (which was made for 40k skirmishes as a box, I believe) and some Kroot hounds. He needed more fire power against tough enemies. And he had spare parts: The limit GW imposes on how many fighters you can put together with a single box is basically in torsos. But you do get spare heads and arms and sometimes even legs and weaponry.
On Kleinanzeigen I saw a dude who sold a Kroot-captured sentinel he had kitbashed. I liked the Idea. A lot. So I got to work with plastic packaging from cottage cheese, the injection-mold-frame from some Tau soldiers, some Kroot bits, cardboard and Fimo Air:
The lascannon is magnetically attached so I can, at some later point, make alternative weapon loads. This walker was captured by the Kroot and is now used for fire support, much like a Krootox would be. They, of course, krootified it a bit:
Yes, I know I misspelled "KROOT" in the Tau glyphs but Tau infantry will get the point.
I felt that hanging some dried enemy hands as trophys or war fetishes was a good idea. The machine needed to look more savage. So savage indeed that...
So, I've finished crafting my 200 points army for MAC Attack:
It's been a pleasure making this. I have the following units in my roster:
Auxiliary ground forces: Four squads of exotrooper infantry and six assault gun battletanks. The tanks are plastic (from food packaging) and beads and tooth picks. The infantry is the same except for the heads which are tiny balls I formed with FIMO air.
Auxiliary air forces: Three attack helicopters and two armored transport helicopters (for getting that infantry to their area of operations. The attack choppers have central bodies made of cardboard, the rest is all plastic from food packaging and some beads for cockpits and rocket pods.
Three class 1 MACs: The ST-7 combat body can be equipped with different weaponry. One is a sniper, one has two plasma pistols and one has jump jets and swords. They are made mostly from plastic packaging and beads and wire.
Three class 2 MACs: The War Stomper in the back is the commander's vehicle of choice. The artillery spider (on the right) offers long range fire support. The Landsword mech is a general purpose combat unit designed to solo through almost any scenario. The spider is mostly plastic packaging and wire and beads, the other two MACs mix in cardboard and there are also some toothpicks involved. Especially proud of the landsword.
My single Class 3 MAC: The Heavy Gatwalker. Can blow away hostile MACs with single shots but only carries limited ammunition. Mostly cardboard and, once again, food packaging and beads.
I plan on doing a league of MAC with some friends and my son. The first games will be 50 points only, so only a fraction of these. But I'm ready now.
Also, for those who wonder what these things look like before painting:
This is a genre. If nobody else has made it into one, I hereby do. I just played some hours of Babbdi. I've had nightmares pretty much exactly like this: Brutalist architecture, hostile to humans within. Deep shadows. You got to find a way out but there may be none. The game populates the place with depressed potatohead-people you can talk to but won't get much out of.
This makes the city look prettier than it is from the inside.
It doesn't look like it but mechanically this is a parcours-game with a bit of metroidvania sprinkled into it. There are well hidden places you can only reach with specific items. Some of them make you feel like you're on the cusp of getting something about the mystery of this place but never quite get there. It's like a book by Jeff Vandermeer. It teases you. It will not reveal its secrets to you.
If you've ever dreamt of exploring brutalist architecture and post-soviet decay, this (free!) game is awesome. The dreary atmosphere has the greyness of the city, its sickly-looking people (even the sewer-rave looks desperate) and the inscrutable world that you can only leave with a train ticket that is no longer being sold. It's all a bit Kafka. I love it.
To prove that this is actually a bit of a niche genre, I will show at least one more game like this soon.
What did I watch/read/play? No particular order, as usual. Not a definite list, but whatever comes tom mind because it stuck there over the year. Go time.
TV Shows & Movies
Arcane was good. I re-watched season 1 with my son and then we watched season 2 together. As I've mentioned on this blog, it's a political show but a good one - and the visual style is impeccable (and, appearently, very expensive to make).
Squid Games as a cultural phenomenon has entered the phase where it can't go anywhere without besmirching its legacy. We even watched the reality TV show that Netflix made (in the same sets as the fictional programme?) as a family. My wife remarked that a format like that only works in a place with little to no social security because it heightens the tensions and drama when everyone is all-in. All in all it got me somewhat jaded.
K-Pop Demon Hunters sucked. There, I said it. It's just another Netflix action piece that posits a moral question in the first half and then just forgets about it because fuck it, violence is fun. And only romantic interests deserve an attempt at rescue. Whoever churns out these scripts must have sociopathic tendencies.
Books
It was a good year of reading for me, especially with regards to the output that my book-club had. I can only recommend everyone form a book club with some friends, it's a great thing to do. What really stood out:
Rogue Male may be a staple read for men in the Anglosphere, it's virtually unknown here in Germany. Fucking awesome book though. The hero being a posh Mac Guyver type fighting Nazis and yet being an incredibly decent human being throughout. Loved every page of it.
Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow was a re-read I dreaded a little because I had previously read it in my early twenties and was afraid I'd dislike it now. That fear was unfounded - it's still one of my favourite books of all time. Main character is amazing and I have a thing for her type of woman I can't fully explain.
The Lord of the Rings is still awesome. Re-read it with my son. You still discover new details and things about it. Tolkien was a man whose heart was in the right place, if you pay attention to the real hero of the story (Samwise, of course).
Video Games
Boy did I have something big in the end of the year. Before that it was the usual mix of my comfort foods: Streets of Rogue, FTL, Into the Breach. Got back into Crossout for a bit, killing Russian bots and being killed by Russian players with premium paid-rigs.
Then I went and installed Blue Prince. It might be the best video game I've ever played. I now understand why our fathers played Myst and this might be a hyper-evolved version of that type of game. It's got the replayability of a roguelike with the emphasis on exactly the aspect of that genre I love: Exploration. It has old-world cozy-wealth environments of the kind I love and mechanical riddles that feel haptical and all sorts of clues that make you feel so clever when you figured them out (especially when there are multiple ways of solving something). And then there is the ever-deepening lore behind it. I'm now in hour 50 of playing it and the end isn't close. If there is one.
Board Games
Played mostly family games with my family. Classics. Goose Game. Ladders. Chess (won our family-internal tournament, to my own surprise).
Crafting
Did a lot of tabletop-crafting this year. Made a rat-ogre-cyborg for One Page Rules. Made mechs and monstrosities for MAC Attack. It's fun and I'm happy to be able to make entire fighting forces from scratch without spending more than a few Euros for FIMO and glue.
Podcasts and Music
I still listen to Role Playing Public Radio and Bad Books for Bad People. I also discovered Librivox as a source of free audiobooks. When it comes to music I heard a lot of Lost Souls and saw Nanowar of Steel live.
The Rest
No Idea what else to review here. The year kind of blasted past me. Here's to 2026, I guess.
People who know me know that I like to do hobby stuff on the cheap and that I like to craft things. When my friend Niels gifted me MAC Attack for my birthday, it hit that very sweet spot only a low-mini-count tabletop game made for making your own miniatures can hit. And mechs (MACs) are easier to make than soldiers or even wheeled vehicles (in my opinion). So as my final post for 2025 I shall show to you the force I'm working on:
You're looking at 55 points of horrible alien monsters. As it stands, this is not a legal force to play. There are only two MACs finished (the big creatures) and the game requires at least three. Also, there is currently three formations of auxiliary units (regular army-stuff that isn't a huge MAC) and you can only have as many of these as you have MACs. I will make two or three more MACs in order to make it a 100 points force and then we shall see what it can do.
In the back row to the left you have the Hatchetbug. It's a class 1 MAC that is optimized for jumping at the enemy and attacking with scythes. The phases of the game turn mean that it will often have no chance of actually attacking an enemy as they may move away before the attack phase - but the trick is in the other MAC in the back, the Range Spitter. That one is an artillery unit, supported by younger versions of itself which are auxiliary units which are also artillery. The Hatchetbug will provide target coordinates and these guys will rain hell from afar.
The two beetles in the front right are Carrier Beetles, heavily armored auxiliary units that can transport infantry. That comes in the shape of four squads of Leeches, which have close combat weaponry and hooks. I believe that once these hook onto an enemy MAC, they will deal damage every turn and they could also fight enemy infantry if they get in range.
The other MACs will need to be more focused on the medium range. Maybe some kind of armored slug that sprays fire and armour piercing spines or something keeping with the theme.
Not painted: My first MACs, my growing human force:
Much more mecha-conventional. I will show more of those once they're all made up to look as good as my aliens.
With that I shall be back in January with some yearly reviews.
No, this isn't about the political situation in the USA because, let's face it, I have other problems. I just finished watching the excellent Arcane with my older son. And besides all the themes on family, love, loyalty and all that jazz I noticed that the second season towards the end pivots into three sides battling for the future of Piltover and mankind (including all those other races shown on screen, I assume) in general. You have the scrappy alliance of Piltover and Zhaun representing freedom (more or less). You have Viktor and his posthumanism. And then you have the fascist menace: Might makes right, strength is all that matters, also our goons wear masks to you don't see them as people but as a highly trained and unified fighting force. Which is probably what they see themselves as, the way they act.
It is a good story, with an immense amount of details and emotional depth. It doesn't hammer its points home. And that is probably what makes it effective. It never mentions fascism. It just shows thing being done. Has characters explain what they do. And you feel it's wrong.
I believe that is where antifascist media that don't come from _the left_ succeed. Of course, in a polarized society, there are those who will call anyone left of them radical and anyone right of them fascists. I'm not talking about online-shouty-people. I'm talking about the silent majority, the actual mid of society.
Coming from a farely left-leaning family I always felt that authors from the very left make for very bad storytellers, at least when and if they try to push an agenda. China Mieville may be the exception to the rule – although he doesn't really push an agenda so I don't know if he counts.
Good antifascism comes from the middle of society. Why? Because that's who you need in order to defeat fascism. You can have your crew of scrappy activists but if you speak that language of discourse, you're already losing the middle. What is good antifascist literature? One that respects what the middle has to loose. Three examples:
Krabat by Ottfried Preußler - a book taking place sometime in the 17th century, long before fascism was even invented. But it was written by that author as a way to deal with his own youth in Nazi-Germany. It's about the temptation of the easy way to power by evil means. And that love can and will conquer hate if given the chance. Excellent YA book.
Harry Potter - Rowling is by now a hated figure among a lot of people and I won't go into that debate here. The Harry Potter series is, however, starkly anti-fascist. The evil wizards always want to rule over those they deem inferior. You have bureaucrats who will gleefully support their cause once they gain power. It's these people who made fascism in Germany possible. Umbridge is the small public servant who uses a new system for evil and is probably more despicable than Voldemort ever was.
Lord of the Rings - while a lot of nerds kind of misread the text (yeah, the author has some racist ideas. Doesn't mean he was one of your kind), this epic has exactly three important messages to tell: Fascism is bad. Environmental destruction is bad. Friendship is the best damn thing we have to face horrible circumstances that fate and the times we live in may drop us in.
I would put Arcane in that list. Yeah you can go all-realistic, show the horrors of, say, Nazi-Germany. But that makes it very concrete and easy to mentally avoid. "That's Germany. In the 1930s. Not my place and time." If it's about teaching values that go beyond specific locales, I think fairytales and fantasy stories may be the better choice. And don't hammer the point home. Subtext is, after all, not just for cowards.
So, I went, this time with my books and my standup banner and all that jazz. Took my place in a row of actual authors and really enjoyed these two days. My kids went about, playing table top strategy games against whoever and I told people about my book series and sold all ten collections of stories I had brought. Could probably have sold twice that but I hadn't had a clue how much would have been realistic and also I was above budget for this whole thing anyways. So I can say that it went great.
It's interesting to see how other authors do things. All of us had "real" jobs. Conventions are the place to sell books. Online is dead unless you really like playing the social media game. Community was really nice. Christian Günther borrowed me a table cloth right when I showed up and without it, my table would have looked like crap. Laurence Horn (and his son) and Finja Stoldt (with her brother) were my direct neighbours – and rather nice as such. I was in good company. Even did a little reading session in a literature jam. Five minutes is a really tight timeframe and I was somewhat nervous and a little too fast but I think people liked what they heard.
I'll be hitting more conventions like this in the future. Let's at least make this hobby pay for itself.
So, this year I'm in an exhibiting role at NordCon again. I've ran BrikWars-battles in the past. I've presented my board game. This time it's a bit more serious: I'll be promoting my series of pulp novelettes. And, yesterday, I was asked to be on stage for the literature jam in the evening as well. Which is today.
It would be an understatement to say that I'm a bit nervous. I originally didn't intend to publish Jon Danger. Then I had an interstitial phase where I expected to do so unter a pseudonym. You know because of how much of yourself you lay bare when writing. And the sex stuff. Oh well. Too late for that and the German law makes it hard to legally self-publish under what isn't your own name. At least the website has to have my actual name (and adress) on it, after all.
Wish me luck, whoever you are reading this. I've never read anything of my own stuff on an actual stage. I shall talk about it all in a later post (and also about what my kids were up to at the convention).
Lately, my son and I have been having table top strategy battles of different flavours. We used mostly One Page Rules (Grimdark Future FTL Warfleets and Grimdark Future Firefights) and some Brikwars (Quickwars-Rules with some house rules attached). I'm not sure where the sweet spot is but as somoene who has been burned by Games Workshops as a teen, I really like systems where you do not need a massive army of minis to fight cool battles on the table.
Like I stated before, anyone can make space ships for Grimdark Future FTL Warfleets from scratch. When it comes to infantry in something like Grimdark Future Firefights, I can't make those myself but one investment into, say, a WH40K Tau scout squad, will set you up with all you need for less than 40 Euros. That's what my son did last week. He could conveivably make two armies of 300 points each out of that set but he only wants to make one anyways.
Anyhow I noticed that there are several very different aspects of the miniature wargaming hobby you can enjoy (or not):
1. Planing your army. Thinking about what to take into battle, what to equip, what their background is. I really like that part.
2. Building your minis.* Some buy whole, some like to craft fine details and customized the crap out of the minis. Others will just take Legos and be done with it.
3. Painting your minis. A distinct step from the one above because people will take stock 40K-Marines and turn them into works of art but eshew any actual crafting in the process. I always disliked painting minis (a lot).
4. Actually playing the game (!). Whether cometitively or just for fun and laughs with friends (different games demand a different level of seriousness, after all). Rolling dice, measuring distances, outwitting your enemy. Like.
*Making a tonk is fun. Playing it is as well. Look at what these two guys (blokes?) are doing with it:
Fuck yeah! The kids and I built several tonks by now. The only downside is the massively printer-unfriendly (but free!) rules doc.
But lets ramble on back to our four kinds of enjoyment of the hobby. I'll go through all table top strategy games I've _ever_ played and rate them on the fun-scale on each four accounts. Also how many units you'll typically field and how much of a money sink they are because yes, that is a big factor.
Warhammer Fantasy Battles (sometime in the late 90s)
1. Planning?
Very fun. Lots of options, a ton of armies to choose from, highly customizable. Liked it.
2. Building?
Medium. You could mod stuff but with metal figures it was hard and also GW didn't like too drastic a change (or god forbid third-party-minis) if you wanted to play tournaments at their stores.
3. Painting?
Lots of painting to be done, that's for sure. For a lot of people this was the main draw of the hobby. I myself didn't like it but that's just me.
4. Actually playing?
Slow and tedious but all together okay. It didn't really help that we all had different states of information and that the chaos players always seemed to be cheating.
5. How many guys?
Lots. My dark elves army had like 100 minis in it and that was a normal-sized army.
6. How much money?
Too much. Fuck you, GW. I spent most of my pocket money on dark elves for several years and then they rebootet them, making my entire army worthless.
Warhammer 40K (sometime in the late 90s)
1. Planning? Pretty much the same as with Warhammer Fantasy.
2. Building?
I think there are more opportunities for customizing in 40k, because there are more weapon-loadouts and more war machines you can modify.
3. Painting?
Same as fantasy.
4. Actually playing?
Didn't play as much 40k as fantasy. I remember that my dark eldar sucked.
5. How many guys?
I think it was fewer models on average than fantasy but it's in the same general area of army-size. Many.
6. How much money?
Too much, I still think.
BrikWars 2001
1. Planning?
Almost too many options. You gotta think up a theme and then stick to it. I loved it, still dream myself into the paracosm I made up as the background of my three different armies in BrikWars.
2. Building?
It's Lego. If you love it, you love it.
3. Painting?
Nope.
4. Actually playing?
Fun but don't expect a balanced experience. Also it can take a while if you have complex vehicles (worst of all: robots and/or super-power-users).
5. How many guys?
As many as you want/have. I think the biggest battle I ever fought had around sixty minifigs on my side but also like two dozen vehicles.
6. How much money?
Lego isn't cheap but if you already have it...
QuikWars / BrikWars Lite
1. Planning?
Much quicker than the original BrikWars but also much less detailed. If you obsess over the difference between a sabre and a warhammer or a revolver and an uzi, this isn't for you.
2. Building?
It's Lego. But you will likely destroy much of it.
3. Painting?
Nope.
4. Actually playing?
Quick and messy. Played this with my kids a few times. It's usually quite the massacre.
5. How many guys?
Easier to handle large numbers of dudes than the original but still, I wouldn't want to have more than a few dozen units on the table.
6. How much money?
Same as BrikWars 2001.
Next Generation Special Force
This one I made myself. It uses Lego Technics dudes and weapons I made mostly from cardboard and warhammer paint. It's for having small squads fight each other.
1. Planning?
Takes a lot of planning. I made the rules myself but it is a complex game.
2. Building?
You gotta make any weapon from scratch. Also all other gear for your Lego Technics-guys.
3. Painting?
Equipment and weaponry not included. Make it.
4. Actually playing?
Very detail-oriented: Kneeling, being prone, sprinting. How many shots to fire in a turn. It's for the people who enjoyed video games like Jagged Alliance.
5. How many guys?
I only have eight figures for this but that seems close to what I can handle anyways. You could conceivably double that but I think more than that and it gets too bogged down with paperwork.
6. How much money?
Don't know. Second hand figures go between 5 and 10 Euros upon my last check. You could build a squad for around 30 Euros.
One Page Rules Grimdark Future Firefight
1. Planning?
Takes a moderate amount of planning. I make little cue-cards for each warrior of a squad.
2. Building?
You can but I'm better at making war machines and that is more for the regular GDF.
3. Painting?
Like the original Warhammer Fantasy and 40k. I don't really like it but my son greatly enjoys it.
4. Actually playing?
Fun! We've played quite a few battles with this system and my son also plays it with his friends. The turn order and the streamlining of attack-dice compared to Gamesworkshops systems is good. Nobody sits around for half an hour while the other player does their turn.
5. How many guys?
Depends on your army, of course, but I've seen between five and twelve minis fielded in a regular 300 points game.
6. How much money?
Even if you buy original Gamesworkshop figures you can get a 300 points squad in a single box. My son got himself a Tau squad with drones and his friend has a pack of tyranids and that's all you need. Also you can use third-party miniatures or even print and play little cardboard standies, which is basically for free.
One Page Rules Grimdark Future FTL Warfleets
1. Planning?
Quite a bit because you'll be customizing each ship you have. In the end you have a fleet sheet with all the info on it and I like it.
2. Building?
If you want, you can very much build everything you need for this game yourself. I myself have made several fleets and so did my kids. It's fun.
3. Painting?
Oh yes. You can and should paint your ships.
4. Actually playing?
It's good. Four turns of intense space battle are fun.
5. How many guys?
Not guys but ships. A fleet will have five to ten ships plus squadrons if you want those. Nothing too taxing.
6. How much money?
None if you make it all yourself. Well you need dice but you get it.
Tonks!
1. Planning?
Not much. Basic tonks are mostly the same. You _can_ do some customization but these are the "advanced" rules.
2. Building?
Fuck yeah! You can (and must!) make your own tonk. If you don't like crafting, you could use a toy or model tank but seriously, it's about TONK. I use wheels from Kinder Überraschung vehicles for turret mechanisms. You can also use bits of soap dispensers or magnets. Have fun making a crazy tank! If you can't do a turret, a Sturmgeschütz will do as well - just have the cannon attached directly to the hull.
3. Painting?
You probably wanna paint your tonk. But its's not a must. Do what you please.
4. Actually playing?
Short, fun, crazy tonk-battles. Very good.
5. How many guys?
The game posits that every player should field only one tonk but you could conceivably go up to three vehicles per player.
6. How much money?
None, if you do it right.
Wasteland Carfare
This is my own home-brew remake of Gaslands. Play the original if you want more in-depth driving mechanics and stuff. I will release this sometime this year (in both English and German).
1. Planning?
You gotta stat those postapocalyptic cars. It takes some planning.
2. Building?
Take toy cars and upgrade them to postapocalyptic war machines. It's a lot of fun and a great way to use surplus parts from other wargames. Or plastic framing. I used plastic frames and parts of food containers to create some vehicles from scratch even.
3. Painting?
Not strictly necessary but if you want, you can make small works of art out of your vehicles.
4. Actually playing?
I love it, my son finds it meh. I guess your mileage varies. A 100-points-battle usually doesn't last longer than half an hour.
5. How many guys?
A 100-points-warband is between three and six vehicles, usually.
6. How much money?
If you already have toy cars, then practically none. If you don't they are dirt-cheap (or search the sand-pit of a playground near you. You're bound to find some that are even pre-aged for more postapocalyptic style).
An unnamed Kaiju game by my son
My son invented a mech-vs-kaiju-game played with legos in a little lego city.
1. Planning?
You gotta stat your mech or kaiju before battle. There are a number of modules/upgrades/skills to pick from. It's quick enough.
2. Building?
Lego it up. If you like it, you like it.
3. Painting?
Nope.
4. Actually playing?
A battle is through in around 15 to 20 minutes. It's fun enough but probably needs more balancing than a 10-year-old is willing to go for.
5. How many guys?
Just two (plus support in the shape of parasites and tanks, if you choose those).
6. How much money?
If you already own Lego, it's free. If not, then not.
An unnamed Star Wars space battle game by my son
Also made by my son. This one is about space battles and involves ship-to-ship boarding actions and lots of shooting.
1. Planning?
You pick your ship classes, you write down what systems they get. It's fairly quick.
2. Building?
Lego.
3. Painting?
Nope.
4. Actually playing?
Space battle lasts anywhere between ten and thirty minutes. It's cool that you can attempt to board enemy vessels and it can even backfire if you lose your crew. That aspect I like most about it.
5. How many guys?
We played with four vs four ships, which was manageable.
So I decided that I need some gaming to relax my mind. Like, really relax it. That got me an idea: What if I take an old favourite of mine, Sir, You Are Being Hunted, and turn it into a walking simulator? No threat. Just the moody, gloomy, but ultimately pretty and relaxing British countryside and the need to eat every once in a while? The game certainly makes that possible, without having to be modded or anything. Here's part two:
The pier of the North Island greets me
in gloomy weather. It's the industrial island, which in this mode is
a paradise for urban explorers. I'm just a hiker though, so I decide
to spend as little time in this gloom as possible.
With my binoculars I spy a church in
the fog. I decide to go there first and check it out.
I get drunk on mess wine found in said
church and enjoy the sunrise.
The next larger structure that lures me
closer with its bulk is an old warehouse, I assume. I decide to see
what's up in there.
Dynamite! Lot's of it. While there are
not enemies to speak of in this world, in real life a bunch of
dynamite in a depopulated area means fun so I pocket as much as I can
sensibly carry.
I arrive at the outskirts of the
industrial town. It still feels like trespassing.
The place is a dump. Literally. I think
I'm climbing over a junkyard to get into town.
I normally like waterside properties. I
wouldn't want to live here though. But that may just be the weather.
I decide to follow a sprite I see. I
don't want to stay on this island forever.
There we go. I don't know what route I
took to get here but there are two telebits in somewhat close
proximity to each other. In a regular game of Sir, this would be
dangerous because you'd have to deal with at least two teams of
hunters at the same time. Here it's a nice convenience.
I see the bog monster and toss a stick
of dynamite at it. No idea if the explosion drove it off because I
overshot by quite a bit. Next time I'll pepper the freaking thing
with lots of explosives. Also I realize that the pier is right here –
I must have walked around most of the island.
In the dark I use the flashlight to
follow another sprite towards the last telebit of the island.
At a factory building I find even more
dynamite. I can't carry any more so I do the sensible thing: I get
utterly wasted on sherry and toss a bunch of dynamite sticks into the
landscape. Blowing stuff up while drunk is the sort of irresponsible
fun one can do when alone in post-apocalyptic Britain.
There's the last telebit. After
restocking my dynamite stores somewhat, I go and get it.
The way back leads me past an ominous
tower. It reminds me of the electric towers at the edges of some
villages I know from middle Germany.
I go through a village with the funny
name of Misty Cheating. Sounds like a porn starlett.
And discover the overgrown ruin of a
factory.
It reminds me of two things: First, an
old factory I urban explored on Rhodos. And then of an old monastery
church somewhere by the Mosel where we pitched our tents and slept
when I was a teenager and we were doing a long-distance tour with the
school's rowing club.
When it gets light again, I reach the
boat. Time to go back to prettier shores.
I've started rewatching the three existing Indiana Jones movies recently, whenever family life lets me. Last night I rewatched Temple of Doom, probably for the first time in something around two decades. I have thoughts:
The movie starts out much weaker than its predecessor. The whole jungle sequence in Raiders of the Lost Ark was much more evocative than Willy singing in Chinese while two dozen wannabe-Bond-girls in yellowface dance. All in all the opening is trying too hard to be James Bond rather than Indiana Jones, if that makes sense in what is only the second movie of the franchise.
Indy is even more of a thug than in the first movie. Taking a woman hostage like that? The diamond being payment for whatever McGuffin he collected for that guy? And why is he so smug when escaping on the plane - he has nothing to show for? This later turns out to be set-up for character growth. I think.
How many best friends he previously had tons of adventures with does Indy have stashed away all over the world? He can't be more than 40 years old at this point in time. What gives?
Willy is a massively annoying character. So much so that I don't understand how Indy decides to go for seducing her. It's not worth it, dude. It's also obvious that the only thing he sees in her is a pretty face.
The geography is all over the place but let's ignore that. I mean, we don't know how many days the crew spent on that river for it to go from sub-alpine to tropical.
The elephant riding sequence is uneccesarily long.
The gross-out-dinner-scene didn't faze me anymore. Most of the stuff I have eaten in one form or another. Standard backpacker-gotta-try-it-once fare. Snake? Had that in Cambodia (though no live baby snakes. Mine was barbequeued). Beetles? You get that in Bangkok at the night market. Eyes? I didn't but I know plenty of people in Mongolia who swear it's a delicacy. Monkey brains? I only had goose brain but you get my point.
Also these special effects ... were those real baby snakes? Is that a thing somewhere?
I must mention that Short Round is awesome. He is actually outclassing Indy in this movie. Great acting by Ke Huy Quan. The boy was so into it. I'm glad he got back into real acting with Everything Everywhere All At Once. Shame that the Asiansploitation genre had to come into existence for him to get work like that again after growing out of being a cute kid.
The secret entrance to the dungeon in the bedroom is cool. So are the traps, crazy and illogical as they are. They are also much more plausible than those from the first movie, considering this palace is still in use and the bad guys presumably do some upkeep work.
I'd expect the centipedes to be more bitey but that may be my personal fear of that horrible mixture of spider and snake.
The temple is vastly illogical but also awesome as fuck. I'll give Lucas and Spielberg the benefit of the doubt here. Also, this whole human sacrifice sequence is what Lovecraft would have seen in just arriving at the palace topside because of all these horrible non-anglosaxon people.
After being captured it is up to Short Round to save the fucking day. At this point, the movie turns into basically one long, drawn out action sequence. The breaks are off (literally, as we see during the mine cart scene).
Voodoo dolls are more of a Carribean thing, aren't they? Oh whatever floats, Steve and George. I would have saved that one for Indiana Jones and the Creepy Creoles or something like that.
The fight scenes are done really well. Indy is scrappy and tricksy and even tries to rescue the head henchman from a gruesome death (as a hero should). He fails but the effort put into it shows character.
Speaking of the fight scenes: Short Round can take about as many bad guys at the same time as Indy can. Like I mentioned before: This is really his movie. Indy is just the dream big brother he has tagging along.
Willy is fucking useless. She had exactly one scene where what she did was relevant (saving Indy and Short Round out of that trap-room). Before and after that she only screams. A real step down from Marion, from which the franchise would never recover.
Also, Willy has the same name as my grandfather. Which makes me even more angry now that I realized it.
The cart ride is, of course, another iconic moment. Copied a million times, this is peak Spielberg/Lucas. I don't have much else to say about it.
The callback to the sword-to-a-gunfight-scene from the earlier movie is a nice touch – although the fact that this movie takes place bevore the first one implies that Indy just regularly guns down swordsmen. He cannot recall the scene from the last movie like we do.
The rope bridge is also iconic, although to a lesser extent. I like the use of the fact that Indy and Short Round are the only people present who speak Chinese.
Is Indy actually posessed for a moment while the stones drop out of his pouch? I believe so.
The happy end is the colonial forces gunning down the savage rebels. Now that's a political message you don't get to see often these days.
Speaking of rebels: Why bows and arrows? We saw them with rifles and I'm pretty sure I even spotted a machine gun or two in the mines.
Rescuing the village is character development for the Indiana Jones we saw in the beginning of the movie.
Don't pretend like Willy and Indy have any kind of future together, please.
What happened to Short Round after this story? The boy was extremely capable. And dreaming of going to America. Did Indy just ditch him somewhere?
It is the weakest of the three only existing Indiana Jones movies but still entertaining enough. The long action sequence that is the second half is cool to watch and until then you have Short Round to carry the film. It holds up on that end. We'll see how the third movie fares, when I rewatch that.
So I decided that I need some gaming to
relax my mind. Like, really relax it. That got me an idea: What if I
take an old favourite of mine, Sir, You Are Being Hunted, and turn it
into a walking simulator? No threat. Just the moody, gloomy, but
ultimately pretty and relaxing British countryside and the need to
eat every once in a while? The game certainly makes that possible,
without having to be modded or anything. So I got to work:
No evil robots appearing with these
settings. It'll be just me and some wildlife. Perhaps I can even hunt
and cook a pheasant? Never done that in the game before, I was always
too afraid of lighting a fire and didn't want to waste ammunition. I
let the British Countryside Generator do its thing and then go into
the game world.
After the short tutorial-steps that
always start the game, I decide to head for the nearest village.
Since I'm not a man on the run, I walk there leisurely and don't
cross the field. Wouldn't want to trample someone's harvest. I make
my way along the fence, through a small thicket and then reach Leafy
Eating.
Despite the sign at the village
entrance, the place is calm and quiet. As I need some supplies for
the exploration to come, I go looting all the houses like I would in
a regular game of Sir – albeit at a much slower pace. In real life
I wouldn't run in this situation, so why should I do that here?
As night starts to fall, I head towards
a ruined farm next to the village. I do something I never do in a
regular game of Sir and switch on the flashlight I found in one of
the houses.
This makes exploration a lot easier. I
now feel a bit like I'm urban exploring. Nice.
I make my way along the road towards
the next village. It's called Kings Burrow.
Since I'm starting to get
thirsty/hungry, I chug down a bottle of sherry, to the usual effect.
Drunkenly I stagger through the deserted village.
And then, sobering up, down the road
towards Nimby Tweaking in-the-Wold.
I gather whatever the residents of
Nimby Tweaking have left behind and seems useful to me. Then I tetris
my inventory so it looks nice and ordered. I think I'm ready for a
nice hike on one of the outlying islands.
The road going through Nimby Tweaking
terminates around a large, dead tree. Where I'm from this would be
the village oak.
I follow coast towards the first boat.
I plan to collect the teleporter bits on the centre island last. So,
next up: The North Island.
It's a calming experience to play this
game like that. Birds are chirping. I met a hare. It's a bit like
playing a homeless person in a post-apocalyptic Britain. But the nice
kind of apocalypse, that left nature intact and only removed most
people.
My firstborn and I have been inspired by some YouTube-videos to reverse engineer Gaslands into a game we can play for free. Started by building our first vehicles to do battle with:
The black one is by my son. It has a double medium machine gun on an outrigger that can swing 90° to the right. It also has three rifles on the hood and a reinforced bumper. Mine is the red one. It has two light machine guns on the hood but the main armament is the ram in the front coupled with four nitrous injection systems.
We took two toy cars we had (the kids recently haven't been playing with them anyways) and modded them with plastic bits that were left over from a set of Warhammer 40k Tau scouts my son uses as an army for One Page Rules GDF Firefight. I ground a mesh-pattern into the windshield of my car, attached drone parts as motor bits, added some pockets and pouches on the door and doodads for machine guns on the roof. Then I crafted the ram from leftover bits of plastic frame. Also some wire clippings for the side windows.
We played some duels for testing* and I've been refining our rules. The game already supports vehicles from motorcycles up to war rigs of theoreticall limitless size. It has a wide array of weaponry and funcioning rules for maneuvering (it lacks the slides and out-of-control-spins that the original Gaslands has – if you want the original, buy it. Seriously, buy Gaslands, it's a great game!). We'll make some more vehicles until the year is over. Perhaps I'll even write a rules-doc in English and publish it on my itch page.
*All of which my son won. While his car costs 22 points vs my 20 points I believe it is more likely due to the fact that in a 1 vs. 1 fight the car with more firepower has a nice advantage. In a melee with more participants, things may work out differently.
It's a the adventure I played on a long car ride with my son, as written down in this post. It was meant to be played with Arnold K.'s Copper GLOG but can probably be easily adapted an dumped into any sufficiently weird/magical play world. Wherever a twenty-kilometer-tall giant may have existed somewhere in the very distant past.
I love Zeppelins. Not blimps. Airships. Rigid structure, an aerodynamic hull around a series of gas chambers. That sort of thing. Now for the past year or so my older son and I have sometimes dabbled in One Page Rules Grimdark Future FTL Warfleets. The rules are simple enough (two pages, not one, but one may argue that you can print double-sided). But it takes place in space. My son loves it. I like it too. But I feel one could do an airship mod.
Working on it. Of course.
Now airships _were_ used as weapons of war for a couple of years that included World War I. Afterwards there were some attempts to have them in a military role by the victorious powers. The USA built the USS Akon, which was a flying aircraft carrier – although more of a scouting vessel than made for direct sorties against hostile targets. I think the British and French also built them. Germany wasn't allowed the big toys anymore after the Treaty of Versailles so the greatest fans of the technology only built civilian airships.
A little aside on those: The Graf Zeppelin was the vessel which I personally would want to travel on if I ever got my hands on a time machine. Global readers will associate the term Zeppelin with the Hindenburg, however. It was known for two things: Having swastikas on its tailfins and spectacularly (and on camera!) going up in flames. Two things to save the honor of that airship: The Nazis didn't like Zeppelins because by that time airplanes were faster, more reliable and had more range than before and they thought the Zeppelin technology to be of no use for the military. The swastikas on the tailfins were not supposed to show how nazi the ship was but simply the national flag at the time. As for the fireball: The Hindenburg was designed to be run with (nonflammable) helium gas. But pre-war sanctions against Germany meant that the one big producer of helium at the time, the USA, didn't deliver that gas so they had to go with hydrogen, which has somewhat (8%) greater lift and far greater risk.
Alright, aside's over, let's talk about these hypothetical war Zeppelins. An airship is mostly gas-bags and the structure supporting them. The gondolas, both for command/control and with motors, are tiny attachments to that. Yet, an airship cannot carry all that much additional cargo/ammunition/personell. One cubic meter of helium only lifts something like 1.1 Kilogramms. That is not much and the reason, airships were so large.
So if we're gonna make a tabletop game out of this, we'd have to assume helium as lift-gas and ignore fire and loss of lift due to damage entirely. I dislike my games to be bogged down by to many detailed rules. Ships in Grimdark Future have between two (light) and four (heavy) ship systems. I'd go one lower for my airship mod because installing a cannon on such a craft is a big deal. Also, ships in the original game have turrets that become more powerful for the bigger craft. Airships will have a set of machine gun emplacements around their hull which means they all have the same base "turret" weaponry.
What weapons could one sensibly attach to an airship? Bombs (the most common weapon for such craft historically) are, of course, irrelevant in air-to-air battles. But there are other options:
Machine Gun Battery: If you expect to encounter lots of enemy planes trying to swarm you, this would be a sensible option. It simply means that there are _more_ machine guns on your ships - with the respective crews to fire them.
Anti Air Howitzer: I suppose an airship can carry a heavy infantry howitzer like mountain troops used to lug around. 150mm caliber, airburst-ammunition – this would be the king of weapons in the skies.
PomPom Battery: Heavier than machine guns, heavier than even heavy machine guns. The PomPom was a maxim machine gun upscaled to a 1-inch-caliber and did indeed see use as an anti-aircraft-weapon in WWI.
Dumbfire Rocket Rack: Just a bunch of rockets to saturate a distant area of the sky with explosions and shrapnell. The original game already has something like this which barely needs any modifications to work.
Wire Guided Missile System: This is the sniping weapon of the game, I guess. It could be made even though it is more of a WWII-kind of technology. We are doing Dieselpunk here so I guess it'll be alright.
3"-AA-Battery: This is the broadside-weapon in this system. Imagine like two cannons per side of the airship, firing smallish howitzer-rounds.
With weaponry out of the way, what ship systems would seem somewhat plausible?
Reinforced Structure: Your typical armour-upgrade. HP instead of anything actively useful.
Crew Parachutes: Good for morale if you play with such a thing.
Extra Motor Gondola: More speed!
Weapon Swivel-Mount: Choose one of your weapons. It can now turn 360 degrees. I imagine it's hanging below the ship.
Advanced Fire Control: Hit better.
Airplane Support Bays: Helps the swarms of fighters around you somehow.
Turret-Upgrade: Replaces the generic MGs with PomPoms?
Harpoon-Cannons: Entangle an enemy ship. This makes sense if you are smaller and want to hinder a larger craft from participating in the fight more.
This is missing rules for boarding, which I bemoan. I once met a nice oder lady at a lecture on airships who was not only leader of a club of Zeppelin-enthusiasts but also the granddaughter of Germanys only air corsair (the man had, in WWI, actually captured a Norwegian seagoing vessel with his airship). I believe that boarding may be unrealistic but is cool enough that it should be an option (in the base game as well - send over those space marines with boarding pods!). Have to think about it but I fear it would complicate things too much.
What exactly makes a dungeon a dungeon? I've previously thought about the minimum size of one but the very nature is something else entirely. I've been working on a series of novellas lately (expect a link to the release of the first one in October – but it'll be in German) and started wondering, what of the adventures my hero has actually constitutes a dungeon.
I believe that there are three hard factors and a checklist of soft factors that make a location into a dungeon. Of course, your personal definition may vary but this one is mine:
A dungeon must be an enclosed location. Open air maze? No dungeon. A dungoen must have some sort of treasure in it. That treasure can be abstract, like an information, knowledge etc.
Now it also needs to confirm with my minimum dungeon size (see link above) so:
A dungeon must not be completely visible from the entrance. If it's just a single, unobstructed room, that's no dungeon.
Let's talk about soft factors. The dungeon should have at least two of these (and it can be multiples in the same category):
A dungeon should have an obstacle. A dungeon should have a riddle. A dungeon should have a trap. A dungeon should have an enemy.
These make up the dungeon-score. Let's put the thing to the test using Indiana Jones (because I'm writing pulp adventure and don't want to spoil my own stories.
The temple in the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark:
-Is an enclosed location. -Has a very obvious treasure. -Is pretty damn big and cannot be overseen from anywhere.
So check for the hard factors. Soft factors? -Has an obstacle (pit that Indy and his lackey swing across). -Has a riddle (the trap trigger underneath the golden idol). -Has (at least) three traps (spikes, arrow-launchers, stone-ball self destruct mechanism) -Whether or not it has an enemy is arguable but let's say it doesn't.
So it comes out with a dungeon score of five. Pretty good.
The excavation site in Egypt in Raiders of the Lost Ark:
-Is an enclosed location. -Has treasure in the form of information: Where is the Ark? -Has nooks and corners.
Check for thard factors. Let's go to the soft factors: -Has an arguable obstacle: Indy needs to climb into the place, after all. -Has a really cool riddle with that staff and the light and all.
This one comes out with a dungeon score of just two but that's enough to qualify (if not much more than that).
The well of souls in Egypt in Raiders of the Lost Ark:
-Is an enclosed location. -Has arguably the most valuable treasure in the world. -Has nooks, corners, and even hidden rooms full of mummies.
Hard factors are check. Soft factors? -Has the same arguable obstacle of needing to climb into it. -Has another obstacle in the shape of a wall Indy must tear down. -Has what is either a trap or an enemy in the form of swarms of snakes.
So it has a dungeon score of three. I have this as a Lego set sitting next to me (my kids gave it to me as a birthday gift). Love it.
If you haven't watched Godzilla Minus One, do so. This text will contain spoilers and the movie is (very) good. Don't believe me, believe Kevin Smith. Or even my wife who said that the film was alright - that's very high praise for a kaiju-movie coming from her. So, spoilers ahead.
On a longish car ride (your definition
of what constitutes a long car ride may greatly vary), my older son
and I played a session of Copper GLOG, as invented by my favourite
ttrpg-blogger of all times, Arnold K. For our randomizer we used
even/uneven licence plate end numbers (foreign ones didn't count even
if they did end in a number) of cars we passed or that passed us,
depending on what came first.
My son chose a ratling warrior as his
character class – Fighter level 1, good skill sneaking, special
equipment: Bow and arrow. He was sent by his clan to rescue the
princess of his clan, the forest ratlings. She had been kidnapped by
goblins, presumably for some higher-up ruler, and dragged to the
Discarded Giant's Boot, a one-index-card-dungeon I had made up
sometime last year. The nameless ratling hero started before the
gaping maw of the enormous boot (the entrance into it is about half a
kilometer wide), a mountain cave made out of leather of an ancient
beast of titanic proportions.
The ratling managed to sneak into the
boot's shaft, which contained the hovels of a goblin village.
Listening to two of the greenskins converse in one of the huts he
found out that the princess had been brought into the boot's tip. He
left the goblin village, going deeper into the boot. There was little
light coming from holes rotted into the thick leather roof, otherwise
it was a detritus-strewn dark cave. A random encounter got our hero
his first fight: A giant flea (Level 1) attacked. The ratling managed
to fend it off but got hurt in the fight, losing one of his two HP.
He decided to take lunch and move on,
triggering another random encounter, this time with a herd of fleas
herded by goblin herdsmen, who were driving their disgusting flock
towards the village. A successful stealth check meant that the
ratling was undiscovered but listening to the goblins only revealed
dirty songs the goblin herdsmen were singing.
Delving deeper into the boot, the hero
found himself with the choice of going left towards the boot's tip or
into a hole gnawed into the heel, where the goblins presumably were
mining leather. He decided to explore the leather mine first, went
inside and found himself in a hollowed-out area with a big mushroom
surrounded by slime on the floor, out of which half-finished goblins
were growing. This was their mothershroom, the place where the
goblins of the village spawned. On the far end, he could make out
cages.
He decided to investigate, sneaking
around the half-grown goblins and reaching the caves. One contained
five of the fleas, one contained a desiccated skeleton, one a live
ratling who begged to be released. The hero freed the prisoner and
gave him his bow and arrow, making a Friend for the rest of the
adventure. The two of them, however, failed to sneak out – and had
to fight their way through four half-grown goblins (Level 0). They
succeeded after a long and somewhat tedious battle, losing no HP in
the process.
Despite the freed prisoner's fear of
the deeper areas of the boot, they pressed onwards towards the tip.
They managed to sneak past a giant earwig (Level 2) and saw the lit
entrance of a wooden house at the end of the cavernous boot-cave. The
house was larger than human-sized (enormous for two ratlings, who
stand about a meter tall in our world) and guarded by two goblins.
One of them was asleep, the other was picking his nose – the Friend
killed both with well-placed arrows.
The two ratlings had to stand on top of
each other in order to reach the doorknob. They did and went into the
house. On the ground floor, the first door lead into a room full of
cages. Six of them contained princesses: The ratling princess, an orc
princess, a human princess, an aelph princess, a beetle princess and
a kobold princess. The princesses told the two ratlings that the keys
to their prison were in the posession of the Orgre (Level 3, two
attacks) whose house this was. He was planning to make a Princess
Stew, the recipe of which demanded for eight different types of
princess.
The two ratlings snuk up the stairs to
confront the monster. The orgre had been lying on his bed but smelled
the two newcomers enter his bedroom. Grabbing two huge butcher-knives
from the nightstand, he got up and a healthbar grew on the bottom of
the screen and boss-music started. The two Level-1-ratlings had a
difficult time with this boss monster but in the end were successful.
The nameless hero slew the ogre with one HP left and the resusciated
his Friend who was at 0 HP. He'd have to stay in the back, shooting
arrows, from now on.
The two heroes freed all six princesses
from their cages – and then armed them with oversized kitchen
utensils. They princesses counted as a Swarm of Princesses (Level 6,
fights as level 0 single creature but has Lvl HP). The group left the
house and went back towards the heel of the boot.
On the way a random encounter delivered
an agressive giant earwig their way. The ratling hero attacked in
close combat, the princesses did too and the Friend fired arrows. In
the end, the hero had to be patched up after the battle (0 HP) but
the group succeeded. This marked the occasion of the hero leveling up
(10x current level in XP; Defeating monsters results in Monster-Lvl
XP). Now level 2 he'd be a better fighter still but do not gain an
additional HP yet.
At the leather mine into the heel, the
ratlings decided that a large-scale distraction was needed if the
group was to get through the goblin village and leave the boot. They
snuk past the mothershroom and freed the captive giant fleas which
fled into the larger cave, spooking the herds of fleas the goblins
were keeping and causing widespread chaos, pandemonium and
destruction.
A failed stealth-roll led to the
princesses each having to do a roll on their survival. Luckily, only
two of them didn't make it out: The human princess and the beetle
princess died upon trying to get through the chaos of the goblin
village. Five rescued prisoners brought our hero another five XP. He
had also accomplished the mission (rescue the ratling princess) and
made some valuable new allies. With the ogre dead, the goblins would
soon be subject to a new ruler and we decided it would make sense for
the orc princess to return with a retinue of her warriors to now
become ruling queen of the discarded giant's boot.
The whole thing took about three hours
of play time, which we spent with some interruptions, whenever I had
to concentrate on more complicated parts of the road. The simple
resolution system makes for an easy way of playing hands-free and the
minimal bookkeeping helps as well. You can only use a simple dungeon
if you want to keep it all in your head – I did cheat in that by
placing one dungeon (the ogre's house) inside another dungeon (the
giant's boot). But keep it simple and this works just fine. Thanks,Arnold!
