Big and small: French line infantry

Another 6mm unit painted, so it is time for another installment of my Big vs Small series.
This time, it is French infantry of the line.

6mm troopers are from Baccus, while officer and NCO are from Adler.
1/72 miniatures are from Italeri set 6002.

Finally, here they are one next to the other:

My first miniatures

When I visited my parents house for Easter, I accidentally found my first miniatures ever. Then I realized I never wrote a blog post about them.

So, I took couple of photos, and here I am amending that mistake :)

Some 30 years ago, when I was in primary school, I started getting these toy soldiers, mostly from my grandparents and aunt.  At that time, they could be purchased in every decent toy shop. They were prepainted, and could approximately fit into 1/32 scale.

In a couple of years, I had more that 100 of them. In last 30 years they were heavily mistreated, they passed through unnumbered children hands, some got broken, most of them lost at least part of their paint, and some were lost when my family moved from city apartment to country house in 1996. So, this is all that is left of them.

But for a schoolboy back in 1980's, they were dream come true. I remember, in my class, there was I, and another boy named Bojan collecting toy soldiers. Often, after school, we used to arrange all our soldiers on the floor (we neither knew or cared about periods they come from) opposite to each other, and than wage wars bu shooting marvels at the enemy. The winner was the general with last man standing.

Than, some 20 years ago, at the university, I occasionally used some of these miniatures (these coming from medieval period and some Napoleonic soldiers with swords to represent humans, and Indians with bows or tomahawks to represent elfs) as part of RPG campaign I used to game master. The use was limited mostly to city encounters, since we had no miniatures to represent other fantasy races.

Finally, some 10 years ago, I was already collecting GW fantasy, and I completely forgot about my first toy soldiers.

But here they are, returned from oblivion.
Do you remember your first miniatures?

Song of Blades and Heroes - Spaceship Combat

 In agreement with Andrea from Ganesha Games, I can offer you the fan created rules for space combat using Song of Blades and Heroes Engine.

Please note that these are not complete rules. It is just addition for SBH to emulate space combat. You need basic game to play it. You can purchase original Song of Blades and Heroes fantasy rules from here.

Considering scale, these rules are appropriate for fighters dogfights of the Star Wars type.
Of course, larger ships also play big part of equation, while small ships have two major roles: to make kamikaze attacks against enemy capital ships and to protect your capital ships from enemy  kamikaze attacks (if you read the rules you will see that many things in them are resolved by ship collisions )

The rules can be downloaded from here (link is now working).

So, If you find time to read the rules, or even better to play them, let me know what you think.

Big and small: Spanish guerrilla

Next unit for my big vs small comparing is a band of Spanish guerrilla.

1/72 models are from HaT, 6mm models are from Baccus.

 

I really like these 6mm guys. They are guerrilla, so this allowed me to paint them in my favourite color scheme - every men for himself.
Furthermore, the models with the hats can be used for wast variety of periods, apart from what they are meant to represent.
For example, I will definitely add them to my pulp games, as early XX century big game (dinosaurs for example) hunters.

Bananaman and washed out Weatherman (9Q game part 2)

Welcome back, banana fans!

In last episode, we left our hero arriving in police station where he met Chief O'Reilly.

Q5 (Rory story cubes: Egg, Rainbow)
"It was nice of you to free our TVs Bananaman, but there is more important job to do right now." said Chief O'Reilly. "Mole and The Heavy Mob stole some Mammoth bones from National History Museum. Whispers on the street say that they are giving them to Weatherman, who wants to use them as part of his water controlling machine. You have to stop Wetherman, Bananaman!"

"Ok, Chief,  leave this to me. I'll be going now" said Bananaman while breaking through the police station wall.
(Craw rolls its Bird Like any other dice against difficulty of 5 and passes, with no dye lost)
Then, the Craw showed up: "Boss, while you were getting Dr. Gloom, I was following Mole. It delivered stolen bones to Weatherman in the House on Hangman's Hill. We should go there immediately"

And so our heroes took flight towards the deserted house on a dark and dangerously looking hill.

Q6 (Rory story cubes: Rain, Snake)
Weatherman used a growing gene from Mammoth bones within his machine to increase the level of water in nearby swamp. Water is threatening to flood the city. And all the swamp animals are moving towards city as well.
Bananaman catches some swamp animals (snakes, crocodiles) and ties them together in order to make a dam and stop the waters.
(Twenty big men roll + support from Doctor examined his head once against difficulty of 6. Success, but with loosing of two dices from primary cliché in the process!)
While the dam will stop the imminent danger, waters are still rising and further actions are needed.
(Since this ends Q6, Bananaman recovers one dye on Doctor examined his head once cliché)

Q7  (Rory story cubes: Hammer, Shield)
Bananaman stops in front of the house on the Hangman's Hill, and tries to open the door, but it is locked. While he is standing there, from the window on the upper floor Weatherman throws giant anvil at his head!

 (Twenty big men roll + support from Schoolboy that leads amazing double life against difficulty of 4. Failure! Bananaman looses two dices from the pool of his primary cliché. Only 2 left!)
Anvil hits  our hero right in the head, and drops him to the ground.
(Craw rolls its Bird Genius dice against difficulty of 4 and passes, with no dye lost)
"Boss, stop messing with that door and come here", says Craw pointing towards open window.

Q8 (Rory story cubes: Rising, Waters)
As Bananaman and Craw enter the house, Weatherman increases power on his machine. But dam holds, swamp waters can not grow anymore, so the machine starts influencing sewer waters in the house. Water starts growing from sinks, bath and toilet and flooding the house, and in the proces it destroyed Weatherman's machine. 
This brings reversed process into action, water starts falling back, creating vortexes. One such vortex grabs Weatherman and takes it down into sewers! Lets hope that we will never see his ugly face again, banana fans!
But wait! The vortex grabbed Bananaman too! Will our hero also sink into the city underground and be forever lost in its murky waste waters? 
(Craw rolls its Bird Genius dice against difficulty of 4 and passes, with no dye lost)
In the last moment, Craw puts plug into the bath drain in the tub that was the center of the vortex.
Bananaman is safe, although he is lying in the tub all washed out.

Q9 (Rory story cubes: Reading, Letter)
Later that day, Bananman is watching the news where Fiona says: "City is safe once more, thanks to Bananaman. Thank you my hero!" "That's me, Fiona" sweet talks Bananaman to TV.
"Boss, you look tired" drops in Craw. "Maybe you will feel better after good, long bath?"

Bananaman and the mixed magnetism (episode 1)

This is 29 Accacia Road, and this is Eric the schoolboy who leads an amazing double life. For when Eric eats a banana an amazing transformation occurs. Eric is Bananaman. Ever alert for the call to action!

Q1 (Rory story cubes: Fear, Magnet)
Doctor Gloom made his new hell device - huge magnet meant to change the orientation of all TV antennas so no one can watch Fiona's TV station. The last thing people were able to see on TV before the snow signal appeared was Fiona's call: "Help, Bananaman!"

(Craw rolls its Bird Genius dice against difficulty of 3 and passes, but with one dye lost)
"Look, Boss, all antennas are oriented towards one location. If we go there, we ought to find Doctor Gloom and his device!"

Q2 (Rory story cubes: Carrying, Mammoth)
Why following antennas orientation, Bananaman notices The Mole and his drill digging hole inside natural history museum. The Heavy Mob comes out of the drill, takes Mammoth skeleton and the drill disappears into the ground.
Bananaman flies into the tunnel left after the drill, stops in front of the machine and tries to stop it, but the drill rolls all over it and disappears into the tunnels. Is this the end of our hero banana fans?

(Bananaman rolls Twenty big men against difficulty of 5 to catch the drill and passes without issues. Then he rolled the same dice  with support of Doctor examined his head once.... Didn't find anything. Not even a brain against difficulty of 6 but fails miserably, and loses 4 dices in first Cliché).

"Stop lying around boss, we need to catch some bad guys!" said Crow, putting banana into our hero's mouth.

(At this point that is what Crow usually does, so I will allow it as GM. Crow rolls his Have a banana, Boss dices against difficulty of 2 and succeeds in order to allow Bananama to regain one of his lost dice. So, our hero is now on -3 on his primary Cliché)

Q3 (Rory story cubes: Snail, Crossroads)
Tunnel used by our heroes suddenly comes to a junction. Two neon signs are hanging on the far wall. On the arrow showing to the left it is written "The Mole and The Heavy Mob Escape Tunnel". The one showing to the right says "Dr. Gloom's hideout". Bananaman stops, unsecure where to go. After initial confusion, he finally decides to let drill go, and to visit Dr. Gloom.

(I wanted to abandon pursuit and to go for Dr. Gloom, but to allow it, I ordered Bananaman to roll That's me Fiona dices with support of Doctor examined his head once....  against difficulty of 2. He rolled one 4 and two 1, so he passed the test, but lost dices on both clichés)
(Since this ends Q3, both Bananaman and Crow are able to recover one dye on their primary clichés)

Q4(Rory story cubes: High, Counting)
Like eagle from the sky, our intergalactic superhero bursts into the Dr. Gloom's hideout, only to see giant magnet attracting all TV antennas in the city. Upon seeing Bananaman, Dr. Gloom pushes the lever and increases magnetic force, which is now threatening to tear all antennas from their beds on city roofs and in that way forever disconnect TV viewers from Fiona.
Bananaman uses his super strength to tie magnet into a knot, forcing Dr. Gloom's machine to explode.

(Twenty big men roll + support from That's me, Fiona against difficulty of 5. Success with no dice lost)

Bananaman grabs Dr. Gloom and escapes the hideout before the explosion. The explosion made all TV antennas turn into random direction. People will have to fix them, but that can be done.
Bananaman take Dr. Gloom into police station, where he meets Chief O'Reilly, nervous because since explosion his TV can only pick Nerk Station, witch is for 24 hours airing reality show "Cooking with Mama Nerk"

To be continued.....

Bananaman and the mixed magnetism - intro

For my next solo RPG, I decided to go once more for option as light as possible. I wanted something funny, so I selected to play a Bananaman BBC cartoon episode (all rights belong to appropriate owners,  no challenge attended).
For tools of trade I selected another soloist best friend - 9Q. And, I used a light D4 RPG system based on Risus, I invented especially for this occasion. Rules for that system can be found here.

So, here are my heroes:

Bananaman
1. Twenty men... twenty big men  8D4
2. Doctor examined his head once.... Didn't find anything. Not even a brain.... 6D4
3. Schoolboy that leads amazing double life  4D4
4. That's me, Fiona  2D4

Crow
1. Bird genius 8D4
2. Bird like any other 6D4
3. Have a banana, boss 4D4
4. Tell Bananaman 2D4

The story will come in next post.

Big and small: Andrzej Niegolewski and his men

I have decided to start on the blog serial of posts where I will put side by side pictures of the same unit in two scales - 1/72 and 6mm.
All models presented in this serial are painted by my humble skill.

To start, I present to you, of course, my favorite unit - Polish guard lancers led by captain Andrzej Niegolewski.

1/72 miniatures are from Zvezda set, 6mm models are by Baccus.