Revisiting Chronicles of Blood

After playing Dungeons and being satisfied with it, I decided to take a second look at Chronicles of Blood, also from Shane Garvey. Previously, I had dismissed that game due to its use of IGO-UGO turn structure which I thought too simple and flawed. Nowadays, I find it good for solo gaming, especially in large-scale battles, because in this context two of its main flaws are reduced or removed:

a) One of the main problems with IGO-UGO is that one player has to wait while the other moves their forces. When playing solo, this problem is not present, for obvious reasons.

b) The other problem is that one force is able to move and attack without reaction. In my opinion, this does not feel as bad in large-scale battles where things are subject to a good amount of abstraction already. If I can live with units described by rectangular stands, pivoting perfectly around one corner of said rectangles, on a ground scale of hundreds of meters per inch of table space and turns representing several minutes of game time, I think I can narrate IGO-UGO activation.

At the same time, the simplicity of the IGO-UGO turn structure is inviting to solo play as it is easy to add systems like random events and unit activation checks on top of it. So for these reasons I decided to try Chronicles of Blood once more. Since the game recommends a 120cm x 120cm table I am playing at 25% scale, so each regiment is represented by a 1"x0.5" stand. For now I have very simple unit counters, although I have made a couple of nicer prototypes, pictured here with a 28mm figure for comparison.

Two Year Anniversary!

Today this blog completes two years since the first post! To celebrate this I am making a humble prize giveaway: a US$15 gift certificate for WargameVault along with a custom paper miniature design, to the best of my abilities, to the winner's specifications. Some of my previous designs can be found here.

To enter this prize draw, just leave a comment in this post stating that you want to participate, until January 31. The winner will be randomly selected and announced on February 1st.

UPDATE: if you are having trouble with the comments system on Blogger, you can also enter the prize draw by posting in this thread on Cardboard Warriors until that date.

Donald Featherstone's books in ePub format

I was not aware that Donald Featherstone's reprints by the History of Wargaming Project were also available in digital format through Lulu.com. So now I finally have access to Solo Wargaming and Skirmish Wargaming, and just a few days before my vacation!

The downside to this is that the books are in DRM-protected ePub format accessible only through "Adobe Digital Editions." I hope that John Curry and co. switch to a DRM-less format in the future -- it just pains me to think of all the work in recovering these historical books, just to lock them up behind DRM.

Another Platform Command test build

Since I completed the hover truck and I still had some free time, I decided to make a test build of the structures. This picture show the results. They are printed at a scale of 39.4% (to play with cm as inches.)

The platforms are designed to be glued to foamboard but at this scale, a piece of cardboard had just the perfect thickness to be used instead. Therefore, I did not have to make any adaptations to the original pieces.

Here is a final picture with the hover truck for scale comparison.

First Platform Command build

I got the three Platform Command sets from WorldworksGames in their sale at the end of the year. My intention is to build some terrain pieces in reduced scale but since some parts seem a little complex, I decided to start making a hover truck from the Battlegrounds expansion, in regular size. This would allow me to get used to the kinds of folds etc. preferred by the designer.

It took me a couple of hours to carefully cut and build, but here is the result, along with one mini from the Red Sector expansion.

What I love in WorldWorksGames sets is the amount of detail in their texturing. Their instructions for this model were perfect and I even added the rocket launchers based on one of the photos in the manual.

I am tempted to spray a layer of sealant over this and put it on my work desk... it is a pity I do not have room to make many of these in regular size. I can imagine gaming with vehicles and terrain like this.