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Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

Yeah, I have seen a few now. One that sticks out was from Cocos_Models.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cfo01ZINCiW/?hl=en

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/07/22 17:03:35


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Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba




The Great State of New Jersey

pretty sure youre talking about miniature martin, he posts here too sometimes

CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in us
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MN (Currently in WY)

Oh yeah, he has some cool ones going as well!

Here are Martin's


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Made in si
Foxy Wildborne







That's the one!

Posters on ignore list: 36

40k Potica Edition - 40k patch with reactions, suppression and all that good stuff. Feedback thread here.

Gangs of Nu Ork - Necromunda / Gorkamorka expansion supporting all faction. Feedback thread here
   
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MN (Currently in WY)

Greetings all,

The blog has some pictures from the book launch gathering in Powell, Wyoming at Gestalt Studios.



It is always tricky doing something like this in the summer near Yellowstone. There are literally 100's of things people would rather be doing. Therefore, I was very happy with the turn out for the event. We kept the Demo table full, and I was pretty busy interacting with folks during the whole time. In fact, the game went a bit longer than the allotted 2 hours.

I got some new, potential recruits for our small wargaming group, sold some books, and met a lot of great people. That is what I call a success. I don't have a ton of videos or photos, as I was trying to help moderate a demo game, pitch folks, sell books, etc. Therefore, my attention was all over the place.

Anyway, if you want more pictures, you can check them out on the blog here:
http://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2022/08/battle-report-castles-in-sky-book.html

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Made in us
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MN (Currently in WY)

For those looking for an alternate few ships to try instead of Brigade Models, I have a few suggestions.

Irregular miniatures 6mm aeronef fleets can be found here: https://irregularminiatures.co.uk/

Go to the Spaceship and Sci-fi 6mm section. Scroll down to the bottom of the page until you see them.....







This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/08/11 14:52:11


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Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba




The Great State of New Jersey

Yep, I was looking into those a couple years back. Its worth mentioning that the minis do not scale well with brigades minis unfortunately, they look like they are probably closer to 1/1800 than Brigades nominal 1/1200 scale.

CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

A good call out. Similarly, Leviathan models do not scale well with Irregular or Brigade.

As another alternative, you could get really aggressive and also use GHQ Great War kits and put them on flying stands too...

https://www.ghqmodels.com/collections/great-war-1-2400-scale





This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/08/12 17:03:00


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The Great State of New Jersey

Which is odd, because Brigade and Leviathans are both theoretically/nominally 1/1200 scale miniatures lol. Not sure what scale Irregulars minis are meant to be (definitely not 6mm scale, also definitely not 2mm scale), but they aren't whatever scale Brigade and Leviathans are using.

And yeah, I have often thought of buying waterline ship models and putting them on flying stands with some wings/empannage to make them look "flighty", but it seems kinda lazy IMO. Then again thats basically what Brigades minis are (to my chagrin). I would prefer to do something more like this where the ship model gets "seated" into or on top of a dirigible/zeppelin hull, but I don't have the time to put that level of effort into it.

CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

I hear you there.... I specifically left the details of how the battleships fly out for a reason! Everyone has a different view of it.

I also have some more Zeppelin/Blimp like airships for Dystopian Wars that I also have used in battles as well. Dystopian Wars is a fine source of alternate models as well.


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MN (Currently in WY)

Looks like the game got a write up in Wargames, Soldiers, and Sailors magazine. You can find the issue here:

https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/products/wargames-soldiers-and-strategy-120-1940

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Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Maryland

I'm looking forward to getting my copy!

I'm almost finished with the American ships. and then start on the Japanese. Deadline is the 10th of September, but at least the Brigade minis are simple to paint (especially once you get past the battleships).

   
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MN (Currently in WY)

Do you have a game lined up for September 10th?

If so, I look forward to reading about it on your blog.

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Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Maryland

I do! A club game, with a bash up between American and Japanese squadrons. Although I'm thinking of switching to the Japanese escorting a dreadnought with disabled guns since I have the model.

The three American squadrons:





This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/08/29 19:40:16


   
Made in us
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MN (Currently in WY)

Nice clean lines. Looking good!

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MN (Currently in WY)

I tracked down this review on the Historical Miniature Gaming Society website:

https://www.hmgs.org/blogpost/1779451/Historical-Book-Reviews?tag=warships


BOOK REVIEW: Castles in the Sky: A Wargame of Flying Battleships

by Eric Farrington.

Softcover (7.25 x 9.75 inches). 80 pages. 2022.
Osprey Wargames 30.

Consider this a First Look as I have not gamed with these rules.

In the post-Martian invasion world of 1872, humans reverse engineer Martian technology and learned how to mix new chemicals with lighter metals and add steam power to create lighter-than-air warships. The old GDW Space 1889 used kinda the same setting. Yeah, it's a steam-punk speculation of John Carter of Mars.

Brigade Models makes small aerial ships and apparently here's the Osprey rules for them. Think of this as pre-WWI naval warfare, but with elevations.

The rules uses three ship classes: escorts, cruisers, and battleships. Individual ships use a series of firepower, movement, and special characteristics to differentiate, with a number of d6s rolled for firing and also adding and subtracting dice for various sky terrain and ship attributes.

One quirk is that a lot of specialty "Command" actions use 1d6 rolls with a 4+ for success. Otherwise, it's move and roll to hit (4+ base), with 2d6 damage table for successful hits. Boarding (rolling a number of Command Dice -- again 4+ base to hit), entangling, air torpedoes, airplanes, and sky mines add spice to direct fire.

A number of scenarios along with a campaign game are included. Ship specs for nine countries' aerial navies are included. The usual array of Osprey illustrations populate the booklet.
As I noted, I don't know how this plays, but it is encouraging me to break out some of my Avalanche Press games and loot the counters for a test drive.

And you never know. Alas, I failed to find flying ironclad miniatures at Historicon. I imagine you can use regular 1880-1890s ironclads just fine.
Enjoyed reading the rules for its possibilities.

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MN (Currently in WY)



You can hear the review here:
https://manbattlestations.libsyn.com/episode-69-castles-in-the-sky-review

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MN (Currently in WY)

I played a battle where we mixed up some old Spartan units with Brigade models and it worked fine.



We used off board tracking in this game to clean up the table a bit. Mostly using a white board to keep track of altitude, speed, damage, etc. It worked pretty slick.

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MN (Currently in WY)

This week on the blog, I have a post with a bunch of resources and photos for Castles in the Sky.



The resources include:
- Quick Reference Sheet
- Tokens for game play
- Record Sheets
- Ship templates



http://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2023/01/castles-in-sky-random-photo-dump-and.html

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MN (Currently in WY)



As many of you know, when I was writing Castles in the Sky there was a strict word count for the book. However, I wrote so much content that I had to go back and remove some of it from the book. Even with my edits, the final book is still larger than any of the other Osprey Wargaming Series books! Instead of the normal 64 pages, it is 80 pages of content!

To make the rules fit to the new expanded size, I still had to cut out some rules and other details that I wanted to keep in. The biggest space eater, was the ship templates. Therefore, I had to remove a lot of ships. Therefore, each fleet was left with only 1 Battleship, a cruiser of two, and 1 or two escorts. All nationalities lost at least a single ship to make space. I want to make these ships available to the community here on the blog!

Over the next few weeks the blog will have new and expanded content for Castles in the Sky. You can see the first entry with some new ships for the British, French, and Germans. In addition, there are rules for the Regional Powers that never made the book. You can find this new content here:

http://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2023/02/wargame-design-castles-in-sky-new-ship.html

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Made in ru
Death-Dealing Devastator





The rules have been on my to-do list for some time, and I think I will try to approach them from more fantastic point of view. I think the engine is solid, we'll see if I'll need any house rules to make it work for magically-fueled steamships.

Easy E, if you can shed some light on this topic, what were your ideas behind faction design? Specifically, how did you envision their strong and weak sides? For example, Russian Empire. I'm a bit confused after reading the rules, what are they good at aside from being cheap?
   
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MN (Currently in WY)

Well, when I designed the factions they were actually based on actual WWI ship designs and actual Naval fleet doctrines. Therefore, the intention was to mirror the capabilities of the actual fleets but in airship form. I did not really try to create "gamified" Faction benefits. Faction differences naturally came from this approach, but they are less pronounced than some gamers may prefer.

Therefore, Russia kinda' sucks because their fleet kinda' sucked at the time.


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Made in de
Servoarm Flailing Magos




Germany

 Easy E wrote:

Therefore, Russia kinda' sucks because their fleet kinda' sucked at the time.



That might be a slight understatement

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_Bank_incident

   
Made in ru
Death-Dealing Devastator





I'm talking from balancing point of view. Are factions relatively similar in terms of victory possibilities or are some of them essentially hardmode? Are two rosters composed from two distinct ships in similar proportions (without skewing battleships for example) supposed to be relatively equal?
   
Made in us
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MN (Currently in WY)

I used a spreadsheet to come up with the Operational Values, so in theory they are "aligned" and you will see many ships with the theoretical same points costs. Some ships are purposely designed for a specific niche rather than others, but have the same relative Op value. However, it you use the ships in a way that is counter to their niche, they will suffer for it. I believe ultimately that "balance is a unicorn" and don't worry too much about it.

I did not build the Fleet Lists with this intent, but I would say the Ottomans and Russians are the hardest to play. The British and Germans are the easiest. The French are my favorite to play as they require a bit of finesse, but I have had plenty of success with them. Everyone else is mid-tier.

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Made in ru
Death-Dealing Devastator





That explains a lot, thank you for being clear.

We'll probably get our first game or two with standard profiles and will see how it goes.
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)



As many of you know, when I was writing Castles in the Sky there was a strict word count for the book. However, I wrote so much content that I had to go back and remove some of it from the book. Even with my edits, the final book is still larger than any of the other Osprey Wargaming Series books! Instead of the normal 64 pages, it is 80 pages of content!

To make the rules fit to the new expanded size, I still had to cut out some rules and other details that I wanted to keep in. The biggest space eater, was the ship templates. Therefore, I had to remove a lot of ships. Therefore, each fleet was left with only 1 Battleship, a cruiser of two, and 1 or two escorts. All nationalities lost at least a single ship to make space. I want to make these ships available to the community on the blog!

You can find them here:
http://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2023/04/wargame-design-castles-in-sky-new-ship.html

Support Blood and Spectacles Publishing:
https://www.patreon.com/Bloodandspectaclespublishing 
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

Greetings all,



Ruckdog from the Man Battlestations podcast/forum/blog get together and chat a bit about the future of Castles in the Sky.

http://www.manbattlestations.com/blog/2023/04/07/mbs-podcast-episode-79-eric-farrington-interview/

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/04/10 15:13:50


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Made in us
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MN (Currently in WY)

An amazing method for basing ships for Castles in the Sky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r6zRwoI37I

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Made in us
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MN (Currently in WY)



The last rules update with Ground defense rules and ground defense stats is up on the blog.

http://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2023/05/wargame-design-castles-in-sky-ground.html

I will have a PDF version with the addendum data on Wargame Vault on the Blood and Spectacles page in a few weeks. Until then the blog should get you through. Enjoy!

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