The Potentially Simmering Rivalry of Ping-Xi and Pong-Li

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"They're just the latest fashion. Everyone, and I mean everyone at the Imperial Court has taken a pair of Chinese bodyguards into their retinue. They're just the most adorable addition to the Castle. They're strong, totally unemotional and just completely uninterested in calligraphy or the tea ceremony. They just... stand there and....and stare at me, all day long.  I tell you, I feel completely safe with Ping-Xi and Pong-Li in my apartment."

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As part of Analogue Hobbies Painting Contest XV, I needed to paint up an entry under the title "Lust".  This being a family-focused Blog, I was unsure what to prepare. I did have a lovely pair of Games Workshop Chinese (or maybe Japanese) bodyguards based up and undercoated, and a Citadel female Samurai to accompany them. And, Ladies and Gentlemen, the attraction of figures undercoated and ready to paint won the day.

So here we have Ping-Xi and Pong-Li, experienced and no doubt well-travelled Chinese bodyguards brought to the Imperial Court of Japan by Lady Machiko. Ping-Xi, Pong-Li and Lady Machiko should be perfect for another frivolous game of "When the Last Sword is Drawn", my skirmish game of swordplay in medieval and Edō period Japan. Maybe they'll prove to be dedicated and selfless guardians of Lady Machiko's honour.

Or, just possibly, there might be something in the way that Ping-Xi and Pong-Li both look at Lady Machiko as she pours some tea from a beautiful pottery tea service? I always felt there was bound to be some kind of romance lurking with two bodyguards and an attractive female noblewoman. One wonders if Ping-Xi or Pong-Li, or maybe both, have fallen for the unusual allure of Lady Machiko's blackened teeth?

I also added a 3D-printed large Japanese-style tree to the submission. There was no reason for this, other than it gave me a setting for this post, as well as another new tree for a gaming scenario. And, of course, it allowed me to take some ABBA-style "Knowing Me, Knowing You" photos of Ping-Xi and Pong-Li in front of the tree, looking in different directions before they slaughter each other in a deadly context for Lady Machiko's hand.

The figures for Ping-Xi and Pong-Li are about forty years old, being from the "Oriental Heroes" range originally created to accompany the AD&D "Oriental Adventures" supplement published in 1984. They've spent the years since 1984 in bubble-wrap until I finally painted them. The metal studs on the leather armour of Ping-Xi and Pong-Li were horrifying to paint. All of 58 tiny studs on each of the figures. Good job Lady Machiko did not employ a whole regiment in studded leather armour.

I think the sculptor may have been Aly Morrison.  How Aly sculpted the studs on the leather armour is probably a secret known only to the Sculpting Gods!

I did remember to paint one base with black edging, and the other in brown edging. Otherwise, Ping-Xi and Pong-Li might get mixed up. I hope Lady Machiko can tell them apart. Or, maybe, its more entertaining if she can't.

And finally, as this is me, here's two more ludicrously self-indulgent character cards to add to our "When the Last Sword is Drawn" card collection.  And yes, they are different figures in the Characters' photographs. At least I think they are...!

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The Joy of Bad Footwork: creating Off-Balance markers

“In the carriage of the feet, you should float your toenails in a little and step strongly with your heels. In the use of the feet, you should walk as usual, whether the case calls for large, small, quick, or slow strides. Feet that seem to fly, float or be immobile are, all three, undesirable”.

Miyamoto Musashi “The Book of Five Rings”: The Water Chapter

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Good footwork is one of the key elements of fine swordplay. And bad footwork is something which can be introduced into a miniature wargame of sword-fighting to try and add to the fun.

In both “When the Last Sword is Drawn”, and the Three Musketeers-inspired companion ruleset “With Flashing Blades”, one of the consequences of combat can be a miniature figure becoming off-balance.

Initially, I used to mark the off-balance status on the tabletop. But with a small playing area in these games, this became unwieldy.  I then moved to marking the character card of the miniature figure which has become off-balance.  I added a place on each card which could be covered with an off-balance marker.  

As being off-balance is a circumstance which is temporary, the off-balance markers could be added, and removed, as the game progresses.

I had a lot of fun making the off-balance markers for both games. Of course, I didn’t need to make any markers at all - a simple counter would have sufficed to place onto a character's card. But part of the pleasure in creating a smaller foot-printed game is that the time saved on not needing to paint lots of figures can pay dividends elsewhere.

I hoped that smaller 20mm MDF bases, of 2mm depth, would be enough to allow some modelling opportunities. I had a number of spare metal swords, scabbards, tessen (a Japanese armoured metal fan), and fallen sashimono banners to get me started. To those items I added small dōsojin stone shrines made from green-stuff, tiny geta wooden sandals (which are quite clumsy and look a bit like wooden flip-flops), small 3D printed bonsai trees, a 3D printed Buddha, and some Zen-like towers of prayer stones made from modelling putty.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve created a “summer set” and a snow-bound “winter set”, with the same items.  Two sets were not necessary, but were certainly fun to do.

I felt that the extra work in creating these items help spread the fun from the playing board and onto the wider table.  The entertainment around the table in awarding a character a set of clumsy wooden sandals when that character becomes off-balance is more than worth the additional effort.

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Let the Blood Dice roll...

One of the pleasures in designing a wargame is being able to create tangible things which add to the fun and theme of the game.

A key themes of the swordplay in “When The Last Sword Is Drawn” is having miniature warriors wielding iconic Japanese katanas, wakizashi, no-dachi and naginatas.  Who doesn't want to have the chance for their miniature heroes to wield an array of sharp edged weapons from Japanese cinema, manga and samurai literature?

To preserve that theme into the game, I wanted each miniature figure wielding a razor-sharp weapon to get to roll a “Blood Dice”.  Only one (or sometimes two) of the sides of the dice has a symbol - being a cinematic blood spatter.

If a miniature in combat rolls the blood symbol on their blood dice, then their opponent has suffered a debilitating cut from the razor-edged blade. The effect of that is to increase the severity of any additional hits on that opponent. The blood dice therefore gives a different dynamic to just inflicting casualties in a combat round.

The more we used the blood dice in the games, the more players seemed to like the effect of the blood spatter face appearing in a cluster of dice results.

I had to work out how to incorporate the idea into the dice I already had in my dice-bag. Of course, I could have just given a differently coloured dice and used “6” for a blood symbol. That’s perfectly serviceable, but seemed to lose a bit of the drama of specifically designed dice.

I therefore bought a few handfuls of blank dice and painted blood spatters on one (or more) of the dice sides. I started with D6s, but also tried D12s (painting two sides), a couple of D8s (painting one side on one, and two sides on the other) and even (purely for laughs) a D4.

I kept the scarlet “blood” paint as thin as possible and lightly gloss-varnished the whole dice to make sure all sides were evenly painted.  Maybe a statistician might report that the micrometer depth of paint on a face of the dice makes a difference to the various rolls in a game, but so far I think that the blood dice rolls have come up as unpredictably as normal dice.

Thirty of so games in, the blood dice have been causing mayhem, as was the intention.

Indulgent?  For sure.  But certainly fun.

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The Limbo of Sorcery: An entry for Challenge XV

Shinkurō, the former ronin, had never heard of "toad magic" until the moment that Lord Ghoda mentioned it. The ancient sorcery that Lord Ghoda claimed he had been studying sounded to Shinkurō like the ramblings of a drunk, at best. Or the ravings of a mad man at worst.

Sorcery and spells to turn a magician into a toad, and to enable to the spell-caster to weave magic and enchantments? It sounded almost heretical to voice the thoughts in his own head, Shinkurō warned himself. What nonsense!

But then, the demon had appeared. A powerful Dai-Oni, armed with a huge war-mallet, javelins and a famous sword stolen many decades before from Lord Ghoda’s grandfather. Against such an adversary, both Shinkurō and his new Lord would be helpless. It was just a matter of time before the demon would overwhelm them both.

At least it had all seemed gloomily inevitable until the moment that the magic transformation which had been promised by Lord Ghoda, actually worked.

It was beyond Shinkurō's belief, but.....it was happening before his eyes. Lord Ghoda’s webbed feet were starting to cast the spell to banish their adversary.

Shinkurō just hoped that the incantation didn’t require fingers.

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Happy New Year, everyone!

Over the last few years, I've taken part in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, a global community painting-a-thon over the winter months.  This year is Challenge XV, and along with the other challengers I'm looking forward to three months of frantic painting and blog posting.  

The last couple of Challenges, I've added some figures to my Japanese figures for my game of "When the Last Sword is Drawn", and to get me started, I added a couple more.  

The figures were a lot of fun to do. The demon and rōnin are both Dixon Miniatures sculpts by Mark Copplestone. They’re quite venerable, being first produced in 1984, although I bought them both earlier this year. The gigantic toad is from Crooked Dice, one of a couple of large specimens I purchased last year and hadn’t yet used.

I added some of the GW “Barbed Bracken” to the base of Shinkurō. I admit the spikey leaves do look, if you're a fan of manga, a lot more “Wicked City”, rather than strict Edō-period Japan. But I’ve enjoyed using these plants on various terrain bases, and hopefully I can use more of them as the Challenge progresses.

The bracken painted up very well, even though they are quite “flexible” (a.k.a. “bendy). I coated the plastic with PVA-glue beforehand, to add a little stability. But so far, in the games we have played with terrain and bases featuring barded-bracken, the paint hasn’t flaked off the razor-sharp thorns. A minor miracle worthy of Lord Ghoda himself (in toad-form).

I painted the submission as my entry for "Limbo". How else can one describe an indefinite transition to gigantic toad-form? Knowing this is Limbo also allows me to add a totally indulgent in-game character card for Lord Ghoda in his mythical-Japanese fauna-form, with two slightly more sensible cards for Shinkurō and the demon. If, of course, one can ever claim anything to do with demons is ever sensible or simple.

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"When the Last Sword is Drawn": Bringing a game idea to life

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"Something terrible has happened at the small mountain monastery of Ikoto. The monastery is under the protection of the House of Akiyama, and is located halfway up the steep slopes of Mount Norikata.

A few hours ago, a badly wounded messenger from Ikoto has informed Lord Akiyama that the monastery has been attacked and that several monks have been slain.

Worst of all, the sacred relics of Ikoto appear to be at risk of being stolen or destroyed.

The perpetrators of this dishonourable act are the fallen house of Ichimonji, a ruined noble family long jealous of the Akiyama.

Can the Akiyama avenge the murdered monks and protect the sacred relics of Ikoto? Or will the Ichimonji further despoil the monastery and violate the religious treasures of Mount Noritaka?"

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This was the introduction to one of my games of “When the Last Sword is Drawn”, which I have being running at games days up and down the UK for the last couple of years. This year, I decided to change the setting of the action from a summer to a winter setting - and so far, in 2024, I’ve run a dozen participation games at games days, and a couple of play-test games with groups of friends. This is the fourth game setting of “When the Last Sword is Drawn” - the other three being in summer (or, at at least, not winter) settings.

All the games have been a blast to run, with players cheerfully slaughtering each other in the monastery of Ikoto.  Many characters have fallen under the impassive stare of the huge bronze Diabutsu of the monastery, with some of them suffering truly dramatic (and cinematic) ends.  And a couple of unfortunate characters have even tumbled to a terrible fate from the steep slopes of the bell tower at the top of the mountain.

I thought that the time might be right for a look on the Blog behind the scenes in running our games of “When the Last Sword is Drawn”.  Much of what follows applies to our games of “With Flashing Blades” that I’ve been running occasionally at the same time.

Terrain

As “When the Last Sword is Drawn” is played on a small board or table, the name of the game is trying to maximise the action without the terrain getting in the way. 

This means trying to make the terrain representational without needing to be a totally accurate recreation of a mountain monastery. I used some skills from the 1990s in making terrain for Warhammer to create the functional, but hopefully attractive, mountain-sides of Mount Norikata. The intervals in the blue styrofoam mountain were helpful for gauging the distances to be climbed, and the ledges created by the styrofoam were perfect for inspiring cinematic duels on rocky ledges.

And just as important, these types of terrain pieces can be transported very easily.

Focal scenery

I like my games to have a visual anchor point. It’s a bit of a trick, but having something on the board which looks authentically Japanese helps. If you can catch the eye of the players and passers-by with something which looks right, you can use that to draw the viewer into the smaller details.

This also helps in setting the scene quickly - in a wargame you don’t always have as long as you would like to do that.

In this regard, 3D printing has been wonderful in enabling me to find things in the real world and converting those to the tabletop (with the help of some wonderful friends and their 3D printers!). Here’s a spectacular Buddha from the National Museum of Scotland, transitioned (complete with mandorla) to the table top.

What’s the Game About?

This is the hardest part of running a game you’ve designed yourself. “What’s going on?” “I’ve played other Japanese games before - how is this different?” “Is this like Test of Honour/Bushido/Ronin….?”

All valid questions, and one of the hardest things about any game is working out what it’s about. Or, as one gamer said to me, “I quite like [insert popular set of rules], I think that gives me everything that I’m looking for”.

Comments like that might seem a little bit existential, but I liked it. It made me think not so much about how the game worked, but why it needed to work a particular way compared to other games which have already been produced. 

The (excellent) roleplaying game “Monsterhearts” sets out what its about in a very up front and direct way, that the MC can read to the players. So I’ve tried experimenting with something similar to read at the start of "When the Last Sword is Drawn" - ideally as soon as the players have sat at the table:

"Welcome to When the Last Sword is Drawn. This game is about three things. The pursuit of Honour. The skill of Swordplay. And the theme of blood.

All three are common elements in Japanese art, films, history and legends focused on medieval and early modern Japan. My promise to all of you is that you'll see each of these in the game across this table in the next couple of hours.

One may ask, of you all, why are you gathered here at this location?

You are here to enhance your honour, because for the samurai, honour is the essence of your life. Honour is what provides your position in society, what gains the respect of your family, your house and your enemies. Honour is the heart of your world.

And we are assembled here to show our swordsmanship. Because the sword is at the spiritual heart of the samurai. The sword is a way of expressing your valour, a visceral and kinetic messenger of your fame.

And we are gathered here to witness the flow of blood. Because the path of the samurai is inextricably marked with blood and the risk of death."

Table Candy

Taking the best bits from other games I love is part of the fun in designing a game. Standing on the shoulders of giants, in other words.  I've always admired the cards which are included in  Fantasy Flight boardgames and in games produced by Games Workshop.  Of course, those giants of the hobby have teams of incredibly talented graphic artists.  And I have, well....good intentions and Microsoft PowerPoint...

I’ve created individual cards for each of the characters in the games we’ve played. This allows weapons, skills, status, wounds and some general flavour-text to be shown for each character (and there are usually 5 to 8 characters a side in the game).  Each card also has an image of the character, which helps players keep track of which character is doing what and where they are on the table.

Trying to make the cards, and other board-adjacent items, attractive was something I wanted to try to achieve. I wanted to make what goes around the board as much part of the game as what is happening on the main stage, so to speak.

Scatter

The "scatter" scenery was important on the board.  Temple lanterns. A frozen pond with fish still visible under the ice. A small shrine. These items of scenery look good, and they connect visually with the Japanese theme.

But they also form small barriers to break up or channel the flow of the fighting. I’ve found over the games of “When the Last Sword is Drawn”, and “With Flashing Blades”, that the games play best when there is not just one fight in the middle of the table. Scatter helps enormously in orientating the different routes the action might take.

Making combat fast, deadly but also interesting

“When the Last Sword is Drawn” , and “With Flashing Blades” are games about combat. They focus on swordplay (and other hand-to-hand fighting methods). They are not long games, and the combat is quick and is intended to be brutal. 

But I also wanted to find ways to make the combat interesting. One refinement over the course of this year has been the addition of “Duelling Cards”.  One of these Duelling Cards is chosen by each character at the start of their duel to set a theme for that combat. 

An iaijustsu sword stroke. Or a dirty trick. Or moving for an advantage. Or, maybe, declaring your name and gaining honour. Players seem to have enjoyed the little bit of drama these cards inject into the duels on the tabletop.

Keeping things cinematic

One thing I always wanted was to ensure that the games being played were fun.  Sometimes that means springing some surprises.  That'll be the subject of the next blog post - which is all about designing scenarios.

Hope you can join me for that.

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