Flames of Orion: Field Manual

The Flames of Orion Field Manual alongside Dark Spirit.

For the last few months, we have been posting about Flames of Orion, a mech combat game designed by Steve (sovthofheaven) of Under the Dice/Hive Scum. These posts have pertained to a particular mech that I developed over the years, named Dark Spirit. While the finalized version of the rules has been available digitally for a little while (you can buy a digital version of the book here, as well as download a streamlined version of the book with the complete rules for free), the physical copies of the book should be shipping out later in December. Excitingly, I just received my copy of the special Kickstarter-exclusive Field Manual version of the rulebook!

Dragged into Turbolasers 107: Under the Dice Fest 2024, Part 2

Under the Dice Fest 2024, Day 2!

In part two of a special two part episode, we interview people who attended Under the Dice Fest 2024, a small festival in Massachusetts celebrating miniature-based tabletop wargaming. The festival was designed to appeal to those who shy away from the mainstream iterations of the miniature wargaming hobby, focusing on those who want play the games on their own terms, sometimes outside of the scope of the game rules as written, or those who want to play old games which are no longer supported by their publishers. It is highlighting those who are more concerned with telling a story with the miniatures they build than with creating something that would be optimal in terms of a game’s rule system. A punk rock approach to the miniature wargaming hobby, if you will. Below are time stamps of where you can listen to each interview!

Under the Dice Fest: Day 2

Under the Dice Fest Day 2.

We were fortunate enough to be able to attend Under the Dice Fest 2024 at the end of January. The first day was focused around the New England Mordheim Open event, which we covered in an earlier post. The second day was primarily focused around open gaming, though there were a few small events taking place: a Marvel Crisis Protocol tournament, a Magic: The Gather Commander Tournament, and the Flames of Orion World Championship. We also had the opportunity to set up some boards to play games set on Vastarian!

Under the Dice Fest: Day 1

Under the Dice Fest Day 1.

On the last weekend of January, we were fortunate to be able to attend Under the Dice Fest 2024, a small festival in Massachusetts celebrating miniature-based tabletop wargaming. The festival was designed to appeal to those who shy away from the mainstream iterations of the miniature wargaming hobby, focusing on those who want play the games on their own terms, sometimes outside of the scope of the game rules as written, or those who want to play old games which are no longer supported by their publishers. It is highlighting those who are more concerned with telling a story with the miniatures they build than with creating something that would be optimal in terms of a game’s rule system. Last week, we reported on the day prior to the event (Day 0). Now we want to showcase some of the photos we took from the first full day of the fest, including pictures from the second annual New England Mordheim Open (NEMO) event. This year we didn't actually play in NEMO, as we didn't have new warbands to use and wanted to just hangout and talk with people (and take photos!). Learning from last year, the organizers reduced the number of games played during NEMO to three (a multiplayer game was not played this year). This allowed all the games to be comfortably played throughout the day without anyone rushing. In addition to NEMO, we also recorded interviews with some of the attendees of the first day, which you can listen to here!

Dragged into Turbolasers 107: Under the Dice Fest 2024, Part 1

Under the Dice Fest 2024!

In part one of a special two part episode, we interview people who attended Under the Dice Fest 2024, a small festival in Massachusetts celebrating miniature-based tabletop wargaming. The festival was designed to appeal to those who shy away from the mainstream iterations of the miniature wargaming hobby, focusing on those who want play the games on their own terms, sometimes outside of the scope of the game rules as written, or those who want to play old games which are no longer supported by their publishers. It is highlighting those who are more concerned with telling a story with the miniatures they build than with creating something that would be optimal in terms of a game’s rule system. A punk rock approach to the miniature wargaming hobby, if you will. Below are time stamps of where you can listen to each interview!

Under the Dice Fest: Day 0

Under the Dice Fest Day 0.

One of the most exciting parts of 2023 was taking part in the New England Mordheim Open (NEMO), held by the Under the Dice/Hive Scum group. When NEMO 2024 was announced, this time as part of Under the Dice Fest, we knew it was something that we needed to attend, primarily to see so many of our hobby friends, including many who were at the Rich Grimmond event last year. Like last year, we took along all of our recording equipment, for interviewing people at the event, along with our Vastarian warbands and Bill Ford’s (the_ruin.501) Church board. We decided to drive to Connecticut the day before the event kicked off to see Hive Scum’s studio space and see if we could play some games before the controlled chaos of NEMO 2024.

Flames of Orion - The Sumar Conflict

Pitch black resolve.

At the beginning of September, Steve (sovthofheaven) of the Under the Dice/Hive Scum fame asked if I wanted to take part in a playtesting session for his mech combat game, Flames of Orion. I had played a game of it at Rich Grimmond 2023 a few months earlier, and had a great time with it, so the opportunity to play a few more games was one I was not going to pass up (even if I had to drive quite a few hours to do it).

New England Mordheim Open 2023: a recap

Back Into the City of the Damned.

Hot on the heels of Mordheim 2022, we drove up to Chicopee, MA to play in the New England Mordheim Open, held by Under the Dice/Hive Scum group. It was an amazing event with well over 40 people coming together to celebrate the hobby and play Mordheim, a game not supported by Games Workshop for over 20 years. The event took place in a single day, with each player participating in four games. In addition to playing Mordheim, we also brought some of our recording equipment along and were able to interview some of the people at the event and those running it. It is hard to express how fun the event was, meeting so many cool people and playing some fun games on a huge number of amazing boards. Although it cannot come close to conveying the magnitude of the event, below are some of the photos we took during the day. We hope you enjoy them and cannot wait to participate in the next NEMO event!