Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by AsenRG

Glad to hear you're recovering! Not much more one can tell on this matter.

And I must add that much, if not most or all of, say, Barsoom is on the Net. Not that I care how my players are going to find those books - if necessary, I can loan the first couple of them in translation. My players also seem to prefer reading them from the net, though.


Interesting - can you add some of them in the right ranks?
And could you add some funny notes on the "old friends and enemies" that aren't obvious from the descriptions, like command staff personalities?
Keep it short, of course. Only those legions that move more are of particular interest, and just knowing the names and allegiance of the legions of Phil's campaign would probably be enough!

Thank you! I think it's the enforced bed rest; I'm off to see the doctor in an hour, and I suspect I'll get told to keep doing what I'm doing and stay on my back. I hate the 'down time', even though I really need it.

Agreed. The 'Net is a wonderful resource; I should have been more clear - most of the people I've met over the past decade will go as far as a Wiki article, but not much further then 250 - 750 words. If I can get them to look at an e-book or net page, then they kind of seem to rediscover the joys of simply reading.

Oh! Great idea! Let me see what I can do; I'm not going to get this done very quickly, but I'll see what I can do.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Yes, they are 32mm. I think they look fine next to modern 28mm figures, since there's a lot of variation in these; they look fine next to the Wargods of Aegyptus or Tekumel Project figures that I have. They do look bigger on the table then the true 25mm Old Glory / Ral Partha figures I have - not surprising, considering that there's forty years' difference between them!

In general, I don't have a problem with the size; I think that my Barsoomians would be taller anyway, so it's not an issue. In practice, I've found that since my 25's are the line troops, they come out for the big battles, and the 28's get used for skirmish and RPG games - so there's no practical difference for me.

Chirine,

I totally get what you're saying. I was just curious from an aesthetic point of view. Since, I no longer have a lot of the 25mm minis left, I have been slowly rebuilding with 28mm, as I don't see many 25mm ones being produced these days. The Ral Partha "revivification" is good news as there were quite a few good casts amongst them. I recently found some of my old hobbit miniatures (dated 1978), and I feel that they can hold up against anything cast today. They even have sculpted eyes, which is amazing given their age and size!
What I have been doing for massed battles is using Phil's rules in EPT, where one mini will represent 10 or 20 men, and take it from there. It work's fine, and as far as I'm concerned the occasional epic underworld horde style battles can be painlessly portrayed without a large initial investment in time, miniatures, painting, etc. Any who, this is the way I have been doing for ages and have yet to get a complaint from my players.
BTW, what current (or vintage RP) figure range would you suggest as good proxies for Mu'ugalavyani troops?

Shemek

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Thank you! I think it's the enforced bed rest; I'm off to see the doctor in an hour, and I suspect I'll get told to keep doing what I'm doing and stay on my back. I hate the 'down time', even though I really need it.

Agreed. The 'Net is a wonderful resource; I should have been more clear - most of the people I've met over the past decade will go as far as a Wiki article, but not much further then 250 - 750 words. If I can get them to look at an e-book or net page, then they kind of seem to rediscover the joys of simply reading.

Oh! Great idea! Let me see what I can do; I'm not going to get this done very quickly, but I'll see what I can do.

Enjoy the rest while you can. Judging from your posts you seem to lead a somewhat hectic work life. Lie back, and catch up on your reading.

Shemek

From Shemek hiTankolel:
Chirine,
I totally get what you're saying. I was just curious from an aesthetic point of view. Since, I no longer have a lot of the 25mm minis left, I have been slowly rebuilding with 28mm, as I don't see many 25mm ones being produced these days. The Ral Partha "revivification" is good news as there were quite a few good casts amongst them. I recently found some of my old hobbit miniatures (dated 1978), and I feel that they can hold up against anything cast today. They even have sculpted eyes, which is amazing given their age and size!

Agreed. I don't really see much a visual difference between, say, Reaper 28s and Bronze Age 32s, let along the Tekumel Project 28s. 25s, especially in 'true 25mm', are very few and hard to come by; I admit to having a huge 'installed base' of them due to my very early interest in the Old Guard figures, but we very early on standardized out at Phil's with the then-new Tom Meier sculpts from Ral Partha as they were simply the best figures on the market at the time. A lot of the older Grenadier - let along the Hinchcliffe and Heritage USA lines - just didn't come close to what RP was doing.

Having the RP lines back is a wonderful thing - so many old friends are there!

What I have been doing for massed battles is using Phil's rules in EPT, where one mini will represent 10 or 20 men, and take it from there. It work's fine, and as far as I'm concerned the occasional epic underworld horde style battles can be painlessly portrayed without a large initial investment in time, miniatures, painting, etc. Any who, this is the way I have been doing for ages and have yet to get a complaint from my players.

Yes, exactly! That's how we got started out at Phil's, with using miniatures in the RPG sessions as needed. Back in the day, 'fantasy wargaming' was all about the big battles from Middle Earth or Hyboria, and the very few lines of 'fantasy' figures available were all geared to that market. We 'branched out' very quickly into raiding the historicals lines for suitable figures for RPGs - an awful lot of Lamming medievals met horrible fates in dungeons, over the years.

This kind of 'skirmish' gaming in RPGs was our bread and butter 'go to' mode for years, and I still play that way. It's fast, it's fun, and you can knock off a tight little fight in an afternoon or evening of play.

BTW, what current (or vintage RP) figure range would you suggest as good proxies for Mu'ugalavyani troops?

There's a bunch of them; I'll need to have a look in the catalog, as they are in the throes of reorganizing the line - they have over 1,500 figures in their lines, and they are trying to put things in logical places. In general, look in the 'elves'; you'll see a lot of 'cook pot' helmets and big pauldrons, and these usually look pretty good as Tekumel figures. Many of the humans also work well; look for the classic Tsolyani burgonet helmet - Persians were Phil's first Yan Koryani, too. I'll see about getting you my lists...

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Enjoy the rest while you can. Judging from your posts you seem to lead a somewhat hectic work life. Lie back, and catch up on your reading.

Shemek

Thank you! What makes my work life hectic is not the job itself, but all the administrative changes that have been going on for the past year. These are now more or less done, and life is getting much nicer.

I am doing a lot better, tonight. My visit to the doctor was a good one; I have been taken off several medications, and put on a powerful anti-inflammatory that has reversed the situation. Two more days of rest, lots and lots of fluids, and things should be almost normal. I will have to be very careful in the future, but it's a known quantity and one I can deal with.

Read "The Stainless Steel Rat Joins The Circus", last night; still as much fun as ever! Keith Laumer is good for the soul - and the funny bone!

Originally Posted by Greentongue

Can I assume that to the untrained ear, "The Tongue of the Priests of Ksarul" is a ‎sibilant speech?

Are other languages also distinct to those that don't understand them?
=

I would think so; the 'voice' he used when speaking as a Qol was always very sssibilant; they ssspeak with what might have been called a lisssp, I suppossse. But only on the 's'/sss sounds in the wordsss; unlike Thomar's Thunru'u major-domo, who's lisp was only in the 'th', as in 'eyethpoons' - "I packed the good eyethpoons, Mathter." Very distinct voices - Phil was a gifted actor, and had different accents for everyone; listening to him do conversations between NPCs was like listening to a radio drama from the Golden Age of radio, which is where I think he got it - there ain't much else to do, growing up in rural Idaho.

Yes. They do sound different, at least on the tapes I have of Phil pronouncing them, even to my non-linguist's ear. Yan Koryani sounds very different then Tsolyani, and so do all of the languages he created - even the 'related' ones have different sound to them, so that a local is always able to tell that "Not from around here, eh?"

Game-wise, anyone would be able to tell what language somebody is speaking, especially if the eaves-dropper has had a decent upper-class education. Otherwise, I'd expect that they'd be able to identify the nearest foreign language and not much else.

Does this help, at all?

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

From Shemek hiTankolel:
[I]

In general, look in the 'elves'; you'll see a lot of 'cook pot' helmets and big pauldrons, and these usually look pretty good as Tekumel figures. Many of the humans also work well; look for the classic Tsolyani burgonet helmet - Persians were Phil's first Yan Koryani, too. I'll see about getting you my lists...

I really need to go through the iron wind catalogue and see what they have. I figured what I want from the Tekumel Project and I'll send my order off soon. Decided to get a bunch of minis that I can use for regular encounters and NPC's. Monsters and what not can be improvised but I want some actual Tsolyani figures that represent everyday situations.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Thank you! What makes my work life hectic is not the job itself, but all the administrative changes that have been going on for the past year. These are now more or less done, and life is getting much nicer.

I am doing a lot better, tonight. My visit to the doctor was a good one; I have been taken off several medications, and put on a powerful anti-inflammatory that has reversed the situation. Two more days of rest, lots and lots of fluids, and things should be almost normal. I will have to be very careful in the future, but it's a known quantity and one I can deal with.

Read "The Stainless Steel Rat Joins The Circus", last night; still as much fun as ever! Keith Laumer is good for the soul - and the funny bone!

Good to hear everything is getting better. Admin has always been the bane of my working life.

Slippery Jim DiGriz, one of my favourite all time fictional characters right up there with Prospero, and not the one you're thinking of.