The thing with blogs is that you’re supposed to update them regularly. I keep forgetting. Does that make me a bad net-citizen? No, just a guy with too many things on his plate and a crappy computer that takes hours to warm up enough to be usable.

I’ve been working over the past few months on terrain for two games, to be run at Little Wars Melbourne* at the end of May (oh God, that’s next weekend!). I will be running a game that I call “Plains, Trains and Aerosans” where players get to chase after an armoured train in propellor-driven sleds called ‘Aerosans’, attempting to disable the engine and steal the cargo. Unfortunately for them, the train is shooting back (with large cannons) and naturally the other players will want the glory for themselves and so are likely to be trying to shoot each other too.

The table is laid out with about 30 snow covered terrain modules on it and a railway track down the centre. Here are a few shots of the game in action.

You can see one of the movement cards I’m using in the game (there’s a couple laid out on the table in one of the shots) – the mechanic for this is essentially the same as Wings of War/Glory, but with the twist that there’s things in the way that you have to dodge. It should be a good game and I hope to see you there.

The second game I am working will be run by my two good friends Andrew and Greg and it’s called “A Cast of Thousands”. Andrew and I have been collaborating on painting the figures and I’ve done most of the terrain pieces for it. The game is set in a movie backlot in the 1930s. Each player is a wanna-be director who has ‘borrowed’ a camera and snuck into the studio while the regular directors are on their lunch break. The idea is to round up the matinee idols and extras and shoot a scene. These professionals are milling around the sets in costume, signing autographs and discussing their latest pictures, so for them, this is just another step on the path to stardom.

So the sets and actors are drawn from all periods and genres and you throw them together and shout ‘Action’ – the script will practically write itself!

* Honk your horn if you like their logo 🙂