The Rise of the Occulites Saga is a series of games that I have designed under my company Darwin Games that explore both the natural and social evolution of a species of creatures called “Occulites”.

These creatures are discovered by a small boy living with his Pa in the Australian Bush, but they are not of our world. This boy, Darwin, can observe and learn about them through “windows in space” which appear to occur naturally throughout his Pa’s property. The Occulites’ world has been named Crepusculum and is a world that evolves and changes very quickly. In the space of several generations, the Occulites evolve from a small Tribal existence, through to full civilizations, with trade, war and diplomacy.

The first game in the Saga has been picked up by Eagle Games (www.eaglegames.net) and will go on Kickstarter in early 2013. This game is called “Dawn – Rise of the Occulites” and is based around small skirmish actions of family Tribes consisting of four members and a Chief. The game utilises something called the “Natural Selection Deck” which helps to determine everything from movement, combat, terrain outcomes and other things within the game. The careful use of these multi-purpose cards is vital in achieving your goals and objectives within the game and introduces many important choices that do matter. To give you an idea of some of the gameplay concepts I have included some video links below:

Gameplay concepts – Episode One

Full Game playthrough of Basic Rules – Video quality a bit off, but you get the idea.

To find out more about these games, check out the links below:

Rise of the Occulites Saga general information

Rise of the Occulites Blog – http://www.riseoftheocculites.wordpress.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Darwin-Games/199925236725742

Darwin Games Website: http://www.darwin-games.com.au

Dawn – Rise of the Occulites (Eagle Games and Darwin Games)

The first game in the Saga – small Skirmish with scenario objectives, one off gameplay and full campaign options.

Board Game Geek Game Page: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/90274/dawn-rise-of-the-occulites

Eagle Games: http://www.eaglegames.net

I have added a new page to my blog that will detail the current state and all the files for the Battlelore with Blocks Project. You will be able to download block stickers for the existing units and creatures (as I get them done) as well as new races and block stickers for them. The first new race being testing is still the Lizardmen.

The idea is to make the new races more accessible for everyone by using blocks instead of figures (like in C&C:A and C&C:N) Not everyone paints their figures (as its a boardgame), so this way it makes it easier to introduce the new races.

Cheers,
Ben.

So check it out and let me know what you think!

Just a really quick update today – the first Specialist Card for my custom Lizardmen army for Battlelore.

I hope you enjoy it.
Cheers,
Ben.

Just letting you all know that based on playtesting and feedback I have made some changes to the document, which are listed below:

* Marsh Dweller ability replaced with At One With Nature to help balance out the entire army in CTA play

* Rarity designations given to each unit to help form a composition of the army.

I am currently working on a set of CTA cards to help you field a Lizardmen army in CTA play. Once this is all balanced, I will bring in the racial heroes.

Feedback and comments really help this project move forward, so I’m very eager to hear your thoughts.

The file is available here: LIZARDMEN ARMY FOR BATTLELORE VERSION 0.8

Cheers,
Ben.

Just a quick post here to release the playtest rules for a new Nuthin’ But Net team – the Botanicals.

Please download it below and please pass on any feedback or suggestions you may have.

THE BOTANICALS PLAYTEST TEAM RULES

The Botanicals Background Info

Children knew of the walking trees, the Botanicals. Everyone did, for they were part of a bedtime story told to every child across the land. In this story, when the water dried up in the great forest, the trees lifted their roots from the ground and marched – for hours, days and weeks to find more water. Upon coming to a village that had dammed the river’s flow, they quickly and effectively levelled the town and destroyed the dam, before marching back to the forest. This story told of how the people of the world had to live with nature and not deny it – for it would always find a way.

But the Botanicals were fiction. No one had ever actually seen this happen. It was merely a fairy tale… wasn’t it?

For many years, the trees and plants that adorned the stadium gardens across world, watched in silence. They sheltered the fans… waiting… learning, until one day when a stray basketball (kicked away by an overzealous beastmen player) landed in the canopy of a great tree. Before the players or fans knew what was happening, there was a great rumbling and the tree pulled its roots from the ground and strode onto the court, demanding a match.

In disbelief, the beastmen team accepted, only to be beaten soundly by the tree and his fellow plantmen. They had found a way. So began the Botanicals Nuthin’ But Net tournament campaign.

Cheers,
Ben.

I must admit I’ve let this blog lapse a bit since all the really exciting movement on my Rise of the Occulites games. You may have seen the photos of the greens over here: http://www.riseoftheocculites.wordpress.com – The figures are actually winging their way over from the UK to Australia now, so hopefully we’ll see them cast up shortly.

But I thought that the first post back here needed to be something special and so I thought I’d kick it off with some custom rules for using Lizardmen in one of my favourite boardgames – Battlelore. The rules have seen some playtesting and are version 0.7, but I am looking for some feedback to bring these up to a more uniformly balanced version before adding in the custom heroes rules. Yes that’s right, hero rules that are thematic and specific to the Lizardmen faction, but more on them later. There is no copyright infringement intented. These are simply fan rules.

So please, download them and give them a look and a play. Please let me know what you think.

Lizardmen in Battlelore

Cheers,
Ben.

Rise of the Occulites is a setting that I have been developing for several years now.

The setting is the source of three unique games that I have been writing.

Dawn – Rise of the Occulites is the first and is a miniatures skirmish game that uses a unique card action resolution system.

Dusk – Rise of the Occulites is the second and is an abstract strategy boardgame featuring a fog of war and the card action resolution system that is optimised for the style of game.

The Time of the Occulites is the third game in the series. It is a large boardgame that depicts the struggle for power between the different factions and will feature whole armies marching to war.

The first two games are in advanced development, with miniatures being sculpted to support Dawn – Rise of the Occulites.

All Rise of the Occulites information will be posted to that blog, while the rest of my hobby activities will continue to be posted here.

Along with the games that I am developing, I am writing a full background story for the setting which will leak out through the blog, narrated by the main character Darwin who spends his time secretly learning about the Occulites and classifying them.

Please feel free to check out the blog to follow the story and get more information as its released at:

http://riseoftheocculites.wordpress.com/

If you would like to know more, or if you have any questions, please feel free to email me: ben.boersma@gmail.com

Cheers,
Ben.

The first pack has just been released and comprises 6 figures total (2 of each of 3 different sculpts).

These figures are the Frogs with Tridents… and they are awesome!

These figures are very nicely sculpted by Bob Olley and cast. In fact there was nothing to clean up on two of the three sculpts above and the third was cleaned up in under a minute.

The frog on the left is an outstanding sculpt, was a pleasure to paint and just looks fantastic! With the nice Crocodile Dundee necklace around his neck and menacing size, this guy would be a great secondary Hero or Captain figure. he stands around 18mm tall, but is very bulky. A perfect Bullfrog! He is my equal favourite, along with the one on the far right. This guy is ducking down low, moving forward, avoiding the Fox warband’s deadly arrows, shield at the ready. He stands 15mm tall and has a slimmer build, fitting in really nicely with the Frog Hero. The frog in the middle is a very nice figure too. Standing around 17mm tall, he is quite bulky and bulbous, having a more flatter face than his brethren. He is very cute and was the easiest to paint.

As you can see, I’ve kept the paint scheme the same as my Frog Hero, but would really like to paint these up as several different tribes, exploring darker greens, browns and maybe even some exotic Poison Arrow Frog species. I will most certainly post those results when I’ve done them. The board that you can see them on is a work in progress, a 2′x3′ set table for Song of Blades and Heroes/Splintered Lands/Fur and Buttons games that I will post more of later.

Below you will see a nice comparison of all the different frog miniatures released by Splintered Light so far.

As you can see, these frogs really are suited to be the brutes of your warband, but what wonderful brutes you could not find! Figures like these and the Splintered Lands line really make me want to create some HOTT or SAH armies with them, but I have to be strong and stick with 10mm for those… don’t I? …Oh, who am I kidding, it’ll happen soon. Just have to be able to paint faster. It takes me long enough to get a skirmish force to the table!

I eagerly await the arrival of any more frogs that David decides to get done, but whether you are collecting the Splintered Lands figures or not, I must recommend that you get yourselves a set or two of these guys. They are the best 15-20mm frogs on the market by far and are excellent figures in their own right.

Cheers,
Ben.

nb. I do not work for SLM, I did not receive these for free and was not asked to write a review. I just really LOVE these figures!

The Villager Personalities pack contains six figures and is available from Splintered Light Miniatures.

I have found that out of the four figures I’ve painted, all are nice, clean sculpts with lots of great detail to pick out. In fact, while painting them, the urge to do so for a display was very strong. Lucky I bought a second packet just for that!

The Toad Villager was the first sculpt that I painted. Boy oh boy is that a really nice figure to paint. The only issue was some tiny little vent tails that I needed to tidy up, one of which I missed, forcing me to repaint a small section of the figure. But this was probably due to my eagerness to get started. It is one of the larger figures in the set, being shorter than Badger, but more rotund. He is about 18mm to the top of his eyes. The sculpt really shows off the exuberance of Toad, with the huge grin and upraised arms. A truly lovely sculpt to paint.

Click on the photo for a larger version

The Badger Villager was the second figure I painted. It was a very nice sculpt with little to no clean up required. It was incredibly easy to paint effectively and would be a great model to start with from the set. It is around 22mm to the top of his head. His jacket is very nicely done, with the way he is holding his head, very reminiscent of the character he is based on.

Click on the picture for a larger version

The last two figures I’ve painted were the Mole Villager and the Water Rat Villager. Both are very nicely done, but I think the Mole Villager was the better of the two. He is rather small (same scale as the other Mole figures in the SLM range) but the detail on his jacket is fantastic. With his cute little face sniffing the air, he really looks the part. The Water Rat Villager is very nicely done too – especially the detail on his jacket/coat. The things that I thought made it the weakest of the four sculpts (which doesn’t mean much as its still an excellent piece) is perhaps the hat, which I thought was too large – was expecting more of a boatman’s hat like Toad’s and his eyes/face which I found much more challenging to paint than the other characters. This is most probably a limitation of my skills more than anything, but thought it was worth mentioning none the less.

Click on the picture to see a larger version

So there we have four of the Villager’s pack. If anyone knows who the other two figures are supposed to be – a Lady Muskrat and a Gentleman Rabbit, please let me know, as I’d like to paint them accordingly.

On the SBH Yahoo group, there is a great set of stats that will allow you to use these figures in a game of Song of Blades and Heroes. They are written by sosullivan18 and can be found here. Bear in mind you must be a member to see them. I really like the stats, but will most likely make some minor adjustments to fit my image of the characters, which I will upload here when they are done. But check out sosullivan18′s as they work very nicely and may just be right for you!

Until next time,

Cheers,
Ben.

The mini itself is roughly 15mm to the eye and 18mm to the top of the ears. It is a single piece cast and is sculpted by Bob Olley. It is a very nice sculpt and great to see niche creatures getting some love for once! The miniature required a minuscule amount of clean up before painting. It basically had some “vent tails” to knock off and some levelling of the bottom of the base. All in all, less about a minute’s work (mainly to find them).

This Aardvark miniature fits in perfectly with the existing Splintered Lands line (especially being a little smaller than the Turtle Wizard and Frog Hero, the second of which is one of the larger minis in the range) The sculpting of his cute little face is fantastic and certainly defines this little guy nicely. He isn’t in any particular “heroic pose” and so if more Aardvarks are released in the future, he may get lost in amongst the regular warriors, but at that stage I may rebase him onto a more scenic base to reflect his heroic nature.

Click on the image to see a larger version

He was very fun to paint, but due to the nature of the colours I used and the texture on the fur, it required a number of highlights and inkings for me to be happy with the transition between hair and skin (on the face, snout and tail). This may be me being not particularly great at it, or could be me being picky. But this little guy is a great addition to the line and my third favourite mini the Druid’s Children Hero Pack 3, which is evidently, one of my favourite packs in the range.

The aim is to move onto a few of the figures in the Splintered Lands Villagers pack and then move onto other figures that I enjoy painting. Some of these include the Otters, the Rats and more. If you have something you’d like to see, just let me know and I’ll try to get a mini review up. As I do some of the more rank and file figures, I’ll be reviewing packs as a whole (for example Otter Archers – 2 sculpts). So this might take a bit longer to get these up. I will jump around a bit – this is in part to help cover some of the different races, but mostly due to my serious lack of attention span, so I like to mix it up a bit.

Cheers,
Ben.

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