The Legend of Dead Man’s Hand
The original version of The Dead Man's Hand was written by Great Escape Games (2013) and was later expanded by the french Studio Tomahawk with additional, optional rules. The present review is the German version of the Dead Man's Hand rules, which is distributed in Germany by Stronghold Terrain. Previous rule enhancements are included in the 94-page book and once again arranged to complement rules and characters.
What is it about?
Dead Man's Hand puts great importance in capturing the atmosphere of the 1960s and '70s spaghetti western movies. In several mini-campaigns or in free scenarios, ten different gangs compete in skirmish struggles.
The story of the fictional Wild West town of Dead Man's Hand begins in 1853 Arizona and continues sporadic chunks of story until about 1870. How the city got its name remains uncertain over the path of the book, although there are some legends about it. Hence the name of the game.
Enjoying parental leave
I'm currently taking a parental leave of around 2 months (if you count in the two weeks "pre-arrival" vacation, it's even longer) and that gives me a lot of time to spend with my new-born daughter. It is quite overwhelming, satisfying and exhausting, everything at the same time. She sleeps a lot and I spend that time to support my wife (who is doing an amazing job on being a mother), cooking and trying out some new recipes, as well as of course enjoying a bit more time than usual in my "hobby den".
Our baby carrier arrived this weekend and but we waited to put into use until today, with the help of our midwife, to make sure we do nothing wrong. And what can I say, having to free arms / hands is a game changer. I tell you, eating gets a lot more difficult if you only have one free hand and it's even more difficult if it is your off-hand. The little one loves the proximity and some of the basic stuff I can do with here in front of me. But I'm covering all the parental things on Little Big Adventures (in German).
So what am I currently tinkering about? Well, last Sunday Daniel / Dino (freshly baked dad himself) dropped by, we talked about his upcoming Konflikt '47 Italy army and what possibilities for conversions are in the room. I can tell you, quite a lot. But he'll cover that in separate articles. I took a break or better said interruption from the dominantly historic ww2 reviews, from those Tigers, Hetzers and Marders. I do like those kits and they are fun to build, but a bit more variation is a healthy thing to do, I added a bit of fantasy and sci-fi in there, along with different historical epochs.
Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire – Spiteclaw’s Swarm
The matching counterparts to the Duardins of The Chosen Axes are the Skaven of Spiteclaw's Swarm. The Skaven, almost human sized rat-men, are one of the few (if not the only) faction that kept their name during The End Times and the introduction of Age of Sigmar. As the "existence" of these giant rats is still argued about in the lore (in the records of the human realms the sights of Skaven is continouisly dismissed and the people who saw them simply labelled as insane), they live in the ground, in dens and caves, and sometimes these large underground settlements cross the cities, deep in the mountains of the dwarfs / Duardin, making the two a fitting bundle for this release of Shadespire.
The warband expansion of Spiteclaw's Swarm consists of 4 Skaven clan rats and Skritch Spiteclaw himself. It is set at a price tag of 22.50 EUR and contains two pre-coloured sprues in brown, a card deck and brief instructions on the assembly.
The card deck covers 65 cards, 5 cards for the warband itself, 29 are unique cards for the Orruk warband and 31 universal cards (split across objectives, upgrades and ploys) to be used with any Warhammer Underworlds warband.
Preview to Warhammer Fest Europe 2018
With the Warhammer Fest Europe returns the former Games Day in a new form to Germany. But not like in the past events to Cologne, but to Duesseldorf.
On the 18th and 19th August 2018, so the coming weekend, Warhammer Fest Europe will be held on the European mainland. The Warhammer Community page covered the Warhammer Fest UK in an extensive post over here: Warhammer Fest Live Blog.
Why am I looking forward to the Warhammer Fest? For that, we have to first take a look back to the years of 2008 'til 2010, the last times I was to Games Day Germany in the famous Guerzenich. Imagine entering the grim dark world of Warhammer in a gothic building, in the heart of the old town of Cologne.
The new venue for Warhammer Fest Europe is the Maritim Hotel in Duesseldorf, so there will be plenty of room and parking (which was kind of a problem at the Guerzenich). You could even get there by plane due to the proximity to the airport, if you wanted to. Just make sure you land at Duesseldorf Airport (DUS) and not "Duesseldorf" Weeze (NRN).
Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire – The Chosen Axes
The next double of the Shadespire warband extensions, after the Sepulchral Guard and Ironskulls's Boyz, will be The Chosen Axes and Spikeclaw's Swarm, beginning with the Fyreslayers.
The Fyreslayers are part of the Duardin race and are searching for the Ur-Gold, the remains of their god Grimnir. Grimnir fell when he fought Vulcatrix, the mother of Salamanders, and burst into the metallic shards of Ur-Gold. The Ur-Gold is accepted by the Fyreslayers as payment for their mercenary duty (they will fight against and alongside anyone as long as the payment fits) and can be forged by the Runemasters into mighty runes. As such even the rumours of Ur-Gold in the mirrored city is motivation enough for any Fyreslayer to go on this journey.
Converting Winter Germans
I've covered the review on the German infantry in winter gear a couple of days ago and already opened up on the possibilities to convert them, by adding parts from other sprues and kits. Due to the way the miniatures in the Warlord Games kits are cut, it is quite easy to use parts from other sets within the range. With the Winter Germans two of the most interesting kits to swap parts with are the Soviet Infantry Winter and German Grenadiers.
Before the Winter Germans were released in April, a couple of people used the bodies from the Winter Soviets and added German weaponry and heads. That is quite easy to do, as the Soviet kit is from the older design pattern, where you had open hands and separate weapons. The cloaks have a different design to the German ones, but with some backpacks and the weaponry in front of them, you barely notice or it is repurposed clothing. That works at least for Ostfront armies.
Warhammer Koblenz Store Opening Party
Today, on August 4th, was the store opening of the new Warhammer store in Koblenz, Germany. I did a preview to this event two weeks ago, A Warhammer store on my door step. The store is located quite central in the city, right next to the shopping mall Löhr Center, so you can get there quite easily by public transport, train or car. I could have gotten there by foot, back in the day when I lived in Koblenz.
Around 10:45 I arrived at the store and there was already quite a queue, some even had brought along their camping chairs, like on the release events of Apple or other large companies. Among the crowd were a couple of cosplayers, resembling the Imperial Guard and troops of the Inquisition. I'm sure you have seen them at events like the RolePlayConvention in Cologne or former Games Days.
Warhammer Age of Sigmar Skirmish
Almost a year ago, in June 2017, Games Workshop has released an expansion for skirmish games, a band-oriented approach to playing Age of Sigmar, with just a handful of models. This scaling preserves the simplicity of Age of Sigmar's original framework and breaks the games playtime down to 30 to 60 minutes.
What is it about?
The rules of AoS Skirmish aim at building small, thematic warbands. Choosing your warband is limited only within the grand alliance, not within a specific battletome. The size of the warbands is estimated throughout a points value called "renown" and is usually between 25 and 100 renown large. From there on, the game takes on a size that is already sufficient for regular Age of Sigmar games. The gangs clash in different scenarios, half of which are designed for a balanced game, while the other half contains a certain imbalance. All six scenarios can be played as a linked sequential campaign.
Bolt Action German Infantry (Winter)
After starting the themed week with the supplement The Road to Berlin itself, and covering several tanks as well, it is time to review the matching infantry kit of the Germans in winter gear. Last year, along with the The Battle of the Bulge, Warlord Games supplied the Germans with an extensive range of winter troops made from metal. Around the end of April, for the Salute, a new plastic kit for the "Winter Germans" was introduced, to cover the fights on both, Western and Eastern front during the winter.
This box contains 30 miniatures in 28mm scale made from hard plastic. The price is set at 26 GBP. As you can see from the classification on the cover, these can be used for early, mid and late war settings.
Warhammer Age of Sigmar Malign Sorcery
With the second edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar the magic "came back" to Warhammer. With Malign Sorcery Games Workshop released the first full magic supplement for Age of Sigmar and the latest since the 4th/5th edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Let me show you the contents of this box in this unboxing review.
Malign Sorcery was released along the Soul Wars and is 60 EUR. The box is rather huge, as you can see from the comparison to a Primaris Space Marine. Inside the huge card board box is a sealed bag, which contains the sprues, the rule set for Malign Sorcery, the assembly instructions and the magic cards.
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