Almost there....

We are less than a week away from getting to see the second edition of Warmachine, known as WARMACHINE Mk II, for the first time. Privateer Press has set up a website for people to download the new rules and to leave the company feedback on the new system of rules. The website is fieldtest.privateerpress.com. The PDF that will be found their will contain the basic rules and statistics for all of the models in the game. In one week we can all start playing with the new rules and begin to actually make informed opinions about the new edition. It’s a shame that we will have to wait for eight months before we get to see the Hordes rules and armies. This is especially true for me because I’ve really loved my Hordes armies lately.

Games Workshop strikes again

I would like to premise this BLOG entry by stating that I am not a Privateer Press fanboy. In fact, I prefer the fluff and models produced by Games Workshop; it’s just too bad that the Company’s attitude and business practices stink (3 editions of 40k in eight years comes to mind). I guess their arrogance comes from to many years on top with very little competition. To a great extent it was this arrogance that forced me away from GW, no matter how much I liked their models (and all of their games besides the new 40k editions). When it came time for me to get back into miniature wargaming I looked else where to fill the gap left by the GW line of games. To a great extent, GW actually forced me into the waiting arms of Privateer Press. Like I said before, I prefer the look of GW miniatures but Privateer’s business model is very customer friendly and their games play much smoother than their GW counterparts.

Anyway, the whole point in this BLOG entry is really to talk about GW’s latest slap in the face to its fan base. I’ve discussed in a previous entry how much I liked the web-comic Turn Signals on a Land Raider (http://tsoalr.com/ ). This strip is an obvious parody of wargaming and of 40k in general. The creator of the strip wanted to publish a compilation of his first 500 or so strips, thus he tried to get permission from GW to publish the book. GW’s response was as follows:

“So, in the case of TSOALR we’ve been very happy to let you put your web comics up as a bit of fun. However, we can’t let you make money off of what you’re doing because of the legal precedent it could set. So, I’m afraid there’s just no way for us to allow you to sell TSOALR prints. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. It’s not that we don’t like what you do, it’s just that for various commercial reasons we’re unable to grant you permission to make commercial gain from what is, ultimately, selling GW-owned imagery.”

In other words GW is fine if you pimp their product for them but you should get nothing for you work. I would understand if TSOALR was actually breaking copy right law but it would actually be protected as a parody. The author could likely legally publish the compilation but in all likelihood he would have an expensive legal battle on his hand. Because of GW’s response TSOALR will soon end. I do not know if the website will soon come down as well, so I suggest if you want to check out this very entertaining comic you go check it out now at http://tsoalr.com/.

Squirrel Genocide

I told you squirrels are evil. This is really why we see all of those dead squirrels in the middle of the road. (as seen on http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/ )

My weekend

This weekend just hasn’t gone as planed at all. Originally I had planned on getting a lot of painting done (the Gatormen Posse, Squad of Mannikins, Alten Ashley, and the GW hill) but here we are with the weekend almost over and I’ve only dry brushed one Gatorman (at least Jen did get a good base coat on the hill). Keep in mind it’s not like I’ve had a bad weekend, I just didn’t get any of my painting done.


Base Coat on the Hill

Saturday morning was spent playing games with my son. We mainly played video games (Guitar Hero World Tour, Battle Front, and Age of Empires with my father) but we did get in one board game, Battleball. This game is a very simple game that simulates a futuristic version of football. At http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ the game’s background is described as “Global football has moved beyond the restrictive rules of the US Football League. Physical enhancements have made the sport more intense and more deadly. Players have developed distinctive skills to overpower enemy players. Some are fast. Some are strong. All are out to eliminate their opponents.”



Like I said the mechanics of this game are extremely simple but my son loves it. Each game piece’s base color corresponds with the color of a dice that you roll to move and tackle. Each player takes turns moving one guy and trying to score a TD (or just trying to knock the other team of the field). First person to score twice wins. Every time I play this game I really want to play Blood Bowl (especially when you consider Battleball is just a watered down version of Blood Bowl). Unfortunately, my Blood Bowl game is in the very back of the closet of doom (i.e. the closet that is filled up to the roof with my family’s stuff). Anyway, during the first half of the game I knocked the boy’s whole team off the field and scored. After that the dice gods abandoned me. He quickly scored two Touchdowns without much effort.

Today I got ready to paint and then I decided (of course) that I would rather play a game of Hordes. After getting to Decks and Duels, the local shop, it was decided to play a large Circle versus Legion game (1500 points per side). Gilbert and I each fielded 750 points (I had to borrow some of his models) of Circle and John and Kristina each filled 750 points of Legion (Two fracking epic Thagroshs). It was a fun close game (even if the first three of our turns consisted of mowing down the 15 shredders that our opponents fielded... who fields that many little warbeast). Gil’s whole army except for his warlock was wiped out (partly because I was out of position) but then we got an assassination run off on John’s Thagrosh (now forever to be known as Goulash). That left almost all of my force plus Gil’s warlock against Kristina’s Thagrosh, a Shredder, and a Carnivean. So that’s now three straight wins for me with Baldur. Still undefeated Baby!!! What I really learned from this game is that Sentry Stone & Mannikins are absolutely awesome (especially against other Hordes armies).

A short Circle update

My Circle army is coming along well. I’ve finished painting Baldur, a Woldwyrd, a Woldwarden, an unit of Shifting Stones, and a Sentry Stone with a full compliment of Mannikins. I also have a painted up a unit of Bog Trogs. I am now working on a unit of Gatormen and another Sentry Stone with a full compliment of Mannikins. I plan on buying another Woldwyrd and Krueger in the near future. No pictures as of yet (I forgot my camera when we gamed tonight) but I hope to add some soon (I personally think the army is turning out great).

So far I’ve won both of the two 500 point games that I’ve played. My first game was against Nate. He was playing a Darius list that was running 3 heavy jacks. I assassinated his caster on the third turn by using Mannikins to make forest and then useing Baldur’s Forest Walker ability to smack down Darius. Tonight I played John and his new Legion Thagrosh list. I assassinated Thagrosh on turn two. This occurred more because John messed up than any great skill on my part. He left Thagrosh with no focus on him and I shot him with a Woldwyrd and the finished him with a spell cast from the Woldwarden (it helped that I rolled really well).

D&D campaign overview

I’ve been putting a lot of thought into getting ready to continue our local D&D campaign. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that this is really a “continuation” because our last session about five months ago ended with a total party kill. I’m considering it a continuation because the new story line is going to deal with the repercussions of the failed mission. I came up with the idea for this setting to make it easier to use the large miniature collection that I have without having to think out to much why something was there.

In my D&D world I’ve taken the concept of “many points of light. Fighting off the darkness” and of portals leading to different plains to a new level. This world contains many portals that lead to different worlds altogether. These portals can be opened from either side but only sealed shut from the side that the PCs inhabit. Many of the inhabitants of this world grew tired of their world serving as a cosmic battle ground for other worlds and as a result a great crusade was fought to destroy or close most of these portals result long ago. Unfortunately, since the fall of the great Dragonborn Empire over six hundred years ago there has been no organized effort making sure that these portals remain close. As a result many of these portals are becoming active once more.

In the last adventures one of the PCs were on a holy quest to make sure that one of these portals remain closed. On they way to close the portal the PCs encountered missionaries from Protectorate of Menoth (had come through a portal but the PCs didn’t know that), killed off a tribe of Kobolds, and rescued some badly needed supplies for a small village. Unfortunately once the group entered the Dungeon the real trouble began. The first two or three encounters were relatively easy but then the party decided to make camp in a room with only one way in and one way out. Then at night they were attacked by a mob of hobgoblins that wiped out all but two party members (that’s 4 dead characters). These two guys only survived because they made a run for it while the Paladin held off the hobgoblins for 5 or so rounds.

So these two guys go back to town and round up a new party (along with some NPC help). This group made it all the way to the portal room but the group was pretty beat up by the time they reached there (keep in mind the party knew that they were up against a time limit before the portal was opened). They tried to stop the ritual but the party was too beat up and did not have enough time to accomplish their goal. Once the ritual was complete, the portal opened and an army of rat-men (yes Skaven) marched through. As the last of the players died he was able to collapse the exit to the dungeon (slowing the rat-men down but not stopping them). So that was 6 more dead characters for a total of 12 over about 5 sessions (I had killed two earlier).

Now the new game is going to pick up a few weeks after the last one ended so Skaven will slowly start to show up in great numbers. I guess we’ll just have to see what happens.

POW! GW, right to the moon!

I would say that it is pretty common knowledge that I’ll take a sucker punch at Games Workshop whenever given an opportunity, so here’s a good one. Games Workshop has gone out of control with raising prices. Not only does a White Dwarf yearly subscription now officially cost you over a hundred dollars but now they are raising prices on stuff before it even hits the shelves. When the company announced the new Valkyrie model for the imperial guard many people were very excited, but then I saw the price of fifty dollars. Aaaa, 50 bucks for a transport (a cool looking transport but still a transport). Well, over the weekend the pre-order price on the official website was changed from $50 to $58. I really like this model but that price seems really steep (keep in mind when I first started playing Rhinos cost under $20). My guess would be someone realized that this would be a popular model so they decided that the company should squeeze a few more bucks out of people (Isn’t an Imperial guard army expensive enough). I think the Bell of Lost Souls website put it best when they said, “Is a price increase that occurs before the product ships really a price increase? Its almost a "one hand clapping" type of question...”

Number 9

And number nine is….Risk. I really don’t have all that much to say about this game. Risk is the classic game of world domination. I almost didn’t put this game on my list but I’ve simply spent too many hours playing the many versions of this game to not place it here. This game also comes in many different “flavors” (from original to several different Star Wars versions) that each add a few rules to make the game more interesting. I would go into more about the different versions but my buddy Derek has already covered that in his BLOG, http://cardboardcarnage.blogspot.com/. I’ll just state that the classic trilogy Star Wars and RISK Godstorm are my favorite versions. I’ve actually come to dislike the original version of Risk because the last ten or so games of Original Risk that I have played have all played out about the same way.

If someone has played only one conquest board game in all likelihood it is this one (probably because Risk is the grand-daddy of today’s territorial conquest games).
Here is one game that I know I can get a game in without having to explain the rules to people (and then listen to them whine if I forget something…read the fracking rules yourself then). I should have more to say about the next game on my list but like I said I really don’t have much to say about this game.

Number 10

As a general rule I do no longer enjoy the whole collectable game thing. In fact, it has been several years since I’ve even been willing to look at a new collectible game. I had no intention of playing Monsterpocalypse (especially when you consider the fact that I do not even like giant monsters) but after seeing the game in action I knew that it would soon find a place in my gaming room, even if the game is sold in blind packaging. It had been a long time since I had played a game that people would yell and cheer as we knocked down buildings by throwing giant monsters through them.

Monsterpocalypse has some of the most innovative mechanics that you will ever find in any CMG. The game is simple enough that you can easily teach almost anyone but deep enough to keep the attention of a more experienced gamer. The way that dice flow from your monster pool to the unit pool is very elegant and works as a balancing mechanic between the powerful monster and the small units. I also like the fact that the game is balanced enough that you really don’t have army building. You simply pick out a monster, grab some units and play. I even like all of the factions except for one, the Shadowsun Syndicate, and I really hate them (so of course I keep getting them in boosters). There are 6 different factions in Monsterpocalypse, each of them based on or stolen from various cult references.

Martian Menace - H.G. Wells War of the Worlds type invaders
Planet Eaters - your basic Japanese space aliens from anime
G.U.A.R.D - Towering Mechs that remind me of Power Rangers
Terrasaurs - Godzilla, in all different shapes and sizes
Lords of Cthul - I shouldn't have to tell you. This one speaks for itself!
Shadowsun Syndicate - Futuristic powered up Ninja's we reckon

Monsterpocalypse is a bit new to make this list but the game is just so great. My ten year old son really likes this game and I have even been able to get some people to play it that don’t generally play miniature games. Playing a game of this is a wonderful way to kill an hour or two and I’ve had a lot of fun with it.

top 10 Introduction

It was suggested by one of my friends that I write a top ten list that includes my favorite games of all time. After putting some thought into it I now have a list that I’m pretty happy with. There is one game that I really wanted to put on the list but just couldn’t. That game is 40K. It was the first miniature game that I ever played and I truly loved this game back in when I first started playing it in 2nd edition (great fluff, wonderful miniatures, and good game mechanics). Unfortunately over the years Games Workshop has destroyed this game for me. When the company came out with 3rd edition, the game changed from a game about strategy and tactics to a game so simple that a six year old could learn how to play it. It also hasn’t helped my opinion of the game system that a new edition comes out every three or four years. I even built a Space Marine army for my son and an Orc army for me in 5th edition but after three games I kept finding myself just wanting to play something else (almost anything else actually but Warmachine kept really coming to mind). I still love the models and fluff but no matter how much I try to like the game I just can’t. It is strange that even though I don’t really want play this game anymore I still want to buy models for it (I think it’s a disease). Well, I’ll start on the main list tomorrow.

Stepping up to DM again

I have been thinking about running a few sessions of 4th edition D&D for the guys while we wait for Wizards of the Coast to get their act together and release the online gaming table. While I’ve been thinking of what adventure to run, I’ve also been reminiscing about previous D&D games.

One game in particular keeps coming to mind. It was a third edition game and I was running an old second edition Forgotten Realms module, Storm Riders. In the beginning of this module the PCs are suppose to flee from a horde of barbarians (think Mongols) and then meet a woman that serves as the adventure hook for the whole module. First I almost had to kill the party to get them to run away from the 100,000 barbarians (we can take them was actually said at one point). Then when the mystery woman saved the party by forming a bridge made of smoke over a chasm the group’s barbarian almost killed her (I hit her in the head with my sword). The bridge then disappeared with one of the PCs still on it (some lucky rolls saved him from certain death). This introduction went so badly that I should have known that this game was just not going end well. The next three hours were spent role-playing through many diplomatic encounters until will finally reached the next combat encounter. This series of combat encounters took place in a monster infested monastery. Unfortunately the party’s lawful good monk noticed that the thief kept stealing from the monastery’s treasures. When the monk ordered the thief to put back his ill-gotten gains a combat erupted within the party. When the dust settled, 4 of the six party members were dead. The only surviving party members belonged to the two players who had been smart enough to leave the monastery when the fighting began. At this point I looked at my friend Derek and told him that he was DMing from now on.

Hopefully these few sessions that I’m about to run will end better.

Podcast Now

I listen to a lot of podcast. This is mainly because I spend about 25 hours a week in my car. It has been over six months since my last post about podcast so it is time for an update. First, Podhammer is gone (as stated in my previous post). It is unfortunate and Jeff will be missed. I have also quit listing to This week in wargaming, mainly because of it changing from a round table discussion program to a pure news format. The podcast is very informative but it’s a little on the dry side and reports on many fringe gaming systems. This podcast might be a good listen for a large store owner but not for me.

In my opinion The d6 generation is still the best podcast out there. It is funny, entertaining, and informative. They guys just celebrated their one year anniversary and I’m looking forward to another great year. The D&D podcast has been hit and miss for me. The Penny Arcade episodes are great! Not only have they been entertaining but they have pointed out some things that I have been playing wrong in 4E (temporary hit points can go over your max and minions just need to take any damage to be destroyed). Most of the other podcast episodes are product previews or reviews. These episodes can be useful but they usually find their way down to the bottom of my play list (right next to that ESPN podcast from 3 months ago). Next is the 40k radio podcast. This is not my favorite podcast by any means (mainly because I no longer play 40K). I imagine that it is almost required listening for any serious 40k player but the guys make it a good listen even for someone like me that doesn’t play the game any longer.

If you still feel the need to listing in on the Australian GW scene (and I do) then Worlds End Radio is for you. This is a relatively new podcast on all things Games Workshop. I especially like the fact that they sometimes focus on games other than the big two (40k and Fantasy). Now for the two podcast that concern themselves with the Iron Kingdoms. First, Fell Calls! This podcast is the granddaddy of the podcasting community and is still going strong. I have to admit that I have been listing to each new episode the day that it is released. They have been spot on lately (possibly rejuvenated with the two new books within the last nine months) and I cannot wait to hear their reactions to MRKII. Finally there is the Iron Agenda. These guys have a lot of good ideas but they are simply not as good as the podtrulls. I would recommend listening to the Iron Agenda if you have the time to listen to both of the Iron Kingdom podcast, but otherwise stick with Fell Calls.

Podhammer, you will be missed

Last weekend I found out that one of the best wargaming podcast, podhammer, is “on indefinite hiatus”. Many people online are speculating that this is the end of the podhammer podcast. I will truly miss it. Not only was it quality entertainment but it helped me get a much needed Fantasy Warhammer fix (since I currently have no opponents to play with without driving 90 minutes or so). If you haven’t listened to this podcast it is still available on i-tunes and at podhammer.net (start listening around episode 4 or so because the sound quality before that is pretty bad).

Death of Print

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that print media is quickly become an endangered species. This is especially true in the world of gamer magazines. It seems that the internet has made many print publications obsolete.

The first major magazine that I purchased on a regular basis that ceased publication was Wizards of the Coast’s the Duelist in 1999. This magazine focused on Magic the Gathering and was the first publication that I bought on a regular basis. Unfortunately, by 1999 the magazine had been made obsolete by the fast moving online Magic community. The next main gamer magazine to go under was the short lived Star Wars Gamer. This bi-monthly magazine actually only lasted for ten issues. It was filled with great content for the Star Wars role-playing and I collected them all (still have them actually).

September of 2007 was the month of death for magazines in the gaming world. Fist Dragon Magazine, the grand-daddy of the gamer magazine world, and Dungeon both went out of print. In my middle school and early high school days I would eagerly await the new issue of Dragon each month (a close friend of mine had a subscription) and it was sad to see it go. Both of these magazines are now “published” online. Personally I’m not sure that publishing online counts as continuing theses magazines but Wizards of the Coast claims that it is. It’s really sad that we will never actually see issue 400 in print. The Inquest, a general gamer magazine, also ceased publication in September of 2007. It had been years since I had bought an issue of Inquest (it was never really that great of a publication) but it was a little sad to see it go.

You may ask “what brought up this walk down memory lane”? Well, last weekend I discovered that Scrye was ceasing publication and moving to an online format. I should have seen this coming when the magazine began to use a cheaper paper a ceased color printing. Yet another of my precious magazines gone. Where will I ever get my restroom reading material?

This leaves only three gaming magazines that I ever read. Fist on my list is No Quarter, the Privateer Press publication. This is a great magazine is a great value if you love Warmachine (and I do). Next is White Dwarf. This is the most overpriced Magazine I know of. The last issue cost 9 dollars. This is a ridiculous price for a magazine that is effectively 120 pages of advertisement for Games Workshop. I could rationalize spending six bucks but not nine, especially when you consider the fact that I’m not currently playing any GW games (a 50% increase within a six month period…OK done buying this mag). The final magazine is really a comic, Knights of the Dinner Table. Simply put I read this publication for the 32 pages of comics and ignore the other half of the magazine. At 4 dollars it is still worth every penny and will likely be purchased by me for years to come (until it becomes an online publication).

My new Hordes force

Recently I decided to build a second army for Privateer Press’ tabletop game, Hordes. Not only did I want a new army but I really need a break from painting my Protectorate. I have always really enjoyed the look of the Circle Orboros so I chose to build my new force from that faction (not to mention almost all of the minions that I own will work for Circle, thus allowing me to build a army more quickly). Now that it has been decided which army to build, few simple rules for building this new force needed to be set:

1. To play with a model, it must be painted and based.
2. I can only own one unpainted unit and one individual model (solo, warbeast, or warlock) at a time

In theory, these guidelines should motivate me to quickly build a fully painted force. At first my army will strongly focus on the construct warbeast (sticks and stones will break some bones) but I might branch out latter. The good thing is I don’t have to rush on module buying since I already own plenty of models to play.I'll post some pictures once I have some painted units.

Last week of the Warmachine league

I played my last league game of this season today. It was a 750 point game in witch I used my Protectorate of Menoth (led by Severius) and Nate played a Cygnar force (led by Haley). To be honest, it was a pretty one sided game. I killed most of Nate’s trenchers with my Idrian Skirmishers on the first turn before the Trenchers could even activate. He only killed my 3 Idrians on his turn so I went into the second round with my forces largely intact. On the second turn I finished off the trenchers and half of his long gunners, while my sisters tied up a lancer for the rest of the game. Nate had a sound counter strategy but the dice gods abandoned him at this point and he never rolled above a six on his second turn (killing only two more idrians and one sister of the flame). On turn 3 I advanced even closer to the Cygnar line of battle taking out the Black 13th with my Zealots. Nate responded by knocking down Severius (who had wondered to close to a lancer) and charging him with Thorn. Nate would have had me but he had forgotten to put enough focus on Thorn (and he rolled like crap). I was then able to put Death Sentence on Haley and lighter her up with a unit of Deliverers, Game over. This win put me in first place for two of the categories. I’ll update on Thursday who wins what medals.

Habby Birthday to me

So yesterday was my birthday and to celebrate I decided to visit Disney World with my son. Wouldn’t you know it some of my Meeple got dressed (notice they are wearing their top hats) up and followed us to the Magic Kingdom.

My son and Meeples on the Monorail

Meeples in front of the castle

Meeples waiting in line at the haunted mansion

Meeples meet some Disney characters

A boy and his Meeples

A working life size RHINO

This is actually old news, but I just found out about the life sized space marine Rhino last night. Apparently it is a working model (except for the lack of protection from bolter fire) and has been making the rounds to various Gameday tournaments worldwide (by worldwide I mean the US and Europe). I just wanted to tell people that they should check out the u-tube video. (linked)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PEU_201IfI Now if they could just build me a working Landraider... then I would never have to wait in traffic ever again.

Another group of comics Axed by me

Once more it is time for a trip to the local comic book store to pick up my monthly supply of comic books. Before leaving I noticed that there was still a rather thick stack of unread books stacked up in my game room. After searching though the stack it became very apparent that some titles had been purchased over four months ago and not been touched since. It seems that it was once more time for me to cut down my “pull list” (keep in mind that I had cut the list in half around six months ago). I just cannot rationalize spending an average of 3 dollars a book if I’m not even going to read them once.

First book to go was The Mighty Avengers. After the fallout from the last several Marvel mega-events the team featured in this book has been left in shambles. The team is now led by Hank Pym (Oh yeah, give me more ant-man….its defiantly what the public wants) and is made up of what has traditionally been the supporting cast of the Avenger book line (No Captain America, no Iron Man, no Thor, not even Hawkeye, no thanks). It’s not that I haven’t been reading this book I just don’t care to read what looks like the “poor man’s Avengers”.

Next went all of the X-titles except for one (cutting out Cable, Astonishing X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, and The New X-Men). It seems that most of the x-title issues can be summed up as simply big event crossovers (that you had to get every X-book to follow) or filler issues (that the x-men whine about how they got screwed over during the latest crossover event). The two exceptions to this wonderful writing formula were Astonishing X-Men and the new X-Force. Well astonishing has joined the other X-books and gone to crap after Josh Whedon quit writing the book but X-Force has stayed relatively strong and on the top of my read pile (who doesn’t like a crazy feral mutant hit team…that uses its powers for good and not evil).

Finally I took a good look at my DC titles. I cut Supergirl from the list very quickly (why have I been buying this book without having read an issue for six months) but then I had to do some deep thinking. Teen Titans…gone! Over the last year all but one of the founding members of this incarnation of the titans has either left the team or died. Keep in mind I loved Young Justice (yes I know guilty pleasure) and this incarnation of the titans so this was a hard cut but the team I loved reading about was gone. My final cut was the Justice League of America. This was an especially hard cut because it was Grant Morison’s run on JLA that had got me back into comics back in the mid-90s and I had collected the line ever since. I cannot even tell you what is wrong with this title, just that I haven’t read the last three issues that I have purchased.

After this latest round cuts, I am left purchasing only one DC title (JSA), only three Marvel titles (New Avengers, X-force, and Thor), and a small amount of books from other publishers (the books from Star Wars, Dragonlance, and Forgotten Realms lines). I personally wonder if I am outgrowing comics or if it’s just that the writing has become so bad that I cannot rationalize spending money on it.

Monsterpocaplypse Series three announced!

It seems like the news just keeps coming from Privateer Press! It was leaked today that the third series of Monsterpocaplypse, All Your Base, will be released in July. According to http://www.icv2.com/ , “The July Monsterpocalypse releases include Monsterpocalypse Series 3: All Your Base Monster Boosters (MSRP $15.99), which contains a new reference card plus 4 random morphers and 1 corresponding Metamorph Monster Hyper Form, and Monsterpocalypse Series 3: All Your Base Unit Boosters (MSRP $12.99), which contain four random units (1 rare, 1 uncommon, and 2 common) plus 1 random installation.” No pictures are available yet beside the box art but it does seem like there will be a new type of monster that can “morph” and faction specific buildings known as installations.

Privateer Press Plastic models finally revealed

We finally have pictures of Privateer Press’ first plastic models, the Exemplar Bastions. This new plastic box set comes with a full unit of 5 Bastions (normally these medium base Warmachine units come with only 3 modules and cost more money). It was accidently leaked a few months ago that the company was going to begin producing some of their units in plastic in an attempt to keep down their production cost. This development has caused a large amount of controversy within the Privateer Press fan base and the official forums have been filled with declarations of keep PP all metal. The controversy has mainly stemmed from the facts that the company has always mooched the use of plastic miniatures and presented its products as “full-metal fantasy”. I personally have mixed feelings. I do like the “feeling” of playing with metal models (I still remember frowning the first time when I picked up a plastic Space Marine Dreadnought from GW) but I prefer to build plastic models over metal. Plastic is just so much easier to work with. I have mixed feelings on the cost of this new set. On one hand the units is five dollars cheaper than a unit of five plastic GW Terminators and is about thirty bucks cheaper than what a full unit of five would have cost if made of metal. On the other hand I was expecting the box set to be a bit cheaper. I’m not saying that the box set is overpriced; I was just thinking it would have been slightly cheaper (like $40 or under). I don’t know why because the unit is still cheaper than the industry standard (let’s face it, like it or not, Games Workshop sets the miniature game industry standard). How do these new plastic models look? Take a better look for yourself. The front page of the Privateer Press websight has a 360 view of the models.

Spring Cleaning

Most everyone that has been to my home knows that the extra bedroom is effectively a walk-in closet for all of my collectables and gaming stuff. This is my man room done in the geek. Well, this room also seems to serve the whole family as a “junk room” that everything and anything that doesn’t have a home gets thrown in. This “out of sight out of mind” mentality inevitable leads to me having to spend a whole day cleaning the room about once every six months or so. Since I basically have the week off I decided that I would clean the whole house today. I started by cleaning in the living room. Before very long there were several piles of stuff that needed a new home. It quickly became apparent that I would have to clean out the “game room”. To make a long story short, my efforts in the living room were quickly abandoned so that I could clean up “my room”. My god were did all of his crap come from! The closet is now officially stacked to the ceiling with boxes, my walls are filled up with my “Star Wars wallpaper”, and I don’t think that I have any shelf space left (or anyplace to put a new shelf for that matter). I rediscovered many long lost items that I apparently just cannot live without (I did throw away three bags worth of trash). Here is a list of the some of the surprises that I found:

-- Games Workshop packaging from the late 1990s. (I actually kept one of the boxes)
-- Figures for almost every 40K army (when the hell did I get a box of Tau Fire-warriors)
--Dragon Dice (oh, how nice. Now put that back on the shelf for another 6 years)
-- Lego Darth Vader
-- About 5 empty cans of spay paint (and I saved these because….)
-- Huh, that’s were my wife’s scrap booking stuff went.
-- About 15 fake pumpkins.
-- 3 Odyssey gaming shirts (thought I had given these to Nate and Ricky)
--Multiple Axis and Allies pieces.

After only seven hours I had the room wiped into shape. How did I get all of this crap? I have to admit that it's totally out of control. Good thing it’s clean now, because our group needs a new place to play (the floor is clean and the middle of the room is ready to set up a table). Now I just have to explain to my wife why the living room is still destroyed.

Here’s some picks of the final product.

Metamorphosis

About two weeks ago Privateer Press released the newest expansion book for their tabletop miniature game Hordes. The book release came just a week after the company announced that they were updating both of their miniature games to a second edition, known as Mark II. This lead many people to ask, “Why should I waste money on buying Metamorphosis if I can only use it for a year”. The answer is twofold. First, this book is awesome in oh so many ways. Secondly, the rules in this book will be tournament legal for over a year, not to mention you can use these rules as long as you want (its not like when Mark II comes out Privateer Press is going to send a hit team to your house and take the book away from you).

Metamorphosis is 176 pages of full color gaming goodness. The fluff in the books is great and becoming more and more intertwined with the fluff in the Warmachine books. The fiction can be hard to follow, especially if you haven’t read the fluff in the previous Hordes books. I actually had to ask our local Iron Kingdoms expert to clarify several story plots (mainly because I had skipped the fiction parts of the previous book, Evolution. To sum up, the Skorne have a new leader, the Circle is still getting their butts kicked (oh, and pissing of Dragons... it’s their new job really), the Trollbloods are still getting kicked off of their land, and Legion is still mutating and spreading blight (plus they get “Thagrosh, the Messiah”, the best name for a model ever). Ok, on second thought the fluff is still good but the story line really didn’t advance that much.

Rules wise every faction got a lot of stuff in this book. It is one of the few Privateer Press expansion books that all the factions made out equally in. All of the new warlocks are just nasty and have great potential. This is especially true of their feats. Gone are the feats that you look at and go, “this is a great feat, if I wasn’t playing against a Warmachine faction”. So what did each faction get exactly?

Trollbloods: If you had to rank the four factions in Metamorphosis the trolls are in last place. The fact that they can use all of the great new minion models does bring them up even with the other factions. First, I’m not impressed with their character warbeast, Mulg the Ancient. He is great with Doomshaper, either version, but otherwise he is too expensive (points or actually cash). I’m also disappointed that his amour isn’t higher (the model does look like he’s made of a mountain after all). Like I said before all of the new warlocks are great and this is especially true of trolls. I especially like Calandra (and the fact that I can now say “it ain’t over until the fat lady sings”). For me the other new troll models to take note of are the Troll Whelps. These guys are all-around great. The models are great, the fluff behind them is entertaining, and they are very useful game wise.

Circle of Orboross: The Circle models in this book has pushed me over the edge and convinced me that I should start a Circle army as my second Hordes faction. First I’m not in love with either of the new epic warlocks. I actually prefer Kaya’s and Krueger’s nonepic versions. Mohsar the Desertwalker does interest me and I cannot wait to play with him. His eight fury along with his “Maltreatment” ability should make it possible for people to run tons of beast with him. The circle’s character warbeast is my favorite one out of the new character warbeast (of course I’ve always preferred the “stone” warbeast over the fury ones). It is a pumped up Woldwarden for jus a few more points. The model for the Megalith looks great but unfortunately it is going to cost you a arm and a leg to get one (I’m guessing it will break the $50 dollar mark). I also really like the new units and plan on getting both of them (How can you not get magical laser turrets made of stone or more scantily clad feral chicks). The rest of the new circle stuff is middle of the road except for one exception. That exception is the Shadowhorn Satyr. His rules are decent but his model is one of the worst miniatures that I have ever seen privateer press make. It is so bad that I would refuse to ever buy it even if it had the best game rules ever.

Skorne: So much tabletop goodness and so little time. Epic Morghol is the Chuck Norris of the Iron Kingdoms (yes, he actually invented sliced bread). The other new warlocks are also great and will see a lot of table time. I actually plan on getting everything that is Skorne in this book. The Skorne character warbeast is great and will cost about twenty bucks less than any of the others. Most importantly Skorne got a much needed boost with a huge amount of pathfinder and some advanced deploy. The faction also got two extremely useful solos in the form of the Void Spirit and the Extoller Soulward. These additions should make the scone significantly more competitive in scenario play (since the faction that had nothing to get around terrain now can just dance over it). I’m actually thinking of sending a love letter to Privateer Press for making Skorne so good.

Legion of Everblight: What can I say? Just when I thought this faction couldn’t get any better it does. It just possible gets the three best Warlocks in the book. Lylyth is even more shooty death than ever, Thagrosh is even more of a beat stick (and gets the best title, “the Messiah”) and their new warlock Absylonia has a great toolbox of abilities. Their character warbeast is a three headed mini-me of the dragon Everblight and will be an absolute pain to play against (3 boostable, MAT 7, Str 15 attacks of death anyone). Their new warbeast, the Nephilim Protector, is going to see a lot of play and greatly increase the survivability of legion warlocks (yep, they really needed that).

Minions: The new minor warlocks are brilliant and a great move by privateer. Since the minor warlocks are not real warlocks it stops people from playing pure Minion list (guess the company learned from the whole Mercs mess in Warmachine). All of the new minor warlocks are extremely useful and will see a lot of play. The best part about them is that it lets us see some interesting new models (giant alligator, a big hungry snake thing, giant pig, and an armored polar bear). I have to admit that I’m especially looking forward to the alligator minor warlock that is wearing the top hat.

Nine hours, eight games.

For the first time in a long while I hosted a board game day. It was just a small affair that involved Buddy, the boy, Sam and I (originally it was just suppose to be me and Buddy but it evolved). Traditionally I prefer to play long board games like Axis and Allies or Twilight Imperium (you know long games that usually end up killing over half of your weekend) but this time we decided to try and fit in as many games as possible.

The day started around 10 AM when me and they boy sat down for a game of Monsterpocalypse. We had both been looking forward to trying out one of the new boards from the “Map Pack”. After my son begged me not to use the Martian Menace faction (“No more space ships Daddy”) I decided to use the Terrasaurs faction (“fine I’ll play with the Godzilla dinosaurs then”). He quickly decided to play with the Planet Eaters. Our early game was on the slow side and his shooting units dominated my hand-to-hand units. Unfortunately for him, I was able to close with my monster very quickly. Before we knew it I had slammed, thrown, bashed his monster through about six buildings (making roaring noises and doing my best Hulk Hogan pose the whole time… note to self do not go over board on taunting ten year old). His monster was finished off when I actually did 4 damage to his monster in one turn.

After about an hour of M-poc we moved on to New World (a variation of Carcassone). My son really enjoys the Carcassone line of games and was extremely excited to be playing it (despite his constant eye rolling as I talk about having fun with Meeples) . This was my first time playing a Carcassone game with only two players. It was still very enjoyable but the game actually takes longer to play than normal and man those tile piles are huge. The boy got an early lead and stayed ahead for the whole game. I did almost catch up with him at the end but he still won out (I had to endure many yells of “I won” and a very long victory dance).

By this time Sam and Buddy had arrived. I pulled out Rumis believing that it would be a game that my sister would enjoy. Rumis is basically a 3-D version Blokus, if that doesn’t help think of it as Tetris the board game (it’s more fun than it sounds…really). The four of us got in two quick games. I won the first game and Buddy won the second. Sam loved the game so much that she wanted to know were she could pick up her own copy (the answer is Target, On-line, or Barns & Noble). Sam had to go back to Tampa so Buddy and I got down to playing a war game.

Recently I decided that I needed some two player war games, since it is very difficult to get a large group together to play a good war board game. One of the games that I acquired for this purpose was Axis & Allies Guadalcanal. This is the game that we decided to play (War of the Ring and Memoir ’44 were our other available options). I played Japan and Buddy was the USA. It was only my second time playing and his first so we had to go over the rule book pretty well. We both kept the game close but I did win out. This game plays completely different from a normal A&A variant and is really a whole new game that simple uses Axis and Allies game pieces. In the end, we both decided that the game was very balanced and was fun. The only bad thing is we think that the game will have a limited replay value. After about playing 4 times or so this game will probable end up on one of my game shelves for a year or two. To be honest this game is a bit overpriced for a game that has limited replay value.

After this game the boy came back out from the computer room to join us in a game of Zombies!!! I’ve talked about this game enough so I’m not really going to go into it besides….shortest game of Zombie killing goodness ever. The cabin, the tile that you win the game on, showed up on turn 6 and the game was over within 10 turns or so after that. I won but the most memorable part was the boy getting stuck in the pet cemetery for the whole game (after I told him to stay away from it as I ran away from it). Buddy knew he would have to leave soon so after this game we quickly played another game of New World. Not a bad day of gaming, and we got it all in by 7 PM.