War Games On t'Telly

No project updates, as I've been busily painting all week (the boring kind, that involves walls and stepping in paint trays). But Kraken's mention of how BBC 2 once tried to make Total War into a viable gameshow got me thinking about the few and failed attempts to put games on the gogglebox.

Game of War

A Channel 4 pilot series. Broadcast in 1997, with the production values of 1970s Open University and the strategic insight of Hungry Hunrgy Hippos.

It was hosted by Angela Rippon, whose main qualification for the job was that she could look directly at the camera and say, clearly and loudly, at the beginning and end of each episode, "It was just ... a GAME of war!"

She didn't even do that thing where she kicks her legs
and sings about facing the music.

The premise of this show was an interesting one (certainly enough to draw in a War Studies undergraduate): two opposing commanders (actual ex-military officers), each supported by a pair of advisers (usually military historians) would re-fight historical battles: Balaklava, Naseby and Waterloo.

To recreate the 'fog of war', each team would be sequestered into different rooms with two different tabletops. They knew where their own armies were moving, but they could only guess (or find out, from reconnaissance, or people shooting at them) where the enemy were.

... because if you're going to recreate history, it's important to be as boring as possible.
And also to wear a tie.

In a central room was Ms Rippon and a third tabletop, where the 'true' battle was taking place. This was monitored by a pair of gamemasters – straight out of geek central casting – who made the decisions, and rolled the dice, and whose word was law.

For they wore the Cardigans of Authority.

Form a Disorderly Line

As suspected, they aren't a brilliant match in terms of scale, so a unit may well look a bit uneven. But they certainly make the champions look vastly more impressive! In a unit that contains a few GW marauders here and there, I think it should work fine. These Marauders might be quite new to the path of corruption, only just starting to get twisted. I just need plenty of gribbly bits, spikes, stakes and mutations to give that look. I'm thinking almost cultist chic rather than full bondage marauder, maybe.

Therefore, straight to work! This guy has a spider for a head, courtesy of a Warhammer Quest  monster...

...And this hooded worshipper has a head and axe from a Reaper mini plus a spare Pink Horror arm.  

Wrath of the Northmen

Oho - I got a note from the postman today. It told me that the parcel that had arrived for me was too large for the postman to carry, and please could I go and pick it up from the nearby package office. This is a clear downside to living in a socialist paradise - postmen get treated decently.

On the plus side, the first wave of my army has arrived!

You couldn't carry this, Mr Brevbärare?
Are you ill?

I'm going to wait until I've got a few more conversion options before really getting stuck in. But after two weeks of waiting, I had to stick a couple together. If only for the scent of plastic glue - I'd forgotten that pleasure.

I've got two box sets, one of Saxon Huscarls and one of Viking Thegns. Or vice versa, as the photo reveals. It's okay, the parts are interchangeable. This gives me extra variable heads, but the bodies are disappointingly identical. All sixty four models will have one of four torsos. Nicely modelled ones, to be fair, and there's a wealth of gear to stick all over them, from shields to axes to sidearms. And the heads, especially the Viking ones, really make up for this - there's twelve to choose from on the head sprue, and they're all crackers.

The first two are brief experiments. One has a two-handed axe, the other a langsax and shield (weapons dear to my heart).

Axey

Saxy

Empire in Flames

Well, I took the only advice to hand and started up a campaign as one of the Empire states.

Lots of excellent detail in this mod, even on the loading screens.

I decided to play as Ostland. Four small provinces on the eastern fringes of the Empire, along the Kislev border. My capitol is Wolfenburg, I've got a pair of castles (Lenster and Bosenfels), I'm led by Count Valmir and his family.

I'm informed of my background fluff as I chose. Ostland has good all-round armies,
but their heavy infantry isn't much compared to other, non-human factions.

The mechanics for the game are fairly simple - each province has a main city. Capture it and you hold the province, gaining the income from whatever is built in the city and allowing you to recruit troops there too. Who you can recruit depends on what buildings you've got too, so in Wolfenburg (which starts off very well-developed) I've got a temple of Morr that allows me to train the Black Guard of Morr, for example. Castles don't create as much money but can train troops faster. You can still hold a castle even if you've lost the rest of the province, and your oppressor can't get money from it until he's ousted you. So cities are the core tax earner, castles are military defenders, in short.

Total Waargh

I already miss the Woffboot, I truly do. Perhaps it's the separation anxiety of any ex-pat, or perhaps it's just the prospect of the long and assuredly gameless months ahead of me. Either way, I wasn't just content with deciding to build a Chaos Host (it's not going to be just a warband at the rate I'm trawling through Ebay). None of my ordered models have arrived across the Poisoned Sea yet. A partly-used box of Marauders is probably going to get here by the end of the week, but I'm nothing if not horrifically impatient.

This is what you find when you type random words like
'poisoned sea' into Google Images.
It's a sea cucumber. Who knew they were so terrifying? 

I already feel the need to recreate those epic clashes in the privacy of my own bedroom.

I therefore turned to Russians on the internet.

Heard of the Total War series? No? Well, you're losing out. Gaining in terms of life achievement, of course, but still, losing out. They're the cream of all tactical computer games. There were even TV shows based on the original release of Rome: Total War.

Fully painted armies and scenery - all included in the buying price.
Damn you, GW, why won't you learn?

Nogg's Banner of Butchery

The most fearsome of all the giants who roamed the Badlands. Nogg had killed and eaten every creature who crossed his path, up to and including a lizardman carnosaur, whose flensed jawbone he wore as a trophy.

Nogg finally met his end when he stumbled across the incipient Waaagh! Bonekrunk. The Savage Orc warboss decided that he had enjoyed their headbutting contest so much, he would immortalise the titan on top of his battle standard, inspiring his boys to greater and bloodier deeds.

Quick severed head count: 11

Just a brief work-in-progress update (well, brief for you - try drilling the holes and see how you feel). My new battle standard bearer now has a battle standard.

The giant's head is one of two from the Metal Giant v2 (the first one is still atop the giant's shoulders). The way this one was sculpted - eyes half-closed, mouth half-open, tongue protruding, general expression of agony and surprise - he was just asking to be impaled on a spike.

I added some more banner effects - the tails from the wolf boyz banner (extended in the middle, so they would fit either side), and capped with the banner heads from two Savage Orc standard.

Remarkably, it looks quite promising. Even more remarkably, he doesn't fall over.

The First (Savage) Cut

Conversions aren't really my forté (or indeed, any moderately priced hotel group), but my pile of Savage Orcs did need some work doing to them before I could start on the real work of painting.

No easy snips with plastic here.
Real men work with lead and pewter.

There were three main issues to address:

• Too many character and command group models. They're all smashing, but repetition is going to dilute the impact of them.
• I have a couple of chariots and no designated charioteers.
• I want my unit of Big 'Uns to have two hand weapons, and no such models exist. (I know we can wink at such things - and will have to for most of them - but I'd like to make the effort to show them).

Out with a very battered pair of clippers, a fairly useless GW-issue saw, an pin vice that has been with me from the beginning, and my trusty 30amp fuse wire!

... The Boys To Entertain You!

A dash of flavour for Woffheim. They could be Hired Swords, they could be Dramatis Personae...

... frankly they're just any miniature in my collection that I fancied painting, to be filed under 'Miscellaneous'.

He got kicked out of his mercenary army.
He hopes to one day recruit a band of Dwarf Treasure Hunters
(work in progress).

Two youngbloods: seeking the company of experienced Middenheimers.
Must have GSOH and beards.  

An invisible thief.
Her younger brother is a barbarian.