Haterz an Fanbois FTW. LOL!!!!!!1 B-)

You can tell if a person is racist, they generally start their sentences with ‘I’m not a racist, but…’ before saying something racist.  It was this thought that stopped me from starting this post with ‘I’m not a GW hater, but…’.

I would like to make it clear that I’m not a GW hater (or a racist for that matter); I love loads of their games including the 8^th edition of Warhammer Fantasy, I’ve been buying GW products for years, I paint their miniatures using their paints and I play their games in my spare time.  I’ve joined a club where I can play GW games with other GW fans, I’ve even spent three years of my life writing a blog mostly dedicated to playing GW games.  To me GW is one of the best games companies out there and I even divert my journeys up and down the country to pop into Warhammer World on occasion.  I am not a GW hater. 

This brings me neatly onto Dreadfleet, and why I’m not going to buy it.

 

In case you weren’t aware, Dreadfleet is the new GW boxed, standalone, limited edition game, recently made available for preorder.  There has been a lot of love and hate on the internet about this, but one thing that is clear is that people are buying it.  I’m not going to, for a number of reasons, but the main one is:

I haven’t seen any reviews of it

Sure, there are videos out there, lots of pics of the components, even promises of gameplay descriptions.  But no independent reviews.  To me this means that I am being asked to part with my money for a game that could turn out to be rubbish.  I’m pretty sure it wont be rubbish, but why should I buy it when I could spend the same amount of money on a boardgame that has got rave reviews?  If I had £70 to spare (which I don’t) and I had lots of gaming time going free (I don’t) then I’d look at some of the following instead (all available for £70 or less each; all text and photos from BoardGameGeek):

Mansions of Madness: Horrific monsters and spectral presences lurk in manors, crypts, schools, monasteries, and derelict buildings near Arkham, Massachusetts. Some spin dark conspiracies while others wait for hapless victims to devour or drive insane. It’s up to a handful of brave investigators to explore these cursed places and uncover the truth about the living nightmares within.

 

Horus Heresy: In the Horus Heresy board game, the most legendary battle in the history of the Warhammer 40,000 universe unfolds across the razed plains of Terra and in the frozen orbit above. Deadly fighting ranges from the Emperor’s golden Inner Palace to Horus’s flagship, the Vengeful Spirit.  Taking the side of traitor or loyalist, two players control either fearless Space Marine legions or deviant Chaos Space Marines, mighty Titans, Imperial Armies both loyal and traitorous, and a fearsome array of other units, including the Emperor and Horus themselves.

Tide of Iron: (see my review here) Tide of Iron is a game of World War II tactical conflict for two to four players. The components in this base game allow players to simulate the dramatic struggle that took place between American and German forces in Northern Europe during the years 1944 and 1945.

Descent: Journeys in the Dark: Descent: Journeys in the Dark is a semi-cooperative game in which two to five players will take on the antagonistic roles of heroes and Overlord. Up to four players will choose characters with a wide assortment of skills and innate abilities to be the heroes who will explore dungeons in search of treasure and adventure. One player will take on the role of the Overlord and will control the dungeon's many traps, puzzles, and monsters.

Of course when Dreadfleet gets released, it may get the greatest reviews ever, turn out to be one of the best boardgames of all time and I’ll have missed my chance because it sold out.  But I’m not prepared to bet £70 on that happening.

Happy Gaming

Tide of Iron review

After weeks of planning, phonecalls and emails it finally happened; I got three friends together for a full day and we sat down to play a game.  The three friends were Paul, Neil and Andy… and the game was Tide of Iron.

Tide of Iron is a World War 2 boardgame, focussing on tactical level combat in pre-set scenarios. It is designed for two players, but rules are included for four-player games (two per side). The game is complete in the box, with hundreds of plastic miniatures and cards, 12 double sided map tiles, loads of counters, a rulebook (also downloadable from the Fantasy Flight website) and a scenario book with a variety of missions. 

The game features a variety of units; standard infantry, elite troops, officers, mortars, machine guns, trucks, transports and tanks; each with their own specific rules, and very nice models. The scenario determines what troops you receive (which you then form into squads of your own choosing), the map tiles and card decks used and the victory conditions.On your turn you have a range of options for each of your troops: Move, Fire, Concentrated Fire, Opportunity Fire, Assault or Special Action (activating one of your Strategy Cards), alternating actions until every unit has moved.   It is the card decks which provide the best variety in the game, the scenario determines which deck each player gets (Reinforcements, Air Support, Morale, etc) and these give specific bonuses during the game. Cards are activated by using Command tokens, earned by occupying specific tactical locations on the board. For example, in the scenario that we played, there was a hill with a sandbagged emplacement at the top; the side that held it earned two command points every turn, which allowed us to purchase from our respective command decks, to represent the tactical advantage of holding such a position.

Combat is via opposed dice rolls (attack vs defence) and is generally bloody. The only exception is mortars which can choose to give suppressing fire which doesn’t destroy your opponents troops, but pins or disrupts them for a turn or two.

(Even if you don’t fancy the game, check out the video below, it features some remarkable head/facial hair combos...)

Paul, Neil and Andy are friends of mine who I’ve been introducing to modern boardgames over the past few years, so have played games of varying complexity. Tide of Iron is by no means the most complicated game out there, but it does require a bit of thought and there was frequent checking of the rulebook to make sure we played certain situations right, but overall the guys picked up the rules pretty quick. I went over the main points as we set up and then we talked through the riles on the first turn before the game got into full swing.

In our game Neil and I took the side of the Germans and Paul and Andy assumed the role of the Americans. The Germans were in a strong defensive position and it was up to the yanks to prise us out. Neil and I made great use of our cards (from the ‘Morale’ and ‘Reinforcements’ decks - mainly the latter!) and managed to hold the Americans at bay until the end of the game. There were a few hairy moments, and we only just got away with it at the end, so a good time was had by all. Our game took about six hours to play, but that was at a relaxed pace with plenty of chatting and discussion. The next time that we play, I can’t see it lasting more than four hours, even allowing time for name calling and trading of insults in a variety of comedy accents.

The rules provide a great balance of depth and ease of play that will suit most gamers, and provide a rich, deep gaming experience that all can enjoy.

As always I must ask one single question: Is it Frugal? Well, it’s £55 (or crazy foreign equivalent), it’s fantastic quality, it’s great fun and it’ll provide you hours and hours of gaming. I can’t think of many other gaming products that will give you a complete system with such potential for the same price. Go and buy it now!

P.S. You may know that when I review a product I give away my review copy if I received one. As this is my own personal (paid for) copy of Tide of Iron I’ve sent Fantasy Flight Games an email asking for a copy to give away to one lucky reader.  I’ve not had an answer yet...

Game Review – Order of the Stick

I’ve noticed this blog has become really active in the last month, with some great wargaming and frugalling articles, so I thought I’d contribute something slightly different. To keep up with my frugal resolutions – I’m a couple of weeks behind my painting obligations, but catching up fast and well within my budgetary limits (I’ve spent nothing) despite several temptations (having played more Gorkamorka/Necromunda and read more of tUGS). Not just spending less, but definitely playing a lot so far this year (see here and here)! Without further ado, a schizophrenic game review.

The Order of the Stick is a humourous webcomic, which lampoons tabletop RPGs – the basic question being ‘how would the characters (without players) live, act and converse if they understood the rules of the game?’. There is also an adventure game, which gives the flavour of a tabletop RPG without actually being one. Being a fan of one, I picked up the other.

The game is fun, and funny, although in my experience some of the jokes go over people’s heads if they’re not familiar with the comic. Although it stretches to about five book collections (possibly more) the game was produced early on, and really only re-enacts events from the first book – and the additional expenditure of a book isn’t required, since all the comics are online, free to view. How’s that for frugal?

Gameplay revolves around getting your pseudo-RPG character down the levels of a randomly generated dungeon (draw cards for rooms) until you reach the bottom level – where you need to defeat the boss (a lich named Xykon) and then escape. Along the way, you level up by gaining ‘shticks’ – additional cards that represent your powers increasing. You also gain loot from defeating enemies, which is important at the end – whoever escapes with the most loot, wins. An additional twist, however, is that loot needs to be relevant to your character. One character loves food, another loves treasure, a third knowledge... occasionally, these will cross over and loot will be desired by more than one player.

The game is very good at providing new experiences – rooms are selected at random by drawing cards, many of them have special rules, some of the loot is actually a trap, and everything has the flavour of the comic strips humour. Unfortunately, if you play too many times in a short space of time, the jokes can feel a bit overplayed. They would probably work well in a games night setting, where people, beer and popcorn often bring up those sorts of jokes anyway. Typical game-table humour.

Unfortunately, I’ve never tried it out at a games night because the rules are not quick to learn, especially to an audience not familiar with the common concepts of an RPG. The same people would probably not enjoy the jokes so much either, which need an understanding of popular RPGs even more. To them, it would probably appear overly-complicated and irreverent. Some people might like that sort of thing, but it’s difficult to predict that. Even if all those things come together alright, for me as a fan of the series already, there seem to be a lot of the jokes based on knowledge of the Order of the Stick comic and not just in the style and source of it’s humour. People might get the rules quickly, understand the dragon-colour jokes, but still fail at the fun poked at a character’s personality quirks. This can be off-putting to some players.

Another problem with this as a party game is that it takes a long time to play – a bit like Talisman, you’ll probably want to take an evening playing one game of Order of the Stick and nothing else. Games nights are best when there is a variety of games to play, when everyone can pick up the rules to a sufficient level fairly quickly (ie, Kill Doctor Lucky!) and when everyone feels included. An alternative is when a significant proportion of players already know the game being played so everyone can help new people learn, and everyone knows what game they’re going into beforehand. It’s less of a ‘games night’ and more of a ‘Talisman night’ or ‘Order of the Stick night’ (although it’s still hard to stop games nights becoming ‘Kill Doctor Lucky nights’).

So, despite being a very fun game, the time investment to play it is a little too high to make it an frequent occurrence. I’ve not tried to play it since our son got walking around, because (with the random dungeon layout / size) it’s difficult to find somewhere to play that he won’t end up walking on things, and he’s likely to finish any nap before the game is done. At around £35 (although I can’t find it in 30 seconds on Amazon to confirm), it’s just a little too high for a game that can’t be picked up and played anytime, especially if you already own games that fit into the same sort of ‘long-play, complex rules’ bracket. It probably won’t get a lot of action.

That being said, while researching for this review, I found reference to a new expansion for the game (board game expansions are still something a little strange to me...) called ‘The Shortening’ that promises to make the game quicker and simpler – which is a good move, given what I’ve mentioned here. But then, that’s increasing the cost ever so slightly again...

Finally, this is a Frugal game review – is the game good value for money, will you get a lot of use and play out of it, what does it require that you bring along with you. If you have enough cash for an expensive board game, oodles of time, and loads of gamer mates who have nothing to do of a weekend, you’ll love this game – it’s very funny, and great fun. I’m not so lucky, and our regular roleplay group is having enough trouble trying to find time to roleplay without bringing them another game to play!

(images stolen from www.ookoodook.com)

Von's Frugal Year: Month The Third

Turns out that I've finished my latest batch of essays a day ahead of schedule, so I've time to leave you with some food for thought before I scurry off to the Barbarian North for a week and leave the laptop behind.

First things first: how did the Frugal March go?

Spend Less - brilliantly. Not a penny spent. Jokes about the state of my bladder are not welcome. ;)

Game More - brilliantly. Minor dilemma resolved with minimum of gamer angst. Some thoroughly enjoyable games were played, too, beyond the Space Hulk and WFB I've already used precious bandwidth to opine about.

We broke out Zombies! when an old mate from Wolverhampton came down to see us, which was fairly enjoyable up until the elimination of two players in short order. Zombies! is, in theory, a first-past-the-post game that should avoid situations where two players are out and waiting for the rest to finish, but a run of bad luck can leave someone eliminated early and two players of equal skill can stonewall each other from meeting either of the victory conditions for quite a while. While I like the screw-your-opponent potential of Zombies! a lot, I can't help but feel that the zombie apocalypse setting works better for co-operative gaming, and the thing about co-operative gaming is that there's no advantage to eliminating another player. You might even want to let someone who's 'died', or otherwise had their presence removed from play, back in, so they can continue with the fun times. The other thing with Zombies! is that it suffers from a bad case of expansion creep, with a lot of extra little boxes out to tempt with foolish expenditure.

The House of Von also had a little away-day when another old mate and former Mage player came back down for a weekend visit, and we decided the time was right to play 1000 Blank White Cards again. We've traditionally sat down and played this astonishingly Frugal game (pack of blank index cards, pair of scissors, some black biros, DONE!) in pubs or coffee houses or other public places (because it's hilarious and because we meet all sorts of nice people who are interested... plus the occasional batch of less-than-nice people who find people having fun in public offensive to their delicate sensibilities, but we don't care about them because they're dead inside) and it's usually a damn good laugh.

Finally, the Dark Heresy campaign is lurching forward. Three characters have now been generated, but a schedule conflict has forced one of our players to bow out (he works on an odd rotation and the only days when he's free at the same time as everyone else are days when we're already committed to doing other, non-gaming stuff), so it's back on hold for that bad boy until I can recruit another player or two (going to see some people who might be interested tonight...).

Oh, and I got some more work done on the battlefield: a set of eight modular hill pieces have been cut, painted and textured, as has a cover sheet for the river (so the table can be extended to its full 4'x4' dimensions for games where the extra six inches of flank might be important). I'll get some pictures taken of those (and the Dark Elves) when I'm back from the Northern Wastes.