More Chop Sockey Pictures

 Some more photos from last week's solo test game of my "Chop Sockey! Kung Fu Miniature Wargame Rules." I made some changes to them this week. 

In other projects, I have done some studying on the history or pseudo of ninjas, dug several files of academic papers on a many subjects out of storage for possible projects, and begun some reading on the history of proto-scientific thought in China for a couple projects. I also submitted a couple book reviews on conspiracy thinking to the skeptical inquirer. And I primed a few figures that now need painting. 

Let me also off you think link to a piece of interesting history: 

John Daniel, the story of a Gorilla raised as a British boy

More from the BBC on John Daniel

As always, please consider buying my books. Thanks: Peter Huston's author page at Goodreads

Hand to Hand combat. The red poker chips indicate the figure has suffered a wound. 
This effects their abilities in several ways. 

Chop Sockey! Kung Fu Movie Wargame Rules update

Greetings, I'm a bit behind on the weekly blog post so here's an update on my new project, Chop Sockey!! a set of wargame rules intended to recreated kung fu movie style battles. I've been working on it fairly steadily and while the pandemic and social distancing has put a kibosh on play testing the rules continue to be written.

I am at the moment writing the rules for vehicles and riding beasts and the concepts seem to be coming along well.

For a sneak peek, (no release date set yet) here's the current version of the table of contents with current page numbers:


 Table of Contents

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 2
But I don’t watch kung fu movies!! What the heck is a kung fu movie wargame??!! --- Notes for historical and other miniature gamers who have find these rules thrust in their hands. 2
2. Force Creation and Troop Types 3
Minions 3
Fighters 3
Warrior 3
Heroes (or Villains) 3
Specialists 3
Monsters, Creatures, and Animals 4
Forming Units 4
Chi and other special considerations 4
3.  Terrain 6
Rough Terrain 6
Dangerous Terrain 6
Elevated Terrain 7
Moving uphill 7
Moving downhill 7
Increased elevation 7
Impassible Terrain 7
Cover 8
Climbing fences and walls 8
4.  Battle Rules 9
Objectives 9
Sequence of Play 9
Turn Phases Table 10
Activation 10
Activating Units Table 12
Special Actions 13
5.   Movement 14
VEHICLES AND MOUNTED ANIMALS 14
Chi aided movement 15
6.   Combat and Close Combat 15
Basic Concept 15
Melee 16
Combat Sequence 16
Melee Weapons Table 17
Hits 17
Effects of Hits Table 18
Saving Throws 18
Wounds and the Effects of Hits 18
Wound Effects Table 19
Spectacular Hits and Morale Throws 19
Charge effects 20
Use of Chi in Combat 20
Breaking Free of Combat 21
ANIMALS IN MELEE 22
7.  Ranged Combat 23
Ranged Fire Hit Roll Chart 24
Ranged Weapons Chart 24
Firing Modifiers Chart 24
Running out of ammo 25
Chi in ranged Combat 25
Firing at Mixed Units 25
----Method One 25
----Method Two 26
Ammo –Running out of Ammunition 27
Catching thrown weapons, arrows, or bullets 28
8.    Morale 30
Morale Effect and Ending Moral Effect Check Table 30
Effects of Chi on Morale 31
Shaming 32
9.    Special Actions and Rules for non-combat challenges 32
10. Optional And Scenario Specific Rules 33
1. Multiplayer games (more than two sides) 33
2. Artillery and Crewed Weapons 33
3. Vehicles 33
4. Sorcerors, Technicians, Snipers, etc. 33
5. Creatures 33
10.   Duels and Tournaments 35
Single combat between heroes 37
Fighting Strategies. 37
Combat Results 38
REFERENCE CHARTS                                                                                                                     40

Chop Sockey! Kung Fu Wargame Miniature Rules playtest

Chop Sockey -Kung Fu Miniature Wargame Rules is one of my current works in progress. The goal was to create a set of rules that would be simple and fun to play while allowing for the flexibility needed to recreate the battle action of a classic kung fu movie or comic book. While much work remains to be done, we had our first real test play, and the basic concepts seem to work surprisingly well. 

Troops and characters are divided into four classes: minions, fighters, warriors, and heroes. 

Minions are those mobs of virtually useless combatants who get mown down by the dozen when the hero enters the room. 

Fighters and warriors are more ordinary people with the warriors being a step up from the fighters. Picture your elite samurai or commando-types and you have the basic idea. 

Heroes, well, heroes are heroes, except of course the heores who are really villains, and regardless highly skilled in kung fu and other deadly arts. They dominate the game, but that's the way it should be.

Close combat is handled by rolling large quantities of dice and comparing the difference in the die rolls. Aside from no hit at all, the results can be a hit, a deadly hit, or a spectacular hit. A spectacular hit is so frightening that it causes enemies to check morale. 

A long view of the set up for the game. At one of the table, you can see a jungle stockade where bandits have been holding women and children as prisoners. They are being held by an arch villain (a hero in game terms) and two five man units of bandits with sub-machine guns (fighters) and two five man bands of traitorous peasants (minions) who have allied themselves with the  bandits and their villainous yet highly skilled leader.

On the other side, are three bands of peasant militia (fighters), one with rifles and two with spears. They are led by three heroes and two native guides (specialists rated as warriors). Their goal is to cross the river, storm the stockade and rescue the prisoners.  

Another view of the set up. 

The evil bandits and their prisoners.

The good guys, come to rescue the prisoners.

The prisoners.

 A close up of the mountain bandits. These are Westwind's Montagniards (delightfully inaccurate Montagniards by the way) from their Vietnam range.

The game ended in a clear victory by the good guys who destroyed the villains and easily won the game. While some rules and stats need to be tweaked, 

Pulp Fiction Asian Bandits

People seem to like seeing pictures of nicely painted figures so here's a recent project. If anyone asks these are "modern day Pulp-fiction Asian fantasy Bandits" and should not be seen as representations of any historical or modern day people. The figures are actually 28mm Montagniards from Westwind Productions Vietnam War range and while nice figures, they don't resemble any photos of Montagniards from the period that I've ever seen. As for the Buddha in the tree trunk scenery piece that came from the aquarium decorations section of the pet area of a particularly large Walmart. Again, I refuse to comment on whether or not it's actually representative of anything anywhere.

Close ups of some of the figures. What's with the guy in the gasmask? No idea.
If someone has ever heard of SE Asian people donning gasmasks please let me know. 

Again, no idea if it's historically accurate but it'd make a great pulp fiction character.