Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and that Santa brought all the games you were hoping for. I got a copy of the excellent card game Dixit plus expansions for Race for the Galaxy and Settlers of Catan. As usual my Christmas Day and Boxing Day were spent mostly eating too much food and playing games with the family.

During January the large meeting room is in use by external groups on quite a lot of Saturdays. The location of the gaming club during this period is as follows.

3rd January - Large Meeting Room
10th January - Second Meeting Room +  1st Floor Office
17th January - Second Meeting Room + 1st Floor Office
24th January - Second Meeting Room + 1st Floor Office
31st January - Large Meeting Room

I should be attending this coming weekend and will be working the 10th and 24th. I cannot make the 17th as I will be in Crawley trying to help my Ultimate club qualify for Indoor Nationals and will be at the Conception roleplaying convention on the 31st.

See you all in the New Year!

- Darren

Gaming Club Sessions Nov/Dec

This coming Saturday the club has access to the large meeting room so there is plenty of space for games this weekend. In December we also have the large meeting room most weeks, in fact its only the 5th Dec that we are using the second meeting room.

Why come along and try one of the many new games that are being played. (I'll try and update the list of games played soon).

We have had the interim report for the Global Gossip Game from International Games Day and I'll post details here once the final report is published.

IGD Overview

Its all over for another year! Thanks for everyone who came along to play this weekend.

Poole Chess Club had 15 children attend their weekly junior chess tuition. They run sessions every Saturday from 10-11 for beginners and 11-12 for improvers. These are open to children aged 7-11 costing £3 per week.

Worlds Away and the Wii games session had an attendance of 16. Board games played included X-Wing, Dungeons and Dragons Attack Wing, King of Tokyo and on the Wii Super Smash Bros (plus some other games I didn’t recognize). Six of those at the gaming club took also part in the Global Gossip Game, a full debrief of this by the organizers should be available later in the week.

Our Stay and Play for children and parents was very successful with 16 children and 7 parents attending over the hour and half session using games from the various Bournemouth Toy Libraries. We were asked whether this could be a regular event and will be looking into this.

Sadly we were a bit short staffed on the day and I didn't get chance to take any photos of the event.


Those of you who are regulars to the club will have noticed attendance dropping off recently from averaging just over 20 in the Spring to half that in recent weeks. Next weekend we are going to have a meeting with our volunteers to look at ways of getting some new members and increasing the numbers coming on Saturdays.

International Games Day Programme

International Games Day is finally upon us and we can reveal the line up for this Saturdays events.

10am - 12noon Junior Chess Club

Things will kick off with Poole Chess Club's junior chess session from 10-12. This will be on the 1st floor and is open to children aged 7-11, costing £3 per session. There are two sessions each week, 10-11 for beginners and 11-12 for improvers.

10am to 4pm Heritage Zone Quiz

All day we will be giving out quiz forms to find out how much you know about Bournemouth in WW1.

12noon - 4pm Worlds Away - The Bournemouth Library Gaming Club

At 12 noon Worlds Away will be offering the normal range of boardgames, cardgames, roleplaying and wargames. In addition to our normal output we will be running introductory games for wargames and roleplaying. The gaming club will be in the Large Meeting Room and will feature the online cardgame Hearthstone.

1pm - 3pm Wii Sports Tournament

From 1 we have a big screen Wii Sports Tournament for everyone in our second meeting room.

1:30pm to 2pm The Global Gossip Game

Once again we are taking part in the global gossip game. A secret message will be passed across the world via 80 libraries in 16 different countries, starting in Australia and ending in the USA 24 hours later. We will be receiving our message from The University Library Svetozar Markovic in Belgrade, Serbia and will be passing on our message to RAF Croughton Base Library near Brackley in the UK.

2pm to 3:30pm Children's Stay and Play

In the Children's library, using toys and games from the Bournemouth Toy Libraries, we have a stay and play session for our younger visitors and their families.

International Games Day

We are near to finalising our content for this years International Games Day. Earlier today I took a phone call from Phil in Australia, who is organising the Global Gossip Game, and we should have all the details with us in the next couple of days.

If all goes well we will be offering the usual mix of boardgames and wargames for our regulars as well as introductory games for new players, junior chess tuition (via Poole Chess Club), the global gossip game, a stay and play session for children and their parents, a Wii Sports tournament, the online card game Hearthstone and a selection of traditional boardgames and card games.

I'm away at Indiecon this weekend so I won't see you this Saturday, but you'll be in Lyndsey's capable hands. I hope we'll see you all at IGD

Focus On: Live Roleplay

It has been a long while since I last posted and a very long time since I said I was going to write a Focus On: post about Live Roleplay. Having spent the last 2 weekends away at LRP events I am taking the chance to write a bit about what LRP is.

Live Roleplay, or Live Action Roleplay (LRP or LARP for short) take the basic premises of tabletop roleplaying games of players taking the role of a character but rather than describing the characters actions and calculating an actions success using cards or dice, the players act out actions in real time.

Greek Shield Wall at Profound Decisions Odyssey LRP

Photo © Tom Garnett used under a CC-A license

 

LRP covers a wide range of different settings from traditional high fantasy using foam weapons to decide combat, entirely non combat modern day horror events, games based in historical periods to Sci-Fi games using NERF, Lasertag or Airsoft. In the UK the first LRP was Treasure Trap formed way back in 1982, which generated substantial press coverage including this feature on Blue Peter.


  



Troops marching to battle at Empire LRP

Photo by Charlotte Moss © Profound Decisions.

Used with kind permission from Profound Decisions

There are now many different LRP groups in the UK from small local systems often based around University clubs to large festival events attracting several thousand participants. The two largest games in the UK are The Gathering run by Lorien Trust and Empire run by Profound Decisions.

There are a variety of different ways a LRP game can be organised . Linear adventures in which a group of heroes work their way through a series of encounters planning by a Games Master with the antagonists played by a team of crew are common at small to medium sized events. Social events without any combat, or an abstract combat system without weapons, is common in modern day horror such as Minds Eye Theatre (MET).

Large scale systems often have very small crew teams and primarily revolve around interactions between the player characters. Most large scale LRPs have massive battles with hundreds of participants on each side, whether these be between differening player factions or teams of enemy monsters depends on the setting.


Many games are run with limited props and costume, though there is a current trend towards high levels of production value to enable players to more easily suspend disbelief and improve the immersion within the game environment. One event that is at the forefront of this is Mythlore: New Lands which utilises the talents of professional props makers and special effects companies to produce a truly cutting edge LRP game.



Mythlore New Lands 3

SFX by LarpFX

Photo © Tom Garnett used under a CC-A License

The UK LARP Facebook page is a good point to start if you are interested in playing LRP games as well as the LARPevents listing page.



The Long Summer

It has been some time since my last past, things get quite busy here over the Summer so no chance to procrastinate about gaming. Since my last post we have held 2 Summer Reading Challenge children's board game session with 10 children and their associated parents attending across the sessions. We played a lot of Jenga and the Mythical Maze game as well as Chess, Downfall, The aMAZEing Labyrinth and Creationary. Unlike the gaming club these sessions were very staff intensive with 2-3 staff and a volunteer on hand to show the children how to play the games. Whilst they were well received it may not be possible to run these more frequently given the amount of staff time that needed to be dedicated to them.

We are in the early planning stages for International Games Day, so far we are looking to add Chess and Minecraft to the activities on offer. Watch this space...

The new look newsletter should be on its way shortly so keep an eye out for that. If you don't get a copy check whether you are a member with one of the staff or volunteers.

Hope to see you all soon, though I won't be at the club to play anything for some time (I have a very busy September and October)

And now for something completely different.

Its amazing what a hashtag can do. I tweeted about my last blog post on the games for libraries workshop using #libraryplay and I immediately get 3 times more views than we normally do. I'll have to some more promoting of our blog on Twitter.

As part of our activities for Mythical Maze, the Summer Reading Challenge 2014 I am going to running a couple of family boardgame afternoons with our Children's Librarian. Recently I have been investigating the possible uses for games in libraries including listening to the "Games in Libraries and Schools Podcast", reading Scott Nicholson's Everyone plays at the Library" and the International Games Day Blog.

I'm not going to discuss the benefits of gaming in this post, more look at the reasons we are looking to run something slightly different to Worlds Away, with a different target audience and organisation. One of the particular area that is mentioned within Scott Nicholson's book is the advantage of providing a gaming experience over simply providing games. Bournemouth Libraries already provide examples of both methods of provision. We provide games and play items to lend through our toy libraries at Kinson, West Howe and Winton Libraries and some of our libraries also have jigsaw puzzle swap schemes. We also provide a gaming/play experience via Stay, Play and Takeaway sessions at our Toy Libraries, a jigsaw group at Charminster, a junior Boggle/Scrabble club at Kinson, a Scrabble club at West Howe and our club at Bournemouth Library. When providing games rather than gaming experiences customers will often, quite understandably, be conservative in their approach. They will pick games that they are familiar with and avoid games that look complicated. By providing a gaming experience we can direct customers to games that we think are suitable, exciting or educational.

The gaming club is a gaming experience but the games are not not chosen by library staff, the primary goals of the club (as far as the library service is concerned) are to provide a welcoming social space that attracts people who would not necessarily utilise the library. Essentially to provide a club that has a social value with increased footfall, borrowing and any educational benefits as an added bonus. During these family games afternoon staff (primarily me) will be selecting the games available such that they fit in with the themes of the Summer Reading Challenge and with specific learning goals e.g. Once Upon a Time for storytelling skills, The aMAZEing Labyrinth for spatial manipulation/non-verbal reasoning. The aim with these activities is to be fun and educational. To highlight the library as the prime place for informal education, a place to learn things and a place to have fun, which is not what always come to mind for many people.

We are also aiming for a distinctly different age group. The gaming club is aimed at adults and older teenagers, whereas these board game afternoons are aimed at children from age 5 and their parents. We shall see how successful these are and then look at the potential for widening our provision of gaming experiences.

Games for Libraries Workshop

Just over a fortnight ago I attended a workshop in London about designing games for teaching information literacy. Information literacy is defined by CILIP (The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) as "knowing when and why you need information, where to find it, and how to evaluate, use and communicate it in an ethical manner".


A quote from Neil Gaiman on the carpet of

Gungahlin Library in Canberra

© Australian Capital Territory

Information literacy is one of the key skills for those of us who work in libraries; we don't need to know everything but we need to know how to find it. There is a great quote from Neil Gaiman "Google can bring you back 100,000 answers, a Librarian can bring you back the right one", which certainly contains more than a grain of truth.

Games and play are used extensively in education for a number of reasons. In early years education, play is central to much of the learning process; with open ended play being particularly important in procducing creative and imaginative learning for the under 5s^(1,2,3). More structured games are also used to teach a wide range of topics either through specfic educational games or indirectly via more mass market products^(4,5,6).

The aim of the workshop I attended was to design and prototype a game with the purpose of teaching a specific area of information literacy. The workshop started with each table playing short games (e.g. Bananagrams, Pass the Pigs, Zombie Dice, Flowerfall). These were used as ice breakers but we then went back to these games to analyses the game mechanics that were involved in the games at a later point in the session.

After a short presentation on some educational game design theory each table was given the task of coming up with a educational goal and some practical constraints for the design of their game. Our group decided to base our game on the CRAP checklist for resource evaluation (CRAP stands for currency, reliability, authority and purpose). We settled on writing a game based on evaluating resources displayed on cards against categories on the checklist decided by a dice or spinner. The winner of the game would be the first individual or team to collect the word CRAP with their cards.

There is a video explaining the CRAP game at the Games for Libraries blog along members of the teams explaining their prototypes. I am planning on making a version of the Dewey or Die! game for use in family boardgame afternoons we are planning for this summer's Summer Reading Challenge. I also have some improvements to our CRAP game (which I am renaming Cut the Crap).

1. Understanding young children's learning through play: building playful pedagogies by Pat Broadhead and Andy Burt
2. A child's work: the importance of fantasy play by Vivian Paley
3. Child care and development by Pamela Minett
4. Games in schools and libraries podcast by Giles Pritchard and Donald Dennis
5. Everyone plays at the library by Scott Nicholson
6. Using games to enhance learning and teaching: A beginners guide edited by Nicola Whitton and Alex Moseley

Stak Bots: Review

Our latest guest blogger is Taz, who has written us a review of the card game Stak Bots

Darren

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Stak Bots:

If you're stuck in Sheffield near Castlegate, I'd recommend popping into Patriot Games, a nice gaming shop that's often open in the evenings. I recently did just that, and couldn't resist buying something. I'll admit there weren't any specifics with that intention. I stumbled upon Stak Bots, a little deck of battling robots. The week before last the deck saw its first glimpse of conflict at Worlds Away.

Initial perusal left me distinctly unimpressed with how skill or fun could enter into the game, but I was pleasantly surprised when the bots were wielded. Stak Bots consists of 60 Bot cards, some that are dealt out so all the players have a "stak" face down, a small hand and the rest in a draw deck. The top card on the stak always has to be turned face up and shows a cute little robot, a strength, and any special conditions or entry effects. There are a selection of robots, with different strengths, abilities and graphics.

The first key point is the simplicity. One bot fights another bot, the one with the highest number wins, the other is consigned to the scrap heap. If the discarded robot leaves a face down card on the top of the stack, then it's flipped over, and any entry effects takes place. This is where it can get complex, although not difficult. One entry effect may effect another stak, causing another entry effect, which may cause another, and another, each having to be resolved before play continues with whoever started the chain of events for the rest of their turn.

A turn is very flexible, and can include scrapping your own bots, laying bots from your hand, or attacking. The only limitation is that only one specific bot can attack each round, although it can attack multiple times. Damage does accumulate, but only during that persons turn, meaning combos are useful, but keeping track of health isn't an issue.

The game is built for flexibility which is great for a club like Worlds Away where people can pick it up and adapt it to the crowd. We had a group of 6 and managed to get several interesting games with all sorts of combos and effects happening, with winners and losers changing place too often to keep track. It's also great for quick games, so with an hour left, there's still plenty of gameplay to be had and minimal setup unlike many of the standard games.

All in all it's a great quick, flexible game that anyone can join in with, and as it's just a pack of cards can easily be brought along without prior planning. It has one of the best fun to size ratios!

Hopefully this will make many more appearances in the coming weeks.

Taz

June club dates

Evening ladies and gents

All being well I should be along for the start of tomorrows session but I'll have to leave you early as I'm going karting later in the afternoon.

We will be in the smaller meeting room and 1st floor office again this week as the Bournemouth Society are holding their monthly talk in the large meeting room. Flirt is also hosting a couple of events that might be of interest. Tomorrow daytime they have a comic book event with award winning writer and artist Fwah Storm and in the evening Bag of Holding are running their monthly games night.

Next weekend the gaming club will be starting a little later than normal as we have the Coda Fiddle Orchestra playing a concert. This combined with a language course and writers event means we won't be able to get into the large meeting room until about 1:30. Obviously you're welcome to turn up early and listen to the concert, but there won't be any space for war games until later. I may be able to wrangle some space for boardgames or roleplaying earlier than 1:30 but I can't guarantee I'll be able to fit everyone in.

We are back in the large room for the 21st and 28th, though there are other bookings immediately prior to the club so be nice and let them sort their stuff out before piling into the room!

Its been ages, so I look forward to seeing some of you tomorrow.

Focus On: Roleplaying Games

Its only taken me four months, but here is the second of my Focus On series of blog posts, this time on roleplaying games.

Four Commedia dell’Arte Figures: Three Gentlemen and

Pierrot by Claude Gillot

The basic concept of roleplaying games, that of taking the role of a character and acting out or describing their activities is as old as human civilisation. From the games of Cowboys and Indians played by children all over the world to the improvisation theatre of Commedia dell'arte, roleplaying has ubiquitous to society for centuries (possibly even millenia).

The first publication of what we would now term a roleplaying game was Dungeons and Dragons by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in the mid 70's. D&D had developed from earlier fantasy wargames Chainmail and Blackmoor with the focus moving from battles between armies to playing individual characters carrying out heroic quests. Soon after the publication of D&D a whole range of other games were published including Runqeuest and the Sci-Fi game Traveller, both of which are still have an avid following.

Since then the number of roleplaying games has expanded considerably, the website rpggeek.com lists a total of 4649 different RPGs written by 26,681 games designers. Conventions are held all across the UK including three run just a stones throw from Bournemouth, these being Conception, Consequences and Indiecon - all run at Naish Farm holiday park. RPGs cover pretty much every genre you can imagine from the high fantasy of Lord of the Rings to gritty low fantasy Saxon history, the space westerns of Firefly to the dystopian future of SLA Industries. There are also plenty of games firmly set in the real world ranging across all era's of history. There are horror games, investigative games, heroic games, political games, comedy games... you name it there probably is a roleplay game for it.

Players in roleplaying games typically take on the role of one character and act out or describe their actions in response to the situaton that is described or acted by the games master. The games master, or GM, plays all of the non player characters, writes the story that the players will be interacting with and often acts as an arbiter or referee in the game. GMs are called by a variety of names that often make reference to the specific part they will play in the game, from Dungeon Masters in D&D, Storytellers in Vampire to Marshalls in Deadlands. In most games whether a characters actions are successful or not are decided by comparing some form or random element (commonly dice or cards) against a set of characteristics or test difficulties. Some games dispense with these mechanisms entirely but these are in the minority.

Roleplaying is just one of a variety of narrative games and storytelling activities. I have already discussed some of the similarities and differences between roleplaying and other storytelling activities in this post. As described in that post, these narrative games tie in particularly well with the traditional focus of libraries.

In the next Focus On post I'll talk about live roleplay.

The Power of Play

This post is by Phil Minchin and is cross posted from the International Games Day Blog.

Phil worked in publishing, arts production, NGO governance and campaigning, and library IT in Melbourne, Australia. There he got interested in the evolving relationships between libraries, communities, games, interactivity, systems and UI design. He now presents and consults to libraries and game companies on these issues, helping to develop games & interactivity strategies that blend the best of old and new media to support intelligent, literate engagement across the full range of modern culture  Phil coordinates the Global Gossip Game for  IGD and rang me up from Australia to ensure that everything ran smoothly, that's commitment for you.

Thanks to Phil for letting us post this here.

Darren



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Play is to games what reading is to books: the underlying verb that enables the noun, but is applicable well beyond it. Reading, as a peculiar eye-based (also finger-based, and even - thanks to audiobooks - increasingly back-to-being-ear-based) subset of listening, is used for signage, notes, instructions, lists, and a ton of other chunks of information and culture besides books. Likewise, play is used for many things beyond formal games: teasing, joking, various informal contests and challenges, notional tinkering, creation, and many more. As such, it’s worth pointing out the many important aspects of life empowered by play.
Here's a list of a few key areas in which play is crucial:

• Innovation – There is tremendous value in a systematic grinding-through of possibility spaces, but the fact remains that play is a phenomenal way to apply the power of the brain to exploring new ideas. It’s telling that computers, which excel in the first kind of problem-solving, are still taking longer than human brains (at least those with an aptitude for this sort of thing) to solve questions of protein-folding, RNA-shaping and similar activities. Regardless, in an economy increasingly driven by innovation, play is only becoming more important as a life skill.
• Freedom – The essence of play is a pocket of possibility-space which may be shaped and limited by external constraints, but produces a place and time in which unconstrained action according to one’s nature is possible. (Even a formal game may have rules, but if there’s no room for individual decisions and/or skill, i.e. for a player to actually play it, it’s not much of a game!) In political-economic contexts, this quality reads an awful lot like “freedom”. This isn’t a coincidence.
• Health (including happiness) – Just on first principles, it should be obvious that play – activity that expresses and exercises one’s nature, determined by internal impulses rather than external ones – will tend to be conducive to health and general wellbeing. And there’s a ton of research to support this. At the most obvious level, physical play (fun exercise) tends to be good for physical health. Mental play sharpens memory, focus, perception, comprehension, and decision-making, hence the profusion of “brain-training games” (and see again the talk linked earlier, Your Brain on Video Games). Setting meaningful challenges for ourselves, whether through a formal game/program like Superbetter or informally, not only helps us overcome particular obstacles but trains us to expect that obstacles in general can and will be overcome. Social play (such as Werewolf) uses and expands on our connection to others.
• Learning – This is obvious from the links to innovation – which could partly be defined as “learning things nobody else yet knows”! – but if anything this is the primary purpose of play (and the fact that it’s good for our health is because learning things is healthy, is what our organism is naturally disposed to do). This is so much the case that (as I mention in the post on innovation) the quote I used for the Global Gossip Game in 2013, “play is training for the unexpected”, was not from educational theorists but from mammalian biologists Špinka, Newberry and Bekoff. Clearly the drive to learn and experiment is ingrained in us at a bodily level… hence, again, the links to health!
• Promoting activity – I’m talking here not just about physical activity, but the assumption that thought and analysis will lead to concrete action: play isn’t just about comprehending the systems with which the game’s creator has presented you, it’s about you doing something with them. That leads to better thinking and better acting, as well as more productive uses of both.
• Inclusion and community-building – In addition to being a way to foster community connectedness, play is a way for people to explore difficult issues such as discriminatory beliefs and the ways that they shape behaviour (which in turn feeds back into beliefs), and also to spend time with other folks and learn about them as actual individuals rather than instances of a stereotype, both in relative safety and comfort.

Any one of these associations would qualify play as pretty important, even by the narrow, numerical criteria which govern so much of our key decision making (except perhaps freedom, because it’s too hard to quantify). More holistic, humanistic values can only increase the value placed on play as something deeply rooted in the best of the human experience.

To be clear, I am not saying that frivolity should reign supreme and that work doesn’t matter. I’m trying to break the false opposition of play and work (they may be very much in tension in some respects, but play is ultimately a form of self-imposed, more-or-less self-directed work; the best work feels like playing; and the best workers are those who work in that playful, motivated, engaged way), the false association of play and frivolity (one can play seriously, and grimly grind away at something completely frivolous, and these are not the same thing), and the false assumption that frivolity is inherently unworthy. (See this post on fun.)

Play is central to our humanity. It has produced many of the best parts of our collective and individual experiences, and enabled us to find solutions to (and, failing that, temporary escapes from) many of the worst. For us to continue to treat it as an inferior part of culture, when it is in varying forms and ways a central part of all culture, is a mistake we should not continue to make.

Phil Minchin

Violence Solves Everything - Modelling the Mordant 303rd Part 2

I arrived back from holiday late last Saturday to see an unexpected package waiting for me, then it dawned on me the Victoria Miniatures Arcadian Rifles miniatures I had pre-ordered several months ago had finally arrived. They are rather lovely resin figures with pretty reasonable prices in comparison to Games Workshops resin products (and free postage from Australia).

With some proper female miniatures in place I now have the job of converting and painting figures to represent my long term Dark Heresy character and the PCs and NPCs in the Only War prequel campaign that I am running. In the roleplaying game roughly half of the Regiment is female, I doubt I'll manage anywhere near that in the 40K army but I aim to create all of the important players from the campaign

I am planning on making two versions of my character, Veteran Sergeant Rizpah Jair.



Female Arcadian Guard from Victoria Miniatures.

Metal Cadian with head sawp for size comparison

One will be "Riz", the fresh faced hyperactive teenage punk that features as an NPC in my Only War game, featuring Tank Girl-esque bright pink hair and a slew of tattoos showing her allegiances prior to joining the Guard. Actually in my version of the Regiment all of the Mordant troopers use tattoos to show their allegiances to gangs, mining companies and fellow troopers (They also have their ranks tattooed to their arms - if your uniform is sleeveless what better place to put them).

The second version will be the hardened veteran who faces the horrors of purestrain genestealers when her company are almost entirely destroyed whilst reconnoitring a space hulk. The bright hair is long gone, now dyed black, and her face is heavily tattooed in the style of black metal makeup. In addition to her standard regimental equipment she also now carries a pair of Triplex pattern "Fury" assault laspistols and a trophy knife fashioned from the claws of a Tyranid.

In my next Mordant related post I'll introduce the other PCs and NPCs of the Only War campaign that I intend to convert for my 40K army.

Men Must Die So Man Endures: The First Squads of the Mordant 303rd

1989 Imperial Guard Commissar.

 

Over the last month or so I have been putting together some miniatures for the start of my Mordant army. I already had 2 old metal Cadian squads, however some of these are already pained in other colour schemes and I don't want to use the old flamers or heavy weapons. I also have an old Cadian Lieutenant model with shotgun, an old Cadian Comms trooper and a very old (1989) Commissar with power fist and power sword. Added to these I have a squad of old metal ratlings, who I may or may not use, a Mordian Lieutenant, who will be used as my Captain, and a Chimera.

Cadian with sleeveless arms

from Victoria Miniatures.

 

I've been lucky that one of my friends is converting a Genswick guard army and has gifted me a load of plastic Cadian parts, which I have used as the basis for my next squad. These Cadian bitz were pretty much complete models but without the arms, looking around I found that Victoria Miniatures produce sleeveless arms, and I have bought a handful of these to use. Rather than just use Cadian heads I plan to make everything a bit more varied, using Catachan heads and converting some heads from other manufacturers such as MaxMini.



One notable feature of the army will be inclusion of female guard, this is a bit of a difficulty because there is a distinct lack of suitable female miniatures. Head swaps with the old Escher miniatures would have been suitable but they are rather pricey now they are out of production. So instead I've bought some female heads from two other companies, Statuesque and Brother Vinni, and have acquired a couple from Wargames Factory via my friend. Sadly the Statuesque ones are simply far too small for use on GW minis and though the Brother Vinni ones are really awesome sculpts they are also a little on the small side. Thankfully Victoria Miniatures are currently pre-ordering for some female guard who will fit right in, so I have bought a squad of these.


Conversions for my Mordant Army. From left Brother Vinni Machine Gunner

 with Cadian Head swap, Cadians with Victoria Miniature Arms and Brother

Vinni Head, OOP Metal Cadian Head and Regular Cadian head with Victoria

Miniature Goggles.

My next move is to buy the Cadian and Catachan command squads as well as a couple of regular Cadian squads to finish the bulk of the troops before picking up some Sentinals and converting some more unusual pieces for the army, such as the sentry guns.

Call of Cthulhu Summary: Part 2

May 7^th 1933

Bedford, Gumshoe and Hemingway arrive at the Ocean House estate at 10 am, to find that the gas lamps outside the hotel are lit; as they trio approach a lamp explodes, showering them all in glass. Bedford tries to open the main doors to the hotel but finds them locked and so the Bedford and Hemingway decide to search a workman’s hut nearby for the key; neither of them find a key. Gumshoe decides to join the other two in the workman’s hut but is injured by a rogue lumber cart - using a strip of his clothes and alcohol in his hipflask, Gumshoe bandages his injured leg. Afterwards Hemingway remembers that Miss Vixen had given them a key beforehand and so she unlocks the main doors and the trio enter the Ocean House hotel.

As Bedford, Gumshoe and Hemingway enter the hotel, the main doors slide shut behind them, locking them in. Hemingway slaps Gumshoe for having forgotten to get the key from the lock as he entered last and therefore Gumshoe decides to climb out of a window to retrieve the key. However when he gets to the main doors, the key is nowhere to be found and is perturbed to find he can no longer find the window which he climbed out of.

Gumshoe resolves to use a stick of dynamite to blow open the main doors of hotel but actually sets off the dynamite too early, vaporising his right hand. Howling in pain, he wraps his coat around the stump which used to be his right hand and stumbles off to the workman’s hut, where he slides down into a corner and slowly exsanguinates to death.

 Bedford and Hemmingway are unaware of their colleague’s death having only heard the explosion of dynamite.

 

 

No further information is known

Piers

Call of Cthulhu Summary: Part 1

Our latest guest blogger, Piers, with a summary of Saturdays Call of Cthulhu game. I recognise a lot of the names in this one and if it was inspired by what I think it was this should be a cracking game.

Darren

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Incident Report

Anna Vixen (singer, actress and entrepreneur) hired 3 individuals to investigate the claims from her building contractor that the Ocean Hotel estate was haunted. Having invested a lot into the estate herself, Miss Vixen would be facing financial ruin if the workforce refused to return. The following are the 3 individuals hired by Miss Vixen:

Dr Warren Bedford     -           Professor of European History at Bournemouth University

Artie Gumshoe            -           American Private investigator

Rachel Hemingway     -           Freelance journalist and writer

 

May 6^th 1933

Bedford, Gumshoe and Hemingway decide to meet with each other to discuss their first line of investigation into the haunting claims. It is decided that they need to gather as much information regarding the history of the Ocean House estate as possible.

Bedford, Gumshoe and Hemingway all squeeze into Bedford’s vehicle and make their way to the local library.

At the library Hemmingway searches newspaper articles whilst Gumshoe pursues police reports and Bedford tries to find the public records room.

Hemingway’s search through old newspaper reports revealed that Marcus Vӧrman built and opened the Hotel in 1851. Over the course of 7 days, 5 people were randomly murdered and 5 people burned alive in a mysterious fire. It was thought that the deaths were random and as such, none of them were solved – all becoming cold cases. Mr Vӧrman passed away elsewhere 3 years later in 1854.

Bedford failed to find the public records room after having been distracted by an ivory ornament.

Gumshoe found that the murders where mysteriously cruel and all took place late in the evening except the fire which started in the early afternoon. The three prime suspects were Mr Osborne, master Richards (a guest at the hotel) and the owner Mr Vӧrman.

After realising that Bedford was useless, Hemingway led both gentlemen to the public records room where trio discover Maria and Jeanette (born 1901) are the surviving descendants of Mr Vӧman who live at 14 Greenwell Street in Dover. After a brief phone conversation with a servant of Maria and Jeanette, it is decided that the trio will visit them the following day at midday (per the request of Maria and Jeanette).

The trio arrive at the Vӧrman house and meet Maria and Jeanette in a room with a rather large painting that depicts the Ocean House prior to it almost burning down. Maria and Jeanette give the trio their great grandfather’s journal upon being asked for more information. As the trio are about to leave, Hemingway and Bedford notice that the painting has changed from when they first arrived; both are mentally disorientated. Bedford, Gumshoe and Hemingway decide a goodnight sleep before entering Ocean House hotel would be a good idea and allow them to adequately prepare supplies.

Piers

Coming Soon...

Another week rolls by and yet another successful session. We have hit 70 individuals having attended the club and have reached 32 official members (if your not yet a member ask a volunteer or member of staff for a membership form). The average number of people attending is steadily increasing, the average for the 2nd quarter of last year was 6 and our average for April and May this year currently stands at 23. We are reaching the limit of the space available, especially when the large room is not available, and Lyndsey and I are going to have to chat to see how best to accommodate the increasing numbers.


By Mette Aumala

Used under a Creative Commons License

Scheduled for later in the week we have a new guest blogger, Piers, who has written a game report for last Saturdays Call of Cthulhu game and a I have written post detailing the progress with my Mordant army.

The session on the 17th May represents the anniversary of our first Saturday afternoon session of the gaming club. I won't be with you for this momentous event (I'm going to be in North Wales) but I'm sure you'll all manage to have fun without me.

Looking further ahead, the coordinator for our WW1 commemorations has suggested we think about games with a Great War theme that we could add to the clubs growing list of games. I think Wings of War would fit nicely but anyone have any other suggestions? The American Libraries Association in partnership with the Australian Libraries and Information Association and Nordic Games Day* have just launched International Games Day 2014. I hope we can run something even bigger and better than last years event.

This years Summer Reading Challenge is the Mythical Maze and I'm looking at ways to add some gaming content into the activities that we run here. For those of you who don't know the Challenge is aimed at maintaining literacy skills amongst school children by preventing their reading dipping during the summer holidays. I hope to attend a training course in writing games for increasing information literacy in the middle of June and to bring some of those ideas from that course into both our Summer Reading Challenge activities and to making some new games for the club.

That's it for now. I'll see you all when I get back off my gallivanting (I'll have visited North Wales, London, Buckinghamshire and Salisbury by the time I'm back at the club).

* anyone think its a bit rubbish there is no UK presence in this list

We're still here.

Howdy folks, hope you all had a good Easter. Worlds Away is back up and running this Saturday as usual though we will likely be in the smaller meeting room due to the Writers Squad event that is going to be in the Larger room. Last night was World Book Night and this marked a whole year since the launched the club. Lyndsey showcased some of the things that we run and spoke to a number of people about the club so, fingers crossed, we'll have a few new members soon.

Things have been quite busy at work for the last few weeks, what with reorganising pretty much the entire 1st floor of the Library and all of the end of financial year admin. I've also been really busy outside of work with the Ultimate Frisbee team I run and getting ready for the first Empire LRP event that occurred last weekend. Consequently I've not had very much time to write to write blog posts, hence the radio silence for the past few weeks.

I have a few posts in the pipeline as part of the "Focus On" series, concerning roleplaying games and LRP as well as updating you on the progress of my Imperial Guard army. There is always space for other members to write posts for us, which should mean you won't end up having to wait nearly a month for the next post!

AGM Minutes

The minutes for the Worlds Away AGM held on 29/03/14 are now available, these will be emailed to all club members. If you haven't received a copy within the next few days please email us at gaming@bournemouthlibraries.org.uk

Only War Session Trois

After the surviving troops manage to hold back the Ork advance they take stock of themselves. Unfortunately the Operator and the Medic expired in the aftermath of the attack, the surviving members of the team manage to patch themselves up as best they can, before radioing high command. They get through after a few minutes and after a sit-rep command informs them that they are being relieved and flown back to base.

Relief arrives in the form of three Valkyrie troop transports, that unload imperial war machines and troops as well as a number of Xeno experts to study the Ork technology. After informing the new forces of the countermeasures they installed they quickly away back to base.

They have a few days R&R before their talents are once again needed, in this time they are given new recruits and comrades to bring them back up to full fighting strength. After their time is up they are requested to report to the command tent for a briefing.

They are given a mission, the Orks are using the wreckage of the processing plant they visited earlier to make a huge war machine, they are instructed to destroy it. For this mission they are given a number of pieces of tank hunting gear, A Lemun Russ Vanquisher, a crate of Det-Packs and a Orbital Relay to blast the thing from orbit.

Unfortunately somewhere in the pipeline these gifts morphed into a Salamander Variant scout vehicle, two Missile launchers, a Melta-gun, a barrel of acid, and a bag of dirty laundry.

The squad was familiar with the operational area, of course,  having been present when it became a blighted dot on the landscape and somewhat of a firework surprise for the Imperium, so they found it again with a minimal amount of fuss. Once there, however, they were greeted by quite a view. The wreck of the Chimera was gone, as were the to wrecked Ork Trukks in front of the gates, as a result they could see right inside the ruined refinery.

Lurking in the blacked out ruin was a gigantic battlewagon, covered with guns and launches and covering it like a living carpet was a swarm of Gretchin. Over the vast squabbling sound of the mob, one voice could be heard, an Ork Mek shouting from a large command tower built on the ruins of one of the holding tanks.

The squad divide themselves up, a few men take a launcher and a Auto-cannon to the wrecked Hab-block nearby and another man takes a launcher to the rubble that used to be a shopping promenade.  They come up with the idea that they could roll the barrel of acid towards the tank and blow it with a missile so that the acid splash hits the tank. Unfortunately the thousand or so meters from the salamander to the Ork Compound was strewn with wreckage and rocky lumps so that when the barrel got to the last few hundred meters every jolt echoed loudly, a solution was invented, wrapping the dirty laundry around the barrel muffled it enough to close the gap, they were almost there, and then, they were spotted.

The Orks delight in a bit of target practise and spotting a lone barrel rolling slowly towards them made a game of it, unfortunately for the guard. Orks are terrible shots, but they make up for it with lots of guns and enthusiasm. The Orks eventually managed to hit the barrel and the splash of acid only grazes the guardsmen pushing the barrel, unfortunately wounding them and forcing them to strip off there armour to rid themselves of the acid. The other guardsmen take the opportunity to start firing missiles at the Battlewagon, managing to damage to drive system and take some guns online.

The Ork Battlewagon slowly crawled out of the compound to engage the guard, taking shots and the ruined building that some where camped in and causing a small amount of remodelling to the superstructure but otherwise nothing else. 
Until Next time!

David

5th April International Tabletop Day

 

Next Saturday is International Tabletop Day, a celebration for all the fans of tabletop gaming. A single day where the whole world is brought together in a common purpose of spending time together and having fun. It is organised by the online community Geek and Sundry and this is the second year that it has run.

Their website has a load of cool stuff, particularly the blog which covers all sorts of topics from game development and networking (in the social but not online sense) to playing games with kids and how to run your own games night.

We'll be running as usual so come down and say Hi. Bag of Holding are also running their monthly games night at Flirt on that day so there is the option of double gaming fun if you want it.

Fire in the Hole: Planning the Mordant 303rd

Having decided to build an Imperial Guard army and decided the armies theme, I have to decide upon what models to buy and what to arm them with. I'm not all that fussed about creating something that is completely legal to use in 40K games, more about creating something that fits the background and looks cool. I need to create an army that appropriately represents a force that is a veteran of five long campaigns against mutant rebels, Hrud infestations and Genestealer cultists. An army that is designed to fight in close quarters against the Imperium's many enemies, to cleanse the narrow sewers of ruined cities and corridors of spaceships.



No Tanks!

The first thing that is out for my army is tanks. Tanks don't really do narrow tunnels, so the mainstay of many an Imperial Guard army sadly isn't suitable for mine. Somewhere at home I already have a Chimera, so that may get used but anything else is out of bounds. Equally unsuited for small tunnels are Rough Riders and Ogryns so I won't be having any of those either, or any of the now ubiquitous flyers.



To fit the theme of a force designed to board a spaceship I'll have some troops with equipment for breaching bulkheads (las-cutters, melta bombs, demo charges etc) but the bulk will be armed with weapons aimed for short range combat. Primarily these will be weapons that wouldn't cause structural damage to the hull of a ship (so shotguns, las-carbines and flamers). For some more heavy support I'll have some rapid firing sentry weapons (heavy bolters and heavy stubbers). The troops will be festooned with grenades so that they fit with the background for the regiment that I created in Only War (I am currently running a prequel to the long standing Dark Heresy campaign that I played in, charting how my character became an Inquisitorial Agent).

One of only three bits of artwork for the Mordant

Acid Dogs. Copyright Games Workshop.

There are only a handful of pieces of artwork for the Mordant Acid Dogs these show the troops being armed with a variety of equipment but broadly dressed like Cadians with a vest rather than a sleeved top. The conversions I've seen so far of Mordant troopers use Cadian bodies with Catachan arms, however I'm not a fan of the ridiculous body builder arms of the Jungle Fighters so will be looking elsewhere for some sleeveless arms. I'm also planning to use a variety of head swaps to emphasise the rag tag punky element of Mordant Troopers.

I've already stocked up on a selection of models and bitz to make my conversions but you'll have to wait until my next post for the details.

Only War: Session Deux

The team dig in and quickly find and repurpose an old sentinel power lifter to be a mobile fire platform by rigging the flamethrower to the main console. They also find plenty of piping and barrels of highly volatile refined promethium which they make into murder hole like weapons and land mines. After a couple of hours of hectic work night falls and they begin to take shifts to rest for the oncoming battle.

Unfortunately for them they totally miss the Gretchin scout party and it manages to abscond with a detailed layout of the defenders emplaced fortifications and traps. The diminutive little runts are however spotted in the morning light and shot to pieces. This was the masta plan of Big Mek Lugnutz who used the diminutive Gretchin as a distraction while placing breaching charges at the rear of the compound.

Our heros take the bait and are caught completely unaware as the Orks storm the compound from the rear. A force of five Burna Boyz, Loota's ten Gretchin and one large Mekboy burst onto the scene and critically wound two characters before being pulped. The Mekboy takes on the Sentinel in single combat with his Electro wrench and almost manages to wreck it, but is ultimately pulped by the vengeful fire from the surviving imperial guard!

So, with the first wave defeated how will our brave Imperials cope with Lugnutz next wave?
Find out next week!

David

Only War Campaign Update

Here is the first in a series of posts detailing the heroics of the Imperial Guard squad in the clubs Only War campaign - Darren

-------------------------------------------------

We rejoin our heroes regrouping behind the wreckage of an old Hab block.

They have just managed the salvage the internal gubbins from a power Klaw and the remains of the wrecked chimera's vox set.  Having got a message out to a distant Imperial guard flyer, the sergeant decides that there best chance for survival lies in getting back to the imperial lines as soon as possible, so he orders the troops into marching home. After a day of forced marching they break and camp, exhausted.

Next they discover a clearing that was not on the mapslate their operator was using, and when they stop to smell the flowers they get pounced on by some six legged indigenous mountain cats. The cats are quickly dispatched thanks to a flamer burst, knife to the gut and a very precise burst of heavy bolter fire. Proceeding through the jungle they hear the sounds of heavy gunfire as a Valkyrie roars overhead and crashes to the ground some kilometres away from their position. They decide to check it out, in order to see if they can help any survivors. Unfortunately they only find one wing bearing the designation of the troop ship they came down on.

Finally they return to the imperial compound where they are berated and sent of to defend another refinery against the ork force they were supposed to have routed.

David

In the Game of Thrones You Win or You Die

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Game of Thrones, and whilst it doesn't quite make it to my favourite TV show (that would be Firefly) it sits up at the top along with Rome, the Borgias and the X Files. The show does everything right in my eyes, to suspend your disbelief and make a fantasy show feel like it is all real life. I was put off reading the book as it's pretty long, the kind of doorstop that makes Lord of the Rings look like a bit of light reading.



Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

Available ftrom Bournemouth Library

When the copy of the book I ordered from the library arrived on my desk with a waiting list, meaning I would have to read it in 4 weeks, I was sceptical that I would finish it. I don't read much fiction, I get bored with it quite easily and find all the weird names in fantasy novels impossible to keep up with. Unless it's easy to read I get frustrated, the book feels like a chore and I go off and read a research paper instead (I know, who reads research papers for fun - I sound like such a nerd). What a surprise when I started reading that:-

a) it's really easy to read
b) the chapters are short, so great for picking up when you have a couple of minutes spare
c) its the best thing since sliced bread. Hear that kids, its almost as good as bread!

Its the best fiction I have read since The Shining by Stephen King, I'd go so far as to say it is shaping up to be one of the best novels I have read.

Also on the subject of Game of Thrones, last night my regular gaming group played the board game for the first time. I played as Lannister and got horribly slaughtered by being caught between the Starks in the North and Barratheon in the East. After a few turns of mustering our forces, the battles begun with a series of bloody conflicts over Riverrun between myself and the Starks and between myself and Barratheon over much of the centre of Westeros. At the end of turn eight a Barratheon victory was secure as he had control of six castles and had pushed me out of Harranhal, which he was then able to secure without any fighting at the start of turn nine to win the game.

A Game of Thrones Boardgame by Fantasy Flight Games

Overall we felt it was a good game, though one which was probably overly complex and with some balance issues (the Roose Bolton, Eddard Stark combo is horrible).



AGM Agenda - 29th March

(Disclaimer: we cannot guarantee any cake as fancy

as this one). Taken from Wikimedia.

As mentioned previously we will be holding an Annual General Meeting on 29th March. This will feature a couple of short presentations by me, the vote for our new committee, tea and cake and the opportunity to discuss the club with the volunteers and me. The agenda for this meeting can be found below. The Meeting will open at 12:00 prompt and should be finished in between 30 minutes and an hour depending on how many items are raised in the open floor session. There is only one candidate for each of the committee positions but there is the option of voting for RON (i.e. to re-open nominations).


AGENDA

1. Cake!
2. Apologies
3. An overview of the last year and looking forward to the coming year.
4. Why run a gaming club / What is the club for?
5. Election of the Committee
• Club Leader - David Currie
• Wargames Coordinator - Raphael Pimlett
• Roleplay Coordinator - Jonathan Dalton
• Board and Card Games Coordinator - Benjamin Currie
• Libraries Representative - Unelected Position (Darren Edwards + Lyndsey Collis)
6. Process for electing a new GCN President.
7. Open Floor.

The Mordant 303rd - My New Army

For my sins I have decided to start an Imperial Guard army. A foolish prospect given that I have played 40K twice in the last decade. I am going to collect a Mordant Acid Dog army....

I imagine a lot of you will be scratching your heads wondering what I'm on about, you think I'm confused with how to spell Mordian. But no I'm not going insane, Mordant are a regiment in the 40K universe and I didn't even make them up myself. The Mordant Acid Dogs featured in the Eye of Terror campaign that GW ran back in 2003 and renown as tunnel fighters.

You may wonder why pick a Regiment with about half a page of background rather than one the many regiments with loads of cool background. The reason for me collecting them takes us back to 2009 and the publication of Dark Heresy Ascension.



Darius Tarrantarm: Noble rogue and

chancer (and sometimes hero of the

Imperium)*

We had been playing Dark Heresy for a year or so and had a group of miscreants that bumbled around falling upon evidence of heresy in their service to the Inquisition. I played Darius Tarrantarm a noble born chancer and wide boy, my brother played Mercutio Harrigan a drug addled former ganger turned dubious law enforcer and our friend Chris played Kaarl Raga a smelly, feral world assassin. When Ascension came out we had the chance of adding some actually competent characters into the campaign. Chris chose to play Rhoda Roskruger, a hive gang boss, my brother Navonax, a Tech Priest Magos specialising in wave research, and I Rizpah Jair an Imperial Guard Stormtrooper.



A Mordant Acid Dog

Copyright GW

I had decided I wanted to play a female guard and had a quick look through my back copies of White Dwarf to find a suitable regiment. I stumbled across this picture of a Mordant Guardswoman and I decided it fitted the bill perfectly. A tunnel fighting specialist who find herself the other side of the galaxy as part of an elite Ordo Xenos Stormtrooper Killteam, fighting against the dreaded Tyranids.

Move forward 5 years and my Stormtrooper had moved on from fighting aliens to killing an Emperor's Children Space Marine with a Fury Pattern Laspistol (Stormtoopers in Dark Heresy are pretty hardcore). So it seemed the perfect choice to bring out some of my old Cadian models and create the ill-fated force that was sent to reconnoitre a space hulk leading to much death at the hands of genestealers and the induction of my character into the forces of the Inquisition. I might even play some games of 40K with the new army I create.

So over the next months expect to see more posts and photos cataloguing my progress in this modelling project.

* This picture was created using this photo fit web app provided by the Open University.