Category: Miniatures

Bolt Action -getting started

Warlord Games posted an extremely slick  and content rich starting guide for Bolt Action.    While the content is cool and all, I was impressed from a web development standpoint at the responsive design.   Not that it would ever get up on theFWA or anything (since they don’t post the nerd stuff ever) but viewing this part of the site on a phone in the morning and a PC at night was impressive as both we aesthetic and functional.  Especially on the phone I was able to get at a ton of great info, extremely usable and readable.  A lot of other gaming sites should look at this bad boy.

 

Stuff (mostly Dark Souls)

So last night I continued the Dark Souls addiction and beat the GAPING DRAGON which is one of the scariest mofo’s in the game (so far)– an absolute fucking triumph of monster design by any measure. I had my bonfire Kindled (10 health potions), I’m in human form (not for long!) and I had upgraded my armor as much as I can possibly afford at the moment (all the shit around the first bell church drop titanite BTW), I bought 2 Uncurse stones in case I ran afoul of the cursing frog things on the way to the boss, AND to cover my ass, I spent my 10K souls I had lying around on leveling up (you do not need to level up much in the game from what I’ve read) so if I get killed my soul-pile will be small.  I also switched out my chain leggings for some leather pants so I can move quicker.  With some of the bosses you can’t block their attacks effectively so there’s no reason to go in there armoured up.  It took me three tries to beat him.  The first one I just got sloppy and got killed, the second one I was running away from his acid spill attack and fell off a cliff (embarrassing) and  for the last one I had help from another human player instead of one of the CPU phantoms you can grab (only available when human, not hollowed).

It’s taken me a long while to get this far and I think this is the point where you get into the meat of the game.

That said, there are other things going on!

First, there will be an ipad blood bowl game! Cyanide is continuing their BB license usage and coming out with an iPad version of blood bowl this year called Blood Bowl Star Coach. Looks more top down than the current PC version, but still has 3d Models. Should be a blast, though I don’t get ANY iPad time normally at home, I may have to steal it away from the crying children for this.

Dogs

Second, Mouth let me know that while Confrontation is DEAD (and AT-43 for that matter, sniff), the spirit survives  at Cyanide with their acquired license from now defunct Rackham.  While the Confrontation game wasn’t too good, Dogs of War looks like a game where you have a perpetual warband of monstrosities and they gain experience over time– much like Mordheim, Necromunda, Chaos Warbands from the old Realm of Chaos Books.  Looking like something to watch.  Ironically it was the Dogs of War expansion to Confrontation 3 that made me not want to play C3 any more…

Torchlight 2: I still haven’t finished ELITE mode with my Berserker which is sad (but it’s really, really hard on Act 3) but in the news recently is that Runic is still pursuing the MAC version of the game– but there is no timeline and no release date.  While I love the game and it is superior in every way to Diablo 3 (except the sound which in D3 is amazing) if I pre-purchased it on MAC I would be pretty fucking cheesed off by now (matt).

 

Gencon 2013 prep

Gencon, a whirlwind of a day and a half (usually) of everything gaming– you really feel like you are at the center of the gaming world for a weekend and in a lot of ways, you are.  We’re going to have D&D NEXT on display, lots of stuff from Fantasy Flight, Ascension tournaments, a Shadowfist expansion around (for kickstarter people and lord knows whatever else is there for exposition and purchase.

This year I’m heading down Friday to hit the “Classic” Shadowfist tournament and there will be a ton of Wisconsin folks in there (by ton, I mean 6 or 7) expats and current residents of the horrible Walker “please international business, rape my state” regime.

Fist aside, I’d like to get in some games of Seasons, try out some miniature gaming (likely hit the AWESOME Bolt Action tables they had last year) and with Mouth, Matt and Fryburger all being at the con, this should be fairly legendary.

One thing about Gencon is that it’s very much what you make it.  You could walk around and around the vendor hall the whole weekend and feel lonely and fat and just overwhelmed with all the shit there for sale and all the fucking people talking, but the real deal is getting in and playing games you’ve never tried before, playing with friends you see only once a year and talking shit about various nerds and their hobbies.  Oh and drinking and ripping on star wars and getting fat.

List of stuff I’m looking for and going to play:

Various Dark Elf warhammer bits

Another box or two of On the Edge core

Lamentations of the Flame Princes modules (Fuck for Satan, the God that Crawls and Better than Any Man especially)

Visit Bully Pulpit and tell them Carolina Death Crawl is an awesome game.

Exalted – pester them about 3rd edition and then stand around and talk to my players about the 2nd edition campaign we haven’t touched for years but all jones for (except the combat)

Play some Cortex or FATE (to make sure we are doing it right)

Play some Lamentations of the Flame Princess (i.e. OD&D)

Beyond the Gates of Antares – new Rick Priestley sci fi miniatures game on Kickstarter soon

Some good painting there.

Well this is unexpected and pretty big news. I figured all the Ex-GW that went over to Warlord game would stick to the historical stuff as to not compete directly. Certainly Hail Caesar and Bolt Action are considered to be both excellent games but by the fact that they are historical, probably don’t appeal to the mass of gamers like 40K does.  Well the, why not try to take on their former masters with what looks to be a 30MM Sci Fi skirmish game called Beyond the Gates of Antares.

Given where 40K went after 2nd edition (that also fueled Necromunda) I was completely off the wagon.  While I have a small Eldar army and various sundries collected over the years, I have had no desire at all to play 40k, even 6th edition.  I believe GW has the skills to make  a great ruleset as evident by Warhammer Fantasy 8th, they did not go far enough with 6th edition to turn it back into something I’d be interested in playing.

That said, BOLT ACTION’s rules are pretty much exactly what people want out of a game– not too heavy, not too light, with impulse driven iniative rather than the fatal (in 40K’s current scale) IGOYOUGO mechanic.  I expect the new game to be similar.  They were on to something GOOD with AT43– it just didn’t work out well at the end due to balancing the armies out.  I will be throwing some cash at this kickstarter for the single reason that the rulebook will likely kick total ass if Rogue Trader is any indication.

Here is the link.

40K second edition!

While a huge proponent of Warhammer Fantasy Battle 8th edition, I am not and have not been a fan of the rules for 40K for a long time– since 1996 or so actually.  The last edition I played was 4th–just a one off, but the last edition I played a LOT was 2nd edition from back in 1993.   This is the edition that spawned GW’s new style of boxed games rather than just the big hardback books and miniatures.  The plastics were crap, but the rules are IMO the best and were used in both 40K, Necromunda and Gorkamorka: at testament to the strength of the platform.  Subsequent versions of 40K, while solving the “herohammer” problem 2nd edition definitely has, added in the less desirable ” every game is just a mob of infantry in close combat in the middle” and “my entire army was destroyed by ordinance because I didn’t roll well for the first turn” issues that I just couldn’t abide.

So we got a game in of 2nd edition last night and it was good fun, while I prefer EPIC from this era, 40k is much faster to set up and play than the 6mm behemoth.  Thousand points of Marines vs Eldar (and there weren’t many marines for that point value for sure).   The game played fast and the rules, dusty as they were, played SOLID.   It mattered where the individual models were on the table and what weapons they had and what sort of cover they had– and while there was some close combat, it was not the defining factor of the game.   Here’s a shot of the predator vs Avatar with Blind grenade spots roaming around.  Needless to say, with tons of chances to hurt the Avatar with shooting, the Predator did not hold up once the king of the Eldar got into close combat with it.

note the beaky marines from 1987 ladies!