tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15376334593846353182024-03-14T09:49:05.668+00:00Big Grumpy GamerA vaguely personal blog about my experiences as an "all or nothing" gamer. Mostly based on War Gaming, but there will be roleplay games, computer games and board games discussion and reviews. As well as my Kickstarter weekly (or not) reviews.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-24691722687350088642017-09-30T23:10:00.002+01:002017-09-30T23:10:35.107+01:00The ResurrectionWell its been nearly two months, but its time for another post on here. I've actually got a lot to say. Even more I have a lot to do at the moment. This post, in part, is going to be partly a snap shot of the last month, so I hope people don't mind indulging me. There is, a little bit of a love in at the end as well. Sorry.<br />
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<b>I'm a Dad</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
So the first thing to note is that in the last 5 weeks I became a Dad. My life has, for obvious reasons, been a little on hold and Gaming has taken a sensible hit in order to fit everything in. That post 2 months ago where I planned to do more gaming.. well not just yet hey. However, Hackett Jnr came along on the 28th August, at a pretty big 10lb 15. <br />
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Yes, it is easily the hardest thing I've ever done, and as of yet I would say the hard times have outweighed the good. I wouldn't change it for the world though.<br />
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Thing is it also has made me set plans in motion which weren't there before, or perhaps have been in the back of my mind. So, lets start seeing what is now in the pipeline.<br />
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<b>Grumpy Gamers</b><br />
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So, at the beginning of last month I said I might like to do a podcast. Well as it happens I have recorded a podcast, but as it happens it probably won't see the light of day. I recorded it before the little one was born, so there are a few things which are now out of date in there and I want to change. More importantly there was some news in there which is now totally out of date. See more about that later.<br />
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So Episode 0 of Grumpy Gamers is on hold for now, but the plan is to record a new episode soon and get it out into the airways. My original aim was to have two different series, one for Guild Ball and one for Wild West Exodus, but instead I'm going to focus on a single series which can concentrate on Guild Ball, but wander off piste from time to time when the mood takes me (or whoever is on with me, if I get guests). Now this is partly because I'm probably going to get more time to play Guild Ball than anything else, but you will see soon enough in this post that there are going to be other things I want to talk about.<br />
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<b>Paragons of War</b><br />
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Way, way back when I talked about writing my own set of wargaming rules, and an idea I had for how to do the combat. Yeah, well that went in the bin shortly afterwards, but the idea of writing my own rule set didn't ever go away.<br />
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Well, I'm actually writing something now. I'm pretty much certain it'll fall into the homebrew category, and potentially no one other than me and some nebulous opponent will play it (or even see it. I am satisfied with that state of affairs, its actually been nice to just come up with ideas and get them onto paper. I'm going to use the blog to drop a couple of spoilers (rather than my facebook page which has already had some ramblings). Clearly I'm also going to be looking for a couple of things moving forward. I'm not going to be able to look at creating a miniature range, all of this has to be based on people using other models from other systems and suppliers. However, I would like to put together a professional looking rulebook, so some artists would be handy. I've also got the basic idea of background as well, but fleshing out the world (or as it happens worlds) would be really nice.<br />
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The basic idea of background.. well... (I make no claims this is 100% original content, I had to start somewhere).<br />
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<i>The Paragons have existed since time began, beings without compare to anything else in the stable realms. While we have named each of them and their sphere of influence, these concepts mean little to them. What we do know, is that over time, each one has visited the realms and left their mark in some way. To them, we are little more than ants, easily pushed aside in the hunt for more power and more control over the unformed mists.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Eons ago the Paragons were held in sway by one of their own. It was only the Paragon of Life who had the strength to claim the unformed, unstable realms, and weave them into new worlds full of beings both intelligent and animal. As Life created new worlds its power grew, each realm within its domain feeding it the power needed to subjugate its brethren. Those creatures it created were cared for, in a way. We were allowed to spread on our worlds, on our own terms, for all Life needed was for us to Live. The Immortals of the past, aspects of the Paragon of Life, were granted powers by their mother, and lived forever.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The day the Paragon of Death appeared from the mist changed everything. Life was cut down, unaware of what Death was capable of, and the balance of power was forever broken.</i><br />
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<b>Spartan</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Ok so enough self aggrandizing, now for a little bit of a thank you (to people who have no idea who I am). When I first started this blog I made a pass away comment about how a small game called Dystopian Wars got be back into wargaming. It was a lot of fun, reminded me of Man O'War and frankly just wasn't a Games Workshop money making machine.<br />
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Sadly Spartan Games went under last month. This was part of my podcast, and how sad I was about the loss of Dystopian Wars, Firestorm Armada and the various spin offs. <br />
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Now, I personally think a lot of the reason this happened was because they just kept expanding their range without really thinking about the quality of it, if they could support that big a range, and finally if the customer base was there to do it. In either case, it would appear production capacity wasn't in a position to match requirements, and financial income wasn't being generated by outgoing miniatures and games.<br />
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I have to say last month I was disappointed. I've not played Dystopian Wars for a long time, but it was the game that got me into what non-GW companies had to offer, and my gaming has been better because of it.<br />
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<b>Warcradle</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Now another game I've not played enough of is Wild West Exodus v2, but the main thing here is that a new company (Warcradle) picked up an older game, gave it a bit of a brush up and frankly came up with a lovely game. I decided to write a little bit for their blog, which they kindly posted, and then baby (and also moving house) stopped me doing more.<br />
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However, I have to now say that Warcradle are one of my favourite companies ever and I wish I could work for them (without having to move, that would be perfect).<br />
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See, they very recently announced that they have purchased the rights to Dystopian Wars, Firestorm Armada, I assume all of the Halo titles, plus the various spin off from all of these games. I didn't spot if they also have the rights to Uncharted Seas (Spartan's old fantasy ship game), but if they have that is also outstanding.<br />
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Oh to be able to work on just one of these titles. Playing games is clearly a passion of mine, but working on a game is frankly a dream. This is one of the reasons for doing Paragons of War. However, a game that got me back into wargaming, or at least one of the titles from the first small company I really was interested in...<br />
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My two pence worth, not that Warcradle have to listen to me, but cut the range down. That is on all of the games. Personally, I wouldn't just cut down each faction I would cut out entire factions. Well not for Halo, there are only two factions in that. But DW and FA both had to many models in too many factions. IF they could be cut back, and then the remaining factions concentrated into very specific and specialised "styles", then I really do think these sorts of games can't do very very well going forwards.<br />
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Oh and the rulebooks.. sort out where the rules are in the rulebooks. They were great games, but you needed a research degree to know how to index the rulebooks.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-66400568135734740582017-08-02T21:58:00.002+01:002017-08-02T22:10:39.979+01:00Just a Game<b>So what's next?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
It's been a while, oh Internet of things. In fact it has almost been a year since I posted on here (other than the recent dose of salt of course). It would be very easy to get into a whole post on why the blog was abandoned, and then bring it back around to why I'm here today, resurrecting the dead.. sorry thread. It would be very easy wouldn't it.<br />
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However, lets go with the abridged version.. I got through the divorce, ended up drifting off the gaming scene (because I couldn't be bothered trying to find a gaming group I could get to.. or at least played on weekends), I struggled to keep the blog going on my own, discovered someone was already in my life that meant a lot to me, and in the next week or so I will becoming a father for the first time. Things sort of just happened and this blog wasn't one of them.<br />
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Basically... I forgot.<br />
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The last few months have become something of a blur, and yet in the middle of all of it came the unabashed desire to actually get off my weighty frame (re: backside) and start gaming again. I've still, not really, managed to do that of course, but its bought the blog back to the table.<br />
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<b>Concentrated for more flavour</b><br />
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There is, clearly, going to be a small bundle of (*Insert personally appropriate definition*) coming along soon and so I'm not promising regular updates. However, in order to make sure I do get back on track the new and improved (and present) Big Grumpy Gamer blog is going to be a bit more concentrated and a little more fixed.<br />
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I'm going to, personally, be focused on two games in the next few months. The first of these is going to be Guild Ball, and this site is more or less going to be dedicated to it. I might show you the odd thing I pick up from Kickstarter, but I'm not going to be doing the weekly trawl to show people what I like. If nothing else, that took a lot of time and I didn't get anything out of it.<br />
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When I do get around to it there will be painting information, rules posts, possible match reports and lots and lots of general chatter about teams and the like. I was going to focus on the Alchemist's when I first started, and I still have them. I may even revert back to them, but in the next month or so I'll be moving to the new Farmer's Guild. This will be what I take to tournaments and probably will end up with a lot of "stuff" as I get going with my new Guild.<br />
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IF, and its a pretty big IF at the moment, I can get myself going on the blog then I will also resurrect the idea of a Podcast or a YouTube set of match reports. However, I don't intend on doing that alone... more on that later.<br />
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On that point - Can I please point people at the following:<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC30LiF_8miVoEokt4aRsnaQ">The Battlehammer</a> - These guys pretty much have kept me going for a while. Potentially keeping me interested in gaming in general, but have also become very close friends. Seriously.. these guys are awesome<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCteAz8_LsRq-BHsQW1z72rg">Don't touch the Beard</a> - One of those people I've been connected to by utter chance several times over in the past (yet never met in person). His Match report style is awesome and a lot of fun. If you haven't already go watch (People from CP, I insist you go watch these.. especially if you remember High King Tristan).<br />
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<a href="https://singledout2016.wordpress.com/">Singled Out</a> - My Guild Ball podcast of choice at the moment. A lot of fun, really good content, really good way of explaining and outlining how they are finding the game. Well, when Jason isn't talking over people of course...<br />
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Oh and I'm sure people spotted that Guild Ball will be the first of the two games I will be playing. The other is going to be Wild West Exodus. I'm not sure how much content will go on here though, as I've volunteered to write stuff for the official Wild West Exodus blog. What I put there won't be on here, but you may see the odd thing appear over here if the mood takes me. In a similar vein to Guild Ball, there is also always the chance I'd move onto Podcast or YouTube if I can.<br />
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And in the vein of linking people I think are pretty important in my gaming world<br />
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<a href="https://twitter.com/pyroriffic?lang=en-gb">Sarah Cawkwell</a> - So Sarah will probably be aghast at being linked.. probably. Sarah writes an excellent array of short stories and full novels. Part of her work is on Wild West Exodus 2nd Ed, and I really look forward to getting my hands on the first book she is doing for them.. and the 2nd Ed book of course, in which Sarah as been quite busy I believe.<br />
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<b>If you happen to be local</b><br />
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So here is the hiccup, I still haven't managed to do anything in terms of "regular" gaming. The fairer and smarter half has pointed out that this is something I should fix. I know.. I'm very very lucky. So I'm hoping to get something sorted out for around every other week (and the odd tournament).<br />
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I'm hoping I can start getting myself over to Sheffield, Rotherham, Doncaster or even Barnsley soon enough. I will need to get past the self confidence and chronic anxiety mind you. I'm also hoping people might be able to come and game over here (or I can drive.. this is a thing.. Parker/Straw can attest to this. In fact I need to get down there again.. once the baby is here though).<br />
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The Podcast and YouTube stuff though.. well I'm hoping someone local might well be interested in joining me is something silly like that. As noted before, doing the blog on my own actually became more daunting than I want to admit, and if nothing else comes of this it's that I'd quite like to open the Big Grumpy Gamer site up to other contributers (perhaps to bring in other games, now I'm not). <br />
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So yeah, if you play Guild Ball, or Wild West Exodus, and happen to want some one to have a game against let me know..<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-2901480909546682212017-07-28T18:33:00.000+01:002017-07-28T18:33:35.607+01:00Been burnt once before<b>Nearly a year</b><br />
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Its been nearly a year of not posting on my blog. Yet something has appeared which has brought me to resurrect the old stomping ground.<br />
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The Big Grumpy Gamer is back (I'm very very salty right now).<br />
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If this is truly a return I shall post something later about why the long absence, but I'm really here to put down some initial thought and feelings. I can't help it, its all come about because of the Guild Ball errata. Actually, its all come about from changes to the Alchemists. Yes, they are my team (when I play), so it is entirely possibly to say I'm being petty. As such, let me add clarification:<br />
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I don't mind Midas and Vitriol being balanced downwards, they needed it.<br />
I will still play the game and play Alchemists (for now)<br />
I don't know if I will swap out characters, because I've not played with the changes. Everything I say now is initial reactions, I'm just confused about the choice(s) that have been made.<br />
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So based on the above: Yes, I don't like the changes (actually its one above all others) but I won't be burning all my models on a tea tray in the back garden.<br />
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<b>Midas</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
So the captain got hit hard. He has lost a lot from his card and some of it is a bit nasty. <br />
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Actually he got what he deserved and I only really care about one part. In all these changes are pretty reasonable.<br />
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1. He lost Supershot... well with it he could have a 4/10" kick and that's just bonkers. So I'm ok with this. Its not like he isn't super maneuverable anyway.<br />
2. He lost Lightfooted... ok so he is a little less maneuverable, but lets think about this for a second. He can perform teamwork actions for 1 less, so dodging on a pass or on receiving is still there. Now all this loss means is he can't run over rough ground without cost (unless you use a momentum point of course and considering teamwork actions are more or less free this isn't really a big tax now is it). I'm fine with this.<br />
3. Lure of Gold is once per turn rather than one per team mate per turn. Its a painful change, picking how to use this is now tougher, but actually I never really considered using this a lot anyway when I first saw it. Certainly I wasn't going to be burning influence on it, and I have a lot of things to do with his playbook results most of the time.<br />
4. Promise of Fortune no longer gives +1 armour.. well that's annoying. Its not earth shatteringly annoying, but still. Midas used to have more in his arsenal to keep the ball and basically this is another nail in that coffin. Yes 5+ Def is still good, so I'm not protesting too much, but this is about the only really hard change to live with.<br />
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I'm ok with Midas being like this though. It's painful, but not punitive. Lure of Gold is less effective, but I'm not sure how well used it was anyway.<br />
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<b>Vitriol</b><br />
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So first things first, she still needed work to downscale her and after really thinking things through I'm ok with <b>most </b>of what has happened. I'll go with the ok stuff first<br />
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1. She has lost the option of doing +1 dmg, once, on a target in cover. Sure, I mean it used to be all the time, I coped with it going down to once, so losing it is alright I guess. Basically it's sort of clear she was doing too much damage and this is a fine way to get her back to being a striker<br />
2. The same applies to the move of her 3 damage result up one with the push dodge going down one. It's a better fit for a model that shouldn't be getting into a scrap as often anymore.<br />
3. The other reason she shouldn't get into a scrap is she comes on with less health now is she is taken out. But wait<br />
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<b>Been burnt once before</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Vitriol has lost her +2"/+2" move when she starts in cover and gained "Been burnt once before". A 2" move when she starts her activation in melee range of someone who is burning or poisoned.<br />
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I just don't get this and I will try to explain why. I doubt anyone from Steamforged will read this, after all I'm venting, but in the off chance they do I would love to know some of the way this came about/went through testing.. anything to just quash these fears I have.<br />
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I need to split this into two parts:<br />
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Via opposing players - 80% of the time, with only 10 health, Vitriol will not want to be ending a turn next to an enemy player. So if positioned correctly Vit shouldn't ever get this dodge.. ever. We've already said a lot of the changes stop her being a fighter and more of a striker, so by choice I will never get this bonus.<br />
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The rest of the time things get messy and complicated, so bare with me. I'm going to do a lot of situations here.<br />
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She has the ball, and in the last turn was attacked but not killed (clone, counter attack, etc). In the next turn you go first and can get her to the goal. Well I won't be dodging because I need momentum so the chance goes.<br />
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She doesn't have the ball, but ended next to a model that does... see above, I can't dodge because I need the ball and momentum.<br />
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If at any point in any situation (I have the ball or not), the model next to me has a condition, and I am going second then I would be amazed if my opponent doesn't generate momentum and clear the condition of the model I'm next to. Thus... no dodge. This is a similar issue to the original S1 and S2 version of OG Katalyst. Without being able to apply conditions himself, the set up involved to get the bonus (Kat was damage, but Vit is the dodge) is so easy to counter for the opponent that they will never get to see the bonus happen. Well not via opponents anyway. Oh and because Vit's can only happen at the beginning of her activation it wouldn't matter anyway if she could apply one or the other, it would be too late.<br />
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Via her own team - So Vit's ability can come from any model, not just enemies. This means S3 OG Katalyst (who is always on fire) or Crucible (who can be on fire, poisoned, or both) can be used to trigger Vit's dodge... so long as they are within 2" of her.<br />
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Hang on.. if I kick I want Vit doing the kick, to make her speed a threat to get the ball back.. so there is no way Kat or Crucible are close enough.. ok so this can't happen then.<br />
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If I receive, or later in the game than this option of using a team mate is pretty strong. In fact this is how I would play it.. but:<br />
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Vit is far faster than either of those players. So she has to slow down in order to get her 2" dodge from them.. that doesn't seem right. Also Kat wants to be in the fight.. which Vit really doesn't want anymore. Crucible doesn't want to be in the fight, but she does want to be close to it. Better, but Vit is still an easier target. More importantly she isn't off doing what she is designed to do, which is be a striker. Either I have to have Vit going slow and getting to places she doesn't want to me. Or I have to use my Lure of Gold on Kat or Crucible to make sure they keep up with Vit.. meaning Midas has to be nearby and the two fighting orientated models aren't where they really should be.<br />
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<b>My opinions matter little</b><br />
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So I'm truly accepting of the fact that I haven't tested these changes. I assume that these changes are tested in full flow of a competitive game as well as set up situations to see what would happen with the skills if the stars align for it. My mind may change of BBoB once I have used it a bit.. but I wonder if Vitriol would be any different if they just removed BBoB all together as well. I don't think it has the impact or use it should have in the harsh light of a first read though. If I'm proven wrong, that would be a nice surprise right now.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-9751883374409891782016-10-27T14:48:00.002+01:002016-10-27T14:48:34.032+01:00Kickstarter #9<b>Back from the Dead</b><br />
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Yes, I am aware I said I would start doing this stuff more often and I haven't. Yes I know that building a community for my site involves regular content updates. No, I have not got any more words to express my regret at not doing this site. However, Life. You know, the real life bit which stops you doing anything else, not because you don't want to deal with life and that it isn't fun, but it generally does mean you don't have time for anything else.<br />
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I'm going to make sure this is a bumper edition of the Kickstarter review. I'm going to try and show you six things that have appeared recently and need a mention. Plus, as an added bonus, I'll be, for the first time, promoting something I have played and is now on Kickstarter (and needs your support!). So, getting right into it...<br />
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<b>The Edge: Dawnfall - Awaken Realms </b><br />
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So the guys that made Neuroshima Hex (which I am told is an outstanding game by the way), have developed a new 2-4 player, hex based game of miniature tactics and combat. Now, normally, my excuse for finding something interesting is pretty much that it looks good, or that its nostalgic, or silly. Well, The Edge definitely jumps into category 1 without any real issues at all. It also fits in, for me, with category 2 as well, because Hex based tactical games always remind me of Battletech and Crimson Skies (sorry can't help that). <br />
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Now, clearly, when you go through the page you will notice that the models are... well quite frankly lovely. There are a hell of a lot of models, and rather interestingly it looks like you get absolutely everything for each faction in the faction boxes. Of course if you want the whole game then you will need a battlebox, which has the playing mat, and two factions worth of stuff, plus the few odds and ends you need for playing the game. Personally I have no idea which of these I would get, because all the models look amazing.<br />
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One of the best things here though is that a bit of a ways down the page you will also find all of the background books free for download. This isn't just a miniatures board game with nothing but rules. they have set up a full story and background book to go with the game. I'm impressed with the level of detail that they have gone into for a tactical boardgame. At some point I'm waiting to see if they will release this as an open table top game as well... I mean the models are clearly good enough.<br />
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It is <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/awakenrealms/the-edge-dawnfall?ref=category_newest">here</a> if you want a look.<br />
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<b>Dark Skies: 1942 - Resin Horse Games</b><br />
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Speaking of Crimsons Skies, finally I get to welcome in the coming of a spiritual protege of one of those games that shaped a lot of my experiences when I was younger. Dark Skies definitely falls into the category of "alternative history" aircraft combat games, and I have to say I quite like the look of it. Oh, and for the eagle eyed among you, yes there is somewhat a flavour of Lovecraft about this game.<br />
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in 1942, towards the end of WW2, the Eldritch gods finally awaken. In time honoured human tradition, instead of banding together to solve our problems the war carries on, and now everyone is fighting everyone else.. and Cthulhu. I mean what could go wrong. Aircraft design has taken an odd little turn, and each side is building giat flying battleships to try and deal with the new monsters of the air as well.<br />
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Firstly, I do like the idea of alternative design aircraft. Crimson Skies did this, in part, by using experimental aircraft designs from WW2, and I have a feeling that Dark Skies has done the same as well. The flying fortresses are.. somewhat like the ones in Dystopian Wars, I have to say, but there are very few ways in which you can design giant flying battleships so I'm ok with this. Lastly though, the flying Cthulhu model that you can bring into the game if you want the Eldritch touch.. that is rather wonderful in its own rights.<br />
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It is just <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1768803006/dark-skies-1942-a-15mm-aerial-wargame?ref=category_newest">here</a> if you want a look.<br />
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<b>Deep Madness - Diemension Games</b><br />
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By happen chance all of these games a linking together today. I move from Aircraft and Cthulhu to Cyberpunk and Cthulhu. Deep Madness brings in the idea of the standard Lovecraftian game (investigators finding and then deal with the Eldritch Horrors of the world), but puts it into a futuristic style game where players play against the board to complete missions before they all get eaten by the horrible creatures of an infested facility.<br />
<br />
So as the game progresses, sections of the board are flipped over to add additional locations for the monsters to spawn from. A selection of cards outline either the players abilities or the monsters actions, and turn order alternates between the two forces (player 1 -> monster 1 -> player 2 etc). Players can find items to improve their abilities or give them more firepower, and over time the players try and complete a number of objectives. The book comes with a number of scenarios (board layout and mission objectives) and there certainly seems to be a lot of depth in the game system.<br />
<br />
Some of this reminds me of Zombicide. I don't think that is a bad thing. Especially not when part of what reminds me of that game is the quality of the game components which will be available with the game, and the sheer number of expansion components that they are offering.<br />
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This is <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/diemensiongames/deep-madness?ref=category_newest">here</a> if you want a look.<br />
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<b>Nightlancer - Adversity Games</b><br />
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Managed to get through another link up here, just drop the Cthulhu (say sorry first or he won't be happy) and we go into Cyberpunk overload here. <br />
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Now I have reviewed this game already, and I'm still psyched that I got to play this. I'm going to start with a really simple statement about this game. IT IS GOOD! I don't think I can make this clearer. I've been very lucky to get to play this already and I really really want this to succeed, so please go back this right NOW!<br />
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Ok, so now you have done that let me explain a little bit. If you have ever played (and liked, even a little) Cyberpunk RPG or Shadowrun, or SLA, then this is basically the Card game version of those games. The clearest reflection it makes is with Cyberpunk RPG rather than anything else, but there are aspects that anyone who likes Dark Future type RPGs will be able to make. It also only took a game or two to really get to grips with the basics of the game, and considering how much you get with it thats quite an impressive feat. This card game is packed (with cards), and they have really stepped up the quality of those with the final designs.<br />
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Now clearly I'm trying to get people to buy this, and yes partly that is because there will be money coming out of my account (actually not my account, but my new partners), and she will also be getting a card made in her image if you do. So that will be interesting, seeing if people can find the card that matches. Also, she went for this kickstarter because she helped me playtest the game, and we almost ended up both getting it by accident. Seriously its a good game!<br />
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It is <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/619659500/nightlancer?ref=category_newest">here</a>. Please go back it!<br />
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<b>Moonstone - Goblin King Games</b><br />
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I couldn't keep the chain up forever, so the best way to deal with that is to bring in something really cool, really kind of silly and yet still has some lovely models.<br />
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Now I realise a lot of people are put off by wargames because people take them too seriously. The models become these odd incarnations of quality and importance that a lot of people don't get. Well Moonstone certainly has some very hefty quality, and certainly I can see people attributing personalities and importance, but when you are (clearly?) basing your game around a visual style reminiscent of the Labyrinth, I'm kind of hoping it can also bring in a selection of people who haven't gone near gaming before.<br />
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Moonstone looks cute, in a good way cute. I love the little models, the slightly puppety look of the figures, like someone hired Jim Henderson to do the design work throughout. Also you only appear to need 3 models on each side to get started and that is going to be a massive boost towards getting people to play the game. Stretch goals are wide and varied, and have already brought in the two fairy faction boxes which look really good. I actually believe if I weren't currently trying to save my money to get my car MOT'd then I would already be buying everything this game had to offer.<br />
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It is right <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1138228733/moonstone-fantasy-skirmish-game?ref=category_newest">here</a>, and I think it is worth a go if you can.<br />
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<b>Medici: The Card Game - Grail Games</b><br />
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So this last one is on here, partly as a big thumbs up for bringing back an old game in a new form, but also because I actually do think there is a massive risk in bringing back classic games in the form of a card game.<br />
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I bring this up because of The Settlers of Catan Card game. Designed for 2 players to get through a facsimile of a full game of Catan, the truth of the matter was that there was only a passing nod to the original game and not enough (in my opinion) of the flavour people expected. The daft thing is, if they had made that card game and not called it Catan, then behind was actually a really well worked game. There is always a fear when you name something based on an old classic.<br />
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From what I have seen they have tried to get things to look and feel like the original game, and it has been designed by the original designer of Medici. Therefore, I can only hope that it holds up to the original in some way. It has been designed for 2-6 players, so will have a bit more of the feel of the original as well. Also for about £17 you get a copy of the game as part of the Kickstarter, and additional levels open up forthcoming expansion packs. Its certainly intriguing, especially if you have played the original game.<br />
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Have a look <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1986861668/medici-the-card-game?ref=category_newest">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Back for good?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I'm not promising anything at all, but hopefully I can fit in some more bits and pieces soon. There is a lot of this Real life stuff going on and I'm definitely enjoying it at the same time as making sure it all gets done, so bare with me, and hopefully I can come up with something else to talk about soon.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-63982336316592005092016-09-05T14:20:00.006+01:002016-09-05T14:20:56.087+01:00Curious Pastimes - Renewal 2016<b>In these lands of Siberian, these hot and humid lands.....</b><br />
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So as I mentioned before, there has been a short delay in writing on the blog because I was going to be away at Curious Pastimes for the entirity of the weekend. Well, after recovery on Wednesday (down in Thetford with the guys from the Battlehammer) and going back to work yesterday, I finally think I can get thoughts on to the paper... fine, down onto the screen... and actually give people a bit of a fallout/review of what went on.<br />
<br />
Except for one small issue, I pretty much managed to by pass all of the plot for the entire weekend. I have absolutely no idea how I managed it, but not once did I get involved in the World Plot or any of the my groups (the A'Kesh) faction plot. I must have been in the middle of some sort of plot void for all 4 days of the event. Now partially this is down to what I do as part of this fantastic game world, but before I get into the specifics of Renewal itself, I think I should impart some general background in terms of what I know about CP and what this LARP is actually like. I've been there for 8 years now (CP is 20 years old so I've not even got half of a full understanding of what is going on), and I've sampled the game as both a player, and for the last 3 years as a volunteer faction ref within the Mercenaries. So, lets basically tackle this in a bit of detail.<br />
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<b>LARP</b><br />
<br />
So, the real basics for people who don't know. LARP stands for Live Action Roleplaying, and basically if you take the idea of almost any fantasy book, get real people to play the characters, then get them to wear the correct costume and actually got and have all the fights and conversations in real life out in a field somewhere... well you won't really be close at all to what it is all about but you'll get close to the idea. Common jokes in the community are things like calling it "Cross Country Am-Dram" or "Full contact Cowboys and Indians". The simple thing is it is really hard to explain, but there are aspects of standard RPGs, Cosplay, Medieval Reenactment and camp fire story telling mixed together. Frankly, there isn't really anything better than LARP for allowing you to abandon real life for a bit and go and do/be something else for a while.<br />
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And there in lies the key. LARP isn't about ignoring real life, LARPers in general are from massively dirverse backgrounds and have massively different approaches and outlooks on life. It's about putting it down somewhere safe, that you know you will be back to later and it'll be exactly how you left it, but in the time you are away from it you can just let loose and not have to worry for a while.<br />
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<b>Curious Pastimes</b><br />
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So in terms of LARPs there are quite a few varieties; local club, national system and fest spring to mind, but there are more. CP falls into the Fest variety, and basically to fulfil that mark, most fest systems meet up may be 3 or 4 times a year, but support a site of at least a few hundred people all involved in the game, and a cast and crew dedicated to rolling out NPC charatcers and delivering the story and the plot to as many people as possible over the weekend. In addition to this, most fest systems tend to pull out some immense battles (with half the player base getting into more generic kit and being the bad guys for the day, and then swapping over for the second battle later on). In addition, every now and then a Faction will "go on manuevers" and do a couple of encounters during the day for people to play around with. At least a few systems discard some or all of this in order to include Player vs Player combat (normally the battles are then faction vs faction), or allow the players to generate their own plot rather than supporting an ongoing story from within the crew.<br />
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CP goes with the Crew system, with player vs monster battles, and monster slots. It also has some of the riches plot going in any system I have had a chance to be involved with. The Game Team (the "reffed" members of the crew), as well as the faction commands for each faction, work heavily to write, check and the supply plotlines to the players with the vague hope that everyone will engage with the plot and not try to stear it off a cliff, into a river and through a volcano... invariably adjustments need to be made regularly.<br />
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I've been fortunate enough to play in 3 factions since I joined in 2008, starting with what was then known simply as the Vipers, moving over to the Lions and then being one of the original hangers on to the A'Kesh when they started in 2012. I've not changed character since, which also includes keeping the poor sap alive somehow, and its been one hell of a ride. The "World" plot has moved through from a war against Terror itself (the physical manifestation of it, plus all his mates), and we are now looking at a return to war with the Fae families having fallen out with each other over whether mortals should be allowed to live, and if they really should have a single king or not. Fae are, for want of a better term, Bel.. sorry.<br />
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<b>Renewal 2016</b><br />
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Every year, Renewal runs out as the flagship event for CP. Help near Gerrards Cross, around 800+ people decend on to the site, beginning Thursday (for those that want a social night before the event).. now some people are there before this time to do the work of making a scout campsite look like some part of a fantasy world, but the vast majority start appearing on the Thursday. By 7pm Friday night we are all in, and off we go. Time in called. I enter the mind of Sul, a disgruntled former warrior, a man who has tried to lead his people in war for 3 years, struggled and failed, and due to injury has been forced to change his skills to those of a Ritualist to try and help people that way. Of course, all characters are based on what you think you can play and what you think you can do. Sul started out as a warrior character and then my back started going into spasms last year and it was over to being the ritualist. His personality has always been that he has been a bit of a "nearly man" back home, but now in the world of the factions, he has had the chance to take what he desires and prove how good he is (having fluffed the warrior bit a little as I'm not a good figther, being a ritualist has kind of given me the chance to achieve both parts of Sul's plan).<br />
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So the first thing I did when time in was called.. well it was straight up to the ritual circle to do a ritual 1 hour in.. and thus a lot of running around, getting the necessarily people to help me (leads need contributers), and then telling them what to do in my first ritual for the weekend.<br />
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Rituals are, for the most part, a condensed roleplay dramatisation, put on the for the masses (or lack there of in a lot of cases.. something which is a bit of a shame to be honest). Rituals are performed in a circle (sometimes called the "Circle of Look at Me" - one of the Game Ref's used to do a lot of rituals as a player and is known as look at me!), marked by a ref, and allow you do do a miraid of "mostly permenant" effects on items, other people, or in the world in general. Used mostly as a method of empowering (read this as recharging) magic items, most Factions have dedicated individuals who use a lot of their time getting the rituals right. The Mercs have had it harder, as Mercs don't tend to work together. The idea of a ritual team that works together constantly and doesn't have other things to do all the time.. thats a novelty. Hence the running around before rituals.<br />
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Either way we managed our Friday ritual and then 20 minutes later, with more cat herding we hit our second ritual as well. Both our Friday rituals done, and a bit of dealing to get some other things done more easily the next day. I broke for the night feeling pretty good with myself (after all rituals can and do fail, so 2/2 completed it a nice feeling). It was at this point that I could now roll down my sleves and get into the plot. Except, now the Mercs were on Monster duty. Wrangling up food, and then up to the Ref hut to be confronted with 100 Merc players all ready to give a good showing of themselves. I do love reffing with the Mercs when we gather up these numbers for Monstering. We got to mess around with the ritual circle (its like I can't leave, and Saturday will prove that). Monster slots are 2 hours long, and post the ritual I completely forget what I then went an did. I can not remember a damn thing about the rest of the night (and there was no alcohol involved).<br />
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Saturday, up at 9 and off I went into the Merc camp. In a strange way it was quite a nice morning. I had little to do til midday, where there was an hour long ritual lesson being set. This is something I love about CP, the Game Team put a massive amount of effort into helping the players develop and learn how the game works and what they can do. The Academy of War is a player lead (Game supported) organisation that can let players learn new skills and abilities (something that you are normally capped to one of per year with a maximum of 7 (10 with bonuses)). The college is more of a magical debating and research group, run by both Game and Players in tandem. There are Blacksmith guilds, Surgeon Guild etc etc, all there to help progress fields within the game, and Ritual School is a new one started this year, support by the lovely Zara (special mention here, because Zara has kept pushing my Ritual game since I started last year). We hit the hour long ritual school, and decided to play about with a special ritual to get us all thinking, and immediately afterwards my props and contributers arrived to do our ritual.. which had 2 more items in it than I expected. I was meant to just be renewing 1.. I had a play for 1.. fine. a rewrite of a ritual in 10 minutes and bosh 3/3.<br />
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Right, lunch, because I've been playing now for 3 hours and not had anything to eat yet. Mhorish are my current choice for sustenance. They supply 3 meals every day, and supply a ticket based system where you can buy in to the whole weekend if you so desire. The price is massively discounted, so unless you are just topping up a self catered menu or want to shop around for food then getting the tickets is so worthwhile. <br />
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I've still not encountered a single item of World or Kesh plot. I'm so busy thinking about the ritual I have coming up that I basically spend the next hour or so with a ref radio on and not listening to anyone else. This one is the biggy, the one I've been dreading and looking forward to all weekend. I'm going to make a banner, a really good banner, for a Mercanary group called the Black company. To be honest I've messed them about a bit. I was supposed to start this at event 1, but as people know I flaked out of the event. Event 2 was no better, and at the Event 3 (I actually made it this time) I had no experience of the group of contributers nor they of me, that I cut the ritual down and only did the first part of what was needed (normally parts 1 and 2 can be done together, to then tackle the big part 3 on its own). So.. for my next trick I'll do part 2, and part 3, at the same time.<br />
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I don't really remember the next 10 minutes plus of ritualing. I remember we had to fight our way back to the ritual circle because it got monstered again right before we started. Damn monsters. I remember carrying the banner around while we fought and ran around from fear effect (which amused me a the time seeing as the banner was going to be able to let the Black Company resist that kind of stuff). I remember getting back and demanding the circle let me enter so that I could clean up the mess the monsters had left behind. After that.. its a bit of a blur. I know my directions weren't completely followed from the original plan, but it was close enough that it didn't matter and I could wing it. I know that it went well. I know the Black Compnay that weren't pulled into the circle with me were singing. There was a lot of screaming going on. It was fun. There was an honour guard for me (well probably the banner) when I finished and left the circle. I know we got a complete success. I was pretty happy and 4/4 was good. <br />
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For the life of me, what the hell did we actually do? I mean, yes I still have the bullet point idea in my head, but I'm in that damn circle and I never get to see what we do, how it looks. Slender Pictures if you happened to record this ritual (or any of my rituals) please can I watch them, just send me the clips privately because I actually want to watch one for a change!<br />
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Anyway, banner made.. its a good banner. There is a level up from Complete success which I've not hit yet, but the actual ability of the banner might have made it hard enough as it is. So a complete will do me.<br />
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Saturday rattled through, I'm pretty sure I slept, ate, and somehow missed all interaction with plot. I very very rarely miss interaction with plot. Hell at event 3 I was actively trying to avoid it as I had helped out a little by writing some of the local flavour plot and I somehow managed to get all the way through to the last day when two ladies managed to bump into me and verbatum my plot sheet back at me (well done by the way). The big thing that caught me on the Saturday was the end of the Moredhel.<br />
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Curious Pastimes has had some really long running groups, and the Moredhel were one of the longest. It is such a shame that this group has now seen its time end, especially as one of my close friends was one of the people that had been with them for such a long time. The Moredhel existed when I started in 2008, and some characters haven't changed in that time. Sul has been involved with one of these characters since we joined the factions (she liked my shiny scale armour!) and so seeing her leave was going to be difficult. The Kesh (thankfully) aren't prone to greiving, so instead I got to play angry and grumpy at how the Gods need to be put into their place (because their leaving plot was that their gods insisted they leave). This is not, necessarily, the best way to then have to handle more rituals.<br />
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We managed to be more work on our spear (and I even used one of those cliche endings for my rituals.. "thats a story for another time"). 5/5 and just one more to do for the whole weekend. What I wasn't expecting was to see 3 ritual markers come down for this one.. thats not normal. I actually don't fully know why everyone was there, but I didn't mind. We had a plot ritual to do, something that needed to be sorted out for the Kesh story to keep moving onwards. Its rituals like this where you get to play a little bit. They can still go wrong, the plot changing drastically in one direction or another because of what happens, but plot rituals are more roleplay orientated, its about trying to cast your hand over a story, move the pieces slightly and see where they end up. Its not like renewals where people can have a physical item stop working, there is more of an expectation when people want you to renew things. Plot rituals, they are a lot more fun.<br />
<br />
One of the nicest things about working with the group of people I did over the weekend was how much I trust people to just go to town. I don't like my rituals being completely free reign, there is always a set of bullet points for each ritual that I will mentally rattle down and let people know about. What people say in each section is completely up to them, and its amazing how well the Kesh ritualists and those of the Teutonians that I have worked with pick up on que and run with it. The same happened in the last ritual. It just worked, flowed correctly and had everything we needed. I'm going to try and build more effects and props into my rituals, but knowing that the people I game with can just roll with it is also exceptionally helpful.<br />
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6/6 done... and after that? Well as it happens nothing. I was done for the weekend. <br />
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Ritual running is one of those things that dominates the weekend. May people that do it call it Cat Herding on an epic level, and it really can be. Do you have your plan? Are all the contributers there? Do you have any props or items you might need? What about the actual item or person you are working on? Right time to head off? Oh, and by any chance does anyone have the money... damn it. Once you have done all of the rituals for the weekend you then collapse a little, its all over, and then the nagging happens, the circle of "look at me" starts calling, you want to just jump in and to a few more, some that don't really matter (well not to you anyway). <br />
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I spend Sunday going for food, sleeping, watching a few rituals, and completely missing plot.. again. There was a bit of fall out from the Moredhel leaving, and CP's first big battle of the weekend. As the Akesh were playing and I'm a flaky ritualist with no combat skills or magic at all, the general rule of the Akesh is I don't go near the battle field. That actually came about, In Real Life, because of my back pain. Sadly, even though that is clearer than it has been, its not a limitation on the character due to being paper thin and without enough power to make him worthwhile on the field (I have plans next year). There is something helpful about being able to grab lunch and sleep in this time, but the rest of the day kind of dispersed in a blur. One of my characters original family members, one of the people who helped build the original family idea (something that two of us had kind of stumbled upon due to a single LARP weapon we picked up at an open day at DarkBlade) was gone. To make matters worse he was the last of the original two handed hammer weilders (2 died, 2 left, and me... no longer able to use them). Officially the original Tyanites are now all gone.. its a very odd feeling and I kind of struggled to register it for the rest of the day.<br />
<br />
The long weekend comes to a close with Monday, a mad dash early morning for me so that I can get myself ready to Battle Ref. This is where, as a volunteer, I really get to see the hard work that goes on. The level of planning, the attempts that the Game team take to make sure everything is going to be safe, fun and at the same time seem chaotic and terrifying for the playing factions. In addition, I also have the somewhat entertaining idea of dealing with a faction of players that I normally don't deal with. Now, I'll admit right now, I am not confident with battle reffing.. yet! That is a key thing, even after a couple of years those battles are something you can only learn to handle by being there and doing it (you don't buddy up very often with big battles because they need everyone available to do a job), you will only ever see everything that can happen on a battle field once every now and then. Crushes don't always happen, not near you anyway, so to know what one looks like and how to handle it can be a steep learning curve. Knowing when to stand back and observe or get in to the line and watch.. each thing adds a layer of complixity. However, that is what you are there to do, so the only option is get stuck in. There are plenty more people who know more than me, so if they say something I try to do it, add it to the list in my head as something to watch for and then get going. Being a volunteer is an interesting job.<br />
<br />
There are moments in big battles where you realise how epic these games can become. A huge number of players (not all 800, but a lot of them), storming across the battlefield. A prime example of this was the start. The Monsters had a plan to skirmish and hold the entrace way to the battlefield, once a breach had been made. Instead, the Black Company as a whole charged through the breach, no slow advance, this was a headways sprint at the enemy, and the Monsters scattered, there was no way they would have been able to hold and they reacted, no like automatons set up to be smashed aside, but as real living, breathing, scared troups. Watching the Lions weep over their dead at the end of the fight was possibly the best, brief, outline of how a collective of people can form and care for one another regardless of the fact that it is not real life, isn't serious in any way shape or form, and yet the loss and heartbreak of such things can be well played and heartfelt all at the same time. <br />
<br />
<b>That personal touch</b><br />
<br />
In trying to stop this being a trumped up display of my own ritualing successes and nothing else, what is important to point out is just how well Curious Pastimes gets the idea of trying to get everyone to stop and believe in the world in which they play in. I've lost count of how many different people some of the crew play, how many different characters they have to have a handle on. The organisation of the crew, both overall and their individual control, is amazing and it is what allows people to get so emersed. On top of that, a plethora of event crew make sure the players have everything they need, are cared for in cases of injury, and are safe on the site. Everything which has to work in a real life sense is handled seamlessly, and this means that the game world can just keep going without concern. On top of that, the volunteer refs that I have the pleasure of working with work their socks (IC and OC) off. It is a joy to be part of this team, and while there is always a balancing act between the reffing and the still being a player, there is nothing better than seeing refs get caught out by something they weren't expecting a player to do, or that random comment on the radio which they have to keep straight face for.<br />
<br />
As noted before, then there is plot. So much plot. I don't know for certain, but this is something that seems to be unique in CP. Certainly the explanation I have had from people who play other systems, is that CP the plot is there to find or to have "forced" on you, while other systems its up to the players to make the plot or hunt down the small number of things which are affecting the whole world. To write all of this plot, there is only a small dedicated team (or set of teams, a faction will have their own little team of writers and then the world has its own little one as well). To keep things going with just small groups of people is quite amazing. The number of people I have seen who are saying the first thing they have done since getting home is starting to write or having meetings over next years plot. It is seriously impressive that there are people in this system that are determined to make sure the players have fun and have something to do at every gathering. To each of these people I raise my digital hat.<br />
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I can't deny that I was on the brink of stopping LARP recently. Some of you may have already read my post on social anxiety and what it did to my first event this year. I also know that personal life got in the way of quite a lot of my friends, and people who are important to me, from enjoying this event as well. However, I think there has been enough for me to want to come back and experience the world of Curious Pastimes again next year. Heck I've got a Banquet coming up soon which I really will have a lot of fun with. The winter can feel like a very long and drawn out period of time before the next major event, but with hope I can make a few of the faction events and monster to my hearts content. <br />
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If you are interested, then have a look for Curious Pastimes on Facebook, there are a lot of different groups (the Unofficial page being a good start point) and have a look at all the things that go on there. Hopefully I will have some photos on here soon too from some of the photographers that prowl the battlefield and the camps over the weekend (I just have to ask them nicely).<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-72045066651786695552016-08-22T13:32:00.000+01:002016-08-22T13:32:40.541+01:00Kickstarter #8<b>A Dystopian Celebrity</b><br />
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So it’s a bit later than I planned, but here is the next post on this somewhat haphazard blog of mine. I hope you have kept yourself distracted with the rather good podcasts and youTube channels in my absence. As with my normal posts on Kickstarter, I’m going to go through a few of the interesting projects that are out there at the moment. Certainly, in at least one instance this week, I’ve got myself all in a fluster over one of the options here. I’m pretty sure that people who knew me from back in my University days will understand why (considering it was a game we talked about a lot in the past). Once more, I’ve not play tested or looked at these things before, so this is completely cold in terms of a review of the Kickstarters and what they offer (as well as a little bit of person buzz as well).<br />
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<b>SLA Industries – Daruma Productions</b><br />
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So SLA Industries... Let’s just say that seeing SLA come back in any format is something just a little bit special. This was, back in 1999 when I got to Sheffield Uni, one of those games that myself and my collections of friends somewhat obsessed over. Now, it wasn’t something I ever actually got a chance to play until quite a few years later, but at the time we used to chase around eBay in the vague hope of finding a copy of the rules or the various source books in order to make sure we had everything we needed to play this game. <br />
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To be honest, my little RPG group were fairly obsessed with Cyberpunk/Dystopian future type games. SLA certainly fits that bill, but it comes at the genre with its own rather interesting twist. Unlike games like Cyberpunk and Shadowrun, characters weren’t part of the shady underworld (dealing in jobs that no one else would do). In SLA you were a celebrity, if you wanted to be. You got more money having sponsorship deals and selling TV rights to your missions than you might have earned from the job itself. Well that was one of the options anyway. It was a bit daft, having whole moments of trying to become popular and get more money from fans etc to keep you going in the field. At times it could be really daft, but actually it worked out quite well.<br />
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Daruma Productions and Nightfall Games are brining SLA back as a Skirmish level wargame, and I have to say I’m pretty excited by this. I first saw/heard about this from Straw and Parker over on the Battlehammer channel, and I think it is fair to say that they are also pretty excited about this as well. The miniatures do look really nice, they have certainly looked at getting the style from the original RPG out into miniatures form. <br />
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Now initially when I looked at this, it seemed like this was only for the rules and the faction cards (which I assume are useful), and I was wondering why there weren’t any models in the options. It seems like Daruma have decided to have the models build in over time with the stretch goals, some of which will be purchasable and some which will come in automatically as they are unlocked. I don’t mind that too much at all, because it gives you the option of having all the stats you want and not having to purchase additional boxes of models in order to have a game (after all, there are quite a lot of models out there which will make fairly good proxies for this sort of thing. The models then become a bonus, and as noted before, they do look like they are rather good.<br />
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If this can capture any of the RPGs original feel and style than I will be quite impressed. From what I can tell, it seems to be doing quite well at that. I’ll probably put a bit of money <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darumaproductions/sla-industries-cannibal-sector-1?ref=category_newest">on this</a> myself.<br />
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<b>Eschaton – Archon Games</b><br />
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Ok, so after fanboying a bit, it’s now time to have a look at something which has popped out because of the concept of the game. Eschaton looks really interesting for this very reason. I mean, it’s difficult not to have a look at a Deckbuilding card game based on the idea of building a cult to take on the world. Now, before anyone says anything, this is the sort of fantasy cult you read of in books, with the pitchforks and the torches, living somewhere which is equally fantastical and NOT REAL. Though I’m pretty convinced some of those games exist as well out there.<br />
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Anyway, Eschaton has gone for a really dark and moody scheme. There are quite a few images of the cards on the Kickstarter page, and they look like old fashioned block colour sketches you sometimes get in RPG books (especially those in to old White Wolf Vampire books and the like). The basic premise appears to be that everyone starts with a default cult deck, and then slowly build up your deck over time (as with any other deckbuilder game). <br />
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The difference seems to be that you then use your new, more defined deck to start claiming territories on a map, rather than just gathering points cards or trying to knock your opponents out of the game. This seems to be a somewhat different approach at tackling the same problem, how to get someone to win based on the concept of a rotating set of cards and options. I kind of like the more visual concept towards this problem. I always got a little annoyed with things like Dominion, as ultimately you might feel like you are doing quite well, til that count up moment at the end when someone ends up actually being miles ahead. Now, seeing someone is miles ahead can be disheartening, but it also means you know who to go after and can start planning their downfall. That might actually make things more interesting for some people.<br />
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Anyway, <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/archongames/eschaton-a-cult-strategy-deck-building-game-0?ref=category_newest">Eschalon is here</a>... go have a look<br />
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<b>Exquisite Beasts – Turtle Dream Games LTD</b><br />
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You might have noticed that a lot of the board games I look at are based on them having a bit of a quirky style or an odd premise in terms of the “story” of the game. Exquisite Beasts definitely falls into this category. In addition to that though, this Kickstarter also have a bit of an interesting set of pledge levels. So first off, I’m going to look at what it actually is.<br />
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In Exquisite Beasts, each player plays as a Mad Scientist. For a while now you have all ruled over the city of Pleasantville, perched in your magnificent castle, doing what Mad Scientists do. Well, the citizens are a little bored of this situation now, and a mob is forming. The only option is to build yourself a monster out of the various pieces of ancient creatures lying around, hope that it is a stormy night, and then go out and deal with the mob. While you are at it, perhaps you can knock down a few of your opponents castles in the process.<br />
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This is a multi-phase game. Firstly you see if it is a stormy night so that you can animate your new creation (unless you already have one out and about in the streets that is). Then the mob grows in strength, getting a bit more powerful. Finally you send out your minions to collect pieces, you fight, and deal with any damage being done. It really does sound like a very silly little game and I really like the look of it too. The art is definitely suitable for the sort of game they are looking at, with a slightly comic book/cartoon type vibe to it.<br />
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Now the Pledge levels definitely seem interesting. 35 Euro gets you the game, but you can also pledge less than that to get a Print and play package instead. Now, this isn’t the sort of thing I would look at (I like proper prints of games), but it is only 10 Euro to get that, which is a massive saving if you can do decent prints yourself. 100 or 150 Euros allow you to get your own “image” in the game, either as one of the mob or, at the higher level, one of the Mad Scientists that will be included. Now I don’t have that sort of money, but there is certainly some temptation to be “in” a game in that sort of fashion.<br />
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This definitely looks like a lot of fun. For me, I have to work out if I can afford this on top of SLA industries. Either way, I recommend having a look at this <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/turtledreamgames/exquisite-beast?ref=category_newest">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Real life gaming calls</b><br />
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So, there we have it. I will likely get another something out next week. If I’m sensible about it, I’ll remember to write something about Curious Pastimes. CP is a Fest style LARP which I have been going to since 2008. This weekend is the flagship event for the year (called Renewal) and as such spans out over the entire Back Holiday weekend, involves two massive fights, and generally includes some of the best rounded plot I have experienced since I started poking my head at LARP systems. <br />
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Anyway, enjoy one and all.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-10058668202916331002016-08-16T15:33:00.001+01:002016-08-16T15:33:37.178+01:00Keeping the mind<b>The People out there to listen to or watch</b><br />
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So generally speaking people in the wargaming community are pretty open folks, and there is a lot of getting on with one another and witty sarcasm and the like. As part of that, knowing people who are somewhat famed in the community also comes with an interesting sort of twitch, which I get when going to tournaments. You see, you hear people talking, and you know the voices from hearing them chirping out your phone or via youTube, but you don’t actually know these people in any way shape or form. One of the advantages of only doing a Blog, no one knows what I sound like.<br />
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However, this post is my chance to actually direct you to some of the people I listen to, or watch, as part of my general hobby time (or at work via Podcasts, as it’s generally accepted in an IT office). I’ve tried to break these down, firstly into Podcasts and then YouTube, and as part of that I’ve also outlined the game, or games, that are discussed on those shows. These are, for the most part, people I actually know, but still a few of these I’ve not met in real life, and it’s always a little odd when I see/hear them in real life.<br />
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<b>Podcasts </b><br />
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Malifools 2nd Edition – <i>Malifaux</i><br />
Malifools was the first podcast I started listening to last year when I was getting into Malifaux. They went on a bit of a break recently, byt Malifools 2nd Edition (MF2E) is back and I’m rather glad. Mike, Joel, Matt and Lee have been going over some of the new things in Malifaux, and their general feelings on the game as it stands. <br />
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Breach Boys – <i>Malifaux</i><br />
Sadly on a bit of a break at the moment, but Leigh and Ross have a somewhat different approach to Podcasting. Certainly a touch more of the “childish” humour and adult language level, but the duo break down games they have played, what they think of the community, and their approach to gaming and the hobby.<br />
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Mc’Fauxish – <i>Malifaux</i><br />
Breach Boys Ross goes on a more family friendly wander through his gaming life, and the episodes I have had the chance to listen to are based around his tournament experience. Ross and his opponents break down the game they have just played, and what choices they made. A good listen, as it brings some insight into the way people approach tournament games.<br />
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Before We Begin – <i>Malifaux</i><br />
Dan sets out to find some of the well-known players in the US (and some of our UK locals) and then basically drops them into an arena to see who gets out. Setting the opponents the task of picking crews to play against one another over the Malifaux Vassal mod, Dan gets the players to explain their choices for his listeners.<br />
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Who Cares Who Wins – <i>Guild Ball (and Bushido?)</i><br />
Chris and Steve, with a decidedly adult humour approach to talking about Guild Ball. Mixed with plenty of Guild Ball related thoughts and considerations (Once you get past the first 45 minutes), and remember if Mat Hart is on an episode you are bound to get a spoiler for the upcoming season. Recently joined by Chris (yes another one), who is quite heavily into his Bushido stuff, and there has been a special edition WCWW on that game as well.<br />
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Other mentions (these are podcasts I have, but either aren’t specifically about the games, aren’t ones I listen to a lot, or are relatively new, so I know less about them) –<br />
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Breachside Broadcast (the stories from the books read out like an audiobook)<br />
Double Dodge<br />
Guild Ball Tonight<br />
Tabled<br />
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<b>YouTube</b><br />
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The Battlehammer – <i>Guild Ball, Zombicide, Frostgrave, Wrath of Kings, Gaslands, and more</i><br />
Straw and Parker off their own take on a wide range of games, alongside their own “eclectic” use of the English language, gaming songs, and innuendos. Straw and Parker take you through their own games, bring in gaming celebrities, and take you on road trips around the various Guild Ball Tournaments. Just don’t mention that damn Wizard.<br />
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Who Cares Who Wins – <i>Bushido (and Guild Ball?)</i><br />
Chris (the second one, the new guy) goes through his games of Bushido (normally played against Lee) and also shows progress on painting, terrain/board building and also breaks down the rules of the game. Also contains a couple of videos where Chris (the original (the best?)) and Steve play a bit of Guild Ball.<br />
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Hot Gates Gaming – <i>Guild Ball and The Hobbit</i><br />
I’m not really into The Hobbit game (partly through my antipathy towards Games Workshop), but James does have quite a few games of Guild Ball for people to watch as well. He takes a single team and then plays them against all the Guilds in the game, giving people a look at what he hopes he can do and how each game progresses.<br />
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<b>More to look at and see</b><br />
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These are my current crop of associated Podcasts and YouTube channels that I frequent and subscribe to, and if you are interested in any of the games I play then I recommend each and every one of the above. If your world is more Games Workshop centric than I would point you towards Miniwargaming.com and their YouTube channel, as it is one of the most active war gaming channels out there. For boardgames I think the only place to go really is The Dice Tower. <br />
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I’m still trying to work out what I want to do in these fields, certainly I’d like to get more Bushido content out there some day, as it is one of the systems that I don’t think features enough on Podcasts or on youTube. I quite fancy the idea of doing a general Podcast which covers a range of games. In the end though, I need a working PC and a few people to talk to and record to get that off the ground. One day, one day. Til then, and even afterwards, I think you should all go and listen to/watch the people I have mentioned above.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-46494794534249483912016-07-31T12:17:00.004+01:002016-07-31T12:17:54.143+01:00Kickstarter #7<b>I'm at a loss</b><br />
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So its time for another Kickstarter post, but this week I'm at a loss. I normally try to find four Kickstarters I like the look of, but this week I've only found one. Nothing really jumped out at me, nothing grabbed my attention enough, and ultimately what I've found is something that (if I could afford enough of them) would plausibly solve the issue of board game storage creep. As some people might know I've got a lot of games and little storage space. Anyway, lets at least have a look at this Kickstarter, and I will explain why I like the look of it, but also a few things I think could count against it, or could be improved.<br />
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<b>BitBox - Game-Ovations - LLC</b><br />
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There have always been attempts made to help gamers to store and improve their boardgame collection capacity. Initially the vast majority of these storage options were designed to optomise the way the original game boxes are used. The general introduction of Box organisers (either laser cut mdf, plasticard or foam board) has allowed people to make setting up and storing pieces in the box a lot easier. <br />
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In general this is great, games like Eclipse are a pain for bringing out on the table and setting up, so the box organisers also improve the set up time as you don't have to dig everything out.<br />
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The issue, of course, is you still have to get all the boxes themselves stored somewhere, and that is not always easy. My personal storage unit isn't big enough now for all the games I own, and logically this means I need even more storage somewhere in the house (not actually easy when space is a premium in some houses, such as mine). So internal organisers are good, but collections are still limited by the boxes themselves.<br />
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BitBox allows you to compress everything even more, by eliminating the need for the box, and putting all your games into a specially designed set of file boxes. The benefit here is clear, more games fit into a smaller space. <br />
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The design idea is nothing new, I'm sure I have seen the concept before, but BitBox seems to have a clearer ideal than most. The boxes and organisation seems to have been thought through, and you certainly get a lot for your money. $30 will get you one of the storage units, but the idea is that will then fit 10-16 games (I'd be needing 5 of them based on that estimate). Plus you can get a carry case variant, so that you can move your games around to play with other people. That in itself makes things very interesting. Of course there is something to say for buying these things one at a time when you start collecting, thus spreading the cost, something I wouldn't necessarily be able to do.<br />
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Now, I personally like this Kickstarter because of the size and depth of these boxes. Clearly you could make these yourself from existing file boxes, if you wanted to spend that time. However, these boxes are well laid out, you know for a fact that they have enough space in them for the boards as well as the pieces (something some of these boxes fail to do, meaning boards and rules end up loose elsewhere). You can't quite split everything up as you could with box organisers, but at least there is that.<br />
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There are issues with the idea though. Transferring trays over to the travel case may take longer (if you have to move boards between boxes for instance, if the boards aren't already in the same tray then you'll have to work that all out each time). In the original game boxes that won't be the case. They have got around the issue of knowing what is in each BitBox by having labelled outsides, which I like, but I also like seeing all the official boxes and art work crammed into my cupboard, and I know (because I have this as well) people would be loathed to give up those official boxes, so there is the need for storage just for them (though a watertight store in the loft might do). The thing is the box art can also be the thing to tempt new players into doing something while they visit.<br />
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Finally though, and I do hope I can link Game-Ovations into this post, I really want to be able to have an envelope type thing to put the game boards into before I put them in the game tray. That way I don't have to dig through all the folded up boards in each tray to find the right ones. An extra set of cardboard slips that the boards go into would be ever so helpful, especially if they hand the outside label option as well. Now I'll admit some games have a lot of space requirements for the boards (such as zombicide) but I still thing even using 2-3 of these slips for big games would be easier than lots of game boards being loose and mixed together.<br />
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Even with all those downsides I still like the look of this. Also one of the pledge levels is just outstanding (if miles and miles off my budget at $2000). Pay that much, and Game-Ovations will fly to your house, with an "unlimited" number of boxes, to sit and go through organising your entire collection for you. Sometimes, the height of laziness can be ever so appealing. That said though, I do think that is a unique and rather cool little pledge level.<br />
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There aren't really any stretch goals here, but the produce itself isn't really "expandable" in that way anyway. There is the option of buying extra trays and boxes of course, but I think buying the packages in the set pledge levels is more than enough. The question of course, is the downside of "losing" the box outweighed by the space saving.<br />
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Finally, for those outside the US (the vast majority of my readers), there is quite a postage price on top of the item. Its $30 to the UK for instance. I assume this is due to the bulk rather than the weight, but it is a shame. I'm hoping these sorts of things get over here for retail once the kickstarter is done, at which point some of the postage will be consumed by the retailers rather than having to fall flat on the customer.. sadly we won't know if these even end up being locally sold til a lot later on.<br />
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Anyway. The Kickstarter is <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/game-ovations/bitbox-space-saving-easy-traveling-board-game-stor?ref=category_newest">right here</a> if you do want to look.<br />
<b><br /></b>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-58110473893321240902016-07-20T16:04:00.003+01:002016-07-20T16:04:52.314+01:00A bit of Nostalgia #6<br />
<b>AEG’s little masterpiece</b><br />
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I was going to cheat this week, because I was going to put two different RPGs into my Nostalgia post. Now I did have good reason for this, because both games were heavily based on the same gaming system. In the same way as White Wolf had a single core rule set, that they then hung a decent background and a few special powers off of (please note, I know they still have the single core rule set, but they seem to have forgotten the decent background part in the more modern games they have released), AEG created the Roll and Keep system and then hung two very good settings and a couple of special rules onto. Through this they released Legend of the five Rings (l5R) and 7th Sea. <br />
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I’m still even now debating which one of these two I’m going to look at. They are both fantastic and I was going to do both at the same time, but I think they deserve their own little section in the Nostalgia wings of BGG. So, this blog is going to be about…. 7th Sea.<br />
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Why? Why I hear (absolutely none of) you cry?<br />
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Well, because it’s probably the least well known of the two. L5R has a massive following behind it, a really heavily detailed CCG, new version of the RPG that are constantly being released, and thus still quite a popular following. 7th Sea on the other hand is only just seeing a second edition come out, but someone else, and via Kickstarter, and I never really understood why. The core mechanic is the same, the special rules are actually more fun and certainly more cinematic than L5R, and the setting is… well it’s a fantastical version of Europe, something people might actually know a bit about and be able to join in with. L5R, being oriental in nature, always suffered from the guy who knew a bit about the culture and so would dick around including references in the games that no one else would really know about (and yes, I was that guy).<br />
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So let’s go with the same outline as I have done before. Background, System and then Playing experience.<br />
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<b>Background</b><br />
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Set on the World of Theah, 7th Sea is heavily influenced by 17th century Europe. The topographical view of the game is pretty much the same as Europe, though most of the nations are slightly different is shape and the political nature of each state is also slightly different. In addition the world still has a strong tie to magical arts, and there are a few other bits and pieces kicking around as well which make things every so blatantly different to the real world. Now, it was entirely possible to play the game based on the idea that you were all just adventurers mixing with the local flavours of Theah, but I think it is fair to say that the real draw of 7th Sea was that every was just a little bit Errol Flynn in nature, and a lot of people went with the idea of being Mercanaries for hire, or even better, a small Pirating band.<br />
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The Nations you picked for your character also have a big effect. From which magic you could take (if you were so inclined) to the languages you knew, and most importantly which Swordsmaster schools you could learn from. The Sword schools really were a big part of the game, in fact most people didn’t really play with the magic too much, because the stuff you got to do as a swordsmaster was just so much fun. Either way, a small breakdown of the nations is worthwhile.<br />
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Avalon – Basically the UK, but in this case rather than England having forced Ireland and Scotland into a British style, the three nations (Avalon, Innismore and the Highland Marches) are drawn together in treaty. Queen Elaine rules the country and Fey are very prevalent, especially for those in Innismore. Magic is called Glamour and is about disguise and trickery. The main sword style involves a short sword and buckler (and is basically quite Saxony in style, with a lot of cheap dirty tricks rather than honourable duelling). Avalon isn’t liked much because it just broke away from the Vaticine Church.<br />
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Castille – Spain, right in the midst of the Spanish Inquisition. Castille is home of the Vaticine Church and is a highly vealot nation. Mix into that a bit of Zoro, with El Vago a desperado fighting against the rule of the Church and the strangle hold of certain well off nobles who have paid said church a lot of money to own land etc. Magic is outlawed here, but they have a sword school which uses a Rapier and a lot of dancing to keep people distracted.<br />
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Eisen – Germany, still somewhat in a bad shape after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. In this case Eisen is basically a loose collection of five Noble estates, and the land itself is more or less mud and craters after the wars that occurred over a thirty year period when the country really did go to hell. They do have a rather lucrative metal here though, and that is more or less what has kept the nation going. They do have magic (if I recall correctly it’s somewhat elemental based), but the main thing they have is a sword school dedicated to the old idea of lots of armour, and a really big sword. The school basically uses the idea of soaking up damage to get up close and personal, and using your gauntlets to bash people to the ground so you can stab them.<br />
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Montaigne – France, just slightly before the Revolution, so you have an Emperor and a rather over the top sense of self privilege. Montaigne used to rule quite a lot of territory, but with a general degradation they have stopped being the same power house they used to be, and the peasants are starting to move towards revolting. They have the power to rip holes in reality so that they can create portals (as a note, these casters use a dagger to literally cut a hole in reality, which bleeds as they do it). The sword school is based on rapier and insults. Once you have annoyed your opponent enough they make a mistake, you can then go in for the kill.<br />
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Ussura – Russia, around the time of the Boyers with the reformations of Catherine the Great on the horizon. This very cold and wintery country is just on the edge of modernisation, but some people really don’t like it. Especially those that have a serious case of wanting to keep to the spiritual ways of the people. There is no sword school here, but there is a Magic type, with the ability to connect to spirit animals and shape shift into the various (and rather dangerous) animals of Ussura.<br />
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Vendal – Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia, the time line for these is in the historical renaissance of their culture. Basically this was a time period where the area rapidly swapped to a mercantile set of nations, but in the real world they didn’t forget their heritage. Well in Theah it’s very difficult for them to forget because the Vestenmannavnjar (Vikings) still exist, and really aren’t impressed with their trading neighbours. The Magic school and Sword school are both from the Viking side, with Rune magic (wards and protection spells) going hand in hand with a “sword” school about getting really angry if you get hit and taking that anger out on people’s faces… preferably with an Axe in fact.<br />
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Vodacce – A collective term used in the game in the place of the Merchant States of Italy. Though this isn’t the pretty and nice Italy we think of now. Instead each of the Merchant States works together mostly because they play a great game against each other in the background, and partly because the magic of the nation is only held by woman, and that magic is the ability to manipulate and change Fate. The Sword school is equally devious, with practitioners learning how to fight with their off hand, so that firstly people are confused with things being the wrong way around (remember in this day and age everyone is Right hand dominant, even if they aren’t), and secondly so when you use the dagger in your right hand you can actually use it to attack rather than just defend.<br />
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Now, as I said most games work on the idea that you play a character from one of these nations, and to gather everyone together most games worked on the idea that you had then discarded your ties to your nation for one reason or another. After this, the game then works through the basic mantra of coming up with weird and wacky things to do. <br />
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<b>The system</b><br />
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So, as I said before this uses AEGs roll and keep system. It sounds more complicated than it is.<br />
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Generally, like many games, you had stats and skills, which you have bought at character creation. In combining the numbers of a stat and a skill you would work out how many 10 sided dice you could roll in an activity. For instance, if you wanted to hit someone you add together your Finesse and Attack (sword school) skill. However, after rolling you only get to “keep” a number of dice equal to your stat. Once you have worked out which ones to keep (normally the highest, not always) you would add them together to give you a total.<br />
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This pretty much worked for every single type of check in the game. Damage would involve adding your Brawn to an initial value for the weapon (a rapier might be a 1k1 weapon, a two handed sword might be a 1k3 weapon etc). Health was worked out as being a threshold amount you could take from a damage hit before you took a wound, and being wounded a number of times would knock you out. In a rather interesting way there was also a social “combat” side of the game where you could actually put someone down in a public social situation to the extent that you basically ended their public standing and they had to slink away under your insults. It was, to be honest, quite rare for groups to play the social side of the game, certainly a lot less often than in L5R where the game practically dripped in the political game play.<br />
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I also said that both L5R and 7th Sea added something different to the basic rule set. 7th Sea, in my opinion, had the best addition of the two… Drama dice.<br />
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Every player had a number of Drama dice for their character. In a specific situation a player could choose to add drama dice to a role, in essence increasing not only the amount you could roll, but also the amount you could keep. Drama was the big thing though. Choosing to use the dice when it truly really mattered was fine, and you might get the dice back if the GM was nice. More importantly though, even the most mundane action could be made “dramatic” by the way you tried to do it. Walking down stairs to stab a guy might be important, but it you instead decide to jump from the balcony, grab the chandler above the bar to swing over the head of the rabble, landing just in front of the bad guy, tip your hat and then run him through… well in that case the GM can give you “free” extra dice to roll and keep, just because it is such a cinematic thing to do. Of course, if you keep doing it, keep over dramatizing what you do, then the GM can do the reverse, because your character is just being an idiot if they always try to overdo everything. It was all about kicking the right time to do the big things.<br />
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<b>Game Play</b><br />
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On this account I do not know much, I managed to play one game of 7th Sea (over the course of only a few sessions), but I really liked the game, and I have always been looking to run a game for people. Most of my experience of the Roll and Keep system is from L5R, and what I can tell you from that side of things is that the system flows really nicely.<br />
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I’ve always wondered why L5R was more loved than 7th Sea and honestly I have only come up with a couple of reasons. Firstly people see Oriental stories as being more fantastical than the 17th Century European setting. Partly this is because I think people somewhat riled against a setting which is a little too close to home, something they know a little bit about. The second things I think people didn’t like was the fact that if people mostly played pirates why isn’t the setting somewhere out in the Caribbean, “I mean, that’s where all the pirating stuff happened right”… well no, but I do see your point a little bit. Europe is a big old expanse of land, and the game wants you to move towards doing the pirate side of things, so why set it over here where there is less… well, sea. <br />
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Never the less, this is a good game, and people could easily build the “Spanish Main” into their world and probably do quite well with it. Personally that is what I would likely do and really get into the Errol Flynn daring and dashing cinematic pirate movie... though if anyone happens to make a character called Jack, and isn’t a monkey, I might have to just push them overboard immediately.<br />
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7th Sea was, by all accounts a good game. I just wish I had had the chance to play it more.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-50027770781437880332016-07-19T23:44:00.001+01:002016-07-19T23:52:05.316+01:00Kickstarter #6<b>Oh crap! My childhood returns</b><br />
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Very quick intro here because I want to jump straight away to a really big Big BIG kickstarter. So, here is my kickstarter review, with its whimsical look at four of the current gaming kickstarters out there. Once again, I do not have a copy of these things to play, these are basically my reviews of the kickstarter themselves, though serious one of these I would honestly die for (I wish I had the money for this I really do). So without further a due, I'm opening up my brain and allowing an old friend to start messing with my head again<br />
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<b>System Shock - Nightdive Studios</b><br />
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Sweet mother of mercy, please please please someone, anyone, I throw myself in front of you and beg for this game. Actually, System Shock itself wasn't something I played, but System Shock 2... and just the thought that this Kickstarter going live could possibly mean SS2 comes out at some point as well. I mean honestly, there are very few things in this world that could possibly drag me away from the computer if that were to ever happen.<br />
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Now, it possibly comes as a surprise to people that I, Mr "can't watch a scary movie even at home" would be obsessed with a Sci-Fi horror game. However, please bare this in mind, System Shock was and still is a centenary game. One of those that comes along once in a lifetime and spawns its own genre of gaming. Deus Ex, Bioshock, A lot of the Aliens games (certainly Isolation) all come from System Shock. I can (and probably should) put together a nostalgia post about System Shock 2. Around 2002 I played it for the first time when the multiplayer mod came out. In 2006 I trawled eBay and forked out £50 for this game. It was release in 1999, and even seven years later it was worth having. It still sits pretty at the top of my favourite PC games list. Shodan is, and always will be, one of the best PC game villains of all time and I am so happy to see she is back.<br />
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So back to the Kickstarter. With the recent run of remastered games, I jumped when I saw this. The video intro is a little corny, but well worth the watch, and as you would expect the stretch goals are about multiplatform and additional content in the game. What really makes this kickstarter is that you can already see they are most of the way through production. Graphic shots, game play, music scores, all done. So this Kickstarter is basically to refine the game and then get it out to people. Instant win, and dear lord you will not regret it if this is anything even close to the original.<br />
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8 days left, $30 for a digital copy of the game. Go <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598858095/system-shock?ref=hero">look at it now</a> and get yourself an absolute masterpiece of a game in next gen clothing.<br />
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<b>Battle of Britain - PSC Games</b><br />
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So how do you move on from such a massive remake. How about with another absolutely corking remake of another classic.<br />
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Now, I've never been lucky enough to play the original Battle of Britain board game, but from everything I have ever heard or seen on the original it really does warrant the title of classic. I'm sure from the title you can guess what the game is about, but in a nutshell it really is the opportunity to recreate and rerun one of the most important parts of British history.<br />
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Now, with the correct hat on (ie not the one gushing over the fact that people keep remaking classic games that are impossible to get hold of in the original form), I'm going to look over the kickstarter. First and foremost, the video will tell you far far more than I can on this simple blog. It seems that the Plastic Soldier Company is basically releasing the original game, with refined rules for sections where they were a little weaker, and then adding some really nice 3d sculpts of the aircraft in as well, just to spoil people. This kickstarter is well past all of its current stretch goals and the variety of miniature you are going to get (at a cut down RRP) really does look very very tempting.<br />
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Look over it <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1992455033/battle-of-britain/description">here</a> for more information.<br />
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<b>Vampire Hunters - Dark Gate Games</b><br />
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Ok so something new, Vampire Hunters looks like a really good game. You'd be forgiven for thinking this is just a Vampire version of Zombiecide, but on looking (and listening) a little more you will quickly notice that this has a lot more going into it, and there are some really nicely themed mechanics to get the distinct feel of the game well out into the open.<br />
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A few things that I picked up on really quickly though, the Minis are really really nice. I mean really nice. Someone has put a lot of effort into working out what this game is going to look like and feel like through those minis. In addition it really does look like the rest of the pieces that have gone into the game have been thought through in detail, from the customisation in the game board (the bit that will make you think of zombiecide), to all of the cards, the art work and the general widgets that come with the game. For a start, the hour counter is really very pretty, and the mechanic they have for it is pretty interesting.<br />
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Now, once you watch the game play video you really do get the idea that this is a very different game. The Vampire activate based on cards, but after each player.. during the day anyway. At night the order is reversed (and so are the vampire cards, making them harder during the day). There are logical ways to play the game in a campaign as well, with points being usable to upgrade the characters between games. This is something I've never really been happy about with Zombiecide's campaign play, because everything resets. So I really think this is a good move. And hey, if you die during a game you can always flip the character over and be a vampire for a while....<br />
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It does look rather tasty, so go have a look <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1900818244/vampire-hunters-0?ref=category_newest">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Darkness Sabotage - Dethrone Games</b><br />
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Sometimes I just like to indulge in some truely gorgeous miniatures board games, and this one hits the nail right on the head. While the wheat and chaff enemy models in Darkness Sabotage are simple, some of the boss models are just stunning. I mean one of the ones shown in a picture of the board game is just unbelievable in scale.<br />
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So this possibly joins up three genres that most people would look sideways at and never put together. But Dethrone Games have gone for a Space Pirates vs Demons board game, and what they have come up with is just... well eye catching is not doing it justice.<br />
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Again, it looks like the board is modular in design, giving you plenty of options in terms of games. The art work on the kickstarter page is something else. And serious I have to come back to those models, I mean blimey they are something else.<br />
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This looks like a truely immense cooperative game, with a variety of different scenarios to go with the game. Some of which look really good. Dice based mechanics for combat, a bunch of cards for your pirates to "steal" or set off on board the ship you have found. I still can't register how good these models are either.<br />
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Go have a nose <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dezoku/darkness-sabotage-the-board-game?ref=category_newest">here</a>.<br />
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<b>The wrap up</b><br />
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Four things, all of which I want to have, and that is quite a rarity. If I had the capacity to have them all I would, but I just don't. I hope some of you find a few things you like here though and go and support these kickstarters.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-75103374213789500392016-07-19T14:58:00.002+01:002016-07-19T15:51:18.767+01:00Real life, the bane of all gamers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Whoops!</b><br />
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Yes, I know, I’ve been ignoring the blog for a few weeks. After reviewing my first prototype game you surely can give me a bit of slack? No? Right, well screw you guys!<br />
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Ok, in all seriousness, real life gets in the way sometimes. I find myself in a position that people generally don’t ever envisage, which is of someone who has become solely responsible for himself after some time of not being. That done, all paperwork signed. I’m not going to say I like it, because I don’t, it is not something that I ever wanted, but there it is, and I have a bit more to have to do than I thought I did to get myself in order and get my life going in the direction I want (and hope) it might go now. So, yeah, I’ve been a bit busy, and therefore neglected my blog.<br />
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In addition to that, I’ve somewhat been caught up in a PC game. Well as often as I can, because my PC is also being pathetic, Radeon don’t seem to like making Windows 10 drivers, and my graphics card is a little outdated and prone to crashing everything and anything it can get its hands on. However, when I can play, I’ve been playing Overwatch. I really really like Overwatch. I’m not going to review it though. I think there are plenty of websites and video game youtubers out there to already show you what it is all like. So go have a look.<br />
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It does tie in to a few other things though. So, because I like Overwatch, a lot (I hope this is becoming clearer), I’ve been watching all the youtube videos (made by people such as Muslek and Flik) and have been thinking over if I want to do some videos myself. Now, I have actually done a couple. I did an unboxing of the phase 2 CMON Black Plague kickstarter, I also did a short review of a Feldher bag that I’m using for my Guild Ball models, and if you want to look for me on youtube I am around, but I’ve not really put the time and effort into it that I would like. I’ve considered doing gaming videos (board games, guild ball/malifaux/Bushido, video games), but generally I think there are enough people out there that do them. Well may be not the wargaming, Guildball Informer having gone into the mist more or less leaves those Battlehammer chaps, and Hot Gates Gaming, to cover that game. Some bloke called Chris Hay does Bushido stuff, and Malifaux is.. well there are a lot of games out there, but most aren’t just straight battle report videos. Anyway, there are people out there doing those things, and I don’t want to step on toes. Straw and Parker, from the Battlehammer, are amazing guys (genuinely) and I personally know I couldn’t match what they do long term (for a start I don’t have the duo dynamic they have together, though don’t ask which one is the sidekick). Hot Gates Gaming works because of the enthusiasm expressed through the camera, and those that know me know it takes a lot to get me to be enthusiastic (well at least to express it, beyond one of my goofy smiles). Anyway, I don’t have the money to get the boards and the terrain, let alone the camera to record with. If I can’t afford that, then can I really do videos?<br />
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So the other option out there these days is Podcasts. A Big Grumpy Gamer podcast sounds like a laugh, but do I really do something like that on my own? What would I do it about? I mean, I don’t generally stay on topic at the best of times on here. I do love Podcasts though, TotesMcAwesome from the Battlehammer was going to look at doing one, and that really piqued my interest again in the format. That, and I’m rather fortunate to know McPigish and Bucky from the Breach Boys Podcast (though I sadly have not seen them of late because I’m too damn busy!). I still want to work out what on earth to do the Podcast on if I do one. Well, I say that, but if you listen to most podcasts they are a rambling path of random conversations mixed in with a bit of wargaming. This is more or less my life, though there is a bit more boardgaming or computer gaming in there, dependent on the people I’m with. So maybe this is something I could do, though again, I don’t really have the dynamic duo mix, or even a group to record with. I do think Podcasts about gaming work better when there are more people involved in them (even if the herding of cats issue does rear its ugly head from time to time).<br />
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I’ll have to see if Mr McAwesome still wants to do some sound checks perhaps…<br />
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This blog is not dead though, I’ve been ignoring it as it laments on the bottom of people’s least likely to follow list (it’s not actually doing badly to be honest, considering I work on the good graces of others to share it. So to those that have shared what I write thank you), but it really isn’t dead. I’m quite impressed with myself for vaguely remembering to come back to it from time to time. My hobby time is limited right now though (have I mentioned I’m rather busy and playing a lot of Overwatch?), but I want to get a few more games of Guild Ball in, learn how to play Bushido, meet some more people and generally mess about. If anyone happens to fancy a meet up (I can drive, but if you aren’t busy I’m in the Sheffield area!) then please either find me on Facebook, Twitter or even leave a comment here. I’m pretty sure I can sort out some sort of time. <br />
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Anyway, there is more to come, honest. I’ll even be doing a Kickstarter review again… possibly even tonight... now that would be something.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-8126362714810235592016-07-04T10:03:00.001+01:002016-07-08T08:37:23.391+01:00Nightlancer review - A little case in the Cyberwar<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Nightlancer – Adversity Games</b></div>
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You find me at an interesting point in my “career” as a blog writer. Sat, looking at me across my gaming table (its a completely fictitious term, the truth is its really my dining room table) is a copy of a very very new game. In fact its so new that it isn't even out yet, heck its not even in production yet. What I have in front of me is a copy of <a href="http://www.facebook.com/NightlancerGame">Nightlancer</a>, a game which is going to be hitting Kickstater in the next few months. So the initial thing to say here is, considering my blog has been going for all of three months, thank you ever so much to <a href="http://www.adversitygames.com/">Adversity Games</a> for considering me as a reviewer.</div>
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That aside, what we are going to do right now is look into this game in as much detail as I can muster. There is a lot to say as well about it. Quite frankly considering this game is in prototype mode there really is a lot of well rounded ideas in the box, and you can likely guess that my overall judgment on this game is going to be very positive. I'm somewhat loathed that I have to send this copy off to the next reviewer if I am honest. I'm going to, within this review, go through the background of the game, the overall turn mechanics and then a kind of hightlights and lowlights section (for what its worth the lowlights really are few and far between).</div>
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Now, I'm going to add a small comment from <a href="http://www.adversitygames.com/">Adversity Games</a> here, the game was in prototype phase so the graphical content of the game is going to be worked over before it hits kickstater. The box art gives you an idea of what they are aiming for, and if that is the case then anyone who has played Cyberpunk 2020 than you will have a pretty good idea of what the art work is going to be like. The whole game has that genre at its very heart, and certainly you can tell that they really are looking at condensing the feel of that RPG into a semi-cooperative/competitive game. That last part being quite important so read down later if you want to see what I mean.</div>
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<b>Background</b></div>
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So the background.. set in 2099 the world is in the grips of geopolitical turmoil and dystopian disasters. Humanity begins to use cybertechnology and narcotics to basically try to forget the rubbish of the world, and become more than human. While this is opposed by some groups, the rich use these vices to “transcend” the state of being human. Do it too quickly though you might find yourself less than human. These techshocked individuals form raging bands and police control slips, further dividing the rich and poor, as slums become insecure zones. You play a Nightlancer, someone willing to take on dark jobs and use even darker cybertech or weaponary to give you the chance of affording a way out of the slums.</div>
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So, this is definitely a staple of roleplay game communities, with several games reaching into this post-human, dystopian ideal, but I've not seen many board/card games that delve into it. Sure there is Shadowrun out there and the recently funded Oligarchy card game, but it hasn't been a major genre outside of RPGs. While this means it certainly triggers a certain amount of comparison with RPGs, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/NightlancerGame">Nightlancer</a> certainly doesn't suffer under its Grandad's shadow.</div>
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<b>Gameplay</b></div>
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Predominantly <a href="http://www.facebook.com/NightlancerGame">Nightlancer</a> is a character progression style card game. There are a lot of decks to look after, and this can be quite daunting at first. Certainly there is a reasonably large set up time, but there are two very handy organisation boards to make sure everything can be set out easily enough. Going though them then, there is the Blackmarket deck (for cyberwear, weapons and other items that you can buy), the Contacts deck (which you get at least two of each turn and can affect skill rolls, or grant more of the other cards), the Agendas deck (which you can use to gain points, or some of them allow you to maintain your ideals), the Skills deck (which you get a number of each time you finish a mission, and can buy one of if you want, adding permanent boosts to your skill values), the Missions decks (Low and High difficulty), and the Events deck (which tell you how many missions of each type to use each turn, and then sets an immediate challenge to all or some players). In the first game looking at all of this was a bit of a headache, but actually each deck has very specific times when they are used, and following the board around can be done by which deck you are using each time.</div>
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At the start of the game you set the various decks up, and then turn over an Event card (you get 8 in total, 4 early events and 4 late events). Using that card you then turn over the correct missions, open up the black market cards for the turn and hand out contacts. Then you take the event test, which is normally a skill test. Picking a missions to do then finishes off the prep stage of the game. The Street phase allows you to buy points, complete an agenda, take out a loan, or buy a single card from the black market. We only did one of these things, so working out if we wanted something to complete your mission was also a bit of a risk reward as you can't do anything else. However, in light of a conversation this morning with <a href="http://www.adversitygames.com/">Adversity Games</a>, you actually get to keep going around (in turn order) til everyone has passed, and I think this is definitely a far better idea, as it makes the loan mechanic far more appealing, and obviously the option of completing more than one agenda and still buying items is really handy. In the end trying to figure out if you should be using the money you have to get the points you need at the end of the game, or pick up those nice Cyberclaws so you have a better chance at a fight you know will be on your mission can be vital, and not being limited to one or the other will certainly help.</div>
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The mission phase resolves around taking at least three tests to try and get to the end. I've deliberately skipped a bit of the Prep phase hear because it'll be easier to explain now. When you pick your missions you do it in the current turn order, and being the first person on a mission makes you the primary person in the first team. People can offer to join you, and if you accept then you basically get someone along who will make the same tests as you, and between you the highest result is then used to see if you pass. Of course you can say no, at which point they can do the same mission in the second team slot. Should you both get to test number 3 then you have to fight each other to see who actually gets the chance to try and complete the mission. Losing a gun fight is really harsh, as you lose all life and a point of ideal (if you have zero health you aren't out, but if you have zero ideal you can't win the game). Lastly, if you have the right contact card you can lock out the second team space on a mission, making it yours and no one elses to run through. This is where the semi-cooperative/competitive thing really shows up in detail.</div>
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The tests for each mission basically fall into either standard challenges or combat challenges. Each of the characters has base skill levels and these can be boosted by items or skills. Now there is a lot to go through with those, but skills are always on, cyberweapons are also permanent, but you can only use one weapon in any one test, so you'll need to decide if the cyberweapon is the one you want each time. “Normal” items are limited, firstly by a carry limit of three, but some missions you need to be sneaky or quiet (so that big old sniper rifle has to stay at home). Add up your points, roll the dice and see if you beat the number. If so move on to the next test. If not, you might find yourself shaken (unable to carry on, but also safe from the next event), just outright failing, being followed by the police, or in an outright gunfight (and as we know from above, loosing a gunfight is pretty serious). Standard challenges can also have special “flavours”, which require additional cards in order to even be able to pick that option, whereas Combat challenges automatically cost health.</div>
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The game lasts 8 rounds, and each time you work through the same steps. You can choose to miss picking a mission, which you do need to do because it reduces your heat (how interested the police are in you) and lets you fully heal up. After the game ends you work out your score, based on the points you have gain during the game from cards or buying points. Then you also add points for the money you have stored up, the ideals you have left, and lose points for any loans or heat you still have. Highest score wins.</div>
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<b>Highlights</b></div>
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Firstly, this is a really well put together game idea. There is just enough of a strategic edge to it without it being overawing, the cards have enough different options on them that you don't feel each one has limited uses, and there are plenty of strategies to winning each game.</div>
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It didn't take too long to work out how to play it. We missed a few rules each play through, and honest they make a big difference to the game, but they didn't stop the game being playable, so it is quite forgiving if you forget things</div>
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There are a lot of these semi-cooperative games that fall over because the competitive side is an afterthought at the end of the game. There are plenty of ways in Nightlancer to really make things harder for other players and keep it competitive.</div>
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Even with it being a prototype there was enough in the box to keep track of everything, and I do love any game that gives you a clear organisation method.</div>
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Going back to the background, this is a pretty unique genre for board games, and it doesn't stumble in terms of keeping the background in the look and feel of the game.</div>
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One of people in the first group I played it with said its not a game they would turn down playing again, and they aren't anywhere near as involved in the board gaming world.</div>
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<b>Lowlights</b></div>
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I personally think there were a lot of symbols to have to remember. Now I personally think there are a lot of ways to deal with this, and certainly I think a lot of this will be solved with the move from prototype to production.</div>
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Lastly, the amount that goes out onto the table might well put off a group that has no gaming experience at all. This wouldn't fall into my gateway games list.</div>
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<b>Overall</b></div>
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I really really like this game, and I will likely be putting money on the kickstarter when it comes out. I really felt that after playing this a couple of times I well on the way to working out exactly how the game worked, and we didn't really have to pick up the rulebook that often when we played it the second time around. I am looking forward to how the design moves forward. It also fits a very good gap in my games list, as I don't have many “light” strategy games where there are many options for winning and also a direct set of confrontation options. The fact that it can stand alone, not just as a game in my collection, but also side by side with the roleplay games that also fit this genre. I can see me showing this game to people who know, and play, a lot of other games. I really can see some of my normal gaming group really enjoying this game, and certainly there will be avenues they will open up that we didn't see a lot of over the weekend (certainly someone I know will really like playing the negative effect of cards on their opponents, which we did little of in the games we played). It has that scope for people to play it in different ways and each option will be viable to get the win.<br />
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There were a couple of hiccups because we missed rules, I do, however, think a lot of that will be the normal rush through of the rules, and some aspects of the rulebook needing a little reworking. I'd also be quite interested in the event cards having a long term effect over the missions as well, just to add even more re-playability to the game (not that there isn't already a lot of that anyway)</div>
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This is a solid 7.5/10 game, but also one that might well go further up the scale the more it is played and the more options you get to see. Each game also doesn't go through all of the mission cards and there are more than eight of the event cards in the box, so there is definitely a lot of re-playability anyway.</div>
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<b>The Important bits</b></div>
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The Nightlancer game has a facebook page which can be found at <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.facebook.com/NightlancerGame&source=gmail&ust=1467705277705000&usg=AFQjCNHCtKoHAfJ2gviifS0d5-iffSEv4w" href="http://www.facebook.com/NightlancerGame" style="color: #7e57c2; position: relative; z-index: 0;" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/<wbr></wbr>NightlancerGame</a></div>
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The images used on this page are from the Nightlancer page itself (as you will see)</div>
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Adversity Games themselves can also be found on the following pages </div>
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<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.adversitygames.com&source=gmail&ust=1467705277705000&usg=AFQjCNHIlxM9NtB-UEoGgHcJN7ZCC5452w" href="http://www.adversitygames.com/" style="color: #7e57c2; position: relative; z-index: 0;" target="_blank">http://www.adversitygames.com</a><br />
<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.facebook.com/adversitygames&source=gmail&ust=1467705277705000&usg=AFQjCNHwIC2uYq2s2lCScNklGMQh6JaVKA" href="http://www.facebook.com/adversitygames" style="color: #7e57c2; position: relative; z-index: 0;" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/<wbr></wbr>adversitygames</a><br />
<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://twitter.com/adversitygames&source=gmail&ust=1467705277705000&usg=AFQjCNHKmiZi8u-nSsm1MgNWL9YDPMKpPQ" href="http://twitter.com/adversitygames" style="color: #7e57c2; position: relative; z-index: 0;" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/<wbr></wbr>adversitygames</a></div>
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It is well worth a look around the various pages, and I have added links throughout this post for Nightlancer itself so curiosity should have got the better of you by now surely.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-22583311143527368162016-06-18T23:52:00.001+01:002016-06-27T11:09:48.060+01:00Blood, Sweat and Tears - Metaphorically<b>Guild Ball tournament review</b><br />
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I'm almost slumped over my keyboard as I write this. It's a really good sort of tired, not the type of tired I got from Malifaux tournaments where I would immediately have to get home and fall sleep due to the mind numbing headache that I would have. I'm not entirely sure why Malifaux used to make me get headaches. I would think on it, but it involves brain power I really don't have right now.<br />
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Today was a lot of fun though, even the vicious defeats were still a giggle. Guild Ball, even in tournament games, just seem to be a massively social game. So, here is a review of my five games (means I've now played nine games in total of Guild Ball, and I have to say I'm definitely hooked on this). I took Midas and friends (Flask, Calculus, Vitriol, Compound, Venin, Mercury and Snakeskin), though I only ever swapped out once the whole tournament. I can't remember the exact details of the game, but I'm going to highlight if I can<br />
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<b>Game 1 - Pete Coyle (Union)</b><br />
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So game one was my first time against Union. I was somewhat worried about what was going to happen here, having no idea of how to play against a team genuinely makes life a little harder. So I decided to bring in my "normal" team, if such a thing is possible after four games. I had Midas, Flask, Calculus, Compound, Venin and Vitriol. Pete had Blackheart, Coin, Mist, Gutter, Averice and Greed, and Rage.<br />
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So, from this game I learnt a couple of tricks certainly. Firstly Mist is amazingly fast, but doesn't do so well when he gets pushed off the side of the pitch by Midas. Admittedly this left Midas out of most of the rest of the game (only appearing again at the end to kill Gutter; she didn't get to hang around long in most of the match), but it was definitely funny.<br />
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Rage hates Venin, with a burning passion. More accurately he really doesn't like Venin standing next to him for most of the game and throwing Sacrificial puppet on him. Without anyone else around to do anything to him, redirecting the first hit back to Rage stops him getting his additional free hit. There are ways to break this trick, but that did sort of mess him up.<br />
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Also Vitriol has serious anger issues, running up with the ball, scoring a goal and then killing everything that came near her was definitely good.<br />
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I managed a 12-8 win, with one goal and four take outs. Pete, I think, got 4 take outs. It was a cracking game. At one point we were at 8 all, but there was no way that Pete could take anyone out due to the Venin speed bump in the middle.<br />
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<b>Game 2 - Rob Smith (Butchers)</b><br />
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I realised my mistake immediately. Winning the first game meant I was playing someone way more experienced that me, and to make matters worse I was playing against Butchers (who I hadn't experienced yet). Ox, Princess, Tenderiser, Brisket, Shank, Boiler and Rage lined up against me, and in a vague hope I could slow down the incoming mess I swapped out Calculus for Mercury. Sadly, it really didn't work out so well.<br />
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It's difficult to explain what happened. I spread out, but not enough that Rob couldn't chain this kills together. I over committed Midas and Mercury (twice) and an experienced player was well and truly able to take advantage of it. That said, it was still a good game. Rob made sure he explained where I made mistakes as the game progressed, and gave me plenty of ideas of future reference. I was actually amazed as to how much Rob went through the game with me, and I really appreciate it a lot.<br />
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It was a 12-0 loss and all through take outs, painful painful take outs. Butchers are able to output masses of damage, and even Venin couldn't pull off his damage redirection shenanigans, he was just folded up and sent to the sidelines in a little box. (I also forgot to take a photo before, during or after this game, I really wasn't thinking).<br />
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<b>Game 3 - Mat Cook (Fishermen)</b><br />
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Yay, a team I've played before. Mat Cook took the male voice choir of the Fishermen (Shark, Salt, Sakana, Greyscales, Kraken and Jak). I'd gone back to Calculus, I'm not sure why, it just made sense. Winning the initial dice roll helped, I thought, but Shark still got to the ball even with it being almost all the way back on my start line with Vitriol. With a little bit of tackling back and forth Shark scored the first goal and Jak had managed to punt Venin off the board. I wasn't impressed and I was 6-0 down already. However, the situation was such that Midas was now in the middle of the board on his own, and had managed to take where'd they go off of Greyscales.<br />
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My normal thought with Fish is that I can't outscore them, but I can kill them if I get my hands on them, but I just couldn't work out how to get to them. With Midas on his own though, and a good kick out, I managed to immediately score back, and the resultant kick out really wasn't good for the fish. While Greyscales got to the ball first, Midas was then able to get over to the right side of the board to get in the way. Fourth turn Midas, first unpredictable moving out of the way of Jak's ramming speed and then dodged around and stole the ball from Greyscales, more dodges and running later and I'd managed to get to another goal.<br />
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Shark did end up with the ball again, and promptly scored. With the fish on a 10-8 lead and absolutely no damage on any of the fish anywhere I had one option. A bad kick out to Vitriol, I lost the ball and Sakana booted it to the middle of the pitch. A badly wounded Venin ran up and booted it towards Midas, but Salt managed to nick it. Jak shoved Venin out the way, but Midas was still lurking and stole the ball and took the last shot of the game.<br />
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This was the only instance of the Midas show, with the rest of the team running about after the fish just to get in the way. In my opinion a really really lucky 12-10 win for me.. really lucky.<br />
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<b>Game 4 - David Millington (Moticians)</b><br />
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I've played these before too.. not like this though. It all started so well.<br />
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Having kicked off to the Morticians I took a big gamble and sent Vitriol off at pace to steal the ball and score a goal. At the same time Cosset did the crazy lady thing and went off to hit Midas. Sadly in range and in sight of Compound, who punted her to the floor and Midas went a little postal on her. 6-0 up, great start.<br />
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So Midas still had influence, Obulus was in sight and unable to get away, great though I, I'll go have a go at him. Apparently I can't hit the broadside of a barn when I need to. Midas let me down. At this point the coral began. Midas was beaten off the board and then everyone else just started sucking up damage. Once everyone was low a pumped up Obulus and David's Rage just went to town. I lost 4 models in one turn, and having already lost Midas once I was 10-6 down and had 2 models on the board. Before anyone could get back and lend a hand Obulus had sized up Compound and found him wanting. I couldn't even hold on long enough to take out a 3 health Silence who was stood right next to Compound and looking like he would die.<br />
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It was an interesting game though, if for nothing else than seeing Mortician's played as a killing faction rather than a scoring one. I'm going to have to give Obulus some more thought, or actually kill him when I have the chance!<br />
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<b>Game 5 - James Reece (Brewers)</b><br />
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I did it again, I forgot to take pictures in this game.. thankfully I already had a picture of James' best painted Brewers team.<br />
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So there was a chance we would only have four games, all that had to happen was James had to win his fourth game. He did not, so I got the fun and games of playing against him for game five.<br />
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Now James I know, I played against him in a Dystopian Wars tournament a couple of years back, and in fact in Malifaux last year (I'd completely forgotten this til I got home). We'd caught up a bit during the day and it was really cool to get to play him again. He fielded what I would assume is a standard-ish Tapper team, with Spigot, Scum, Friday, Hooper and Hemlocke. <br />
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There were so many things going on here. James loaded one side of the board with all his models, but fortunately for me, I was receiving the ball. The other thing I was quite happy about was that the side the ball was kicked to was fairly tight, and Venin was there. He didn't last long, but did enough to hold the Brewers back. In the meantime, Midas and Vitriol went off and scored, and poor Hooper got steamrollered (card and metaphorically) by Midas and Vitriol in the following turn. In the meantime the rest of the Alchemist team where tarpitting the Brewers, just living through each of the Tapper rounds and then jumping up, healing and lobbing poison on everything. I actually had all 5 poison tokens I own out at one point.<br />
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So, yes, being lumped on one side and with Hooper back on the Brewers did get the ball, and get it to Friday.. who promptly tried to score.. and missed. So I did have 2 people around her, one of whom was also blocking her line to the goal completely, but still. She missed. I actually think the game hinged on this one moment. Calculus, just back on after being Trapper'd, bounced into action, grabbed the ball and punted it straight to Vitriol. Still out on her own in the middle scoring a goal was a given, and even though Spigot and Trapper promptly killed Compound they did it too close to Friday, who got herself covered in Compound bits and had to leave the field, meaning I only needed one kill. Spigot, the poor lad, promptly got picked on by Midas and I managed to win the game 12-8.<br />
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<b>Review over</b><br />
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Five mad and really good games. I'm not actually sure how I'm awake at this time. I'm now going to go out and unpack and clean out the car as I haven't for a while and I have a very very good and full week coming. So, I bid you a due and here is hoping I can stay awake long enough.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-57623668700644829172016-06-06T16:37:00.000+01:002016-06-06T16:46:44.857+01:00A bit of Nostalgia #5<b>Scale of Complexity can sometimes be good.</b><br />
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Another Nostalgia post, which basically is a good thing because it means I'm getting back on track with keeping this thing up to date. Once again I'm going back to a game which I used to play, and haven't had the chance to continue playing for a little while. In this instance we are going to look at another roleplaying game. As with last time I'm going to cover what I see as the three main areas of a game: The background, the system, and then the enjoyment level.<br />
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Though, always remember, as with any RPG, some games can win or lose depending on who introduced you to it and ran the games. Believe me, the following game was not for the faint-hearted.<br />
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<b>To Parlainth you say? Piss off!</b><br />
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Welcome to one of the most complicated games I have ever played. Thing is though, Earthdawn did it with such aplomb that you very easily forgave it all its complexities. The main thing, however, that drove all of this forgiveness was just how different it was, to anything else on the market. Earthdawn is a classic, a classic which continues to be developed, but in my opinion it is the second edition of the game that was always worth a really close look at. Unlike Deadlands, however, even the later versions of the game have used the same system, the same background and the same fiddly dice mechanics of the original. So lets start with the background.<br />
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Welcome to Earth (yes it is meant to be this earth, just a slightly different version of it). Unlike in our written history, the truth about the Earth is that is goes through a cycle of magic rising and falling. As magic drops the only thing that is left behind is humanity (and over time our technology), but as magic rises more and more species and "things" can exist. In fact Earthdawn is set in the same universe as Shadowrun, with Shadowrun basically being set when magic starts to rapidly ascend again. Anyway, back to the nostalgia. The last time magic was on the rise (quite a long time ago), an Elven scholar realised that at the height of the magic cycle a rather nasty set of creatures called Horrors come into being. These things not only feed on the massive amount of magic, but also any living thing that contains it. Plus, those tasty morsels are even more appetising when they are saturated with Fear. Of course it doesn't help that all name-giving races are inherently magical, even the humans (and there are rather a lot of them). <br />
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So our Elf decides that he has to work out how to beat, or at least survive, the arrival of the Horrors. Starting as just a library, and over time expanding to a grand city, then the Theran Empire. The empire traded the secrets they discovered for slaves from around the local area, ultimately demanding tribute to get the clever wards and protective mechanisms the other nations needed to get through the Cataclysm to come. With the spells and plans of Thera, the people build huge underground cities to protect their people, mostly using the wards designed by the Theran Empire to stop the Horrors getting in. Problem was, in some places it happened far too soon. Some Kaer's weren't even ready, others only just sealed the gates in time. However, when the Horrors came, more people lived through the event than perhaps would have done before.<br />
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The game world starts just 400 years after all of this (just?). Players come from an area called Barsaive, where the Kaer's have begun to open again. The world outside is a mess, creatures that once where normal and passive are now aggressive and changed. That's just the fuana, flora and the land itself aren't much better. More importantly for the characters though, the local Dwarven Kingdom of Throal aren't willing to be a slave nation anymore, and have rebelled against what little forces of Thera are up and about already. Some Kaer's still sleep, and it is clear that others either opened far sooner, or were broken into by the Horrors. There is also a sneaking suspicion that not all of the Horrors are gone, and that while it is the weaker Horrors that are left, a weak Horror isn't exactly pleasant to meet.<br />
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<b>Taking it one step at a time</b><br />
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So the principle of the Earthdawn mechanics was extremely complicated to the uninitiated. Certainly reading the rulebook wasn't a sure fire way of learning how the game worked. I once said to someone that "should you ever want to play Earthdawn, make sure at least half of the group have already played it before". Doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement I know, but all that I meant by it was that for novice players it could be a little daunting.<br />
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The good stuff of Earthdawn was that there wasn't any of the standard troupe about races and classes.<br />
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There were no evil races, and there weren't any evil classes. They were just things. A lot of things. Races are easy to go through; Humans, Dwarves (the main race of the area), Elves, Orcs, Trolls, Windlings (small faeries who were annoying but not kleptomaniacs), Tskrang (Aquatic Lizardmen) and Obsidimen (walking Rock people). As I said, nothing was evil, you could play pretty much who you wanted (though there were some benefits and drawbacks to more or less all of them).<br />
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I don't think I can list all of the classes, there were so many, but I will highlight a few: Warrior, Sky Pirate, Necromancer, Elementalist, Duelist, Ranger, Archer, Acrobat.. it went on an on, with more being added to the list each time a new source book came out. The classes were actually called Adepts, and this was because every single hero kind of used magic. The idea was that anyone in Barsaive could, and often had to be, a bit of a soldier, but the heroes knew how to tap into the innate magic of the world to do even more impressive things. To represent this, you could buy skills, and this is where it got really complicated.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yUwS17PPR7Y/V1WX6grJTEI/AAAAAAAAA34/RQCjYVQ0Nscrda_zADelD8WwElK0MB07ACLcB/s1600/earthdawn___map_of_barsaive_by_digitalsushi.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="137" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yUwS17PPR7Y/V1WX6grJTEI/AAAAAAAAA34/RQCjYVQ0Nscrda_zADelD8WwElK0MB07ACLcB/s200/earthdawn___map_of_barsaive_by_digitalsushi.png" width="200" /></a>Each "step" you bought in a skill made you better at that skill. With me so far I assume. However, unlike other games, instead of increasing how much of a + you got to your roll, or changing the target number, instead it completely changed the dice you got to roll to do your skill checks. Step 1 was 1d4-2, step 2 was 1d4-1 and step 3 was 1d4.. easy enough so far. Step 4 was 1d6, 5 was 1d8, etc etc. by step 8 you got to 2d6 and then up to 1d8+1d6... it was a good job the step table was on the character sheet in 2nd edition. Modifiers, like fear, generally changed which step you were on, so it could get very complicated.<br />
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Magic, actually lets say spell casting because it is different, was also a new experience for any long term player. Unlike DnD, where you picked a spell, rolled a dice and saw if it worked, a true Spellcaster could be using up some of their actions, or even rounds, "building" their spell. The game paid you off for this delay, by generally allowing you to blow the head off of something you hit (if you hit) that a warrior may have to spend some time actually hurting, but that whole click and boom approach to magic just wasn't there.<br />
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<b>So was this actually fun?</b><br />
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Dear lord yes. <br />
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So here is the thing. After a while a +1 each level of a skill is just boring. You don't get a scale of power. Those click and boom spells are great, but sometimes you are horribly reliant on them (and there was a way to get something like it in Earthdawn, but I don't have enough time here). As a spell caster in Earthdawn you really felt the raw and hard work you had to go through the get magic to do what you wanted, and sometimes the soul crushing horror when you can make the spell form, but can't actually throw it in the right direction.<br />
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The background, also, made sure that the game worked. Remember what I said about everyone out there can be a soldier, but only the heroes could do the cool things. Well, at rank 1 you were more or less the guy that was a soldier, you weren't much better than the normal people in the world. So you start out doing the same thing they do, man the lines, hold back the local animals who aren't quite right, deal with the small time crones and crooks. Do it enough though, and you really feel things shift around you, suddenly you are the daring heroes running in to save the army against the Horrors, you are meeting the Blood Elves of Thornwood (not actually the best idea) and diving into Parlainth as it reappears from the mist (a terrible idea). <br />
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What Earthdawn does, extremely well, is the concept of scale. Not only of how much more powerful you become, but the scale of the world, the scale of the dangers and the scale of change from being a new Hero to something seriously special. Yet at the same time, you could easily be put back into a box and slapped about a bit if you got too big for your boots.<br />
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Plus the diversity of what you could play. It might well be daunting at first, but there were few games which allowed you to truly be something different each and every time you made a character and progressed them through the ranks. Warhammer Fantasy RPG is probably the only game I have played that really made you feel like your character was growing and advancing in a unique way. WFRPG probably does it better, but thats for another post.<br />
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There are four editions of this game now. A game so good that when the original company went <br />
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under (FASA), it was then picked up by two other companies, before coming back to the resurrected FASA for the fourth edition. I do recommend 2nd edition (though 4th simplifies some of the dice steps so might be less daunting). I stand by the idea that it is a rulebook you have to really read to understand, and even then having a helpful few friends that have also read it will make a difference.<br />
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And never, ever, go to Parlainth.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-91460577657313551462016-06-03T20:06:00.001+01:002016-06-03T20:06:38.976+01:00Kickstarter #5<b>Back on track</b><br />
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Yes, its back. Same as before, I will look through kickstarter and bring you four (this time) kickstarters that I really like the look of. Once more, I have not been given copies of these games or items (mores the pity), and so these aren't reviews of the items themselves, and so this basically comes down to the fact that these kickstarters have done a lot to catch my interest just through what is on their page. While I'd like to back them all, sadly I'm on a tight budget, so I might not get the chance, but hopefully a few of you out there will pick these up based on them being on my blog.<br />
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<b>Legendary Showdown: Gamer's Quest - Killer Robot Games</b><br />
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I've got no idea if this is based on the Legendary/Legendary:Encoutners type system. I am going to guess so, but it really is a guess.<br />
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I suppose the thing that draws me to this game is the setting, because its the ctrl-alt-delete universe. Which just has to be a good thing, and likely means that while this game is based on a competitive card versus card system, at least its going to be funny. Certainly is the advertising video is anything to go by there is going to be a lot of tongue in cheek fun involved in this game.<br />
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I also really like the artwork, which is obviously by the ctrl-alt-delete team. I think that will help with this game being a lot of fun, and I certainly think it will be nice for the fans to see the correct art work for each of the characters and powers that you get to use.<br />
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The rewards for picking this up over kickstarter are also quite interesting. There are collectors coins, fridge magnets, and a few other silly bits and pieces.<b> </b>Stretch goals include new characters, new cards, and some oversize cards as well. Plus there is a collectors edition if you pledge high enough with even more stuff in it and a special unrevealed bit of box art.<br />
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Legendary is something we already play in our little gaming group, so something else along those lines would be really good. However, I'm not sure if Showdown is the same type of game. Will be interesting to find out. It is <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/killer-robot-games/legendary-showdown-gamers-quest">here</a> if you want a look.<br />
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<b>Dreamwars - Royal Art Games</b><br />
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So... its steampunk, which is a win in my book. Plus it has weird horror monsters for you to fight against. I don't think there was any way I wasn't going to be interested in this at least a little bit.<br />
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Dreamwars looks like it has a lot going for it. The artwork on the board alone looks really good, they have a "random encounter" style play book which means each game you get different things happening, you have a character card which allows you to track everything that is going on. All in all this looks like a really neat game.<br />
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The big thing here for me, once you get past all the art and the style of the game, is that Ordeals book. The fact that they have the ability to randomise the way in which the game progresses is really good, because a lot of these sorts of boardgames can lose interest once they get predictable. While a lot of games are going for this "the board also plays" kind of mechanic, it never gets old on me. Pandemic (with its infection deck), Betrayal (with its traitor book), etc etc mean that those cooperative games are infinitely replayable (well may be not Betrayal, because you do learn what each encounter does in the long run). I'm hoping this comes up the same.<br />
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The miniatures for the heroes also look really good. Stretch goals look really good, I really like the idea of Rose Black the Queen of Guns. Have a look at it <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/royalartgames/dreamwars-steampunk-horror-board-game-0">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Vikings Gone Wild - Lucky Duck Games</b><br />
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This is based on a video game I have actually no idea about. I'm going to have to do research after this and find out more.<br />
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Vikings Gone Wild is a Versus deckbuilder game, where you use gold to by buildings and beer to by Vikings. Makes a lot of sense to me. Buildings, however, don't go into your deck to be played, they drop down into your pay area permanently and by the seems of things have effects on every turn you still have them.<br />
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Scoring is done by attacking your opponents buildings, which obviously also helps because you knock out any benefit the building has. There are also cards you can only get once you have a certain number of points.<br />
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Deck building games are a little bit of a hit and miss for me, mostly because you don't actually get to interact with your opponent generally. If someone is doing really well, if their deck is jelling really well, then you very rarely get to do anything about it. I have a feeling this is going to be a little bit more interactive, which can only be a good thing.<br />
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There are a hell of a lot of stretch goals already open, but that might be because this kickstarter only has 6 days left to go. I almost missed it, but thankfully not. The art is a lot of fun too, plus there are decent organisation boards being made for it, so unlike some Deck Builders this should be easy to manage too. It's <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/372651021/vikings-gone-wild-the-board-game">here</a> if you want to look, but go quickly.<br />
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<b>Oligarchy - Gary Wareham</b><br />
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I remember the Illuminati game, by Steve Jackson Games. I also have a copy of, though never played, Netrunner 2.0. There is something about the style of these types of games that really plays into my Dystopian Sci-Fi nerdery. Its the kind of Nerdery that knows exactly where my copies of Bladerunner and Fifth Element are on my DVD shelf. <br />
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Oligarchy seems to take the Dystopian future ideas which are in Resistance and Coup, and moves it into a CCG/LCG kind of arena. Certainly looking at the play examples in the original advert video, it has a feeling of being along those sort of one on one card games (a bit like Magic, rather than Netrunner). Players play as one of eight "organisations" and using characters, resources, events and many other types of cards, try to knock your opponent out of the game.<br />
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Art work looks good, but I think the big thing for me is that this is a market which is dominated by Magic, Yugioh, and L5R (all of which are fantasy based games), bringing in something with a different feel is really important. You can get into this game for just £20, which is really good, and higher pledge levels will give you a decent range of boosters. Have to say this is the sort of Kickstarter than I think a collection of card players at a local club should dive into. It does look like a decent game, and that is always helpful.<br />
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It does look really good. I also noticed, via photos because I'm not able to make it, that this is being demo'd at the UK Games Expo this weekend, so I really hope this picks up really well. If you are interested in this, than have a look <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/379668630/oligarchy-a-dystopian-card-game">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Thats better...</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
So thats it this week. Feels better to be back into the kickstarter searching. I may look at if this is going to happen every week still or if this will be once every two weeks, simply because more options open up that way and finding four really interesting games should happen more often than now. I will try and decide soon. Have fun at the Expo if you are there folks. Hopefully more soon.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-81606962992287189182016-06-01T12:22:00.000+01:002016-06-01T12:22:36.173+01:00Designing a gaming board<b>Bushido blossom garden</b><br />
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I'm getting a bit lax at updating this, apologies for that. My excuse is that I've been working heavily on getting my Guild Ball team finished, and that work is actually busy so I haven't had a lot of free time to actually get the posts completed and put up during my lunch breaks etc.<br />
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As such, I'm a few weeks behind on what I planned to put up. It seems a bit silly now to put up all the old Kickstarter ones I had written, and as such I'm going to spend some time tonight sorting all of that out and putting up a decent sized blog post on Kickstarter stuff. The Nostalgia posts are the ones that took a big hit, things I had planned to write are still swimming around in the void (otherwise known as my brain), but they just aren't in an editing window yet.<br />
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Rather than dwell though, the plan here is to look at my next big personal target. I am finally going to put some effort in to make a decent gaming board.<br />
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<b>Bushido</b><br />
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So, considering I play quite a few games, I have to work out what I want to make a board for. Bushido is going to be the clear winner here, even if I haven't played it yet, simply because its actually a reasonable target to experiment with. Bushido only needs a 2' x 2' board, the smallest of the games I play. This should cut down on cost, and time, so thats a reasonable start point. While I could tackle something for Guild Ball, a pitch is not really going to be enough of a challenge in terms of modelling hobby, as.. well its flat and basically you don't want fixed terrain features. Plus they already produce some really nice "mouse mat" pitches. Malifaux and Mythos lose out for now, simply because of the size of the board. I haven't even started sorting out my Dark Age stuff so thats also going to be on hold. Of course the 2' x 2' board also means I can fit in working on it while I'm working through my backlog of commission work.<br />
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The final decider though is the setting. I'm a huge nerd when it comes to Japanese historical culture. I don't know a lot, but I love every detail I do know. <br />
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Also, if I can, I want to run a Bushido tournament at some point within a year. If I'm going to do that then I need a few good boards for people to play on. Japanese village boards will be good to make in the long run, but there is something I want for my first board, something a little special.<br />
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<b>Cherry Blossom</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
So this picture is pretty much the inspiration for what I'm going to be going for. Cherry Blossom trees are/were very important for the Samurai, and gardens were carefully cared for. As such, my feature board is going to be based off the idea of a Cherry Blossom Garden.<br />
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The Centre point of the board will be a small shrine area. The shrine will need to be an open enough structure that objective markers can fit inside for some of the scenarios. In addition I need to think about the spaces around that for the other markers that are in the game. <br />
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I want to include a couple of bridges and some water effects to do rivers encircling the shrine. All of this needs to fit into the confines that I have already mentioned in terms of objectives, plus of course the board has to be relatively even, so there isn't an obvious benefit on either side of the board.<br />
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Then there is the last bit, the Cherry Blossom trees.. which isn't easy as their aren't really that many good options online. This might mean I have to work out how to make my own.<br />
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<b>Stage One</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
So the first step will actually be drawing the design, possibly on paper first and then scanning it over to computer to just neaten everything up. It'll also mean I can make sure that all the spaces for the objective markers are going to work out. Once that is done then I will be working on getting the materials together (I partly have this already as I have got the wooden base for making a game board already). I don't want a completely flat design, but on a 2' x 2' area anything exceptionally hilly will likely stop the models being able to fit on the board, so I have to think about how I'm going to do this. <br />
I've got some ideas as well for how to do the trees, but I'm definitely concerned that they will fall apart over time, so thats going to take a bit of thinking through.<br />
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<b>In the meantime</b><br />
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I'm just going to put my Guild Ball painting up on here as well, just because. It at least will show you what I have been up to with my time.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-34624046522116669562016-05-23T11:51:00.001+01:002016-05-23T11:51:15.202+01:00Ghosts, Superheroes and Mad Inventors<b>Board Games for the weekend</b><br />
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I'm going to have to finally accept that my Birthday week is over, and that I should get back to actually concentrating on real life for a little while at least. However, just to prolong things a little further I'm going to do a short collection of reviews for the three games I played this weekend. I managed to join a couple of reasonably local friends on Sunday afternoon and we rattled through 3 different games.<br />
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<b>Steampunk Rally</b><br />
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So this was the first time our little group had played this game. I picked it up from Sanctuary Gaming Centre a while back, but just hadn't really had chance to play it. The way the game works isn't overly hard, but it isn't overly easy either. We certainly found that we learnt it quicker by playing it, than by trying to explain it to each other.<br />
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Its played in multiple stages, but to be honest it feels like two parts that repeat. Part 1 is drafting "component" cards, and either fixing them to your vehicle, or selling them for dice or cogs for use in Part 2. Part 2 is then "venting" dice from your card, rolling dice and adding them to your card (allowing you to move, or gain shields etc) and then finally taking damage. I personally think that Part 2 is the most complex section of the game, knowing that dice that are already on your vehicle are basically just taking up space now and don't mean anything at all, venting isn't about removing dice, but just lowering the value on them til they hit 0, damage is done after everything so you can deliberately damage your vehicle before you roll dice in the hope you can get enough shields to ignore it all. <br />
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Having said all that, it was a lot of fun. I lost, by a mile, but seeing one tiny vehicle getting by with just one type of dice and a lot of careful shielding, while the other person up front (who won) having tons of parts, and at the end letting the entire back end of the invention get blow to pieces so that he could cross the finish line before anyone else could get to him. Was good fun, and certainly something we worked out quickly enough that we could have a lot of fun as the game progressed.<br />
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<b>Mysterium</b><br />
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This game is really good. We've played this before, so it was really just a chance to indulge in a game people wanted to mess around with. It is also quite a pretty game, with all the components, especially the ghost screen, being really well made.<br />
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Firstly this is a co-op game. With three players (the minimum) you get one ghost and two mediums. The ghost is going to try and give the players clues in order to identify a murder, location and weapon (each) and then finally information to point at the actual murder from the suspects (in a three player game the mediums have to play two characters, thus you end up with 4 suspects). However, to do this the ghost can only use Dream/Vision cards. These are a lot like the cards from Dixit, so its all very particular combinations and the artwork is slightly surreal. Through the cards, the Mediums have to guess which Person, then location, and then weapon they are being given. If you can get all three right in seven turns (and all the other characters do as well), then the ghost gets another set of cards and can choose three to try and direct the players to the correct combination (the ghost picks which combination they like).<br />
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With more players the game gets more involved, but we have only played this with three so far. I do like this game a lot, there is definitely a few interesting moments where the ghost (having to stay quiet) will get a little bit freaked out by what the players think they are trying to say with the Vision cards, and it definitely helps to know the way that someone else thinks. It can be a little slow for the players while the Ghost tries to work out which Vision cards they want to use each time, and I think that is the only real downside of the game. <br />
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Overall though, Mysterium is a cracking little game, and its quite sedate, doesn't involve confrontation, and its quite funny to go through the process of chatting as characters about what the ghost has given each player.<br />
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<b>Legendary</b><br />
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Specifically the Marvel version of the Legendary franchise. We've played this one a few times, only once have we really struggled with it when we tried to take on Apocalypse. This weekend we ended up going through three separate runs of the game and thankfully we finished each one, normally with a massive flare of face smashing as one or more of our decks fit together to produce some sort of obscure killing machine.<br />
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There are a lot of components in this game, so I'm going to be quite brief on its workings. You build a Hero deck, which is basically the "powers" of five different heroes, some of which are fighting based, so which are recruitment based (allowing you to buy other powers), and added in there are special combination abilities that make cards better if you play other cards with certain symbols on them, or other cards with certain costs etc. There is a Villians deck, which is the bad guys you have to fight, and then there is a Mastermind who you have to kill to win the game.<br />
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Again, this is another game I like, though I do sometimes wish you played as a set hero each and could buy in your own cards, rather than mix and match. Having said that, this is why we have Sentinels of the Multiverse (another game we should play more). It is good when you get the powers from multiple heroes working together into some sort of massive unstoppable machine, its just reminding yourself that you are basically playing each "scene" of the adventure, rather than playing one of the heroes. The cards are very nice, the whole set up takes a while but it does work really well, and the play board keeps everything organised really well.<br />
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<b>Millstone</b><br />
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So it's back to the millstone now, which is work and then getting models painted up and ready to play with. My Alchemists are pretty close to being done now, just a little bit more NMM work and then the "little" bits like flasks, vials and stitching. I'll be then moving on to doing work with the commission work, with a sneaky bit of work done on the Bushido models. Hopefully those can then be completed really soon as well.<br />
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I'll also be onto the Nostalgia post (either later today or tomorrow), looking at Earthdawn. Plus there will be a Kickstarter post done as well in the next couple of days considering I've not done one for two weekends now.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-31728496419458903372016-05-20T12:10:00.001+01:002016-05-20T13:16:01.915+01:00Long time no see<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>It's been one of those weeks</b><br />
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Not necessarily in a bad way, just one of those weeks.<br />
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So I've not posted for a while and that is because this week say me hit 35 years on this blue rock. As such the weekend gone, and this weekend coming have been/are filled with lots of things to do, lots of people to see, and generally not time at all to write blog posts. I have no issues with any of this, in fact I very much look forward to this weekend.<br />
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Of course there is a tinge of annoyance, as my car decided to mostly self destruct just before my birthday. £400 worth of repairs is not a good birthday present.. especially when its me that has to pay.<br />
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However, this is a hobby blog, and while I resembled the grumpy remark on Monday I can at least claim I got some hobby done this week. As you can see from the first picture I've been painting up guild ball models. It's taking me a lot of time, I'm not as 100% into the painting mindset as I would like. If anyone doesn't know, there are people who are mostly gamers and don't like painting, there are some painting enthusiasts who aren't big gamers, there are the rare few people who are just both at all times, and then there are people like me. The ones who shift back and forth between the two points, and will have moments of just wanting to play the games, and others where painting is a blast and gets done really quickly. I'm in a gaming mood right now, so the painting is on slow motion. Still, the Alchemists are getting close to done, and then I will be looking at build a goal and painting up some commission work.<br />
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The Saturday gone was Vengeance, which sadly I didn't have a ticket for. Something about only getting into Guild Ball after it was sold out, and not having finished painting models anyway. Either way, with a few people I do know being there, and it being a 128 person tournament (the biggest GB tournament ever), I decided to go have a look. At just over an hour away as well, its not a bad little drive when you have nothing to do. I got there just as Game 3 was starting and I have to say it looked like one hell of a huge event. How on earth the GBinformer guys kept themselves from having an anxiety attack while running the tournament I don't know. It was really good to see everyone, and considering it was birthday weekend part 1 I decided to spend a bit of money.<br />
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<b>Dark Age</b><br />
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So the first thing I picked up was the Dragyri Fire Caste starter set for Dark Age. These are one of the Alien races for the Post Apocalyptic system. As with many games these days it is a 32mm system, but these guys are huge. There are only three models in the box set, but rather than being on 30mm bases, these three barely fit onto their 40mm bases. Actually as it happened I got three 50mm bases and have had to email Cool Mini or Not to get some replacements (which they responded to very quickly and the new bases are on the way soon).<br />
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So first out of the box was the Volcanic Helot (the one without the shield). She is a full metal model, which was fine, apart from the skirt, which came in two separate parts, which weren't quite shaped correctly and would not stay on the model. I ended up creating two drill points to put a "shelf" of pins into place to tie everything down to at the back. I'm going to have to fill them in later. There was also a lot of use of pliers to push everything into the right shape. Having said all that though, its a lovely, big, model. A normal 32mm model next to her barely gets to waist height.<br />
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The Volcanic Phalanx (the other lady of the show) is an absolutely lovely Resin model. The spear is a little bendy, but beyond that it was pretty simple to put together. Don't quite know why the pose on the head doesn't quite seem to match the one in the picture, but other that that it really is very pretty. the Resin looks good, feels slightly brittle perhaps, and there may be a couple of patches which aren't quite perfect, but its still really good.<br />
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The leader of the Pack is the Spirit Lord. I love this model, but in equal measures it drove me insane as well. The vast majority of the model goes together really well, but the "cloak" was in two pieces and again they didn't actually sit on the model at all correctly. the small piece that goes over his shoulder wouldn't sit straight, and in trying to hot water bend it into place I ended up snapping it instead. This means it now fits, but I'm going to have to paint it well to hide the problem.<br />
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Even with all that though, these models are lovely. I'm going to want to spend a lot of time on them, because they are so big and because they have a lot of NMM work to do to make them look right. If I'm in the right mood its the sort of challenge I'm going to enjoy. Having done steel and gold NMM on my Alchemists, its going to be fun to work out Chrome and Bronze too.<br />
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I think Dark Age is on my list of really nice models that I might game with from time to time, but not often (I'll probably have to go down to Thetford for this one).<br />
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<b>Bushido</b><br />
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I also picked up some Bushido, I really didn't like my bank account on this day.<br />
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All I got was the Ito Clan starter set, but I have to say I think I will pick up more of these and I certainly want to start getting this played locally, because its a nice game with quite a few unique quirks to make it interesting, while at the same time having enough of a similarity to Guild Ball and Malifaux that I think I know a few people that would like it. Just wish there were more places to get tokens from.<br />
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Anyway, models (cus this is a hobby blog). So lets start with Itsunagi Ito, who is the "leader" in the set. I put that in quote marks because I haven't noticed any specifics about leaders in your war band. In this case Itsunagi just costs more than anyone else. Model wise he was really simple, though I had to do a bit of filing and cutting to get everything to fit. The Daisho on his belt came as a separate piece that tucked in under some cloth wraps at his back. The seating area for this had some major flash in it so I had to work on that to get it all in, but it wasn't too hard. His right arm was fixed with a mold around his upper muscle, his left was a flat surface glue where there is a bit of cord around his arm. This wasn't great because lining up the arm and getting the right orientation was beyond me.<br />
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The lovely lady with the hair fan is Sakura. Nothing really to say with her, the right arm is a separate piece, and can easily be put on close to or away from the body. I went with close to the body for the added contact surface. The hair fan is also another piece, but it caused no issues at all. The model is really good, nice and simple in design and I quite like it.<br />
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Obviously there is a guy with a Snake head at the back. Thats the big thing about Ito Clan, they are all "blessed" by the Snake Kami and some of them get gifts. Akimoto is one such model that has gained snake features, and for him its his face that has changed first. his Wakizashi on his belt was a simple small fit, and his left arm was separate. I had a bit of gapping issues so I'm working on filling those in, but the model itself is still pretty good. <br />
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Possibly the most awkward models where the two Bushi. The Male Bushi as a right arm piece that includes the blade being draw out of the scabbard, so there is a bit of effort in twisting the piece around so that it sits right on the scabbard on in the right hand sleeve. The annoyance is on the scabbard itself, because the length of it is a separate piece as well (in both cases), without any indents to really get the things to sit straight or flat. I'm eternally fearful of them just being knocked off. They are so thin as well that there isn't really a good way to pin them, so its just hope (and I may magnetically transport these guys) that is going to keep it all together. The female Bushi (who can also be used as a character) also has a separate pony tail. I won't even being to comment on that.<br />
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I'm looking at painting these up using L5R Scorpion Clan colours (as both as the sneaky shady type clans in each respective game world), so there will lots of Red and Black going on. Looking forward to actually gaming with these guys soon.<br />
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<b>Games, Glorious Games</b><br />
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So my plan is to try and get some games in, certainly of Bushido and Guild Ball (Guild Ball models need to be finished first I admit, and that won't happen this weekend), and then Dark Age once the right bases arrive. I've put my Bushido models into their bases already, and I'm going to base them up and then paint them on the bases, which is something I would normally not do. That way I can play Bushido with the unpainted models and just do them when I have a bit of free time. The same will apply to the Dark Age models.<br />
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So, Mr Hay, Mr Parker and Mr Straw... and anyone else interested. Anyone fancy a game or two?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-68419260540681234132016-05-10T14:07:00.001+01:002016-05-10T14:20:36.865+01:00Finding a new game<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Or how to convince yourself not to buy more stuff</b><br />
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I'm an obsessive/compulsive gamer. I think most people who have been gaming for a while are, by default, always looking at and considering what the next thing to buy is. I would say that for the vast majority of people it will be the next thing coming from GW that will give them an edge, or will at least help them keep up with the power creep. People tend to settle into their big system, be it 40K, or Malifaux, and a lot of the money they spend on that game. The decisions that people have are based on if they want to expand what they have now, or buy in to a whole new faction. I certainly used to be like that. This year as going to be my year to buy into a new faction in Malifaux, just keeping my Neverborn ticking over with new models and then adding in the Gremlin faction.<br />
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Things can easily change it would appear. Its not that I went off Malifaux, I just wanted something else to play. Downside is now, I want a lot of things to play. So, the question is, based on what I want to do, why have I not bothered, and what is it that will make me buy into a new game. I'm going to look at what goes through my own head when I want something new, and at the end also touch on what I think this means in terms of new games wanting to Kickstarter successfully. Partly that is on the back of Mythos having a hard time getting across the line at the moment.<br />
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<b>Considerations when getting into a game</b><br />
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1 - The models: Lets face it, the first thing that will get you interested in a game are the models. I can not even vaguely imagine that people get into a game by ignoring everything but the rulebook, and then looking at the models for the game. Models are the impact point, and so they have to look good to drag people in and over to the books. So the first thing is they have to have an aesthetic that I like, not necessarily all models, but there have to be enough to make it "look" good. In addition they have to be in a material I trust. Now, cost wise I may go for a material I don't like, but certainly I will be more interested in a model range if it comes in good Resin or Hard Plastic, and less interest if they use Soft Plastic, or Restic. Metal falls in the middle for me, because I hate how hard it is to protect the paint on Metal models. Thing is it is the easiest way to make reasonably priced models with good detail levels, so I can suffer the metal problems.<br />
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2 - Fluff: Otherwise known as background or setting. A game needs to have some sort of story behind it which captures the attention. It doesn't really matter what the genre (Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror) is, so long as the stories that have been written for the game get my attention enough. People tend to gravitate towards what they like in terms of genre anyway, but I need something to get me to want to buy into the game. For me, this does eliminate historical games, because there is no fluff or story, and that is kind of key to me. If there is a rich story to start with, then each of my social games fits into a huge chain of events, and I can imagine just how the games narrative will work because of it.<br />
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3 - Range: This one is an interesting thing to look at. I don't mean I want a game with hundreds of different models in it (The issue that 40k has in my opinion), but I want a game where there are enough different "Factions" to make each game different enough that it is interesting. I also want a game where there are components outside of the models themselves that assist in the game. Finally, within each faction, I want enough "balanced" choices that I get to mix and match and find different ways to play within my own group of models. Its a big balancing act, which a lot of companies are now doing really well (and which 40k doesn't). <br />
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4 - Price: Don't think I need to explain this, but price comes in as a major factor. Smaller games with lower model counts are definitely more appealing when you don't have a vast income. The same applies for things like the books, and being able to download them for free is a big bonus (Steamforged topping the charts here because its not just the rules you can download, but also the fluff, something a lot of companies cut out of their free versions). Price won't completely stop me getting into a game, but knowing I might have to put a £300 dent in my account to just about have a playable force certainly will make me think twice about it.<br />
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5 - Community: This is the killer for me, and kills off a lot of games I want to play. The issue is that smaller games have smaller communities generally. I live in Worksop, a town at the very north of the Midlands, and local gamers are few and far between. Now, this is a Uk perspective, but by local I mean someone who can get to my house or I can get to theirs after a day at work and still fit in a full sized game without missing out on a decent dinner and perhaps some time to relax at home first. Its that incidental ability to just call someone up and see if they are free for a game when I'm bored. Smaller games, therefore, tend to be less likely to have the local community. The solution to that is local clubs... which, sadly in my opinion, tend to be dominated by the headline games. If I were to show up to a local club I could be 100% certain that most people would be playing 40k or Star Wars: X-Wing. Any other game would likely be Historical War Gaming. Anything else would be a shock to me. I'm not talking gaming stores with wargaming space. Certainly the Outpost, in Sheffield, and Sanctuary, in Mansfield, are good examples of shops which promote other games and therefore they are seen played in store. Local community clubs though are dominated by the headliners. It means that to find a "drop of a hat" game is very very difficult.<br />
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<b>What does this all mean</b><br />
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I've been looking at Bushido and/or Dark Age as games I want to get involved in, but its neither game is something I can just show up to a local club and play. The nearest areas that might play it are enough of a distance away that I'd be looking at weekends or not getting home post work til extremely late. Plus, the games aren't obviously played locally anyway. Everything else is a win for Bushido (cost, range, models, fluff) and Dark Age only seems to fall a little bit on price. It is infuriating that community can be enough to hold me back (though my wallet does like the current indecision). So, knowing there is a local community can make a massive difference in choosing the actually play a game.<br />
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It can be broken, because I picked up Guild Ball when everyone around the local area was abandoning it (except one or two people in my closer social group). I am going to pick up a starter of Bushido at some point because I love the Ito Clan models and want to paint them in L5R Scorpion Clan colours (as they are both the sneaky lying clans). In a similar way I love the look of the Fire Dragyri so I will get them as well in the Starter box, but going beyond that is going to be a slower process. The lack of potential game play limits the funds I am willing to put into it.<br />
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<b>Kickstarter?</b><br />
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Why do I think this matters for Kickstarter? Well I can probably run that down really easily to be honest<br />
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1. Range: More options get people more interested. From the very basic "funded" point of the game there should be enough options that people who arrange to play the game with each other aren't going to have the same models. Personally I would say that 3 definable factions are important, and within each faction there need to be "different" characters (so not just a leader and then generic troopers). It might make the kickstarter have to have a higher initial fund point, but so be it. Options are interesting.<br />
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2: Goals being independent: Factions that are only part unlocked as you go along, if people don't feel that the full faction is going to make it they won't keep funding. So if you are going to unlock a faction do it as one big lump. It'll drive people up to the goal, because everyone gets to have everything at that point. Incomplete forces are not great for peoples motivations. Now this can also mean you could include stand alone models as unlock targets, so a mercenary character that can join multiple factions is fine, a set of two infected models that people can use in new scenarios rather than just using counters. So long as the unlocks aren't dependent on things that look unreachable higher up the chain.<br />
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3: Gadgets: So, rather than having models in a new faction unlock in stages, but in one go, how to you bridge the gap between stretch goals.. well we could always unlock gadgets (and I don't mind if I have to pay for them separately as well). Custom faction dice, plastic markers for statuses, measuring widgets, a resin pack of objective markers. Strangely I think this actually keeps the money going up. People look at the next faction as the big goal, but knowing other options are unlocking that can be purchased afterwards is also a pretty good incentive.<br />
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4: Free stuff: I'm afraid to say this is a shocking indictment on people in general, but we like knowing that as the funding goes up we are going to get more stuff on top of what we already are paying for. Free stuff is sadly just one of those things that gets people going, and can get people staying in at the higher pledge levels. CMON pretty much get their games funded via this method. We initially pay through the nose, knowing that as more and more people go in for the Kickstarter we are getting more value for the money we have put into it. Obviously these have to be managed well by the company running the Kickstarter, because you simply can't give away stuff without the fiances behind it, but I do think this is a way to keep the funding coming in.<br />
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5: Community: Hello, its this old devil again. So community is a killer for people wanting to play a game that is in retail, I think for a kickstarter it can be life and death. I don't just mean advertising online etc, I think there is a big call for getting your product out and about and building the community. Systems such as Malifaux Henchmen, Guild Ball Pundits and Privateer Press' Press Gangers are definitely something you need to put into effect fast, even during a Kickstarter. Also the presence over the web is a naggingly important aspect. As an ICT specialist, and (tongue in cheek because its not really part of my job) a business analyst, I know how vital it is to make sure that anything you produce is going to met the expectations of your audience. Add to that a very low level claim to being in social media advertising, I think it is important to work out how to best promote online. A lot of good games feed into the social media community as much as possible, and from that build up some good publicity. Gaslands is doing ever so well on this front, though it has other things (like price) going for it as well. Its actually a very treacherous set of waters, building a community and a supporting media presence, but getting it right will always reap massive rewards.<br />
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<b>I'm not an expert</b><br />
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There are a huge amount of caveats on all of the above. I'm making an observation from the outside as an Analyst rather than as someone with experience. I, clearly, have no experience of setting up a miniatures game or a kickstarter. Business Analysis from outside of a company is pretty much a guessing game, but I do think that there are some basic ideas in the above which do make a difference.<br />
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And this was an odd place to get to when I started out with the basic fact that I'm trying to work out if I want to spend money on more shiny models.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-83087234478044844472016-05-10T11:16:00.001+01:002016-05-10T11:40:29.149+01:00A Bit of Nostalgia #4<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>This ain't Kansas anymore</b><br />
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My first post today obviously had to be a nostalgia one. Yes, because I forgot to yesterday.<br />
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It's also the first Nostalgia post I'm doing about an RPG rather than a War Game. Its fair to say I've played a hell of a lot of different roleplay systems, a lot more than war game systems. So, I'd like to claim I'm in a pretty good place to talk about old roleplay games, I've certainly got a lot of opinions about them anyway. I'm going to start with the big daddy of dead system (at least in original format). I'm pretty sure there will be gamers screaming at me that "such and such" a system is better, but I'm sorry.. you're wrong.. in my opinion. Roleplay systems have a lot to them, so lets break this down into three sections - background, mechanics and general amusement factor.<br />
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Before that though, there is something that is immensely important to point out. Roleplay systems live and die by the person running the game. A glorious system can be shot dead by the person running them. Inversely a system that is just poor can be rescued by an amazing GM. I don't believe dreadful systems can ever be saved, but the point is that even on the highest recommendations, what I put here is based on how I feel about the game and the sessions I've been fortunate enough to play in (or GM).<br />
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That said, Deadlands is probably one of the most thematic and well designed games I have ever played. The background of the game is very detailed. I know, these days, we all get very impressed by the fluff in war games, but a lot of role play games rely on the depth of the fluff. Its quite complex, so lets start at the end. Yup, the end of Deadlands is probably the most pivotal in terms of fluff, because you never get to see this ending, it doesn't actually happen.<br />
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The forces of Evil, called the Reckoners (but also known as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) need fear to survive. Through manipulation of American Indian tribes, and the anger caused by the invasion and decimation of the land by european invaders, the Reckoners manage to get a rift opened up to their dimension/world. Through this rift the Reckoners send terrors and monsters, in the hope that they can saturate the world with enough fear that they can survive here. They fail.. humanity bands together, using the new found abilities that opening the portal bought to the world. The monsters are destroyed and instead of being afraid people become courageous. It's times like this, when it helps to be a powerful and malevolent being.<br />
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The first manipulation they make is to send their most dangerous servant back in time. Graves, an undead assassin and general bad ass, gets sent back to start killing off humanities heroes. The sudden loss of all the good guys cuts humanities hopes drastically. They then lace the world with Ghost Rock. A rare commodity, Ghost Rock gives off far more energy than Coal, creating a Gold-Rush effect far more malevolent than anything else in the original time line. Burning it causes great clouds which scream (hence the name). Thing is, it also releases more and more evil spirits on the world, drastically speeding up the process of generating fear. Humanity, itself, starts to help bring the Reckoning closer. This time, the Reckoners will win, unless something can be done about it.<br />
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Deadlands was set in the Wild West of this world. At this point in time Ghost Rock has been found in America, shortly after the coastline of California breaks apart and sinks into the sea (the effect of the Reckoners putting a load of Ghost Rock into the area). A grand rush of technology occurs because of the new energy source, but it also escalates wars (specifically the American Civil War). With so much death, the Reckoners have played their first big card. During the Battle of Gettysburg the dead rise, and fight both sides. There is no end to the war, and America is still divided at the start of the game. <br />
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There is a lot to Deadlands, way more than I have included here, but what I will say is that Pinnacle (who made Deadlands) were very clever, because the original book didn't have the whole story in it. Deadlands ultimately came out with three games in the setting, each at a different time point in the game. The background was rich enough that you could play without the whole story, but obviously also allowed games to stretch through the different time zones, bringing more and more information to light. It certainly gave people a lot of scope though, with some much going on in each game (I'll likely cover one of these another time).<br />
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The system is where things got really good. Now its important to note that I'm only going to touch on some of the key points with Deadlands, because the system was also very very different to anything else I ever played. I won't cover combat, or dice rolling, because they were actually hidden under a layer of "style" that nothing else really managed in my opinion.<br />
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It all start with character creation. You can get an idea of the style of the game based on how they do character generation. Mechwarrior was also heavy on the mathematics. DnD for all its failings told you right away that Dice rolling was going to happen a lot. World of Darkness was all about the dots. Deadlands.. was about Poker. Well more decks of cards, but it immediately got that Wild West thing going even at character creation. You drew nine card from a Deck, getting rid of two that you didn't want to determine your stats. You weren't allowed to get rid of twos or jokers. The suit of the card determined the number of dice for the stat, and the value of the card would determine the type of dice for the stat. For instance the 10 of Hearts might be 4D10 (if I've got that right I really am sad). It was there though, right from the beginning, this game was so heavily in theme it was unreal. Initiative was done with Cards. Roll initiative, that determines how many actions you got, then from a communal deck of cards draw that many. The order you go in would be based on the number of the card, using suit for tiebreaking. Magic (in one of its forms) was card driven, with Hucksters having to try to draw a Poker hand to determine how powerful the spell was. I mean, you could only get more Wild West if you added in Poker Chip.<br />
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Yup, they were there too. Poker Chips allowed you to do cool things. Mostly it was ignoring or reducing woulds, but you could also use them to get rerolls (of various levels, add 1 dice, reroll 1 dice, reroll all dice). The whole game just dripped with style and genre. Hucksters, cowboys, Texas Rangers, Show Girls, all were valid characters (there weren't any classes, but if you wanted faith magic, or to be a Mad Scientist you had to buy certain abilities at character creation). There were also really good simplifications in the game to make it run well, including using paperclips to mark up injuries, location based attacks could yield more damage, you only counted the worst wound towards modifiers. Everything had this little visual aid to just make the game come alive, and yet also make it simple.<br />
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You can probably, by now, guess that this is firmly placed at the top of my games list. Deadlands is, however, something that can suffer from bad GMing. All the character and style of the game applies a very stark contrast when included in a badly run game. I've been lucky, I've never encountered it myself in any great severity, but I could see if happening with ease. I can not, however, ever see Deadlands not being amusing. There were just little things that always caught the attention, my friends Huckster had a bad habit of pulling Black Jokers when he tried to cast spells and getting his face blown up because of it. We had a Southern American preacher in one group, who carried a shotgun and used it to keep his flock quite during sermons (the repair bill for the roof was atrocious). The fact that you could be killed, and then you drew cards for the character to see if you came back to life as a Harrowed (possessed bodies, still with the original character inside, but when you slept the GM could get your character to do "other" things). A lot of the RPGs I will include in the Nostalgia section will have bags of style (I love games that drag me in to the setting), but Deadlands had that and added in a layer which made sure the Wild West (or Weird West as the setting called it) was definitely full of entertainment as well.<br />
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Deadlands initially went dead at around the time of the D20 invasion. They released everything as pdfs at this time and I managed to get most of them. They did do a D20 version, but it just didn't work out in my opinion. Pinnacle then became something new (I have a feeling its Great White Games as part of the Pinnacle Entertainments Group) and released Savage Worlds. It took a while, but in time they released Deadlands:Reloaded, which has most, but not all of the flavour of Deadlands. If you can get the Classic game I would do, I still think it is the best version of the game. I never got the books for Deadlands, just the PDFs... I do, however, have an almost complete set of the Deadlands:Hell on Earth spin off.. and while it had its own interesting feel to it, and wasn't quite the same game, I've got this feeling that one day that complete collection is going to be difficult to get hold of ever again, and quite highly sought after.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-1306858679728689362016-05-08T01:10:00.005+01:002016-05-08T01:10:57.408+01:00Kickstarter #4<b>Where have all the good ones gone?</b><br />
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I have to admit I've struggled this weekend on Kickstarter. Nothing has truely taken me, though I do have at least a couple to point people at (because I wouldn't be a good blogger if I only look at things that excite me). So, this weeks Kickstarter trawl is a lot about stuff that looks good, even if I don't know if I would go for them.<br />
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<b>Virus - Giochix.it</b><br />
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The first game I ever played that had "real time" actions was Xcom. I've also seen the Escape games played, with the Incan Temple type version. They always look like a lot of fun, but Xcom is the only one I have seen that has some sort of control to the madness, the App for Xcom is pretty amazing.<br />
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So Virus has another real time aspect to it. There also seems to be an App as well, but my understanding is that it just controls the clock though rather than making specific actions occur. Now there is a lot going on with Virus, a mad dash to specific locations, trying to find specific tiles as you move, performing actions in rooms, and fighting monsters, so it does sound like this is going to be a bit of a mad rush during the timed phases. I can see that working for a lot of people, but I do also like to have a bit of time while other people are playing to work out what I'm going to do next.<br />
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Certainly, I will say that I really like the idea of this. There is a sort of Resident Evil kid of feel about the thematics of the game. I virus has been released that has mutated the people and the animal in a weird science lab, get in, unlock the security door that is stopping you getting out, and find the cure on the way.<br />
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If people are interested have a look <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/166119889/virus-2/description">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Stay out of my Dungeon! - 2HandsomeGames</b><br />
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So I'm going to say right now, this game falls into a category I quite like, which is the semi-cooperative type. Betrayer mechanics in Shadows over Camelot and Battlestar Galactica are really good, and I've always kind of liked the idea of trying to work out who is actually helping and who is hindering.<br />
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In addition this game also has quite a heavy feeling of Dungeon Keeper, which definitely helps it out a lot. I always loved the idea of being the evil overlord and controlling minions to take out the good guys. Thats why I own a copy of Dungeon Lords. <br />
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So, in this one you are working together to build up the dungeon defences. There will be a lot of worker placement and resource management in this game, and again that can be a lot of fun.<br />
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I think the only downside here is that there are no game play videos and all the images are placeholders examples. I think that might not be a help. However, it is well worth a read of the campaign itself. There is a lot in there on what they want to do. <br />
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Check it out <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2handsomegames/stay-out-of-my-dungeon?ref=category_newest">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Awful Fantasy: The Card Game - Awful Fantasy</b><br />
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Now, this is more my sort of thing, and based on the prices I might well put some money on to this game.<br />
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You play as a failing author, rushing against time to be the first person to complete their awful fantasy. You get cards for the plot, the good guys and the bad guys and you have to try and cobble them together into your next novel. I could quite happily see my relatively regular players also putting in corny descriptions of the novel they have written, explaining why it is the next best thing in Fantasy literature, either even the incomplete novels being scored if you can convince people that even in its unfinished state the book you have is better than that finished one.<br />
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Quick card games are always good. They can be dragged out at any, reasonably open, social circle because they can be played so quickly. I have my eye on a few card games of this sort, so I might well add Awful Fantasy to my watch list.<br />
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Have a look <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/awfulfantasy/awful-fantasy-the-card-game?ref=category_newest">here</a>.<br />
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Right, its late, and I should be asleep. <br />
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To those people I know who will be at Vengeance next weekend I wish you all well. There may well not be a Kickstarter post next weekend as it will be my birthday shortly after, and while I sadly can't say I will be at Vengeance for my birthday (unfortunately), but I will be out with my parents so I may not have the time. Will have to see.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-82629719755404319502016-05-05T15:17:00.001+01:002016-05-05T15:19:20.625+01:00A bit of nostalgia #3<b>Operation Nostalgia - Junkyard scramble</b><br />
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Almost forgot to do something this week. Thankfully I have just enough time before the weekend, and therefore the Kickstarter trawl, gets in the way.<br />
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I've realised something fairly important, quite a lot of my Nostalgia games are Games Workshop's. Now this is partly because they did do some reasonable games, all of which they sacrificed to the fire of WH40k at some point in the not too distant past. Necromunda is todays fair, and it is a prime example of GW shooting themselves in the kneecaps. Because this game did something I never really saw the other specialist games doing.<br />
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So, lets go with the background and work our way onwards into the actual game.<br />
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In the grim dark of the future there is only war... well unless you happen to live on a quiet agri world, or as a noble in some luxury apartments on a hive world. Actually for the vast majority of people war is pretty low on the daily expectations list, but it is still Grim! Necromunda was, certainly the lower levels of the Hive city Necromunda, were very Grim. The base levels of Hives are vast, easily a few times larger than any real life city on Earth, and some of the really big Hives can stretch across counties (or really small states for the America readers). Down in these depths gangs fight for domination of the slugs and scrapyards that are left behind. The weight of the rest of the hive above has pretty much caused most of the Underhive to collapse, so people have got out of the area.. except you, and your gang. Over time the gangs gathered together, to form Family type affairs, and entire cultures of their own. You pick from one of the families, pay for your gangers, juves and leaders and then head out to make a name for yourself.<br />
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GW basically went all skirmish game on us here. They twisted and tweaked the standard 40k rule set (keeping things like WS and BS... they always had some BS) and including rules to allow models to become more experienced, or gain better weapons, and even to have injuries. It was like Bloodbowl.. just cooler... and I don't mean that to spite Bloodbowl (which will feature at some point in a Nostalgia post), but Necromunda was a lot of fun. I remember playing an old play by post gang war game, where you could invade territory and push merchandise, and Necromunda sort of did that in a kid friendly way. Each gang had territory to make money with, winning games might allow you to steal territory, or unearth new territory. Even better than that, some of the territory you gain might not give you much cash, but you might get free juves to replace your dead, or secret tunnels that allow you to deploy your gangers behind enemy lines.<br />
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There were quite a few gangs available to start with. The base gang came with Orlocks and Goliath. They were very standard starters for GW, the Orlock being the jack of all trades family, and the Goliath where hitty "U's Hummies needs a stompin" Ork wannabies. Ok so the background was that they were basically a patriarch gang born from living in the most oppressive and more brutal areas of the Underhive, but for the most part, they were just moderately smarter Orks. You could, instead, go for Cawdor (moderately fanatical god emperor bothers who were fast and good in combat, just not Goliath good), Delaque (Assassins of the "looks like, but no where near as good as" Hitman variety), Van Saar (because who doesn't like a big gun), and Escher (Where all the men have turned into withered husks and the woman are fast melee fighters, who just can't be hit). There was, as you can tell, a reasonable variety and "some" play style options. On top of that you could add Ratskin scouts (sort of Tribal American, and could sneak about), Pit Fighters (with added buzz saw limbs) or Outlaws (who could, for the most part, actually shoot things).<br />
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Now, as with all GW "experience based" games, there were problems. The guys out front got all the best stuff, making them harder to beat, meaning they got even more good stuff. I don't think GW ever really managed to find a way to balance that problem. It is something I have seen with more or less all campaign style games (I'm hoping Guild Ball has solved that). It also struggled with the fact that, while the models were good, the inherent issue with systems that allow you to upgrade your models is that metal models don't "upgrade" very easily, so you either needed a lot of models to represent each type of weapon, or you had to be very clever at having convertible models (and some of them were small so magnetic weapon swaps might not have looks so good). <br />
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Plus, and this one is definitely a GW special, there was power creep. The expansion for Necromunda bought in five more "gang" options. In most cases you would expect that this meant five new gangs which panel beat every other old family, but no. It was just one of them. I mean how to do you over balance a new faction when you have four other reasonably balance new gangs coming out at the same time? Anyway, the four good factions were;<br />
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The Enforcers - Judge Dredd probably would still teach them a thing or two, but basically they were Judges. They didn't gain much from territory and advancing them was quite limited, but they had the best body armour and it was cheap to replace weapons and get good ammo for them. To really balance them you could field a maximum of five models, ever. You could have more in your gang, but they went out as a five man squad to each mission.<br />
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The Ratskins - As with the scouts there was a big Wild West type style to them, they worked well because while they were quite week they more or less ignored deployment rules (because they could get tunnels and vents really easily). They also survived more often than not because they could reroll injury checks. They basically couldn't have heavy weaponary though, so they didn't get a massive amount of "everything is dead dave" moments.<br />
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The Scavvies - Zombies!!! No? So you guys are technically alive still.. I mean shit man thats harsh. Basically these guys were cheap, your gang sheet was probably double sided and you still didn't end up running out of cash. And they hit harder than the Goliah did in close combat. Oh and you get free "fodder" troops every game, that didn't cost anything to put onto the field and it didn't really matter if they died. However, they would probably shoot themselves more often than not, so giving them guns was a waste of cash, and no Heavies either, which is probably just as well.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ri0vAB1ASPw/VytWORhfkSI/AAAAAAAAAt4/jZUfs-2PQzkBo-52fsfjatUgz3Aa97CCACLcB/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ri0vAB1ASPw/VytWORhfkSI/AAAAAAAAAt4/jZUfs-2PQzkBo-52fsfjatUgz3Aa97CCACLcB/s1600/images.jpg" /></a>The Cult of Redemption - Sisters of Battle have nothing on these guys when it comes to complete gushing crazy for the emperor, nothing. They are, in essence, the elite of the Cawdor family, but frankly they would burn their own family if they decided they weren't devoted enough. Burning being the operative word. They got cheap one shot flame rounds for funzies and flame throwers all over the place. In Necromunda they made one hell of lot of burning corpses very quickly (armour wasn't exactly common place). Their Heavy was a guy with a huge two handed chainsaw as well, because why not. The leader also got to convert any enemies that were captured during games (which made recruitment easier). Of course to counter this they did have weaknesses, if I recall correctly they couldn't have certain territories (including the one that allowed you to recruit new guys so you had to convert people or buy full priced), flamers were very short ranged too and they lost all the Cawdor close combatiness, so if you could get past the fire they pretty much turned to ash themselves. With a lot of close combat guys in Necromunda that was actually not uncommon.<br />
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Those were the balanced ones.. even The Cult of Redemption didn't earn the hatred of the next guys.<br />
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The Spyre Hunters - Screw these guys. Seriously they could go died in a fire, started by the cult and faned my every other gang in the game. Except they didn't, with their high and mighty armour they probably would just walk through it and then gut everyone stood watching.. for a giggle. Ok, so the issue here is quite simple, they had 40k level armour and weaponary in a game where the weapons could barely get through imperial guard armour. If you couldn't pin down a Spyre before it got a shot off them you were in trouble. Just to make it even better, there were basically the Young Nobility coming down from the upper spire for a bit of sport.. You didn't get territory (if I recall) so hiring people was difficult (you basically just got the money from the missions), but it didn't matter, your guys basically didn't die. They traded with the alien races (including the Tau apparently so I have to give them some credit), so everything they did was pretty harsh. The balance off... you may be could stretch to having three of them in a gang at a time... basically they were expensive, but when you can deploy three ultimate killing machines on a field where people are firing pee-shooters at you, I think you can cope. Van Saar were pretty much the only gang that would give them a run for their money, because they had easy access to lascannons and plasma weapons. So...<br />
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Even with the Spyre "cheat mode" Hunters on the board, this was still a good game. GW put into the box some lovely cardboard terrain, it was skirmish sized (though I wish it had been an alternate activate system), it had really good rules to make it feel cinematic (like falling off of buildings when you got shot), and there was just enough to make sure it wasn't 40k on fat burners. <br />
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So far the first two games taught me something about how War Gaming could be. Necromunda never taught me anything about war gaming.. it was just bloody good fun. Probably one of the best games they ever made. In fact I mentioned recently that Man O'War was probably only beaten by one GW game ever and that game was Necromunda. When I said that I decided to actually write out my top 10 game list (only games I've played are on the list shockingly enough) and after much thought I realised that Necromunda sits on the top of the pile. It is rapidly being caught by Malifaux and Guild Ball.. at a rate of knots that it probably won't survive, but there it is, Necromunda is my favourite game (so far). So of course GW canned it!<br />
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Specialist Games are coming back, and I would expect Necromunda to be one of the games that returns. I hope they do it justice, fix all the problems, make it alternate activations, and re-release the models in cheap plastic with enough in the boxes to allow you to customise the weaponary. I think that is all it needs really. Do it right, and Guild Ball might not make the #1 slot that Necromunda currently holds on to, by its fingertips, while being gunned down by a Heavy stubbed and stalked by one of those f'ing Spyre hunters.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-53100015464257173622016-04-30T22:18:00.002+01:002016-04-30T22:18:50.829+01:00Kickstarter #3<b>Lets keep this going</b><br />
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So, week number 3. I'm amazed people still read these posts, but I'm going to keep going. As soon as I get 1000 views on the site I will try and come up with something interesting to do. Anyway, some things on Kickstarter that I think are worth looking at.<br />
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<b>Legends of the Mist - Kids love Tiger Games</b><br />
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Darn it I hate when there isn't a good picture I can use.<br />
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Anyway, Legends of the Mist looks like a combination of a lot of games all thrown together into something which just looks ever so pretty. I do like pretty looking games.<br />
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I spotted this though because it seems to borrow a core mechanic from another game, one which I own and love a hell of a lot. That game is called Roll for the Galaxy, and basically it involves a lot of custom dice, rolled and organised behind a board and then revealed to allow you to perform certain actions. What sets Legends of the Mist aside is that it appears that you then interact with each other very heavily based on your results. That is possibly the only thing that Roll of the Galaxy doesn't do. RotG is very self centred in its play style, you can't really do a lot to stop your opponent doing what they want to do. So to see a roll and reveal (can I trademark that as a Genre name?) type game like this, which is much more interactive.. sounds cool.<br />
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There are also tile placement and worker placement aspects, which RotG does have, but again this time it is a single central area rather than in isolation. Plus you can attack tiles, buy extra dice, win extra dice. There seems to be a lot to it.<br />
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The last thing is the theme, because I really do love things which have a bit of Asian theme about them. Legend of the 5 Rings and Tsuro spring to mind, and the theme of those games and this one are quite rich. I'm not sure how well the theme will work, pretty sure a game like this could be set with any background and it would work, but I do like the artwork.<br />
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Check it out <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/peach04/legends-of-the-mist/description">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Rifts for Savage Worlds - Shane Hensley</b><br />
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Rifts was a game that perhaps a lot of people have heard of but never really played. It falls into the category of post "event" earth, started by a nuclear war which just happens to fall under the perfect conditions for the energy released to be trapped by earth's ley lines. This in turn causes more natural disasters, more death, more energy... rinse and repeat. Ultimately the amount of energy is enough to cause rifts to open in the Multiverse and all manner of stuff can get to earth from pretty much every type of reality imaginable. Oh and Atlantis rises again.. just cus.<br />
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Basically everything isn't all roses at all on Earth, as more or less everything you can imagine can get here. Now, we are slightly lucky, because before the war there was a golden age of humanity. Everyone worked together, science and technology are in over drive and things are pretty amazing. Sadly everything goes wrong (Canada, America and Mexico get together in a big war ready alliance and start the aforementioned problems), as these things tend to do. So now, with all our shiny tech we have to deal with all these problems. Of course with all the Ley Line energy kicking around suddenly magic is back in the picture too. <br />
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There are a lot of games like this, Cyberpunk and Shadowrun spring to mind, though the premise of those is different (and Cyberpunk is less with the magic, k thanks). Thing is Rifts went for High Tech rather than Punk tech. All the power suits look like something out of a Mecha Anime. Weapons are, quite frankly, ridiculous (Mega Damage!). Light sabers are pretty much there is spirit and the game has this Golden Age of technology feel, with the darkness coming simply from the weird creatures and the evils of mankind. It certainly has its place.<br />
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I played Rifts once, someone did a really odd demo type game when I was at school and we were basically all players in a really odd sports game where we could beat each other up or score goals.. nice to know that idea hasn't ever died out. It was a lot of fun, not sure how it will fit with Savage Worlds, but it will be interesting to see.<br />
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Have a look <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/545820095/rifts-for-savage-worlds?ref=category_newest">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Town of Salem the Card Game - BlackMedia Games</b><br />
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I can say for a start, this looks like it heavily based off of Werewolf - quite an old game where people got hidden roles and then had to either eliminate the other players or work out who the bad guy was. Town of Salem seems to up the ante a little by making it so each of the good and bad roles can do different things to each other.<br />
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I certainly don't think that is a bad thing.<br />
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In general, I probably wouldn't go for a game like this. I've not really played and enjoyed Werewolf before, because there is a lot of player elimination in the game, but I have a feeling Salem has its advantages over that. For a start the bad guys can end up killing off each other.. which is just funny. Plus there seems to be a bit more of a lean towards each side winning rather than one person winning. Werewolf, for all its popularity, generally involved the good guys winning or that one solitary Werewolf getting to the end and winning alone.<br />
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It looks quite good, the cards are a little cartoony, but I've never really had an issue with that. Certainly can see this being fun, in the same way as lots of people tell me Werewolf is with the right group. Anyway have a look <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blankmediagames/town-of-salem-the-card-game?ref=category_newest">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Thats all folks</b><br />
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So thats it for this weekend. I wasn't actually planning to do one this weekend, but needs must and all that. As with previous posts, I don't do this with any pre-arranged plugs or samples of the product. This is all perpetrated from looking at the Kickstarter pages and watching any videos on the site. If anyone would like me to do a review of a product they are Kickstarting I would not say no... just so you know.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-78620301995491252052016-04-29T22:03:00.003+01:002016-04-30T15:41:41.566+01:00On social anxiety and gaming<b>The smallest straw</b><br />
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I should be in a field right now, in fact I was only a few hours ago getting ready for the first CP event of the year.<br />
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Now I'm at home.<br />
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The smallest straw can break someone with social anxiety and as a gamer it can have some seriously negative effects. The straw this time was that the tent I had bought with me didn't have any poles. It meant to stay I would need to share with someone or sleep in my car. I had offers of somewhere to stay, but I just couldn't. I needed my space, somewhere to relax and spread out, somewhere if I needed a break no one would come and interrupt me. In the end, regardless of the obvious solutions I'm now at home, missing the first CP event of the year.<br />
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I don't know if everyone knows of the Spoon theory on anxiety and depression, but I'm linking it here.<br />
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<a href="http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/">http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/</a><br />
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Read it? Go, please, it'll make sense I promise.<br />
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You see today I didn't have many spoons. I'd not slept well, I'd stayed up late for no good reason, I knew this weekend was going to involve me being involved in a lot of plot, and that I had a lot of rituals to perform. Basically a lot of spotlight moments I didn't necessarily feel ready for. It was also the first big event I was going to alone in 5 years (guess why, if you don't already know). It was also the first time I was going to be in the same place as the person I used to go to events with (got it now?). Each of those things is another spoon gone. So that tent took the last spoon I had and I realised I couldn't stay.<br />
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Thing is, I met my ex-wife (there we go), albeit briefly. It was fine, perhaps if I'd done that to start with I would have got some spoons back, but that happened after I already decided to go. Once you have lost that motivation, once anxiety has taken over, very little gets around it.<br />
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The thing is, its now doing the other side of things. I'm at home and all I'm telling myself is that I've failed, I've let people down. I now want to be back down there, working things out, sorting somewhere to stay, but I don't think I can face it. I don't think people will understand.<br />
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Why is this important to gaming? Because I think it can be a solution to an extent. Gaming breaks people out of the normal, the standard of day to day life. In the right doses, if it is something you want to do, than you can break out of needing those spoons. It'll give you the social confidence, and it can make you realise that there are people out there you can get along with.<br />
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Its amazing how good I can feel at events, at tournaments, or just seeing people.<br />
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Its also true that it can be soul destroying, because sometimes anxiety will win. Especially when you are in a field with hundreds of people, and all you want is a sanctum to get away from it all. That is me, today, wishing I was in a field, full of nerds, and realising just a little bit of fore sight and I would be there now. So to break my social anxiety I'm writing it down instead, not to justify my running away, but to remove it all from my head.<br />
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Of course what I now need to do is work out something to get me out of the house this weekend so I don't just Hermit.. Hermitting is a terrible idea right now, even if its the easiest thing to do.<br />
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So, all those people that are gamers, I'm afraid to say that a lot of the people you know (because I think social anxiety is very high in our niche group) are probably suffers of social anxiety. Remember that the guy across from you probably has burnt a lot of spoons just to get out to the event or tournament you are at. Hopefully, if nothing else, it will help you realise what you are doing for them is being around and helping them realise they can cope in a social situation, and the nicer you can be the less spoons they will have to burn to get through the day.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04138446238836263082noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1537633459384635318.post-39591034536952499982016-04-25T23:59:00.001+01:002016-04-25T23:59:24.761+01:00Reviews and Recommendations<b>War Gamer Gadgets</b><br />
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Actually time for a review I think, specifically in this case four different reviews. I've recently been buying up accessories for Guild Ball, outside of the normal Steam Forged supplied tokens and the like. There is a huge market for extra measuring templates, tokens and the like, so after getting my officially mercandise (in the form of the influence and status markers), I decided to have a look around for a few things I felt would be really handy. So without further a due.<br />
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<b>AoE Templates - Counter attack bases</b><br />
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One of the main things that I couldn't get from Steamforged (they were part of the Kickstarter counter set, but aren't in retail) were AoE markers. Now I play Alchemists, so I have a bit of a need for AoE markers. I'm planning on playing Smoke as my main captain, so I go from needing some, to needing rather a lot. <br />
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There are a lot of places that do AoE markers, some look really good, but only Counter attack bases seemed to mark off all the points I wanted. Firstly that they didn't have additional "effect" bits, and by this I mean extra bits of plastic flames or the like in the middle. Thats just a personal preference. Secondly that the outer edge was small, as they need to fit over models, so if they are thick edged you get less space into which models can fit. Finally they needed to have good colour options so I can see what I'm barfing onto the table at any given time. <br />
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These are lovely strong transparent plastic, that isn't going to take up too much space on the field, and not only are they multicoloured they also have the effect written on them in case I'm being ultra dense. Which happens a lot. Counter attack bases also sent these out really quickly, and to add an extra star to their name, I realised I needed 2 more than I had ordered, so I did an extra order and paid the extra packing. I promptly got a refund and everything got sent out together. Really nice of them, even though I was willing to suffer for my stupidity. I now have 2 Burning, 4 Poison and 4 Cover AoE rings, because Smoke is quite prone to outputting these things. <br />
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<a href="http://www.counterattackbases.co.uk/">www.counterattackbases.co.uk</a><br />
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<b>Status Tokens - Broken Egg Games</b><br />
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I saw these on a Battlehammer Video. I had to have them. These are just beautiful little tokens they really are.<br />
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There are plenty of reasons and plenty of games that require status tokens. In fact the Guild Ball set by Broken Egg Games are easily useful for Malifaux, and a slightly expanded range is available for Warmahordes as well. Within the, frankly cheap on the wallet, set you get 5 of each of the main 4 status markers for Guild ball (poison, burning, bleeding and knockdown). They are so well made, using clear plastic with double side printed backgrounds. You get get versions that lie down, or if you like some with small bases that stand up. I went with the standing versions because, well they look good.<br />
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I managed to snap one of the bases in two, but as luck would have it there were 2 spare in the packets I had received, so there really wasn't an issue. All I will say is if the peg won't fit in the hole don't try and force it in... *cough*, A careful bit of sanding down and they will fit together fine. The blood tokens needed a little bit of superglue just to make sure they won't fall apart when you pick them up, and I needed to do the same for the odd one or two of the others, but mostly they don't need anything on them to hold them together.<br />
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Sadly I've not found the perfect UK supplier for these. However, ordering from Broken Egg directly was a piece of cake, the shipping cost in minimal and they arrived within a week. Can't ask for more really.<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_843583629"><br /></a>
<a href="http://www.brokenegggames.com/">www.brokenegggames.com</a><br />
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<b>Movement/Range templates - Art of War Studios</b><br />
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Tape measures are bad, ok. <br />
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I will admit I don't fully understand the above statement, but I do realise that in a lot of circles the age of using a tape measure is gone. I can understand the reasoning too; its harder to get the tape measure into place to actually measure accurately, there is always a bigger fault factor, and more importantly bending a tape measure makes it longer, so curved moves firstly increase the amount you move at that time, and slowly every measurement is wrong.<br />
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There are a lot of movement widgets out there, but they tend to cap out at around 5" or 6". So I wanted a few things to sort out 8" ranges without having to chain together widgets, and also some smaller ranges so I didn't have to fit a whole widget onto the board to see if I'm in range. Art of War Studios thankfully have a decent option here, and they look good, are made of hard plastic and come in Guild Ball team colours.<br />
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They are also quite thin, meaning they take up less space. I can probably use them like normal widgets and do standing up on end manoeuvres to get models about the board. I considered the metal multipart measures, but couldn't find a good range that were available in the UK, and generally I prefer trying to buy in the UK as you never know about shipping. These fitted the bill for me, and was more than happy to get them.. along with<br />
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<b>Guild Ball tournament tray - Art of War Studios</b><br />
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I've not bothered with display/tournament trays before. Now this is partly because I've not gone to a lot of tournaments before. Its is also because with Malifaux I would take my entire bulk collection of Neverborn with me and one tray is not enough. If I were a better player perhaps it would be, as I would have a core set of models and one, may be two masters I would use all the time, but I was happy to use my foam carry case and packed everything in.<br />
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With Guild Ball at the very most I need space for 8 players and a ball. Obviously a carry case is better for getting to the event, but once there the tray will be perfect.<br />
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I wanted something that would fit everything, and with the Art of War Studios tournament tray I "almost" manage it. The difference here, to every other design I have seen is the layout, and the functionality. <br />
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Layout wise, this is the first try I saw that had the extra token tray to the right hand side (as photographed). This space is divided up so that you can carry and separate off each of the tokens you may have spent a bit of money on that week... to the left of the main space is the standard card and tape (etc) space that appears on most boards and then in the middle is a blank area, with nothing in it to hold models.<br />
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Instead you get a separate board and 4 tabs. Once in place you get a pretty standard model tray, but the tabs can be removed (so long as you don't glue them down, and apply a reasonable amount of pressure from below) and the tray can then be outfitted with a different centre board. This means the tray can be fitted with a Malifaux tray, X-Wing Tray, or Infinity Tray. I have none of the extra trays, but I can pick them up at a later date if I feel I need them.<br />
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Putting it together was simple, even for me, and while I did use a bit of glue to just make sure a sharp knock won't make it fall apart, I don't think it is actually needed. As with Counter attack bases and Broken Egg Games, delivery of the items took all of a week, so I was really impressed. In fact from order to dispatch it took only a couple of days (and that was over a weekend too), so its mostly royal mail I have to say took their time over sorting things out.<br />
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<a href="http://art-of-war-studios-ltd.myshopify.com/">art-of-war-studios-ltd.myshopify.com</a><br />
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<b>Looking Forward</b><br />
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There are, as with any game I want to tournament with, a few more things to pick up (most likely). If nothing else I need to get a soft foam transportation box, as I find metal chips easily within my battlefoam bag. However, very happy so far, and (ignoring the fact the below shows Malifaux models, my Guild ball are still on the painting desk) I think I have most of what I need to start doing some Tournaments. Each of these items though can easily be used in many other games, so I look forward to getting some actual game time in soon.<br />
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