Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal - part II

Originally Posted by Big Andy

Since you showed more of your fabulous minis, got a mini question for you: What do you use for ru'un?

Also, Gronan mentioned that Arneson & the Minneapolis crew always used minis. I folded Professor Barker in with that practice but is that the case? I easily picturing all the early games with you, Gronan, and the gang but also the other night, being that way but have a hard time seeing his later players (like the gang that became the Foundation) playing that way, for some reason.

Various robots from various SF ranges, going back to McEwan's "Starguard" line of figures. I think you can get really accurate ones from The Tekumel Project; ask Howard.

As Gronan said, Dave always tried to use minis of any kind as 'tactical displays', as did a lot of us. Phil loved to use miniatures, and we often did, but not every game session; we used them when we had more then one-to-one encounters, or where we needed to have tactical displays and/ or battles. Both Phil and I loved to make them, and we frankly would 'show off'. I normally carried our PC figures to all our game sessions, and they got used quite a lot. Big battles took a little more planning ahead, so I could get the miniatures off to Phil's for the game.

The 'other group' was, in the early days, very into playing with miniatures when they were on campaign. After they left, that group didn't use miniatures very often if at all. The TF people are not miniatures people, and have very little interest in the genre.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Sometimes Phil did, sometimes not.

Nice legion, Chirine? How is ol' Bear, anyway? Hope he's doing well.

Just back from GenCon. Sweet Karakan's butthole, I'm exhausted. It may be a day or two before I can post more than a word or three.

Agreed. It all depended on the tactical situation in the game session that night.

Thank you! I'll try and get a picture of my full legion, as well as yours.

Not well; he's been in very poor health for over a decade, now, and is unable to draw at all. Very sorry to see it, I have to say.

Glad to hear you're home safe!

I'll bet you are. Just back in from the hospital, myself; my father-in-law had a kidney removed - cancer, they think. Doing well tonight, but it was a very long and frantic day.

So at GenCon I had somebody come up and accuse me of cheating to help the Germans when I reffed CHAINMAIL at GaryCon a few years back.

Even if he thought he was being funny, running a convention game is way too much work to put up with that kind of shit. This is why Chirine and I sound so bitter sometimes.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

So at GenCon I had somebody come up and accuse me of cheating to help the Germans when I reffed CHAINMAIL at GaryCon a few years back.

Even if he thought he was being funny, running a convention game is way too much work to put up with that kind of shit. This is why Chirine and I sound so bitter sometimes.

I hope he was still in his teens, but I also know that statistically, it's unlikely.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

So at GenCon I had somebody come up and accuse me of cheating to help the Germans when I reffed CHAINMAIL at GaryCon a few years back.

Even if he thought he was being funny, running a convention game is way too much work to put up with that kind of shit. This is why Chirine and I sound so bitter sometimes.

Ah.

And people wonder why, after spending astonishing amounts of time, effort, money, and energy, we take stuff like this so badly. And, he said, I'll bet you had to stand there and smile at the guy because you were representing somebody, just like when we had to stand there and smile while getting kicked in the balls because we had a product to sell and a company to represent. People like this forget that we like to have fun doing what we do, and when we're not having fun we don't do it any more. As you've said, no gaming is better then bad gaming, and open events like this at conventions or the FLGS provide some of the very best and the very worst gaming that I've ever had.

Stuff 'em.

Originally Posted by Big Andy

Cool! Howard has so many nifty items.

As a semi follow up to the ru'un question, what is your favorite drawing of one? I like Dee's in Bethorm quite a bit and the one from the Guardians of Order game (not sure of the artist) has certain charm to it as well, but are there some others, maybe generated around the table that you are particularly fond of? Not sure why, but I picture them moving like a Harryhausen creature (the Minotaun, Talos, or Kali) as opposed to the smoother moving bots of Star Wars.

Also, how often did you run into Lord Fu Shi'i or a group working on his behalf? He seemed to have his fingers into everything so I figure he had to constantly be poking around and getting into stuff.



People are so weird, stewing over one game from several years ago. And somehow I can see him "joking" in the passive aggressive sense, the "ha ha, but I am not really joking" kind of thing were he is afraid to actually come out and say something. I don't blame you guys for being bitter. It's funny, for some of the people pretend games are Serious Business, which I have never understood (I guess they are for those producing/selling the games too but in the "I want to eat" sense, which is entirely different). They are games. There are too many people who live like, to paraphrase the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons, "as a loyal player, you owe me."

Yes, and they just keep getting cooler and cooler!

Craig Smith's drawings from the late 1970s, which are straight out of Phil's noggin and very, very much in Phil's 'Art Deco Streamline' vision of ancient technology. Things went downhill after "Star Wars", because all the fans expected the robots to all look like C3P0 and R2D2.

Quite a lot, over the years. What with Vrisa being Ald's cousin, we spent a lot of time around the Baron and old red-eyes.

Yep. Which is why I don't make an effort to get out to conventions.

Originally Posted by AsenRG

I hope he was still in his teens, but I also know that statistically, it's unlikely.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by altfritz

re. Ru'un illustrations, Dave Maggi did a nice one for me that I used on the cover of the 2011 Summer Catalogue:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/...mel%20Project/

It also has art by Mark Allen and Jeff Dee (which also appears in Bethorm).

Oh! Thank you for the reminder!!!

Folks, if you haven't visited The Tekumel Project's website / blog, please do. Howard does the coolest figures that have lots of detail, great animation, and a wonderful sense of what Phil's Tekumel is like.