37 years of waiting...

1987 - 37 years ago, i was 15 years old and read Sinkadus the only Swedish RPG magazine . The no.1 swedish RPG writer Anders Blixt anounced that "Partisan" would be the new RPG in 1987 from the publisher  Äventyrsspel. 

Partisan would be a RPG centered aroud a Occupied Sweden, severel different settings would be included for example Nazi ccupation 1942, Russian occupation during the Cold war (inspired by the film Red Dawn as well as the RPG Twiligt 2000) as well as a sci-fi setting inspired by the tv-serie V for Victory that run on teli here in Sweden by the time, I was indeed exited and was looking forward to the release...

BUT the game was postpone to april 1988 and then by the end of the year and then it got all quiet... 

1997 -Jumping some 10 years, I had moved to Stockholm, Anders and I had become friends, I was helping out with his fantasy RPG Gondica as well as the viking RPG Ansgar. I ofcourse brought up Partisan and was hoping he would take up that project to, but he didnt know where the already produced material had ended up so it wasnt to happen. 

2022 - Jumping a further 25ish years and as I believe Anders found some of his old Partisan material and he was now up for realisation of the old Partisan project. To my delight he asked if I wanted to help out with some feed-back on his writing, couldn´t be happier. 

This time Partisan would only focus on one of Anders all area of expertise (he is after all a Swedish Grand Master of Jeoprdy) the Cold War and a Russian invassion of Sweden in the 1980´s. 

2024 -Today I was to my locan game store and met up with Anders and got a copy of the finished Partisan rule book. It only took 37-years...waiting for somethins good...

You can read more about the Partisan rules and get your copy at Publisher Eloso´s site. (only in Swedish, sorry).

Age of Penda

Planning on puting my Romano-British and Saxon minis up for sale as I dont use them much. Painted them some 15-years ago and they been through some tought battles, last one back in 2018 if I recall right. 

So I thougt they would see one last outing trying my matey Dan Mersays "Age of Penda" rules publiched by Wingalf Miniatures. I have been involved in playtesting the system but in the 100-year war version "Arrowstorm" so the Dark Age one are new to me. I like Dan´s Dux Bellorum rules set  during the same era of history very much so I have good hopes for Age of Penda to.

I just got the .PDF of the rules so cant say much about the printed book  The Rulebook as well as the .PDF can be ordered at WargameVault. The rules are 32-pages in an easy to read layout with out any pictures. 

To play you will need 2 armies of 6-15 units (basing or scale dosent realy matter so need for re-basing etc.), some 6-sided dice, 6-10 tacktical tokens that are markers to use on the Tactics Chart (picture abowe) that is one of the main elements of these rules.

You will also need a offset gridded battle fileld that are 5 rows with 5 or 4 squares in each row, a total of 23 squares. I used some markers to show the gridd. Might say im a bit dubious about the gridds, it makes the moving easy but i dont think the game look as good as without.

Each army are made up of a quite narrow amount of troop types, just 4 of them, Mounte Warriors, Armoured Warriors, Unarmourd Warriors and Skirmishers (only unit type that can shoot). one of the units have the Leader includend.

Each unit type has a cost you pay to recruite them in your force.

Despite the low number of different troop types I feel that it is enought to represent a large amout of different dark age armies, Dan has included 4 sample armies in the rules, all with different compossition and tactical chalanges.

Each turn the players start to place their Tactical Tokens on the Tactics Chart when all tactic tokens has been places the player alternate to perform the actions choosen from the tactical chart. Most of the actions activate all unit in a square, you can have no more than 3 units in a square at any time.

there are a bunch of basic actions like Shoot, Rally, Move, Battle but also 8 special actions that gives you the opportunety to get the best out of your units, like get your Warriors to throw javelins etc. 

All in all I like the "Age of Penda" rules, they give me fun, fast and managable dark age games, all I need:)

Wont give you a blow by blow AAR but can say that the Saxons managed to win it all, mostly due to poor dice rolling in the combat between the Romano-British Mounted Warriors and the Saxon Unarmoured Warrios with Skirmish support. below a bunch of pictures from our game, the warband composition and lastly a picture of the victorius Saxon taking the spoils of war.

Romano-British warband was composed of 3 Mounted Warriors  (one with the Leader), 2 Armoured Warriors, 3 Unarmoured Warriors and 2 Skirmisers.

The Saxons fielded 1 Mounted Warriors, 3 Armoured Warriors (one with the Leader), 5 Unarmoured Warriors and 2 Skirmishers.

Ducks / Malards

Have had 22 Ducks/Malards 28mm miniatures for about a year without painting them, but I got a bit inspirated and painted them up due to the rerelease of my childhod RPG Drakar och Demoner /Dragonbane they are one of the playable races in the RPG.

The minis are sculped by a very talanted swedish sculptor Jonas S. and sold by Hagen Miniatures, the caster located in Gertmany, if you feel the need for a malard.

Building

 

Built me a Mordheim inspired ruined house.

Rohan Building

 

Been painting a lot of minis for the Games Workshop Middle-Earth Battle Strategy Game the last couple of month, thought it was time to show at least some of my work. so today a Rohan House I painted.

The House are a 3D print printed by my club matey Joakim, the STL was a freebee from the "Kingdom of Saxonia" range. that was printed without the stone foundation, the Wattle fence are from Renedra. Wery nice house indeed.

Zone Wars - Mutant Year Zero Skirmish Wargaming

Mutant was my favourite RPG back in the 80´s and I have sins then keept a keen interest following the different releases of the Swedish RPG, also published in English in reacent years.

Now a dream have come true by Free Leauges new Kickstarter turning the Mutant Year Zero RPG in to a Skirmish wargame - Zone Wars, designed by renowed game designer Andy Chambers (Necromunda, Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Strontium Dog, Slaine etc).

I have tested the Alpha rules, that are possible to download from the kickstarter page, and I really like the rules, fast and entertaining, inspired by Strontium Dog, Judge Dread and Slain but with a big portion of Mutant Year Zero. 

I hope you all join in on the kickstarter :)

Below a bunch of pictures from the kickstarter page.

Eagles of Empire on Kickstarter

 

In case you hapen to have missed out, my dear friend Sören and his Eagles of Empire are running a kickstarter with their latest minis and source book for the Franco-Prussian War. 

As I understand it the Kickstarter will offer a broad selection of new stunning metal miniatures, cold wther French and Bavarians, a new Unit Upgrade cards deck, and a full color scenario book focusing on the the Armie of Loire including 12 scenarios,   He also have some exellent start-up Eagle of Empire collections to a 25% disscount.

The base pledge are just reached so now the kickstarter are of to some really nice stretch goals. please have a look. 

If you havent tried out the Eagles of Empires skirmish rules yet I hope you will as they are a nice little gem that I been involved in to create:)  The rules are fast and quite innovative set of rules, what I like the most are the built-in economy and morale system that make the HQ send more troops etc if you performe well and reach your forces objectives.