New in town, hello.

[rflowings]

Good evening all,

I recently moved to Cambridge and am keen to get involved in a gaming club here. I haven't been part of a club since I left Aberystwyth University a few years ago. There I mainly played boardgames after my enthusiasm for Games Workshop anything palled, but I'm up for playing whatever these days. If you all wouldn't mind, I'd very much like to stick my head 'round the door next Monday and say hello.

As to my immediate interests where I might have something to contribute, I have the following projects in mind for this year:

Black Powder (or similar musket-era gaming): 20mm, currently putting together French, Russian and British forces for the Crimean war and would be interested in anything 1815-1914. Also anything else musket era, or 20th century in principle.

G.O.B.S: Has anyone tried this (free, homebrew) starship wargaming ruleset? I've been scratchbuilding starfleets for about six months and wanted to take 'em for a test run. If anybody else has a good ruleset they'd like to suggest I'd love to play it, though.

Skirmish 28mm (sci-fi): I've been building up a set of non-GW science fiction miniatures as well and was looking for a sci-fi skirmish ruleset to try them out (I have some homebrew rules of my own but these having proved unsatisfying I was planning to try out some of Nordic Weasel's offerings... unless anyone has any good ideas?)

Skirmish 28mm (20th century): I have some Anglo-Irish War (1919-22) miniatures from musketeer and was thinking of playing a few games with them this year as well. As above, I have tried out some (somewhat more satisfying) homebrew rules for this period but I am looking to try out something more professional this year, possibly Osprey's interwar revolution rules.

As you may guess I'm not what you might call a power gamer but I am up for more or less anything - board games I particularly enjoy, I've been very interested to see some of my old favourites like Pandemic mentioned while I've been lurking on these boards. I look forward to meeting you all and hope I can add something to the club. Thanks for having me.

[Timf]

Hi and welcome aboard.

Seems a fair range of things you are looking at there. I would say those who introduce new periods/scales/rulesets to the club tend to do best if they have two sides set up and then others may start to get into it. The only scales we really have a range of people all with armies are probably WWII 15mm and Ancients or GW stuff (be that Epic, WFB or W40K - Im an Epic man myself).

Boardgames have been the core of the club for a year or two now but the miniatures are making a comeback - and if you look at the Library thread you can get a sense of what is available. Recently, miniatures have had a resurgence - since Xmas really. For Napoleonics there has been some Grande Armee played and that's gone down well - though our Treasurer drives that by producing enormous quantities of 6mm bases for it. Blucher may make an appearance shortly. In that vein Katie oneour more prolific painters has brought out the fantasy black powder set - Flintloque. We have done some ACW ironclads (using Peter Pigs Hammerin Iron) which I've brought down a couple of times.

Skirmish - there has been some talk of In Her Majesty's Name - which seems an adapatable ruleset for several periods.

Spaceships - I have the Xwing Miniatures game, and I also have run som Call To Arms (using flats Im afraid) both the Babylon 5 set and the Star Fleet Universe one. The most popular 'generic' set is Full Thrust, no-one has brought GOBS down although I am aware of it.

The best way to organise games is either collar the regulars here and pre-organise a game and just get on with it - or announce and organise it at a session. Being proactive helps garner players.

[rflowings]

Hi Timf,

Thanks for your response. Fortunately I have been working on (at least) two sides for every period mentioned so I can certainly set up games with relative ease.

I'll come and say hello next Monday just to introduce myself although I am still unpacking miniatures so it may be a couple of weeks before I can set up anything decent with my own resources.

Otherwise I shall have a nose around the site and possibly set up a thread to see if anyone's interested in specifics at a later date. I look forward to meeting you all!