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I have always liked this jousting diorama, The Bretonnian Joust, by Dave Andrews which won the Open Competition in the 1996 Golden Demon awards. The level of detail is outstanding. There are hoof marks in the ground, created using clay. The manuscript on the back is handwritten.
Across the diorama are lots of figures adding to the story. The pavilion is made from foil, but is painted to look like cloth.
Some more photographs and details about the model can be found here.
The newest trailer for the second film in the Fantastic Beasts series has been released at Comic-Con in the US.
The Crimes of Grindelwald is the second of five all new adventures in the wizarding world created by J.K. Rowling.
I like the 1920s background to the films and feel it creates an ideal environment in which potentially games could take place. I am thinking about adding magic and wizards to games using The Chicago Way ruleset.
In Warhammer World is a somewhat small (nostalgic) section on the early years of Citadel Miniatures and Warhammer (there are some more models elsewhere in the exhibition.
Not entirely sure of the age or era this wonderfully painted duel of a High Elf versus a Dark Elf on a Cold One is from, but I did like it.
I suspect it might be an entry in a previous Golden Demon competition.
Forge World Reaver Titan on display at Warhammer World.
Compared to my previous visit, there were lots more Titans on display including the huge and impressive Warlord Titan.
The last time I visited Warhammer World it was back in 2012. Back then the life size Rhino was right in the middle of the car park. Now it’s by the entrance to the revamped and new(ish) Warhammer World.
It was originally used as a promotional piece for the THQ Dawn of War video game. THQ gave the Rhino to Games Workshop who then gave it a repaint in Ultramarines colours. Here is another view of how it looks today.
It has suffered a little from being outside and is slightly battered and rusty, but this does make it look more “realistic”. This is how it looked six years ago, slightly shinier.
And this is how it looked at GamesDay 2008.
So there I was driving my car listening to Radio 4 and what did I hear but a drama about a modern civil war in a disintegrating United Kingdom, called Dangerous Visions.
Martin Jameson’s five-part drama draws on detailed research to create a compelling account of the consequences of a UK civil war.
It was back in the 1990s at the height of the disintegration of Yugoslavia that I started writing about the concept of a modern English Civil War.
In my background, a fall into dictatorship resulted in an uprising by regional groups and the break up of the United Kingdom. For me the Kingdom of Wessex was the main protagonist against a fascist London based government.
In Martin Jameson’s drama, the story focuses on a family from Manchester attempting to survive the disintegration of the country, secession, armed paramilitary groups, soldiers attacking civilians, local warlords protecting their communities, atrocities and many other awful aspects taken from the experiences of the Balkans.
The background follows how the United Kingdom in a post-Brexit world starts to have power cuts, food shortages and civil disturbance. A London based government attempts to force their draconian policies on a discontented population.
We see Scotland declare UDI (unilateral declaration of independence) and the British Army move into to secure the nuclear submarine base at Faslane.
The North of the country fed up with not being listened to, whilst not quite declaring independence certainly feels that they need to openly fight the London (or Greater England) government.
The resulting conflict appears to be small scale, though Government forces do shell northern cities and use aircraft to bomb them.
Wales appears to become a hotbed of Welsh nationalism, broken into small enclaves led by local warlords, who ensure any English civilians and refugees are forced out of Wales.
Across the country armed warbands, soldiers and eventually UN peacekeepers mingle with refugees attempting to keep their families together. Reminiscent of what could happen to the UK if it fell apart like the Balkans did in the 1990s.
Overall it is an interesting listen, but it is a story about a family in an interesting background.
I was able to download all the episodes and at the time of writing you have fifteen days left to do so on the BBC iPlayer Radio App.
Not long now and the Star Wars Story Solo will be on at the cinema.
Here is the most recent trailer.
Looking good, looking forward to it.
There is a new series on Netflix which I have been enjoying, called The Ministry of Time (El Ministerio del Tiempo), it is a Spanish series about a government department in Spain responsible for the looking after the “doors of time”.
In the first season there are three main characters.
Amelia Folch is the leader of the protagonist patrol. She is a late 19th century pioneering university student.
Julián Martínez is a trained SAMUR paramedic from 21st century Madrid.
Alonso de Entrerríos is a highly experienced 16th century soldier from Seville,
I do enjoy TV series and films about time travel, even if they do sometimes give me a headache when it comes to paradoxes.
I enjoyed the first season of Timeless which had a similar concept and characters.
Unlike many of the UK and US series, the Ministry of Time does not feature a secret military unit or spy team, these are government bureaucrats who struggle with pay freezes and budget cuts as well as trying to maintain the timeline.
The premise is that in the heart of Madrid is a secret ministry that through doors provides access to the past. These doors cover a range of times and places across Spain. There are also other doors that “rebel” elements have access to and attempt to change the course of history.
The episodes I have seen have covered the Spanish Armada, the Civil War in the 1930s and various other aspects of Spanish history. I do find myself delving into Wikipedia to discover more about Spanish history.
There are some issues that I don’t get. People from the past can travel to the future (the present), however people from the present can only travel to the past and are unable to travel to the future. It would appear that the present is the only future you can travel to.
Another aspect I find troubling is that according to the initial episodes, the time behind each door travels forward at the same speed, so when two days pass in the present, two days pass in the past. Then in another episode they talk about a door which is stuck in a time loop, the day repeats itself. What troubled me was that the team went to that day five times, but never met themselves. If the day resets behind that door, then there was nothing they could do to change the timeline.
Despite the weird time travel problems that arise in a series like this, I do enjoy it.
One aspect of the series that may put you off is that it is in Spanish and is subtitled. I don’t mind this, but I know for some it’s a deal breaker.
From a gaming perspective, there are lots of ideas in the series which could be translated to the tabletop.
Across Europe in the early part of the 20th Century many of the nation states were undergoing change or violent revolution. The governments of the time were so concerned about this that resources were diverted to focus on the perceived threat of revolutionaries and paramilitary forces.
The 1917 Russian Revolution eventually led to the Communist USSR as well as a Civil War that raged for years with plenty of intervention by the Western powers.
In Germany following their defeat in 1918 led to the creation of the Weimar Republic that was plagued by political extremism. In addition that time saw both left wing and right wing paramilitaries causing problems for the government.
The capitulation and break up of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire also saw rises in nationalism and revolution.
In Great Britain the government feared a bolshevik uprising and was quick to oppress any potential threat to the established order. One of the biggest areas for concern were the labour movements and trade unions. One strike in Glasgow in 1919 eventually resulted in a street battle between strikers and police, which was so bad, the army was called in.
The “Battle of George Square”, also known as “Bloody Friday” and “Black Friday”, was one of the most intense riots in the history of Glasgow; it took place on Friday, 31 January 1919.
Clashes between the City of Glasgow Police and protesters broke out, prompting the War Cabinet to make soldiers available to the civil power, to prevent the violence from escalating.
With troops and tanks on the streets of Glasgow, peace was eventually restored, but there were concerns that some of the soldiers might go over to the side of the rioters, could that have been the spark that started a British Revolution?
The fear of the soldiers siding with the protestors was so much that the War Department didn’t want any Glaswegian troops sent to quell the violence, incase they changed sides. Though reports later implied that English troops were sent, more recent research has indicated that it was Scottish troops that were sent to Glasgow. However what if English troops were sent and the situation rather than be defused, escalated into a more violent conflict. Would the conflict bring in local paramilitary forces, some fighting for the establishment and some fighting for change? Another potential spark for a British Revolution?
In future blog posts I want to have a look at potential battles in the 1919 British Revolution and the forces involved.
One of the things I saw recently published was Gaslands.
For Christmas I received a copy of Gaslands, the post-apocalyptic vehicle combat game from Osprey.
Gaslands is a tabletop game of post-apocalyptic vehicular mayhem. With fast and cinematic rules, it is designed to be played with toy cars, allowing players to ram, skid and race their way through the wreckage of a burnt-out Earth.
Back in the day I was introduced to vehicular combat playing Games Workshop’s Battlecars and very quickly moved onto Car Wars.
I really liked Battlecars, the combination of templates, tokens and a game board. The game mechanics were simple, but it was a fun game and really created the right experience of car combat.
Though we continued to play Battlecars, we moved to Car Wars mainly as the lack of vehicle design rules was frustrating and Car Wars had them in abundance. As well as the core design rules I really liked The Uncle Albert’s™ Auto Stop and Gunnery Shop catalogues, which were always fun to read.
Car Wars though more complex than Battlecars was still able to create fun and exciting games of vehicular mayhem.
I had many games of Car Wars and Battlecars. I even had articles published in Autoduel Quartely. These were great games and a lot of fun.
Interestingly I never played Games Workshop’s Dark Future vehicle combat game.
So as you cam imagine I approached Gaslands with a combination of expectation, anticipation and a little hesitancy. So far I have only read the background and the rules.
First impressions of the rules was positive and I liked the use of templates, which did remind me slightly of Dark Future. I liked the relatively simplicity of the rules which for means they will be easy to pick up and result in fast fun games.
For me the biggest shock was the background. I knew that the game was set in a post apocalyptic future, the surprise was that the apocalypse was caused by an alien invasion!
I do need to make some models, and now I wished I had played Dark Future as I would then have models I could use.
Time to find some toy cars…