SkeletonKey Games

I really enjoy wargaming as both a pastime and a hobby but recently I've been trying to find ways to reduce the preparation aspect of my games. I enjoy spending hours creating army lists, weeks painting armies and building terrain but I'm finding it harder to justify the time. Latley I find myself playing skirmish games using my Star Wars miniatures play mats simply because they quick'n'easy and look great with my miniatures.

So I finally gave in and bought these (click for a bigger image)


SkeletonKey Games sell a range of pdf gaming tiles that are of a quality that I've rarely seen on the Internet. They have quite a range of sets for both outdoor and dungeon/caves and many of the sets have tiles that blend from one to another, so it's quite possible to have a seamless map that goes from a forest to a dungeon, on to a cave network and then to flooded ice caves. The tiles vary from 6"x6" up to 6"x9" and they have the 1" grid which is has become the defacto standard for almost all games these days. I would have liked to have the outdoor ones without a grid for my skirmish games, but having one does mean I can use them for Star Wars Miniatures and D&D also, so I'm not too fussed.

The price for these sets is usually around $12 for 25+ tiles but I was lucky enough to get them while they were one sale for 50%.

They print up great on my Brother MFC 440 inkjet and look fantastic once they've been laminated. You can create a nice little dungeon for a quick skirmish game using just 5-6 tiles.


Same goes for the outdoor tiles.


I've got maybe 30 of these sitting in a shoebox just waiting for whenever I get the urge to play a game. I don't think they will ever replace the desire to play on a real table with modelled terrain but right now they serve their purpose which is to give me more time to paint the miniatures and actually play the games. I can see these being a part of my RPG and Skirmish games for many years to come.

For Those About to Rock...

I'm so glad I decided against setting myself a painting schedule as I'd be so far behind right now. It's not entirely my fault though, well yeah ok it is but I do have an excuse albeit a poor one: you see I bought this


I just can't stop playing it. Guitar Hero II and III were (and still are) awesome games but they are nothing compared to this. Playing the drums is something you just have to experience to believe. It almost feels like the real thing. And the song list just fits this 80's metal head perfectly... I mean every single track from this album:


Need I say more? ...I didn't think so.

Song of Blades and Heroes

For a while now I've been listening to a podcast by Neil Shuck called Meeples and Miniatures in which he discusses, among other things wargames and boardgames. I had epsiode 22 on as background noise while I was painting my BB Orcs when a reveiw of a miniatures game called Song of Blades and Heroes caught my attention. More specifically it was a few of the key features that interested me:
- No book keeping.
- All measurements/ranges are a fixed short, medium or long.
- You only needed 5-10 minis per player.
- Solo playability.
- Campaign system.
- You can create your own creatures/races.

Although the one mechanic that really sold me was the activation system. Basically everything in the game has an action cost: walk is 1 action, sprint is 2 actions, attack in hand to hand is 1 action and so on. When it is your turn you pick a miniature and decide to roll between 1-3 activation dice, the number of successful rolls determines the number of actions (between 0 and 3) that miniature may take this turn. Once that miniature has finished it's actions you may pick another miniature and roll it's activation dice. Cool you say well why don't you just roll 3 activation dice every turn? Well the interesting part is that if a miniature ever rolls 2 or more unsuccessful rolls then you get to make complete the successful actions but then your turn ends and your opponent now has their turn.

I love this concept, in fact it's a core mechanic to a lot of the other games I enjoy such as the turnover rule in BloodBowl and the command rolls in Warmaster. It's a mechanic that takes a simple game and adds an incredible amount of depth and strategy.

The rules for creating warbands are simple enough and you are allowed to use models from any race. They've got all the races you'd expect in a fantasy game covered, there's something like 180+ creatures in the core book and more in the expansions. Also there is quite an active yahoo group that has the rules for creating your own creatures if you're not happy with what's already in the books.

The price is also good at $5US ($7.68AU) for the core book and $8US ($12.28AU) for the expansion books. I picked up the core book and the first expansion Song of Gold and Darkness which adds a heap of rules for dungeon crawls.

So thankyou to Neil Shuck for once again introducing me to a great game. Now I'm off to dig up all my old D&D minis, and my Mordheim warbands, and my WFB minis...

BloodBowl: Moortown Flinggers vs Hawk Eaters Photos

I was able to get my hands on some photos of the BloodBowl game played on Saturday night (thanks Gus and Brendan). What you're seeing here is the result of an Blitz! result on the kick-off table. Remember to click on the images for a larger version.

Impact Treemen

Finished painting the Impact Treemen for my Halfling team. It took a lot more work than I first imagined, there is lot of detail in these guys that isn't really apparent until you start painting them. The colours look a little flat here, I'd like to blame the camera/lighting/something but I just don't have the skills to take those spiffy photos you see on all the other sites. It is something I'm working on.

So here they are (left to right) Gildamesh Bloomberry and Gumpwise Talltree. Remember to click on the images to see a bigger version.


One thing that really annoyed me is that the miniatures were hollow. They came with a back piece and a front piece but were hollow down to the hips. Since you look down on the miniatures for the most part of a game it just looked silly. So greenstuff (actually I use Milliput and it's white but you get the idea) to the rescue. I'm pretty happy with the woodgrain sculpting on the inside, I actually forgot to do it and only remembered the morning after putting these guys together. Thankfully the greenstuff hadn't hardened completley so I was able to put some lines in with a scalpel and a pin.


I still need to finish painting the bases off and add some static grass. The Halfling team is pretty much complete now. I just have this guy to paint up as my team coach. He's a Reaper mini (03261: Bergo Ironbelly, Halfling Pirate) and the detail on this miniature is just amazing considering his size.


I'm still looking for an apothecary model so if you know of any good ones leave a comment and I'll have a look, thanks.