I found out yesterday that I have been officially slated to run a game at Nerdfest, my school's micro-convention. I also got the green light from the boss that we have nothing scheduled for that weekend. Now, all microarmor activities have come to a screaming halt (so-o-o-o close to being done!). I have about two weeks to:
1) Figure out a scenario. I'll probably use something from Thomas Neil's One Hour Wargames.
2) Opponents and their size. It will probably be Medieval Humans and Dwarves vs Orcs and Barbarian Humans. Unlike the game that I had
five years ago, this one will probably be much smaller in numbers.
3) Rules. This is a tricky one. It more than likely end up being my old standby, Armies of Arcana, BUT I am seriously considering Dragon Rampant. I've read them over and I like what I read. The rules that will make the game move along faster will the determining factor as to which one I pick. I will make up my own magic rules to go along with whatever rules I end up using.
4) Terrain. It will have to reflect the scenario, but being that this is sort of showcase game, I want to make it look as visually appealing as possible. I have most of what I need, but I am thinking of building a few extra pieces to spruce up things.
Bottom line, I am competing against a videogame culture where you have fast-paced action games that have high visual graphics. Two weeks to get it all together along with work and family activities. I can't see any problems...
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In other news, I found scribbled notes from a long ago campaign pitting early WWII Soviets against early WWII British, fighting over Iran...Crusaders versus BT-7s. Recently, PeterFritz, over at
his Shapeways shop, has been putting out British interwar tanks in 1/285 scale. I remember many of these from Ian V. Hogg's Tanks (1987). Unfortunately, I no longer have that book, but those odd interwar tanks are still stuck in my mind. Several other shops, of which I cannot recall, sells interwar aircraft in 1/300 scale.
I was thinking of re-igniting the campaign, only now to include some of those interwar tanks. That is definitely on the back burner, but it has the advantage of not necessarily starting from scratch. The Five Core rules would definitely fit the bill for this campaign, or even pull out my old copy of Jagdpanzer rules.
We did a 1HW scenario using the medieval troops, but with orcs and elves instead. Dirt easy too, my 8 year old has the rules memorized after a couple of games.
ReplyDeleteIvan, I was thinking about their rules, too. Maybe I'm overthinking this, but I don't want the rules to be too abstract. Many of these kids who play video games are used to pulling out distinct weapons and having various armor to do their fighting. I'm thinking they need to visualize the combat.
ReplyDeleteI think they'll be fine if you explain what is going on. You can probably rely on them having seen Lord of the Rings or played pc games like Total War.
DeleteIf you have a lot of kids, some sort of very simple skirmish game might not be bad either. give each of them a few characters, let them invent a name and go for it.