Adepticon Cart Opens- Legends of High Seas Returns

The Adepticon Cart opened at 8pm cst this evening, just over 2 hours ago..and as usual things are already selling out, I was promptly on signing up for my events which as player is all Bolt Action for me both the Doubles and The Nationals, more on Bolt Action later as I get my act together to talk about my new force.

I wanted to take time to mention my Thursday night activity which is the return of my Legends of the High Seas game, which last appeared in 2014. While you will see a very similar board to what you see here from last time around, I am expanding it a bit with a bit more play space and now 12 slots.

The game is one part miniatures game, one part drinking game, and seems to to have last time included live gambling, bribery and extortion. needless to say its 21+ and over.

Five tickets sold right off the bat so we've got seven more slots, please go over the rules about the miniature requirements before you commit , as it is a miniatures game after all. As for long out of print, rare and ebay expensive ruleset. Dont worry about that if you havent played before want to paint up a Pirate crew and get in on action , I'll be putting together a necessary rules PDF to give out as necessary long before the event.  Drink up ya scallywags , yah better start practicing only 129 days!

Adepticon 2014 Part 3

Friday evening was the return of my Legends of the High Seas game which last washed ashore in 2011.  I knew the gang which only featured two returning players still had high expectations based on the previous events success, so I aimed to not disappoint.

It was somewhat odd seeing this whole set up transplanted here from my basement shocking things were moved to and from with very little minor damage

We had the full compliment of 10 players with average crew size of 12, meant 120 skirmishing figures all trying to outscore each other by capturing treasure tokens and objectives during each of the games three stages. I threw curveball in of having live 12 and 8 pound guns on the table that could be fired and could destroy buildings. The players wasted no time in jumping on this we had several buildings leveled as well as the Pirate ship being sunk as one crew valiantly tried to sail her to the other side of the board for the big points in round 2. An overshot cannonball did some damage to hull in stage one, leading to her early sinking.

I was concerned about about rules and turn protocol in a "big game" such as this. While although you were rolling initiative against the person across or nearest you, the game was really a big free for all. Anyone crew could attack anyone in the effort to score as many points as possible. The two Royal Navy players initially aimed to capture Pirates, I dont think the Privateers had the same restraint.
Thankfully, even with the rulebooks author Tim, on hand for the festivities the game played seemed very smooth, but that could also be a result of the mass quantities of rum on hand being consumed by many of the players.

With 10 players admittedly the board was crowded, this just added to excitement I think however if I added two more players, I would add at least full four feet of table space maybe more.

At the end of stage 3 we only had 2 or 3 of the 10 crews completely knocked out of the game. Newcomer to the event and game David was the high scorer with returning winner from 2011 coming in just 2 points behind. In very close match in the appearance category Jeremy's converted Perry bros Prussians proxying British Marines won the Appearance award. Prizes were of course not the usual Adepticon swag but small treasure chests filled with Pirate Coins and extra Foundry Pirate figures I had from back when we ran the campaign, everyone walked aways with something including Tim
getting awesome laser cut initiative(priority) tokens made commemorating the event.

The gang in action, Thanks to  Tim for bringing the Pirate Flag!

Feedback already has been great, its always satisfying when you put some much time into something and it goes according to plan. If my life lets me well be back again next year with some minor changes and even opening a couple spots, figure we had quite the audience watching the game which is always a good sign to increase attendance in the future. No idea on format yet but its great to see the interest in such fringe genre of gaming.. Thanks mates for all your support!

In my next and final say on Adepticon 2014, I will recount my Sunday, where I took part in Adepticon's first Bolt Action tournament.

Playtest!

 

We finally managed to get the playtest in last night, while we didnt have the number of players I need to run the game as it will happen we did have enough to break it down to test various rules and situations for playability. Definitely glad we did this as it resulted in several rule changes to the scenario and a bunch of tweaks made to insure everyone has a good time. At this point outside of some minor terrain details I still need to add the game it good to go, I'll leave you with some shots of the the full table.

Still need to do some work on the transition hill from the town to the fort. Not having a continuous surface makes the pieces flush..it will be on game night thou!

Light House View. Game starts at low tide and the game goes on the tide comes in and the area around the lighthouse becomes unplayable so the ship can sail in.

Town view

3/4 view

Long View

Next up I get my Bolt Action and Lord of the Rings ready to play...then it will be the actual reports from the event!

LotHS preview- putting the Demo together.

 Spent alot of today figuring out how the heck to put this 12 foot by 4 foot , 10 player Legends of the High Seas game together and transport all this stuff back and forth from Adepticon,  Not only does the set up need to playable, but it needs to be portable. Last time around (2011) I  basically hauled half my basement out there including two heavy 4 x 4 framed tabletop and and enough set ups to run
all the games.  This was not a pleasant experience (the moving and setup that is,  the tournament itself was awesome) and it definitely wasnt "portable" by anyone with any common sense measure.

 Telling myself, "I'll never do that again" had alot to do with the fact of why this game hasn't happened in the last two years outside of some family and work related issues. Because games like these requires alot terrain and scenery to set the mood (and I sold my Pickup earlier in the winter in exchange  for a more family freindly SUV.) My options to pull this off were somewhat limited. Deciding to run the event "Big Game" style as many smaller events are rather than a conventional tournament was step one, Step two was designing a board with great terrain that was easily moveable was the other.

I was sweating using the blue felt, worried about how it would look, but once I got it set up and saw the nice color contrast, I was quite happy.

Since one of the biggest requests in the long interim between these events was Pirate Ships- in a Pirate game, of course. I wanted the Ship to be part of the scenario and not just static scenery. While incorporating a "boarding action" type scenario wasn't in the cards for this type of game, One ship and some Water was.

 Using 3, 3 x 3 foam boards for the land mass and huge piece of Royal blue felt as a table cover gives me the nice color of some Caribbean water and huge land playing area with 1 foot boarder in which to Sail the ship for table end to end...which is 16 feet from dock to dock. 2 of my players crews will be fortunate enough to take The Griffon round end of the board , letting off a broadsides at their opponents along the way...of course Artillery goes both ways and there are 10 live guns on the board as well..Sinking the Ship and /or destroying some of the fortifications are part of the scenario. The cannon balls will be flying I am sure.

While I only got the Fort section or 1/3 of the table set up today it was only because I had some painting to do on the bases of both the other sections and they are drying. We are play testing the scenario Tuesday evening...I'll have the whole thing set up tomorrow.  I built quite a bit of stuff for this event, and borrowed the rest from some of my Pirates in arms, Rich and Tim, the latter of which is helping me run the event.

I am going to finish the full fortress to match the gatehouse section at some point, as you can imagine its quite the endeavor, having Rich's original pirate castle still kicking around is always a good thing.

In the end while there is alot of foam and plaster and a whole lot of scenery for the miniature to navigate, unlike last time is all portable in plastics tubs in the SUV with foam boards being very move friendly. While I will probably pour a nice resin water section on a permanent table here, the blue felt works well for the convention type setting.  While we do have a mish mash of various peoples terrain here, when I did the initial set up I was impressed with how much it reminded me of Havana from Assassins Creed Black Flag and that was pretty neat. looking forward to showing off the full setup over the course of the week. I am excited for this event, the players are in for one heck of a ride. Best of all I am not sweating moving the stuff around at all..which means if I can keep moving along on that track we might see these games alot more often!.

The Lighthouse

 

 Continuing the current pattern here is "The Lighthouse" for the Adepticon Legends of the High Seas Event.  More towering Gun platform than actual lighthouse, It  was a good a name as any and I can always stick a light in there. As always I plan on using this for various games not just Pirates I can swap the roof for various genres.

Here a good sense of the scale with figures at the base..this sucka is big!

Other the copper dome roof ( an old toy part) its made exclusively with Hirst Arts 4" tower mold.
I struggled with roof design for awhile figuring out what I wanted to do, wasting a couple pricey sheets of shingle plastic card and too much time in the process. I was kicking myself for not picking Hirst conical roof mold, which I am certainly going to do after this. Saving some of the kids old toys in the junk box instead of letting them go to the Salvation Army has come thru again, the dome part is actually from a Fisher Price Submarine aimed at 3 year olds.

 

The guns in game terms are 12 pound Cannons, if you are watching the Starz Pirate series "Black Sails" thats exactly the size guns the crew of the Walrus risked everything to aquire as they pack a hell of a punch. Cannons will be live in the actual game are they are going to cause some carnage for sure.

Capturing this tower and holding it is one of the major objectives of the game. While the 4 inch interior is roomy an assault here would take place all the way up the stairs, and while the tower comes apart in  3 pieces I didnt do the stairs all the way as it was pointless and nigh impossible to access with figures. As a result we have special rules for assaulting this tower in actual game and they are very friendly to the defender as you can imagine.

Building these tall tower in sections is a challenge. As careful as I was the sections still did not line up perfectly, doing it with the naked eye. Close enough with the forgiving fieldstone blocks but to do a tall tower like this right  you really need to build with some sort of inset shape in the center that keeps the thing perfectly round as you build it, Any deviation is magnified as you get taller and correcting those is a beast.

 All in all, I am psyched with the way this came out although the hours in with obscene amounts of casting one mold and difficulties with vertical building, rival the entire gatehouse which is probably double the plaster.

One more piece to paint and then some terrain painting of the actual boards  and Pirates is ready to go!

The Gatehouse - Painted up.

 Here's the painted version of the Gatehouse for the Pirate table at my Legends of the High Seas event at this years Adepticon. dressed up with some of my Spanish Privateers, its  representing the main standing fortification of Fort San Lorenzo and capturing and holding it, is one of the main objectives of the game. As you can imagine whoever gets in there first is going to be tough to dislodge with lots of hard cover to had and even some fireable cannons! the remainder of fort is going to be ruins from the original pirate castle we used in the past.

 Surrounded by water the Fort got the  "ruins by the seaside" paint job a mix of limestone, moss greens and earth. Painting was a 5 stage process of , Prime Black, Basecoat Brown, Heavy drybrush Sand, Weather with Pigment (in this case Green) then spot drybrush a linen /white mix.

 As usual these thing take alot longer than planned, I still need to paint the matching "Lighthouse"
which isnt really a Lighthouse, but a guard tower standing about 4-6 inches higher then the top of the
Gatehouse and is top with wide turret with 5 cannons...again a capturable objective of the game.
The lighthouse will more than likely be the next post.

 The is also a Church, which isnt out of Hirst pieces..but resin, some of you might recall old Armorcast Cathedral , I bought it in probably 2008 and never really used it much...so IF time allows its getting a fitting repaint and Tile roof for this event.

We've got plenty of terrain at this point so its really a matter of putting the best stuff together to make the best looking table possible, I am currently working on a Bolt Action table and with a little more month to go the pressure is on big time, I still have 3 60mm bases with 3-5 soldiers each ,a piece of equipment and some terrain feature to paint for my Bolt Action Army..and my Jeep!.

I really enjoyed building this piece, its going to get alot of use post Adepticon as the outer wall of my Fantasy town I am putting together, I'll probably add a few more pieces overtime, but like everything I build I try to do with multiple games in mind so abandoned castle in Empire of the Dead..why not?

 Stay tuned, as I do the "Dance of Death" or the "Time Sink Shuffle" as I try cram all this stuff
in the last 30 days before Adepticon, every year I ask myself -why I do this to myself?., I always say I am not going to do it, and always end up in this same spot is Eight years in row...sigh

Not to be outdone by Adepticon , Rich is hosting a huge Hail Caesar Crusades game at Little Wars this year, I am helping out and building King Richards banner and its entourage which is  an elborate piece on 100-120mm base with a half dozen elements and a giant free hand banner..Little Wars takes place 3 weeks after Adepticon and I'm not even starting the piece until the dust settles so I am on a 3 week schedule to get it done..shouldn't be too tough, I'm following that up with the Sci Fi project I started over winter break- That ought to keep me busy pretty much thru the Summer. Oh yeah then there is Lead Painters League Season 8 coming up end of March too, dont think I am making it this
year but then again, I said that last year too.

A Pirate Cure for Winter Blues

Chicago is a damn frozen wasteland. I've lived here over 20 years and this is worst winter I remember, we've had worse individual snowfalls, but not the repetitive brutal cold and consistent snow we're having to date. Apparently this was the norm in the 70's and 80's but in those days I resided in the Mid-Atlantic states.

 I feel like I havent played a game in ages, our club night has been on hold since early December with my my wife slipping on ice and hurting herself, the Holidays, then this brutal weather. Everytime we tried to get together its been sub-zero and a snow storm, not exactly ideal driving conditions to head out into the night to play some games. Usually during this time of year I find myself with my most significant hobby output, the fore-mentioned plus  my new work schedule working totally freelance, and my playing video games with my kids has somewhat curtailed my time in the basement. while I certainly have been whittling away when I can it was about a week ago after I finished this recent project I was on, that I kicked on the afterburners.


Adepticon 2014 is right around the corner, while I always try not to over commit, I usually always do and this year in no exception. I am playing in two tournaments. The usual Lord of Rings Championships, and new for 2014 Bolt Action. My LotR army is singles 750 pt version of last years  Rohan Team army force not much new to see there, a couple new models I didnt  for BBB but I never actually made it to the tournament. The army is done and ready to go. With the recent shakeups at GW and the game fading away from it long standing limited popularity, there is only a singles event this year..and I wouldnt be surprised if its the last. GW cut its own throat on this game releasing some many Hobbit models in Finecast, while they know its not popular then complaining about lack of sales is maddening where if they had pewter or even plastic versions they would have gotten quite bit of my money, and I only like maybe half the releases...I cant be alone there.

Not coincidentally, the majority of the LotR player I know haved moved over to Warlords Games, excellent Bolt Action, very well supported with constant releases and moderately priced with a great ruleset the game is clearly the new Skirmish game of the moment (thou I must say I recently got the Saga Rules and I really like them, especially with fan made battle boards for things like Lord of the Rings!!!..LOL)

The feel of BA and LotR is similar in play. although due to all crazy variety there is alot more going on, My 12 order British Force is Paratroopers and Commandos, and comes in right at 50 painted models, while not quite halfway done, I am totally done with Paratrooper infantry on single bases, and moving on to the Commandos , still need to do the larger base stuff and touch up my Humber with some decals and finish up my Jeep. I dont feel rushed working on there guys I am batch painting the infantry around 6 at time for consistency, pretty confident they'll be totally done by the end of Feburary. I'll start leaking picks soon.  Aaron and I are also doing a table for the Bolt Action tourney
which were are in the building stage off.  Its a classic Northern Europe village set up with some great terrain features, like cobble roads, and bridge, a foot bridge..complete and ruined buildings...finish this up with take some time but I am not doing it alone and helps A TON.

preview of our Bolt Action table, long way to go yet!

Finally I mentioned Pirates!, as I freeze my arse off here, I cant forget that my Legends of the High Seas game is back this year at Adepticon and its is SOLD OUT., while only 10 players...and I think
I know most of them. I thought I'd unveil the table center piece pre paint with the gatehouse here:

Not totally cleaned up for paint yet, but very close...I plan on priming it this weekend.

 I have a lighthouse about 80 percent done and a Church about 80 percent done. Tim K, author of High Seas book is assisting me in running the event and is bring along a bunch of very period buildings from Cresent Root Studio all wonderfully painted. Those along with the my three new pieces and Rich's Ruined Pirate castle supporting my Gatehouse plus my Docks and Pirate ship...we've got one hell of alot of terrain. I'll have more on scenario and table layout in the weeks to come, I hope to have a 6 player demo version of the event here this month, until then I have the great new show Black Sails and Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag to inspire me.

While I had all this Casting going on,  I of course had to revist my Sci Fi molds get a couple ideas going, I'd really like to get some Sci Fi Skirmish going this year, and with the layout I am going to have I hope the guys cant say no. But I'll leave that for future posts.

I think you can get good sense of scale here and how it will work with the current Pirate Castle pieces we use.

Fully playable interior

Return of the Pirates

Now that its official, it might be time to announce the return of Legends of the High Seas at Adepticon 2014. Pirate gaming has been on the back burner for a couple years now but the interest and demand is still there, so after a bunch of back and forth I was eventually keelhauled back in to run it. I am quite confident already that with some help from Tim , the rule books author, and some other fine folk all ready secured it is going to be one hell of a game! I am running it as a big game this year rather than a traditional tournament, however its a 3 stage game so it will have that down home tournament feel. We are assembling a really great board of terrain old and new, and in honor of the most successful pirate on record and all those entertaining Rum commercials its themed on Captain Henry Morgan.

Direct from the Adepticon webcart here is the event description:

Legends of the High Seas - The Sacking of Panama, 1671

  In December 1670 and January 1671, Henry Morgan, one of the most notorious and successful pirates on the Spanish Main, destroyed Fort San Lorenzo and Burned and Sacked the City of Panama. The utter chaos that followed was a payday for Pirate and Pirate Hunters alike. Be one of 10 Privateer, Pirate or Royal Navy Crews that explore the ruins of Fort San Lorenzo and the City of Panama searching for plundered Spanish gold. Bring your Crew comprised of up to 15 men and face off on a 48 Square foot board to capture objectives, eliminate enemy crews and capture as much gold as possible in this 3 Stage, 4 hour event. In the end, only one players name will rival that of Henry Morgan, but they will damn sure know the names of the ones who almost stopped them! Awards for the top two scorers and Best Painted Crew!

10 spots , $10 dollars,  given the interest on our local forums and my inbox this should sell out right away.

I'll be posting the rules as soon they are submitted for the event, as I was working from the cancelled

2012 event most the work is done, slight changes to tailor to the event. excited to get back pirate gaming, you know we will run a demo of this event at the house before Adepticon...Arghhhh.

Scratch Build- "The Eye"

 Just showing off my first ever total scratch build. Other than a few decorative plastic and hirst bits..this is all Pink foam, cereal box, balsa, dowels, bamboo skewers, plastic card, leather stitching and wood glue.

 I call her "The Eye" a Corsair scout ship from the 50 or so ships set out from Umbar to ambush the City of Minas Tirith during the battle of Pelennor Fields in "The Return of the King". Aragorn, and his companions captured this fleet with help of the Dead of Dunharrow and help turn the tied of Battle.

 The ship is my display board for my Thursday night Lord of the Rings events, "March to Mount Doom" which is a single elimination 500 point tournament with a 15 model cap...My army features
Aragorn, (Heir of Isildur profile), The King of the Dead and 12 Men of Dunharrow. I have no idea how its going to perform. The Army of Dead was always a poorly performing force for its cost, I dont think much has changed under the new "Hobbit" Rules.

 The ship was fun to build. I originally had a different plan that didnt feature the full ship just a portion of one side as back drop. however after looking at couple of scratch builds online and watching the scenes from the film, I was inspired at like 2am last sunday morning.  I drew a hasty sketch that night, and in the morning when the wife and kids coincidentally were going to a baby shower, I was free to go to town.  by the time "the Walking Dead" came on Sunday evening she was done minus the back sail which I finished Monday night.

 I approached this just like I would make a plastic or resin model other that I had to design all the parts.. drew all the parts out by hand, per sketch- built my Pink Foam form then resized my parts drawn of the actual material used. and cut out with an xacto or my mini scroll saw. The trickest part was the bow ram...I made about 3 of them before I got it just right...

This is a scout ship meant for boarding I designed it as such.. Bow Ram, Shields, Boarding Spikes, etc, swallow hull, no lower deck...I got some really cool Mithril Corsairs that are going populate her., after Aragorn gets done with her. Other than looking cool on my wall post tournament....I could throw some deck guns on the her and use her in Legend of the High Seas play too..whatever..a third finished ship for my growing Navy, I'll paint her in the coming weeks.

Time and Materials- around 12 hours, costs in materials is under 20.00 USD

Course Correction- Adepticon Update.

The Kraken Attacks, abandon ye all hope. In all seriousness I wanted to make a quick announcement about a course correction. Due to circumstances far beyond my control I am suddenly being forced to relocate my business operations over the next 3-4 months. As a result I have no choice but to cancel my Adepticon 2012, Legends of the High Seas Event.  Thankfully Tim Kulinski, Author of the High Seas book is stepping up and running a big game in its place and current time slot, while not the massive scenery laden affair I had planned its going to be great game on great terrain with multiple crews fighting in a free all doing an table wide treasure hunt. Prizes, etc will be still be offered, look for replacement event details at Adepticon.Org and Tim's blog as well.

I'll still be at Adepticon myself, I may even play Friday Night. (I'll definitely show up) Unfortunately I am going to have very limited time this spring, and planning an event like I had run last year and stepping it up as I was  aiming for this year takes just alot of time and planning, I had estimated between finishing new terrain, scenarios and all the paperwork involved I was looking at 100 or so hours of work between now and then, which is time and distraction I just can't have.

Anyway I want to give a big Thanks to Tim and Rich  for bailing me out and saving the day here
Tickets will be refunded or honored depending.  Once life is back on track, I'll be back to business as usual with my hobbies. This kind of throws a monkey wrench at some other announcements I had planned as I am loath to make them until I ride out this course correction...such is life...Arghhh.

Legends of the High Seas At Adepticon 2012

Just a quick flyer I threw together for LotHS at Adepticon this year. Rules are currently posted  HERE
any event  questions should be emailed to me at oldcoast@comcast.net. With last years event and a second summer campaign under my belt the rules have changed a bit for the better to include more of the mini campaign aspects and the scoring is alot more similar to what tournament players are used to. I've got some great stuff lined up terrain wise as well as all of last years favorites coming back. "Boarding Action" will be happening and rumor has it the author of the rulebook will joining us as a participant! There 20 slots max, 15 seats currently available as I type this. Note the later start..so you should be able to play in Friday daytime events and not have any conflicts. Also if you're playing in the event please keep an eye on lothscampaign.blogspot.com for all event related updates. Pics of terrain, etc are of course posted here, but event related posts and information will always be there first.

Boarding Action

A couple of great games of Legends of the High Seas last night, the 2 games were rounds 9 and 10 of the Campaign roughly half the players are fielding crews of 20 and higher and there are some serious tough customers currently sailing the Caribbean in our little world.


Not the prettiest board yet, the lexan is test piece for doing a water surface..once I dry brush it, Ill see I a couple different colors can mask that rigid geometry

We finally got around to playing the boarding action scenario using my WIP Old Glory Brig as the second ship. pretty much complete outside of the paint and rigging..its sporting a custom add on bottom to give it some height as the stock model is waterlined way too high for my tastes (and the other ships) has an added forecastle and entry point.and is sporting 3, Triple sailed masts. General consensus was that this ship was just to small for this scenario and was really just good for a set piece..so the scenario languished un-played through out the campaign. I'm glad some of the guys gave it shot as well a myself, as it was a blast, the swinging climbing and jumping was very pirates of the classic movies. Size constraints and the 1 inch control zone literally meant you had to brawl you way through the mob, both our captains got into some dicey situations as a result..as you can imagine and out of action rolls for your Veteran Heroes and Captain after 10 rounds are not rolls you want to be making Fortunately for the Crew of Delivery we killed most of the pirate crew before the "Red Devil" himself, Guillaume LeClerc got away with a few deck hands.


collecting dust for years..I finally figured out how make this ship work for me aesthetically, hopefully can see the promise here, is should look just as good as "The Griffon" before too long.I plan on two much larger ships for the Boarding Action at Adepticon in 2012, these small ships will be terrain pieces on other boards.

My Navy Crew also prevailed in my defense of the a captured Privateer hero put on trial for piracy as his crew desperately tried to free him from the Prison at New Providence. A good week for the Royal Navy going 2-0 after 2 losses last time. One more round to go before we declare the winner of this campaign coming up in a month. 1 more meeting with 2 games to go. As usual scoring updates are on my Legends of the High Seas campaign blog


A Shot from Prison Break, the Abel Seaman held the line here with some support from my Hired Hands (not pictured) Buy My Marines won the day along with my ferocious Lieutenant who missed the first games being immediately put out of action and then captured has come back "Hardened" and is my toughest sailor hands down.