HERALD-THREE

Another spontaneous production: the Herald Stand.

Following up from the previous post on the reviewing stand, this will be a more abbreviated post reporting on another fabrication in the big knight jousting game. In this case, what began purely as a bit of embellishment wound up providing that and a utilitarian function. As usual, in this post you may clix pix for BIG PIX.

Originally, I picked up a couple of the herald figures with the intent of having a pair of them flanking the royal stand. I was experimenting with the idea of having each stand on a block or some sort of simple raised platform (above). Somewhere along the line, I wound up with a third herald, which gave me other ideas. I was also kicking around the idea of adding flags to the reviewing stand.  I realized that I could combine the three heralds and the flags in a single platform that would add a bit of eye candy and also provide a game function (a sort of score board tracking the rounds and jousts/courses).   

The complete project, with all flags flying and all three heralds in place. The game can have up to five rounds, each represented by a flag. Each round consists of  matches between paired players, with each match consisting of three "courses" (ie jousts), represented by the three heralds. 

This provides a paperless tracking system to help run the game and a visual means to help players see where we are in the tournament. The above illustrates how the tracking system works. The two flags means that it is the second round. The two heralds mean that it is the second course/joust within the match/round. 

The platform sits to the side of the reviewing stand and is tall enough to be seen from the far end of the table. Before the game starts, I have all the heralds posted and all flags flying. When the game starts, I pull the heralds and announce the first match and first course, putting up the first flag and spotting the first herald--to much fanfare.  

The flags are simple pennants (triangular affairs) that I put on dowels that fit into holes on the back of the stand. 

Like the royal stand, the herald stand looked a bit too austere once done. So I added a dowel to the front and fashioned a set of hanging banners. I designed them using a medieval clip art set that I picked up years ago. Using my standard approach for flags, I cut these out and folded them over with a coating of white glue on the reverse to hold the two halves together. I then gave them a bit of a bend and a flutter with the handle of a paint brush while the glue was still wet. Upon drying, the white glue stiffens nicely and the flags hold their shape.  The three banners also provide an additional visual to help track the progress of each match: there is one for each herald, so the number of heralds tells which course it is, and the number of banners without heralds informs the players of how many courses there are left to run in the match. 

The view from the far end of the table during the recent Mayhem convention game. It is the second course of the fourth round (two heralds and four flags): there is one more course to be run in the current match (1 banner without herald).  The thing that I still need to add is some sort of score board to show a running total of the scores through the various rounds (an excellent suggestion from the players).  I'm thinking of some sort of mini white board set up on the other side of the royal stand, opposite the heralds.   

Excelsior!

 

WHEN YOU HAVE TO MAKE A STAND

The King and Court on the Royal Stand. 

It all started with the additional figures in the Schleich World of Knights line that I picked up to accompany my large scale jousting knights.  

I scooped these up on ebay with the idea of adding another dimension of play to my Joust for the Fun of it Rules. Whenever a player rolls a 1, one of these special characters enters the game, determined randomly. I produced a card for each (above), which is given to the player along with the figure (as usual, you may clix pix for BIG PIX). FYI, the numbers in brackets on the card indicate the roll that activates the figure. For the curious, the full rules for these special characters can be found on the Joust for the Fun of It resource page (scroll down to the "New Stuff" area).  The subject of this post is not the characters, though. It is the unplanned foray into scenery fabrication that arose from them. I had thought that they would add to the look of the game when placed on the side of the lists until called for, but they seemed more clutter than spectacle. It occurred to me that a big part of any jousting game is the "eye candy"--the look of the thing--and that what I needed was some sort of viewing stand, a royal one, for these figures. And that I'd have to make it myself..

Thus, I found myself embarking on a woodworking project involving square dowels, craft wood, a range of little screws, small finishing nails, and wood glue. This is not my forte (to say the least), so I went at it with a bit of excess. I assembled a range of likely bits of raw material in various sizes to allow for trial and error, and just dove into the project without diagraming or detailed advance planning. 

I just took it one step at a time, letting one thing lead to the next.  Fortunately, there were only a few mis-steps along the way, none of them fatal to the end product. It would have gone more smoothly had it been planned ahead, no doubt, but I probably would still be diddling with the "how to" had I gone that route and not have had a finished product in time for the Mayhem convention. 

The stand coming together. Not being well equipped with woodworking tools, there were workarounds, like using weights as opposed to clamps to hold parts together while the glue dried. I also decided that I would stain rather than paint the stand. Given that you need to wait about 24 hours after staining to work with a piece, this decision wound up doubling the overall time needed to complete the project, but it had the beneficial side effect of infusing pauses that allowed me to plan the next step.  

As I neared the end of the project, I felt that the stand seemed a bit stark: a platform on a frame. It lacked something. Reprising the way that I decorated my lists, I worked up another set of shields, only larger... 

...and added them to base of the viewing stand.  The viewing stand provides a nice addition to the look of the game and highlights the figures, but also serves a game function as the designated space for the characters (when activated, they go from the stand to the player, and when used, are returned to the stand).

In my next post, I'll describe the other bit of spontaneous fabrication for my jousting game.  

Excelsior!

MAYHEM CONVENTION

 

Gracie--having a rare quiet moment.

Greetings, dear reader.  Before I proceed with the subject of this post, I thought I'd mention that a new addition to the household, Gracie, a four month old puppy, has consumed much time and attention (and required much monitoring).  This, plus a few other bits of life business, have displaced time and energy available for blogging, although I have managed to continue lurking on other blogs (which I have continued to enjoy following,  even if my commenting has been light lately).  The good news is that there has been hobby activity, so there is a backlog of things to report upon--once things settle down into a more "mature" routine. So much for the real world. On to the convention report.

I recently attended a new small regional convention, Mayhem, that was run in Lebanon, New Hampshire April 21-23.  It was both well run and extremely well attended--in short, a success.  Plans for Mayhem '24 have been been announced and received with enthusiasm.  The convention successfully brought together a range gamers, from "alt" to historical, with an emphasis on miniatures, and had something for everyone (and in sufficient amounts to satisfy all). 

The Granite Mountain Ballroom during the first gaming session Friday afternoon, April 21. This was the space where most games were held.

The registration was speedy, offering merchandise as well as badging (above left). Registering for games was done online.  There was complimentary coffee service (above right) on Saturday--just the thing given that the first gaming session kicked off at 0800. 

The scene on Saturday at mid-day.  134 games were on the schedule and there were 250 gamers in attendance. Here in the US, convention games are all of the participation variety.  

Although hardly a Wargames Development Conference of Wargames counterpart, I was struck by the percentage of the games that were innovative modifications of other sets or "home brew" designs.  Here are a few that I noted. Apologies in advance: I didn't embark on a comprehensive logging of games, so what follows in general will be a smattering of what I captured and what I can recall. As usual, you may clix pix for BIG PIX in this report...

Above Left: A miniatures version of the GMT Manoevre game. Above Right: Napoleonic Domination, a home brew strategic game. 

A science fiction game using modular cubes for ships (or vehicles?) and a movement system similar to X-wing or other air games. 

A game called "Arena Battles" that used a variety of 4" toy soldiers, ranging from warriors to monsters, pitting them against each other gladiator-fashion. Given that I brought my toy knights to this con, I felt an affinity for their efforts (and we had a nice chat tableside at my game on Saturday evening). 

Far from a "graying of the hobby" scene; this convention crowd had players from all ages, with the majority in the pre-grognard demographic, to my eye.

As I have mentioned, it was an inclusive atmosphere, with a range of games,  many of them being very well presented. Here are a few shots--I didn't focus on recording and reporting while there, so understand that there were many, many more games than I captured images of (sorry, no specifics on these).

I must draw attention to one game in particular....

...a very smart-looking Bloody Big Battles Franco-Prussian War game...

...where they were using the player references that I had produced.  I was standing bye quietly as the game master was going through his explanation of the rules until I opened my big mouth to contribute to a point being made on movement. At which point all eyes turned towards me, not without a tinge of annoyance at the intrusion. To cover for my breach of etiquette, I mentioned that I was the perpetrator of the player reference sheets they all had in hand--couldn't help myself. This led to a bit of a stunned silence as they connected my name tag to the "Ed M" on the reference sheets. I was graciously offered a seat in the game. Needing to get ready to run my own game later, I thanked them and beat a tasteful retreat, leaving the game master to run the game in peace (and removing further temptation: "Get thee behind me, Kibbitzing."). 

Speaking of running games, my fellow club members were well represented among the game masters...

...Phil (standing in the blue vest) ran his Jericho Mills Fire and Fury game

...Michael B ran a Cruel Seas in the Med game...

...Robert (standing at the far end of the table), ran his 8-player Bautzen Napoleonic game twice (using another home grown set of rules, I should add--which have been extensively playtested and proofed by the grognards and die hards in our club)...

...and your humble correspondent debuted his Joust for the Fun of It game using the recently completed teams of big knights (and associated supporting bits). A big shout out goes to fellow club mates and friends AJ (of AJ's Wargaming Blog) who assisted me in running the game and Michael B (who earlier ran the Cruels Seas game) who played to help me out (the game is best played with an even number of players and Michael rounded it out to six). There will be more on the completion of this project in a later post. 

To round out this report, I will add another chapter in the ongoing saga of Hats and the Gamers Who Love Them...

The Trilby: the size of a derby but more Sinatra than Stan Laurel. 

Pith helmet and goggles: a touch of adventure with a minion vibe.

The jaunty blue beret; worn with just the right touch of insouciance.

The dew rag: not just for bad hair days any more.

Pikachu: elevating the baseball cap from the mundane to the picaresque.

Well, that concludes this tour of recent events 'round here. If not enjoyment, I hope it has at least provided a bit of distraction.

Excelsior!