Recent Posts

1

Dystopian Wars / Re: DW Version 4.0 Inbound

« Last post by Kelly on September 06, 2025, 04:40:24 pm »

Good summary in your video; I have been going through the design notes for 4.0 and what has gotten my attention the most is the scoring setup...

https://blog.warcradle.com/blog/development-diary-a-matter-of-scale

...I don't know how they will be balancing primary, secondary, and tertiary objectives across different scenarios, and think that has a lot of potential to craft a good table experience, but really would like to have an idea of what amount of points is available between small, medium, and large.

2

Dystopian Wars / DW Version 4.0 Inbound

« Last post by Ruckdog on September 02, 2025, 10:37:19 pm »

Has anyone else been keeping up with the news on 4.0 posted over on the WC blog? I've got a video in the works to discuss it, but there are some major changes coming to the game. The new rules should be out by the end of the month!

https://blog.warcradle.com/blog/september-releases-a-new-edition-of-dystopian-wars-has-surfaced

New mechanics, new cards, new token sets...the jump from 3.0 to 4.0 is going to be like the jump from 1.1 to 2.0 back in the day.

3

Misc. Naval Games / Austro-Hungarian Fleet for Castles in the Sky

« Last post by Easy E on August 05, 2025, 11:26:56 am »

I have been playing some Castles in the Sky with the True Crit Gaming Guild, and that encouraged me to pick-up another fleet. I managed to get this Austro-Hungarian fleet from Brigade before the new Tariffs kicked in. I got them from Scale Creep Miniatures.

You can see how I painted the entire fleet on the blog, but here is a flavor of it.....



The blog can be found here:
https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2025/08/on-painting-desk-castles-in-sky-austro.html

4

News and Rumors / 2025 Great Wargaming Survey

« Last post by Kelly on August 04, 2025, 10:36:46 pm »

Wargames, Soldiers, and Strategy has this year's wargaming survey open now for entries through the month of August:

https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/en-us/blogs/great-wargaming-survey-blog-wss-magazine/the-great-wargaming-survey-2025

There is a slightly more naval tilt in the questions this year, with a new entry being what is your favorite theater of land, air, sea, or space, which I was glad to see.  After completion, there are the usual giveaway entries from sponsors, and pdf access to a sample of WSS issues, and in a few months' time more analysis on the results from their statistician... the media inspiration was probably the most interesting of the results from 2024's survey.

5

General Discussion / Re: Nautilus series on AMC

« Last post by Kelly on July 27, 2025, 03:34:51 pm »

A few hours away from episode 6 airing for Nautilus, and given the cliff-hanger last week, I firmly expect the show to jump the shark tonight.  Halfway through the series, and Nautilus has fallen into the pattern of the first Star Trek movies, with only the even numbered ones being memorable...

That being said, my recommendation is still to try out the show, episode 2 was good, and episode 4 was great, being quoted all through the week in our house.  If you can overlook the shaky physics, there are still a lot of ideas presented for anyone interested in alternate history, and plot-wise there is a lot of material to be harvested for naval scenario design.

The current household vote Nautilus is 6 thumbs up: the kids want to rewatch each episode, and my wife is looking forward to each new one too.

6

The Shipyard / Re: May fourth

« Last post by Kelly on July 27, 2025, 03:18:14 pm »

Some more progress on the project with Y-Wings now modeled, and since they need something to bomb...


...a thermal exhaust port* and turbo-laser towers were the next up on the schedule.  Getting the installations to work in this format took a little more work than I thought, with several revisions, but the final molds came out alright; literally, the first versions had serious releasing issues that necessitated a lot of angle testing to have these come out in one piece.

With a bomber and interceptor for both sides, and two surface targets, the next last step before getting this to the table is actually finding where all of the gray Play-Doh went.


*As much as I have railed against floating scales, I would note that the interior diameter of the exhaust port is actually within womp-rat size of 2-3 meters, which was the subject of discussion in Episode IV, not the exterior housing.  Everything here is still true scale at 1/750.

7

General Discussion / Re: MBS in 2025

« Last post by Easy E on July 06, 2025, 11:32:07 pm »

Wow, great table!

8

General Discussion / Re: Nautilus series on AMC

« Last post by Kelly on July 06, 2025, 11:21:29 pm »

We just finished episode 3 of Nautilus, and I think that is enough to have a good idea of what the series as a whole will be...

I have my doubts as to how closely this will be following the original 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

...which is nothing at all like the source material.  Within the first 10 minutes of the first episode I was rolling my eyes at both the plot and setting, so much so that I was pulling up a synopsis of 20,000 Leagues, but I gave it a chance.  In fact, three chances this week, because after the first two episodes back to back, Nautilus received 4 enthusiastic thumbs-ups from the smaller members of the family and the kids picked both those episodes again when it was their turn to pick a summer movie.

With those repeated views, I gained a lot of perspective and recommend everyone try the show.

This story is more or less insane, but on reflection, no less so than the Verne's novel, it is just a different variety of preposterous events.  In fact, the biggest change so far from the novel is the conflation of other historical events brought back by decades that without giving anything away, changes the entire story structure, in my opinion for the better.  The physics are about as accurate as the submarine scenes in their namesake documentary Finding Nemo, but those thermodynamic laws are broken so the laws of Hollywood character development can be upheld.  And speaking of characters, none of the writing is great, but they have motivations on multiple levels that are clearly expressed, and most of the comic relief is actually funny.

I am now finding it difficult to bring up anything else without spoiling anything, and I think that this show is worthy of not being spoiled, and there is one C-plot that I cannot wait to see how it unfolds next Sunday.  All in all, Nautilus should be watched; it is not great cinema, but it is also 100% not Avatar 2, and how many tangentially naval projects have come out recently?

9

General Discussion / Review: Pacific Command - Osprey Games

« Last post by Easy E on July 01, 2025, 08:18:18 pm »

Mike Hutchinson returns to the Osprey Wargaming Series with something a bit different.  Previously, Mr. Hutchinson wrote Gaslands (which got an Osprey Hardback re-release which means it sold well) and the less well-received A Billion Suns.  His other big Non-Osprey book is Hobgoblin which is a fantasy Mass Battle Game.   Therefore, turning his hand to a historical, WWII, Naval combat game is a bit of a different look for him.  I am interested to see what he comes up with. 

I have always been interested in Naval combat.  However, my interest is more Jutland than it was Midway.  The Pacific Theatre of WWII seems especially.... popular?  I mean, the Victory at Sea starter set focuses heavily on the Pacific Theatre, even if it is strangely missing the carrier elements.  Therefore, this is an area of the war that has gotten a lot of attention in wargaming circles over the years, and much of it has been very dogmatic and rivet-counting focused.  I am therefore interested in how Mr. Hutchinson takes a crack at the period and genre, as he often brings novel and simplified approaches to complex genres.

With that said let's fuel up our dive-bombers, clear the decks, and scramble all aircraft! You can read all the details on my Blood and Spectacles blog:
 
https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2025/06/review-pacific-command-osprey-games.html

10

Historical Naval Games / Cruel Seas

« Last post by Kelly on June 27, 2025, 04:15:43 pm »

I picked up a copy of the Cruel Seas rules from Warlord Games on a sale, and have a breakdown of the book following…

World War II Naval Battle Game – 108 pages – 9781911281467

Introduction, Credits – 5 pages
The design commentary does a good job of not only bringing to light not only the depth of small boat actions in WWII, but also why they should be brought to the table.

Rules – 41 pages
The rules section of Cruel Seas is broken up into multiple sections between basic and advanced levels of detail, including optional sections for moving beyond small surface actions to intersections with airborne and submerged units.  Only 8 pages make up what is needed to start playing with the base set, and all of the other additional rules to bring out more gameplay are no more than a few pages, including art and examples, and seem to be very explainable.

Scenarios – 13 pages
Eight scenarios are included with varying levels of ships recommended, but none should not be adaptable to use with any two combinations of navies.

Art, Background – 14 pages
Besides the miniature photographs that accompany almost all of the rule sections, there are several full page spreads of both art and regional maps to illustrate the background of small boat actions.

National Backgrounds – 20 pages
Historical briefs on each of the major coastal powers in the book cover multiple pages, with enough details on force compositions by theatre to provide a good starting point for a collection.

Roster – 8 pages
Generic equipment costs are included for building out custom ships, as well as comprehensive statistics for six navies.

Campaign – 2 pages
The campaign section is the lightest that I have ever seen included, basically just a set of rules for hidden information at the start of a scenario.  However, there is a good block of custom upgrades for ships that survive from one scenario to another.

Cruel Seas was built as a passion project, in the very best sense, as the care put into a very niche subject shows on every page.  Warlord Games wanted this project to exist whether it would be a commercial success or not, and that shows through the multiple models from other ranges that are featured in the book as collection images.  In fact, the 1/300 scale was chosen for an approximate range band to down-match existing waterline ship models.  [1/350th is an established naval modeling scale… are perfect for larger ships, from light destroyers upwards… pg 6]

Most of the mechanics are built off of Black Seas, in fact Gabrio Tolentino is one of the credits, and depending on how many options are used, Cruel Seas should be a relatively fast paced game.  If this makes it onto my table, it will most likely be with changing activation to the Armada / Black Seas style but that is just due to personal preference… otherwise I am glad to have bought these.

781010001