The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) - The Village of Nether Tiddlington

In addition to the musical wargames, we're going to be putting on a fantasy/sci fi game, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged).  The idea is that a small English village, Nether Tiddlington, has used a rather tenuous connection to the Immortal Bard to set up an annual Shakespeare festival to drive up tourism revenue.  This year, they decided to hold it on an old henge site outside town.  It turns out this was an old Druid site and the mix of mystical location, iambic pentameter, and bad weather has resulted in an act of unintended ritual dramaturgical magic.  The result is that a gate to another dimension has opened and it's inhabitants are now streaming into this world.  However, this alternate universe is one in which the works of Shakespeare are literally real, and not only in the original written forms but in the various adaptation that have been done since.  The local inhabitants are now faced with hordes of very well-spoken but anachronistic invaders.

Here's some shots of the village itself.

This is only one half of the table.  The second half will be more countryside with the Druid site featured prominently.

The invaders will each have their own goal, most related to the female leads of their respective stories.  They will include Ian McKellan's Richard III

 Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet:

Laurence Fishburne's Othello

Marlon Brando's Marc Antony from Julius Caesar:

   

Michael Fassbender's McBeth:

And Laurence Olivier's Henry V (I prefer the Branagh version but I'm already using KB for Hamlet and having 2 Branaghs would just be silly):

I'm also including the Leonardo Di Caprio version of Romeo but I haven't finished painting the Capulet's Hawaiian shirts

The town is defended by its hardy constables, Nicholas Angel and Danny Butterman, recently transferred here after the unpleasantness at Sandford. See Hot Fuzz.

The main objective for most of the invaders will be the recovery of the much put-upon Shakespearean heroines who have been gathered into a domestic violence shelter by their protector, feminist solicitor, Porthia Burbage.  They are, from the left, Ophelia, Princess Katharine of France, Desdemona, Juliet, Porthia, Lady McBeth, and Cleopatra (I know she doesn't appear in Julius Caesar but Shakespeare did write A & C as a sequel and I would have loved to have seen Brando in that).

Inside at the Opera House

I've finished the Opera House for our Historicon Game, My Fair Demon Barber of the Opera - A Musical Gothic Horror Wargame.

The building is designed to have the roof and second level lift off.  Here's some pictures of the ground level showing the main seating area.  The chairs are a set of MDF "tavern chairs" from TTCombat  That I glued together to make rows.

This is the stage area.  I had originally thought about having dressing rooms, etc backstage but decided that would interfere too much with playing area and so just made it cluttered.  Also I made the scenery flat a bit smaller than it should be, again for playablity.

Here's a picture of the second level separated from the base.  I've allowed enough table space that this can be set up adjacent to the main playing area so characters can operate on the different levels at the same time.  The floor is simply a piece of foamcore cut to shape and painted.

Here's some close-ups of the second level boxes and the balcony.

Finally, here's a shot of Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pie Stand.  If you are familiar with Sweeney Todd, the ingredients of the pies are somewhat less than appetizing.

A Night at the Opera

Here's something else I've been working on, the board for the Fourth Annual Historicon Musical Wargame.  This year it's titled "My Fair Demon Barber of the Opera."  It's a mash-up of the surprising number of Victorian Horror themed musicals, like Sweeny Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Jekyll and Hyde, and Phantom of the Opera.  I'm also going to be throwing in some My Fair Lady, Oliver, and probably Mary Poppins.  Of course that all means I needed an opera house.

Here it is, constructed from a couple of Pegasus plastic Gothic building kits.  The roof comings off and the two levels separate for full access to the interior.

While most of the action will be on the inside, there will be some exterior scenes as well

Finally, here's some shots of the interior.  This is not completely finished, I still need some additional seating and the stage and backstage areas need a fair amount more of work but it is shaping up.

Clever Paper

I had mentioned that some of the scenery I used for The Sound of Music game came from a Russian company called Clever Paper.  I found these very easy to put together and very useful. So here's a little more information about them.

You can find a lot of these on Amazon where they go for about $20 a piece.  However, I've found a website from Russia that sells them substantially cheaper.  I've got got an order from them with no problem (they accept Paypal), they took about a month to arrive.

http://russia-best.com/category/umbum-manufacture/

They come in flat packs and each kit contains several dual-side-printed sheets that are perforated.

You simply punch them out and they are slotted so slide, more or less easily together, usually without the need of glue.  Most of the buildings took only about 15 minutes or so to put together.

Most building are designed to have a "flap" side that give you access to the building interior.

They come in a number of different scales but they have a range of medieval town buildings that are roughly true 25 mm in scale. They would also be useful for old-fashioned buildings in Central Europe up through World War II at least.  Here's some Perry miniature figures to give you an idea of how they compare to 28mm.  I'm not a stickler for exact scale so these work pretty well for me.

I've gotten some of the HO scale buildings to see it they are usable with 28mm (which I use exclusively.  They are considerable smaller than the medieval range but might work well with 15mm.

The building on the left is a 1/87 HO scale Russian church, the building on the right is part of the medieval range.  However, I found this 1/87 church that I think will be useful for a small chapel or mausoleum - it will probably become part of the Frostgrave ruins.

So, if you are looking for a very quick, not too expensive way to create a colorful medieval town, Clever Paper could be useful.

Frostgrave: The Mausoleum + The Eclipse

I've jumped on the Frostgrave bandwagon and my weekly gaming group has run three games so far. We've enjoyed it quite a bit, very simple mechanics but with a lot of variety of action.  We usually play with three or more Wizard bands and that creates a very different dynamic than just going head-to-head.  The first game we played was a test run of The Worm scenario and the second was the Living Museum.  Sadly, I didn't take pictures.  

For our third outing,  I set up a combined scenario of The Mausoleum combined with The Eclipse from my recently received Thaw of the Lich Lord book.  I GM'ed what I thought would be a cooperative adventures with the three bands working together against an increased horde of zombies and other creatures.  In the end, that proved not to be the case....

I haven't made any dedicated Frostgrave terrain.  The table above is made up mostly of the boards from my Retreat from Moscow games with various ruins that I had placed on them.

Here's what served as the Mausoleum

The Illusionist and Apprentice with two archers, a treasure hunter, a thief, and two thugs.

The Elementalist and Apprentice with infantryman, crossbowman, barbarian, two thieves and three thugs

Finally, the Chronomancer, Apprentice, ranger, barbarian, two musketeers (treated as crossbowmen), two thieves and a thug plus the fearsome killer Basset warhound.  My son Nick and I created the Chronomancer et al on our first game and we decided on a sort of steampunk/time traveller vibe for it.  A further use of my retreat from Moscow figures.

The game itself progress rather smoothly with the three bands entering from the same table edge and moving toward the Mausoleum as increasing numbers of the undead were roused. The bands were able to handle without too much trouble.  The Illusionist, who had the raise zombie spell, brought on a slow-speed zombie vs. zombie fight that went on for several turns with no appreciable damage to either creature. 

Shall we dance?

 The illusionist had some difficulties dispatching the zombies attacking his band.  Although he suffered no losses, it slowed his band considerably.  Towards the end of the game, most of his band was halted on the bridge over a frozen stream.  

The temptation proved too great for Nick's Chronomancer  who Crumbled the bridge in the icy waters below.

The Elementalist's barbarian and a thug were killed.

The Chronomancer receive a fire ball in revenge.

 Pays are a bitch - a tower is crumbled onto the Elementalist

The survivors

The table at the end of the game.