Sudsy's Tactics

04FEB12 Update!

2012-02-04T14:52:00.000-08:00

Well, I've certainly been finding myself a bit more involved in working with folks in the OGL game writing crowd. At least on the 'starter' side, by signing up for the various forums and seeing what I can do to put myself to work using my peculiar talent for drawing.

I posted more wargame/RPG map making resources on Deviant Art, do check out the Free Resource page up at the top! With the new Blogger format, I'm able to post more pages behind the blog (or in front). I'll link into Deviant Art, and see about find some other reputable file cabinet sites that will host files in the various image formats needed for editing. Recommendations are welcome...

Legion of Myth Game Reviews...

2012-02-01T16:39:00.000-08:00

The Guild Legion of Myth has a fairly new format for reviewing tabletop, board, and pen and paper RPG's...

So far I've written several reviews, beginning with my favorite board game, Ogre/GEV.

I'm fortunate that it doesn't matter when the game was published, and in fact most of what we all seem to enjoy is currently out of print at the present time! Its a wonderful community over there as they embrace all forms of games with a focus on PC MMORPG's with Star Wars: The Old Republic being the current active guild. At the moment due to computer limitations, I'm now focusing all my efforts in the realm of either older computer games or table top gaming. Can't say its a bad thing.

Other game games that I've reviewed to date are:

Don Quixote (board)

Stars Without Number (RPG)

GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars (GURPS 4E RPG Sourcebook)

I have several other RPG rules sets and sourcebooks I'll knock out this year as well. I have the Mongoose Traveller RPG rules which I think I wrote about once before, and the "Hammers Slammers" Sourcebook! I've also had the opportunity to get a couple play sessions of the WotC D20 Star Wars RPG (Revised Core Rules) with a friend recently. That one might lead to some interesting cartoons...

Boardgame wise, I'm hoping to get a good meaningful play session of Conan in sometime. We'll see if that happens... I certainly don't want it to collect any more dust!

16JAN12, I missed 2011!

2012-01-16T20:32:00.000-08:00

Yes folks, I completely failed to provide any viable game updates in the year 2011 despite a great year that it was! I'm sorry folks...

...so I'll give some brief points, and do better in 2012!

-I played some board games with a local group. It was certainly fantastic! I even got to play a go of Ogre in the Advanced Scenario as a Mk V against a gamer who played the first edition of the game!

-I signed up on Consim World. Just another social network focused on games... Not much to report there...

So, on to 2012.

11OCT10 My small contribution to Gaming!

2010-10-11T22:12:00.000-07:00

Irregular Magazine has accepted and published two of my illustrations in their Autumn 2010 issue with the theme "Magic"! So here is my small contribution to the traditional miniature wargaming and role playing game community!

You can download Irregular Magazine every quarter at http://www.irregularmagazine.com/!

I first discovered this wonderful publication on Facebook, and have since gone back every quarter as it contains the content I made this blog about (for the most part), traditional table top gaming! It covers miniatures, board games, and RPG's of all genre and eras; from historical ancients and fantasy, to the furthest reaches of the future!

28AUG10 N-scale/10mm vehicle discussion

2010-08-28T17:33:00.000-07:00

I've recently discovered that N-scale works great for the 10mm wargamer in some respects, and vice versa; depending on the company making the product! However, I obtained these N-scale 1:160th scale vehicles due to my wife and father in law being into N-scale layouts (which also make good wargame tables... or wargames tables make good places to set up N-scale layouts... Good justification to the wife for setting up a 10mm armor collection and playing surfaces!). Besides, thats been a dichotomy between two hobbies for decades. I'm behind the times in learning these little tricks! For more on scale, check out the Wikipedia article about wargaming and hobby scales! I know I've got to put a bookmark there myself...

First off, lets knock out vehicles that are okay for wargaming, but really, really, really would piss off the most precise type A personality realism N-scale hobbyist! Noble Miniatures makes some N-scale "Trackside Treasures" vehicles of which my wife purchased me the WWII US Jeeps (TT-2101) and 1940's Studabaker 2 1/2 Ton Trucks (TT-2117).

What I like about these, is that they are durable enough that I can probably transport them and play games with them without concern about anything breaking. For the N-scale model railroader, the molding will drive you insane! I had a mold mark 1/16 of an inch halfway up the canvas cover on the back of the deuce and a half i assembled! However, for the wargamer, this is a minor problem. We like realism and quality molds too, but its not as critical to wargaming as it is to realistic model railroading. Both of these vehicles took me only a few minutes to clean up and assemble with some CA glue. Do be aware, they do contain lead. Don't let your kids play with them like toys, and take precautions you always take with lead (though I'm sure the EPA will ban these figures someday...). You'll best find these kits at your local model retailer as if you go to the manufacturers website, its not entirely user friendly and geared toward the dealer and not the modeler... Not a bad thing as its intended to give your local dealer your business!

Finally, we come to the masterpiece. I doubt there is a more experienced company producing high quality kits and accessories for both wargamers and model railroaders than GHQ! While I know them best for their Microarmor, I was pleasantly surprised when I ran across their M1A2 kit (GHQ Stock # 58003) at my father in laws favorite train store in Omaha NE. I've known about the kit, just didn't see it until I was there. My jaw just about hit the floor, and I had to buy two kits... and a flat car... and some chain... And I had the intention of mounting them to said flat car for my wife's train. Until I assembled one!

Now I think I'll need to get a few more... At least to start an Armor Company, and get some Bradley IFV's and Modern US Infantry to go with them! Then I'll make a flat car load...

The stainless steel photo etched racks were intimidating to me at first, mainly because I've got very limited experience with photo etched parts (see my Stryker article for my first experiences!). However, for as small as they were, they went together VERY WELL, and were indeed pre-scored at the fold points where required for ease of construction. The casting on the turret was darn near perfect and required little clean-up. I had no problem finding the small holes for the photo etched parts to be glued to!

I'll take the GHQ vehicles on and off the wargames table any day! The detail they can pack into that small package, and the fact that the PE parts are stainless, makes it both highly realistic and durable for the wargamer. Obviously, the most type-A realism model railroader would be exceedingly happy with the minimal work they will have to put into super detailing these tanks for their railroad!

Here are all of the vehicles for a good realistic size comparison. Each square of the cutting mat is 1/2".

Not bad, obviously the Abrams dwarfs them both! I remember my days as a 'crunchy' as the tankers would call anyone not in an Abrams! Anytime I was out in the field at Ft. Riley or the National Training Center and heard the sound of an Abrams approach, I'd wake from a dead slumber and ensure that they weren't coming at my humvee without noticing I was there!

28AUG10 My Tabletop Wargaming Surface!

2010-08-28T17:10:00.001-07:00

My standard surface is set by this construction. I now plan to construct my surfaces using 1/4” plywood, and 2”x2” lumber. Currently, the sheets I used were 2' x 4' project sheets. I cut my 2”x2”s to provide a nice frame with two supports in the middle. Currently, my entire surface can be 4'x4'. Very soon however, I intend to build two more with the same terrain and have a 4'x8' surface.

Pictured here is the completed surfaces prior to any paint application. I've used an 'orange peel' texture spray available at my local hardware store (in my area its a Sentry Hardware, the Fairbanks location is where I work upstairs in Frontier Outfitters at the gun counter part time... So, I get a good deal!).

My intention is to turn the surface into a winter landscape, perhaps a nice tundra! Why not! I live in Alaska, and am surrounded by inspiration for such terrain nine months out of the year! Winter warfare is definitely more modern (with a few notable exceptions, however those exceptions exemplify the concept of Winter Camp when you look at the climate casualties... Why do you think George Washington got such a drop on the Hessian camp!).

28AUG10 Appendectomy, good for my quieter indoor habits, like gaming!

2010-08-28T16:26:00.000-07:00

Koldfoot from &Games can attest the fact that summers up here are busy. So busy in fact that we all feel compelled to keep moving and not sit down for long. Well, with only about three, maybe four months tops, of good weather can you blame us? We've got to get the entire outdoors in beautiful weather knocked out! Which leads to my biggest gaming downtime of all... It all culminates in the Moose season (opens next month!) and then slows down a bit as we are forced inside by the elements more and more (even the trappers spend more time inside cabins along the trap lines!). Winter comes, and the board game, table top, and computer games (due to lack of opponents during the exact hours of my toddlers nap times...) come to the forefront more.

However, this summer, I got hit hard and have to stay inside more. At the moment, I'm recovering from an appendectomy. Last Sunday I started with a sore stomach that led into going to the Emergency Room and then under the knife to have it removed. BAM! There goes a week of high intensity outdoor time! Not to worry, it game me some endless hours of reading contemplation (when I wasn't acting as conflict management for toddlers...) for several game related activities!

First, I'll publish the game table pictures. BEFORE I got sick, I was actually actively working on a game table for my miniatures. Then I'll publish some miniature stuff for 10mm/N-Scale vehicles from some kits my wife and I found in Omaha NE at a model train store. Finally, I'll get some pictures of some nice print and play free sample modules from Amarillo Design Bureau who took over the license for Star Fleet Battles after Task Force Games went under!

I'll get this blog updated! Hopefully I'll get some games action in this fall and winter!

20JUL10 The RPG Tank...

2010-07-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

Be very careful what you tell players, in fact, you might want to clarify depending on genre... After all, with a game system like GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System by Steve Jackson Games, www.sjgames.com) you certainly have to. After all, you never know what sourcebook a player might have picked up and what kind of character they slipped into your game world! Yes, I'm such a Munchkin...

Most references to various games are Copyright Steve Jackson Games. "Bolo" is reference to the giant cyber tanks which are the brain child of Keith Laumer (and an inspiration to S.J. and crew) along with "Gottlos" being the cyborg tank idea of Colin Kapp (Analog Collected works Number 8, picked up at a library book sale years ago!). Fans of "Ogre/GEV" will instantly recognize the references to the orignal ideas that inspired Ogre.

What can I say, I find the idea of giant self aware tanks that pack enough firepower to match an armored company pretty fun as a science fiction game concept. My roleplaying game experience is pretty limited, so when I first heard 'tank' in reference to Fantasy RPG's you can imagine the devious thoughts that went through my head. As I've been a GURPS book reader and Ogre player since the age of 12... The fact that I have some friends who might play a GURPS Fantasy module and I have GURPS Ogre on my shelf...

Science Fiction Ground Forces Echelons

2010-05-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

Just a few thoughts, most of this chart is what is currently used by military organizations throughout the world. The Echelons above Theater/Region were created on this chart using diamonds as a simple symbol that can be put on military mapping graphics. Its free to use by anyone (just attribute the use of diamonds appropriately, but really I don't care). I came up with the idea sitting on TOC shift in Iraq a few years ago emailing science fiction ideas back and forth with my Dad in my off time. While it seems to fit cozy, I'm sure, like in reality, nothing fits perfectly! After all, a Planetary Forces command might only have a Brigade sized element at its command on a small moon orbiting some forsaken gas giant... And be listed as a Planetary Force Command much to the dismay of another PFC officer on some dirt ball with several Theater Commands under him (yeah, he'd be pretty pissed to have to address someone with fewer forces as an equal!).

So, go make some games or write some good roleplaying adventures using this structure! It could lead to some incredible fun (say, would a giant self aware cyber tank count as a Team or an entire Armored Battalion?)!

References:
Other than the numerous military publications available, an nice online article to read is Wikipedia's on Military Organization

17DEC09 Games Workshop Killing Fanboys off?! From SA to ST!

2009-12-16T23:37:00.000-08:00

A shameless plug for my weekly webcomic... A fairly rare twice a week post this week, containing gaming commentary as opposed to political commentary!

Figured I'd do an editorial about entertainment this time for a Thursday Special! Luckily I don't watch TV so I'll rarely mention TV programing (unless its old and I watch it on DVD without commercials...). One of my favorite hobbies is wargaming, and in this case its table top wargaming in the Science Fiction genre with Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000. Sadly, the Games Workshop has sent out their legal department on a Witch Hunt (pun intended for WH fans...) on a grand scale! Nobody really expected that the Inquisition would come down this hard on the fanboys! Understandably, there is some violation of copyrights that do indeed need to be addressed by the Cease and Desist letters. However, they've gone overly obnoxious in enough cases to leave anyone making 'fan art' nervous. Where will Games Workshop draw the line between protecting IP legitimately (by ensure the rules and supplement information critical to the game and their bottom line are protected) and going overboard by shutting down fan created content (possibly someones eBay/online auction store as they liquidate their miniatures, or online galleries containing fan generated artwork)? Recently one of the biggest sites dedicated to good ol' fashioned board and table top games was hit by the GW Legal Inquisition's latest C&D letters, Boardgame Geek. Obviously many fans reacted rather rashly prior to the full scope of the letter being published. Luckily Seth Owen at the blog Pawnderings is a good logical gamer who chronicled these events the last few months (hence all the links to his blog posts...) and came out with the best Lessons Learned statement about the event addressing both sides of the issue.

I'm a fan of Games Workshop. From my perspective here in Fairbanks Alaska where you only see Warhammer 40,000 or War Machine games in any quantity, I feel they've done a lot to keep the table top miniature game world afloat. Too many companies are going to cheap vinyl pre-painted miniatures with little regard for scale while GW has diversified from mostly pewter to loads of injection molded figures with better sculpting and detail. However, they come at great cost (to my modest budget!), and now they act in a rather rash manner themselves protecting their IP?! I enjoy the simplicity of the rules and the system, and am absolutely impressed with their Lord of the Rings line of product (George Lucas, you'd better pay attention...), but with this aggressive legal action against the fans, the very foundation of games, in this economy?! I suspect its only a matter of time before they end up going the way of TSR which used similar tactics during the infancy of the Internet... Where is TSR? Wizards of the Coast did a great deed and put Dungeons and Dragons back on top, and not just by re-vamping it with the D20 system, but by having an Open Gaming License that allowed other publishers and fans to produce material. Hmm... Sounds solid. Fan support has also kept many abandoned games alive, some may even see revival in a better economy, check out Dwarfstar Games and Warp War. While not terribly impressive at first, its amazing what a little fan loyalty will do for some games... At least keep them alive. If a company treats the fans right, their product could live on forever on the Internet... But thats too high minded of an ideal sometimes... Even if it means losing even more money while trying to recover 'lost profits' for a miniature game by hammering down on images on the Internet!

Can't beat the Classics!

2009-08-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's trip to the local game/comic shop, The Comic Shop (on the corner of 3rd Street and Steese in Fairbanks AK) resulted in some solid gold finds, both of which are either as old or based on material older than myself.

First off, I finally picked up Steve Jackson's classic card game of conspiracy, Illuminati, which was published about the time I was born in 1982. I can understand why its remained an off and on classic that has been through so many printings. Its good, silly, paranoid fun! My wife and I played a game last night, and I was surprised by how much she enjoyed the game!

As always, it started off slow with us both referencing and arguing about the rules (especially about how many money transfers you get within a turn...). We drew our cards, and she was playing "The Network" and I played the "Bavarian Illuminati". Her goal was to amass a total of 25 points of 'transferable' power (to include The Network's 7 points...) while my Bavarian Illuminati had only to collect a grand total of 35 points of power total (including my 10 points for my Illuminati). Game play is simple, each player starts out with just their Illuminati group, which attacks and takes over un-controlled groups drawn from the deck at the beginning of the players turn. Each group you take over has the ability to use its power to take over other groups (some have none and remain dead ends however...). Each group also has its own Power, Resistance (how well they resist take-over by other groups), and Income. Taking over groups with groups is a matter of using the Power of the attacker, subtracting the resistance, and then rolling equal to or under that number (say a Power 10 group attacks a Resistance 5 group, they must roll a 5 or less to do so...). Some groups, like the Illuminati you start with, can transfer a few points (or all) of their power to assist other groups; this along with spending Mega-Bucks will result in better die rolls. However, rolling a 11 or 12 results in an automatic failure, which is great as that leaves a chance of failure no matter how much money you spend and how hard you try...

Last nights game resulted in the Bavarian Illuminati taking over the world through conquest of "Multi-National Oil Companies", "TV-Preachers", "The Tri-Liberal Council", "Democratic Party", and a few others I've since forgotten. However, these combined with my Illuminati's power resulting in a "Special Goal" victory of 35 points of amassed power! The only other way to win is through knocking off the other player by ensuring they don't take any group over for three turns in a row (and just have their Illuminati card)...

Overall, it was fun, now we are going to play again tonight!!

Now, the best part was finding a Traveller RPG supplement for David Drake's 'Hammers Slammers' series! Folks who have glanced at my blog the last year or so will remember when I posted the Black Five interview with David Drake with great glee! While not a lot of games have been made officially, Drake's military SF has had a massive influence on the hobby of wargaming and SF roleplaying games. Mostly, I described the influence seen in 'Stargrunt II' and 'Dirtside II' along with some rules and models by Old Crow and Pireme Press. Now, Mongoose Press has released a "Hammer's Slammers" Traveller supplement for their edition of the classic Traveller RPG rules! While I don't have the current Traveller book by MGP, I have read an original 1977 1st ed. of the Traveller Book years ago from the Security Public Library in my home town, many, many, many times. Even if I'd lacked that familiarity, I'd have still enjoyed reading the detailed information in this book about David Drake's 'Hammers Slammers' universe! Now, I need to hit the library and find more in this series to read...

I do however take issue with some of the artwork; gratuitous use of photos and just using clone brushes in Photoshop hardly does this book justice. I enjoyed the technique when it involved the Old Crow models, however, they went way too far when they used DoD photos... Way to recognizable as today's equipment and men, with little real effort to paint a picture of the Drake equipment... In my opinion. However, the cover is one of the finest pieces of art (go figure!), and there are some fantastic portraits of the Hammer's personnel that were clearly done from just about scratch. I strongly suspect, time was running out and deadlines were close on this project, and some of the art seems to reflect that... MGP really needs to give that particular part of the book a good overhaul, other than that, fantastic!

07AUG09, Role Playing Game (RPG) myths...

2009-08-07T14:44:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest is that Dungeons and Dragons leads to Satanism. Fascinating article I dug up on Wikipedia after reading about Gary Gygax. Ms Patricia Pulling was a troubled individual. Her son committed suicide by shooting himself, and she goes off on a crusade to sue TSR Inc. and the school principal due to some connection between her son's death and Dungeons and Dragons. She formed the organization Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons, and went along with her crusade against the occult.

My own mother was quite convinced. However, evidence shows otherwise, and the are much worse vices that cause far greater harm to youth than RPG's and 'the occult'. Her cases all lost in court. To include some where she was an 'expert advisor' on. Why did they lose? Because she had little working knowledge of the occult, and in her book "The Devil's Web: Who is Stalking Your Children for Satan", she actually encourages Law Enforcement to question suspected teen occultists to ask "Have you read the Necronomicon, or are you familiar with it?" For anyone who may not know (don't be embarrassed, I didn't know until I was 20 myself...) the Necronomicon only exists in the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft and other fantasy/horror authors (or movies like "Bruce Campbell Vs. Army of Darkness"!). In 1990, Michael A. Stackpole went through and de-bunked a lot of the myths in the "Pulling Report".

If anything, RPG's are as benign as any other media that an individual might get 'hooked' on. Just look around and you'll see what I mean. Sports bars are a fine example... Sit around a TV, get drunk, obsess about a sport, and then riot when the ticker tape parade happens (Los Angeles!).

15JUN09 Lower Hull of the TACP Stryker is assembled...

2009-06-15T17:39:00.000-07:00

I've also given it its initial coat of paint, Vallejo #922 U.S.A Uniform from a WWII paint set. While its not precisely 'medium green' its as close as I've got and if memory serves me correct is about right for this Stryker! As a primer I'm using 1:1 scale Krylon Camouflage Olive Drab! I'm pretty impressed with how its working on the scale model!

Here are the PE parts I had in the earlier posting:

Not too shabby! Now I'm going to figure out where to go from here. I've got the loads of PE parts from Eduard for the Trumpeter kit, hopefully it will work on this version (needless to say, internet searches cannot come up with a separate product for the AFV Club kit...).

More to follow (I hope...).

09JUN09 AFV Club's M1130 CV TACP Stryker in 1:35th scale!

2009-06-09T19:04:00.000-07:00

A recent trip to my local hobby shop, Models Enterprises in Fairbanks, surprised me immensely. I found a 1:35th scale M1130 CV Stryker by AFV Club. That in and of itself is no surprise. What did surprise me however was the fact that they included parts to turn the CV into the TACP Stryker! I was one of the first Airmen in the Air Force to work out of one of those variants, my squadron at the time, the 3rd ASOS, and our brigade the 172nd Stryker Brigade were the first to receive this particular variant! Here is the AF.mil article dated 05MAY2005!

USAF Photo

Personal Photo

Let me give you some of the details about the TACP variant rollout that the AF.mil article, and the Pentagon News Channel didn't go over. Or actually, the fallout from the rollout footage and article...

USAF Photo

Personal Photo

As you can see by the camera man on the left side of the photo in between Strykers, the Pentagon News Channel filmed the event also! However, that lead to CMSgt of the Air Force (at the time) Murray seeing his Airmen wearing 'a damn Army uniform'. This resulted in a phone call to the 354th Operations Group Commander bitching about "What the hell are my Airmen doing wearing a damned Army uniform" (rumor... call is true however) which resulted in our squadron being informed NOT to wear ACU's and get DCU uniforms ready for the deployment. Fun, my DCU's were from 2002 and still had my Airman First Class stripes on them along with my Ft. Riley 1st Armor Division (3rd BDE was there in 2002 until recently when the 1st Infantry Division returned to Ft. Riley). I remember running around on Eielson AFB in DCU's for a couple weeks until a call came down informing us that we could wear the ACU's that were issued to us for this deployment!

Personal Photo

Now, on to the kit!

The four shock absorber covers on the lower hull, parts P-10 and P-11. Somehow, I managed to fold them correctly...

I assembled the photo etched parts (P-10 and P-11 respectively) that go over the shock absorbers pretty easily. The highlighted part is P-7, the photo etched bolt and washer. As long as you cut them out carefully, on a piece of wood and use your finger nail to hold them in place, they don't go flying. I managed to use moisture on my finger tip to pick them up and place them roughly in the right spot, then used my hobby knife to get them right where I wanted them before the CA glue dried up.

Here are some styrene bolt/washers that came attached to the side of the parts sprue A. These were the worst to attempt to work with mainly because I had to carefully shave them off without losing them! After that, aligning them was the hardest part. However, as you can see here, the results were rather rewarding!

This is as far as I am right now, I do have a large portion of the lower hull completed as far as drive train and axles in place, that will be another article here shortly.

27APR09 German Weaponry of WWII

2009-04-27T18:19:00.000-07:00

Here is a video of German weapons.

27APR09, WWII US Infantry Weapons Training clip

2009-04-27T17:48:00.000-07:00

Kudos to The Sniper for digging up this old fossil!

Great film for wargamers of the WWII period. At the very least, its fascinating to see the amount of penetration from the .30 Cal rifle, (.30-06) round.

10APR09 Guns and Gaming

2009-04-10T12:53:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I ran into Brian who runs the great gamer blog &games and had a good change of pace at work over at Frontier Outfitters. It was a good day for guns and gaming. Just a couple days ago I sold some .44 Mag dies (I own no .44 Mag revolvers... Long story, but I thought I might get one and so I bought reloading supplies for it, but then wound up getting a .45LC instead... For my wife... Years ago...) and used the cash to buy the board game Munchkin Quest to play with a buddy of mine who was getting ready to head back to Iraq. Not more than an hour after I get back to work from my lunch time shopping trip at Comic Shop, Brian walks up to the gun counter wearing a Boardgame Geek T-Shirt.

So, it was a good gun and gaming day yesterday. That its always great to meet the face behind a good blog!

27FEB09 First Map

2009-02-27T17:03:00.000-08:00

I did it! I finally combined Inkscape (to do the hex grid) with GIMP (to turn the .png exported from Inkscape into a multi-layer Photoshop Document .psd file) so I could use Painter X to paint the background! So, you have a small village with the well and a battle field with several choke points to fight over. So far, no numbers yet...

Nuts and Bolts (short version):

1. Using Inkscape, I made a .65 inch high hexagon with .03 inch width stroke for line weight. I also made sure my document preferences were for US Letter size paper... Important! Inkscape defaults to A4, most of its development is done in Europe! When I was happy with where my hex grid was, and its alignment, I exported the entire page to .png format which allows RASTR editors like Photoshop or the GIMP to read it as a picture instead of a scalable vector graphics (.svg) file.

2. Using the GIMP (or Photoshop if you are rich enough, I know you aren't a pirate, if you are you need to try the GIMP... I've used the CS Demo and I'm not impressed with Photoshop...) I loaded the .png file. It starts out as black lines on a transparent sheet! Thats fantastic! Thats what makes it handy! I added another layer that was opaque white and moved it behind the hex grid. If I wanted to, I could start making my maps now by working on layers underneath the hex grid! After getting the background in place, I saved the file as a Photoshop Document (.psd).

3. Finally, I loaded the .psd file into Painter X. Painter X put up a background layer called 'canvas' behind my white background, so I deleted the white background and proceeded to add layers and build my map. Finally, I saved a copy in the .RIFF format for further editing using Painter X and exported a copy as a .jpg which we see here!

There you go, baby steps! Turning terrible twos!

15JAN2009

2009-01-15T21:14:00.000-08:00

Playing with Pixen, I made a few good graphics for war games, be it computer or board type... I just don't know exactly how to apply it yet, but it'll happen someday I hope! I'm still learning Scribus and how to import my map grids from Inkscape. So far, nothing intelligible has been done that way yet...

Cavalry Scouts in Strykers

JTAC and ROMAD team (my old job!)

26DEC2008, Oolite/Elite...

2008-12-26T21:52:00.000-08:00

Starfalcon's Log 2084031:05:31
Ontiat
1107.7 Cr
Legal Status: Clean
Rating: Mostly Harmless (13)

Just made it to “Mostly Harmless” Rating a few kills ago. Mostly just running food from Agricultural Worlds to Industrial Worlds and back with a load of computers... Once I could afford the ECM, Beam Laser and Energy Bomb I just prayed I'd not run into anyone. But now, I don't need to run anymore. In fact, its kinda fun collecting bounties on Pirate scum! Scanner Targeting Enhancement has helped me PID the bad guys before they start shooting! Excellent! Fuel Scoops make bounties even more profitable. Maybe someday I'll get Docking computers... NAH! Waste of money with my skills! Bigger guns! Thats what I need!

Star Falcon's Log 2084031:14:19
Quitri
149.5 Cr
Legal Status: Clean
Rating: Poor (16)

3 more kills, now I'm in the “Poor” rating, moving up in the world. Made some good dough on the trade run and some Platinum an Asp Mk III left floating in space after I vaporized em'... Probably lifted it off a merchant! What goes around comes around Pirate Scum!

Fun huh? Well, I think the world of copyrighted pay for a copy soon to be obsolescent games have missed an incredible opportunity that the world of Freeware and Open Source has picked up on. What gamers really want! Well, at least gamers like my family.

My Dad, brothers and myself are PC gamers for good reason. Ever since my Dad purchased a Commodore 64 back about the time I was born he's been playing computer games off and on. That also means, that my brothers and I got privileges to play on my dads C64 once in a while once we go old enough. That means lots of homework and chores were completed with the extra motivation to get thirty minutes of time on the C64... That meant games like “Gunship”, “Jumpman” (which could be divided up between us by dying or missions...). “Elite” however stands out as one of the most addictive games during this formative childhood gaming time frame.

Elite required the egg timer to be in use. Mainly, there is no linear structure to it besides attaining the Elite Rating. We never played long enough to bust Average, or even Dangerous. That's probably a good thing, we got lots of playtime outside during the summers to as a result of that... Along with the fact that we were playing our C64 during the age of Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, and the 386/486 processors with a smoking 25/33 MHz, in other words it was already obsolescent when we started. This is the primary reason we never surpassed Average Rating. We'd moved on in our teens to play Wing Commander: Privateer, X-Wing, and Tie Fighter! Excellent games each, especially Privateer... However, they just didn't have the same charm Elite had. It is wonderful what the creators of Vega Strike have done to revive Privateer, however that is another article in and of itself...
...This article is about the nostalgia of the first space trade fighter pilot game we remember, and quite possibly among the first ever made back in 1984. Just check out the Elite/Oolite Wiki for all the details of the history of this incredible ground breaking series! http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Main_Page
What I've been playing right now is the Oolite version of the Elite Series, its the latest up to date game featuring some smashing Open GL graphics with the same style of play of the original game I remember on the C64! There are minor improvements that help incredibly, such as Navigation Buoys that greatly assist docking without computers!

While Wing Commander: Privateer, Freelancer, Vega Strike, and Vega Strike: Gemini Gold (the Privateer remake!) have served well for filling this critical gap in the space combat/trade flight simulator genre, Elite/Oolite will forever hold that special place in my heart for being the first. Companies that make state of the art games that cost money should take note in the revival of this style of space flight sim in the Opensource/Freeware world. Its addictive, its fun, and its not overly bound to a linear course... Lucas Arts, where you at with the single player smuggler game? What the hell! George Lucas invented the genre just about with Star Wars back in 1977 that more than like inspired the creation of Elite in first place! Yet they never left the track of the incredible X-Wing series beyond the linear X-Wing Alliance which had the potential to insert Lucas Arts into this realm as king! Instead, you have rely on MMORG and pay per month, the biggest rip off ever... I feel like they've squandered the opportunity! I hope the opensource/freeware world takes charge of the MMORG version of the space flight combat/trade simulation... After all, the big bad game companies sure as hell haven't done it, and they've dropped every version of that ever made...

09DEC08 V 1.0 Legal Size 3/4" hex sheet

2008-12-09T08:05:00.000-08:00

As promised, a legal paper size blank hex grid. Its a .png file, so its black on transparent, recommend edit in GIMP/Photoshop or similar (I've found that Painter X doesn't support .png files, no worry, I'll just use the GIMP and convert it to a .psd file!).

I've also found Scribbus, which is the CYMK workaround to get a GIMP drawing to print (GIMP only does RGB color which doesn't work well for print, while Scribbus is an open source publication tool which is made to convert RGB to CYMK!). I'll see if I can post more later, once I figure out how to do things with it myself!

Right now, my hex sheets are FAR from perfect. My alignments are off, I have no grid numbers (but with a couple variations on how to number, thats no surprise...), and I'm not sure they are within printing boundaries! I've also got to come up with standard convention for naming so that when I have variations, its easy to identify and figure out which ones you want. On top of that, I've got to find out where I can put the native .svg (scalable vector graphics, Inkscapes native format) so that everybody can download and edit as they see fit (i.e. make your own grid numbers to correspond to whatever board you want or are expanding!). Right now, Deviant Art is the only site I can think of, but I'm not sure yet.

Recommendations welcome!

iMac purchased after refund, thoughts of Desktop Publishing...

2008-11-30T20:48:00.000-08:00

Vista was so bad, I returned both computers that I've had with it. I got a cash refund, and I purchased a basic iMac with 1GB of RAM which will be be upgraded with more so I don't experience too much slow action while painting with Corel Painter X! I'm still learning the Corel Painter X, and GIMP doesn't run near as well on the Mac as it does with the PC... But I'll figure it out soon enough. I can't wait to export the hex grids as .psd files and import them into Painter... Should be interesting. I'll try and get a legal sized sheet of 3/4" hexes here sometime. I'll post the .png file, and see about what I can do to have a .svg (Inkscapes basic scalable vector graphics file) available for download on my Deviant Art page.

Considering the way the economy might be going and the threat to gaming, it might be worth a look at self publication and open source/Creative Commons licenses online. If one can print a good game, one can establish a board game globally! Here are a few games that are down loadable after purchase, and have kept the spirit of these games alive long after print publication was ceased for whatever reason:
Starfire was a game my Dad had lying around, and is just about impossible to find except on E-Bay and Boardgame Geek at premium prices, or in questionable condition... If at all... However, a guy bought the license, and rules are updated and current with many problems fixed, and now its still available if you want to purchase and print it yourself!
Ground Zero Games still sells miniatures, and even print editions of rules. However, you'll more than likely buy they're miniatures if you read the rules first... And so they've published .pdf files for download for free to get you hooked! Excellent plan!

So if you have ideas for gaming, these are great examples of how to publish in a rough economy. Will you see money? Maybe... I'm going to attempt making maps for fun though. If some rules come to mind, I hope to contribute to the free games already available! Money isn't all its about sometimes, though it sure would be nice. Perhaps the open source computer program system is what the gaming world needs to look to for survival. Form foundations and request donations for continued development while maintaining a day job and letting things circulate freely as long as due credit is given to the creators... Of course, this doesn't work like the software world in every aspect. But its an idea.

Vista Sucks, avoid at all costs... Medieval Total War II: Kingdoms, buy on sight!

2008-11-24T00:32:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the lack of updates of this blog lately. I should have some here shortly. However, I made the mistake of 'up-grading' to a desktop computer with the virus known as Microsoft Windows Vista... So I'm resolving that mistake with the company who made the computer, in fact, I'm on my second Vista box... I've already returned on unsatisfied to the retailer...

...on the good news side however, I have Corel Painter X on the way in the mail box. How does this effect gaming? Well, Corel Painter X is the top of the line RASTR graphics editing program on the market able to simulate painting in most traditional media virtually flawlessly... While exporting multi-layerd files in .png or .jpeg or .tiff formats where GIMP and Inkscape can be used to add stuff to them. In other words, I can paint terrain! Should prove an interesting challenge. Mainly for the fantasy or science fiction based surfaces. If I want modern, I'll dig up imagery from web and throw on a hex grid... However, I want a a unique map of some exotic world like Mars as described Edgar Rice Burroughs Warlord of Mars trilogy, or the some ice ball moon like Europa... I will have the ability to paint it. And then once I figure how to put the grid on it in Inkscape or GIMP, expect a tutorial or walk through!

I'm also plugging my way through a few books about Medieval Scotland, on top of getting distracted with Medieval Total War II: Kingdoms Britannia campaign... Worth every penny for this version of one of the finest computer Turn based strategy/Real Time Tactics (optional!) games produced.

Medieval Total War II is based on the game engine found in Rome Total War, and the rest of the Total War series. These games provide a turn based strategic map where you use your armies to capture important cities to command various regions on the game map. The Real Time Tactics (really just real time strategy, however, its a tactical battle map...) option is if you want to resolve a battle yourself involving your armies instead of allowing the computer to auto-resolve. This is a fantastic feature, however, it can really lengthen your game to command every battle. My recommendation is to command the battles where you don't have a good general present; those times when its just your units with no characters to lead them! The Kingdoms expansion the the Medieval Total War II game adds four new campaigns, all of them localized to particular theaters in the medieval world. So far I've played Britannia which focuses on the British Isles,(the countries of Scotland, England, Ireland, Wales, and Norway on the northern tip of Scotland, the Orkney Islands and McKay/Sutherland...), and the Americas campaign (New Spain, Aztecs, Mayans, and New England and New France vying for power in Central America and the South East of North America).

Addictive like the rest of the series!

Big GEV Scenario, still in experimental stages...

2008-10-12T15:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon, I decided to pull out all my Steve Jackson Games OGRE/GEV stuff. I've got just about every expansion that was printed and re-released for the 1977 classic Ogre... I've got the second edition Ogre Book, Reinforcements, Shockwave, and Battlefields along with re-release that combines Ogre and GEV into one box. Lots of pieces and maps. So having lots of pieces, being very intimately familiar with the game mechanics, and having my boys napping to get time enough to be bored, I designed a Scenario. Its pretty hefty too, but needs some play testing to ensure balance as of yet, so I'm working on that. Its similar to a game my Dad and I played back in 2006 when they visited.

Here it goes:

For months the ceasefire between the Combine and Paneurope deteriorated and as tensions and border incidents along the DMZ increased, so did the forces stationed along the DMZ. In once province in central Europe, the provincial capital was right along the DMZ, and therefore its only defense was the local Politzi. Paneuropean Forces however set up in the area set to defend, or re-take the capital, when the Combine Forces came north after them. Paneuropean forces along the DMZ in accordance with the treaty were two reinforced battalions of just infantry. In response to increased tensions (no surprise here, it is the Last War after all...) Paneuropean commanders stationed two field artillery batteries, on heavy armor company, on light scout squadron, and two mechanized infantry companies. The Politzi were told just to hold the line, and if need be, get out of the way if it looked like the cities and towns would fall to the Combine, the Capital Politzi Chief just shook his head in disgust knowing his men would never abandon they're homes without a fight.

Setup:
Uses three maps in the following order west to east: S-3, GEV, S-2

Paneuropean Forces:
All militia counters in the Ogre Battlefields expansion will be used. Militia will not become 'un-ready' and will not be able to move... The politzi refuse to budge and will fight to the death! Capitol (GEV Map 2114 area, with main bridge along river) must have at least 15 strength points of Militia counters setup on it. Suburb of the Capitol on Map S-3 0715 must have 5 strength points of militia set up on it, all other towns can only have a max of 3 strength points, and no less than 1. This should force the attackers to move with caution in the event of over-run attacks... After all, militia defense is tripled in town hexes, and in over run, they get the same bonus as infantry...

DMZ authorized force of two re-enforced infantry battalions:
72 Strength Points of Infantry set up along or north of the line drawn from S-3 hex 0112- S-2 2312 (should be a map fold to be a good guide...). All other forces set up north of this line also
Quick Reaction Force, two Mechanized Infantry Companies
2 forces of 3 GEV-PCs with 3 Strength Points of Infantry on board each GEV-PC (each GEV-PC carries a platoon of infantry, or three squads)
Artillery Batteries (batteries are somewhere between three or four tubes in the real world...)
1 battery of three Howitzers
1 battery of three Mobile Howitzers
Heavy Armor Company
6 Heavy Tanks (one platoon, three vehicles, kinda following the Israeli concept of tank platoon here)
3 Missile Tanks
Light Armor Company
6 GEV
6 Lt. Tanks

Combine Force:
Starts off board, may bring in elements as he sees fit... At least with this draft!
36 Armor Units for the main force with
one Mechanized Infantry Battalion
9 GEV-PCs with 3 SP of Infantry on each GEV-PC

So thats the setup thus far. Needs play tested with other human players to determine the balance and deal with those issues.

So far, I just started about three turns of solo play with the following force:
6 Super Heavy Tanks (about two companies)
12 Heavy Tanks (about one Tank Battalion)
12 GEVs (Battalion)
6 LGEVs along with 6 Lt. Tanks to make a Light Scout Squadron along with the Mechanized Infantry Battalion above.

I kept the attacks against the militia forces at range, and still had trouble with wiping them out if I didn't combine attacks. Towns are great defensive positions! Still, I didn't get very far, and still haven't determined what the final objective should be. Should the Combine player just seek to penetrate the Paneuropean line? Should the Combine player first take the capital and hold out against a Paneuropean counter attack? These and more to be decided later! Especially after some human play tests!

Map Symbology, Real symbology for use in Wargaming

2008-10-04T23:39:00.000-07:00

Wiki APP-6A, US and NATO map symbols.

Handy for making board game counters! Use a scalable vector graphics program! I recommend Inkscape. I'll go ahead and post some more as time moves on and I get to work on some.

David Drake

2008-09-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

While not purely a board gaming subject, David Drake's military SF has had an incredible influence on the world of Science Fiction and Gaming in general. Once can look at the Ground Effects Vehicles in the Ogre/GEV universes and Grav Armor and see the influence of his work. Another way to gauge his influence on the world of gaming can be seen in the Ground Zero Games classics of Dirtside II and Stargrunt II! Both of which are miniature table top games that can be downloaded for free from Here. You can't argue with that price for a miniatures game... After all, you want some money left for the miniatures...

...which if you are like me and a big "Hammers Slammers" fan, here are some pictures of the Hammers Slammers miniatures!

As posted on my other blog:

One of my favorite Military Science Fiction authors interviewed by one of my favorite blogs! Yippie!

Part I.

Part II.

Part III. (edit: added 07OCT08)

Part IV. (edit: added 07OCT08)

Part V. (edit: added 08OCT08)

Part VI. (edit: added 09OCT08)

There is more to follow! Check it out at Black Five! David Drakes Website

Some of my fan art:
A Combat Car used by the "Hammers Slammers" Regiment in his ground breaking Military SF series

The daddy of all his creations, the Hover Tanks from "Hammers Slammers" Regiment!

2008-09-28T20:24:00.000-07:00

A free resource for anyone needing those hex grid squares on Letter size paper. Try it, if it doesn't work right, send me a comment and I'll email you a copy in either .jpg or .png format. If you have Inkscape or GIMP, I'll send you the .svg or .xcf file.

If you have the GIMP, take the .jpg file, and add another layer beneath the background layer it loads up as. Take the background layer with the hexagon grid on it, go to the Layer menu, Transparency, Color to Alpha, and click okay. That will turn the layer with the grid transparent. Then you color the layer below it with your basic background color, and add another layer above that and start decorating your terrain! I might even have to do a tutorial for that. However, if you are familiar with the layer management techniques, its a piece of cake!

Let me know if there are any other resources you'd like to see to be able to make your own desktop published board games!

Classic game, not one I like though...

2008-09-24T22:09:00.001-07:00

Am I sick to think this is kinda funny in a warped and twisted kinda way? Its just so over the top ridiculous! But then, First Person Shooter games are kinda like that, and the story makes as much sense as that kind of game. I never did get the hang of or like many FPS games. I did get a kick out of "Dark Forces" and "Outlaws" both by Lucas Arts. Dark Forces being Star Wars, and Outlaws being Old West, but I still sucked when I played them! I was always better at strategy and tactics.

Windows Steel Panthers: Main Battle Tank

2008-09-23T17:38:00.000-07:00

Windows Steel Panthers: Main Battle Tank

A very realistic turn based strategy game. Pretty much a board game turned computer game, and utilizing the computer aspect to make it less of a number crunchers dream and improving game play. I always like turn based games with hex grids to move and calculate range. Real tactics work very well in this game. Your key is to keep your units together like they would in reality.

Off board artillery is great! Keep your eyes on targets though... Like in reality, hitting template targets rarely works. CAS needs some work! When your A-10's don't strife targets after using Maverick missiles... Lets just say, that ain't too real. Along with the complete lack of a US Air Force TACP capability.

Tactics, Strategy, Grunt and ROMAD Wisdom!

2008-09-23T09:53:00.000-07:00

I figured I'd start a blog just for fun, and this time its just about gaming and some kernels of military science that will help with gaming. I've been hooked on war gaming since I was a child. My Dad has an original release of Afrika Korps by Avalon Hill from the 1960's and pulled it out for my older brother and I to play. That was the small bite that got me hooked. Later, my Mom's cousins gave us some games and model vehicles when we visited New Hampshire; one of the games was an edition of Tactics II, another Avalon Hill classic where you use a grid square map and control division size units. Many war gamers started board gaming with this one! I was hooked on board games at that point. The more complex the better it seemed! Maybe I just knew the rules better...

Then when I was twelve, a friend of ours Kevin Anderson introduced me to table top war gaming. He invited me over to play a Napoleonic game. We played the French against the Russians (played by two of his other friends). The figures were 25mm pewter and our surface was a ping-pong table with US GI green blanket for surface. Since then, I got hooked on the idea of playing on table tops. Not only was the game more fun and hands on, but the model building aspect was incredible as well. I grew up building scale model planes, and the two hobbies rolled into one were just fantastic!

So, here I'll post pictures of my games, reviews of a few. I won't just limit it to one genre either. I like everything from ancient historical to the far fetched future of Warhammer 40,000. I like board games, table top, and even a lot of computer games (human players can be hard to find when you have time to play, at the same time...).

I intend to separate the games though! There are gaming junkfood, mid-grade thinking, and high level games. I'll come up with a way of organizing them better soon enough. Idea being, games like Munckin (Card), Mag Blast (Card), Dawn of War (PC) have only so much strategy, while games like Steel Panthers (PC), Rome: Total War (PC), Tactics II, will have more in depth game play. Then you have the uber-realistic, games that real-life tactics actually work, and if you don't use them, you will fail, games like Tac-Ops that are based off of programs used by the US Army to train with during TOC EX training...