Nikki's Commissar

The other week, Nikki was feeling like painting something, and since I was moving away from using 28mm figures in my RPG's I didn't really have anything for her to paint. other then my hordes of 15mm guys. Then I remembered that back when I was 16 years old, I started an Imperial Guard (Astra Militarium for newcomers to 40k). I didn't really have any plans for them, so I selected a few figures that she could paint in any colour she wanted.

She selected an old Imperial Commissar and after a quick search on the internet for some examples, she decided on this paint scheme and set to work. I think she did a great job of it.

I think the blue jacket gives him a very regal feel, while still maintaining that intimidating nature that makes an Imperial Commissar.

I really have no idea when I will get to use this guy on the table. My Imperial guard army is truly in shambles, and will take some serious time and coin to bring up to snuff.

Written by: Andrew Gregory

2nd Ed Priest's Character Sheet - Does This Even Exist?

Continuing with our trend of posting a sheet every Thursday has brought us to the Complete Priest's Handbook an some bad news: I don't have a Complete Priests Handbook Priest Specific Character Sheet.

That's right. As far as I can tell, it simply does not exist. Now my complete Priests Handbook is a little more modern then the one pictured here, so perhaps there is a sheet in an older book. But none the less I could not find one in mine, or any version online.

I debated whether or not to make this article, but decided it was important information to know for anyone still interested in playing 2nd ed AD&D. And, if you do know of a sheet please let us know where we can get it in the comments below.


Written by: Andrew Gregory

A Story with #Characteroftheday Dice

For those that missed it last week, for a bit of change of pace I tried to figure out a story based on the Characters that I rolled for day of the week. So here is the story in detail starting with our announcement tweet, that due to technical difficulties on Twitter's end that morning, didn't get seen by too many people.

Want your own set of #characteroftheday dice? Get them here: https://jade-gaming.myshopify.com/

Our tale begins with the captain of a royal guard being told the king has been murdered, and it is up to them capture the dastardly assassin.

Next we introduce a scene with the Assassin. Perhaps a famous villain in the land, the story of which is told to the captain by their superior.

The Captain knows their is one person in the land who knows where the lair of the assassin is: a Dwarven Thief in the dungeons. Of course the thief agrees to help in exchange for their release and pardon.

The pair travel the road together until the reach a tavern where Half Elven Bard Sings. Effected by a Geas Spell some years ago the bard has been desperately trying to remove it by preforming a good deed worthy enough of a great hero. Despite the Captain and Thief's insistence that they stay behind, the Bard some how weaselled their way into the party.

Along the road after the tavern, The Captain, the Thief and the Bard encounter a party of Bandits lead by a brutal Half-Orc. There are simply too many for them too handle and they surrender to the Half-Orc. Recognising the captain as a man wanted by the Assassin, the Bandit leader sells them to him in a tense exchange.

After keeping the party in a dungeon for several days, The Assassin decides to test their new apprentice's commitment and orders them to kill the three. Nervously, the Apprentice approaches the helpless party; knife in hand.

The apprentice simply couldn't go through with it. Turning on the Assassin, they killed him and freed the party. Victorious, the Captain, the Thief, the Bard, and the Fighter returned to the Kingdom. The Kings Death had been avenged.

Only question remained. The Assasin only works for hirer. Who could have been evil enough to have plotted regicide? Find out next time when we continue the #characteroftheday dice story.

Want your own set of #characteroftheday dice? Get them here: https://jade-gaming.myshopify.com/



Written by: Andrew Gregory

Matt's Argentinian Dagger V's

To play the first Falkland War scenario in the Check Your 6! Jet Age rulebook, Matt needed two British Sea Harriers, and Two Argentinian Dagger V's. Well the Harriers were done, it was time to finish up those Dagger V's.

First of all however, we needed to find some 1/285th Dagger V's and that took some research. You see, A Dagger V is the export model of an Israeli IAI Nesher Jet, which is of course a copy of the  French Dassault Mirage 5... You following? So all we had to do was find some Dassault Mirage 5's and we were good to go. Luckily Raiden Miniatures had just the model.

So these planes are French Dassault Mirage 5 Models, that Matt painted with Argentinian Colours to turn them into Dagger V's. We were both really impressed with the profile of these jets, and as Matt put it "They really look like jets." And I know what he means.

The transfers for the Argentinian Roundels are from the same source as the British ones: Minibits. Though we found these ones did not work as well. And of course being so light are hard to see.

Despite that, I really like the look of these jets, and look forward to using them in our first game of Check Your 6! Jet age... Because I already know Matt is going to be British.

Written by: Andrew Gregory

JADE's Game Mastering Problem

I don't know how it is in your game group, but quickly after JADE got into Tabletop RPG's everyone wanted to host their own game. All four of us had ideas for campaigns, and were willing to put in the time to get them set up.

From what I have heard this is fairly unique, as most of my other gaming groups had a single Game Master (Me), or maybe one other person who was interested in creating their own world for a single campaign or session. Generally I have found that most people would rather go on an adventure then write one, but that was not the case for JADE and that created a problem.

With only one or two Game Master's hosting a game, scheduling games isn't so bad. However when you have 4 Game masters all clamouring to host their own campaigns, it can become a logistical nightmare. We simply had too many chef's in the kitchen.

To try and solve this issue, when we first got our campaigns going we tried to keep it simple: everyone wanted to host a game as soon as possible, and so we would alternate each week. Everyone would get two consecutive weeks to get their campaign rolling for the first two games, and then we would rotate the GM's chair in order among Jeff, Myself, Dave and Elijah. It worked fine for the a few months, but a few serious flaws started to appear.

First, it would be at least a month between campaign games. And to make it worse, if the GM couldn't make it, we were stuck pushing back the schedule another week until they could.

Secondly, due to the length between each campaign game, and the sheer volume of games going on people were losing interest in plots, forgetting how to play their characters and games simply weren't getting finished. It wasn't working and something had to be done.

After not accomplishing much for almost a year, we finally agreed on a way to handle the problem: we would have one game at time, and that game would be voted on by the group. So everyone would present all the campaigns they were interested in hosting for the group that round, and everyone would pick three campaigns they were interested in. The most commonly selected campaign would be the one that we played and JADE's Official Campaign. Ties were settled by another round of voting. And it worked quite well.

If your campaign won, you had 10 games to tell your story before we moved on to another round of voting. If you had more story to tell you could always put your campaign back up for election again. And so it was.

This system had a huge amount success. We were able to finish two campaigns in six months, and everyone stayed on point and in character. We had found the focus we needed. At least we'd found it for a little while.

As time wore on, everyone schedules started to pick up. People weren't always available on the weekend, and we all wanted every member of JADE present for the campaign games. It meant that like before, games were getting pushed back, and things were not getting finished while we waited for the full group to be available. So after our initial boom it took us an entire year to finish one ten game campaign. And that brings us up to a few months ago...

Our campaign hosting democracy was good idea. It let everyone one join in on the fun of playing and Game Mastering. However irregular attendance to sessions due to the unavoidable inconveniences of life made it a very slow process. We needed to speed things up.

So we decided to shorten the length of an Official Campaign to six games, and to make sure that the scheduled game got played so long as the Game Master and one other player could attend. Essentially were we going ton continue come hell or high water.

Now we haven't tried this new system yet, and it admittedly is still being debating among the group. Some of us felt that slow pace of going through JADE's Official Campaign was fine because at least everyone was there for the game. To accomodate this view, we also agreed that everyone must be present for the first and last games of the campaign for its six game run. That way everyone knows how it starts and how it ends.

I will let you know how well this system works, and where we end up going from here. Jeff's upcoming 2nd Version of his Elementia Campaign will be our first test.

Does your game group have multiple DM's? How do you choose what game to play next? Let me know in the comments.


Written by: Andrew Gregory

Edit from Nov 2018: Looking back on this from almost three years in the future is honestly kind of funny. This plan unfortunately did not let us speed up and attendance remained an issue. Eventually we abandoned our D&D democracy in favour of running a single campaign with several spin offs as we could arrange it with the other players. About 18 months after this article was written we all agreed that we would start JADE's Arachnophobia Campaign which is now going into it's 29th game.

Forge World Plague Marines

A while back I was given the Forge World Plague Marine Upgrades, something I have wanted since I started playing the game. Well it took me almost 2 years again, but I finally painted the whole lot!

It took some time,planning, and of course a box of Chaos Space Marines to get the squad just right but I am really happy with the result.

Those of you familiar with the older versions of Warhammer 40k will recognise the Champion as the same Plague Marine in the 3rd edition Codex. It was a great picture with his jaw hanging down around the pipe jutting up into his jaw. Truly go across the disgusting filth that Plague Marines are. I love them so much.

I imagine this fellow as the squad's second in command. So I gave him the awesome spike on his pack as a signifier. Not that that that tank is in the rules or anything. Just a little roleplay on my part.

I really like the Nurgle Standard in the Chaos Space Marine box these days, so I also made sure to include one of those in the squad.

Now, I don't have a lot of luck with Plasma Rifles. I just roll too many 1's. But in keeping with the classic Death Guard spread, I gave this guy one... And will hope for the best.

I gave this guy a flamer because I don't use them very often. I want to try them out a little bit more and see if they are actually worth it.

What do you guys think of flamers?

Just a classic Death Guard set up just like the True Grit Rules that let them one hand a bolter like a pistol and rock a close combat weapon. Oh for the good ol' days or 3rd edition.

Just a standard Plague Marine. But I quite proud of the head hanging from his shoulder pad.

I love the little eye.

And another with the True Grit rules. I do love that old school bloated belly though! Looks so good!

To give the Plague Marines Their Plague Knives, I removed the Chain sword from the left hand and glued the knife into place after removing the grip from the knife's hilt. It is a little touch that I have been doing for years.

And there you have it, my 10 Plague Marine squad from Forge World. I can't wait to get them on the table and into play soon!


Written by: Andrew Gregory

Kolejka: Solidarty and Soviet Poland Makes a Great Board Game

Back in university, all those years ago, I took a Polish history course just out of curiosity. It turned out my professor was actually part of the Polish Solidarity movement in the 80's and his enthusiasm for his culture and history made it a fantastic class, and one I have remembered though it was almost 10 years ago

When I learned that there was a board game on the subject of Solidarity Poland I had to have it! This is Kolejka and it was published in 2011. I have owned this game since 2012, but this year was the first time we actually played it.

For those who don't speak Polish (like me) Kolejka means queuing, and this game is designed to show people the struggles of even going shopping in Soviet era Poland.

The point of the game is collect all of the items on your shopping list. Which you do by lining your pawns up in front of stores to claim your merchandise. However, their are a few tricks to this. Only 3 of the 5 stores will actually be receiving goods, there are very limited quantities of merchandise, and most players won't know which stores will have items in stock.

After players have lined up their pawns in the queues, The location and amount of merchandise is revealed. Players then use their Queuing Cards to change the order of the queue in front of a store, close the store, or even peak at the delivery deck for next time. With so few resources coming out, it can get pretty cut throat.

The first player to complete their shopping list wins. It is a pretty simple game over all with some beautiful in game time keeping mechanics. And it is harder then it looks. Often you will go home form the market with nothing to show for your troubles at all.

Kolejka is a really fun game. The art is wacky yet nice to look at, and the design of the rules and game board are clear, and easy to understand. I have even seen that they finally released a full English version of this game (among other languages) in 2015, which means you won't have to stick the English Language Stickers over the cards which was a pain in the ass.

That being said, Kolejka is a pretty simple pawn placement and resource collection game. It makes for a fantastic family game or a quick filler during game night, but I wouldn't want to base an entire evening around it.

All in all, great graphic designs and fun rule system. I would give it a 7/10 as a family title, good game, not something I would want to play everyday.


Written by: Andrew Gregory

2nd Ed AD&D Paladin Character Sheet

Moving through our 2nd Edition Character Sheet this week brings us to the Paladin's Sheet, which I am pleased to say we have bright copies for you to look at!

So the Paladin character sheet from the Complete Paladins Handbook, is simple 4 page sheet, but of course all the info is tailored to the needs of those brave knights, and baby sitter of parties everywhere: Paladins

The first page of this sheet is pretty standard. Actually aside from the bonded mount, it would almost work with any character. There is of course an emphasis on combat, including a section to keep track of ammo, and all the attacks you are capable of, but a good start over all.

You will also notice about mid level on the sheet on the right hand side there is a small section for some ability changes based on your level as a paladin. Really useful first page. I quite like it.

The second page is devoted to your abilities. You will notice a section for proficiencies, and benefits you have and of course all of your spells. It is not a bad side, but I wish there was a larger area to record all the various abilities paladins get, beyond a "Notes" section.

The third page gives you your physical descriptions and Turn the Undead abilities along with a unique Equipment carried page. I have never see an inventory that specifics whether the object is on your left right or back. But there you have it.

I think that is a really interesting choice for the sheet, and is probably designed to reflect that Paladins are only supposed to keep what they need. They only have equipment sections for specific locations on the body, so that they can have only what they can carry. Pretty interesting design choices there. I love this page.

And of course every page has their own character kit creation and record sheet. Nothing too exciting here.

Pretty neat sheet over all, but I still find a lot of these lack the proper place to record all your character and race abilities.


Written by: Andrew Gregory

Matt's Sea Harriers

After a few years of searching I finally found a copy of Check Your 6! Jet Age. A title I have been interested in ever since I first played the WWI classic Canvas Eagles. This time however I would be flying jets from 1948-the early 2000's in daring high speed combats. I was excited.

Well my room mate Matt also thought it was really cool, and jumped on board. After quickly looking through the scenarios he chose the Falkland Island Conflict, and ordered the 4 miniatures needed for the the first game of the campaign.

These two Sea Harriers are from Raiden miniatures, and can be found in their 1/285th modern aircraft line.

I also finally found some 1/285th scale transfers for the roundels on each aircraft. We used these planes as our first experiments with them. It was tough, but we got better each time.

Matt really took his time with planes, dry brushing and mixing several colours of grey to give it that used metal look that many planes at sea get quite quickly. I think he did a great job with them!

I am really looking forward to playing this game, and as you can see underneath, our Hotz Mat with 3" hexes has arrived so we are ready to go! We just need to get the Argentinians ready, and read the rules...


Written by: Andrew Gregory