Hammerhead Wargames Show 2023 - Swag

Saturday saw myself and my 3 friends, Alex, Nic and Andy attend Hammerhead Wargames show held at the Newark show ground. 

It’s been quite some time since we all have been to a show and this would be more a social outing with a minor bit of shopping and catching up with old friends on the industry. 

Arriving around 9:20am the queue wasn’t too long and we were straight in at 10:00am. During the day the crowds of people increased and it was certainly well attended. 

We did quite a few laps of the hall, not really seeing many games that took our fancy to participate in although they had a massive game of Epic Armageddon which was amazing and I am gutted I forgot to take pictures of it. 

The main attraction for us all however was the central bring and buy. I’m usually not one for clamouring through the crowds to look at the multitude of second hand stuff but my mates are, and I’m so glad this time I did also - what bargains to be had. 

Anyway on to the swag which includes said bargains. 

Fighting Fantasy Green Banner Books - bought for 50p each. 

Blood Bowl Nurgle Dice

Epic Space Marine Landraiders and Rhinos. Green set £6 and White set £4 - bargains. 

Forge world Mortarion - Primarch of the Death Guard. Uber bargain of the day £30. Couldn’t believe it !!

Star Wars Legion - all huge discount

3D print Tribles and Andorians - pre ordered and collected from Twisted Pinnacle printing. 

The haul. 

 

Resistance is Futile - Star Trek Borg

 "We are the Borg. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."

These are the Resin Borg miniatures from Modiphius, they will be mostly used for various adversaries for my forthcoming 5 Parsecs from Home campaigns set in the Star Trek universe.

Xenos Rampant - First Game

 I, along with my friend Nic, just had our first game of Xenos Rampant.

 After reading some very exciting and enthusiastic reviews for this new game, set alongside the same type of rules from other Rampant series games by the Author Daniel Mersey (Published by Osprey) we were looking forward to organising our forces and getting our starter game in.

Miniature agnostic and a game that can be played in any scale really,  we went for 15mm as we had a multitude of 15mm Sci Fi miniatures that we had already got for games like Gruntz and Tomorrow's War, it gave us a depth of options for a 24 point force. 

This however didn't stop the usual butterfly shiny habit and I delved into Alternative Armies website and ordered myself a brand new Grey Alien force! 

The Alien Commander with his detachment of invasion troops had recently attacked and sacked a Federal Stats Europa (FSE) research facility to recover a horde of stolen tech from previously downed UFO strike flyers.

Whilst preparing to transfer these to the Mothership an FSE detachment attacked!

We chose to do a simple Sweep and Clear Scenario from the rulebook and although we had built our force and chose which unit would be our Commander. Before a game you roll randomly for a commander trait to be added, this can be from a number of tables to make him either a Tactical, Strategic or Warlord type etc.
Both of us rolled traits that would not really impact this first game - this is not unusual!
Another D6 roll and Nic ended up as the Attacker and I the Defender, Nic would go first after deployment.

The Battlefield - Greys bottom Right, FSE Top Left deployment

Greys spread out to defend whilst waiting on the Mothership

FSE Detachment launch their attack

FSE Infantry try to flank

Greys after taking fire and seeing some infantry retreat, send forward a UFO

After some hectic firefights the Aliens send forth their Mechanoid Dominator Spheres and Cyber Cows to draw out the FSE infantry to engage in melee which the Grey Commander thought would give him the upper hand.

However the Assault Doctrine of the FSE along with some steadfast courage, saw the Cyber Cows being moo'd (mowed) down although they did cause some casualties.

The Dominators though, smashed into the remaining FSE troops and with whirling blades of death, decimated the lightly armoured infantry.

With both detachments commanders being killed (unfortunately no pics of this course of the battle) it was left to the Armoured vehicles to take control of the battlefield.

UFO finally gets the advantage and Heat Ray's the Tank

FSE Field Laser finally takes down the UFO

With the smoking, spiralling UFO finally hitting the ground and exploding the remaining few Grey Aliens were captured and sent of to the Neu Parisian Science labs for vivisection.

A cracking fun game, a few mistakes in the beginning, mainly the interpretation of sorting hits to strength points removed and the failure of certain order tests for units can seriously derail your plan.

Really looking forward to getting some more games of Xenos Rampant and the Grey Aliens will be looking at invading the Federal Stats Europa with superior force and exacting revenge.

Merry Xmas

Have you been naughty or nice! Merry Xmas. 

Burrows and Badgers Knight Retinue

This is my recently completed Royalist Knight Retinue for Burrows and Badgers.

Duke Otto commands the Iron Wall, a dedicated veteran bunch of Knights, operating out of Crake Castle against the marauding bands of Rats from the Ironstone Hills.

Duke Otto Sternjaw (Bulldog Knight)

Ser Geralt Longshanks (Hare Knight)

Ser Kennith Shadforth (Border Terrier Knight)

Ser Cornelius Stoutwhiskers (Mouse Knight)

Madam Dorethea (Badger Maid of Eoferwic)

SternJaw's Iron Wall

Fighting Fantasy Fest 4

Saturday 3rd September saw me attending Fighting Fantasy Fest 4 for the first time. Due to work/life etc I have never been able to attend the first three of this event and was absolutely over the moon on managing to get a ticket, as they sell out rather fast due to the event being limited to 400 people.

Fighting Fantasy Fest 4 held at the University of West London in Ealing, this year was celebrating 40 years of the release of the first Fighting Fantasy book - The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.

Featuring as honoured guests the two men who started it all off - Steve Jackson and Sir Ian Livingstone numerous other authors and artists who have wrote and illustrated the various gamebooks and other material were also in attendance and would be holding talks and signing sessions.

Also in attendance was Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of Sir Terry Pratchett of Discworld fame, who had recently lent her talents to writing a Fighting Fantasy gamebook. As a massive fan of the Discworld series and Pratchett's work as a whole, it would be interesting to listen to her talk and hopefully meet her and have a chat.

For anyone who is new to Fighting Fantasy and would like to know more about what the gamebooks are or the history of how they came about click this link: YOU ARE THE HERO.

Kicking up a Storm - Rhianna Pratchett talks to Johnathon Green about her Fighting Fantasy book - Crystal of Storms.

From Lizard King to Allansian Assassins - Fighting Fantasy Artists Tony Hough, Duncan Smith and Alan Langford talk about their work.

Meet and Greet the Artists

Alan Langford, Illustrator on Titan-The Fighting Fantasy World Source Book

John Sibbock, Illustrator on Titan-The Fighting Fantasy World Source Book

Mike McCarthy, Cover Artist on Shadow of the Giants (and Fable the computer game, along with the new forthcoming Harry Potter Hogwarts Legacy game)

Duncan Smith, Cover Artist on Scorpion Swamp

Magehunters - Fighting Fantasy Gamebook Authors talk about their contributions.

Marc Gascoigne, writer on Titan-The Fighting Fantasy World Source Book

Steve Jackson and Sir Ian Livingstone talk about their new books, Steven Jacksons - Secrets of Salamonis and Sir Ian Livingstone's - Shadow of the Giants, with artist Mick McCarthy.

Packed auditorium

Fighting Fantasy Fest Auction - Every event always has an auction hosted this year by Sir Ian Livingstone, with all proceeds going to a nominated charity.

Sir Ian, brought a host of items including various issues of Warlock Magazine, a number of gamebooks as well as some old Fighting Fantasy computer games, Forest of Doom, Deathtrap Dungeon etc as well as a couple of items that went for a considerable sum, pictured below.

Zagor the Warlock of Firetop Mountain illustration, signed by Steve Jackson, Sir Ian Livingstone and Artist Russ Nicholson - went for £310

Solution book for Tasks of Tanthalon - went for £300

Fighting Fantasy map - went for £60 odd

And finally old man geek moment, as I had started reading Fighting Fantasy books when they very first started in 1982, 40 years!

Sir Ian Livingstone

Steve Jackson