Gruntz at SELWG Convention.

Gruntz is at the SELWG (South East London Wargames Group) convention on Sunday 14th October. The venue is the Crystal Palace Sports ground. More details of traders etc on their web site: http://www.selwg.org/selwg-2012/  There is the usual great range of traders, bring and buy and show games on the day.

SELWG is a classic show, with a great history and always plenty of good terrain layouts and traders to visit. It was one of the shows in the 90's that gave me a major bug for attending gaming conventions. I somehow always manage to find a bargain on the bring and buy and the mix of traders makes it worth attending.

I will be up on the Balcony area which is along from where you walk in.  Jon at Ground Zero Games (GZG) will be trading at the show and will be providing some mini-give-aways and winners gifts for people that join in and have a game of Gruntz.

I will only have the one small gaming table and will run games as and when people approach me and will also find time to chat about Gruntz and discuss painting etc whilst there.  It is unlikely that my printed copies of the latest 1.1 rules will be printed in time for the event, however you will be able to try the new rules because I will have some printed guides and some pre-built armies ready to roll.

I will also be attending the Warfare Reading show later in November and hope to take some printed copies of the rules on the Saturday which will be sold via a trader(s).

This is probably the terrain layout I will take with me, so it will be a small table but great for getting straight into a game.

Even if you are not a Gruntz player, please come over and say hello!

Sanding and Prep

This weekend was a breakthrough in regard to my miniature prep and painting.  With so many Months lost while developing and creating Gruntz which is when I found it difficult to assign time to actual painting of new models because I always felt I should be pushing myself to get more work done on the rules or terrain for shows.


So I managed around 7 solid hours of miniature prep work over the weekend. I have a mix of vehicles and troops from Critical Mass Games, GZG, Khurasan and Peter Pig. The Peter Pig items are a couple of small WWII tanks which I have modified to look like early tech colonist or Guln (see rules for background) Vehicles.   The WWII "Riveted" style tanks will be combined with some of the GZG Alien Mercenary models to give them a grungy feel but I added some chunky turrets and bolt on technical items from my bits box to make them look ready for a SCI-FI battlefield.


The GZG vehicles were also treated to some modification with a flamer conversion and plasma conversion on the recent wheeled APC/Light Tank models.  I am really pleased with these because the contents of my bits box delivered some nice add on pieces which look right on the GZG models.


I burnt through 4 emery boards filing down and smoothing and now have red raw fingers from the experience. Great to be able to get some time to focus on the miniatures again but soon have to get back into writing the v1.1 update for the hard copy of Gruntz which will be out in early August.


I will be back at the hobby table tonight and will snap some photos of the various projects which will be featured in a video guide to building starter armies for Gruntz.

Critical Mass Games Updated

There is a new downloads section on the website with the updated Critical Mass Games starter armies (click on DOWNLOADS tab).   You now get every card you need for the CMG starter army deals in an A4 / Letter landscape page format,  the cards are also more printer friendly (Thanks Michiel!) and each PDF starts with a summary of the army and total points.

Where an army has multiples of units e.g. 6 of the same squad I have included six of the card so you can quickly label and use them. One of the armies has 2 Okami walker APC's (the new smaller walker due out on Saturday!). I have included the three weapon variants in this PDF, even though you will only get 2 of the model in the starter amy.

None of the armies are totally prescriptive, they just match the Critical Mass Games "Gruntz Starter packs", so you can always add more to them. I know my wallet will be crying by the end of the Salute show on Saturday!   The points system and stat cards have been tweaked with various play and general feedback from CMG and the group.  It is looking likely that a good small to medium sized skirmish game will be CIRCA 200-300 pts per side.  A light skirmish starting at around 100-150pts per side, although further tweaks could adjust this after I get more play feedback.

For those interested we are on stand GJ19 just beside Ground Zero Games and feature a game with both Critical Mass and GZG painted models. You are welcome to join in or just pop by for a browse.

Sample from the free to download cards:  http://www.gruntz.biz/p/downloads.html

Hammerhead Game AAR

15mm Medium Rail Gun Tank

Originally uploaded by inrepose

Had a great fun session at the Hammerhead wargames show near Newark on Sunday. Thanks to all of the players that dropped by to talk about Gruntz and for joining in. It was a 4:30am start for me, followed by a 3.5 hour drive and a long day before the journey home. The drive home was terrible with almost 4 hours of British rain (worse than any other kind of rain) on the M1 through the roadworks. It was worth it though!

I was lucky to be able to feature a game with Ground Zero Games (GZG) New Israeli troops versus some Critical Mass Games (CMG) Arc force.  The Arc troop objective in the participation game (for show attendees) was to take out a fuel depot whilst fending off the the defending NI troops on the beachhead.

Critical Mass Games Rail Gun Medium Grav Tank. Card now available for
download in the Yahoo Group.

Landing on the beach were the Arc troops with a Grav APC, Medium Grav Tank and two Mecha Walkers including a Scout with chin mount laser and support mecha with missile launchers and twin chin mount rotary auto canons. The Arc force also had four squads of rifle troops, some squad attachments and a medic and commander.  Some close ups of the "Digital Camo" scheme airbrushed by Craig from Critical Mass Games will be photographed this week and added to the Flickr gallery.



The defending New Israeli force had a Bulldog APC and a Paladin II Hi Mobility tank with a High Energy Laser (HEL) as the main weapon. A Commander, Medic and one squad of hard suit troops provided additional defence. They also had a VTOL with a unit of powered armour pre-loaded for delivery to any key location on the board.
In most games the attacking player forgot their objective! The Arc troops mostly wanted to get happily engaged with the NI, taking out defending units, rather than pushing forward to destroy the fuel depot. This was not an issue though, because players had some fun trying to knock out vehicles and learning the game. In the last session the Rail gun equipped Grav tank did push forward but ended up in a smoking ruin do to excellent use of two of the Missile carrying powered armour troops dropped by the NI player.

The most fun in my view were the mecha walkers, which not only looking stunning (Thanks to the paintwork by Craig at Critical Mass) but also performed really well on the battlefield.

I can't stress how good the Critical Mass Games vehicles look in the flesh. I would go as far as to say that their web site does not do them justice, because they look "larger than life" on the web, making look bigger and less detailed than they really are. When you actually get your hands on them you can see how good they look in the fine 15mm scale. Gushing model admiration aside they are also in perfect size/scale with the GZG ranges.



On a related note I have decided to base my Gruntz units on pennies which are a perfect weight and size for 15mm. Specialist units like Medics and Commanders are then on the larger 2pence pieces to make them more visible on the table.

A video of the entire event is coming soon, with a tour around the show and the various goodies on the trade stands and demo tables. There was a stunning looking Martian war of the worlds "1940's" style game on which I snapped some video of which was an inspiration.

The video of the event will be up soon, hopefully tonight if I get the time.

15mm New Products

In this news update I feature myself on camera, which is both disturbing and bloody difficult to film naturally! 20 takes later and I was able to say "Kaamados Dominion - Dragamaa Heavy". It is another un-boxing overview video with a mix of Critical Mass Games models and Khurasan.

The featured new item is the Chewk Drill Tank which I have filmed in its unpainted state. Along with a couple of the little Chewks, which are nice tiny aliens.

I also picture the Kerr and King bases which are perfect for small artillery or vehicle bases, if you want a urban or rural look.