Nostalgia Goggles

My son has been playing Blood Bowl 2 on PC. I blame him for the peer pressure for these purchases.

While spectating him, I pointed out he needed to make all your non-risky/non dice moves first then go for blitzes or passes and that his cage was flaky. I then had to explain the cage then unwisely mentioned there was a tabletop version I played heaps as a kid (I had my own 6-team solo league using models I cut from ice cream lids - yes I was a poor kid). 

....A visit to the hobby shop later, and he has sand skellies and I have norse. I'm not au fait with current rules but looking at the team sheets I reckon the norse have more useful toys to win with. We both went with "what looked cool." Though he claims it was the ball-cats that decided him. At least neither of us got dwarves. They were never fun to play with or against. I think the pdf I have is the second-to-last rules version. 

 

....Not a huge fan of the 7+ piece models that build exactly the same linesman. Unlike say Necromunda where you at least get lots of variety in exchange for hours of farting around. It is nice to have pieces which fit neatly though. (Glares at Wargames Foundry yari on workbench).

Bloodbowl was, alongside Battlefleet Gothic, the GW game I played most as a kid. I think it aligned in time to 40K's 2nd edition.  In terms of other 'official' games, I had Battletech and Starfleet Batttles but I spent more time photocopying record sheets than playing either....  I think this is where I acquired my hatred of recording hitpoints...

Last year I bought some 3D printed Battlefleet Gothic minis off eBay - there's plenty of available/free STLs and they do lend themselves well to 3D printing, but I kinda found them a bit draining and fiddly to to paint. Also got that kinda decision paralysis when I (a) couldn't work out which weapon loadout for my cruisers (b) was too lazy to try to solve this by irksome job of drilling/magnetizing them. They currently sit in my 'procrastination pile.'

I've also had a mind to revive Mordhiem as the kids and I have played a lot of Vermintide 2 on PC together and atmosphere inspired me. I even printed out the rules and bought some secondhand Skaven off eBay; as well as some Frostgrave cultists. Unfortunately I re-read the rules after these purchases; and decided I was less enthusiastic than I thought: so they are also on the procrastination pile.

Finally on the 'GW nostalgia' pile of shame: I bought an Imperialis Aeronautica box as well. I could never afford that as a teen as well, but as soon as I indulged those GW swine "Squatted" my Tau before I even got to paint them so I kinda lost enthusiasm - I'm not paying a squillion on eBay to expand my now OOP faction. I feel I'm not at fault for this one.

My nostalgia-fueled purchases have not had a good strike rate so far, so we'll see how Bloodbowl goes. 

A possible pending distraction is my homebrew post-apoc 1930s pirate tank rules - my son and I like to vroom around with our 15mm tanks. My new MDF - the 3rd terrain collection since the start of the year - has revived this one. Current barrier is: I need some 15mm zombies and civilians/scavengers that I can afford. Some US manufacturers make them, but they are usually $50 for the minis and $50 P&P....

In other news, I have been distracted by making a homebrew Infinity-lite, using d12s, which are my new favourite dice size. D20s feel too swingy, and d12s have the advantage for being able to translate easily from d6s (modifiers etc are just doubled) if you want to use other existing games as a baseline, as well as converting from Infinity's +3/-3 modifers (15%) to a +2/-2 (16%) quite neatly. They also have lots of room "on the dice" so you can have very different stat lines and variation for different models without being confined to 3+, 4+, or 5+.

I downloaded Infinity N5 with the intent of playing it with my kids, but while there seems to be attempts to make it more accessible since N3 (my last foray); it is at best a learning wall rather than a learning cliff.

Zone Raiders should have 'the one', but it's curiously specific in terms of minis and weapons; and doesn't really have opposed roll/duel reactions which my kids would enjoy. (They like the opposed fight rolls of ME:SBG). I could have created my own weapons and stats, but that was a less fun exercise.

My aim is to vastly simplify the rules and mechanics, and change a few things that annoy me. I'm cutting the modifiers to 2 or 3 each for shooting/melee, and range bands to just three - "effective" "long" and "CQB" which groups by class; rifle, SMG, pistol etc - not individual sub-types having unique range bands. Having 10 different ammo types is also a no-no. The 100+ skills are being condensed to 20 or so and aligned with Necromunda so my daughters' Escher minis will work.

The vaunted Infinity activation is just IGOUGO disguised mostly by the lethality of reactions, and I'm not a fan of cheerleading or the convoluted fireteam rules. So they'll get tweaked.

The aim? An 'Infinity-a-like' my kids can play, and I can use any common sci fi miniatures. If I don't get distracted I'll run a playtest soon and post it up the battle report....

2026 Goal Check:

1. Terrain. 

Create 3 more terrain sets, but must be storable in A4 IKEA boxes. Already done!

2. Minis 

c) Buy minis for one new system, project or rule set but only after equivalent minis painted

I'm usually pretty good at this... 

3. Rules

a) Design and play-test one new home-brew system. I'd like to do a battle report.

d) Print out an existing old-school OOP rulebook or free indie set. Quite a few. Yet to review any in blog. 

4. Blog

Two posts per month.  So far.

5. Paint

a) Continue to follow my rule: Paint equal or more existing minis before I get new purchases i.e. if I paint 101 minis, I can buy 100 new minis.  24/100 minimum goal. On track.

 6. Budget 

On track. $65 spent so far (Bloodbowl team); +$20 binding various PDFs

7. Downsize/Storage

Get rid of 4+ A4 IKEA boxes of rules, minis, old terrain etc. 

Already done, but I'm eyeing off some rules boxes. Maybe I'll do a post "why these are getting the chuck?" My son has made some cool setups as he has 'acquisitioned' some old cardboard terrain on its way to the bin....