Voidfall!

 Voidfall... another of the Kickstarters that delivered the later part of 2023. 

Opening the big box.

Guide to Iconography.

This is a BIG game!

The premise is that an Ancient star civilization has fallen into disorder, with many factions (houses) vying for power, 

Guide to storing it all!

I went for the upgraded version... had to have the cool ships, you know!

Anyway, into this somewhat chaotic scene there arrives the Voidfall - an extragalactic force that feeds upon disarray and corruption. 

More storage guide!

and more!

Supporting App!

Rules... actually less complex than it seems. The complexity chiefly comes from the great many options the players (up to 4) have, as well as a large number of scenarios, including solo and cooperative ones. 

More explanation of what's what~!

Background information of the Voidfall universe, the various (17) different houses, many of which have unique features, and a large number of different scenarios. 

Some sample scenarios. 

Some of many diecut components before the punchout. 

It turns out these will be used to construct the wheels tracking certain points for each of the 4 factions... red, yellow, blue, and green. 

Play aids

Resource tracker templates for assembly. 

Production guides

Special production guides for several types of unique systems which may or may not appear in various scenarios. 

Wheels for assembly ontop resource trackers. 

Voidfall (opposition) items

These are essentially victory point coinage. 

Various production (guild) markers for systems. 

More tokens

and more...

and more!

The cool toys...

Space ship components

and more components.

color coded dice for factions, cubes to track strength, etc. 

House cards, one for each of up to 4 players. These track faction abilities, areas of focus, technologic advances, and so on. 

Board for tracking the opposition (Voidfall). 

Some of the 17 House cards. These slip into the die cut Faction holders

Flip side of the above faction cards

3 more factions

and their flip sides (mostly background information). 

 another three factions

and their flip sides

yet another three factions

with their flip sides

The final 2 factions

and their flip sides

Corruption tracker

The 25 or so sector tiles, about 3" across. 

Various card decks used during the game. 

and a couple of more!

These are focus cards for the various players - choosing an area of focus gives additional advantages and disadvantages to that player. Each player can only choose 2, I believe. I think they can be changed during the game, but at a cost!

and more - each color essentially has the same set

More, with some special development focuses!

Action cards for the opposition (Voidfall) forces

Joint Focus cards s for Alliances. 

Heroic focus cards!

More Voidfall action cards

These Voidfall action cards come from three different decks. As the level of Corruption in the systems increase, the cards are drawn from more intense (worse for the players) decks! 

The game is played in three cycles. These are reference cards showing how many of each kind of Voidfall action cards are draw for each cycle, depending upon the level of corruption overall. 

More cards... did I mention this is a BIG game, with enormous replayability!

Various events 

and more

Corruption cards

Special effect cards - triggered by achieving certain milestones. 

and plenty more of the same. 

A few special metal markers

Space ships and components

More of the same

Assembled resource tracker dials. 

Faction VP counter

This definitely looks like a game to play solo first... and that may have to wait until after I retire, LOL! 

The Assyrians came in, like a Dog from the Cold...

Richard over at the My Wargaming Habit blog recently made an offer of some free Assyrian figures  to someone who might provide them a new home. I wound up accepting, and in addition to the free lead, Richard generously covered the substantial postage charges from the UK as well. The figures, expertly packed, arrived in record time. They included some 14 heavy spearmen with 4 copmmand figures as seen above, and...

and a a further 18 medium spearmen wearing conical helmets, and...

a further 12 spearmen, 10 of them bareheaded, plus the requisite shields. All in all, incredibly gernerous of Richard. Thanks again.  

I have a small amount of unpainted Assyrian lead on hand myself - three Old Glory 2-horse chariots

and six Newline Designs command figures

I have a much larger contingent of painted Assyrians already on hand. My Assyrian army is chiefly "new" Minifigs, plus Hinchliffe 4 Horse chariots, all painted back in the late 1970's while I was in Medical School. Those figures were primarily for our own gridded Ancient rules based upon the FGU rules, Legion!  Those rules, which I have termed Legio Quaternarius, were inspired by Charlie Sweet's own gridded Ancient rules, which were themselves my first introduction to Ancient wargaming. A unit in those rules is just 2 stands, so the figures were based and organized with that in mind. 

While I still enjoy those rules, for the past 10+ years, Simon Miller's excellent Ancient rules, To the Strongest, which are similarly gridded, have been my go to Ancient rules. While I could easily play with 2 stand units on a 3" grid (and have truly massive forces), my preferred set up is 6" boxes, and 4 stand units for most formed infantry. 

For some time, a low priority project has been to reorganize and rebase these troops to that standard, while also decreasing the heavy spear units to 3 figures on a 60 x 30 base instead of 4 figures on a 60 x 20 mm base. 

The plan would be to have 6 x 12 figure heavy spear units, 2 x Quaradu (Assyrian household/guard spearmen), and increase the heavy slingers to 2 units of 12, and  the heavy archers  to 4 units of 12, chiefly by the judicious addition of new command figures. My 2 existing Medium spear units of 18 figures would become 3 units of 12 each. The light infantry, all the cavalry and chariots would be unchanged. In addition to the core Minifigs troops, in recent years I have added some figures from the collection of the late Bill McHugh (mostly seen with the arid basing), and few additions from Eureka and Black Tree Designs ranges. Richard's figures, as already noted would add another heavy infantry spear and 3-4 Medium spear units. I may need to add a few more command figures to flesh out some of the units. I  plan to do more "arid" basing scheme for these troops, akin to that I have used for my Egyptians. Considering the size of the collection, I am seriously considering basing half of the troops in subtly different fashion, so that they could represent rival Assyrian factions or even a Babylonian army. 

Anyway, thanks again to Richard and his most gracious and very generous gift. Serious work on Project Assyria will likely not occur until after Historicon. I might even shop for a few packs of the necessary command figures in the Dealer's area while I am there in July!

Wurttemberg I.R. #6, "Kronprinz"

The last of my six units of "new" Wurttemberg Line Infantry musters off the painting table. 

In 1807, the existing infantry battalions of the Army of Wurttemberg were all expanded into two battalion regiments. IR #6, Kronprinz (Crown Prince) derived from the battalion of the same name.

Throughout the era, the unit had white facings piped with scarlet, and brass buttons. 

The facings appeared on the collars, cuffs, lapels, turnbacks, and shoulder straps. 

The flag is of the new pattern ordered by King Frederick in 1807. They were not actually presented to the troops until 1811! These are of course Piano Wargames sculpts (and flags), by Lucas Luber.

The Castles of Burgundy, Special Edition

I had several Kickstarters for non miniature games that delivered in 2023 but have yet to get coverage on the blog. 

This is a classic "Eurogame" by the renowned designer, Stefan Feld. The big box includes all the previous variants,. plus a new variant designed for the KS itself. 

Opening the Big Box...

Quick reference sheets...

Main game board for 3 or 4 player games

The same for 2 player games

Lots of counters!

New components for the Vineyards of Burgundy expansion. 

More stuff, including player color coded dice and markers

The bags are used for blind tile drawing. 

Individual player boards. The box has at least 25 different ones, some easier, some harder. 

Castles is essentially a tile placement and dice management game, competitive and interactive but without direct conflict between the players. Maximizing the score for your very Burgundian Duchy is the goal. Not exactly Charles the Bold, but I got this game chiefly for use with non-wargames types. I played a solo game and the rules are easy to grasp overall, but with lots of subtleties and player interaction opportunities. I enjoyed it!