As such I'm mostly going to be talking about some of the stuff I bought whilst at Salute a couple of weeks back. Unusually given my predilection for Rogue Trader and sci-fi subjects these mostly consisted of Fantasy rule sets...
I will admit to being somewhat of a collector of rules possessing many which I've never really played but enjoy perusing. Anyway this post isn't going to be a review of these rules, I leave that to more qualified observers but will mostly be my rambling thoughts.
First up was Dragon Rampant which is obviously fairly well known in the old school gaming scene along with its historical parent Lion Rampant.
The other was Foundry's God of Battles by Jake Thornton. I will admit to having fairly fond memories of Jake's tenure as White Dwarf editor (despite it being during the dreaded 'Red Period'), possible as it was around that time that one of my favourite GW games, Necromunda, came out.
Notably there are are some similarities in the basic rules concepts of the two sets although they are intended to work on slightly different scales and Dragon Rampant is of course a lot more generic not being tied to a specific world or miniatures range.
Having said that creating your own lists for GoB wouldn't be particularly difficult, and the concepts behind some of the armies included are quite interesting. The army based terrain tables and weather charts add a touch of flavour to the proceedings. The Habitat rules which have terrain pieces inhabited by various denizens that will defend their homes violently (often against both sides...) are also quite amusing.
I particularly liked the 'Miracles' magic system in GoB which is a relatively simple card based (using normal playing cards) system but includes a lot of tactical depth at the same time.
I suspect that overall Dragon Rampant is likely to be more useful to me if I ever feel like getting any fantasy games, mostly as I'm only likely to ever be able to field a enough models for a skirmish.
On the painting front I'm currently painting some Hasslefree villagers (also bought at Salute) to use a non-combatants.
Till next time.
Cap'n Smyrk
