Tallarn Veteran Squad/Shadow War Armageddon Kill Team

I finished up a handful of Tallarn infantry this week. I painted most with the black headgear I've been using to denote Veterans. The primary reason I painted these was to use them as a Kill Team in Shadow War: Armageddon, but also painted up a heavy weapons team with a missile launcher so it could be used as a Veteran Squad in 40K.



The lot of them (the new ones painted this week)



Here are some of them (with a previously painted Sergeant) deployed as a Veteran Squad in 40K. Not sure how often I'll use Veteran Squads - they eat up an Elite Slot... I have so many other things I could field as Elites. Loads of Special Weapon Squads, mostly. Mind you, add a Sergeant, a Heavy Weapons team and one other dude with a Lasgun and that Special Weapons team could be a veteran squad... Hmmmm... guess I'll have to actually GET PLAYING MORE and find out which is more useful...?



These are the models currently designated as the dedicated Shadow War: Armageddon Kill Team options.



And this is what I am currently toying with to use as my starter Kill Team for Shadow War: Armageddon. It consisted of:

Veteran Sergeant - Kill Team Leader - Flak Armour, Combat Blade, Chainsword, Bolt Pistol - 170 points

2x Veteran Guardsman - Toopers - Flak Armour, Combat Blade, Lasgun - @85 = 170 points

2x Guardsmen - Recruits - Flak Armour, Combat Blade, Lasgun - @75 = 150

Special Weapons Operator - Specialist - Flak Armour, Combat Blade, Meltagun - 165

Special Weapons Operator - Specialist - Flak Armour, Combat Blade, Plasma Gun - 150 points

Special Weapons Operator - Specialist - Flak Armour, Combat Blade, Grenade Launcher (frag and kraken) - 195

Total - 1000 points

No idea if this is going to work out - but as I figured I might as well take as many Specialists as I could to start as they cost more than 100 points. Basic recruitment between games allows 100 points to use for new recruits - which could easily get me a fully kitted out regular trooper (Veteran Guardsman) to recruit more requires using up a precious promethium cache. I didn't add in grenades or weapon reloads or any other fancy equipment as I figured more "boots on the ground" would be desirable in the beginning sessions. I need to protect those specialists, though and try to not expose them to danger...

Now to actually find some time to TRY the game!! The kids have their Kill Teams ready...


In Other News... 



Earlier this week Amanda, The Girl and I got in a game of Splendor while Finnegan was playing D&D with a group of friends..



One of the kids friends came over another day and we got in a game of 40K - a full report of that action can be found here:

Return to Action on Brind's World - Orks versus Necrons
Finnegan's 14th birthday was this past week and, unlike the last few years school was not back in session, so he was able to organize a full day of gaming with friends!



That full day of gaming ended up being two really long games - first they played a really long game of Red Dragon Inn.



Followed by a really long game of Sentinels of the Multiverse...

They did stop to eat some pizza I made...



And CAKE!!!



He asked for an Ork Skull cake... so... not one of my most inspired cakes... but... it got eaten.. no one complained...

I also finished off my short Tales from the Loop campaign last night. I had originally planned to run the four mysteries from the main rulebook as a short campaign from September to December every other Saturday, but as we missed a few sessions and the players really like exploring things, I only just finished up the first mystery!? It was fun, I guess... There were some novel elements to the system, it was a fun walk down memory lane for most of us, but I'm not sure I could run it for very long...

I've decided to start a new campaign for the new year: Rogue Trader - so expect lots of weird sci-fi minis and terrain getting painted in the coming weeks and game reports as the campaign gets underway!


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

In addition to the aforementioned stuff I'll be getting ready for the Rogue Trader campaign I'll Still be chugging away at all the other Tallarn stuff and Shadow War Armageddon Kill Teams and all that other stuff on the list of stuff to paint in the Game Plan 2018. But first, I'm going to finish those first two Shadespire warbands for John!

November 2017 Gaming Roundup

We played very few games in November. There were a lot of reasons for this. The two biggest ones were the never-ending renovation kicking into high gear. The first week I was finishing up framing and electrical and preparation for drywall (y'know, in my "spare" time). The second and third weeks the drywalling and mudding was going on - which added more stuff to the living room and plastic berries between room and dust everywhere. This past week the hardwood floors were refinished in the Kitchen - and they turned out AMAZING!!



These were buried under two layers of linoleum - the lower level was glued to them and after scraping as much as I could off - there was still lots of tar-like adhesive and they looked pretty awful, but once that was sanded off the hardwoods underneath cleaned up really nice. Unfortunately they look SO nice that Amanda's going to want to refinish the entire first floor now!? That'll be next summer though - hopefully while we're away on a vacation!

The other big killjoy was the return of the dizzy-woozy-screwy-head feelings - with he added fun of nausea! I kind of didn't do anything about it for the first few weeks - other than taking it easy when I could - figuring it'd just go away like it did last time and the added nausea made me think, at first, that I'd come down with a mild flu and that had brought back the dizzies. After three weeks of it I finally went in to see my doctor - who berated me (just a little) for not coming in sooner. After a bit of a talk about what was going on she figured what might actually be going on is a weird form of migraine. Wouldn't have occurred to me as usually "migraine" is associated with headache and PAIN - which I really haven't had...? I'm on some new medication for that and HOPEFULLY that will clear it up! (Though it hasn't done much so far - but I've only been taking it for two days  so I'm still trying to remain hopeful and positive...)

Anyway... the games...

Around the end of the second week we hadn't played any games and we'd barely played any in October, so I said to the kids we should each pick a game every week and make sure we find the time to play it. Though there were some limitations - it had to be playable on the living room coffee table - as that was the only surface we really had available. Also it had to be pretty light and not require any role-reading on my part because of aforementioned dizzy-woozy-screwy-head feelings... We managed to do this for ONE week... then things kind of ground to a halt as renos intensified and drywall dragged on way longer than it should have and then we had to paint the entire two rooms in two days before the flooring guys showed up...


15 November 2017 - Five Tribes



I an't remember who chose Five Tribes, it might have been Finnegan - it is HIS game. This was actually the first BOARDgame we've played since ToonCon - last month all we played was 40K (miniatures) and Tales from the Loop (role-playing). I got some Djinn early in the game that gave me some sort of advantage - I think I could claim tiles that had no maples on them that no one else had claimed - and with that I scooped a BUNCH of fairly high-point tiles. I think I also had the most vizier and a pretty good run of trade goods... but I spent a lot of coins to keep going first to get all those things so I don't think I won - I can't remember who did or what the points were - but I think we were all fairly close...?


16 November 2017 - Ra



Well that's off to a bad start!



It's been a while since we played Ra. As I was entering the play on Board Game Geek I realized it was the 10th time I played it - which got me thinking I should check out my Fives and Dimes (one of the many stats BGG tracks for you - games which you have played five or ten-plus times) and I realized there were a bunch of games with nine plays that I decided I should totally make sure I play over the next month to get them to TEN plays (Coup, Firefly, Nations, Nature Flux, Pax Renaissance, and A Study In Emerald)!

Ra was another game that I THOUGHT I was doing really well on, but Finnegan ended up ROCKING it. I had lots of monuments - but most just one shy of being able to score bonus points for having multiples. I had lots of Nile tiles as well and scored those each epoch, but I always has a hard time getting culture tiles - which the kids always seemed to scoop up. It was fun to play though, and easy enough that it didn't hurt my head, so...


17 November 2017 - Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu 



Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu was definitely The Girl's choice (it is her game). I think I played the Hunter. And we won - finally! That's about all I remember about the game - Oh, and I think Finnegan's character went insane at one point...?

The game basically a quicker version of Arkham Horror using the mechanics of Pandemic. I don't mind it, but I think I'd rather play regular Pandemic for a Pandemic type game and play Arkham Horror for and Arkham Horror kind of game... But The Girl likes it, so I guess I'll end up playing this from time to time.


18 November 2017 - Tales from the Loop



On Saturday Amanda and I headed over to our friends Emily and Aaron's to play Tales from the Loop. Christian and his daughter Maeve joined us this time, so we had some character making to get through and figure out a way to join the new kids up with the existing group. Progress was made. Should finish up the first adventure when we play again this weekend!

We were supposed to have played this on the 4th as well, but too many people were sick...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Hopefully some miniature and some game reports! I've been getting a bit of painting done - not as much as I might normally do - due to difficulty focusing with dizzy-woozy-screwy-head feelings. Some days have been better than others - on those better days I get some painting done, on the not-so-good days I've done a bit of prep work - gluing figures to bases or priming - painting the tank - things that require less focus.

October 2017 Boardgames Round-Up

After all that boardgame playing in September, we didn't actually play ANY boardgames in October. Oh, we played games - it's just that none of them were boardgames!? (okay, there were a few boardgames we played on the 1st of October on the last day of ToonCon, but they were included in the Tim's ToonCon 2017 Report, so I consider them kind of separate).

The lack of gaming has less to do with 'gaming fatigue' after all that gaming in September and more to do with us just being really busy and having a kitchen renovation going on. Not that we were constantly working on the kitchen, but the fact that it is in a state of renovation has caused a lot of disruption - everything has been moved out of the dining room and kitchen and placed elsewhere in the house. Our "Art Room" (which was originally a kitchen in a basement suite we no longer rent out) has become our temporary kitchen and dining room - but a lot of the stuff from there has been moved into the game room as was a lot of the stuff from the TV room as we had to access the plumbing in there... and none of it has moved back out. So the basement game room is full of crap and is completely unusable and we don't have our big dining room table anymore - Amanda decided to get rid of it and get a NEW dining room table for the new dining room - whenever it happens to be finished. Which leaves the coffee table in the living room from playing on - which, conveniently I build boards that fit over top of it years ago for DBA and we've been using those for some gaming, but it is not ideal (oh and the living room also has a stove and dishwasher sitting in it awaiting installation into new kitchen... someday...)

Warhammer 40,000 (8th Edition) 

We did play a fair bit of Warhammer 40,000 (8th Edition).



On the 14th we tried a big Power Level 70 game of Necrons versus my Guaiacan Commandoes. Too big of a game, we only finished one turn.

You can read about it here:

Another Crack at 40K 8th



The following Thursday (19 October 2017) we tried again - this time with smaller forces (Power Level 18). This time we got in two full games - each of the kids took on their friend's smaller force of Necrons.

You can read about those games here:

Ambushes on Brind's World



On Saturday Finnegan and I tried another quick game and I started to try and weave a bit of a narrative together to explain these games.

You can read all the fluff and the after action report here:

Again With The 40K



Finally we got in one more game on Monday, 23 October 2017. This was Orks versus Tyranids.

That report can be found here:

Elsewhere on Brind's World


Tales from the Loop

In addition returning to Warhammer 40,000 I also returned to running a role-playing game! It's been over three years since I last ran any role-playing games. I have been playing in a few run by my friend Bruce - he ran us through the Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign using Savage Worlds (which took about a year and half) and  for the last year and a bit has been running a D&D 5e campaign set in Primeval Thule.



We had initially made some characters for Tales from the Loop in August or September, but when we actually got to playing this month, two of the initial players had to drop out and another joined us. So the first session was mostly making a new character and redefining relationships. I did briefly introduce the Mystery to the kids at the end of the first session. I am running the Four Seasons of Mad Science campaign out of the book and started them on the first Mystery: summer Break and Killer Birds.

In the second session the kids continues the adventure, starting to piece together bits of what it going on - but also going off on a few tangents. The next session - this Saturday - They should be able to finish it up.

It's been a bit of a challenge. I'm not sure I've totally gotten my GM mojo back and Tales from the Loop is quite different from other games I've run - I do like it - it's just a bit different and I'm not sure if I've got the pacing right or if I'm getting enough Everyday Life Scenes into the mix...

The plan is to run four more session - two in November and two in December - and then we'll see where we're at. It could take a bit longer than that for us to run through the entire Four Seasons of Mad Science campaign, so we may continue into January. I don't expect we will continue after that, but who knows.

I would like to get a 40K RPG campaign off the ground - either Only War or Rogue Trader. Or possibly BOTH - with different groups!

The renovation is likely to drag on into December, but the hope is by Xmas we'll have a kitchen and dining room on the main floor again and hopefully a new dining room table to play board games on.

In the new year, after all the kitchen renovating is done, sights will be turned to the basement Game Room - which has been, more or less, in a state of disaster since the last renovation 4 years ago... Once I can get all the extra stuff stored in there out, there will be a major clean out and reorganization.

The old, purpose-built game table is going to be dismantled and a new (to us) table Amanda found on Kijiji is going in there. It's a proper table (unlike the current one, built out of 2x4s and 3/4" MDF) with 6 big fancy comfortable chairs. the table itself is just over 1m wide by just over 2m long - so a bit smaller than the old gaming table, but it's just as solid and while miniature gaming can still be done on it, it's more suited to boardgames (and role-playing games) which we do far more often these days anyway.

If all the starts align properly, my hope is that it could all be ready for my birthday at the end of February - just in time for a Wargaming Birthday Bash Weekend! Time to start thinking about what I might do for that, I guess... A Shadow War: Armageddon campaign had crossed my mind - since we're playing a lot of 40K these days... But I was also thinking of reviving my plan to run a Song of Shadows and Dust campaign...

September Game-A-Day Challenge: Week One

...or was it the September 30-Games-in-30-Days Challenge? I can't remember... The idea is the same, we're trying to play a different game every day through the month of September, and we've just finished up our first week. 

Day One - Friday, 1 September 2017
Legendary and Tales from the Loop



In the afternoon I played a game of Legendary with the kids. I'd wanted to play a "quick" game so I'd have time to reread some of Tales from the Loop. Finnegan went and chose Mysterio as the Big Bad Guy (Mysterio is NOT a quick game...). He did come up with a good selection of Heroes, however, which worked together really nice - Spiderman, some Spiderfriends, Black Widow and... someone from the Deadpool Expansion? It actually felt like I was able to BUILD a deck that worked well. 

The Girl had a really good deck going on with a lot of Black Widow. She ended up with two cards that allowed her to do damage equal to the number of innocent bystanders she rescued, so we let her recuse ALL of them. I think she had ten by the end of the game, and on the last turn drew BOTH of those cards! 

It was a fun game - even if it did take a little longer than I would have liked! 

Later in the evening I did start a game of Tales from the Loop - but we spent the entire three and a half hours making characters. I think it was the funnest session of making characters EVER! I'm actually glad we didn't get to playing the first adventure - partly because I didn't really have a chance to read through it and think it over, but also because the characters have so much depth I can try and weave elements of their own backgrounds into the adventure a bit better! Looking forward to actually PLAYING Tales from the Loop, but that probably won't be until October now...

Day Two - Saturday, 2 September 2017 

Forbidden Island

I'd hoped to run the family through a game of Pax Renaissance in the afternoon, but in the end Amanda dragged me all over the north end of town to look at tiles of backsplashes and dishwashers and sinks and taps and such... in the end we only had time for a quick game before watching a few movies I'd picked up at the library earlier in the day. 

So we all played Forbidden Island. I played the Engineer (can shore up two tiles with one action), The Girl played the Helicopter Pilot (with one action can move to any tile on the map), Amanda played the Navigator (can move other players two spaces with one action), and Finnegan played the explorer (can move or shore up on diagonals). Finnegan quickly picked up the golden lion. Keira grabbed the flame ruby thing. Amanda grabbed the bluish-green chalice. I nabbed the purple globe... and then the helicopter landing pad flooded and we lost... 

so close...

Ah well. It was going really great until then. Afterwards Finnegan pointed out that if I'd shored up the helicopter pad BEFORE moving to the place where I got the globe-thingie (because I had started next to the pad), we totally would have made it out... So... it's ALL MY FAULT we lost... 

Day Three - Sunday, 3 September 2017

A Study in Emerald (Second Edition) 

Again, I had planned to run the family through Pax Renaissance, but we kind of ran out of time. I suggested A Study in Emerald, because the last time we'd played we were getting games down to 30 minutes. This wasn't QUITE so quick because Amanda had kind of forgotten how to play and what you were supposed to be doing... 

The Girl looks a little grumpy because, as we found out at the end of the game, she was a Loyalist . AGAIN. She HATES playing the Loyalists 

(as in loyal to the dark gods that have seized control of the world!)but almost always seems to end up being on the Loyalist side ! 

Amanda gave up her identity pretty early by assassinating one of my agents. I'm pretty sure it was obvious from the get-go I was a Restorationist as I grabbed three restorationist agents in the first few turns, along with St. Petersburg (which can be played for Restorationist VP).

I ended up playing 8 Restorationist VP - and the Loyalist hadn't played one all game - which is pretty much what brought the game to an end. I don't think The Girl was trying very hard, though. 

The sh!t about to get real in Madrid! (Well, not really... I just went there in force to snatch up that City card and make sure Amanda couldn't assassinate any of my agents!)

Finnegan, it turned out, was also a restorationist (which I had suspected, but didn't know for sure).

Day Four - Monday, 4 September 2017 

7 Wonders

Monday was Labour Day. Amanda seems to be under the impression that on Labour Day one must do hard labour and decided WE MUST WRECK MORE OF THE KITCHEN!! So... still no Pax Renaissance... 

Instead we got in a quick game of 7 Wonders at the very end of the day. I got skooled by the lot of them. Oi! I just could not focus on any one sort of thing and didn't do well at anything. I think I was trying too hard to make things work with the Leaders I had, and should have just not bothered... Amanda did amazingly well, and the kids weren't too far behind her. It was a fun distraction from the utter chaos our house is in at the moment. 

Day Five - Tuesday, 5 September 2017 

Small World: Underground

The kids and I played Small World: Underground. 

I started the game with Vampire Mummies - mostly because they sounded cool... They weren't THAT cool. I only got to use the vampiric ability once during the game (there was a second time that I could have used it, but forgot...). You do get a LOT of guys with the Mummies - but it cost an extra token to take over stuff... So they're a bit ponderous, but often leave your places well defended. In the first turn I got two popular places - one that controlled a Balrog and another than gave bonus points for each of the same type of location (which happened to be mushroom forests). I think by the end of the third turn I controlled ALL of the mushroom forest areas on the map and was bringing in 13 gold per turn, which the kids weren't even close to doing. So I was willing to just sit on that and collect my 13 every turn...

Then Finnegan went into decline with his first race and took Fisher Shrooms and we started battling for control of the mushroom forests - which, ultimately, doomed us! A turn later The Girl was brining in 17 (SEVENTEEN!) gold per turn and we were both brining in six or so... I eventually took back control of the mushroom forests, but the damage had been done.

Then I lost control of Balrog. 

I put the mummies into decline and took some Wise Cultists and seized control of the area that controlled the Balrog, but wasn't able to do much of use with it at that point.

The Girl ended the game with 132 gold, I had 115, and Finnegan had somewhere around 85?


Day Six - Wednesday, 6 September 2017 

Star Trek: Five Year Mission

Wednesday we played Star Trek: Five Year Mission. We actually played with the Next Generation crew this time, which we've never done before. I played Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Finnegan played Commander Riker and The Girl played Dr. Beverly Crusher. 

It's been a LONG time since we last played so I don't know if they were any different from the original series crew. We played at the easiest level - also because it's been so damned long - and we actually won! Wasn't even that hard - definitely have to play at the Lieutentant level next time. I would have suggested that we continue on, but we had the Communication Failure card in effect (players are not allowed to communicate with each other in any way!?) and still needed ones on two red and one yellow to resolve it, so... I kind of let it go and called it a win and a night... 

I feel I'd like a different Star Trek game... This is okay, but a little abstract. I don't LOVE dice games and we already have Elder sign if I feel the need to just roll dice. We do have Star Trek Catan - which we'd actually bought for my dad for xmas a few years back, but he's since passed it on to us. I only played it once (it's also the only Catan game I ever played) and I just don't care for it. Star Trek: Ascendancy looks COOL but it's also a bit pricey and it looks like another 4X game... do I NEED ANOTHER 4X game!? Actually I don't personally own that many - but within the members of this group, there are LOADS...

Star Trek Panic? Maybe? Anybody out there played it? I've never played any of the Panic games. Has anyone played Star Trek Panic? fun? does it fit the theme? Are there any other Star Trek games out there!?

Day Seven- Thursday, 7 September 2017 

Dominion

Today we decided to play Dominion. I decided to let Finnegan come up with a group of cards for us to play with.

He does enjoy putting little themed sets together. So he came up with a set of cards from Intrigue (Mining Village, Bridge, Scout, Trading Post, and Margrave) , Hinterlands (Oasis, Silk Road, and Nomad Camp), and Guilds and Cornucopia (Hamlet, Horsetraders). The theme for this one was "Trade Beyond the Borders". The Thematic sets he comes up with  have more to do with the THEME of the cards rather than whether any of them will actually work together or not... We don't play nearly enough to have any clue what works together... 

These weren't too bad. There were some that we've played with before and I kind of had an idea how to play with them. Others we had never played with (or I've forgotten about playing with them) and had no idea what to do with them - just couldn't wrap my head around some of them. 

So we got off to a slow start and I felt like I just couldn't get the deck working and then all of a sudden the Hamlets were gone and then the Duchies were gone and just started buying up whatever victory point card I could - I think there must have been at least a half dozen turns where I had a bridge and 6 gold - one short of being able to buy a province, but I WAS able to buy a Silk Road AND an Estate... meanwhile the kids were still adding actions to their decks!? I tired warning them that the game was just about over and they should just try and pick up whatever victory cards they could - Estates and Silk roads if they couldn't afford Provinces, but they kind of turned their noses up at those... 

I think I had one of my highest scoring game ever and left both kids in the dust - doesn't happen often, they usually destroy me at Dominion. It's been a while and they weren't on their game, but I'll take it!

Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I do have a Jet Bike finished up that I shall hopefully get to posting tomorrow... 

Other than that...? I have been working on rebasing and priming most of the Tallarn and I've even been painting a few. 

A Few More RPGaDay Questions

Question #28

WHAT FILM/SERIES IS THE BIGGEST SOURCE OF QUOTES IN YOUR GROUP?

I'd say it depends a bit on what group and what game we’re playing… Monty Python has always been a big one over the years (in particular the Holy Grail and maybe Life of Brian). I’d guess that was the single most-quoted source… perhaps ALIENS being the second…

Once a group has been together long enough and they have some good role-players, though, there tends to be a shift from movie quotes to in jokes and self-referential quotes. In my current alternating-fridays group we often joke about "excessive role-playing" because our GM Bruce told us one night that we'd be finishing up the campaign he'd been running for the previous year and a half. It took us three more months to finish it off. He later claimed it was due to our "excessive role-playing" and now we joke about that any time he says anything to do with how long something will take us or if someone really gets into the role-playing of a certain situation - someone will say "knock it off with all the 'excessive role-playing'".

In our current D&D campaign one of the Rogues traffics a product he calls "Sorcerers Squash" - a hallucinogenic that grows in the nearby jungles. He often misses sessions in the spring and fall due to farming (like the player actually farms and can't make it to games) so we started saying his character was hitting the squash or the "product". Now anytime someone misses a game - their character's been "on the squash"... I'm sure when we wrap up the campaign it will continue to be the excuse for missing characters!


Question #29

WHAT HAS BEEN THE BEST-RUN KICKSTARTER YOU HAVE BACKED?

I can’t say I’ve ever backed a role-playing game through kickstarter. I’ve backed board games and miniatures and graphic novels. Of those I think the ones that were the best so far have been the Lead Adventure ones (Dwarven Gold Fever and Astropolis II), and Ramshackle Games Jet Bike Construction Kits - which I guess could be used with RPGs - the Astropolis miniatures are going to be perfect for Rogue Trader!


Question #30

WHAT IS AN RPG GENRE-MASH-UP YOU WOULD MOST LIKE TO SEE?

I need to see LESS mash-ups. Sometimes I feel like everything “new” is just a mash-up of tired old settings – it’s like developers just say let’s take [this] and add [zombies and/or battlemechs and/or magic and/or aliens or alien technology] and that will be AWESOME!!!! (It's not really awesome).


Question #31 (a day early, but whatever...)

WHAT DO YOU ANTICIPATE MOST FOR GAMING IN 2018?

Gaming…? just gaming… and getting back to more role-playing. It's been too damned long since I've really run any role-playing games. I’d really like to do more role-playing with my kids – while they’re still actually interested in playing games with ME!? This week I actually have arranged to play a game of Only War with the kids and one of their friends tomorrow and I'm going to be trying out Tales from the Loop with some other friends on Friday evening (both of which I hope might turn into a campaign that I'll continue to run through the fall and winter). I'd also like to try out Rogue Trader and have another game I'd like to run with some home-brew rules (largely based on Song of Blades and Heroes)!

I'd also like to get playing some actual MINIATURE GAMES over the next year! I feel like I've hardly played any over the last year and a half since the Quest for the Skull Sword campaign last February. Sure, I've got in a game or two of The Pikeman's Lament... but it's not like previously where I was playing as many miniature games in a month as I've played all year! And there are a LOT of games I'd like to play - I'd like to get back to playing Song of Blades and Heroes or Song of Shadows and Dust - or any of the other Ganesha Games, I'd like to try out the new edition of Warhammer 40K and Dracula's America (which I just picked up!), and definitely get in some MORE game of The Pikeman's Lament (and Dragon Rampant and Lion Rampant and try out Men Who Would Be Kings).


In Other News... 

Tomorrow I'll hopefully get to posting my monthly Boardgame Round-up of all the games we played through the month of August. Hopefully, in the not-too-distant future I'll get to posting some new minis I've painted. Production has slowed in the mini painting department as we're finally getting moving on our kitchen/dining room renovation.

Yesterday I started wrecking the dining room. That wall is coming out (no, it's not load-bearing!) and a peninsula of cabinetry is going in there - to open up the area a bit. Plumber and Electrician are coming today to start 

Immortal Tim - Destructor of Kitchens. 

Not Dead - Just on Vacation

In case you were wondering why I haven't kept up with the RPGaDay questions - but were afraid to ask - I've been on vacation. Since it mostly involved trees and bicycles, you can read about the over on my bike blog:

What I Did for my Summer Vacation - the 2017 Edition - Part One

There was some gaming involved... but I'll post about that at the end of the month with my monthly boardgame round-up.

I was hoping to find the Astropolis II Kickstarter rewards had arrived when I got home, but alas, they have not...

In the meantime... RPGaDay Questions...

Question #13

Describe a game experience that changed how you play.

Yeah... I kind of drew a blank on this one. 

Changes in the way I play have been small, subtle, and gradual over the years. 

I think things that have changed how I game probably occurred OUTSIDE of actual play. Encountering a game system that gave experience for stuff OTHER THAN killing things and taking treasure was a bit thing... 

I guess one thing could be when I tried to kill Runkha... The first person I ever played with was my Dad. Because for the first bit it was just the two of us, he had two characters he played; Zadoc (a priest) and Runka (a thief). Once I encountered actual kids my age that played and had more than one player I kind of got it in my head that ONE MUST ONLY PLAY WITH ONE CHARACTER - but my dad insisted on playing with the two - even when playing with my other friend(s). I got annoyed by this and decided to kill off Rukha by having him attacked by a Ninja - hired by the baddies whose dungeon they were planning to attack... He looked so forlorn, I ended up saying he didn't DIE, but was so gravely wounded he'd have to stay at the inn while the rest of the party went and bashed the Dungeon. I realized right away it was a bit of a dick move and decided not to ever be a dick again... But I don't think he ever played a game again with me after that. 

Question #14 

Which RPG do you prefer for open-ended campaign play.

I think Traveller has worked really well for that… it is such a vast sandbox of a galaxy all laid out - but with lots of room for customization and tinkering. 

Mind you, I've used GURPS Traveller and I could just as easily use Savage Worlds or something else. I think the SETTING has as much (or MORE) to do with the ability for open-ended play than any particular role-playing game. 

Question #15

Which RPG do you enjoy adapting the most?

I had a lot of fun adapting SavageWorlds to all sorts of different settings – and I definitely have the most experience adapting it. Most recently I’ve been tinkering with the idea of minimizing rules to focus on actual ROLE-PLAYING and have been thinking a LOT about ways I could use something like Song of Blades and Heroes (or any of the games using the same basic game engine) as the basis for an extremely simple role-playing game. We shall see... 

Question #16. 

Which RPG do you enjoy using as is?

I think most RPGs I start out using as is - believing "Surely this will work out..." and then I always end up unsatisfied withe something and tinkering some how. I do like to at least TRY to play any new rule set - whether RPG, Miniatures, or boardgames - with the rules as is, to try and understand what the author(s) intended.

I'm reading through Tales from the Loop and the 40K RPGs right now (Rogue Trader and Only War) - and I can't see any issues with Tales fem the Loop and so I could possibly run it "as is", but after a few sessions who knows. The 40K RPGs...? Well, I can already imagine them bogging down in combat - so I'm already planning to use a streamlined combat system that uses elements of the 40K skirmish game to speed things up.

Question #17

Which RPG have you owned the longest by not played?

Actual role-playing games not individual adventures or supplements…

ALIENS? Bunnies and Burrows? High Colonies? All three I picked up in the late 80s when I worked at the Wizard’s Corner and never actually played… ALIENS and High Colonies I picked up when they first came out, Burrows and Bunnies I bought used off a guy…

I was a HUGE fan of Aliens back in the late 80s. I've probably seen that movie more than any other movie. So needless to say I was SUPER STOKED when I heard there was going to be an ALIENS role-playing game and I bought it the moment I set eyes upon it.... I remember reading the rules and being utterly underwhelmed by the whole thing... I don't recall exactly what it was, but just overall disappointed. I may have made characters, but I'm pretty sure I never got so far as to PLAY the game. 

It looks like High Colonies came out in 1988 and ALIENS in 1991, so I've obviously had High Colonies longer. I have a feeling I may have bought Bunnies and Burrows before 1987... 

Question #18

Which RPG have you played the most in your life?

Hard to say…. In terms of number of gaming session or actual hours spent playing? Or the number of years spent using it as your go-to game?  Probably Savage Worlds… or maybe GURPS…?

I played a LOT of Role Master in high school and a lot of Palladium games (TMNT, Robotech, Heroes Unlimited, Beyond the Supernatural, etc – though I never really played Rifts…), Twilight:2000, Top Secret, Star Frontiers, Battletech/Mechwarrior…. who could possibly tally all those hours at lunch time or after school?!

After high school I played a LOT of GURPS and ran various GURPS games for years.

Eventually I abandoned GURPS in favour of Savage Worlds and ran games every Saturday evening for years… I played it enough that I set up an entire separate BLOG for it!

I have played a lot of D&D (Basic, AD&D, and more recently 5E) – This was the first RPG I ever played, and played it exclusively for some time before moving on to other games (though for a while I still played it as my go-to fantasy game) – and more recently I’ve been playing 5E…

Stay tuned for RPGaDay2017 Question #19 - coming tomorrow!