Dungeons and Dragons

Yet another little find amongst my old chums bits and pieces.

A relatively anonymous white box, slightly bigger than A5 sized, about as heavy as a paperback book so I knew it didn't have metal figures in it as I rattled it a bit to shake off the dust and stour.

Dungeons and Dragons it said on the lid. I remember them. I partied down a dungeon or two in my earlier years at the club. I was surprised that Iain had this as we always had used Advanced Heroquest whenever he or I hosted a dungeon adventure.

Never mind, lets have a look inside. The lid said a 3 volume set.

Yes, 3 booklets, all in very good order. Dated 1974 so these are the original set.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons

And:

Three supplements, all from the same time period and the Reference Sheets.

So this is a very complete set of the original Dungeons and Dragons rules, in very good condition, owners name in ink in a few locations and several notes in pencil here and there.

I can see that these are on offer on sites such as eBay for silly money, £75 a booklet or so. I wonder what they really sell for. I would be open to a sensible offer. All proceeds to Combat Stress.

A Week (weak) later ...

I am still feeling a little weak but progressing away from the hazy, spluttering, windy state I was in after I came back from Vapnartak in York.

I now feel better than my hut looks.

 

 

 

It used to look like this.

 

 

Not much difference (sarcasm)!

 

 



 

A Thousand Words

There is a saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, probably of journalistic origin.

Given the tasks I have to hand following a week of spluttering coughs and other foul airs this picture is just how I feel today.

The image is taken from:

http://www.elfwood.com/art/l/i/lilleahwest/ew_war_horse.jpg.html

On the bright side I get to see a doctor on Tuesday who hasn't seen me before just like the last one in the local practice and the one before that in Tenerife last December. At least I'm not actually an equine or my former clients in the Dick Vet would be reaching for a certain large syringe.

A Dusty Find

I am continuing to uncover little surprises as I clear the shelves in my recently deceased best friends garage. The cobwebs, dead spiders, mummified wasps and layers of dust and grime were quite expected but underneath one particular lump I found, perhaps, a timely pile.

Green and rectangular they were, not heavy at all and swiftly recovered back to my wargaming hut.

Here they are spread along the only clear (but narrow) section of my 12 foot long table.

They are 300mm x 300mm cork tiles painted green and marked off in 100mm squares. There are enough to cover my entire tabletop.

There are a good number of thicker pieces nicely chamfered along the edge.

Here they are with a few 10mm figures for scale. The squares are 100mm wide or 4 inches for those of an imperial mind.

Given the recent waves of interest in Old School wargaming and square grids in particular I am sure I will be able to deploy these when ever I get my tabletop cleared. Peer back at my leading picture and you will see that my tabletop is stacked ceiling high with some of my old chums figures, books and rulesets. Those in sight are about one quarter of the total, another quarter is out of sight in the hut, a third is at a friends house for viewing and the fourth quarter is already sold. I have raised over £2000 so far which will form a donation to Combat Stress in my friends name.

Finally, I can report on a recent purchase which should prove useful once I start gaming again, particularly in games where no grid is used.

It is a sheet of Perspex, cunningly cut and engraved by my good friends at Figures in Comfort. My Imperial version, in clear Perspex has an 8 inch ruler on one edge with 1", 2", 4" and 6" lengths on the other edges and has 30º and 45º angles etched inside. Very useful indeed.

These can be purchased from Figures in Comfort in a variety of forms including Metric, mine cost £6 so I bought two.

http://www.figuresincomfort.net/

York? Anyone?

Am planning to go to Vapnartak in York this weekend.

http://www.yorkwargames.org/Vapnartak.htm

Anyone else going?

I am hoping to raise funds for my recently deceased best friends charitable donation to Combat Stress. Look for me at the Tabletop Sale.

http://www.combatstress.org.uk/

Figure Id Required

I recently rescued about 40 figures and horses from my friends scrap pile. They look good enough to be used in my 'Old School' ancients collection but I would like to have a clearer identification of the figure in question.

Here it is:

As you can see it is an unarmoured horse archer, quite possibly Minifigs but could be Garrison or Greenwood & Ball or maybe even Hinchcliffe.

The horse is stamped AHIII and may be a different manufacturer from the rider although it sits very well on the saddle.

Like I say I have about 40 of them, all unpainted apart from this one. I would like to be able to make up 3 or 4 small skirmish horse archer units for my Greek/Macedonian/Persian armies but will be more convincing if I can apply a race or nationality to them.

Hope someone can help!

My Next Unfinished Project is ... ... ECW

My gaming room looks like this:

Underneath and behind the towering boxes I have 12 x 4 gaming table just screaming out to be played upon. Why not you say? I'll tell you why not!

My best friend died last month, my gaming buddy and all that entails. One thing I have decided to do is to help the family do something sensible with his wargaming collections. Forty years in the making or certainly the best part thereof and I now have most of it in my wargames room.

Going through the various bits and pieces brings back great memories of times and games gone bye and one particular selection jumped up and poked me in the eye, almost literally.

I came across these:

Polish Winged Hussars, Pancerni and Lithuanian Cavalry amongst others, all in 15mm.

And these:

Swiss and Spanish Infantry

Some of these:

ECW Cavalry, Roundheads mostly.

And these:

A few guns, medium sized and small.

Lots of these:

Loads of ECW infantry, 6 regiments, loyalties to be confirmed.

And an unpainted selection:

Now, just what can I do with this lot!

Well, there is this set of rules I wrote in 1975.

And there is this more recent set:

And there is this tome for reference.

First task is to clean up the figures and rebase them. The flock on them is (being polite here) biodegrading, it'll have to go. The bases are different sizes so they'll have to be rationalised.

Biggest problem is that my 1975 rules are geared up for infantry units to be at least 90 figures strong, 30 pikes in a block with a sleeve on either flank of 30 muskets as well as a few officers, standard bearers and drummers. Single figure casualty removal is a requirement for my rules.

The unit strengths pictured above are about half that with no drummers. I'll have to compromise somewhere. I would also want the rules to be useable with the Swiss and Spanish units.

The Warlord ruleset will have its own suggested unit sizes, I have yet to read them but I expect them to be similar to other Black Powder rules with small, standard and large units. I would want the units to be useable in both rulesets as I may decide to sell the collection on.

There is then an Unfinished Project to be converted into a Finished project, wish me luck.