Operation Game Collection Special: White Dwarf Through the Ages 1:Issue 159

It is less than a year before I get into Warhammer 40K properly.  (Ish.  My earliest games were.. kind of stupid with really badly built armies that I hang my head in shame about.  Even if nobody else cared because I still really didn't cheese while everyone else was running around with nothing but Land Raiders, Terminator Squads, and every hero character possible and more proxied weapons than any sane person could keep track of.)  The Fourth Edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle was less than a year old.  That is where this issue of White Dwarf , Games Workshop's long running gaming magazine who had by this point effectively become a house organ since the issues numbered around the 90s.  (40K Rogue Trader was famously covered around issues 93 and 94.)

In between my fanzine coverage and other projects I will sometimes review an issue of White Dwarf from random eras based on my ownership of them, and which ones I buy to support existing games I own.

(As always I am an overly goody goody wiener.  While I have very little issue with looking for and printing up articles from online and scans I ALWAYS prefer and try to own the legit thing.  To me its the right thing to do.  STUPID, but the right thing.)

This issue I purchased recently for the article on Eldar in Tyranid Attack, a game I own the components for, but not the box or miniatures.  About a year ago for a fair price I got a mostly complete boxed copy of its mostly same componented sister game Advanced Space Crusade so they can be stored together and I am slowly collecting what pieces I want to replace from the sets for whatever reason.  (Like the Space Marine Scouts which are the ugliest and goofiest things ever.  The early 3rd edition era metal scouts, or the plastic ones out nowadays are MUCH nicer in every way.)

While sadly this glorious bit of quality and value is no longer in production and if it was GW would charge an easy 100 dollars plus for it, I can now and then get deals and replace or complete both TA and ASC, and possibly find people interested in playing it where they might not want to play 40K of any edition.  (Mainly because its expensive and most editions suck in some way.)

(As usual Click for Bigger Images)

I think about getting this set for around 40 dollars and I am immediately sent to my happy place.  This place also includes tons of 80s robot toys and old computer games.  

The Five out of Six Tyranid Warriors that came with my copy of Advanced Space Crusade, with my old Tyranid army one in the back left so I can get their paint scheme as close as possible.  As of when I am doing most of this post, a first coat of orange touch up paint has been applied where I made mistakes with the blue paint pen or even the "properly" painted yellow bits.  I need another "Bucktooth" Warrior to complete the set for both games and then the fellow in the back there can go back with his proper 40K army in not being used as the 5th and 6th edition codexes really really suck unless I want to spend a lot of money.  Guess what I don't wish to do?

As always, click the images for larger.  Unlike the previous Inquisitor review, I have gone back to my digital camera with a flash.  Sadly White Dwarf uses shiny paper so sometimes I have to either turn the flash off, or deal with it.  Anyhow, it is supposed to be a review not a form of piracy.  Given how GW is infamous for their litigiousness even fair use is something they hate.  So images with a flash or mostly just whatever lighting is nearby makes it not scans, but photographs for REVIEW AND DISCUSSION.  

So there!  IT IS MARCH 1993.  IT IS TIME FOR KLAX.

The back cover on the left showing the studio Blood Angels up against pretty much all of the available Tyranid models of the time.  Ok.. no Patriarch or Hybrids or Zoats but..  A lot.  The right is the cover, which I think was the 4th edition Dwarf army book cover.

Another of the lovely bright color painted minis in a game play type scene.  Interesting to note at this point 75000 copies of WD were printed.  So if we presume around 10% of the active player base was buying the magazine we have 750k players or so in 93.  I would say that is pretty good.  Funny to see things listed as ads that isn't just the whole magazine as it mostly has been since 2005 or so.

And the news.  GW takes advantage of a bit of US legislation banning lead figurines to go to pewter/white metal type formulas as the entire games industry does.  And everyone shoots prices up on our little metal mans.  On the upside lead is very bad for you and the few lead minis I get I handle with rubber gloves on until they are primed.  GW mentions some independent retailers in the days they planned on hosing the US game shop markets the way they did the Uk.  A little game called Magic basically saved many stores and killed many companies and thus prevented this.  An add for the first half of the 4th ed WHFB Magic expansion is shown.  Buy a 50 dollar game.  Drop another 35-40 for the practically required expansion box.  This was the GW sales design back then.  40k would do the same with Dark Millenium.  Blood Bowl had one.  Gorkamorka and Necromunda had em.  

Man o War.  A well regarded game I never got to play.  GW made a game inspired by it recently that was loathed.  And Spartan Games had Uncharted Seas that is great but they dropped it because reasons.

Next up on the docket is Jervis Johnson's article allowing Eldar to be used in Tyranid Attack.  He has some basic Eldar fluff for people who might not know of the Space Elves, then a force list allowing for Avatars, Guardians of all types, Fire Dragons, Dire Avengers, Howling Banshees, Striking Scorpions, Swooping Hawks, Dark Reapers, Aspect Exarchs, Warlocks, and Farseers to go have some quick n fun fighting in a Tyranid Hive Ship.  

There is a set of item and power cards to cut out and glue together with a bit of user supplied cardboard in between.  And the editors helpfully put a lovely ad for the game in between so it wouldn't cause an article to get ripped up while doing so!

See?  And what VALUE.  6 Tyranid Warriors.  8 Genestealers.  1 Terminator Librarian, 4 Terminators.  10 Scouts including Sergeants and Heavy Weapons.  I got just the game bits from this set for like 5 bucks back in 1995 or so.  I am slowly getting replacement figures so I don't have to raid my army boxes when I hope to play this game.  Getting it's sister game (Advanced Space Crusade) helped with this.

Hopefully I can one day do a full review of Tyrand Attack and test out the two rules expansions from White Dwarf.  (The other one has Dreadnought rules.)

A proper ad page for a Space Wolf Blood Claws squad box is next. 

Then Andy Chambers gives us rules to use Marine and Eldar Scouts in Rogue Trader!

It seems pretty solid.  The Eldar Longrifle isn't as amazing as it is nowadays but it isn't BAD.  S3 when Marines were still T3 (unless you had all the rulesbooks or appropriate WD articles), -1 Armor Save (when Power Armor was usually 4+), and no Save if you roll a 6 to hit.  They would make nice Terminator hunters I think.  10 of em for 170 points means you can wipe out a Termie a turn.  Or 4 squads and basically for the same cost as 5 Terminators you can eliminate them as a genuine threat in a couple of turns.  Even if they have a Cyclone Launcher.  450 points for a Termie Squad without any upgrades.  Versus TWENTY FIVE ELDAR SCOUTS FOR 425!

(Playing MATH HAMMER for a moment: At normal range, 12 Scouts are going to hit a turn.  6 will wound.  At least 1 will roll a 6 to hit ignoring armor.  In general a Terminator will die to this volley every single round.)

OH GOD I WANT TO PLAY ROGUE TRADER 40K NOW.

We have an ad for a 30 pack of plastic WHFB miniatures called Fantasy Fighters.  Five each of six different factions.  It seems a bit strange to do this, but for RPGs or the like it could be ideal.  Or for people building multiple armies or forces with allies.   

Then it is time for the Eavy Metal section where we see lots of lovely new minis all painted up in what would now probably only be 7 out of 10 CMON (Cool Mini or Not) scale.

That Space Wolf Iron Priest is a sweet mini!  I love the GAME IN ACTION Eavy Metal pictures too.  One of the pages has a nice step by step guide for Orc and Goblin painting.  Seven fine pages of "Miniatures Porn".

Rick Priestley himself gives us rules and fluff for Gorfang Rotgut, an Orc Big Boss in WHFB 4th.  He really doesn't like Dwarves.  

Then we have a nice two page spread covering half of the known North American stores selling GW's goods.  Anyone know how many of these places are still open and if they still sell GW?  The first store on the second column (Crazy Egor) is what kind of got me into 40K at all.  Called in an order for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay book.  I was sent 40K Rogue Trader instead.  Best retailer mistake EVER.  Even if I didn't actually get into the game itself till 94 thereabouts.

Andy Chambers is back with Space Marine 2nd ed (Aka: Epic or Titan Legions) rules for Tzeentch flying and floating units.  I can make use of this as I have some Silver Towers.  No Fire Lord or Doom Wing though.  And I sort of need them to deal with indirect weapon armies.  Which is most of them, especially in the terrible Epic 40K ruleset.  (Maybe not having a couple Wings and Lords is why I hated Epic 40K so much?)

I believe the Doom Wings are now known as Heldrakes .  Though the Hell Talon/Blades from Ripoff... I mean FORGE WORLD yes , might be Doom Wings as well.  Depends on which one spits fire down at stuff more I guess.  The Heldrake also looks more like a silly mechanical birdie like the Fire Lord and Doom Wing models.

We then get an ad for Space Marine as you might expect to pimp out the stuff for the game they just provided a supplement article to, more cutout templates for said Tzeentch fliers (with an ad for a High Elf on a Griffon from Marauder Miniatures which was like an allied minis company with a couple of ex Citadel sculptors running it as to be something irrelevant to keeping in issue), and then we have another game content article!

A complete two level adventure for Advanced Heroquest!  Carl Sargent gives us a whopping TWELVE pages covering a nifty adventure involving the Undead including rules for new monsters and spells.  (Presumably.  I do not own Advanced Heroquest or its expansion though after reading this article I REALLY want to even though I have Heroquest original AND Warhammer Quest!)  

It looks like a fun and challenging adventure that could probably be tweaked and mined for use in most modern RPGs or RPG lite boardgames.  (Like D&D 4th.  Descent.  Warhammer Quest.  Maybe even Heroquest if you are willing to make your own maptiles.)

Within the article and before the next one we get ads for two Warhammer Armies army books (Empire and High Elves), and a US subscription offer.  35 bucks for 12 issues a year and get an embroidered ball cap with either WHFB or Games Workshop on it.  Or 63 for TWO and get a plastic minis case with foam holders for around 50 figures.  Either a 15 dollar value for the cap, or 20 for the case.

That is how you get subscriptions folks!  GIVE US FREE GOODIES.  The one year I subscribed to GW was when they were giving away Gorkamorka boxed games.  Because two sets made for a great foundation for a 40K Ork army.  That I eventually sold to a chubby pothead drunk from Australia.  Who then gave it to someone else.  

The ciiirrrccllleeee oooof  WAAAAGH!!!

Speaking of DA LADZ, Jervis Johnson is back with fluff writer boss Bill King for a WHFB battle report!  SEVENTEEN PAGES of fluff story, army strategies, and battle reporting on a turn by turn basis.  If you couldn't get in a game often (or at all for whatever reason.  AND THIS INCLUDES NOT WASHIN YO ASS!) battle reports were almost like a life line at experiencing a game.

Jervis is running the Orcs and this here is his force, based on what miniatures they had available at the time.  This is what GW people thought a 2000 point WHFB 4th edition army should look like.  Actual PLAYER armies usually had about half as many figures as everyone just loaded up on beefed up heroes and wizards.  And artillery pieces.  Jervis' force is a bit restrained in comparison.

The report goes on with pictures of the game in play (probably reconstructions done by a professional photographer), and the fancy art battle reference pictures that were probably computer generated.  (Anyone know for sure?)  Bill King's hair is.. special.  Also the Orcs won.  So Jervis was victorious.  

The final thirteen pages of our 84 pages including covers issue is the catalog section.  Excellent high quality images of all the models that were either new or something GW wanted to spotlight sell thanks to the issue's articles.  For converters and the like (GW actually sold components and back catalog minis in those days.  It would have been a pain for non UK folks but you could do it!) every single part of the models were listed with a code so you could get exactly the bits you needed.

An example of the catalog action.  Somewhere someone has taken that Empire model and painted it up like Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy from MLP.  I don't know if I find this pathetic or hilarious.  Depends on what miserable neckbeards think or react to it upon seeing it I suppose.  (Even Brony crap beats those ridiculous Marine Scouts.  Man do I hate those Shakespearean fluffy bicep thingies!)

So we have a twenty one year old issue of White Dwarf.  I read the entire thing for this review and to make the 10 bucks or so it cost to ship to me (because lots of Ebay sellers like to rip you off.  This was one of the CHEAPER options!) fully worthwhile.

What did I think?

I LIKED IT.  It provided me with plenty of useful material for games I own and now has me jonesing to own Advanced Heroquest!  While I am no fan of battle reports I am apparently in the minority there.

So my review score?  GOOD.  

I can recommend this issue to fans of the early 90s Games Workshop era!

I will do this again sometime soon.  I am still reading the final issue of Inquisitor and starting the first issue of Citadel Journal I have, but this was a nice break from the fanzines!

Tuesday Game Reports

This week was another Heroquest week. Given my usual luck with the game, my Troubador died within 15 minutes of starting a dungeon that took a good 2 hours to complete, ending what little desire I had to play this game. It wasn't anyone's fault, just bad luck. But when something is THIS frustrating, there is little point in ruining everyone else's fun by playing and being miserable so I went from playing and doing some MUCH needed painting, to just painting.

While Pico took it as a bit insulting, it wasn't anything of the sort. 4 of the characters were long lived and were relatively high powered. He had to base the challenges to give them something to do. My support character was more recent, being the fourth character I had and totally unsuited to a mission where I couldn't be a supporter given random teleporting rooms filled with monsters. Actually, any low level character was doomed from the start in this one. MagicDrew's Elf died and he had to make up a new character who fell in the next mission, meaning for the final 3 missions he either has to hide behind everyone, doing NOTHING, or get stuck in and probably die due to being completely outclassed.

Its a flaw of the genre as I have mentioned in a previous post. Missme's Barbarian is an unstoppable juggernaut of doom and asskicking. However what she can handle with minor trouble spells instant death for a new character of any sort. If I were to go back I would take out the level system I made entirely. Long term survival just throws game balance off and after a certain point it just makes it POINTLESS for any new character to join in. It would be like running a Dungeons & Dragons game and making players roll up level 1 characters when the majority of the party is level 8 or higher. The level 1 simply has no place being there, has nothing to actually do (because higher levels do it better or can actually survive the threats they face), and mostly sits around leeching XP for hours on hours till they approach a point in being able to contribute.

And while the XP system in Basic D&D makes this ALMOST bearable (It takes roughly as much XP to go from level 8 to 9 as it does from level 1 to level 7. A fighter in Moldvay/Cook Basic needs to go from 120,000 to 240,000 to level up. A level 1 character needs 120,000, the same amount, to get to level 8, meaning if they gain the same amount of XP the newbie will be one level behind.), it still means there is massive amounts of downtime where the newbie is literally useless baggage. Not fun for the newbie or the high level babysitters. (If we are to assume 10 sessions of adventure to level up at this advanced stage, it means roughly 12000 xp per session. If unlimited levelling up is allowed (and most of the time any excess xp to take a PC up 2 levels is discarded, leaving them 1 xp away from the 2nd level up..) the newbie would hit level 4 the first session, and be half the adventurer everyone else is discounting not having the improved equipment everyone else has. Session 2 would bring him up to level 5, still mostly useless though almost capable of doing something helpful. Session 3 would bring him up to level 6, and now after 15 hours or so of being little more than baggage the player can actually fight alongside his pals. 3 more sessions to bring him to a level 7 (And hopefully some better equipment by this point. Maybe +1 gear the higher level PCs have outgrown, maybe a +2 here and there.) and he can actually give a decent accounting for himself and not hide behind everyone.

This of course is what is happening in our Heroquest game but at a much faster clip. If the GM shows pity for the newbie, he is cheating the player and giving the advanced characters little challenge. Yet on the other side, the newbie character's player is unlikely to have much fun or contribute much to the game.

In other words, I BLEW IT AND I AM SORRY.

The level up system I came up with simply doesn't fit Heroquest at all. It throws off what little balance there is in this largely luck driven game. Level ups plus treasure and equipment plus a few players having bad luck leads to completely thrown off gameplay. If everyone stays alive it can work fine. If everyone dies it also works fine. If more than a third of the group constantly live or die it all goes to Hell.

Which is what happened. And I didn't think about that part. Now, throwing in majority level lower level starts for replacement characters could reduce this somewhat (maybe 100GP per level and newbies start 2 levels lower than the party average rounded down?), but its still a clusterfrack any way you look at it.

AWW SH!% SIR, I *&^KED UP.

But on the upside I got to get some painting done, and it gave me fodder for this post. Its something all game designers need to look at. Just what DO YOU DO when new players join in to a persistent game? Letting them start out on par with players who "earned" their current status isn't fair, yet forcing them to work their way up from the bottom when the gameplay is much further along and the competition is harder isn't fair either.

And I hope Pico doesn't decide never to GM again because of it. It happens. It wasn't anybody's fault. Its a game problem that almost every GM has to face. I just chose to sit out losing any more characters ( 4 corpses is enough for any one person I think! ) and continue painting. Everyone else is having fun, why the hell should I ruin everyone else's time because my bright idea mucked everything up? I get to do some painting in a manner that doesn't totally suck. I hate painting. Its a waste of time. I would rather do other things. If someone is running a game even when I am participating I can listen and contribute and do something else while I am at it that otherwise I wouldn't do much of. I live alone and tend to be lonely most of the time. I am happy to have the company over. I had no problem painting and letting everyone else continue to have fun and smashinate monsters. I was having bad luck and it was no point in ANYONE being miserable over it.

Heck, I want more people to run things so I can get some painting done while we play. It might be the only way I ever get any painting done! :P

I got some color on some LotR minis, 2 more Heroquest missions got completed. We all got to socialize and chat and such. We all learned some things about game design due to this blog post.

Seems like a fine day to me!

New Stuff and Tuesday Game Night Update.

WITH BONUS RPG PHILOSOPHY!

Tomorrow I will post pictures and the like for the TWO 40K battles that I played in today, but this post will be a general update of.. stuff.

New Goodies!
My Ogre Miniatures and Car Wars order from SJGames came in today, giving me 3 more of the AADA Road Atlas books, bringing me up to 23 US states (and not US states in the game fiction..) where cars can war and shoot each other.

For some upcoming LOTR Miniatures goodness, I took advantage of 50% off to grab a box each of Mordor Orcs and Men of Harad, and a command blister for both of them. For the next few weeks I will get a few more, mostly focusing on the good forces since my horde of evil is rather large now. Close to 150 evil models. Its insane how reasonably priced LOTR minis are to GW's other lines. 24 single pose plastics for 25 bucks MSRP is a DAMNED FINE DEAL. The metals are a bit up there, but I guess 12 bucks for 2 metal command figures isn't too bad, and at half off its quite reasonable. For what I wanted from the clearance blisters there was quite a few Rohan and Gondor elite troops, and a little mail order should finish up them nicely. They had a nice selection of the sourcebooks and some neat metal box sets I might grab over the next few weeks or months too. Half off the metal Balrog or Sauron? Siege weapons? Sweet! Of course evil seems to have more of what I really want, but the forces of good are so hero heavy as to make up for it in some degree. (One of these days I will post on how LOTR is really an underrated game system. Its really quite excellent and many of its rules ought to be in WH Fantasy and 40K.)

More of the 1 dollar RPG books. I have another run or 2 to do on them, but I am getting some fair stuff I would have never bought for MSRP. 3 Last Unicorn Games Star Trek RPG books I picked up for Pico, GURPS Castle Falkenstein and the same's Ottoman Empire sourcebook, the X Crawl GM Screen & Adventure Module, and Robot Warriors by Hero Games for me. They had a ton of White Wolf's Trinity sourcebooks for a buck so they should be mine next week, mostly bringing what I found interesting in the buck a book section to a close.

So now I have a ton to read, a ton to assemble (and never get around to painting!), and a ton of money saved. 188 dollars of stuff. For 42 bucks. ROCK.

The game room is coming along nicely as well. The table setup is pretty good now, though more things need putting away in the next few weeks for more space and player convenience. The room has the potential to fit 10 people around the table, though 8 or 9 is probably as far as it can go comfort wise. At 10 it would be VERY cramped, and anything beyond that is pretty much a total no go. If we ever get enough people for that to matter we can worry about it then I suppose.

Tuesday's game day was a solid performer. More Hero Quest. To keep myself from getting cranky over the game I half paid attention, half based up some Ogre and LOTR minis. Not caring as much and the adventures getting easier as we level up made for a much better time overall. Pico is still taking the game a bit too serious as it is his first experience GMing, but I am sure he will learn to stop worrying and learn to love player whining sooner or later! :) (Yes he does read this. No, don't worry about it. Its a kids' game! Screw up, have fun, and don't worry about it dude!) He has begun learning the important GM skill of difficulty modifying on the fly, and our last mission wasn't a cakewalk compared to what it should be as written. Honestly Heroquest works best as some stress free childish fun. Unless the dice are really bad or the players do some really stupid things they should win most missions without too much damage.

Its actually something most of these dungeon boardgames seem to have issues with. They are either so hard as to be an unfun everyone dies suckfest, or they are pathetically easy if played as written. I've seen it with Doom and Space Crusade, and all the reports on Warhammer Quest and Descent seem to be the same as well.

I guess its better to be on the light, fun, and easy side than player abuse. The infamous AD&D adventure "The Tomb of Horrors" is always there if we need a PLAYERS MUST DIE LIKE SCUM BWAHAHA!! experience. And Paranoia, though Paranoia also encourages the players to hose each other over too for extra body count fun. (We really need to play that game someday...)

(As an aside, heavy character death is probably the reason D&D and RPGs have a bad rep. Tons of people played them in the 70 and 80s, with visions of being Aragorn, Elric, Conan, or whatever other scifi and fantasy hero you can think of. Then their dudes got killed in the first or second combat they entered, or ran into some deathtrap they had little to no chance of surviving. Most probably left right then, considering the game a bit of suck. Its sort of understandable.)

But he is getting the hang of it, and things will improve as he relaxes and gets into it. I really am interested in seeing what he can put together for his planned Savage Worlds Deep Space Nine game.

GMing is a skillset one really can't learn except on the job. Mistakes WILL happen. The trick is to never make the same mistake more than once. Everything a GM does right or wrong should be a learning experience to make their next session all that much better. As long as the players aren't a bunch of knuckleheads (and luckily my group are there as much to socialize and hang out as we are to game.. there is a reason our old 40K games always had the official unofficial Bullsh!^%ing Phase after all..) it can be a good time.

And THAT is what it is all about, really.

Having a good time!

Tuesday and Wednesday Game Reports

Well, I would rather not talk about Tuesday Heroquest so we will skip that bit in general outside of some general comments. Pico and I are clearly approaching the game from 2 entirely different angles and its not turning out too well. With luck, we can hash this out next game time or over emails or something. I'm sure we can deal with it and get things back on track.

I got some Ogre minis in trade from Starfury for some of my furniture which will be handy next time we get to play Ogre. A Paneurope box with 2 Super Heavies, 3 Missile Tanks, and 6 Infantry Squads. (Which means 1 3 man base, a 2 man base, and a 1 man base.) Sadly, the other box was Ogrethulhu, which while amusing isn't canonical for Ogre in any way, shape, or form. Its a possessed Ogre Mark Five! Insanely deadly, but not too useful overall.

Missme got me a couple of half depth tubs (Which I insisted on reimbursing her for) to put the Heroscape terrain away, giving my hexes a place to nap, and specialized terrain in the other one. I've pretty much packed one of the tubs FULL, and the other could easily do the same. And this is without counting the inevitable purchase of the new Heroscape box set or the Jungle sets should they ever be released. Its only 3 or 4 months late now..

We also made up characters for Dark Heresy, but actually playing them is a few weeks or more down the road, probably after a medical thing I get to have ruin my schedule and bank account at the end of March. (Depends on how it turns out.)

Outside of that, driving 9IN home was hellacious. Snowstorm started up and the snowplows were nowhere to be seen. Another week where a 20-30 minute trip took an hour. Be glad when the weather clears up.

Luckily the snow turned to rain today and it was relatively fair driving to Sarge's Comics for Warhammer 40K. Grabbed the last 2 parts of an adventure trilogy for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, then had a little 1000 points of my Tyranids versus Ultramarines. A Carnifex, Hive Tyrant, Broodlord, 10 Genestealers, 14 Termagaunts, and 8 Hormagaunts went up against a Devastator Squad, 2 Tactical Squads, 2 Dreadnoughts, a Captain, and a Rhino. My Hormagaunts and Termagaunts mostly got slammed, while my Broodlord and Genestealers ripped up every Tactical Squad on the board with the Carnifex and Hive Tyrant running fire support/Dreadnought killing. Its nice to see my Nids do so well. Of course the Ultramarines player was expecting a typical swarm horde, and not a Genestealer and Nidzilla force. Jacked up big Tyranids can do very well.

Next week we are gonna see what the bugs can do to Orks. It should be bloody, violent, and an amazing lack of Armor Saves all around. Its rather bizarre when a Carnifex fired Venom Cannon is a bigger threat to a Dreadnought than a Tactical Marine!

Though as usual, my bright orange and navy blue paint scheme had some viewer make a stupid comment about it. Its one of the many reasons I hate painting. I like the scheme because its striking. It is loud and clashy. THAT'S THE POINT. Its partially inspired by the old reddish orange Tyranids from Rogue Trader and 2nd edition.

Oh yeah. and those of you with lives may have a happy Valentine's Day.
I am not one of them.

Tuesday and Wednesday Game Reports

No pictures or anything this time as there was no game played Wednesday, and Tuesday was more Heroquest. While we now have an old member back in the fold, who I will currently refer to as 9 Iron Nuke, or 9IN if you will, not a lot really happened. The Priest of Sigmar and Dwarf Slayer both seem pretty well balanced and fun to play, though my playthrough of the Slayer was anything but.

Almost everything bad that could happen to my character did, killing him off in the final battle, meaning due to bad luck I spent a good 90 minutes of gaming having very little fun whatsoever. I might as well have taken a nap frankly.

Nothing like bad luck totally ruining the game. Then again, the only luck I seem to have in Heroquest is bad luck.

Not exactly the gaming week of legend by any means.

I got the 40K RPG in and the book is HUGE. Very impressive to look at! A few of the Warhammer Fantasy RPG items showed up too. But being books, until I get some time to read them, there isn't much I can say.

Sorry few people who read my blog. I just don't have anything interesting to update right now.

I'm not sure if I need gaming antidepressants or just antidepressants period...

*sigh*

Prototype Heroquest Dwarf Slayer Rules

Ok, Pico has the foundation of 2 classes done already and I have ZERO.

Time to up the ante a bit!

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Dwarf Slayer

Attack: 3 (Hand Axe)
Defense: 1 (Beard, and Bad Attitude)
Life: 10
Mind: 2

Description: Dwarf Slayers, due to some dishonor real or imagined are out to die in glorious battle. Is it any wonder they would join a band of adventurers going into deadly dungeons?

Special: Dwarf Slayers MAY NOT retreat from the Dungeon ever or use any form of ranged weapon or wear any armor. They may also not use any healing potion. (But healing spells may be cast on them.) Slayers defend on ANY Shield result.
Against Trolls, Daemons, and Giants Slayers get NO Defense die to roll normally but each Skull they roll counts as TWO rolled Skulls.
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Troubadour

Attack: 2 (Short Sword)
Defense: 1 (Normal Clothing)
Life: 5
Mind: 4

Description: A wandering teller of stories and singer of songs. Their presence is that of a battlefield musician that can inspire their comrades to greater heights of valor. Only being adventurers, they do it better!

Special: Troubadours may use any 1 handed close combat weapon plus the staff or any kind of bow/crossbow. For armor they may only buy up to leather armor and may not use helmets or shields. They have the Musician ability they may use on any turn they choose to either not move or not do any other action. (Lose one or the other that turn.) Once per Dungeon expedition they may sacrifice their movement to use the Standard Bearer ability. They may of course sacrifice their other action for the turn and use their Musician ability to have both advantages on the same turn.)
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NEW ABILITIES: (Also can be used for new classes as modified above.)

Musician: Model may sacrifice its turn to give all friendly models within the same room or any adjacent rooms or corridors with open doors the option to reroll 1 Defense dice result per attack on them.

Standard Bearer: Model may sacrifice its turn to give all friendly models within the same room or any adjacent rooms or corridors with opened doors the option to reroll 1 Attack dice result per attack they make.

Group Leader: Model is the commander of a small unit of monsters in the dungeon. In the fields of the Warhammer World, he or she commands a regiment of troops. In the dungeon they boss around their troops. Model has +1 Attack and +1 Wounds compared to a normal model of that type.

Group Hero: Like the Group Leader, only bigger, badder, and more impressive. They command small armies and could even be the bosses of a small dungeon. Model has +2 Attacks, +1 Defense, +1 Mind, and +2 Wounds compared to a normal model of that type.

Group Shaman: A lesser spellcasting unit. Has the stats of a normal model of that type, but is allowed to copy any one spell from the Chaos spell deck to cast once per game. Before doing the spell as listed, roll the Attack die. If a Skull result comes up the spell backfires with the Shaman being the target. A Shaman may also be a Group Leader. If so, the Shaman gains one extra Chaos Spell to copy, even the same one, and has the spell failure results on either White Shield result. A Shaman Hero gets 3 spells, and it only fails on the Black Shield result. (All other Leader/Hero stats are as above.)

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Balancing the dungeon: When more than 4 adventurers go into a dungeon, it gets progressively easier. It is recommended that Musicians, Standard Bearers, Leaders, Heroes, and Shamans be used to boost up the monsters within. Every extra adventurer entering the dungeon adds 2D3+1 "points" of extra foes. (GM may have them replace an existing monster before they are revealed. You do not have to put them down on your design sheets when balancing for larger parties!) These can either be more monsters, or the special monster types above. These monster types are added to an existing monster in the adventure which is upgraded to the new type. Monsters with 3 wounds or more should not be upgraded!

Costs:
Musician, Standard Bearer, Shaman : 1 point
Group Leader : 2 points
Group Hero : 3 points

Note this means a Shaman Hero is an additional 4 points of monster.

Initial Heroquest Houserules

Told ya they were coming up next.

First off we added in rules to run out of the dungeon.

Basically you can leave as a party once all survivors are on the exit square one time per dungeon. Upon return, the majority sentient monsters in the dungeon (usually Orcs and Goblins) get 1d6 reinforcements the GM can place in any area by making a note of it beforehand. If the party is totally wiped out the new party only gets half the XP for completing the remaining part of the dungeon and may not search for treasure in any revealed room within.

XP you say?

Yes, now there are 4 experience levels to gain. For completing any dungeon the survivors gain 10 experience points(XP). For killing a monster the PC who did it gains a single XP.

The level gains require the following XP: (XP is how many points you need per level. Aka: 10 points from 1 to 2. 20 more points from 2 to 3, ect.)

Level 1 (Aspiring Champion)
Level 2 (Champion) : 10
Level 3 (Hero) : 20
Level 4 (Mighty Hero) : 40
Level 5 (Lord) : 80

At each level up, the character may add one point to any of the 5 stats (the 5th being Movement), but no more than 2 points may ever be added to any one stat. For Movement, its one extra point of movement, not an extra die.

That's what we have so far. The level system was created by me today, and the rest was either brought up or initially created by the group of us collaborating. (Multiple people make for better game designs.)

Pico is gonna work on some ideas of his own as will I, and we will then tweak to fit.

I've given him an initial mission of coming up with Ranger and Cleric of Sigmar classes.

My inital 2 classes will be the Bard and Halfling.

Info on those or anything else we come up with will be posted as it is made.

And a handy tip for extra Heroquest combat dice: The Marvelscape and current Heroscape all in one dice work perfectly (thanks to Pico noting it) in the game. The skulls and shields stay as they currently are, and the blank face counts as a "black shield" result.

Tuesday Game Reports

Last week it was Twilight Imperium. To make it quick since it was rather blah: Pico got attacked by MagicDrew on his borders multiple times and Starfury won by generally doing a little of this and a little of that while everyone ignored him. I had Turtle Land how I wanted it and watched a little Gamera.

Ok, gameweek done.

This week Starfury was out sick yet I had a backup ready even before the 1 hour forewarning.

Heroquest.

Since Pico is planning on running an RPG this summer I volunteered him to be the GM, aka Zargon.


Lord Voldemo... I mean Zargon observes the party entering the dungeon.

Missme took the Barbarian, I took the Dwarf, and MagicDrew took the Elf.


His first Elf falls, the victim of splitting up.


Taking too much damage, the Barbarian and Dwarf run out of the dungeon.

As I will mention in a follow up post, we modified the rules a tad to allow for more depth.


With a new Elf in tow, we make it to the Gargoyle's lair. Bloodied, we struggle against impossible odds.

Overall the game went over VERY well with Pico and MagicDrew both having fond memories of the game in the past. We went an hour over so I guess it did! Let's hear it for playing old games!


The Dwarf and Barbarian dead, the Elf fights on against impossible odds.


Thanks to GM fiat, the Elf survived and won, with 2 Orcs running away.

It looks like we will be expanding on the game and playing it some more next week.

I have enough various Warhammer Fantasy figures (which will pretty much be all I have since of the whole Dark Heresy debacle as mentioned in a previous post) to give us more types of monsters and classes to play. Having the Warhammer Quest game's components will help too!

40K Ork Codex first look and other ruminations

While wasting more time and money getting some tests done (again!) at the hospital I had some time to start reading the newest Ork codex for Warhammer 40K.

The good news is that its true to old school Orkiness, though nowhere near as hilarious as "Ere We Go!" was back in the Rogue Trader days. It also keeps the easy to build setup from the newest Chaos Marines codex and adds in handy page references for whatever fiddly bits that aren't located under this or that part of wargear and such. I built an army first time without having done much but browse the book (as mentioned on the last post) in under 30 minutes or so. According to the Codex, I can do about 1604 points total. I need to model wrecking balls on all 3 of my Trukks, but other than that its as shown.

Looking at my army, I need about 3 or 4 more Runtherds (need 1 per 10 Gretchin), another Trukk for one of my Boyz squads, some more 'Eavy Armored Nobz, and more of the cool WW2 German outfit inspired 2nd edition era Stormboyz to be a decently flexible force. With careful ebaying and such I can probably take care of it for well under 50 bucks or so. About 120 at current Games Workshop MSRP but I am not stupid and am also cheap. And broke. 2 for 1 in the NO WAY category.

I have also started looking to see what I need to replace in my Heroquest game. I recovered 4 goblins, the Gargoyle, and the Sorcerer who are now chilling with the Fmir and Chaos Warriors. The Skeletons are easily replaced with Reaper's Legendary Encounters line of prepaints. 5.50 MSRP for Orc and Skeleton prepaints is a good deal. Not to mention the 3 packs are gonna have improved paint jobs over the original single figure blisters. I can use a couple of the Skull Pass Night Goblin command extras for the missing Gobbos, and I should still have my mummies in my Blood Bowl kit someplace. I just need a couple hero figures, which I am sure I already have from various other miniatures games. Under 25 bucks should bring Heroquest into playable condition.