Overreaction Thursday

This looks interesting:
Veteran Game Designers Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet Announce 13th Age: a “Love Letter” to Their Favorite Dungeon-Crawling Fantasy Game
Link to announcement here

Back to Next, there's a very high-level design document posted here that is an interesting read.

The line I liked:
We're not trying to reinvent D&D so much as rediscover it.


The paragraph I didn't:
D&D has traditionally required large amounts of time, a large play group, and a sustained commitment. The design process must focus on play time, group size, speed of play, and length of campaigns, with an eye toward reducing the minimum required from each area. Players who want a longer play time and so forth can easily scale up the game to meet their needs and opt into the various rules modules we'll provide or that they'll build themselves. However, our standard goal is to remove minimum group sizes, allow for a complete adventure in one hour of play, and satisfying campaigns in 50 hours of play.


Having played several editions (and other games) in the last few years that "complete adventure in one hour" is iffy to me. ICONS with minimal chit-chat, maybe, but that chit-chat is part of the game. Basic D&D maybe, assuming you aren't creating characters. Satisfying campaigns in 50 hours is a little vague to me - start to finish 20 levels in 50 hours? If it's not tied to a level goal somehow then "satisfying" is a useless term for evaluation. That's potentially 50 separate adventures, given the other goal - that's a lot.

This week's Rule of Three, the Q&A column:


#1 - Do you think mundane crafting has a place in D&D Next?
Dumb, next question

#2 - How do you see hit points evolving in D&D Next?
The answer was that they're pretty much going to stay the same. Good - they're a "signature" D&D thing. Let's not mess that up.

#3 was something about per-session resources and the answer was that it's not going to happen because it's unmanageable for the DM. Darn straight! It sounds like they're going to try to have a tight approach to game balance and that's fine, 3E and 4E both took that route. If you;re going to do that though the mushiness of "per session" becomes a problem. Otherwise I'm fine with it in games like Savage Worlds which are less concerned about balance and making the math more obvious.

Still having mixed feelings about this whole thing.

Oh, and a designer blog post here:


Our current plan is to condense skill and feat choices into two choices: background and theme. Background tells you where you came from, who you were, and what you are trained to do. Your background gives you a set of skills, specific tasks, areas of knowledge, or assets a character of that background ought to have. The thief background gives you Pick Pockets, Stealth, Streetwise, and Thieves’ Cant. The soldier background gives you Endurance, Intimidate, Survival, and an extra language. We want your abilities to carry the weight of basic task resolution, so these skills improve your chances when you perform tasks related to them or just let you do something, such as cook a meal, speak Goblin, or run for twice as long as the next person.


Alright, so the shortcut for picking skills is to pick a background now? OK, I suppose with the way they are changing skill checks to be based off of ability scores that's OK as long as there's an option to just pick skills directly.


Where background speaks to the skills you possess, your theme describes how you do the things you do. All fighters, for example, kick ass in combat because they are fighters. A sharpshooter fighter is awesome with ranged weapons while a slayer fighter dominates in hand-to-hand combat. Your theme helps you realize a certain style, technique, or flavor through the feats it offers. Each theme gives you several feats, starting with the first one right out of the gate. As you gain levels, your theme gives you additional feats that reflect the theme’s overall character.


Were feats really that hard to pick? You pick only one or two every other level? Do we need to "package" them too? This looks kind of like 2nd Edition's Kit concept in a more consistent mechanical form. Let's hope we don't see the regular errata and nerfing of feats like we did in 2E that would really screw up a preset chain of feats.


Rather than being a human fighter with Intimidate and Power Attack, I’m playing a human fighter who’s a soldier (background) that slays monsters (Slayer theme). Or I could be a thief (thief) who strikes from hidden positions (lurker theme). Or, I might be a mystical warrior who came from a wealthy family and can detect magic at will and might even one day get a familiar (without ever having to leave the fighter class).

It will be interesting to see if these backgrounds and themes are class or race specific - from the example given on the blog I don't think they are, but I can see this as an obvious route for expansion books: The Next Book of Elves might have Elf-specific Backgrounds and Themes (and thus Feats too). I suppose we can all see how it works when the Beta comes around.

In Remembrance ...

We recently lost an old friend, a boon companion through many, many battles.

This miniature warrior, known by such names as "that guy in black armor with the two-handed sword" or "no that other one" eventually became the main miniature representation of Brutalus Maximums III and IV, both clerics of Tempus.

I'm not sure where he came from - I think he was an old Metal Magic mini, a bunch of cheaper imports that the local game store chain carried in the 90's. I know I got him and painted him up sometime in the 90's because I used him in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition games. In his final session he was being used as a paladin of Tempus by one of my longtime friends and players, so at least his final role was one that was familiar.

He met his fate in the jaws of the deadly Hound of Blacksteel, a ferocious beast that normally patrols the holdings on the lookout for intruders, but something about Mr. Greatsword-in-Black caught her attention and the outcome was inevitable. She also recently destroyed one of my old metal painted Rebel Troopers, and I wasn't too happy about that either.

The deadly Hound of Blacksteel stands over another victim...

Be that as it may we bid a fond farewell to the Brutalus mini. If any of you can identify his origin or know where I could find another one, I would be indebted. Regardless, the quest for a successor begins now.

Savage Swords of Impiltur - Session 1

Our story begins in Fallcrest, the Nentir Vale, Impiltur, Faerun, in Greengrass of the year 1480 D.R. (the year of Deep Water Drifting).

The party begins scattered about the city, but all are drawn to the riverside where a crowd has gathered. With heavy snows for the last month, food is growing scarce and the Lord Warden of Fallcrest is announcing a new program to collect and ration food in the city. Naturally this is met with some resistance amongst both rich and poor. A clan of river-trading halflings landed the day before and news has spread that the unnatural cold is affecting all the lands they travel, spurring the controversial decision from the city's lord. As freezing winds blow ever more snow into the town the fierce debate continues.

Lieutenant Gravis, a genasi refugee from Thay in service to House Reinhardt, is assisting the city watch in maintaining order, mainly though a connection with a dwarf friend of his. Interestingly, he has a young owlbear pet.

Isenheim, a dwarven Cleric of Moradin, is Chaplian for the dwarf members of the city watch and is on the scene working crowd control.

As the arguing continues the more alert citizens and visitors pick up a rhythmic sound. Slowly it clarifies into words in an unknown language - a war chant! Coming from the sky!

Down out of the blowing snowstorm dives a longship with a tattered black sail, crewed by skeletal figures. It lands in the river, glides up to the shore, and the chanting dies down as undead crewmen leap from the ship and attack!

The crowd scatters as do some of the watchmen. Isenheim and Gravis rally the few remaining guardsmen and several other people step forward to confront the raiders - Gartok, a dwarf warden of earth and stone; Dar Bloodmane, a paladin of Tempus; a mysterious elven ranger who wields a nasty greatbow; Zara, the mysterious exotic agent of House Bauer - unafraid they stand their ground as the undead sailors swarm the green.

Thanks Online DM for the maps!

Though unacquainted before this, the two dwarves stand shoulder to shoulder and form a strongpoint that cannot be broken. The Elf with No Name stands in the clear and fires arrows faster than the eye can see, dropping zombies left and right. Dar Bloodmane puts almost as much effort into fighting as he does reciting Tempusian Battle Chants giving glory to the war god as he struggles to make an impact on the fight. Lt. Gravis tries to order up a true battleline but several of his guards drop and he is forced to work with the mysterious and alluring Zara. The agent of House Bauer is doing fine on her own until a zombie bites into her shoulder and in response she loses control and bites it back, tearing into it with gleaming fangs! Hopefully no one noticed...

The fight is brutal but short, and thanks to the unknown heroes the undead are soon scattered about the snowy landscape in pieces. In the aftermath some approach the skyship and when they do its dragon figurehead speaks:

"Return the Ice Scepter to the Winter King or this winter shall never end and the dead will feast upon the living"

The oddity of the talking ship is quickly overtaken by the realization that someone must have stolen this "Ice Scepter" and unleashed a terrible curse - presumably someone now in Fallcrest! A halfling at the edge of the returning crowd tries to slink away but is caught by Gravis and Isenheim. They also find that he is carrying what could easily be described as an "Ice Scepter" wrapped in a cloth on his person.  He spills out a tale of flight, mountain travel, and theft that confirms the origin of the current problem. As the tale winds down, an obvious solution to the problem also becomes apparent. The Lord Warden is quick to pounce - "Dear friends and mighty heroes ..." - and soon enough the group has agreed to undertake the journey to the Cairn of the Winter King, taking Marko (the halfling) along with them as "community service". They are promised a reward in the form of the ruined Tower of Waiting on an island in the river - should they end the unnatural winter and return alive then the tower will be theirs.

In a quiet moment, Gravis notices that the exotically beautiful Zara seems interested in his pet Owlbear and he hopes this is a connection he can explore in the future.

As this episode closes the team gathers their supplies and prepares to board the ship, contemplating both their short-term and long-term futures.

DM Notes: This was the kick-off for our new campaign and I decoded to use a published adventure, "Cairn of the Winter King", partly to see how more recent published adventures hold up, partly because I wanted to use Fallcrest and the vale in this campaign since I have not previously, and partly because I just liked it. The opening encounter is cool and makes for a memorable way to start things, I hope. It was only a 5-round fight but there was quite a bit of RP time and introductory time and connecting background time so it was a full session. Plus new characters take a little while to find the best ways to work together and we have a brand new party created without much metagame discussion so no one started out with a nice combo move ready to go. 


Party composition mechanics note: We have 2 leaders, 2 defenders, and 2 strikers. That's going to be a very interesting mix, especially once they figure out all of the ways they can interact during combat. I can already tell they're going to be very tough to bring down and keep down. Perhaps it's a reaction to the last campaign's unexpected ending but regardless that's a lot of healing and some very tough characters.


The best thing was that the players were enthusiastic about starting the game up again and everyone was pretty good at coming up with an angle or a voice or some distinguishing feature about their character beyond just class/race/level/magic items, so it felt pretty good. I'm calling it a win for the group.  

Dark Millennium Monday

Well the 40K bug has somewhat taken over here at Blacksteel Manor. After digging back into it a few weeks ago with news of a new edition on the horizon I definitely have the fever and have been haunting the web forums and articles of various 40K sites to see how to bring my forces back up to date. I've also been  encouraging the Apprentices to get their stuff a little further along.

First up, relying on terrain I built 10 years (and several moves) ago is just not going to cut it anymore, so there's a general terrain upgrade going on at the same time as all the rest of this, mainly in the "buildings" category. I'll post pics once I'm happy with them.

Apprentice Red is now exploring the shiny happy world of the Necrons since we picked up that army on the cheap a while back. He has the new codex, a leader, some destroyers and scarabs, and a whole bunch of warriors. Once he gets a few games in we will look at what he needs to add to make it more interesting. The good news is that it's almost 100% painted, decently, so he's already way ahead there and we can focus on doing something interesting with the bases. He's also working on his Orks in between.

Apprentice Blaster isn't sure what he wants to do for a second army yet - he's mainly interested in making his Space Wolves even nastier and getting more of them painted. It's a pretty strong army already and he has the units to go to around 1500 right now as he just added a Land Raider Crusader to his forces, which I suspect is destined to hold a bellyful of Wolf Guard Assault Terminators because that's all the rage right now. In his first game with it it carried a mob of Blood Claws led by a Wolf Priest and did pretty well so he's already pleased with that choice.

Apprentice Who is interested but I don't think he's old enough to get into painting yet and if you don't care about painting I'm not funding an army. Let's practice with our legos a bit more before we tackle glue and $50 models...

As for myself my gamer ADD is worst when it comes to miniatures. My painted Howling Griffon marines are playable (and have been since the 80's) but I need more parts to make them into the force I want them to be for the modern game.

Since those parts aren't free I thought about working on my Chaos Marines because I thought I had all the parts I needed - Perversely I was going for a force with no armored vehicles in it, none, to annoy the melta-heavy armies I see nowadays, but I decided it just wasn't going to work all that well without more bikes. Plus I want to dump Rhino's full of Berserkers on somebody and that means I need more parts.

I thought about going back and finishing my Orks as I have multiple Battlewagons in various stages of construction, but I have a pretty good footslogger horde now and that's what I've played the most the last few years. Don't really need parts, but I'm a little tired of painting black-red-white-green over and over again.

So I came back around to my Crimson Fists, started a decade ago as a second "faster to paint" marine army who have never really been finished. Awhile back I decided to make them my "mechanized" marine army and I'm sticking with that plan. I've redivided my squads (rom the old 6-man las/plas of 3rd edition - sigh - into 10-man tac squads with Rhinos, Razorbacks, Terminators, Attack Bikes, and Predator support. I'm finally finishing my command squad too. The command group will be on foot/Razorback for now because that's what I have but I am intrigued by the possibilities of the biker command squad too so that's next on my list. The good news is that I have all of the parts I need for the entire force, 2000-something points at least, so I don't have to go acquire stuff - I can just build & paint.

Anyway, thats the state of the universe for today. Back to the RPG's tomorrow...

Motivational Monday

Overreaction Tuesday

Stuff from EN World and various WOTC sites about Next:

From this week's Legends & Lore:


Assuming you start at level 1, at what level do you feel that you're ready to leave behind your character and start a new one?


Eh? How is this tied to level progression? People I know seem to get tired of playing characters due to the length of time spent playing them, not because of what level they have reached. If levels are coming regularly then people tend to stay happy once they've found a character that fits them. Recurring character-switching may also be a sign of too-slow advancement for that group. It may also be a flighty player, but if several people are doing it then maybe the campaign has stagnated and needs a shakeup - regardless of what level you're playing.

Let's say you're playing in a strictly by-the-book D&D campaign. You play for two hours each week. How long should it take to reach level 10?

Two hours per week seems really really short. Taking it literally I think it should take a couple of years because I don't think I've ever played something that limited. I suppose if you look at it as 4 hours every other week it starts to look a little more reasonable, but even then it's on the short side. Most of my regular groups have been say, six to midnight every other week or seven to ten one night a week. That's been a pretty consistent pattern for about 12 years now, which is probably why the example seems short.

At 12 hours a month (my time) that gives us 144 hours per year. Let's round it off to a 100-150 hours per year range of playing time. I think if you can get to 10th level in that time that's pretty good. If they go with a 20-level range for Next then a two-year campaign would run you from 1 - 20 over 100 shorter (or 50 longer) sessions. I think that math works. Call it roughly a level a month at 2-4 sessions per month.

There's more on the focus of a session and that kind of thing in this article too.

 Should the typical campaign change at high levels to take on a different tone?

This is referring to the castle and followers option in AD&D (and BECMI) and the focus on planar travel at Paragon and (especially) Epic in 4th Edition. My answer was "Yes" because I always liked that option in AD&D even though it didn't get as much attention as it could have. I'm sure this will end up as one of those optional modular rules they keep mentioning, probably alongside some kind of mass-combat system, but there is certainly room for it and precedent for it in the game.

I also think the planes are clearly the place for high-level adventuring because a) that's where all those nasty demons and devils live and b) because they're there, it takes higher level spells to get to them. The planes are the obvious place to go for high-level dungeoneering type adventures if a party chooses to focus on those while having an option to focus on ruling an area or running a thieves' guild gives everyone a chance for some interestingly different kind of game after a certain point.


From last week's article:

Character Roles: This one is bound to be controversial, but I don't think roles belong in D&D as specific, mechanical elements that we design toward. Instead, I think roles are a great tool to help players focus on how they want to play a character. Veteran players should be free to create the character they want, however they want, instead of feeling that they must take on a job to "help" the party.

Yeah, I used to think that way too but then I started playing 4E and saw how nice it was to have Roles with specific classes designed to fit them instead of Classes and Sub-Classes like we had in older editions. If they're going to add classes throughout the life of the game (like they've been doing for the last dozen years) then I think having a large loose framework like a "Role"  helps keep things organized.

I'd much rather see roles cast as advice that highlights some basic strategies that players can follow. For instance, the advice for the cleric might explain how the class excels at healing. If you're playing a cleric and want some guidance on what to do, that advice can suggest some spells and abilities, along with tactics for use during the game.

"Clerics are good at healing" - who comes fresh to the game saying "I want to be a healer"? Seriously? How about "Clerics are arse-kicking warrior priests who swing first and patch up the survivors later" - why isn't that the advice for a new cleric player? Are we relegating the Cleric to the heal-bot of days gone by? I hope not. In 4E they were tagged with the "Leader" role which covered a range of capabilities that were far more than just healing. Let's stay with that.


From one of the designer blogs:

The rogue in the current playtest document has sneak attack, and it’s a combination of the 3rd Edition and 4th Edition rules. The extra damage as of right now goes all the way up to 10d6 at the highest levels, but a rogue can use the damage against anybody. At first glance, this feels right, but the more I turn it over in my head, the less satisfied I am with how it works. For starts, an extra 10d6 damage whenever the rogue hits with advantage? At the highest levels, a rogue’s dishing out 20d6 damage a round before we even get to weapon damage and other damage boosters. Sure, this is fun for a while, but I know people who trip up adding together 4d8 or even putting a d20 result with a single number.

Sounds fine to me. Then again, I did play a lot of Champions.

The other thing I’m having a hard time with is that we want monsters to retain their relevance longer. Rather than have player characters graduate from orcs and move on to some other humanoid to fill the same niche, we want higher-level characters to simply fight more orcs. 

Ah...OK...but what if, as the DM, I don't want to run more orcs? If they're going to combine them into some kind of "Orc Swarm" stat block like some creatures in 4E then I might be OK with it but I'm perfectly fine with letting orcs mostly fall by the wayside at 10th + level.


From Monte Cook's WOTC blog:

To feel the thrill of victory, there needs to be some possibility of defeat. This concept has led previous versions of the game to include serious penalties for a character if he or she dies and comes back—anything from ability score drain to a loss of a level. Many players found this too harsh, and this led to people wanting to make a new character instead. In the very early days of the game, character death led to a different choice than creating a new character, because players always created 1st-level characters. So having your 10th-level fighter come back as a 9th-level fighter was still preferable to bringing a 1st-level fighter into the game. But as soon as DMs started allowing creation of characters above 1st level, the choice became “bring in a new 10th-level fighter or play your now-9th-level character.” This isn’t much of a choice at all.

In the "very early days" of what, 3rd Edition? There's no level loss in Original or AD&D 1st or 2nd edition. In AD&D you had to make a Resurrection Survival roll (which occasionally failed) and your Con score was the absolute limit on how many times you could be raised. In 2nd (at least) you lost a point of Con every time you were raised, a severe enough penalty that stung and made players hate having to do it!

The level loss in 3E was a huge pain, wreaking havoc with party dynamics and sometimes the DM's whole campaign if the party started moving backwards. I instituted a negative level rule that went away upon the next level-up but it was still a pain. if someone died multiple times before leveling up - and yes that did happen a few times. I think a simple Con loss was probably better.

One way would be to separate raising the dead into two different things. One, I’ll call “revivification.” This is magic that the mid- to high-level PC cleric likely has access to, and basically if the caster can get to a fallen friend very quickly and use the magic, the character comes back immediately and without muss, because the character was never really dead. It’s more resuscitation than resurrection. The “dead” character’s soul hadn’t quite left the body. He or she was merely on “death’s door,” but so close that only that powerful burst of magic could bring the character back. This avoids both the story and the gameplay issues because the character is not really dead. 

I'm fine with this. However, doesn't it leave unanswered the question of how the rich still manage to die that was raised in the first part of the blog? If mid-level clerics can do it, then people with money are going to be very big patrons of the local temples and a lot of NPC priests are going to be on retainer in rich households. Eliminates the gameplay issue but not the story issue I think.

The other type of raising the dead in this scenario is actually bringing characters back to life after they’ve been dead for a while. This kind of thing has been common in D&D games in the past—toting your dead pal’s corpse out of the dungeon and back to town to get brought back so you can go back in to finish the adventure. With revivification of some sort in the game, this type of magic could be very high level, with some extraordinarily expensive and rare components.

If it's high enough level then I'm not sure it needs to use rare components. If it takes a 16th level Cleric to do it (for example) and there isn't one in the kingdom, well, you're just out of luck, regardless of the exotic garden you have access to.

Further, and perhaps most importantly, this latter type of magic could be purely optional. Rather than putting it right on the spell list or whatever, we could put the whole matter in a discussion for the DM only, who could decide whether he or she would even want to deal with it.

And here's where it all falls down - no no no! It's been in every edition of D&D! The default for this should be "IN" and then you can put in a discussion about how to remove it if you want to run an unusual game! A high-enough level cleric (with exotic components if you want to add that barrier) should be able to resurrect a character that's been dead awhile without need a special optional rules module. That's one of the things a high level cleric does, traditionally! It's part of the final tier of cleric spells, the most powerful expressions of the most powerful divine servants on the material plane! You limit it by keeping the number of NPC clerics high enough to cast it to a minimum, probably zero, and let the PC Cleric grab some glory!

I have really liked a lot of Monte Cook's work in the past, but this is one more small thing in a pattern I see where they're calling it an edition-uniting version of D&D but still trying to change little parts of the game that for some reason they don't like. Going to a silver piece standard is another example of this. I'm no longer a huge fan of Vancian magic, but there's no way I would argue that it doesn't belong in the game. Certain class abilities should be in there, regardless of story considerations. Quit looking for reasons why they don't make sense and start figuring out why they do, because they've always been there.

And finally, from a questions column, multiclassing:

...here's what we have in mind. When you gain a level, you can choose any class and gain a level in that class, much in the same way that it functioned in 3rd Edition. 

OK, I suspected as much, and I liked it when I first saw it in 3rd Edition...

Of course, those of you who play or played 3E know that there can sometimes be issues with this, and if you aren't careful you can build a character that struggles with effectiveness at higher levels. 

...and that's one reason why I disliked it after several years of using it. The other reason was that you also had characters that were significantly more powerful than others through optimized multiclassing, and it tended to emphasize mechanical advantage over concept - something they're supposed to be improving with this edition.

While there are certainly challenges with this system, a few other changes in the game make it more viable in the next iteration. As I mentioned last week, we're looking at a bounded accuracy system where accuracy (of everything, from attacks to spells) does not automatically go up with level. The discrepancies in base attack bonus between classes in 3E made some multiclassing combinations more difficult to pull off; absent those discrepancies, with the right ability score mix, the fighter and wizard classes mix together without that difficulty.

I'm really more concerned with the combinations that worked together far too well, but if they can eliminate that problem AND make it possible to build a decent fighter/magic-user then I'm interested.

Anyway, there's the rant/exhaustive D&D Next discussion for the week. Next up - the new campaign!

Motivational Monday

Grim Darkness in the Far Future: 25 Years of Warhammer 40,000

Well, all signs point to a new edition of Warhammer 40,000 coming out this summer. Fifth edition just came out in 2008, and I only started introducing the Apprentices to it in 2009. It had been on a fairly reliable 5-6 year update schedule, but this one is happening after only 4 years, probably because this is the 25th anniversary of the game and hey, might as well release an update, right?

I sometimes wonder how many of us who played the original version of the game are still playing the current version. I suspect many people drop in and out as the years go by but for a few of us it has been a  constant presence, though even I admit to some ebbs and flows in there.

The first version was really more of a skirmish game than any kind of manual organized for serious tournament games. It was a glorious chaotic source of wonder, somewhat akin to the original Dungeon Master's Guide. Actually 40K RT was a lot like AD&D - full of cool ideas & inspiring art, constantly being patched and updated in the monthly magazine, and intended to be tinkered with by its players.  Much like later editions of D&D the tinkering aspect would decrease with later editions as the game became more successful and was forced to become more of a professional product than a cool thing for hobbyists. I built up a pretty decent marine army (Howling Griffons! Saaa-lute!) and dabbled in Eldar because they were cool looking figures. Oh and Harlequins ... oh my Harlequins ...

Second edition was the first one to come in a box with miniatures, some of which I still use today. This was a more cartoonish-looking version art-wise and was clearly aimed at a younger audience. This is the edition where the "Codex" approach began - putting army lists out as separate softcover books to encourage players to "pick a team". This one also tended to favor super-powered characters equipped with powerful gear and battles were often dominated by a few powerful individuals on each side. It was still fun but this seemed less appropriate for a sci-fi game than for a fantasy game, though Warhammer Fantasy was dominated by the same issue at the time. Vehicles were still rare in this edition, other than dreadnoughts and bikes / jet bikes, which had also been true of RT. One or two tanks per side was about all that we commonly saw in this one. I played it quite a bit, a lot of it with a group of friends at a local game store, and this is when my Eldar turned into a full-on army.

When I wasn't playing 40K during these years I was playing "Space Marine" or "Titan Legions". These were the "Epic Scale" game of massive battles in the 40K universe where you could actually field a company of Land Raiders and some of the gigantic war machines known as Battle Titans. I built up a massive pile of fully panted Epic Scale armies and for about 5 years we played it as much as we did regular 40K. Then they came out wit ha new edition in 1997 called "Epic 40,000" that completely changed the mechanics and pretty much killed the game. Ah well, I still have the armies and the older rules - one of these days they will return ...

Third edition 40K came out in 1998 and was a very different game - as drastic a change as D&D 4E was compared to 3E - in that terms and names were often the same but the way the game worked was very different, from army construction to turn structure to the mechanic of the game in play. Gone were the overpowered characters and the dominance of psychic powers. Vehicle-heavy armies suddenly became possible and viable. Building an army involved thinking about a force structure as a whole and not just figuring how many points could be dumped into that Inquisitor Lord or Greater Daemon. The artwork and atmosphere took on a much more serious and mature tone. This was Grimdark, dern it, and you were going to notice. Also, making stuff up began to really be discouraged in many ways as the tournament culture started to dominate online and even casual conversation - can't have any made-up stuff showing up in a championship fight - it might be unbalanced! The creative aspect of the game was pushed more into conversions of existing models to represent things not yet available from the official source, and god forbid you use mini's from another manufacturer.

Despite this direction we had a lot of fun with this new edition as the rules were a lot cleaner and less fiddly and the lessened importance of characters made it feel more like a battle and less like an RPG, which was an improvement at the time - I have RPG's, and I don't need $100 worth of mini's and a 4x8 table covered in terrain to play them. We also noticed that armies were getting larger. In 1st or 2nd edition, 3 marine squads, a leader or two, a dreadnought, and a landspeeder or predator tank made for a decent force. In 3rd, the new force organization meant that more squads were on the table as were more tanks and other vehicles. In contrast, Codexes got a lot smaller, often half the thickness of their 2E predecessors. Plastic kits were produced for each army - maybe I should say good plastic kits - and became the standard. One of the first 40K products produced after the RT rulebook was a box of 30 plastic multipart marines and there were other sets for Orks and Imperial Guard and Squats as well during the RT days, but they were fairly limited in components and poses. By the time of 3rd Edition the kits were quite a bit improved and made for a pretty decent way to bulk out your forces. We played quite a bit of this edition and during it I built up a second force of marines (Crimson Fists!) and finally got my Orks together and built them into a credible force as well.

Fourth edition was released in 2004 and was basically a tune-up of 3rd. This is the edition I played the least and is the biggest "ebb" part of my playing history. I had committed to 3rd pretty heavily and, as sometimes happens when new editions come out,  I was not thrilled about another cycle of rulebook and codex updates. I sat most of it out. This is the only edition of 40K that had a boxed set that I do not own. I came around on it late in the edition cycle and played a few games, mostly in time to find out that 5th edition was on the way and get annoyed all over again.

Fifth edition came out in 2008. I gave it a year as I was busy getting married and stuff.

Once I read it I was quite pleased. It was very much in the same vein as 3rd but it fixed a lot of the little things I did not like about 3rd. Some of which might have been in 4th, but I didn't play that one long enough to really notice the details. The army books were better too, for the most part. There seemed to be a genuine movement to bring back units and characters from older editions in a from that didn't suck and that was a positive move in my opinion. To make up for my lack of 4th edition boxes, I bought two for 5th - and gave them to the Apprentices.

The boys had seen me play before and they had played the Dawn of War computer game (which was a fine, fine piece of work by the way) and they were ready to get started with the "real thing". I let them haggle over who got what army and they eventually worked it out. These boxed sets are a pretty good introduction to the game and they come with two opposing forces in the box. This version is by far the best set of mini's yet ( a marine dreadnought - in the starter box! Terminators! Nobz!) and splitting the contents of two boxes with a buddy gives you a very credible force to start out with. Apprentice Red ended up with Orks while Blaster took the Space Marines (going with Space Wolves as he had just read the novels and the new codex had just come out) and they have both had a ton of fun with them. They have also begun learning the art of painting miniatures thru the game, which I expect they will be doing for a long time.

We've played a lot of games and they have played even more against each other, with the forces changing as new units are added and painted and expanded. Equipped with their own rulebooks and dice and armies they dove right in and had fun both playing and arguing over the rules like old pros. I've played with them and against them and won some and lost some. It's funny in some ways to play out a battle where my entire army is made up of figures older than both of them that have been painted and organized and fighting on the tabletop longer than they have been alive too. Some of the terrain is older than they are too. As are some of the dice. Wow, I have been doing this for a long time. It's bad when you can note your kid's age by what edition of a game was out when they were born ...

During this revival I took the opportunity to build out some Chaos Marines into an actual army (still not painted though), and to convert my Warhammer Fantasy Chaos Daemons into a 40K army since I play a lot more 40K than fantasy and thought a sci-fi army (technically) with no guns was an interesting concept. I also updated my old RT marines to the newer base types (to better ally with Blaster) and turned my old footslogging Orks into a mechanized death machine (to better ally with Red). Finally I decided to re-acquire an Eldar force (having traded mine to a friend back in 3rd edition in return for his Orks) with the intention of allying with my friend and schooling both Apprentices. This has yet to happen but I remain hopeful.

Just recently, here at the end of 5th Edition,  a friend of mine ran across some 40K stuff at a garage sale, picked it up super-cheap, and gave it to me - thanks Jer! - resulting in two more armies now living in the garage, the Necrons and a pretty sizable Imperial Guard army. The Apprentices are angling to claim them but I haven't decided what to do with them just yet. More options are always good, and it wouldn't hurt to give them a second army to try out - I'm just not sure that these two newcomers are those options.

I suppose it says something that most of my armies take more than one edition to build up to a useful level and to paint an entire force. I still have a fair number of Rogue Trader era figures that need to be integrated into an army, not to mention all of the ones from later editions. Some people buy up whole armies, paint them up, play them for a year, then sell them off and start the whole process over again with a different army - inside one edition! I just can't do that. I take a long view and paint them up slowly, and by the time they are "done enough" to consider a standing army I've spent so much time with and on them that I can't just hand them off - they're my guys! I should probably be less attached to them - and it might help me paint faster - but that's just how I feel about it, and a lot of the appeal of miniatures game is the feel. I can think that a particular unit performs poorly in a particular game or edition of a game but if it has that perfect paint job that I managed to do over 5 years, well, I'm going to try to find a way to include it. Because I like having it in use in the game, regardless of the numbers. I suppose it's still somewhat RPG-ish in that respect - a character you never have to retire.

With Sixth edition I expect we will dive back in with our multitude of armies, build some new terrain,  and probably recruit some friends to come with us. If the typical 5 year schedule holds then the Apprentices will be in college by the time the next edition comes out, so this will be the last one where they're "kids" and need a ride to a friend's house to go play 40K. Right now I hope to play a whole lot of it, so it better be good. Come on Games Workshop, let's get this one right.

Motivational Monday

Marvel Example of Play

MWP has put up an example of play on their site so I thought I would link to it. My editorial comment is that it's clearly being played by people who know the system well. Definitely worth a read if you're interested.

http://www.margaretweis.com/images/stories/bonus_content/mhr_exampleofplay.pdf