" RETURN OF THE TWO HEADED MONSTER "

"A FEATHERY SITUATION"

Today I want to show how to green stuff feathers, these are very easy, but can leave people daunted by the prospect if they don't know how.

Step 1: First roll out a small sausage of greenstuff.

Step 2: Flatten out the roll of green and shape like the picture.

Step 3: With a scalpel mark two lines down the centre to form the quill.

Step 4: Then mark the barbs either side of the quill with your scalpel blade, these want to be between 30 and 45 degrees. Now you have a completed feather, you can add some separation to the barbs if you want it to look worn, by putting your blade between two barbs and teasing it apart.

"SOMETHING NEW"

Here is another new race for DM and the sister game, these are an Avian race descended from a form of birds; there will also be gladiator/hunter options for these as well as just being a new monster to fight. The one shown is in hunter mode, with a net launcher, similar to the ones used in the arena, but more powerful.

The original concept for these was done by Hils, we will be adding a lot more background in the future for these, but the male and females will look the same, just have different colour schemes, similar to modern day birds.

"MIA"

Next week I'm off to a show in Antwerp called Crisis, so I will not be doing any posts next week. However, I will try to keep up with comments in the mean time as much as I can, but for now I`ll pass you over to Steve.

So until next time HAVE FUN guys.

Cheers Dave

Another Teaser of Things to Come:

Who remembers The X Files. Ooooh that cool theme tune music, and the spooky imagery as the credits rolled. Then the fabulously rich `mythology` which ran throughout the show and unfolded slowly throughout each season.. all building to a final major all out finale at the end. *sighs with happy nostalgic recollection*  Oh man, those grey aliens.. you know, the ones Cigarette Smoking Man and his colleagues tried so hard to hide from Mulder and his yummy FBI partner Scully.

The almost urban legend of aliens having been visiting Earth for centuries, abducting people and experimenting on them, is not a new one. But the TV show The X Files bought the concept to new feverish heights of paranoid exposure, and all done in the most deliciously entertaining way. I loved that show and own all series (and the three movies) on DVD, as well as the spin off shows: "The Lone Gunmen" and "Millennium."

Is it any wonder then that in conversation with Dave, coupled with Hils conceptual art, and my own driving enthusiasm for the idea, that Dave eventually turned his mind to the idea of creating Alien Greys for Death Match.. and the rapidly expanding campaign world that has spawned from it.

So imagine a new mysterious race of aliens (known, shunned, and feared by humans... whose knowledge of them, although sketchy, is riddled with macabre doubt and an innate psychological terror). An alien race who use flesh constructs and robots, created by stealing  human brains, and then spirit powering them to create robots: semi mindless drones, golems, and (dare I say it)  zombies: to act as servitors and slaves for their foul necromantic dealings.

Makes me shudder just to think of them, yet at the same time, makes me excited at hell at the prospect of playing thematic table top battles with them... mmmmmm, yummy cogitations running through my head at thatthought.

Dave has come up with a title for these foul necromancer aliens which I think is pretty damn cool: "Techno Ancients."

Dave`s even sculpted the first of these aliens, and the initial results are very encouraging I must say.

Techno Ancients, aliens who visited Earth through the centuries, so humans (understandably) have a disturbed distrust of them. They are thought to be the race responsible for human abductions and experimentation stretching back throughout  history... even as far  back as the Ancient Egyptians, and possibly even before!

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 Death Match

Part 1

(Intro to a TGC first battle report)

One of the things I most enjoy about table top 

gaming.. is customising the rules: whether it be a full blown mass wargame, a skirmish level game (with far fewer figures involved), or a role playing game employing miniatures and nice looking terrain to help liven up the action. When I started the hobby way back in the late 1960`s (I started when I was about 7 years old) and then into the 70`s as a teen, I came from an age when, if you didn`t create and write your own rules for your chosen genre, then you used what was available (usually not much choice to pick from.. which in a way was good too) and simply customised what you had to make things fit your own ideas. This was lovely actually, and promoted individuality,  charm, creativity and stimulating immersion. I find nowadays that I am often saddened and even appalled at just how spoon fed gamers have become: following the `written word` with slavish devotion, finding the thought of make it up for yourself an alien concept. My motto has always been, "if you don`t like a rule"simply - "CHANGE it!"

I play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons (nowadays I

tend to play 5th edition, but I am just as happy with basic or 1st ed). But it is seldom that I would follow the rules as they are written in the three core books. Same thing with historical game rules such as Bolt Action, Black Powder or Pike and Shotte. If you play in one of my live session games, you will more often than not see a lot of rule changes and alterations. I think I got this mentality from playing early (circa 1974-ish) games of D&D,  Tunnels and Trolls, RuneQuest, Star Frontiers, Traveller, and so on; also from playing a lot of Donald Featherstone skirmish games (and others) of the time as well.. especially Wild West genre games, which were always popular with our gaming group back in the pioneering days, when the likes of "Kung Fu" and "The A Team" were still new and fresh out on the telly.

My two human (revili) combatants, my alien monsters are chosen (will randomly determine their locations once the adventure begins), and my various game tokens are all laid out and ready for me to use in the game.

And so I come round full circle to Death Match.

Sorry Dave, pretty prefect as the rules of that 

game already are, it is the tinkerer in me that always looks to make the rules work even better for me. That`s the beauty of a nicely defined rules system: if the rules are well written, they will allow players to indulge in endless titivating and customisation (Ganesha Games rules, for example, are great for that).

So the following is my personal take on Death Match, and is played myway, with personal preferences and likes added into the mix to create a lively experience which suits my narrative style of play. In other words, I never let a rule stop me from having fun, and I never allow a problem stop me (such as a rule which says I can`t do such and such. If I want to because I feel it enhances the game, I do it anyway)!

In this instance I wanted to play a solo game of Death Match using two gladiators working together in the arena - not against each other. I also wanted to play without worrying too much about a points system.. I was playing solo for God`s sake. Besides which, when was war ever fair? The convention of playing games using a points system has never sat well with me, and where ever possible, I try to dispense with such nonsense altogether.. even when playing proper wargames with friends. I always think games should be friendly affairs between good buddies, not grudge matches of "na na na na naaaa, sucks boo, I won." LOL.

Sooooo, second teaser of the week I`m afraid. The batrep itself will have to wait until the next article, when I may well add a small second one to it (two batreps in one go) and show off a Beta version of the new Skirmish game - the sister game to Death Match, which won't actually be released, until Salute 2018.

Even with my heavy narrative game play style, I

 really wanted to show how the game is played properly using the new official rules; and show case the spirit of the game in all its science fiction glory.

Until next time, cheers guys :-)

Steve