Demo the demo

Hey it’s been a while since the last post and a while since the one before that. This is completely my fault and I will be having a proper talking to myself about my poor performance at my next review...

This time I’m going to talk a bit about demoing, not how to do it well just how I like to approach it.

Firstly there is no one right way to demo as with most things it comes down to finding your own style and playing to your strengths. For example I can talk enthusiastically about pretty much anything but I’m terrible at facts and figures. So when I demo I’m more “oh oh try this thing it’s cool” and less “this works like that’s and you’ll take this for when that happens”

T Wreaks slow grow.

So in the strong gaming tradition of picking up a new system the locals decided that a slow grow would be a good place to start.
I'm always keen on a slow grow as it encourages painting and playing new people which I'm slightly better at then actually playing games.

There is an official league which I believe is currently being fine tuned by the TDE team but I decided to run my own. Partly because its fun to put something together and partly because if someone asks me a question about the rules I can make something up then change it to fit, which saves me loads of time reading an official pack.

Learn by doing

So I’m pleased to say that my first (hopefully not my last) The Drowned Earth event was a success!
("Event" might be over stating things but it's my blog so event is what we’re calling it.) What we had was an informal meet up and intro session punctuated by me shouting out encouragement.

I’ll start from the beginning just in case you fancy doing something similar.

Okay so I had some cool models and a basic (very basic) grasp of the rules, add to this a general over excitement and a drive to make others just as excited I decided that if there wasn’t a ready supply of players I would have to hunt some down.

Is paint water restricted movement?

 So you have you're lovely new models rattling about in a box, but you want to use them to fight dinosaurs the shallow of a pond so you'll need to get them ready.

Now I'm far from an expert painter (far from an expert anything to be honest) but I can give you a rough guide for how to take your models from bits of metal to a single lump of colourful metal.

First thing you need to do is clean and build the models, by clean I mean take off any flash (excess material left over from casting) tackle the mold lines (lines where to cast molds met). For this you'll want some tools, I normally have a Stanley knife, a pair of clippers, and a small file. The general idea is to cut or scrap off any flash, smooth down any line with the back of the knife or the file.  Both of these things can be as thorough or brief as you wish. the cleaner the model the better end result but if you don't get everyone it's not the end of the world (well it is in game but that was years ago) just make sure you take care of any excess material around where parts join as you'll want to get a got fit later on.

Getting started.

So you're thinking about starting The Drowned Earth? Me too, what a coincidence. Let's take a look at what you'll need to get started.

Now me, I would always start with lovely shiny new models but let's pretend to be logical and start with the rules?

You have two options for the rulebook either a free pdf (here) which has all the rules. Or you have the very pretty hardback rulebook (here) Which has the rules along with all the fluff and character details Its a bit over £30 but that's a fair price for a shiny book. I don't have the actual book (yet) because I picked it up then put it back down while at Salute and I was kicking myself about it all the way home.