Dr Who Miniatures Game

Warlord Games and the BBC announce a tie up to produce a new licenced Dr Who Miniatures Game.

"Warlord Games is absolutely delighted to have secured the licence to produce a miniatures game based on the BBC's enormously popular TV series, Doctor Who (back on BBC One on September 19th!). So delighted we might just have a celebratory jelly baby.
As lifelong Doctor Who fans ourselves, we are extremely pleased to have the chance to bring this iconic series to the tabletop with a game system you all know and love as well as the official range of miniatures to complement it.
The licence covers not just the latest series of Doctor Who but encompasses all of the Doctors, their companions and their foes. So, expect to see Sea Devils as much as Weeping Angels, Leela as much as Martha Jones, and a long, brightly coloured scarf as much as a fez (fezzes are cool, by the way...)."

And I am equally proud and delighted that Warlord Games have selected the writer!

I watched the first ever Dr Who programme as a little boy when it was broadcast in 1963 and have been a fan ever since. Incidentally, we did hide behind the sofa when the Daleks arrived. We were much less sophisticated in those days.

David Drake at Duxford

My colleague, David Drake, writer of the Hammer's Slammers series and many others, was over in England last week.

I took this photo at  Imperial War Museum Duxford.

Rick Pristley's Gaming Room

Milord Rick of Nottingham has recently acquired a new gaming room, and I for one am very jealous.

Oh well, back to my life in a little southern box.

Onward Drake eARC on Sale.

The eARC of the David Drake Appreciation Volume - Onward Drake - is now out.

I have a story called Technical Advantage inside.

Pip, Pip.

Back to my next novel.

Age of Sigmar Points System

Points work rather less well on skirmish games than most so designers often use a 'slot' system, which is about as effective way of any of getting a balanced game. Using slots rather than raw points smooths out variations.

You can set up one for Age of Sigmar fairly easily.

Try this:

Players should set a maximum number of slots available to armies before playing.

A unit occupies a slot or slots whatever number of models that represents.
Units may not 'share' a slot .

Calculate the number of slots required by each of your units using the following formula which is applied to the average model in each unit:

No. of Slots = ((No. of Wounds + No. of attacks) x no. of models in the unit)/10

Round the result up or down using the normal maths rule (1.5 = 2, 1.49 = 1), except that 0.49 or less is still one slot.

So a five man unit of Celestial Liberators =  ((2 + 2)5)/10 = 2.0 = Two slots

Lord-Celestant = ((7 + 6)1/10 = 1.3 = One slot

The Armies in the AOS Starter Set are costed as follows:

Lord-Celestant 1 slot, Lord-Relictor 1 slot, Prosecutors 2 slots, Retributors 2 slots, Liberators 2 slots, Liberators 2 slots:
Army Size: Ten Slots


Lord of Khorne 1 Slot, Bloodsecrator 1 Slot, Bloodstoker 1 Slot, Khogorath 2 slots, Blood Warriors 2 slots, Blood Reavers 4 slots.
Army Size: Eleven Slots

Note that (i) where a models attacks decrease with damage then use the starting number of attacks. If a model has variable attacks, say 2D6, then take the average for the calculation, i.e. 7.

Deathrattle Horde
Wight King 1 Slot, Five Black Nights 3 slots, Five Grave Guard 2 Slots, Three units of ten skeleton warrior 2 Slots each.
Army Size Twelve Slots.

This is quick and dirty. It is easily gameable by messing around with the number of models in a unit, and big killing machines like Nagash are still overpowered, but it is better than nothing.

PS: anyone know what an asterisk instead of a number means on a stat line?

Age of Sigmar: Sigmarines

So here we have  my new Ultramarine, ah, Sigmarine, ah, Celestial Models.

Not the easiest suckers to fit together as they are a bit like one of those wooden 3D models where an unlikely group of components lock together to form a toy aeroplane. There is a lot of 'present two pieces at ninety degrees and then twist', which is a bit messy when they have glued edges.


Anyhow the end results are good. One point, these chappies are BIG even by GW standards. They dwarf old style space marines.

Some of the suckers even have backpacks.

Review, Warhammer AoS Android App.

The home page of the AoS app.

GW have moved into the digital age with Android apps. The first is a Warhammer app that I haven't reviewed because it's just an advertising news pump that clogs up one's tablet.  

The second is more interesting.  It's an Age of Signar app. The resolution is excellent - see above.

It's basically a reader into which you can download starts for what looks like all the fantasy models.  GW being GW, there has to be a bit of anti -customer spitefulness so you can't download the battalion scrolls for the battalions included in the AoS starter set unless you buy a copy of the starter set through, I presume, the app.

But on the whole this is a nice little free app. And I commend it to fellow wargamers.