A visit to…Games `n Dice Düsseldorf e.V.
Last June, I had the pleasure of being a guest at the Games 'n Dice hobby club. This name will not be entirely unfamiliar to some, as the podcast of the same name was created directly by the club members, Gregor and Benni to be precise, with whom I recorded a system introduction to Mortal Gods. Beside that, Dennis visited the club back in 2019 for the Historical Demo Day and covered the visit on here as well.
This was also the reason for an invitation to the clubs Open Sunday in Düsseldorf to play a demo game there too.
Games'n Dice e.V. was originally formed in 2010 from the community of Warmachine and Flames of War players. Of course, the focus was not limited to these two games, but at the time they formed those were the core systems. The basic idea behind founding a club was to have a fixed structure and a legally secure roof for events. The Drachental store has always been the home of Games 'n Dice. In addition to the Open Sunday, which only takes place every other weekend, there is also a hobby meeting every Wednesday evening.
The great strength of Games'n Dice is its great variety and openness to different systems. Club President Benjamin (not our Podcast Benni) answers the question "What do you play?" with "What don't we play?". Even though attention is often paid to current trends, there are also many players who turn to the "classics" from time to time and start a Necromunda campaign or like to meet up for a game of Infinity or FoW V3.
The Drachental store offers some very spacious premises for tabletop and board game enthusiasts. I really liked the store section, as you quickly get the feeling of a general store - you'll find the usual products from major manufacturers, but also some exotic items that aren't in the mainstream spotlight. The selection of board games is also wide enough to offer something for those who are not interested in tabletop games.
Internal CONflict Rhineland 2024
The Internal CONflict is actually the first wargaming event I participate in this year. Due to multiple schedule collisions I wasn't able to visit any shows early to this date, as you can see from my event schedule. What does Internal mean regarding the CONflict? Well, it is not an open event, but internal affair and you have to be invited to tag along.
But (!) this is the first time, that I will host a demo table as well and I'm really looking forward to it. And obviously, we wouldn't show up empty handed, so we packed the car with some snacks (make sure those are non-greasy, as you don't want Orange Cheeto Dust on your miniatures) and drinks, as well as gaming materials. I'll go into that later, what my essentials for a convention are.
Regular readers know - no event report without a proper parking lot picture, and as the CONflict is held at the clubhouse of a local rifle club, parking is not an issue. Beside that, the hosts provide us optionally with a full catering, (breakfast, lunch and dinner from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning, along with a broad variety of drinks).
Mortal Gods – The other Hades Zealots
Having already shown the first three Zealots painted in the review of the Hades Zealots, the next three are now to follow. While the first group looks a little more civilized, the second group gives a rather tough impression, as if it wasn't the first time that they had already taken up arms.
As previously mentioned, I had to replace the axe on the Zealot with a dagger, as the gluing point and the axe handle were simply too small to reattach the original. However, this does not harm the mini itself for the time being, as the look is not changed too much.
Mortal Gods – Plataians for demo games
After showing the Thebans for my upcoming demo table for Mortal Gods in my last article, today I can present the counterpart from Plataiai (pronounced Plataiah), the long-term vassal of Athens. As I had planned, I followed the setup of the Thebans one-to-one in order to be able to offer a balanced game experience for the demo games.
Visually, I wanted to create a clear distinction to the Thebans and yet show the connection to Athens. So I chose a grey-blue color as the base for the tunics (Sombre Grey from Vallejo Game Colors) and a more pronounced shade of blue as a spot color (Regal Blue from Army Painter).
Mortal Gods – Thebans for demo games
During one of the usual painting sessions on Discord with the Wolpertinger, I came up with the idea of making a demo table for Mortal Gods that could be played at various events in the coming year. Since I liked James Cameron's audio book series "The Long War", I had the idea of using Thebes and Plataea as factions for a few mini-scenarios. Since Gregor, from Games 'n Dice, had sent me some decals and helmets for Thebans, I decided to start with them.
I had a few basic ideas when planning out the game factions:
Mortal Gods – Veteran Archer
As a little exercise for the centaurs, I painted the veteran archer for my Corinthians. For the color scheme, I stuck to my old yellow and black scheme, even though the ancient Greeks didn't really have anything like a dress code.
I admit, this plays into my hands a bit, as I'd like to play my Corinthians according to Athenian rules for a change. They have the nice side effect that their archers fall into the "medium armor" category and can therefore receive an order from veteran hoplites, which equals an additional activation.
Mortal Gods – Mystical Fountain
Those who are active in the german speaking tabletop forum Tabletopwelt.de will surely remember my ordeal with this fountain, but for all those who might not be able to speak german, I would like to summarize this little adventure again.
Since I was done with my Mortal Gods army, I had the ambitious idea to create a gaming table for Mortal Gods and what do you need for that? Right - a decent amount of terrain and preferably in keeping with the theme of the game. So I bought some nice fountains at Sarissa Precision, which were available in a pack of two, and assembled the more greek style one. In September 2022 I started to customize it a little bit.
Mortal Gods – State of the Game
It's been almost four years since Mortal Gods was released by Footsore Miniatures, at the time still called War Banner. Even after all this time, the game can still be called an exotic one without a guilty conscience, offering an interesting mix of small units and heroes. Thus, it falls right into the niche between a skirmisher and a squad-based game.
If you also have a soft spot for greek mythology or simply enjoy movies and video games in this genre, you'll also be very well served by the Mythic expansion. After I started to build up some armies at the beginning of the Corona Pandemic and have already written about 30 articles about this game, I thought it would be a good opportunity to take a look at the upcoming development and to show some interesting armies from the community. And who better to do that than the great strategist Andy Hobday himself?
So it’s been four years by now and the game has slowly but steadily gained fans. What will be the next step in the evolution of Mortal Gods?
Andy: The next evolution 2nd Edition of Mortal Gods. The idea is to pull everything together into a single rulebook.
At this point, I would express the desire for mini-scenarios, such as "Capture the sheep" or a small build-up campaign, which focuses on the step by step building of an army.
A greek seer, by Sebastian Steudtner
Mortal Gods – Medusa
After recently looking at models from the Army of Hades and the Army of Zeus, in this review we come to probably the most elite faction in Mortal Gods Mythic, the Army of Hera, with Medusa.
The model is one of the larger models from Footsore Miniatures and is accordingly cast not in pewter, but in resin. Right at the beginning I saw one of my biggest criticisms corrected - the packaging is a solid plastic blister in which the model is protected from major damage, especially when shipped with other models.
Mortal Gods – Civilized Centaurs
Footsore Miniatures sent me one of the centaurs for Mortal Gods Mythic before and I was so excited about the model that I also requested the rest of the three civilized centaurs modeled by Trish Carden. The models, like the Zealots, come in a card-backed bag.
All centaurs come with an oval base made of MDF wood and equipment sprue, on which there is a quiver with a bow, a single quiver and two swords. The model itself consists of the horse part, the human torso and possibly an arm and a shield.
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