Midsummer RPG Action

 

Things have been on hold for a few weeks while I was touring the local hospital but we are finally getting back in the saddle today with more Dungeon Crawl Classics. We're all level 1 and whoever survives will likely make it to level 2 after tonight which will be about as far as any of us have gotten in this game. it is a lot of fun regardless. 

One of the interesting things that has happened is something I wish for anytime I bring up a new (or old) game with the crew. We played it as a one-off that I ran a while back. The group kept talking about it occasionally as we played through Time of Crisis and as we finished that up and started looking at the next round we decided to play some DCC before we started up the next longer campaign with Necessary Evil. Plus we decided to have Variable Dave DM it so I could play for a bit. It has really hit something with our crew as there's a lot of talk about the openness of the old school approach compared to all of the modern versions of D&D and I am happy to hear it. 

One example here being the "Mighty Deeds of Arms" ability of the fighter which lets a character pull off a cool move with a combination of a good die roll and coming up with a relevant stunt. It replaces all of the cruft around Disarm, Bull Rush, Shove, and more - all of those nifty fighting man/swashbuckler type moves that get tangled up in overly specific rules and feats and skills and class abilities in the more recent versions of the game. There is a defined mechanic associated with it, and one does get better at it as one levels up, but it's one mechanic followed by suggestions and examples of what one could do with it rather than a discrete list of all the possibilities. It's a great approach and it does work in play. 

It's been liked enough that we are probably going to run up through 3rd level and then pause to start Savage Worlds with an eye towards dropping the DCC option in here and there over the rest of the year. I'm going to be looking for some obvious break points where we could take a session or two to sidetrek into some weird adventure before going back into supers-land. It may not be viable but it's worth trying out and it would be good to keep some system familiarity alive for a while.

Anyway that's where things stand here at the moment but there is definitely more to come. 

40K Friday - Armageddon Updates

 

I found myself forced to the sidelines here for most of June thanks to some hospital time - there's a first time for everything! - but I am getting back into the swing of things. I'll focus on the miniature stuff today and talk about the rest in another post.

I did manage to order and receive the new big box set while I was entangled. It's good but I do have some comparisons and some thoughts. On the marine side - there is always a marine side with these - it's not as exciting as the past few sets. 

• 8th edition brought us the initial wave of primaris stuff which were all new models and units, even if some of us were not entirely thrilled at this approach to a marine update.
• 9th edition (Indomitus) brought us some cool characters and new units which were pretty well-received:
• 1 Primaris Captain (Sword and shield captain)
• 1 Primaris Lieutenant (Pistol and shield lt.)
• 1 Primaris Chaplain (first primaris version)
• 1 Judiciar (new character type)
• 3 Bladeguard Veterans (new unit)
• 1 Bladeguard Ancient (new character type)
• 3 Outriders (first primaris bikes)
• 3 Eradicators (new unit)
• 10 Assault Intercessors (first primaris assault marines)
  
  Nothing here was a straight-up rehash of an existing model or unit. They all either brought things into the new Primaris Era or added interesting new options, or both. It was a great box.
  
  
• 10th edition (Leviathan) was another great box full of new or newly-primaised units:
• 1x Captain in Terminator Armour: new upsized version of a popular character type
• 1x Librarian in Terminator Armour: ditto
• 1x Lieutenant with Combi-Weapon: yet another primaris lieutenant but with a new ability
• 1x Apothecary Biologis: Not a normal apothecary and with some useful abilities
• 1x Ballistus Dreadnought: New type of dreadnought
• 5x Terminators: Upsized to fit the new scale but otherwise the traditional squad we all know and love
• 5x Sternguard Veterans: upsized version of a popular squad type
• 10x Infernus Marines: a new squad (or two) of flamethrower specialists 
  
  So there was not as much pure new stuff in this one but it was still well received because of the new terminators and dreadnought. This was also the "shooty" batch of marines to balance out the melee-heavy group from 9th. 

Old non-primaris Librarian

• For 11th now though it's a little different. This one is not mainly ranged or melee it has more of a balance of the two but it also has the first duplicates of existing primaris units which is not really anything anyone was crying out for:
• 1x Captain with Relic Shield: It's another sword & board marine captain ... we just had one of those in the 9th edition starter set. I like it but it seems a little soon to do another one.
• 1x Librarian: This is another walking-normal-power-armored libby and while I love the pose - a callback to a prior librarian model - there is an existing primaris librarian that hasn't been out that long. 
• 1x Chaplain with Jump Pack: I've loved the idea of the jump-chaplain since the RT days and one of my first "finished" models was an old metal chaplain with an old metal jump pack. This guy looks good and I'm happy to finally have one officially updated to the newer scale.
• 1x Ancient: We just had an ancient in the 8th edition box - granted that's not new - but there is also one available in a standalone character box and another one available in the "company heroes" box and probably a few others I am forgetting. Did we really need another ground-ponding banner guy in normal power armor? 
• 10x Intercessors: This is where it really feels like filler. Sure every box like this needs some basic shooting marines - though 9th didn't and 10th didn't so much - but these look very much like what we already have and they have no special loadouts or new equipment options. They have a few different pieces here and there like a helmet or a breastplate but we had the first intercessors in the 8th edition box and then we had the multipart kit later in that edition and those intercessors have been packed into many if not most of the combat patrols and battalion boxes and starter sets ever since. No one playing today lacks basic intercessors. I know this unit was expected but it feels dramatically uninspired.
• 5x Vanguard Veterans with Jump Packs: They're fine but the old Vanguard Vets were know for versatility and having options for a bunch of different melee weapons. Now we may lose that in this edition (like we did in 10th on the old kit) but even if we do from a modeling point of view "everyone has a power sword" feels a little dull. I think we are all hoping the inevitable new multi-part kit will have more choices.
• 3x Eradicators with Heavy Bolters: Sure, ok. Eradicators came out with the 8th box with melta weapons and heavy bolters are pretty widely available in a marine army but they might have some utility. Their special rules are kind of ridiculous. The models do look good so I'll give them that.
• 1x Land Speeder: This is the one I like the best. I was always a fan of the Land Speeder going back to my metal RT speeders and I was disappointed to see the basic super-versatile model disappear awhile back. The heavy speeders felt like they were a little much for a fast scout and strike vehicle. This one though is a genius creation coming in a smaller size more like the old versions and packing all of the weapon options onto a single chassis! I think this is a great unit that almost any army can use and I plan to end up with multiples of them.

New Librarian! What a refreshing new design!
(I do love this pose for these guys though)

• The only really new thing here is the speeder with half credit for the eradicators. The chaplain and vanguard vets are a scale update and everything else is a new primaris update of an existing primaris model. There's a reason people were calling this part of the box "boring" and they are not wrong.

The Xenos half of the boxes has usually been interesting at least:

• 8th edition gave us a major Death Guard refresh that gave us updates to old models and a bunch of new types, expanding the army to the point it became its own force with a separate codex for the first time. It was a very cool set. Maybe someday I will finish painting mine ...
• 9th edition gave us a major Necron update with refreshed warriors and scarabs and some characters both new and refreshed, and a new unit type. It was great for them and I did manage to finish painting mine a couple of years ago.
• 10th gave us a major Tyranid refresh with some redesigned models and a bunch of new ones, units and characters alike. It was also a great set and no, I have not even finished building mine. 

Now for 11th the OpForce is Orks and it is a big refresh for them too:

• 1 Warboss: An important unit in an Ork army and as much as I love the previous version it has been a while. This guy looks great and he's a fair bit bigger (on a 50mm base now) plus we know there's a multipart kit coming too so we will have some good options here.
• 1 Bannernob: Orks have had these for quite a while (they were metal before) but they pulled them out of the list in either 9th or 10th. This unit looks good and thankfully means we get our banner unit back in the army list.
• 1 Bigboss: These have been gone for a while too but they were a well-known unit a few editions back. Glad to see him return and fill the "Ork Lieutenant" niche.
• 1 Painboy & 1 Grot Orderly: We do have models for these already but it has been awhile since they came out. Still not sure about the look but at least if you want more than one the old and new should mix together fairly well. 
• 1 Weirdboy: Not a big fan of this mini but at least we do have a new model. 
• 20 Ork Boyz: Well, they had to be in this box and they do look good. Not sure how customizable they will be as I haven't started in on them yet but more boyz is not a bad thing.
• 10 Gretchin: OK, sure. Did they really need to be in the big box though? I know the whole thing is a tribute to the 2nd edition starter set but I feel like these could have been something more interesting and I don't know of any Ork player that lacks for grots.
• 1 Wartrakk: This ... yes! A longtime staple of Kult of Speed lists finally returns after a few editions away, and it looks amazing! I've already ordered a couple more and dug my old ones out of storage.
• 1 Big Mek Dakkarig: The one truly new unit here. I had mixed feelings about it on first sight but it has grown on me. It leans heavily into the dakka side of things with limited melee capability but that may be OK. It looks a lot like a looted and upgunned imperial guard sentinel but I think I'm ok with that too. It's supposed to be driven b a Big Mek but it has no repair or leadership type abilities, just a 5+ inv save to represent a force field of some kind I suppose. It's taken a while for me to warm up to it but now I think I do like it.

Now to build it all. It's going to take a while but hopefully I can get the parts I like built and basecoated and into action soon. 

40K Friday: More Orks

 

Progress was slow this week but I have another Grey Knight Terminator squad almost ready to go in the case. I'm still fighting the stupidly fiddly nature of the "almost done" model where the last 10% of finishing it takes as much time as the entire process before that. It's why getting to that clearcoat & flocking stage feels so good.

Most of the time however went to Orks. I am trying to maintain focus on them right now. There is some finishing happening here too - mainly the Morkanauts - but there is a fair amount of building happening too as I try to finish out stuff they should have had years ago. The goal is to get it to a certain point and then see what the new edition brings, knowing full well I will still be building as the new edition starts too. 

They look good painted up - this one is obviously not mine

The other wild idea that has crept in is the one I mentioned last time about a potential Blood Axe force in half track-ish looking vehicles. It's been in my head for a few years now as the ork battlewagons look like a half track of some kind if you leave off the top. Some head-swaps for the boyz riding inside and suddenly we have a old-school-looking new force using mostly stuff I already had. I might throw in some of those new guard vehicles as trukks and a looted Russ or three as tank support. It would be far more sensible to not do this and instead roll it all into either my Goffs or my Evil Sunz but I'm really feeling this as it's own sub-force that I could use on its own or team up with other parts.  

I mean it -is- a halftrack technically anyway already!
(Imagine this in a kind of camo grey scheme) 

So now the question really is do I compile the parts to do this but save it for later once I have finished more of the stuff I have started? Or do I work some of it in too and just make a mess of it - though it would still be "working on orks" which at least sounds better than switching over to Guard or Dark Eldar or something else. 

More to come.

May RPG Action

 

With Variable Dave running his DCC interlude campaign - next session this weekend - it's a weird feeling to not be the one prepping stuff. I had forgotten how much less there is to do to be ready for a game as a player once you have a character ready to go. I mean, I'm relishing the chance to just play, especially with some of my regular crew, but it is a change in perspective. I think it's good for a GM to get to play every once in a while to get a refresh on how that feels but it has been awhile since I've had the chance. Being a party of 1st level DCC characters I expect there to be some carnage but it will be fun regardless.

That said there's always some level or prepping going on - right now the plan is still to run Necessary Evil as my next campaign so I've been skimming back through the Savage Worlds rules and powers. Then I'll hit the Super Powers Guide and the NE book itself. There is a pile of RPG books on the to-be-read shelf but I'm trying not to get distracted beyond reading back through the DCC rules and the Savage Worlds stuff.

Really trying not to get distracted by this ...

It is nice to have a steady group going - we always have a game running even if we skip a week or two here and there. Consistency is hugely important to keeping a group connected. Everyone knows that the default is "there's a game Saturday night" and exceptions will be discussed in advance. For me now it's nice to know I can hand things off to someone else and play and keep things going too. 

Anyway, more to come next week.

40K Friday: Orks!

 

I am still working on the GKs part of the time - got to move a terminator squad and a dreadnought into the "done" case last week - but as 11th edition draws closer I decided I ought to take a serious look at my Orks and try to get them into shape/fill in some gaps/grab some units that may be disappearing or getting replaced soon.

On the Replacement Candidates front it matters because I like some units to fit together, to look like they go together, and while it matters less with orks than with some other armies it does still matter. I assume anything new will be bigger and a least slightly different style-wise. I like most of what I see in the new box for orks though I am not a huge fan of that new weirdboy. So if I am going to fill in some units alongside some existing units I am inclined to pick up more of the existing kits and use whatever new stuff comes out for something new. Also - parts! I am not sure that some of my alternate ork heads, for example, will fit right or look right on the newer boyz or whatever they end up doing with nobz so I need to make sure I have enough heads and bodies that are compatible with each other before these old kits go out of production. 

This guy is great, no complaints here

Right now I have a good-sized Goffs force that is the bulk of force. It's mostly infantry with walker support and I think I'm going to stick with that theme. So the first round of painting time went into improving the pair of black partly-painted Morkanauts I've had sitting around for a few years. They've been used but I've never been ready to call them "finished" so why not try to get them into that state? Plus it's a nice break to paint something orkish that doesn't come in batches of 20. A bunch of boyz, nobz, meganobz, dreads, kans, 'nauts ... i think this makes a great core ork force.

Not as crazy about this guy ... I like my weirdboys to have crazy hair, not Doc Ock tentacles

For a long time now the other part of my ork army has been an Evil Sunz force. Buggies, bikes, trukks, battlewagons - you know, vehicle heavy! There are some boyz here too, plus a unit of meganobz, and some walkers but the emphasis was on the speedy stuff shooting things up and dumping out smaller units of boyz here and there. I'm probably going to stick with that here but there are a lot of things that need to be finished - concepts are easy, building is pretty easy, but finishing things is clearly a stretch for me. 

There may be a third element lurking around now. For a long time I was thinking I might add a Bad Moons force, mostly big gunz, some lootas, probably some walkers and tanks here too, but it never really coalesced into "yes I want to do this now". Recently though I've been looking at how my official battlewagons are built and some of the custom ork heads I picked up a while back and I've been thinking a lot about a Blood Axe force. This would be 50-60 boys, possibly some burnas, packed into 3 battlewagons and then maybe a few trukks. Not sure what else yet but I'm really stuck on the visuals in my head for this and a lot of it is stuff I already have. If the Goffs are my ground pounders, the Sunz are my Recon in Force element, then maybe Blood Axes would work for mechanized infantry.

This just screams "Ork Trukk for Blood Axes" to me

Do I need this many orks? No. Would I ever let that stop me? Also no. Lord knows it hasn't so far ...

So anyway there's the update on the latest area of focus. Yes, I've jumped around a lot this year but I am actually getting things done with these armies so I feel pretty good about it. More to come!

The Perpetual Golden Age of RPGs

 

This post is driven by some YouTube stuff I saw recently but it's been  showing up anywhere people discuss RPGs - forums, social media, reddit ... everywhere. The "it" is the shocking discovery that there are a lot of other games out there besides D&D! Really? Incredible!

I know that new people come into the hobby all the time and that's a good thing. I know that D&D is the first encounter for a lot of people - which is cool, it was for me as well. I just don't understand how people could spend, say, months getting into D&D and looking into it online, and remain blissfully unaware that other RPG's exist. I mean you have to run into references to, discussions about, and ads for things like Pathfinder, right? Shadowdark? You'd at some point hear that there is a Marvel RPG, or a Star Wars RPG, or a Star Trek RPG, plus various other pop-culture relevant games too, right?

There is a similar thing with Warhammer players too when they first notice/discover/get into other miniatures games, especially other genres. "Hey did you know there are miniature rules for WW2 battleships?" Yes, yes I am quite aware and I've even played some.

I think the latest surge of this is probably due to the 5E changeover to 5.5E - an edition change is always a good place for people to jump off the bandwagon - as over the past year or two the game that so many people were attached to became less of a stable, settled thing. I suspect that 5E D&D was the only game that was big enough to support blogs, YT channels, Discord channels, 3rd party companies, and the like as far as running a single-focus channel. Even Pathfinder seems to have trouble supporting narrowly-focused media. As that monobloc is shaken up, cracked even, people start looking around and realize there are other options and the (re?) discovery process begins. 

One example: I actually played my first session of Dungeon Crawl Classics over the weekend. I've run it a fair few times over the years but I've never gotten to experience it as a player. You'll see people mention it when they find it as if it was a hot new OSR game. It's been out longer than 5E has! DCC came along in 2012 and has been continuously in print the entire time, supported by a stupidly huge line of adventures from the publisher and a pretty good pile of 3rd party support as well. It's cool when you see someone discover it but it's weird when they act like it's new. Sure, it's new to you, now, but it was there the whole time while you were caught up in 5th Edition.

One of the older covers - not the oldest, but it's up there

Another example where this happens a lot, at least on the internet roads I travel, is Savage Worlds. I feel like Savage Worlds might be the king of this. D&D players and groups are excited to find a game that works completely differently to D&D - although they do often struggle to grasp the mechanics - they can tell that it's a cool thing and want to give it a whirl. While it does get some coverage online there is not anywhere near the blather on this game that there is on D&D. I guess this makes people feel like it must be new - it's not! It's over 20 years old now! And it stings to say that! Because I remember when it was new and radical and we were all just figuring it out and we had the email lists and google groups to help us along! But no, SW has been around for over two decades and with a few rules tweaks along the way is still pretty much the same game now that it was then. 

You don't see much about this one anymore

I think maybe this being the first big edition changeover since the juggernaut of 5E D&D becoming a modern media centerpiece might be why so many people keep proclaiming it as "the golden age of RPGs". My beef there is with the "the". It's easily "a" golden age of RPGs but every decade has a great run of new or revitalized games that earn that title for that decade all over again. For example, what are the big games now besides D&D itself?

• For fantasy we have Pathfinder, Shadowdark, OSR games...
• In the 80's besides D&D we had Runequest, Tunnels and Trolls, Chivalry and Sorcery, Pendragon, Warhammer Fantasy RP, Fantasy Hero, GURPS Fantasy, and a bunch of small press games that were tweaked versions of D&D. 
• In the 90's we had most of those plus Earthdawn, a resurgent Palladium Fantasy RPG, and possibly Torg and the various White Wolf games depending on how you want to count those.
• For Science Fiction we have versions of Traveller, a Star Trek game, a Star Wars game, Cyberpunk Red, and the various Alien space-horror games.
• In the 80's we had various versions of Traveller, we had a Star Trek game, we had a Star Wars game, we had other takes like Other Suns, Star Frontiers, Space Opera, plus GURPS Space and Star Hero and, of course, original Cyberpunk
• In the 90's we had a new Star Trek game, a new version of Traveller, a new version of CP,  and increased multi-genre weirdness like Rifts, Shadowrun, and Torg
• We have superheroes both name-brand (Marvel, Justice League) and do it yourself with Mutants and Masterminds, various FATE and PBTA games like Masks, Icons, and others.
• In the 80's we had a Marvel game, a DC game, and do it yourself games like Villains & Vigilantes, Champions, and Heroes Unlimited
• In the 90's all of those were still going with new edition and we added GURPS Supers, Aberrant, and the awesomeness of Underground to the mix as well. 
• For more universal systems I'd say Savage Worlds is exhibit A today, plus maybe the Cypher System from Monte Cook, the AGE games, and maybe even BRP making a late comeback these days
• In the 80's it was Hero, with GURPS coming along late
• In the 90's it was definitely Hero, GURPs, and then maybe BRP even then as a third. The White Wolf games were kind of a multi-genre system as time went on but not really one for playing normal people. 

Man this makes me want to drag this game out again

So RPGs have always inspired people to make something new, whether it's "like D&D except for ..." or "nothing at all like D&D". Anime is way too popular now and has inspired multiple games but even in the 80s & 90s when popular anime was mostly "robots and spaceships" we had Mekton for generic giant robot type games and Robotech for your licensed robot/spaceship game, and then BESM for everything else by the late 90's. Post-Apocalyptic games feel less popular but we have a new edition of Twilight 2000 for the rougher edges of post-nuclear life, Mutant Crawl Classics to keep the spirit of Gamma World alive, and a newer version of Rifts via Savage Worlds to keep that particular flavor of 90's cross-genre game going into yet another new decade. The more things change ...

Before the cartoons ... before the movies ... this was already a thing...

So when I hear proclamations of a new golden age I just shrug my shoulders. Sure, there may be some innovative mechanical approach. There may be an awesome new setting. That's all good but those of us who have been at this for a while have seen a lot of it before and it's weird. I do want to see the expansion and innovation continue and I want to see the next new trend but we have had interesting choices and options with RPGs since the late 70's! It's not going to stop anytime soon but it didn't just start this decade!

The last 50 years have been a Golden Age for RPGs and the fun rolls on ...

Fainting Goat's Pew Pew Returns

 

Fainting Goat is running a small Kickstarter for the latest version of their Pew Pew game  - see it here. I've posted about them before and went into the rules there but if you want a light, loose, Star Wars-ish RPG this is something you should look into. Each booklet is a one-shot adventure and there are a few of them out now already so it could be a recurring thing for your group if one goes well. I figure it would be a great game to run at a con - the right players could make it pretty memorable. It's all of $8 to jump in so if it pushes any buttons at all take a look.

40K Friday: Grinding Away at Grey Knights

 

I should probably post something about all the new rule reveals but in my experience it's very difficult to draw any real conclusions when you only have part of the picture. Sure, we've seen the contents of the big box for the new edition, and some of the new combat rules, and WarCom is banging away every day now with details on some detachments and it's a lot of fun ... but it's not enough to actually play a game of 11th and until I can do that it's all speculative and incomplete. I may put up a post about it next week but I'm still not sure there's a ton of value there. I'm watching and reading for sure but it's a little early to say one army is going to be terrible or that another will be amazing. Nobody who knows anything can talk about it yet ... so we wait. Looks like the new stuff is coming out in June so we will all get a chance to check it out then.

In the meantime ...

• Primary focus has been the Grey Knights because theoretically they are the closest to completion. As often turns out to be the case, getting them from "almost" to "done" feels like a whole bunch of work because I want it to look a certain way and until it does it is not "done". It's not quite perfectionist - I outgrew that a long time ago - but it is still amazing sometimes how much more work a "90% complete" model takes to finish. Some examples: 
  
  
  

  

  Those extra antenna things stick up just far enough and are just fragile enough to be absolute nightmares over the lifespan of a miniature trooper.

  
  
• My Interceptor squads - I had 3 completed before - took a little bit of a beating, probably in the move and while one of them was good and is now in the "done" case the other two had some weapons break (@#%@#$@$ force halberds!), some arms pop off, and those little teleport nubs on their power packs broke off on multiple models. So now I'm very slowly working through the process of matching up broken weapon heads with broken shafts, weapon arms with bodies, and figuring out how exactly I want to deal with the power pack situation. Yes, it is very tempting to just remove the remaining nubs on the broken ones and call them Strike squads but I'm trying to make it work without throwing in the towel like that. We will see if my resolve holds.
  
  
  

  

  See without the gun the piston/support plugs right into the arm ...

  
  
• My "painted" Dreadknights took a beating as well so I am fixing broken bits here as well. One that was fully painted did not have a second arm weapon - in the age before one could save some points by not paying for a second gun and just charging them into melee. In the points-less now, you might as well load them up. The problem is that adding an arm-mounted cannon is blocked by one of the many cables on these things. If you put the gun on first, the support/piston/cable plugs into it. If you do not, the thing goes directly into the arm. So now I am working out what I have to cut to do the last damage to the paint and still get it on there. Of course I also need to paint the gun too. Cut and reposition the support? Cut off half of the gun? I may just give up and say there's an invisible incinerator there and not cut or paint anything.
  
  
  

  

  ... but to attach the gun that same support plugs into the gun - which is tricky to do when it's already there.

  
  
• The Paladins and Terminators - <sigh>. The variable number of these guys in a squad has kind of turned into a pain because I have multiples but some are 3, some are 4, and some are 5. You can still use them that way in 10th edition, but I know there is a big reset coming for the GKs in 11th and I hate to do work that won't matter in six months. Of course, that could apply to the whole army so who knows? I'm getting to the point now where I'm just going to finish them up in whatever numbers they are in and build some new 5-man  squads to try and be ready for the redux. My concern is that even if they leave most of the army structure intact - no guarantees there - that they might get weird with say, Paladins and put them in 3-man squads. There is no assurance that all of the current squad types and character types and vehicles will say as they are or even stay in the army at all so it's probably pointless to try and pre-game this stuff. Ah well, one of the perils of trying to update an older army going into a new edition. It will all be playable in older editions so that's my ultimate refuge I suppose. 

Anyway I'm working through this stuff and will hopefully finish soon. I have started looking at my orks and counting up numbers and types because yes, they are the poster-fungus for Armageddon and I'd like to get them on the table again. I expect some model and unit updates here as well so it's another battle of "what will still be useful" for the new edition - I'll talk about that next time.

Time of Crisis Completed!

 

Well we wrapped up our jump into Mutants and Masterminds last weekend and it went pretty well. I had one last minute miss (Providence's player) but Heavy Metal finally made it back after missing an entire arc.  To recap the structure of Time of Crisis:

• There is a kickoff involving a robbery by a team of villains at a casino. It's well done but I replaced it with a bank robbery involving fewer villains and more mooks since some of my players were new to the system and the rest of us were shaking off some rust. 
• Then most of the omniverse is destroyed but the characters are pulled into a surviving fragment by a powerful entity and given the task of saving it all by hunting down and disabling a set of cosmic bombs created by Omega, Lord of the Terminus. This involves traveling to various parallel earths and dealing with the inhabitants while searching for this larger goal. 
• One setting is the classic scenario where America lost WW2 and is now occupied. It's a chance to punch Nazis and fight various villains, robot tanks, and help the Resistance, and possibly set up a brighter future. Special guest star: Dr. Tomorrow. 
• Another setting is Earth-Ape which ... you knowwhat's coming, right? Another comic book trope where the world is inhabited by intelligent apes instead of humans and yes you do eventually get to save the world here. Special guest star: The Primate Patrol
• The third setting is pretty much a Mirror Universe where the good guys are all bad guys and run things for their own personal benefit. It's "The Tyranny Syndicate" in place of the Freedom League and one man, a villain in the normal Freedom-verse, is the lone superhero. You have a chance to change some things up here too. Special guest star: Mind-Master.
• The final chapter is back at home on Earth Prime, home of Freedom City and the League and the other heroes and villains of the Freedomverse. This is also a showdown with Omega himself, coming to make sure his final bomb completes its mission. Being a Power Level 19 character facing a bunch of Power Level 10 characters it could be pretty one-sided but their prior experiences give the team some tools that give them a fighting chance.

  It was a lot of fun and all of my players liked it. We spent 10 sessions working through it and after having tried to run it multiple times over many years we actually managed to finish it this time, and with an appropriately climactic battle against Omega. People were battered, bad guys were beaten, and in the end the Lord of the Terminus went down to concentrated efforts and smart thinking by my players. Some high points:

• Our first parallel world was Earth-Ape and everyone got a kick out of the inhabitants, the heroes, and the terrible, terrible puns scattered throughout this adventure. Boom Gun Brandon was back in town for this and got to play a Glitter Boy from Rifts which made him happy even if the "boom" effect that happened to everyone around him every time he fired made everyone else less happy. Definitely a feature to be worked on in the future. After the main villain went down an attack by an Omega drone - part of how the GB ended up here - gave everyone one more chance to show off their combat skills and to team up with the recovering Primate Patrol. This is also where our two tech-genius heroes figured out how to defuse the bomb for the first time.

• We went to Occupied America next and this part gave U.S. Patriot a chance to make a -lot- of speeches about America ... to everyone within earshot, accompanied by various renditions of the Star-Spangled Banner courtesy of Heavy Metal. It was cracking all of us up so it was a fun run.

• Next-to-last was Evil Earth which opened with a fight against their own evil selves. Heavy Metal was not present for this one - but his evil doppelganger was! Taking down the team's toughest member was an interesting exercise and White-Out was very on-board with razzing him for a) not being at this fight and b) letting him know who it was that finally took him out (it was White-Out). While fighting the evil Freedom League Thunderbolt (evil Captain Thunder) was tanking almost the entire team and frustrating them more than a little bit. Later, the team made a really good effort to reform Mind-Master who was ready to blow his own world away regardless of whether Omega was the source of it or not. This was probably the most interesting run of all.

• In the finale they tracked down the bomb fairly quickly so we spent most of the session's game-time working through the fight. The whole thing happens in a park where there is a giant statue of Centurion and with Patriot having a personal connection with Centurion it was a great location for drama. Once they figured out Omega's weakness ... well the fight did not last long. He hurt some of them in the process but they had multiple rods (IYKYK) and were not afraid to use them. Soon enough the city, the world, and the omniverse were saved, thanks were exchanged, missing heroes reappeared, and the movie was over. 

Since we had some time left, I started the discussion on how they felt about the system and if they wanted to continue the game as a more traditional superhero game. We went around the table and while they liked it, I would phrase it as they didn't love it. One comment was that it dragged a fair amount in combat. As we talked through things it became apparent that there were some other options that interested them more than "more" M&M. 

I had pretty much expected this as I felt like I was probably the most excited person at the table for most of this campaign. There were bursts of excitement here and there as the game went on but I never felt that next level of interest coming from my crew. That tipping point where they are consistently talking about the system amongst themselves away from the table just never quite ignited. It's interesting because I was feeling overwhelmed when we started but by the last few sessions I was finally feeling it and seeing the possibilities for a real, ongoing campaign. Not this time though.

As for me I was happy to make some kind of run with this game again as it has been a long time. M&M is a hugely important game to me and to anyone who loves supers campaigns - even if they don't play it or like it - as it has become "the standard" IMO for most players - especially if they've never played Champions. It's been a consistent long-term presence with a lot of stability as far as rules and availability. I know that I could have done a better job in several ways - mainly rules mastery and keeping things flowing during the game. It would have had more impact if we had spent more time getting to know Freedom City before blowing up the multiverse but I wasn't going to risk not getting to do it. That said I'm not kicking myself over anything in particular. I do really like the game and I especially like the level of support it has for actually running the game. From NPCs to creatures to equipment to locations there is a large set of pre-built things to throw into your game and with a supers game that is especially important.

That said I'm probably not quite as in love with it myself as I was ten years ago. I think it's a great game but one does have to guard against some "sameyness" leaking in when you have a bunch of characters at the same power level. The trappings and descriptors matter. The combat can drag a bit as the team stacks bruises on a villain and hopes for failed saves on other effects. Some of the powers, particularly Afflictions, can be tricky to decipher and distill into "what does this look like when it's fired off?" I think with more in the system this would be less of a problem but there is a definite curve to get through to where the mechanics take less processing power and more can be devoted to "style." I doubt I have run my last game of M&M, probably not even my last game of 3rd edition, but I'm OK setting it aside for now. 

So what did we decide to do? Well the siren's call of D&D did not take hold but the siren's call of Savage Worlds and the prospect of a complete run of Necessary Evil did make it through. I'm happy with it as it's a)more supers-action and b) a chance to complete yet another thing we have started before but never finished! With some schedule choppiness ahead Variable Dave is going to run some Dungeon Crawl Classics for a session or 3 - so I actually get to play something - and then in June we will head back to Star City and kick off Necessary Evil: The Third Attempt!

Yep, right over there ...

40K Friday: The Imperial Fists Update

 

 Well I talked about it briefly in this post and as it turns out an update was entirely achievable by adding a pair of Redemptor Dreadnoughts ... so I did! It ends up with 3 characters, 3x shooty Terminator squads, 3x Assault Terminator squads, a Land Raider, and the two dreads. There is room to add an enhancement or two, or I could change Darnath to a regular Terminator Captain and take either another Chaplain or Librarian for exactly 2000 points. The army list is down below.

Is this a balanced force? No. Once they hit the ground the Terminators will be slow. Deep striking does give them some initial mobility, and the Land Raider could get them up the board on turn 1 a bit, but there is no speed here. The main anti-tank are the dreads and the tank - beyond that it gets a little thin. 

There is room to change things up even further by dropping the Land Raider or changing out some of the Dreadnoughts for a Balistus or a Brutalis which are cheaper and more specialized. Right now this is almost everything I have unless we went Legends. I could also expand it beyond just Terminators using the more modern definition of the Deathwing or First Company to include Primaris units like Bladeguard and other veterans, plus a Repulsor or two. Also the detachment structure in 11th edition might make it smart to move some bikes back in - we will see. But this is what I have painted now so this is what the army will look like for some time.  

I need to do some work on the bases and with some decals to make it look more cohesive but at least i have all of the parts and all of it is painted!

Background: I bought most of this force as a painted army around 13-14 years ago and I played it quite a bit when I first got it - how did I never post about it? Wait ... I did! Tags updated! I added to it over the years here and there and just never worried about it too much. I loved the idea of an all-terminator army so I kept with that theme. It was built under the 4th/5th edition Dark Angel Deathwing army rules so it did have a pair of bike units (Ravenwing you know) - which I have used many times as they add some mobility to it but the core has always been 30+ Terminators dropping or driving into the fight. Sure, the newer termies are bigger, but they still all look like termies and that's what matters to me. This was the first time I bought a complete army already painted and I have never regretted it. It makes me very happy to be able to continue using it pretty much as-is with the same theme all these years later. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

+ FACTION KEYWORD: Imperium - Adeptus Astartes - Imperial Fists

+ DETACHMENT: 1st Company Task Force (Extremis-level Threat)

+ TOTAL ARMY POINTS: 1930pts

+ WARLORD:  Darnath Lysander

+ NUMBER OF UNITS: 12

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

1x Chaplain in Terminator Armour (75 pts): Crozius arcanum, Storm bolter

1x Darnath Lysander (100 pts): Warlord, Fist of Dorn

1x Librarian in Terminator Armour (75 pts): Force weapon, Smite

1x Land Raider (220 pts): Armoured Tracks, 2x Godhammer Lascannon, Hunter-killer missile, Multi-melta, Storm bolter, Twin heavy bolter

1x Redemptor Dreadnought (205 pts): Icarus Rocket Pod, Redemptor Fist, Macro Plasma Incinerator, Heavy Flamer, Twin Storm Bolter

1x Redemptor Dreadnought (205 pts): Icarus Rocket Pod, Redemptor Fist, Macro Plasma Incinerator, Heavy Flamer, Twin Storm Bolter

5x Terminator Assault Squad (180 pts)

• 1x Assault Terminator Sergeant: Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer

• 4x Assault Terminator: 4 with Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer

5x Terminator Assault Squad (180 pts)

• 1x Assault Terminator Sergeant: Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer

• 4x Assault Terminator: 4 with Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer

5x Terminator Assault Squad (180 pts)

• 1x Assault Terminator Sergeant: Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer

• 4x Assault Terminator: 4 with Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer

5x Terminator Squad (170 pts)

• 4x Terminator

    1 with Chainfist, Cyclone missile launcher, Storm bolter

    3 with Power fist, Storm bolter

• 1x Terminator Sergeant: Storm bolter, Power fist

5x Terminator Squad (170 pts)

• 4x Terminator

    1 with Chainfist, Cyclone missile launcher, Storm bolter

    3 with Power fist, Storm bolter

• 1x Terminator Sergeant: Storm bolter, Power fist

5x Terminator Squad (170 pts)

• 4x Terminator

    1 with Chainfist, Assault Cannon

    3 with Power fist, Storm bolter

• 1x Terminator Sergeant: Storm bolter, Power fist