Looking Back - Hobby Goals

At the beginning of each year I set myself various goals, for some areas - like my writing goals, the idea is to challenge myself to achieve various things. For some areas - like my hobby goals, it's to vary things as much as it is to challenge myself. At the start of 2017 I wrote up some hobby goals, they focused on playing a variety of board games, getting some role playing done, painting and modeling, podcasting and game design. The results were a mixed bag...

Board Games Played...

Like 2016, in 2017 I set the goal of playing 100 different board games. Half way through the year this seemed an easy goal to crack, but for whatever reason, I only managed to cross the line in December. It's been an interesting year, my gamer group has moved from playing miniatures games almost exclusively to playing mostly board games, and for the first time in years I feel like I am moving back into the sort of awareness and familiarity with the industry I had when I was more heavily involved in it. I have certainly played more recently published games this year than in the previous few years, and most of this has to do with two factors - my kids becoming old enough to play more games, and my gamer group choosing to play more board games.

For anyone particularly interested, the Geeklist on Boardgamegeek where I maintained the list of the unique games I have been playing can be found here.

It's no surprise that the games I have played the most over the course of the year are games my kids have enjoyed. So far this year the most played games with the family have been...

Zitternix is a dexterity game, much like pick up sticks. You roll the dice and remove the stick matching the colour you rolled. The blue, red and yellow sticks are worth 3, 2 and 1 point respectively. It's a fun game that plays very easily. My daughter, 2, could play this with little trouble, and often requested it. Well worth looking up if you're after a quick and enjoyable game for the family.

Spooky Stairs is a roll and move game with some serious differences. If you roll a ghost, one of the Ghost pieces is placed over the top of a player piece, meaning you must remember which one is yours. Add to this the rule that if you roll a ghost you may switch the positions of two ghosts, and the game is a surprising and enjoyable memory game. Some arguments and tears were shed over being 'ghosted' and 'swapped' - but for all the pain at the time, these little moments are where we learn to be good losers and gracious winners. Again, a really enjoyable game.

Slamwich is essentially snap with a few twists. My kids love it mainly for the food aspect. My daughter always like to repeat the name of every, single, piece of food represented on every, single, card played. But is rather cute and amusing. Another solid game.

My youngest took the 'Muncher' card a little too literally it seems.

Machi Koro is a fun little dice rolling game. You build up a little town, roll the dice and activate and use the powers on any buildings matching the number you rolled. It plays quickly and my son absolutely adored this game, which meant it hit the table with fair frequency. Well worth looking up as a slightly more complex family game to those above.

One of my greatest pleasures this year has been reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to my son. It started with whining about how much he was sure he'd hate the book, and by the time the Dursleys were hiding out in a hut on a rock and Hagrid was banging on the door, he was well and truly hooked. He loved the book, and we're currently reading Chamber of Secrets, which is great. For Christmas one of the newest games to be added to our shelves was this: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. A deck building game with the Harry Potter theme.

I'm usually wary of games that have such a big licence, they tend to be fairly ordinary. But this one is absolute gold. The deck building aspect is neat, and the 'game' includes 7 games - each adding in aspects from the books as they move through the series. The game starts simply, but becomes more challenging, complex and interesting as the different 'games' and their suite of additional cards, pieces and rules are added in. A very solid game we have already played quite a lot over the last few days.


The best new-to-me games I have played are all quite different from one another. A real-time game, an epic story laden miniatures board game and a tight euro game with a theme I adore.

Eye for an Eye is a game that is planned to hit Kickstarter next year I believe. I was lucky enough to get the chance to play it with the designers Ben and Shae, at Shepparcon - a local gaming convention. I had an absolute blast. If someone had asked me whether a real time miniatures game was likely to be any good, I would have flat out said 'no'. This game, however, proves me wrong. Each player has warrior, and rolls dice to place on their warrior cards which may then be spent to move, change facing, attack, defend and use special powers. It is frantic, with everyone rolling, placing and spending dice as break-neck speed, and, most impressively, it works. I had a lot of fun with this, and I thoroughly recommend keeping an eye out for the Kickstarter when it comes.

Mythic Battles: Pantheon. My friend Quinton kickstarted this, and wow, what a lot of boxes, cardboard, card stock and plastic. Having played now the intro scenario, a story scenario, a co-op scenario, and a drafting battle between three players all I can say is that the game is easy to play, and a lot of fun. The choices are many, and the game is tense. But the rules are easy enough to handle that it all just works and works smoothly. I really enjoyed playing this, and I am looking forward to playing more!

I could have gone multiple ways with the last of the three, X-Com, Rex: Final Days of Empire, Red 7 and others were all contenders for the last of the three. In the end I have run with Terraforming Mars. This is a dyed in the wool euro game, with multiple paths to victory and a very solid game engine. I really love the theme, but the game play itself lives up to the hype that has surrounded this game since release. It is highly enjoyable, tense and engaging. So, Terraforming Mars rounds out my top three new-to-me board games of 2017.


Miniatures games are long and involved enough that I won't attempt to do a top three for the year. What I will do is my pick of the games I have played this year, and a couple of honourable mentions.

Without a shadow of a doubt, the best miniature game I have played this year, and quite possibly one my my favourite miniatures games of all time, is Sharp Practice, from TooFatLardies.

This game breathes the theme, it is such an enjoyable and story laden experience that every game has been an absolute joy to play. I never thought I would be interested in gaming the Napoleonic Period, or any other black powder era, but here I am. This game, quite simply, is phenomenal. The staccato beat to each player's turn perfectly echoes the theme of the period, the leadership and activation rules are tense and thought provoking. All in all this is a wonderful game, and I thoroughly recommend checking it out.

Honourable mentions:

I have a box of 15mm Gauls I have been meaning to paint and base... perhaps 2018. I bought them specifically for Sword and Spear. This game is very good, with simple, tight game mechanisms and a really interesting activation system it is well worth looking at if you are after an Ancients game!

My son picked this game for the lovely miniatures. I am hoping to get some paint on them in the coming year. The aesthetic is wonderfully charming and the game rules are simple and story laden. Highly enjoyable all together!

On the miniature related goal front, one of my goals for the year was to assemble a bunch of terrain and get things painted. I did manage to assemble some terrain, and a collection of models for Kings of War, but the painting was an abject failure. I don't think I painted a single thing. Perhaps next year will offer better prospects on this front!

The last game playing related goal for 2017 was about role playing. Over the year we've played a few different systems on and off, but without a doubt the best and longest running in 2017 has been our Symbaroum campaign. I really enjoy this game, and if you're keen you can check out my review here. The art is amazing, and the system is easy enough that it doesn't get in the way of the story at all. Thoroughly enjoyable! I am looking forward to continuing the campaign into 2018!

The last two goals I had for 2017 revolved around the podcast On Minis Games and getting some games designed of my own. On both fronts I have done far less than I wanted to, and must count these goals as failed. Hopefully I'll come back to both in 2018, more on that in another post perhaps. The key reason I didn't get to them is because of the freelance work I have been doing, so I need to look at how I structure my time to see what else I can fit in. Hopefully both these missed goals are something I'll come back to.


Overall I have been very happy with the year, sure I didn't paint, design or podcast as much as I had hoped. But I have been playing and enjoying more board games, I've been role playing more, and hey - you can't do everything!

Symbaroum

There is a beautiful majesty to art, the way it can represent mood and atmosphere to inspire emotion and imagination. Symbaroum is a Swedish role playing game produced by Järnringen in Swedish and distributed by Mōdiphiüs in English. What drew me to this game more than anything else was the art. Evocative and otherworldly, it paints, in muted tones, a world and setting which is wild and mysterious, fay and dangerous. 

The setting itself is a fantasy built into the vacuum of a collapsed great empire, the main protagonists are people fleeing their old lands which were corrupted by death. The themes are environmental, primal and elemental. Much iconography and mood feels drawn from old myths and stories like the Edda and the Kalevala. The wild is unknowable and dangerous, corrupting and vigilant. The forces of the world are driven by powers that mere mortals do not, and perhaps can never understand. 

The artistic style carries through into the muted tones of the maps and book, naturalistic colours dominate the palette. The history and setting match the visual style beautifully, and while the tropes common to fantasy are present, they hearken back to their primal roots more than they lean on modern variations. Elves and trolls, wild beasts and dragons, all are there in plenty if you venture into the forest deep enough, but they are not the elves and trolls of the Lord of the Rings, nor those more modern versions typified by Dungeons and Dragons or Warhammer. They are the elves of folklore, elemental and fay, wild and dangerous. Dragons will as soon manipulate, fool and trick as they will roar with fury and power. There is much to like in this setting.

The rules are light and easy, encounters dangerous and over quickly, even between powerful adversaries. Special abilities allow characters unique talents that can be fun and interesting when employed well, and provide lots of ways to substitute one stat for another, meaning combat doesn't need to be the exclusive province of the stereotypical tank. It is possible to game the system to some extent, and GMs and players alike need occasionally to be ready to make a best judgement and move on. But it is an engaging and quick moving game engine that allows heroic action and story to come before the minutia that dominates many game systems.

I won't go much further in detailing the mechanisms and setting, Symbaroum is a game with an evocative and stylized world. A setting that is challenging, dark and fay. The rules are relatively simple, roll a D20 and get below your modified stat. One of the more unique elements is that only the players ever touch the dice: they roll for the damage they inflict while enemy armour simply soaks X, they roll their armour while enemy attacks simply inflict X. It is a system that took a game or two to get used to, but works, and works quickly and well. This is a game I have thoroughly enjoyed, and while we're only around 8 sessions in, I am looking forward to playing more.

As of writing this Järnringen are running a Kickstarter for their version of a Monster Manual. It looks great. If you're interested at all in the game - I'd recommend checking it out!

I should note - while I freelance for Modiphius I have never worked on the Symbaroum line (though of course, it would be awesome to do so), I am recommending this game purely as a fan. 

Ramblings...

It's been a little while since I last ventured to the castle cabinet to compose a post, the grounds have needed tending, and the smaller members of the castle staff have required attention. Much has happened in the meantime, however, games have been purchased and played, events run and plans made.

A few weeks ago the inaugural Shepparcon took place, a board game convention in my humble town, and was a smashing success. It was a lot of fun to be a part of the organising committee, and while my contributions were limited, the rest of the crew did a fantastic job. We had close to 90 people come through over the course of the weekend, and much gaming was had by all. The event may well be the subject of a future post, but suffice to say I had a blast. Some of the standout games I managed to play included Eye for an Eye (a prototype of the highest quality), Santorini, and Red 7.

Eye for an Eye is, in some ways, a bizarre game. It's a real-time miniatures game - something I would have considered impossible, but the frantic rolling of action dice, the placement of the dice, and the spending of said dice to move, attack, defend and perform other actions was a huge amount of fun.  Ben Boersma, the designer, is an Australian with several other games to his name. Eye for an Eye is set in his Occulite universe, and is an absolute blast to play. A game that conceptually I thought could not possibly work, Eye for an Eye is, instead, a raucous roller coaster of silly fun. I will certainly be getting a copy when it makes its way into production. If you're interested, you can get the print and play version here.

Santorini is a lovely looking game that ran quickly, had a simple rules set and was easy to play, for those reasons it was highly enjoyable. Some might argue it is very much a poster child of form over function, but the nice pieces really do make the game that little bit more fun.

Red 7 is a strange card game, at the end of every one of your turns you need to be winning, and you do that by playing cards in front of you to match the rule, or by modifying the rule (or both). It's one of those games where every turn you survive you feel like you've managed to do something clever, it was an excellent game, and one I'll be chasing up.

All in all Shepparcon was a success, and we're very much looking forward to what next year will bring. I'm sure the Con is going to grow, and it will be fantastic to be a part of that.

On the podcast front I have been decidedly slack, it's been tough to coordinate a recording time, but finally we have a new episode up (and plans to record another very soon). The latest episode of the On Minis Games podcast can be found here. We talk about Drop Fleet Commander, Drop Zone Commander, Kings of War, and a multitude of Kickstarters.

Lastly, I have been making slow plans to get my RPG group back playing, for a while our games centered around testing adventures for the upcoming Infinity RPG, and I want to take a break from that and try something different. My shelves are over stocked with a variety of games I either haven't played in a long time or ever, so it was to those I went looking. Being the vacillating type, I am still swinging between two options, but I think I have managed to sort out in my mind what I want to run.

I think we'll play through a few short campaigns of 3-5 adventures each, across a couple of different game systems. To begin with I think we'll run with Symbaroum, which is a dark and strange fantasy setting with gorgeous art. The setting is excellent (and very evocative), and the game system seems interesting enough - so we might kick off with that.

The other game I am looking at is Heavy Gear. Heavy Gear is an old favourite of mine, so I am most definitely looking forward to playing it again. I have the second edition rules set, as well as the third edition SilCore set. After some research I think we'll run with the second edition rules, though we may pull a few tweaks from the SilCore rules as well. We'll see how we go!