I arrived for my first game at 11, but could not locate it.
Archive for Uncategorized
Origins 2011 Day 1 – Wednesday
I arrived at Origins at around 11:20am. Six different lines later, I was able to register for events. By 2pm, I had the tickets in hand.
Had it not been for the excellent customer service of volunter Jennifer Bartlett, I would have left Origins 2011 in anger and not returned in 2012.
When I got to Origins, I asked customer service where to get my press pass. They sent me to Special Services, who sent me to the main Show office. The show office dismissed me like I was a talking pile of feces, but at least produced a badge.
I stood in the event registration line for nearly an hour, only to learn my press pass had no number on it with which to register for events.
I was sent to the Special Services section again, where I was told they didn’t know how to help me and ignored until I walked away in anger.
I stood in the on site registration line where a volunteer named Jennifer Bartlett saved the day.
One more line later, I had my event tickets. 11am to 2pm just,to get a badge and event tickets. Now I understand why the news media in Central Ohio doesn’t cover Origins like the media in Indianapolis covers Gen Con.
In any case, my first game was an intro to Warhammer 40k which went well.
Next is a boardgame called Globalization.
Category: Uncategorized | Tags: origins board game room 2011
RPG News
RPG News:
- Eden Studios released “Arrgh! Thar Be Zombies” and it will go on sale October 13. This is a sourcebook for All Flesh Must Be Eaten.
Category: Uncategorized |
Miniatures News – 10/09/2010
- Black Orc Games announced a new Hundred Kingdoms army, The Dominion.
- Crocodile Games has several new WarGods miniatures available, including Typhon Swordsman unit, Sebeki Convention Attendee, Scorpion Shield, Spartan Herald, and War Altar Priest.
- Eureka Miniatures has a new catalog out now.
- The Flames of War site lists a bundle of new armies coming out in October, including French Infantry Company and Polish Tank Company.
- Warlord Games has released a long list of new miniatures recently, including Plastic Napoleonic Prussian Landwehr and British Infantry.
- Privateer Press announced a Hordes release of Hex Hunters miniatures. There is a 3D rotation Flash movie on their site.
- Dream Pod 9 announced the release of two new Heavy Gear Blitz Badlands items, the Sandrider Infantry Platoon and the Barnaby and Sandrider Squad Pack.
- Tengu Models posted images of two zombie clown miniatures that are worth checking out if you find the zombie genre interesting.
Category: Uncategorized |
Miniatures Games News – 10/09/2010
- Urban Mammoth announced that “Missions Volume 1″ for Urban War is now available for free download.
- Catalyst’s Classic Battletech site announced the October 27 release of Battletech Jihad Hot Spots: Terra.
- The Aerodrome 2.0 World War 2 Aerial Combat Ruleset is now available.
- Ambush Alley Games has announced the pre-release version of Tomorrows War is available for purchase in PDF format.
- Aberrant Games recently added a Warlands Boss Bike, Rezolution Blast and Spray Template, and other products to their catalog.
- RedBrick Limited has two new releases available: Kratas Adventures and Liferock.
- TooFatLardies has added Terrible Sharp Sword to their product line.
- Cipher Studios has a new Erika and Black Sun boxed set available in their web store.
- Crooked Dice Game Design Studio has listed several new releases recently.
- Crusader Publishing says that the Rate of Fire AFV supplement will be available October 15.
- Mongoose Publishing released RuneQuest II Vikings and EarthDawn Kratas Adventures this week.
Category: Uncategorized |
Card Game News – 10/09/2010
Card Games news:
- Cartamundi has released “Megakicks” in the Netherlands and France. It’s a soccer-themed card game.
- Realms Masters has announced that the latest addition to their Chaos Isle game family, Rise of the Creator, will be released in November. This 30-card enhancement features the new Feat deck, Virus deck, Mutations that enhance zombies and tasks, and two new Boss Zombies.
- Gozer Games has announced a new card game, “Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, and Fairies” on their site. They are taking pre-orders now, and ask people to help spread the word about the game.
- Sirlin Games has released a deluxe edition of Flash Duel, which features a wooden box, wooden board, wooden pawns, and wooden win tokens.
- Khalsa Brain Games has a limited number of Single Player ‘Elemental’ play mats available.
- The fourth issue of Inner Kingdom Update, the official Shadowfist newsletter, is available now.
- Magic the Gathering: The Scars of Mirrodin, has been released, and will be released online on October 18, 2010.
Category: Uncategorized |
Game Accessories News – 07/07/2010
Gale Force Nine announced yesterday that they’ve offering two new varieties of movement trays for use (presumably) with Warhammer. To quote the announcement on their site “GF9 has placed movement trays to accommdate these large units in a new section called HORDE FORMATIONS. These larger trays fit ranks of soldiers that are ten models wide. There are trays for models on both 20mm and 25mm bases as well as trays for models on larger 40mm and 50mm bases. Moving these imposing hordes of troops across the battlefield has never been easier.” For more information, see the GF9 site.
Category: Uncategorized |
Game Deals and Retailer News – 07/06/2010
Following are news items I picked up from various retailers:
- WarPath Games is taking pre-orders for products in a variety of lines, including Forged in Battle, Do Gooder Press, Black Scorpion Miniatures, Artizan Designs, Fred Games, GMT Games, Dan Verssen Games, Reaper Miniatures, and more. The full pre-order list is here. They also have new items from Mantic Games, Avatars of War, Amarillo Design Bureau, Games Forces Magazine, and others. That list is here.
- Wargames Miniatures has the book Uniforms of the Civil War by Philip J. Haythornthwaite on sale for $8.97 (40% off).
- Stafford Games in the UK has lowered the price of a Herman Goring Division Token Set and Brummbar Assault Tank Platoon.
- RPGShop has added four new products: Judge Dredd Mega-City 1 V3 Lawbreaker, Runequest Empires, Accused! Getting Away With Murder?, and Ants! For Queen and Colony.
Category: Uncategorized |
Gaming News 06-18-2010
If you have tried to visit this site in the past 24 hours, you’ve probably noticed it was down. I decided to upgrade the WordPress installation from 2.8 to 3.0. I used the automatic upgrade feature, which… well…. didn’t. It got part way done and conked out. I’ve since repaired it, and the site is back up and running again.
I was really pleased to see all the great comments that have been posted recently, or at least the non-spam ones. (It was about 50/50 spam to non-spam.) I’d considered turning comments off because of all the spam, but since it does show there are folks out there reading the site, I’m going to leave them active for now.
Here are all the news items I found in today’s browsing:
- 0One Games has released Heavenring Village: Cemetery, a PDF set of maps useful for role-playing adventures.
- Black Orc Games has released new MiniSculpts, including a Crawling Zombie, Big-Ass Gun, and Lizardman.
- Adamant Entertainment has released free Apple iPad wallpapers for Thrilling Tales, ICONS, MARS, and more.
- Bezier Games is offering their Essen 2010 Map Pack for sale on their site for $75.00. This pack reportedly includes 3 sets of double-sided mounted maps and 1 bonus preorder-only map for Steam and Age of Steam. It will be available in October.
- Games Workshop has added Wargs, White Scars Commander, and White Scars Bike Squad to its product line and announced the release of the 2010 Citadel Catalogue.
- 15mm.co.uk says Alien Squad Leader 2.0, its 15mm squad level science fiction system, is back in stock.
- Alnavco has several “New South Salem Marus” products listed, including a Passenger Ship, Standard Freighter, Modern Freighter, Collier, and Trawler.
- 2 Hour Wargames, according to its site, is working on a Formula One Racing game and putting final touches on Clash of Titans.
- Atlas Games has posted an errata page for Feng Shui that has some missing text and clarifies some typos.
- The Flames of War web site lists new products, including a Heavy Anti-Aircraft Artillery Platoon, HG Pioneer Platoon, HG 7.5cm lelG18 gun, and HG 15cm slG33 gun.
- The Classic Battletech site has information about Catalyst Game Labs’ planned activities at Origins 2010 next week (which I’ll be attending!). They’ll be showing off some of the latest additions to BattleTech and Shadowrun, as well as their casual game line that includes Merchants, High School Drama, and Ergo.
- Conquest Miniatures has just sent a line of 28mm British soldier miniatures to the mold maker. Pictures appear on the site.
- Decision Games is looking for playtesters for future magazine wargames.
- Eden Studios has an open call out for freelance artists.
- Firaxis Games has announced that Sid Meier’s Civilization V will be released for the PC on September 21, 2010, in North America. The worldwide release is three days later.
- Gale Force Nine has published a preview of its Warlock Player Character Token Set for the Dungeons and Dragons.
- John Jenkins Designs has adjusted some of its “New for 2010″ wargame products to be “New for July 2010″, including The First Sudan War 1884-1885, The Jacobite Rebellion, The Raid on St. Francis, and Siege of Quebec.
- Matrix Games has announced the release of Storm over the Pacific. This PC wargame portrays the Pacific Theater conflicts in World War II. It depicts the conflict between Japan and the United States, and players may choose from 26 available countries with historically accurate orders of battle including land, sea, and air units. It sells for $49.99 as a digital download or $59.99 in the U.S. as a physical boxed game.
- Mega Miniatures has listed a number of soccer/football miniatures on its site, which are available through their eBay store.
- The Mayfair Games site says that Catan Geographies: Germany Live Demos are available at retailers, and that Settlers of America will debut at Origins.
- Mongoose Publishing has announced A Bridge Too Far, a pre-order title that will ship in July 2010. This standalone strategic boardgame attempts to re-create the 1944 initiative by the Allies to capture a number of key bridges leading to Germany’s heartland.
- Pinnacle Entertainment Group will have a limited supply of prerelease copies of Deadlands Reloaded Player’s Guide at Origins and Gen Con. Weird War II Vehicle Counters are also available now for free on their site. Lots of other updates have been posted recently as well.
- Reaper Miniatures has posted a list of recently-made-available figures, including some for Dark Heaven Legends, Warlord, Chronoscope and Pathfinder.
- Scale Creep Miniatures has announced that Field of Glory: Renaissance, and FoG Renaissance: Wars of Religion are coming soon. These rulebooks are based on the Field of Glory ancient and medieval rulesets, but depict battles from the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.
- Shrapnel Games’ Gamers Front online store has a June 2010 special going on until June 25. The discounted games are Second World War: winSPWW2 Enhanced Edition and War Plan Pacific. Each is available at $34.95 as of this writing. They’re also having a Summer Sale where you can get $3.00 or more off several titles.
- Timecast Models has listed new 6mm Modern Industrial Buildings, including five new units suitable for use from the 1960s to the present. They’re available in painted and unpainted versions.
Category: Uncategorized |
Game News Update 06-03-2010
Following are the news items I picked up today:
- 15mm.co.uk is offering the “Laserburn” 15mm science fiction miniatures game rule set.
- The Classic Battletech web site lists three new ePub/PDF products today: XTRO:Boondocks, Periphery (1st Edition), and Luthien
- Crusader Miniatures has listed a number of new products on their site, including “MAA6 – The Austro-Hungarian Army of the Seven Years War”, “MAA276 – The Austrian Army”, and several others.
- Matrix Games has published its June newsletter.
- THQ has announced an online version of “Company of Heroes”, a free to play game with paid-for extra content.
- Wargamedownloads.com has added two new titles: Raftaway the Card Game and Warcosm Assault.
Category: Uncategorized |
WotC Publishes Updates to D&D, Forgotten Realms, Martial Power
The Wizards of the Coast web site published a set of updates for the Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook, Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide, and Martial Power. The updates modify “key portions of the game that weren’t working as we intended” and “bring these mechanical elements back in line with the game’s base expectations”.
A quick look at the updates shows changes to “Rain of Blows” in the Player’s Handbook, “Righteous Rage of Tempus” in the Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide, “Battlerager Vigor”, “Dual Strike”, “Guileful Switch”, “Dwarf Stoneblood”, and “Improved Vigor” in the Martial Power book.
Category: Uncategorized | Tags: D&D, dungeons and dragons, Forgotten Realms, Martial Power, Wizards of the Coast, WotC
Impressions of Bootlegger by Eagle Games
At Gen Con Indy 2008, I spoke with someone who said that Eagle Games’ “Bootleggers” was one of the best board games she’d played in a while. I wasn’t able to play it there, but I did manage to schedule a game at Origins this week.
Bootleggers is set during the Prohibition era of American history, when making and selling alcohol was illegal. In the game, you play a crime family boss who tries to profit off bootleg alcohol. Each player starts the game with some cash, a truck, and a still. With these, you attempt to earn the most money possible. If you reach $100,000 before turn 12, you win.
On each turn, the players roll a die for each still they have. This represents alcohol production for that turn. If a player has enough space in his trucks, the player can haul the alcohol to a speakeasy and sell it. If the player has more alcohol than the trucks can haul, deals can be negotiated with other players who have available truck space. The exact nature of those deals is up to the players.
After the production and hauling phases take place, the selling begins. One speakeasy will buy all the alcohol the players can produce, but pays a low price for it. In the beginning turn, this is the only speakeasy that’s open for business. To open others, the players have to spend “influence” tokens they receive as they play. When enough influence tokens are in place, the speakeasy will begin buying alcohol from players. A speakeasy will buy first from the player with the most influence tokens there, then from the one with the second-most, and so on. Just how many units will be purchased depends on one or more random die rolls. The smaller speakeasies may only purchase one die roll worth of alcohol, while others may purchase four or five die rolls’ worth and pay more for it. In true mobster fashion, if you have the majority influence at a speakeasy, you collect additional money for all alcohol sold there – no matter which player sells it.
That’s the basic mechanic, though there is a lot more to it. There are cards which give players more influence, allow them to upgrade their stills to produce more alcohol, acquire additional stills, more trucks, etc.
It was a pleasant enough game to play, and at a current retail price of $20, it’s a relatively inexpensive hobby game to acquire. That may explain why it was sold out at last year’s Gen Con and at Origins this year. My quick take on it is that if you have some unlucky die rolls during the early phases of the game (which I did) it can be almost impossible to recover. By the fourth turn I was in last place and just couldn’t make and sell enough alcohol to compete with the other players, who had multiple stills and trucks in play. Other players had better die rolls early on and were able to leverage that early income very effectively in later turns.
Impressions of Goodtime Games’ “Code War”
I’ve seen the “Code War” game in Origins and Gen Con programs in the past and thought it sounded like an intriguing idea for a board game. The event catalog describes it this way:
Program a robotic tank to traverse a rally course, passing check points as you go. Bump other players’ tanks or blast them with your cannon to gain a competitive advantage. The player who completes the course first wins. Ten minutes to learn. One hour to play.
That’s a pretty good description of the game. You play on a board which has 5 checkpoints placed on it. There are also several brick walls which serve as navigation obstacles that your tank must maneuver around. A number of orange cones are placed randomly on the board as well.
Each player has a tank, which starts the game on one edge of the board. On each turn, the players compile a “program” to run the tank for that turn. This is done by arranging the following seven card types in any desired order:
Move 1: The tank moves forward 1 square in the direction it’s currently facing.
Move 2: The tank moves forward 2 squares in the direction it’s currently facing.
Back Up: The tank moves backward 1 square in the direction it’s currently facing.
Turn: The tank turns 90 degrees to the left or right (at the player’s discretion at “run time”).
Fire or Lay Mine: The tank fires its gun or lays a mine (at the player’s discretion at “run time”).
Side Slip: The tank shifts left or right one space without changing the direction it’s facing.
Repeat/Repair: If your tank has been disabled because it ran into a wall, cone, or mine, this instruction will return it to operating status. If your tank is in operating status, this card will instead repeat the previous instruction it performed.
You only get one of each card. Depending on your position in the race through the checkpoints, you may choose from 3 to 5 of the instruction cards to use in your tank’s program. If you’re in first place, you may only use 3 cards. If you’re in last place, you may use 5 cards. Everyone else uses 4 cards (or less).
At the start of each turn, all the players arrange their instruction cards into a program for the tank. For example, I might compile a stack like this:
Move 2
Repeat/Repair
Move 1
Fire or Lay Mine
This program would have my tank move forward two squares, then move forward two more, then move forward 1 more, and fire its gun (or lay a mine). However, the reality is that my tank may not get to do these things. On each turn, a different player moves first. If I’m the one who moves first this time, then my tank is almost guaranteed to do what its program says it should. If I’m the last player to move, however, that may not happen. For example, if another tank moved first and bumped mine next to a wall, my “Move 2″ instruction might disable my tank for that turn, preventing it from doing anything else.
That’s part of the strategy in this game. When you move first, you have the option to pretty much do whatever you like. If you move second, or third, or last, you have to try to anticipate what the players before you might do. If you think they’re going to push you in front of an obstacle, you might start with a Turn instruction instead of a move. If you think one of them might wind up in back of you, you might want to drop a mine.
With a name like “Code War” you might expect this to be a violent game, but it’s actually not. When one tank shoots another, all it does make the tank spin around a bit (the player who fires gets to decide which direction the tank faces after being shot). When a tank runs into a wall, it’s flipped onto its side and damaged, not destroyed. In reality, this is a race game with a “wargame” name.
Code War is an enjoyable, simple to play game. It would be suitable for children or adults, and doesn’t require any computer skill to understand and play. I recommend checking it out if you find it on a convention schedule and have an open slot available. GM and creator Tom Cleaver does a great job explaining the game and the mechanics are simple enough that you can focus on your strategy rather than making sense of the rules.
New White Wolf Releases
On Tuesday, White Wolf added Seers of the Throne preorder information to its site. This character book for Mage: The Awakening provides the history and society of the Seers of the Throne, spells, supernal artifacts, and minions. It also includes sample antagonists, lore on the Exarchs, new legacies of power, and more. As of this writing, it’s price is $31.99 on the White Wolf site.
On Tuesday, White Wolf also added preorder information for Night Horrors: Immortal Sinners to their online store. This book explores the Kindred society, celebrities, and leaders. It includes a selection of ancient vampires, driven mad by their long hunger, and a selection of new bloodlines, merits, devotions, and other useful details. As of this writing, it’s priced at $32.99.
