Summer Holiday Program confirmed.

The 2016 January holiday program has now been confirmed!
Go check out the events page for full details.

September Holiday Program 2015: ANNOUNCE!

Yes! Announced it is! Check it out here.

Crippling Toppy shortage strikes Gippsland Gamers

All members of Gippsland Gamers are warned that there will be a crippling Toppy shortage this week due to Melbourne Camp. You are requested to make the necessary adjustments.

Warhammer Fantasy Op-Shopping

My esteemed flute-riddled opponent, Mad Juzzy the Flutist phoned me today to say that the Vinnies in Leongatha had some Warhammer stuff. Pausing only to bake a cake, I went to check it out.
There were about twenty old 4th and 5th edition plastic boxes, each containing a strange mix of things. Each box was $3. I bought ten of them, there are about ten left, mostly containing High Elves and Wood Elves or Orcs. If you want to get a cheap SBH force together, this would be an excellent place to start.
Most of the figures are painted and glossily varnished, and a lot of the undead ones are broken, but bathing them in dettol for about 24 hours should see to the paint.
Happy Op-Shopping!

Terrain For Hippos Annual Terrain Compometition: ANNOUNCE!

The Annual Terrain Compometition over at TFH has been announced, along with the usual litany of rules and prizes and the inclusion of an under 18s category. You may gaze upon it's fearful glory here.

A Song of Blades and Heroes: Army pricer

Hmmm... 15 points each for goblins, plus 45 for the leader...
You'd think a powerful mage like me would come up with
a way to make it easier to do an army list...

I have just put together a spreadsheet which can be used to price SBH armies made from models in my collection. We will be using this to help us build our Song of Deeds and Glory warbands, and it is also very handy for working out stand alone army lists. Currently it lists models which I have, and which have official SBH rules printed in the core book or one of the supplements. I have actually got some models which could work for various other things, but for the sake of keeping things simple, I've just included the best match. Also, where there are choices of training level (like elite archers vs. normal archers) I have just listed the price for the basic version of the unit.
You can find the spreadsheet on Google Drive.

A Song of Deeds and Glory

Next week sees the beginning of Campaign Season!
I have acquired A Song of Deeds and Glory, the campaign supplement for A Song of Blades and Heroes. This is a simple, skirmish level wargame which plays very quickly, but allows for a surprising level of versatility. A Song of Deeds and Glory adds rules for recruiting and improving a warband over the course of a campaign, capturing territory, earning money from territories, injuries and death of characters. The great thing is than an SBH game lasts about half an hour, so there's plenty of time to play several games in an evening, or play some other games as well!
I will bring a collection of terrain and miniatures from which we can make our warbands. My collection includes:

• Frogmen
• Samurai Rabbits
• Rather a lot of Goblins
• Orcs
• Ratmen
• Dwarves
• Quite a few Wood Elves
• Egyptian-style Undead
• Chaos warriors beyond counting
• Various large monsters

We will design and recruit warbands on Thursday, set up starting territories etc. and hopefully get a few games in!

July 2015 holiday program: ANNOUNCE!

Oh yes indeed, and you can check it out here.

New developments in floor games: Road Warriors.

I was at Bunnings on Saturday, and they had some cool little wooden car kits, about 8-10cm long. This got me thinking about the next school holiday program, and Mad Max (it's not hard to get me to think about Mad Max), and the inevitable development of a post-apocaylptic death racing floor game. 

Road Warriors is still work in progress, but I can reveal:

• It uses rolled dice for combat results instead of throwing things at one another.
• Movement is governed by a template. Each car has one, and it also governs things like damage, speed and special actions.
• The more damage you take, the slower you go.
• There are currently four car types - Hot Rod, Rally Car, Street Machine and Monster Truck (based on the models available)
• Road Warriors will probably be debuted during the July holidays.

Little Wars Melbourne 2015

Little Wars Melbourne 2015 is just around the corner! On may 31st, Moorabin Town Hall will be stuffed to the rafters with mighty gaming geeks, gaming gloriously!
And Toppy is running stuff!

Over the course of the day, a complete four-game A Song of Blades and Heroes campaign will take place! Will you help Prince Imraldiir of the Blessed Peacock and his sneaky Wood Elves defend their native oak trees against Goblin lumberjacks? Or will you take sides with Bzak Butt-Scratcher, chief of the Flatulent Mountain Goblins and try to fell the trees for your own fell purposes?

• Play over all new terrain built especially for the occasion!
• Play using almost all new figures painted especially for the occasion!
• Roll dice!
• Lead your armies to glory!

Have you ever wanted to cram two (yes! two!) Rampage sets together to play eight-way Kaiju carnage? Or do you yearn to experience Tsuro, or the sweet sweet taste of noshing down on skyscrapers in King of Tokyo? Mad Juzzy the Flutist will be running a table featuring a veritable bonanza of boardgames! Rousing cheers!

Young Brad provides an introduction to role playing, in the form of a stand-along Dice Chucker session set in Harran! Take on the role (and partial costume!) of one of six mighty heroes, and set out on a perilous quest involving skyships, lighthouses, goats and pirates!

• Play over new maps!
• Play using new paper figures made especially for this event!
• Roll dice!
• Learn rules!
• Achieve VICTORY!
• TRY TO KEEP YOUR CLOTHES ON!!

In which Young Brad learns to be a DM.

Young Brad has requested time to practice his DMing skills leading up to Little Wars at the end of the month. So I have hatched a cunning plan. Cunningly.
We are going to run some randomly generated dungeon crawling over the next few weeks. I have developed some encounter and loot tables, and we will use the magic item cards as always. I have also developed some new Dice Chucker V3 character sheets. These have:

• Places to clearly record your weapon's stats.
• Places to clearly record your Armour Level.
• Space to write in any spells or special rules your character has access to.
• More space to write character background and description if you want.
  
  
  
  

International Tabletop Day: April 11th

Next saturday is International Tabletop Day! You should celebrate by playing lots and lots of games and worshipping at the feet of Wil Wheaton!

Easter Wars II: The Jealousy of Ratmen

There's been a slight problem with the plan for Easter Wars II in that I have gone and left all the terrible toad at school (I forgot completely that the case was under my desk...). As a result of this grievous error, the plot has changed a little...

Jealous of the fine reputation, cute status and egg-based affection which children lavish upon their rodent brothers, the bunnies, the loathsome ratmen and their vile kin have launched a terrible plan to destroy easter! Scurrying from their dank burrows which riddle the land, they have launched a daring raid on the Easter Bunny egg stash, and stolen all the eggs! Now it is up to elite teams of ninja commando easter bunnies, each lead by a powerful Easter Assassin to reclaim the eggs from the vile clutches of the Ratmen!

Changes from last year include:

• A change of rules system from Fanticide to A Song of Blades and Heroes
• New units - the Ninja Commando Easter Bunnies now come in two flavours; deadly assassin leaders and the slightly less deadly commandos.
• New enemies - The Loathsome Ratmen and their Vile Kin, including their potent giant-rat riding chief, deadly warlocks, sneaking assassins, and foul rat ogres.
• New scenario - no longer are you attempting to rescue the kidnapped bears, now you are fighting to liberate stolen eggs!

Easter Holiday Program 2015: ANNOUNCE

Ninja Commando Easter Bunnie... ATTACK!!

This year's Easter Holiday program has been confirmed.
There will be a learn to paint session, Pirates' Treasure, Easter Wars II (with a new rules system!) and chocolate.
Mostly chocolate.
You can check out full details on the Special Events page.

Events of significant importance.

Harken oh gamers to this news of upcoming events!

Little Wars Melbourne 2015:

Borek! New figure!

May 31st, Moorabin Town Hall, Nepean Hwy. Melb.

Ah, Little Wars, venerable god king of melbournian games conventions. There will be a great deal of gaming and geekery, also many stalls and vendors selling the finest in geekery. Also, our own Brad the younger will be running a participation Dice Chucker session! Details of this session will be unleashed upon the world as they appear, but it involves:

• Skyships.
• Pirates.
• New figures.
• Cosplay.

GeekFest 2016:

Venetians recreate our masked ball. But not as awesomely.

January 16th, Coal Creek, Korrumburra.

GeekFest's return has been confirmed on January 16th, 2016. There are wild rumours circulating about:

• A masked ball after party.
• Magic: The Gathering organised play.
• Jousting.
• More traders.

More details are sure to come to light in the fullness of time...

But wait, there's kickstarter update

Kickstarter just emailed me to say that copies of But Wait, There's More have shipped. This means I should get mine in the next two-four weeks, depending on the vagaries of international postage from the US.
Rousing cheers!

Floor Games rulesets

Overwhelming demand from parents at GeekFest 2015 has lead to me posting all the floor game rules used at GeekFest and at Holiday Program to the GeekFest 2015 site. Those who ahve come here looking for them are requested the make the necessary adjustments.

In which we are thanked for our dedication to Dice Chucker V.3

I got an email last night from the bloke who wrote Dice Chucker thanking us for our interest in his game. Now that's the kind of service you don't get from the big game companies! He was very happy to see that the game is being used out in the big wide real world, and not just occupying a dark and shadowy corner of the back of his head. It's also nice to see the fame of Gippsland Gamers spreading so far!

The OvErSoUl GaMeS website is no more, but there is a new blog on which Bobby Wallen Jr. is posting about his projects, the 10th anniversary of Dice Chucker, and the future of the system.

Magic: The Gathering draft and how to play and stuff.

He's upset because he didn't get any mythic rares in the draft.

The cards, life trackers and land station have been purchased, reducing Tono to a fraction of his previous girth. The plan is to actually hold the draft on the 15th, and start playing after that. To help everyone learn what they are doing, I've made a youtube playlist which collects all five of Wizards of the Coasts' excellent learn to play magic videos so you don't need to go hunting for them.

2015 Summer Holiday Program

This year's summer holiday program has just been announced, and is now available for your perusal on the Special Events page.