Summer 2014 - Miniature Mania

It's been a miniatures-intensive month here so I may have a few posts this week about some of what we've been doing. We've been getting to know 7th edition 40K, reviving Epic, trying out Bolt Action on the cheap, getting together some ancients armies (DBA to start with), some fantasy armies (for Hordes of the Things), and dusting off Federation Commander too. That's a pretty wide range of stuff but it's amazing how much we can get done with some time off and some focus. I've even managed to put together some new terrain.

We've worked in a session of our Pathfinder game too so it hasn't been totally RPG-free but they've definitely been a secondary concern. With that game rolling along and my general lack of interest in the new D&D, I haven't been pushing this as hard with the Apprentices lately. I may pick up the starter set to give the new rules a look, but other than that the only new things likely to come up are a possible supers game, a Trek game, or some kind of WW2 game as a one-off.

Anyway, that's where things stand right now. More details later in the week.

Motivational Monday - Vacation Edition

Taking a little time off so here's a triple shot of vacation-themed posters...

Black Sails - Season 1

Well season #1 had 8 episodes and I've managed to see all of them now. I don't see a lot of sailing ship/pirate era type shows on TV so if you're even slightly interested it's worth tracking down. That said it is Starz attempt to open their own HBO-style series so there's lots of nudity, sex, violence, and bad language. Keep in mind, it is a show about pirates. I will keep this largely spoiler-free in case some of you want to go check it out.

Captain Noblebeard and crew

Notable point: 8 episodes: Sometimes less is more. This is a good way to introduce a show and gauge the interest level. It'e already been renewed for season two so we will be seeing more of this story. A determined couch commander could burn through it in a day.

Captain Abs and crew

Characters: It's a fairly tight cast of characters. Each main character has 2-3 associated companion characters. There are interactions within these smaller groups and interactions between the larger groups that drive the show.

• The woman in charge of the island/pirate port and her "crew", mainly her right hand man and girlfriend
• Captain Noblebeard and his crew, mainly his first mate and bosun
• Captain Abs and his crew, mainly the Bad Girl and Not-Jack-Sparrow
• The individuals - the "cook", the land-based captain, the mystery woman, and others all making their way and developing relationships between the main characters

There is heavy pressure on each of the leads, both from within their own "team" and without. Good and bad decisions are made during the season - sometimes you see them coming, sometimes you don't. Quite a few minor and several major characters are lost over the course of the season as well - so far the "reset button" has not been a big issue. There is an overall plot that develops right from Episode 1 all the way through the finale. I can't really go into more detail there without spoilers but I'll probably talk more about that when season 2 comes along.

Also note: There's nothing blatantly supernatural in the show so far, so it's a step closer to "real" than Pirates of the Caribbean. 

 

Island Girl and her right hand man

From a "guy who has considered running a pirate campaign" it has some things to offer too:

• The PC's don't all have to be the crew of a single ship. Putting them on different ships opens up opportunities for both competition and cooperation. It's an especially effective way to handle players with differing schedules. If player A can't make it this week he must be out hunting merchant ships (if the campaign focus is in port that week) or he must have had to return to port (if the focus is out on the sea). The characters could end up going after each other but they are playing pirates, right? Seems pretty true to the genre.

• It could be run as a sandbox but a pirate town is not typically a "safe" town so that particular convention doesn't fit well. If the port is under a truce and is only a place where deals get made and loot is sold then it might work but it might miss some opportunities too. 

• Rival NPC's are an important element of a pirate game, both other pirates and authority figures. Players need something to push against, and as a pirate you're already operating outside of conventional civilization. Having that civilization barge in occasionally reminds them of their status and puts some pressure on them to act or react in some way. Rival pirates give them a measuring stick for those who want to rank themselves. Even a rival port town (Nassau vs. Tortuga) could make for some fun options and reasons to make and break alliances within the game.

...and Island Girl's girlfriend

Motivational Monday

40K Friday - Chaos Marine Bases and the Epic Aftermath

Lots of miniatures action here this week and some of it was even 40K.

Last weekend was all about Epic but the Apprentices did work in a 40K game of their own on Monday-Tuesday (remember summer vacation?), Space Wolves vs. Orks. I didn't get any pictures but Blaster got to dust off his Wolves and Red got to try out his new Nob Bikers to good effect. Not quite good enough as the Wolves won, but it was close and they both had a lot of fun.

The Epic fight had a secondary effect of driving me to drag out all of my Epic stuff, much of which is surprisingly well organized even after sitting on the shelf for 15 years and being moved a few times in there as well. The one big "dumping ground" box had quite a bit of stuff in it.  

...and that's just the Imperial stuff. Orks, Chaos, and Tyranids are off to the side and top.

Clearly I need to work on some titans. It's amazing how much stuff you can pick up when you're playing a game (with a lot of parts) on a weekly basis. I never thought of Epic as taking much of my gaming budget, but give it 8-10 years and the gear piles up.

For normal-sized 40K it's been a couple of weeks of getting the Chaos Marine force finished up. Well, part of it at least.

Here's a look at the bases I am going with for my Nurgle marine force. It's embroidery mesh sprayed silver then liberally smeared with Nuln Oil and my old Chestnut Ink to give it a battered and corroded look. The idea is "deckplates in a space hulk" and I'm fairly happy with the result. I will probably add a few more details to future versions - maybe some wiring/cabling or a pool of oil or slime. I will also say that if you're doing a space-force that's not supposed to look all gribbly like this, the basic silver grid on a black base looks pretty slick too.

Here's the first batch, finished and complete. I actually have 12 possessed done and based now, plus the daemon prince and the helbrute. The unusual bases do really reinforce the idea that this is a unified force. A unit of chaos spawn converted over from some old Dreamblade miniatures is probably next on the list. The plague marines, havocs, terminators, and bikers are all somewhere behind that. Work is extra busy right now, and the rediscovery of Epic didn't help with getting this done either, but it's good progress regardless.  This weekend I will probably take on Blaster for the first time in 7th and these guys will be part of the army hitting the table - I'm sure the new bases will enhance my chances of victory.

Overreaction Wednesday

• Bunch of stuff about future D&D organized play options here. I'm not really big into these kinds of things but this one looks almost over-complicated to me. They mention trying to lessen the "intimidation factor" of getting into these things. Maybe that's a problem for some, but I suspect the "hassle factor" of getting in and keeping up with all of this stuff is more of a problem for the grown-ups that might be interested. Want to run a game at the local store? Look - we've added paperwork to enhance the fun! I know, I know, I'm probably overstating it but that's how it strikes me reading the wall of text in those 30+ bullet points. 

• The D&D digital tools available information is listed here. I thought this one was particularly interesting: It includes character generation, adventure management, and rule lookups. CharGen I get. Rule lookups are something you can do with any decent PDF or website. "Adventure Management" though - what exactly would that cover? Combat manager? Loot tracker? I'm a little curious, though I'm not nearly as fired up about New D&D as a lot of people are. 

• EN WORLD did a nice release timeline graphic also - here. I'm sure I'll pick up some of these, I'm just not sure how much.

• M&M Gadget Guide - the compilation of the weekly guides - is coming and there's a little blurb here. I like the cover and the stats for the giant robot are a free PDF & HeroLab download which is pretty cool. 

Going a Little Retro - Epic Returns!

I had a wild idea over the weekend so late Saturday night I dragged out the old Epic Scale/Space Marine/Titan Legions miniatures, set up a table, picked out some forces, and let Blaster and Red discover them Sunday morning.

I went with Orks vs. Space Wolves since those are two armies they play in standard 40K

Orks - 100% painted

Both were about 3000 points which was a small to normal sized Epic force back when.

Wolves are mostly painted. They were the last Marine army I was working on when we stopped playing the game so not all of them were finished. 

This was straight-up early 90's Space Marine - no bloody 40,000, Armageddon, Net, or any other kind of Epic ...

Deployment - neither of them has ever seen this game played or set up before so I "DM'd" while they played.

I was pretty happy with the way it all looked on the table. I was trying to remember how long it's been and I'm pretty sure the last time I played I had at most one kid, which puts it about 15 years back. That means the mini's, the buildings, and that hill with the trees on it are all older than my kids ... there's a weird moment for you. For 40K players - when this game was released there were no codexes for any army if that helps you place it in time.

I won't go into turn-by-turn detail. Since our boards were in use on the 40K table (along with the green cloth) the playing area was a little smaller than standard. Red didn't really understand what it meant when I reminded him "hey if a transport is destroyed the troops on board are also destroyed" which meant that the entire Evil Sunz clan was blown up inside its battlewagons meaning they were broken pretty early when the Wolves (and the Ogryns) charged in. The Wolves ended up winning on Turn 3 and that's where it ended, but it took several hours to get there and we all had a blast.

One note - they really liked the system here - orders, IGO/UGO movement, then alternating activation for combat. It keeps things moving but adds a lot of tension as decisions are made about when and what to activate as the other players makes those same decisions. I enjoyed it too as a change from the 100% IGO/UGO of 40K. The victory conditions are also nicely simple - you get objective points, and you get points for breaking enemy formaitons - the best of both worlds!

The Mekboy is targeted for elimination

Grand charge of the Evil Sunz

The Space Wolf & Guard response

The Gobsmashas make a break for an objective as the streets of Bluesville see a ferocious clash

On the Ork right, the Stompas head for an objective but the Landspeeders are waiting

The Kult of Speed moves in to assist the Stompas

Nob Bikers vs. Land Speeders

On the Ork left the Snakebites seize a second objective. They were soon joined in the woods by Grey Hunters and Wolf Guard for a serious dust-up.

It was a lot of fun and they both spent some time yesterday making up their own forces for a rematch, which spurred me to dig out the rest of the Epic forces and sort through them - just in case. We may have a series of summer battles developing here.

Thrifty Gamer Alert - DTRPG 10th Anniversary Sale

Thrifty Gamer Alert: DriveThruRPG is having a Tenth Anniversary sale with some nice deals here.  Lots of RPG games and parts plus fiction, some comics, and even a mapping program. I liked it and thought I would share.

Motivational Monday

40K UnRant - The Mission Cards

One of the big issues with the tournament segment of 40K players on the new edition is with the Maelstrom mission cards. There has been a tremendous resistance to using those and a lot of exaggerations such as "unplayable" applied to using them in the game.

I've played them and the game worked just fine. There are videos online of people using them and their games seem to work as well. Even that first Frontline Gaming batrep where 7th was declared unplayable due to demonology and the mission cards being broken ended in a tie - somehow the doomed non-demon player managed to pull that off! Imagine that!

Anyway, rather than talk in generalities why not take a look at the actual cards and see which ones might be problems?

There are 36 "tactical objectives". It's based on a d66 chart (roll a d6 for tens, roll another d6 for ones) and each set of "tens" has a theme of sorts.

• The 10's, 20's, and 30's are all "score 1 VP for having objective X at the end of your turn". These are the core of the system, the bread in the sandwich, the baseline. Half of the cards drawn will be these.
• The 40's are more nuanced objective-related goals.
• 41 is related to Mysterious Objectives - I know this could be a problem because I know we've never used Mysterious Objectives and I think a lot of other players ignore them as well.
• 42 & 43 are related to having units near an opponents table edge - completely achievable by any army
• 44, 45, & 46 give multiple points for holding multiple objectives - again, this is certainly within the realm of possibility for every army 
• The 50's are combat-related goals
• 51-52-53 are scored for eliminating enemy units - this seems reasonable
• 54 is scored for issuing a challenge - not winning one, just issuing one, so if you have a character in the army, you can arrange this
• 55 is scored when an opponent fails morale, pinning, or fear tests - there are armies that are less likely to fail one of these but it's pretty rare to fight the 100% Fearless force, I'm calling it "conceivably impossible to achieve".
• 56 is scored for successfully manifesting a psychic power - you would need a psyker to do this so Necrons and Tau are out, though I hear there are allies in the game
• The 60's are the kill point objectives
• 61 is "slay the warlord II" and every army has to have one
• 62 is kill a psyker and so without one there's no way to score this
• 63 is kill a flyer - certainly there are armies without those
• 64 is kill a character and that's 100% do-able
• 65 is kill a building and there are lots of armies who do not use those, could be a problem
• 66 is kill a vehicle or monstrous creature - while it's certainly possible to build an army without either one, every army has the option for at least one of the two and many have both. In a smaller fight, maybe, but I don't think this one is going to be "unplayable" in any battle of 1500 points or more.  

So, what's our worst-case scenario? Cards 41, 55, 56, 62, 63, 65, and 66 are specific enough that they might not be involved in a game. That's 7 out of 36 possibilities. However, at that point you are fighting a Fearless army with no Psykers, Flyers, Vehicles, or Monstrous Creatures and have no Psykers of your own. So we're talking Tau (with no vehicles or riptides) vs. Necrons (with no vehicles) and both have somehow become fearless army-wide - HA! 

I just don't see that as likely, ESPECIALLY in a tournament situation where most of the complaints are concerned. Tournament organizers could easily cut this down by one by including a building or two (or more) on their tables.

What is a more reasonable scenario? No MO's, no buildings, no flyers, and maybe a lack of psykers on one side. Call it 4 non-scoring cards. That's 1/9. If you draw 3 cards per turn for a 6-turn game you will draw 2 non-playable cards on average. The rules allow a player to discard one card per turn. This seems like a perfectly fine solution.

Note I am not counting "well the enemy is sitting on Objective 5" as making "score for holding objective 5" an unplayable card, which seems to be a part of the early complaints. It's not unplayable - that's the !$%$#%$# game! Go take that objective from the other player - it gives you points and keeps him from scoring his own! This isn't the old edition where you can just sit back on a few objectives on your own side of the table and go for first blood or slay the warlord to win at the end of the game - you have to go take them away during the game! Think of the objectives as your orders from high command - sometimes you're ahead of them (I already have Objective #5), sometimes you're behind (The enemy has Objective #5), and sometimes you get orders that make no sense at all based on the current situation and you either clarify or ignore those - that's the discard!

The missions themselves are a part of this too: 

• The "draw 3 every turn" mission is nice and steady. 
• The "draw one per objective you control" doubles the incentive to go grab those objectives, regardless of the cards in your hand. 
• The hidden cards mission keeps things interesting and a little different from the others, allowing for feints and deceptions if you're so inclined. 
• Scoring from either player's objective cards blows things wide open.  
• The escalating draw mission keeps things really lively right up until the end.
• The decreasing-draw mission is the one where I can see some problems. Here, if someone did draw the worst possible hand, say 4 out of their 6 cards are unplayable, then they could find themselves in a hole at the end of turn 1, assuming their opponent draws the opposite kind of hand. Turn 2 it's a max of 5 cards. Assuming they discarded one of the bad ones , they start the turn at ... 5 cards - the same 5 they ended with on turn 1. That's how they spend the game. 

I don't think that last one is likely, but it is possible. Luck is part of the game but a bad run of it on the first turn sucks, whether it's bad cards or deep strike mishaps, bad scatter rolls, or a bunch of ones on your terminator armor saves. Both players are drawing from the same pool of possibilities so the risk is equal. 

To mitigate this when it comes to the cards, here's my suggested house rule:

"After drawing objectives on the first turn a player may choose to discard their entire hand and redraw, treating the discards just as if they had been discarded during the game (i.e. they are out of the pool and cannot be scored or redrawn)."

This solves the biggest potential problem described above, mitigates bad luck in the smaller draw games, and protects against the cherry-picking discard of "well I like these 4 but these two are not good" by forcing the decision to affect the entire batch. Additionally it leaves it in the hands of the player - if you think you can manage a marginal set of objectives (say, all on the enemy side of the board) then you can do that and potentially score more points, or you can toss them and hope for the lower-hanging fruit on a redraw.