Wargaming Tékumel, part 2

After a convoluted journey, I believe I have finally settled on a rules system for my Tékumel games.

There were several I had been looking into, and all have their good points. The three original publications for Tékumel battles - Missum, Qadardalikoi, and Legions of the Petal Throne, were really not considered, mostly since I did not have copies available! One can still find these games, and I intend to get a copy of each in the future, but I did want a system that was more readily available to the average gamer. I am also not too certain about the game systems in each of these rules; I have a feeling it is a bit more work than I am wanting (I could be very wrong about that). These rules are often available at Tita's House of Games, Noble Knight Games, and sometimes eBay.

There is a game called Warfare on Tékumel, which is a descendant of the aforementioned games (I think), and it is available for free on the TékumelMinis yahoogroup. This is not the one I am going to use, although the battle magic system is great and I might try to transplant it for future use. The melee system is just too complicated for my simple mind. It is, however, a comprehensive system for the nuances of Tékumeli battles. 25 years ago it would have been my game of choice but not today.

Another great system is Basic Impetus, which can be found at Dadi & Piombo. It is free, and a nice little game, but uses two different sets of markers (one set of casualties, and one for disruption) for the status of each unit. One marker is really my limit.

Two others I considered are Fantasy Rules! by Chipco, and Hordes of the Things by WRG. I have an old copy of Fantasy Rules! (now in its third edition), but it has not changed very much from what I can tell. The combat system would have needed to be re-arranged a bit to get FR! to work to my satisfaction but might have been a success. And I am not much of a HoTT/DBA player - I am finding that people either greatly like the system or disdain it... I don't mind but never caught the 'pip' fever (which is probably a bad move on my part since the Seattle area is becoming a great center of DBA-gaming, but they play 15mm... )

So, who is the big winner?

I'm going to dive into Command & Colors:Ancients by GMT Games. This is a board game, but works wonderfully for miniatures. Howard Fielding of The Tékumel Project has already done a lot of preliminary work to convert CC:A to Tékumel, and I have poked around a bit to make more army lists also. Howard's work is available on the TékumelMinis yahoogroup also. The game system is simple yet subtle, and is fun. I also intend to use it for historical battles once I get my fantasy version (I think I will call it CC:T - Command & Colors: Tékumel ) comfortably far along.


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Empire spearmen, again

Thanks to the kindness of my sons, I am now in the possession of yet more Empire troops:


4 more sprues of spearmen/handgunners!

I now have enough for 2 20-figure spear blocks, each with 2 detachments of 6 handgunners (or even more than that). I have a preliminary army list, but now I will gladly rewrite it. This addition, along with a purchase of just a handful more minis (mostly for the greatswords command) will give me almost 3000 pts of Empire troops. Plenty for a long time!


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Tékumel web comic

The first page of a new Tékumel web comic can be seen here:

Tekumel: Chronicles of the Hill People

Should be an interesting read - to be updated every Wednesday!


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Legion of Ever Present Glory, part 2

I have finally done something more with this first set of Tékumel minis. No, there are not done yet, but slow, small steps are being taken along the journey to completion.



Here is an eye-level view. In this view, the troops are set into 3 holders, with 9 minis each. This will most likely be changed to 12 minis per holder. My base cohort size will be 12 minis for heavy infantry units, and it just makes more sense to have the minis organized during painting also.



The set in the center is closest to completion. Not much is left to paint, just details. I am also finding that I am not very skilled in painting faces, so I'm afraid that they will remain rather plain-looking until I can get in more practice. I'll have some close-up pics later, when they are finished.


In order to have some command minis for the second cohort, I will need to raid my pack of EPG archers for their standard bearer and musician. The unit packs from Eureka have 24 minis, with only one command set of 1 standard, 1 musician, and 2 officers. My current budgetary plan has me splitting up each pack into two; with the addition of an extra standard and musician I'll have 2 complete cohorts.


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The Tékumel Project blog

Howard Fielding has started a new blog:

The Tékumel Project

This will be a clearinghouse of info on Tékumel-related miniatures and gaming. Thank you Howard!


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