Constructing the Red Veil...

Since I have had a couple of nights free, I decided to finally put together the new two-player set for Infinity, Operation: Red Veil (well, I haven't exactly put together all of it yet).

With a set of quick start rules, some card terrain, and a collection of Yu Jing and Haqqislam miniatures, it is excellent value whether you're getting into the game, or interested in getting some more miniatures. While I have a Yu Jing force, and wanted the miniatures to extend that, I was also wanting to get a reasonable starting force for a second faction so I could play against friends who didn't have one of their own. The Haqqislam minis look great, and I'm very happy to have them in the collection... I may even be forced to extend them at some point.

I had forgotten quite how fiddly some of the miniatures can be to put together, and while most went rather easily (thanks in part to Netflix and Luke Cage), the Yu Jing Hsien model particularly gave me trouble. Don't get me wrong, the miniatures are well cast, relatively clean, everything fits together nicely... it's just that the Hsien wasn't in a co-operative mood.

All that said, the miniatures are stunning, with great movement, aesthetic design and high quality casting, they look great once assembled.

This guy... Every time I added something, something else fell off. He nearly earned himself a high-velocity trip to the stratosphere... but thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.

I still have the Haqqislam models to assemble, but I'll hopefully get those done soon.

Now I've written about the miniatures, it's time to take a quick look at the terrain. Billed as easy fold buildings Corvus Belli were kind enough to include some detailed instructions, which were essentially: Step One: Assemble the Building. Step Two: Done.

Luckily they are not over difficult to fold up, although my paper-craft skills are somewhat rusty.

I warmed up by folding an Origami Crane, nothing can go wrong now...

 I am really impressed with a couple of things, firstly, that the terrain set comes with so many pieces, the buildings can stack, and it looks really nice. Secondly, the buildings are designed to fit the boxes the miniatures are sold in inside them, which adds stability. Clever, and it works well.

The terrain looks very nice, I am very impressed, but also filled with a relentless sense of despair that I threw out many of the miniature boxes I had accrued. C'est la vie...

Wargamer Irony: I managed to pack away the Operation Red Veil box into those other boxes that are about 5 times larger. I celebrated by announcing to my wife that I had finally got rid of the box that had been hanging around...

Kickwaiting...

At the start of the year I wrote up a series of goals I'd like to achieve, some of these I am close to attaining, some are as far from fulfilled as they were when I wrote them. One goal falls well and truly into the latter camp, in fact it falls through the latter camp, through the ground the latter camp is pitched on, and is steadily burrowing it's way toward the Earth's core. That goal was to get a percentage of my unplayed games played. There's still time of course, but it seems that many of the Kickstarters I have backed are marching toward fulfillment, and I am pretty sure I am going to end the year with more unplayed games than I began it with.

When I started writing this blog post (last week) I had four Kickstarter games that had not yet hit the Castle, a day later Heavy Gear Blitz arrived, and now I have three. With Tiny Epic Western in the mail, it should soon be two.

Heavy Gear Blitz has arrived, and I am hastily putting together some miniatures in anticipation of a learning game which I will write about once it takes place. The miniatures are great... but more on that later.

Tiny Epic Western, by Gamelyn Games, is the latest iteration of their 'Tiny Epic' series. I heard about this one n the On Board Games podcast. It sounded like a really solid little game with a fun theme, and was very well priced. I'm looking forward to getting it!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shadows of the Past board game, by IDW, is an adventure style game by Kevin Wilson. I've been a big fan of Kevin's games for some time, and my son (and the nostalgic young me) loves the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I am really looking forward to this, I think it will be a great game, it's packed with fantastic bits, and I think my son and I will have a lot of fun playing it.

The English translation of this French Role Playing Game just looks amazing. I have a real soft spot for prehistory, human evolution and mega-fauna, and the idea of a game set in the time when Neanderthals and Humans lived side-by-side and all these things are intertwined in the theme really tickles me. I love the art and the setting, and am very much excited by the prospect of getting it played. It may be some time off, but that doesn't matter, I have FATE Accelerated, Infinity and Star Trek Adventures to keep me occupied RPG wise in the mean time (and the challenge of organising a time to actually get an RPG in).

Heavy Gear Blitz!

Last night I had just started to put together a blog post about games I had Kickstarted, that I was looking forward to getting... today, the postman made a section of that (future) post irrelevant...

Heavy Gear Blitz has arrived at the Castle!

Heavy Gear was a role-playing game I played a lot in my younger days, it is a game choc full of great setting material, interesting worlds, and wonderful anime style art. Published by Dream Pod 9, the role-playing game originally came with a set of rules for playing out battles with miniatures on the table, Heavy Gear Blitz is an evolution of that system, and focuses purely on the table-top experience.

While it's been around for a while, Heavy Gear Blitz was never a game I really got into, despite my liking of the setting, the miniatures were hard to get hold of, and quite expensive here in Australia. With the new Kickstarter, Dream Pod 9 has produced a set of plastic miniatures, with a very reasonable price point. In fact, the Kickstarter was thoroughly excellent value, providing four starter armies with a good range of miniatures for each. Between my mate Quinton and myself we got two core sets, which means both lots of fantastic miniatures, but also lots of assembly!

The four armies represent core forces of the Heavy Gear universe, I took the Northern Army (Planet: Terra Nova) and the Colonial Expeditionary Force (Planet: Earth), while Quinton took the Southern Army (Planet: Terra Nova), and Caprice (Planet: Caprice).

Everything in bags...

One set of CEF sprues laid out...

Wasting little time, Quinton and I managed to wrangle a quick meet up and doled out the bags and bags of sprues and bits, and went our separate ways with the homework task of reading the rules and putting together a 50 Point force each. Having a look over the sprues I was a little disappointed to see there were some production issues with the plastics (crackling and dimpling on some, mainly the larger Caprice models (something Dream Pod 9 have said will be fixed next run)), and with the fact that all the hex bases are slotted (when none of the miniatures have slots). I was very impressed however with the quality of the miniatures as a whole, the detail is excellent, the casting is sharp and the models look like they will go together very well. The really look great.

The game has many options, with Gears (the mechs and main fighting units) able to armed with a variety of weapons. I am still chewing over how I'm going to manage that with my models - magnets seem the obvious option, but some parts may be too small - we shall see. There's always the lazy option of just gluing them, since I have two sets I should be able to build a good variety, and I have never been one to insist that 'what you see is what you get'...

All in all I am hugely excited by Heavy Gear Blitz, from what I have read of the rules they look excellent, and the miniatures (aside from some small issues) look fantastic. I really can't wait to start putting them together and getting them on the table, I think it's going to be a blast. It also has me inspired to dust off my Heavy Gear RPG book... So many games...

Classic BattleLore...

The Command and Colors series of war games, by Richard Borg, are something of a phenomenon, with a core set of well tested mechanisms tuned to cover nearly every period you could think of, from Ancients through to the Napoleonic period, World War I, World War 2, science fiction, and fantasy.

One of my favourites of this game series is BattleLore, originally published back in 2006 by Days of Wonder, and later by Fantasy Flight Games, BattleLore (First Edition) was a fantasy/historical game set during an alternate 100 Years War, with Goblins, Dwarves and other fantasy creatures thrown into the mix for good measure. The cartoonish aesthetic and mingling of fantasy tropes and history was off-putting for some, but to be honest I found it pleasant, and a nice break from the overly serious and too-well-trod generic style that seems to dominate much fantasy game art.

The core system of BattleLore, like all of the Command and Colors games, revolves around activating units on the battlefield by playing cards, the dice system for combat is simple, and the weapons and other special rules provide enough variation to make play tactical and interesting. BattleLore also includes special rules for Lore (or Magic), a system which can have a powerful effect on the game, but is regulated through the managing both your War Council (where you have various Lore Masters: the Commander, Rogue, Warrior Wizard and Cleric), and through the economy of Lore Tokens - which are gained through dice rolls, and for various other things.

BattleLore is a lucky game, you can have the cards and dice swing for and against you, but it is a highly enjoyable game that does reward tactical play. While luck may play some role in how a game falls out, a player's choices still make a big difference in the game results. I find the game tense and engaging, formulating a plan and hoping the enemy doesn't mess it up is a lot of fun.

The Lore system is a fun addition that fits seamlessly in with the rest and manages to add a thematic and enjoyable magic system into the game. Combine this with the War Council, where players can use their points to create a well balanced council, or where they may choose to leave some Lore Masters off and make others more powerful, all of this then flows into the Lore system, and makes the game highly variable.  While set-up can take a little time, it is not long enough to be off-putting, especially for someone used to playing miniatures games.

All in all BattleLore has been a long time favourite of mine, and it has been nice that I have recently been able to dust off my copy as a friend (Quinton) and I play through the scenarios. Currently, we have played through 7 of the scenarios in the base game, and between the dozen expansions or so and the Call to Arms system which lets players create their own scenarios, we have many more to go. 

I haven't played the second edition by Fantasy Flight Games, and to honest I won't be getting it. Not because I don't think it's a good game, but because I have all the fantasy Command and Colors I need in the First Edition (and I prefer the kooky aesthetic). Plus, I think there will be enough Command and Colors around the Castle because...

After this most recent dalliance with the old favourite, Quinton and myself have both decided to grab other games in the series, after much vacillation on my part we have worked out that Quinton will be getting Command and Colors Ancients, a game I have played once before, and a period I am very much a fan of.

For my own part, I was very excited to see GMT announce the P500 (preorder) of Command and Colors Medieval. This game will begin with a focus on the wars between the Byzantine Empire and the Sassanid Persians, a choice which has garnered some interesting comment online. While certainly medieval by any historical standard, it is not as iconic of the period as, say, the 100 Years War, or the Scottish Wars of Independence or whatever. Personally, I am very excited by it as it is a period I very much enjoyed hearing about through the 12 Byzantine Emperors podcast, something I think I'm going to have to download again as the release date rolls closer...

OMG (That's On Mini's Games)

Anyone who has been around the board game hobby for some time will be aware of the absolutely thriving community of podcasters, bloggers and the more recent explosion of vlogs that cover game reviews, hobby news, unboxings, how to play tutorials and more.

One of my favourite podcasts, a show that I have been a sometimes contributor to, is On Board Games, a show that has grown over the years and now is the flagship podcast of the Inverse Genius media partnership, a group of podcasts that includes On Board Games, On RPGs, Games in Schools and Libraries, the Inverse Genius Podcast, and Room Escape Divas.

Looking over the stable of podcasts that Inverse Genius produces and hosts, there seems to be a gap in my view, with nothing that has an eye toward the miniature games side of the gaming hobby. With a passion both for podcasting and for miniature games, this is a gap I think I'd like to try and cover.

On Minis Games is a podcast idea I have been chatting to Don and Erik about for some time, and we're finally in the position where we are ready to hit record. On Minis Games will be hosted by myself and my good friend Quinton, both of us have more miniatures for more miniatures games than we are ever likely to be able to get to the table, and are passionate about this style of game. We don't plan on covering any specific miniatures game in extreme detail, many games have dedicated podcasts. We're aiming at something more general, a resource for those interested in the hobby, and, hopefully, some entertaining discussion on a variety of miniatures games.

We aim to keep the trademark roundtable in place, with a focus on a specific game or company, or an aspect of the hobby like painting, or terrain building. Our goal is to keep episodes around the 30-50 minute mark, and hopefully this is something we can manage!

Both Quinton and I, (and I hope Don, Erik and the gang) are excited by On Minis Games, and we hope (that some at least) of the listeners and fans of the Inverse Genius stable will be pleased to see this new podcast added to the group. We have much to do yet, with music, a logo and many other little pieces still to get into place, but we are on the march!

If there are any Inverse Genius fans out there who have a view on what they'd like to see a minis games podcast include, please comment here, or drop us an email at onminisgames@gmail.com

1876 - Dystopian Wars and Legions...

Those who have followed this blog for a while will know that I let it stagnate for just over a year in order to work on the Element 270 podcast and blog. One of my absolute favourite miniatures games is Dystopian Wars, by Spartan Games. I started as a passionate blogger, became a podcaster, started working with Spartan on Dystopian Legions, and have since been lucky enough to work with them on a range of their product lines including Firestorm Armada, Firestorm Planetfall, Firestorm Taskforce, Halo Fleet Battles, Dystopian Legions, Dystopian Wars, and Dystopian Wars Fleet Action (you can see what I've worked, including links, on on my Bibliography Page).

While a lot of work was underway in the background at Spartan HQ on Dystopian Wars, including completing the update to the statistics for every major and alliance nation, and the posting of updated backgrounds for every nation, not much was being released in terms of miniatures. This is changing! Spartan has announced and update to the timeline, the release of the Dystopian Wars Scenery Pack, the new (massive) Sturginium Rigs, as well as teasing of a new Kingdom of Britannia Battleship.

On their website they have also been including a range of scenarios, and these can be accesses from the Spartan Downloads page, I had a lot of fun working on these, and I hope people enjoy playing them!

For Dystopian Legions Spartan have announced a change in how the game will be available, and have also been posting some fun additions to the game in terms of a collection of new Supplemental Rules (available from the Spartan Download page), which the playtest group worked on some time ago, and are designed to add some narrative fun to the game. Spartan will also be posting some Legions scenarios... and again, I hope you enjoy playing through them!

All in all I'm excited by what's coming up, for those of you who play Dystopian Wars or Legions, I hope you get a kick out of the scenarios and extras, the design team and playtesters have had a lot of fun putting them together and we hope you enjoy playing them on the table!