Steampunk - Once upon a time there was a roleplaying game

As part of the catch up then I'm covering somethng I got involved with last month.  I did a kickstarter for some figures, specifically the Empire of the Dead Requiem.

A long time ago - well early 90's there was a roleplaying game called Castle Falkenstein that was steampunk plus magic.  I liked it and the theme - I even GM'd a couple of sessions but the White Wolf World of Darkness games (Vampire, Werewolf) were the fashion at the then RPG group and it had limited interest.  Very much it needs people in the right frame of mind and the GM needs a setting that the players want as well.  Needless to say I bought all the books and even managed to get some of the "official' figures out of bargain bins at conventions.  For other figures I scoured various fantasy ranges along with historical ranges from people like Wargames Foundry.

But in some ways the steampunk feel went back earlier than that.  I'd always enjoyed films that featured say Nemo and the Nautilus.  Go back to the mid 80's and was re-reading the Hawkmoon stuff by Michael Moorcock - we were playing alot of Call of Cthulu RPG at the time but the GM had lots (possibly all) of other stuff put out by Chaosium (which is how I got started on the Pendragon).  When a toy shop was having a clearout I got a couple of zoids with a view to converting them.  These may may excellent 'steampunk" vehicles.  I think I have the giant worm pictured below and another one that flaps wings (view to making a Gran Brettanian Ornithopter from Hawkmoon).    

One of the blogs I follow is A conflict of Interests and I found myself agreeing with the comments about wanting the steampunk aspect in preference to the Gothic werwolves vs Vampires.   

Not blogged about here but something I was very taken with a couple of years ago was the Warhammer Historical Legends of the Old West game.  Now sadly part of history as I suspect licensing issues means that nobody else will be given permission to reprint it.  One of the groups was the Chinese Tongs - always part of pulp fiction.  The Empire of the Dead Requiem Kickstarter had a couple of free figures that I really wanted - the Dragon Lady, so I ended up backing the project.   

I have the PDF of the rules but not really had chance to go through it yet.  I watched the kickstarter (or Nickstarter to be more appropriate) for the figures for In Her Majesty's name.  The free figures for the various financing options were less generous than the Westwind offer and the basic factions were of less interest or ones that my Castle Falkenstein stuff might cover.  

I have bought the rules though.  Very interesting on a first read through and definitely my sort of game.      The mechanics and construction rules seem fairly sound, and the campaign system whilst somewhat simple looks as if it will work and the whole thing has that "feel" of the campaign and tabletop skirmish game that had appeared in the Legends of the Old West.  

Paint Tray

If you look at my profile then there are a number of other blogs that I follow.  They in turn follow other blogs.

So, BigLees Minature Adventures came up with this Nail Varnish rack, which he in turn had spotted on another blog.

Mine has duly arrived and its good and not so good. 

Good: Its cheap (much cheaper than the laser cut mdf ones), works well and takes Games Workshop old style, Games Workshop new style, Vallejo and Miniature Paints pots. 

Not so Good: Doesn't take a few oddities that I have - Howard Hues (from Magister Miletum), Tamiya (useful for metallics and metals) and the Humbrol 30 ml (i.e. large pots) which may or may not still be made - I suspect not after a visit to the official Humbrol web site.  

Samurai - Rotterdam and Lone Wolf and Cub

April and May have been somewhat hectic for some good and some not so good reasons.  One of the good parts was a 5 day trip to Holland in Mid May, specifically Rotterdam, Leiden and Amsterdam.

The main reason for going was a Samurai Exhibition at the Weraldmuseum in Rotterdam which ended on 26th May.  My chum's daughter's boyfriend passed on the details a while ago, and we hadn't had a big (aka aged 50 ish) boys outing for a while, so "why not".  (I also got to see the Dutch Marines museum but news of that in a different post).

The exhibition turned out be very, very, good and well worth the journey.

The following pictures comes from this blog.

Photography in the exhibition was prohibited for obvious reasons.  The low level of lighting would have meant that without a tripod and very long shutter speeds the results would have been very poor.  The billing talked about stuff on loan from America and Japan but didn't say that much of the stuff was from the Museo Stibbert in Florence - which I knew had lots of Samurai stuff from some Black and white photos in Osprey books.  When I came back I checked it out (again) and the Museo Stibbert Samurai stuff is now only by appointment and incurs an extra fee of €150 !

More pictures on this blog.  

One of the more unusual helmets at the show was this one with a massive (I assume paper mache) Octopus.  

Aside from a two items (armour and a sword set) made for the Dutch King as gifts, the rarest items I suspect were a straw jingasa (war hat) and back banner (Sashimono). The Sashimono was from the Momoyama (1573-1615) period which covers the period of unificaton by Hideyoshi (such as the battle of Sekighara).  With no photography then I succumbed and bought the catalogue for €35 - not cheap, but all the photos are colour and some are very close detail.  Unfortunately it doesn't illustrate every item.  

The Samurai on horseback was in the museum entrance hall and the one item that could be freely photographed.  

Final mention is some new Samurai figures only available until 29 May.  These are from Black Bases and represent Lone Wolf and Cub.  Mine arrived today and what it doesn't mention is that the set does include the babycart too, so is somewhat better value.   Remember that figures are unpainted.