Author Archives: Gavin Syme

Charge! or How to Play Wargames – A book from Bob McAlister

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Back before Christmas my good friend Bob McAlister and his family sent myself and my own family a package all the way from their home in America (see this previous post).  I promised not to open it for a few days but what with work and family I kept it until the big day at Christmas and I stuck to this revised promise like a dog to a bone.  Indeed I often passed the box and my hand reached out…but no!  Waited.  When opened there were many goodies in the box for my Good Lady and my wee three too but I will stick to the gift sent to me.  I present to you a short review of Charge! or How to Play Wargames by Brig.P.Young & Lt.Col J.P.Lawford published by Athena Books in 1986.

Vintage wargaming books from before the ‘age of commercialism’ when it was a hobby for gentlemen and the idea of science fiction and fantasy on a table was truly outlandish are a pet love for me and I own quite a few including many of Fetherstone’s titles such as Complete Wargaming (which is better overall than this book but also far more in depth).  I had wanted ‘Charge!’ for a while but copies were expensive so Bob had done me a real favour by getting me a copy far cheaper in its native North America.  Charge! is written as a set of ‘horse and musket’ rules with attached scenario and introduction.  Despite thirty years passing the rules look very solid and I threw some dice and used my Flintloque figures for pieces and they worked well.  A lot like the kind of rules I like to write, flexible, fun, hobby based and no more complex than they need to be.  The book is split into two parts as far as the rules go, the basic game and the advanced game.  This is something lacking in British titles of this period and is something that has come over from the USA in my generation.

Charge! is not a book about Wargaming as such, it is a book of wargame rules that despite what the author says is best suited to wars of the high 18th century and not earlier or later periods.  I enjoyed reading it and will revisit it in the future too.  As far as I know this book is out of print but it can still be had for those who want to seek it out.  If you can get it cheaply, or from a good friend (!) then I recommend you do.  Thanks again Bob.

GBS

The Ironclad Prophecy by Pat Kelleher

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Back in November 2012 I got two books in the post and while I did not think I would get time to post a full review of either of them (and I was right too, time is short due to just now busy 15mm.co.uk is with orders!) I do want to say a little about the one I have just finished which is by Pat Kelleher.  I have pasted in below what I already posted about this book before moving on to an opinion:

Ironclad Prophecy by Pat Kelleher.

This is the second book in what is now three for Pat Kelleher placed in the ‘No Mans World’ setting.  I have the first one and Ironclad Prophecy has been out for a while but I wanted to read them in order so I got this one when I saw an advert for The Alleyman which follows it in the series.  Essentially the plot concerns the infamous 13th Battalion of the Pennine Fusiliers who simply vanished leaving a huge crater while fighting on the western front in WW1.  A mine you suppose…nope, they have been transported to an alien world where all manner of creepies wait for them.  The premise interested me as original and entertaining plus the author puts it across as a true tale by way of ‘letters and accounts’ from the period and a hush up by the British top brass.  Again begin with the first one Blackhand Gang, otherwise it will make no sense!

I enjoyed the book a lot.  It was slow to get going but once it did it was a racing ride of adventure packed with giant sky jellyfish and shoggoth type creatures.   There was no ending in the plot but it set up beautifully for the third book which I will be getting in my next book bundle in March for my birthday.  You can get the book from a lot of places but here is a link to Amazon which provides me with great service and you can read snippet reviews there too.  But from me I will say its a cracking read which if you like dark fantasy and world war one then you will love it.

GBS

Happy Hogmanay and Welcome to 2013

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A Happy Hogmanay to all and to all a Happy New Year too!

2013 eh….we are truly living in the future now.  What will the new year bring?  It’s hard to tell really what with all the trouble in the world, the uncertainty in the economy, the signs in the starts and other mumbo jumbo.  But hey when was it ever any different.  Me, well I am going to keep on doing what I have been and that is to bring wargamers top notch products at great prices.  With what I have planned for this new year work wise it will be fun, fun, fun for all.  But I cannot spoil the surprises all in one go so I will keep quiet on the new game titles, new miniatures and other new things too for now.

For myself personally its going to be an interesting year since I plan on doing several things I have been meaning to do and keep putting off for one reason or another.  These are not ‘new year resolutions’ (who keeps to these anyway beyond the first week of January?) but more ambitions for living if you want to call it that.  I want to play more of my own wargames, more HOF Fire Team and USEME and of course Flintloque leading to more Slaughterloo battles; these would be accounted for on TTWG blog and linked in places to Barking Irons Online too.  I want to be a bit more productive too (did you just gasp at that, but yes I could do more) in my personal life as I have let things slide a bit in terms of keeping my space tidy and filing things away.  Its also now been three years since the operation for an umbilical hernia that laid me flat out and that means I can go back to exercise without fear of tearing my internal  ‘stitches’.  I have about forty pounds I want to shift off.  I hope to get to a point where I can cycle 5k a day.  I would say I will begin work on some fiction for separate publication by Kindle but this year looks too busy already for those plans. I want to spend more time with my children too as I am having trouble keeping Saturday a ‘no work’ day beyond 9am as I had promised them plus I hope not to suck as much at Xbox games to give my lads a challenge!  So lots to think about and I hope I don’t drop the ball on all of these aims.

I am sure all of this will pop up here on the blog and elsewhere too.  Lets see how I get on!

Happy New Year!

GBS

BattleShip Movie Review

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From Indian Cinema and why not….

Sorry everyone…I know you want me to keep on creating more wargaming content but I thought I would take a Sunday afternoon to watch a film and put a review of it up here.  I like movies, I like science fiction a lot, so it stands I would like a big budget Hollywood title along those lines.  Plus I own the game its based on and my three sons enjoy playing it.  But….

Ha,Ha,Ha…this is one of the worst films I have ever watched!  It is has one, yes, one plus point.  The CGI special effects are superb, really well done and the only thing worth watching in the movie.  What of the rest of it?

I could say that making a film based on toys is a bad idea but it’s not.  Lots of good and average productions have come from Transformers, GI Joe, Thomas the Tank Engine and so on.  Making a film based on a board game though, aside from Jumanji I cannot think of any (not true, Mousetrap is a great comedy) is a bit more dubious.  Hasbro made it work with Transformers so why not Battleship?  Well here is a list of what I saw and thought based on watching it all the way through.

  • The plot is super thin.  Never mind physics or anything like that.  Talk to the stars so they send an invasion force to Earth to kills us all (an invasion force unable to steer their own ships incidentally).  They lose their ‘comms’ ship and need the messaging system here on Earth to send for extra troops…but they have tech that allows for crossing space REALLY FAST (light years in days) and they MUST have told their mates they were invading another planet!  They don’t need the primitive Human tech at bloody all!
  • The acting is ruddy awful from start to end.  Aside from Liam Neeson who despite changing his accent in every scene makes his dialogue work the rest of  the acting is turgid and at times actually ‘mentally handicapped’ too.  It reminded me of all things a 1980’s kids cartoon.  I will not quote examples but adding swearing would actually have helped.  Rihanna might not mime to her songs but she should have in this film she is not an actress and the real life navy veterans were just made to look foolish.
  • Formulaic at every step.  Painfully so.  The film is a like a path of falling domino’s or a tick list of idiocy.  The central character is a loud mouth looser and criminal (breaking and entering) but he is convinced to join the navy (why?) and is made an officer right away!  All the characters tell him he has skills and such but I never saw any and he never inspires any confidence as a lead.  He gets the girl which makes no sense.  He survives when he should not…and he smart mouths everyone (there is no respect for superiors in this mans navy!).  Best example.  When the alien ship surfaces he heads over to it on a launch and jumps onto it.  ‘Dude its like totally might be alien and shit’.  Rhianna ‘well I think so too duh’.  Then he turns to face his commander and shrugs…real professional.  Then as everyone says ‘bad idea dude, bad idea’ he touches a glyph and lost world style it begins the whole shooting match.   No First Contact trauma for this chump.  Then they make him a Captain!  A captain in a ship of cretins.  No First Contact trauma but at the sight of dead sailors…arrgh…panic!
  • The Aliens.  They looked great and that is it.  They were awesomely dense at all times, unable to use their own weapons and throwing away every advantage they had over Humanity.  With such bad acting, horrid lines and so on you want them to win but they cannot fly their ships or fight at all.   They seem to be psychotic pacifists…work that one out.  Is it flickering RED for kill it or GREEN for don’t kill it or is it RED with GREEN on it like a road bridge but we kill it anyway?
  • The Shield.  Yes, the aliens can generate a shield that forms a several mile high dome over a large area..kind of like a Battleship board game board limiting the pieces in play…  More awful dialogue follows…its not North Korea or some navy secret experiment….pathological avoidance of the bleeding obvious.  It cannot be Human in origin.  Oh the aliens are shooting at us…what do we do…oh no its like Battlestar Galactica none of our advance weapons work anymore…panic.  We had training and procedure for being shot at…what was it dude…I don’t know.   Oh, yeah its personal dude attack them Ok Corral style.  Plus we can confuse them with sunlight!
  • Sugar Coated Boak.   Boak is a Scottish word which means to be violently sick and it suits this movie.  I know Americans like to salute their flag and that is totally fine with me but this film takes it WAY too far.  It takes every heart on sleeve moment possible and wrings the life out of them while screaming ‘USA,USA’ over and over.  I am not American so I can’t say but it must have made people there cringe with embarrassment; it did for me over and over.  You can love your country, your navy, your service personnel without insulting them like Battleship did.  The final scene with the real life veterans was appalling.  If the characters from this film were real it would make me very scared that they had access to a handgun never mind cruise missiles and nuclear weapons too.
  • Putting the Board game in the Film.  Several scenes and events (tracking ocean movements, milk can projectiles etc) are put in for reference to the board game.  Nice touch, but it does not add anything except to confuse the thin plot further.
  • Final loss of Believability.  The USS Missouri is a 70 year old museum piece but that is ok we can take twenty geriatric former sailors and get her sailing again in hours with no prep and one hundredth of the needed crew.  These are real sailors and their dialogue is horrid!  Quick turn the battleship, the aliens cannot traverse their own weapon pods!  It gets worse…they beat the aliens with the ancient ship by dropping anchor and making one hundred thousand tons of steel skid in the water like a bloody touring car on a racetrack!

All in all its a terrible wooden movie which is so bad its actually funny.  It ends with a little scene after the credits which sealed it for me….Scottish Highlands…NO, totally wrong landscape, Scottish Barn…NO unlike any architecture you would see outside of Ohio, Scottish Workman…NO totally wrong kind of Asian van and equipment…if that is Scotland then I am an Admiral.  Sums up Battleship really..treats the audience like mugs.

In saying all this it makes me want to start a regular feature of reviewing bad or poor films that are in this or similar genres.  I get inspiration for wargaming from some strange places so both you lot reading this and me viewing might both learn something or at least have a chuckle in trying.

Seriously…wait for Battleship to be on free view television.  I did and it saved me a few pounds I would have regretted spending.

GBS

Gerry Anderson dies….

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Its a sad Boxing day for me.  I had not intended to post on the blog until the end of the week (with a look at some of the films and books Christmas brought me) but I have just heard that one of my favourite film makers and innovators has died.  Gerry Anderson died today aged 83 after suffering from some ill health and Alzheimer’s disease as well.  Creator of supermarionation and programmes like Thunderbirds and Stingray, including my favourite Captain Scarlet he had a big effect on my childhood and I spent many rainy weekends watching videos (yes, not DVD’s!) and also BBC2 re-runs.  Programmes that, in an age before computer animation and digital effects did things that no live action film could hope to emulate on screen.

I wish his family well and its a shame that unlike the Captain, Jerry was not indestructible.  Follow the links to learn more and have a look above if you missed the tense and often very violent Captain Scarlet.  I have used it many times to inspire wargame scenarios and the like.  Honestly to me its one of the best spy genre series ever made.

GBS

Merry Christmas and the Annual Grilling

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xmas2012Today is Christmas Day and its been a roller coaster already so I have not much time to blog but I wanted to put up a little missive on this day for a few reasons.  Firstly to thank all those who have been so kind to me and to my family at this time of year.  An embarrassment of riches has come to us from all over the world.  It makes me truly grateful and personally, the thought that people have put into getting me gifts is way too much.  Japan, America, Australia and elsewhere in little packages.  I am loved and love in return.  You should not have but I am glad you did.  To balance this I have made donations to charities both here in Scotland and further afield too to spread the joy that I have received.  My Good Lady, the Poet, the Thinker and the Warrior echo this and have been very thankful for what they have received too.

Secondly yesterday saw the annual Festive Season interview on Orcs in the Webbe between myself and Craig Andrews.  He calls it Annual Grilling and it is.  I know of no other gaming company which would answer so many questions for its public, but I aim to please at all times.  Have a read and then watch me across next year bringing the text into a living form of wargaming.

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Lastly I wish you all a warm and cosy festive season and thank you too for reading and commenting on this blog.  It means a lot to me.  If you have the chance to be good to another person then do it, the cost is little and the darkness so often apparent in the world is kept at bay by the simple acts of man’s kindness to others.

GBS

Voodoo Orc Undead Todoroni Video

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When you have a spare ten minutes head on over to Youtube or click above and check out Rob Alderman’s video on his Undead Todoroni of the 777th Croaked Line.  The video is a mix of product review and painting example and also character essay.  A good watch.  Rob is getting really good at his videos and it shows.  He is a little hard on himself though when he should not be.  I have had a lot of feedback from regular players of Flintloque and Slaughterloo who love these unique and fun miniatures.

You might remember my short series of postings about this set of miniatures.  If you want a recap and to read them again then go here for the final one and follow the links backwards from there.

Below you can see an image taken from an as yet to be published Flintloque scenario with these miniatures in prime place.  Enjoy!

Cold as Hell but Cooking with Gas!

Cold as Hell but Cooking with Gas!

GBS

OITW Advent Calendar 2012 – The Mirror of Zyrgone

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Its nearly Christmas (or on my fantasy world of Valon it is known as Cryptmass, but more on that elsewhere) and that means my annual entries to the excellent Orcs in the Webbe advent calendar are now appearing online.  Every year Craig over at ‘OITW’ collects material from fans and writers and artist who love the medium of Black Power Fantasy and lines them up for a month of free content which is read by thousands of wargamers and others.

This year Craig asked me for two pieces in our customary way for his birthday (Happy Birthday Craig!) to do with his favourite Valon fantasy race, the Dracci, Children of the Dragons.  I was happy to agree to this and penned a short story called The Mirror of Zyrgone which features not only the Dracci but another perennial favourite Captain Sharke of the 105th Rifles.  Following this (for the 19th of December) a Flintloque scenario called ‘Sharkes Mirror’ which lets wargamers play out the events of the tale.  I followed the tradition begun by Cornwell himself in naming the scenario ‘Sharkes ????‘ and ‘mirror’ had not been used so there you go!

Its a great little action packed tale so please do go along and have a read at it.  Craig is a great chap who takes on a lot in working up not only Orcs in the Webbe but also is editor of Barking Irons Online so it was the least I could do.

GBS

A Week Until the End of the World?

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Well we have one week to live.  The long extinct Mayan culture of South America predicted the end of the world on the 21st of December of this year.  So am I giving away my worldly goods, quitting work, running for the hills, going on a crime spree, carving out a kingdom of dirt…no.  I am sure that we will all still be here come the 22nd of the month.  What interests me more is the typically human hysteria around this even and all the other ‘end of the world’ doom sayers.  I bet few have read the theory on why the world will end and the frankly bonkers logic of the Mayans for what would cause all of our ends.  Check the link in this post if you want to know more.

Essentially it is another case of ancient papers and sacred texts being mistranslated.  An ending of the world really should read ‘a big change in mankind or in the way society functions’ but as always it finishes up being ‘look out for that ruddy big rock falling out of the sky’.  Change a word here or there and the meaning goes totally left of field without a lot of effort…I write fiction for a living trust me on this.  I have all the books that Erich von Daniken wrote and they are excellent works of fiction (awesome for wargaming potential by the way!) but they are not real, just a sideways look at history.  I put this event into the same category.

I could end on a crass little comment about predicting the future and not seeing the arrival of the Spanish but hey…I am not one to anger the gods.  See you in a week!

GBS

The Shepard and his Flock

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The Warrior Shepard

The Warrior Shepard

After yesterday I will admit to a bit of a case of nerves when I attended my youngest son’s nativity play at Girvan Nursery (which is attached to the primary school) but I am happy to say that there was no drama off stage at all.  The Warrior, above in all his finery, played a Shepard.  He is not the actor that my middle son appears to be and much prefers his toy soldiers (not white metal, just a one pound bag of green and grey plastic ones!) and and pop guns but he put on a grand show.  Singing, clapping, miming the actions.  He is smart as a button which was plain to see as he reacted quickly to instruction and made no errors during the performance.  I enjoyed the show…it always reminds me of a horde of little goblins arms and legs flailing madly as they tumble around in a cloud of dust.  Pure madness in the best possible way.

It was a little sad for me though as that was my last nursery grade nativity play 🙁 .  The Warrior begins school next summer and he is my youngest so that is that for the nursery with all three of them passing through its excellent caring hands.

On a separate note the image below makes me smile.  This is the Warrior in his day to day mode as it were.  Just as popular as his brothers.  He handed out his birthday party invites for January today (before school breaks up)…I had to get thirty made to meet the list of those who want to come!

The Warrior and his Fans!

The Warrior and his Fans!

   GBS