A Quick Site Update

Given how I am now constantly getting spammers using my comments to post whatever foreign scams they are trying to pull, I have changed commenting to allow me to moderate the commentary before it gets posted.   I have now allowed OpenIDs to comment though.

Not that I get a lot of commentary at all, but it really sucks to get a notification someone replied to one of my posts, and its some effing non English speaking spammer trying their scummy nonsense that probably wouldn't even confuse a 90 year old grannie at this point.  (A Glenn Beck fan?  Probably.  But normal decent people?  Nope!)

So that's a change for now.  Maybe later if I somehow get enough active readers commenting on stuff I will go back to non approval comments as to allow interesting discussions, but for the time being I have to stand up against spammer scum.

Expect an actual gaming related post sometime in the next 10 hours.  I didn't even go play Warhammer 40K today to prepare for my next gaming project.

Battletech Session Report and Operation Don't Buy So Much Dammit Part 4

Today I shall be lazy and just link to the Battletech game report mini comic.  Its not too detailed, but its some nice pictures of our new gaggle of young players fighting it out with their Battlemechs.  MagicDrew said we should try running some demo games on Tuesdays and it seems to be working.  Plus he actively recruits almost anyone who comes over to look at the games while I am more a passive recruiter, using the Internet and just talking to folks without saying "HAY GUYS DO YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH US?!"

(This lack of outgoingness could also be the reasons for my poor volume of dating as well.  I am who I am I suppose.)

The Battle Report !

I gotta say that battlefield they made on the final panel looked AMAZING.  I just brought along some of my Heroscape trees to add a little extra to the field.  Heroscape terrain just looks SO GOOD for hex map miniature game combats.

In the last few weeks I have actually bought a little bit.  I grabbed one of the old series sets of D&D Dungeon Tiles for a little under 7 bucks thanks to a Borders coupon I had nothing else to spend it on, 2 packs of metal Melta Guns with free shipping from Games Workshop, and a set of the new D&D Heroscape figures for 13, adding 33 dollars to my spending total, bringing our big board to 249, 1 dollar away from taking me out of the running for a Gold in not being a consumer whore.

Outside of the 10 Melta Guns my Pre Heresy World Eaters army needs, neither item is OMG IT MUST BE MINE, but things I would like that were cheap.  Laziness kept me from going back to Borders last week with a 40% off coupon.  Which is probably the best way to get me to buy those overpriced but oh so sweet Warhammer 40K RPG books.  50 dollars for Dark Heresy Ascension is too much.  30 dollars?  Now we are getting someplace!

I did end up selling both of my Lock N Load Publishing wargames thanks to the oh so classy responses I got from the game's original developer and its fans over at the Boardgamegeek forums when I posted a link to my review there, so I do have a good 80 dollars of extra gaming cash to burn.  I have already used a few bucks to get some more Epic Tyranid models.  Another Hive Tyrant, and another squad of Carnifexes.  Sadly my offers for a Harridan and more Zoanthropes were declined.

If you want to see what sort of classy responses my review caused, here you go: Responses of suck.

I got quite a few private messages supporting me, and plenty of whatever virtual kudo things BGG has, so clearly folks understood and respected my opinion, even if they all didn't agree with it.  However a bunch of mouthbreathing fanboys who apparently take it personal when you insult a boardgame THEY HAVE NO FINANCIAL STAKE IN WHATSOEVER (except I didn't actually insult the thing.  I still gave it an ok rating overall.  Its not god awful, but it sure as hell isn't good!) and a developer who hadn't even gotten his own copy of the game, and then stated massive changes to his submitted work had happened to the rules when he did giving me smack?

Yeah.  I'm not buying SQUAT from a company like that.  In fact it pleases me that selling off my two Lock N Load published games may in fact cost them sales.  Apparently for some folks the thread itself did.  I am also curious about the 2 other game developers who responded like major douchebags to me as well.  I want to avoid anything they make too.  I've had some of the #tinypewtermen IRC crowd tell me they were pretty impressed how I handled myself in the thread and how they too don't want anything those tools make either.   And MAN were there some comments I wanted to respond to childishly.  So very, very badly.

So in getting pissy over little old me's review of the game, the fanboys and one of the developers pretty much COST THEMSELVES LOTS OF CUSTOMERS.  Yeah.  Great job defending.  Its like a Goalie who jumps out to get the Soccer ball and kicks it in himself trying to be a hero.  Wargaming isn't a big market, and annoying even a dozen people could be a big hit, especially if they spread their opinions around.  In this case the review is seen by 100s of people on BGG, and probably way more in the long run.

There is a way to handle less positive reviews.  They did not.

[Epic System] Look at my New Goodies. LOOOK!!!

I'm sorry.  I have to show off the awesome:
(Click for bigger.)

I have so much awesome now to assemble and organize better!  Now if we can just get Eli to sit down and bring out the gift I got him (A decent amount of Arcane Legions Romans.) and get a game on.  I've had my force ready to go head to head since December!

Hive Fleet Mustafar has now gone into Epic scale so I can now run 3 player mega games of Epic that will take all day long.

ROOOOOOOOCK!!!

Edit:  If my quick perusal of the Epic Tyranid force org charts are correct:

I can run everything but the 20 stands of termagaunts.  Or 300 points in Epic.  Another Tyrant opens up that for 150.[But what I have now would let me do: 2900 for the big swarm, and 2600 for the smaller swarm.[ Or a 4500 point army containing  75 bases/models to move.So one more Tyrant would do me a 4950, or close enough to a 5K army for government work.

See, if my understanding is right, the Tyranids use these hex tile force cards.  Each card has an arrow on it.  You can attach an arrow to an arrow only.  For the Nids, only the Warriors, 2 Dominatrixes, and the Hive Tyrant fit this role.  The 10 stands of Warriors equal 2 tiles.  (My Brood mention in the comic is just the actual number of bases.  5 stands make up a unit card in most cases.)  Each Tyrant or Warrior allows 3 units to be attached to them, and the Doms allow for 6 as they are the true force commanders.

Thus each Dominatrix can have at least 6 units attached to it, or if you somehow have a LOT of Warriors and Hive Tyrants, it can blossom into a ridiculously large force.  (I am sure there are command radii and things in the Nids and core Space Marine/Titan Legions rules that would make it foolish to be too big however.)

But this means if I can get one single Hive Tyrant, I can use EVERY SINGLE model Eli gave me, with just shy of 100 pieces on the board.  See in Epic individual troops are nonexistent.  Each base contains 1-5 infantrymen depending on their size.  As mentioned, a unit will be multiple stands of these 5 man bases.  So that 150 point Termagaunt (or Termagant by the naming conventions of the Epic edition in question) unit is a "squad" of 10 stands in this case, intending to be 50 Termagaunts which would be their own seperate model in normal 28mm Warhammer 40,000.  

My 2 unit examples are above.  (A bit blurry as the light is a bit bad in here at night.  Camera isn't a fan of low light.)  See the top hex group?  I could pull out one of the red tiles, pop in a Hive Tyrant (see the bottom group tile on the 7-8 O Clock position from the center Dominatrix!) there, and put the 2 Termagaunt broods and the red tile back as the Hive Tyrant has 3 attachment points.

Its a little confusing at first, but I actually like the fiddly bits in Classic Epic for whatever reason.  Its one of the reasons the GOD AWFUL Epic 40,000 came out like it did.  They were going the opposite direction of the previous, somewhat popular Epic.  See Classic Epic has a nice short rulesbook, especially if the absurdly large Imperator Titan and Ork Mega Gargants are not used.  However the special rules and exceptions all the units have is quite intensive.  Epic 40K made the core rules more complicated, but ultra simplified the units themselves.   Apparently the Epic Armageddon ruleset is someplace in between the two.

I could also buy the indie wargame "Future War Commander" which is a generic sci fi multi scale minis game I could use all these minis for as well, giving me Tyranids vs Chaos vs Space Ork vs Ogre/GEV forces vs Battletech vs ect.

But its a 50 dollar rulesbook for a niche market though its spoken of quite highly.  Perhaps if I knew people using the ruleset I would try it.  However I don't, so its classic Epic for me.

Now to reread the rules and try to rope some people in.  And assemble a TON of adorably wee Tyranids.

Toy Battle System Demo Scenario Comic! Transformers Roll Out!

For Radioactive Press' Toy Battle System Games (Mega Bots and Giant Monster Rampage : http://radioactive-press.weebly.com/ ) I am gonna do a full review but thanks to MagicDrew wanting to get some demos of the stuff we play going at a local comic shop to possibly recruit more folks, so here is the exciting introduction to the scenario!

(As always click on the images for larger and clearer ones.)

Will the Autobots save the city?  Will anyone actually want to try the game with MagicDrew and I?

We will find out Tuesday at Arkham Asylum in Norwich CT!

Operation Don't Buy So Much Dammit Part 3: The Update

What have I bought since the last time?

Space Marine Drop Pod: 30.  I need it to drop Dreadnoughts into people's faces.  Close Combat Dreadnoughts with Heavy Flamers, Melta Guns, Armor 13, and 2 Power Fists.

Codex Blood Angels: 25.  My Pre Heresy World Eaters' army book.  I originally used the free PDF codex since it was cheap and Death Company pretty much are WEater Berserkers anyhow.  I will probably do a full review of this one sometime soon.  Same with the Drop Pod, though I need 2 of those for my list.

Radioactive Press' Toy Battle System Rulesbooks: Giant Monster Rampage & Mega Bots.  27 for both.  Wanted both of them as I like the idea of using my toy collection as something other than a subtle blend of dust collector and birth control device.  And I like Giant Robots and Giant Monsters.  Lulu.com had a 10% off sale so huzzah.

2 Sets of Tower Blocks:  5 each.  Knockoff generic Jenga blocks.  I needed blocks to make towers for the Toy Battle games anyhow, and these were the best cheap choice.  48 basic wood, and 48 painted ones with a color die so you are forced to pick a certain block in your default play.  Wal Mart didn't have any more unpainted wood sets.  I may buy the last colored tin they have this week which should be plenty of destroyable buildings.  I could have gotten the 56 block official Jenga set, but its 10 bucks.  And the only legit Jenga I want is the Donkey Kong Jenga set.  I have seen pictures.  IT IS GLORIOUS.

97 more bucks spent.

What does the big board say now?  216 bucks spent as of mid April.  Im 34 dollars shy of  not getting the Platinum medal for yearly game expenditures.  Going by current spending values I will only get the Bronze.  As I will at least be buying 1 more Drop Pod for 30 that's gonna put me dangerously close to 250 right there.

Can I hold off buying more stuff?  Can I sell off some junk as to be able to buy more junk and not get it counted?  Can I hold off till Connecticon which won't count since its my vacation and thus I will be allowed to spend 150 or so on goodies?  (Normal people buy tee shirts and knick nacks on their vacations. I buy toy robots and hobby games stuff.)

Still, I am doing pretty well all things considered.  I have passed up more stuff as we go.  And luckily crossposting my review of "All Things Zombie!" to Boardgamegeek got such a wonderful response from one of the developers I now want nothing from the company whatsoever to the point I am selling their games on ebay that I own.

Zombie Month: A Blast From the Past: A 2003 Campaign Document!

Back in that timeframe I was prepping to run All Flesh Must Be Eaten, the Zombie Survival Horror RPG.

It just so happens I still have the 2 page basic synopsis and thoughts I had for a rough campaign outline.  Sadly, the game didn't go very far and the 2 PCs were entirely too powerful, and trying to run a game at 9am on a weekday when I was maybe getting 2-3 hours of sleep beforehand just wasn't happening.

So here is some scans of the document.  For fun, or perhaps to inspire some cool zombie campaign ideas for yourself:

I would probably do things a lot different these days, and would probably have corporate oppression rather than governmental.  (Mainly since I don't listen to right or left wing crazies and pay attention to the real world as best I can.  Which might explain why I am on antidepressants these days, but anyhow.)

It surprised me that I had a jetski scenario in mind for a zombie game when a rather popular horror zombie game used such a scene (but in a totally different part of their story) a couple years later.

Enjoy!

My Basic D&D Character. Let Me Show You Him.

I present: GROZZO OF THE NORTHLANDS

Male Human Magic User
29 years old
Chaotic Good

STR 8
INT 16
WIS 9
DEX 13
CON 18
CHA 10

Primary Spells: Sleep,

(More info here soon.)