According to PP's Monsterpocalypse news blog, Monsterpocalypse is going to move to a non-collectible format this year. In addition, they will be re-releasing all of the old stuff so that people can assemble the armies they want.
That is VERY exciting news. If that comes to pass, I may actually get some new miniatures, and finally get some more games in. Rob's been eager to play, and I certainly would love to try some of the new and old stuff.
Hopefully, look for more Monpoc stuff on this blog this year! Of course, if you have no interest in it, then you can just ignore those posts :).
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
No Quarter 34 review/thoughts
Well, I finished reading/digesting the new issue of No Quarter, and since I haven't posted in a while, I figured I'd post what was in it, and my thoughts on the issue.
To start, there's a lot of Retribution stuff in the issue, starting with the cover. Retribution is a fairly cool faction, and they do a lot of work to give players some fun things for players to think about, both with terrain, alternate color schemes, and tactics.
Alright, so let's go through the main things in the issue:
Strategic Academy: Minions. Basic tactics and ideas for using the various Minion choices in the Hordes armies, as well as some thoughts on how to use the new warlocks. Like all of the Strategic Academy articles, they are a good start for people looking for tactics, and I'm sure there's plenty of good information here for everyone. That part on using Minions with Skorne isn't terribly amazing, but really, Skorne are so great it doesn't matter :).
Campaign Terrain. This article covers a Cephalyx Slave Pit- a type of trench that may prevent grunts from actually dying when nearby, with the ability to rescue them. I don't think that this really adds anything exciting to the game, truth be told, and I think it's the weakest of their terrain ideas to date. I would've probably liked this a bit better had the picture shown some sort of conversion for the trench, to fit the theme (basically the Cephalyx capture injured bodies and drag them to these places to start their 'work' on them), instead it's a picture of a trench with Cephalyx standing in it. Amazing.
Ranking Officers and Wrath model previews. Rules for the new Ranking Officers that will come in Wrath. There's rules for this type of unit attachment, as well as the rules for the Ogrun Assault Corps, Attendant Priest, Captain Jonas Murdoch, and Koldun Kapitan Valachev (no Cryx! :( ). The Ranking Officers are a cool concept, and there's a lot of potential there, especially given the vast variety of Mercenary units out there. I'm not really qualified to give much tactical advice here, however. It's a brand new option for your armies though, that's extremely exciting. As for the new units, the Ogrun Assault Corps has some serious potential, but it has a very limited selection of factions it'll work for. CMA and CRA on a single unit is pretty fun sounding. All three of the Ranking Officers are pretty awesome. The abilities they'll give to their units are going to make for some VERY interesting combinations. Assault (from Murdoch) is going to be an interesting option, and combined with the various Cygnar ranged attack enhancements could be VERY strong.
Tales from the Iron Kingdom: Prey. This is story about a Totem Hunter hunting a group of Trollkin Champions. Great story. I thought it was pretty well written, and most importantly it moved quickly enough to be enjoyable.
Studio Secrets: Underpainting. Now, this is a technique I've never heard of, but after reading the article, I'm 100% going to have to give it a shot. Basically, you spray on 3 layers of primer, black to grey to white, and use extremely light paint on the top to take advantage of the highlighting caused by the primers. The results (at least those shown in No Quarter) are fantastic, and it looks like it would be fairly fast to do, once it was practiced. It's a VERY interesting technique, and I'm really excited about the idea.
Guts & Gears: Dawnguard. Extra background and tactics for the Retribution's Dawnguard infantry units (the Invictors and Sentinels). The tactics are probably a good read for Retribution players (I have no experience with or against them yet...) but the coolest part of the article for me was the variant paint scheme after the article- the Golden Guard. They are painted to a darkened bronze color scheme, and frankly, it's so awesome looking that I almost went out and bought models for the army the day after seeing it. Seriously- it's pretty sweet looking.
Forces of Distinction. Two new theme forces for Warmachine armies- one for Captain Allister Caine, and one for Aleksandra Zerkova. Regardless of the relative usefulness of these forces, I think the most important thing is that it looks like Privateer Press is going to be occasionally giving players new theme forces to go with their armies. That means that maybe I'll see a nice Epic Asphyxious list that isn't based off of Cephalyx.
Caine's list is Trencher-based, which is different (and means that Caine's Elite Cadre ability is worthless here), but it has some interesting potential. More mobility and protection for your models in the early going- plus extra free Trencher Commando Scattergunners. It feels... a bit strange, since Caine doesn't have all that much to help out the trencher units, although they probably don't need it. Maybe the intent is for Caine to do his assassination thing with as much protection as possible?
Zerkova's list actually looks pretty good. First, you get to take Vanguard light jacks, and with the Tier 4 benefit, they'll actually be a point cheaper. Greylords, Kayazy, Widowmakers, and get this- Gorman di Wulfe are allowed in the list. That's a pretty interesting variety of choices here. I'd love to see this in action, just to get an idea of how it would work on the table.
Modeling and Painting. Battle Wounds and assembly help for Bethanyne and Belphagor. Not of any interest to me, but I'm sure those are handy to plenty of people.
Power Progression: Retribution. Handy if you're a new Retribution player. Glad to see they are doing this for all the factions.
Terrain Building and The Gavyn Kyle Files. Both were kind of 'meh' for me. The terrain is for Retribution themed terrain, which is nice, but I don't think it's terribly exciting. The Gavin Kyle Files were on Saxon Orrik, a very interesting character, but the article didn't really add anything to him that I hadn't heard already, so it was only of medium interest.
Finally, the concept art on the pack is of the Scavenger, the Battle Mechanik Officer (a Battle Mechanik in Man-o-War armor? Hmm), and Constance Blaize. Interesting looking stuff, but I'm more interested in seeing the models (the Scavenger model already looks cool!).
So, there you go. I think it's another fantastic issue by Privateer Press, and if you haven't picked it up, you really should.
To start, there's a lot of Retribution stuff in the issue, starting with the cover. Retribution is a fairly cool faction, and they do a lot of work to give players some fun things for players to think about, both with terrain, alternate color schemes, and tactics.
Alright, so let's go through the main things in the issue:
Strategic Academy: Minions. Basic tactics and ideas for using the various Minion choices in the Hordes armies, as well as some thoughts on how to use the new warlocks. Like all of the Strategic Academy articles, they are a good start for people looking for tactics, and I'm sure there's plenty of good information here for everyone. That part on using Minions with Skorne isn't terribly amazing, but really, Skorne are so great it doesn't matter :).
Campaign Terrain. This article covers a Cephalyx Slave Pit- a type of trench that may prevent grunts from actually dying when nearby, with the ability to rescue them. I don't think that this really adds anything exciting to the game, truth be told, and I think it's the weakest of their terrain ideas to date. I would've probably liked this a bit better had the picture shown some sort of conversion for the trench, to fit the theme (basically the Cephalyx capture injured bodies and drag them to these places to start their 'work' on them), instead it's a picture of a trench with Cephalyx standing in it. Amazing.
Ranking Officers and Wrath model previews. Rules for the new Ranking Officers that will come in Wrath. There's rules for this type of unit attachment, as well as the rules for the Ogrun Assault Corps, Attendant Priest, Captain Jonas Murdoch, and Koldun Kapitan Valachev (no Cryx! :( ). The Ranking Officers are a cool concept, and there's a lot of potential there, especially given the vast variety of Mercenary units out there. I'm not really qualified to give much tactical advice here, however. It's a brand new option for your armies though, that's extremely exciting. As for the new units, the Ogrun Assault Corps has some serious potential, but it has a very limited selection of factions it'll work for. CMA and CRA on a single unit is pretty fun sounding. All three of the Ranking Officers are pretty awesome. The abilities they'll give to their units are going to make for some VERY interesting combinations. Assault (from Murdoch) is going to be an interesting option, and combined with the various Cygnar ranged attack enhancements could be VERY strong.
Tales from the Iron Kingdom: Prey. This is story about a Totem Hunter hunting a group of Trollkin Champions. Great story. I thought it was pretty well written, and most importantly it moved quickly enough to be enjoyable.
Studio Secrets: Underpainting. Now, this is a technique I've never heard of, but after reading the article, I'm 100% going to have to give it a shot. Basically, you spray on 3 layers of primer, black to grey to white, and use extremely light paint on the top to take advantage of the highlighting caused by the primers. The results (at least those shown in No Quarter) are fantastic, and it looks like it would be fairly fast to do, once it was practiced. It's a VERY interesting technique, and I'm really excited about the idea.
Guts & Gears: Dawnguard. Extra background and tactics for the Retribution's Dawnguard infantry units (the Invictors and Sentinels). The tactics are probably a good read for Retribution players (I have no experience with or against them yet...) but the coolest part of the article for me was the variant paint scheme after the article- the Golden Guard. They are painted to a darkened bronze color scheme, and frankly, it's so awesome looking that I almost went out and bought models for the army the day after seeing it. Seriously- it's pretty sweet looking.
Forces of Distinction. Two new theme forces for Warmachine armies- one for Captain Allister Caine, and one for Aleksandra Zerkova. Regardless of the relative usefulness of these forces, I think the most important thing is that it looks like Privateer Press is going to be occasionally giving players new theme forces to go with their armies. That means that maybe I'll see a nice Epic Asphyxious list that isn't based off of Cephalyx.
Caine's list is Trencher-based, which is different (and means that Caine's Elite Cadre ability is worthless here), but it has some interesting potential. More mobility and protection for your models in the early going- plus extra free Trencher Commando Scattergunners. It feels... a bit strange, since Caine doesn't have all that much to help out the trencher units, although they probably don't need it. Maybe the intent is for Caine to do his assassination thing with as much protection as possible?
Zerkova's list actually looks pretty good. First, you get to take Vanguard light jacks, and with the Tier 4 benefit, they'll actually be a point cheaper. Greylords, Kayazy, Widowmakers, and get this- Gorman di Wulfe are allowed in the list. That's a pretty interesting variety of choices here. I'd love to see this in action, just to get an idea of how it would work on the table.
Modeling and Painting. Battle Wounds and assembly help for Bethanyne and Belphagor. Not of any interest to me, but I'm sure those are handy to plenty of people.
Power Progression: Retribution. Handy if you're a new Retribution player. Glad to see they are doing this for all the factions.
Terrain Building and The Gavyn Kyle Files. Both were kind of 'meh' for me. The terrain is for Retribution themed terrain, which is nice, but I don't think it's terribly exciting. The Gavin Kyle Files were on Saxon Orrik, a very interesting character, but the article didn't really add anything to him that I hadn't heard already, so it was only of medium interest.
Finally, the concept art on the pack is of the Scavenger, the Battle Mechanik Officer (a Battle Mechanik in Man-o-War armor? Hmm), and Constance Blaize. Interesting looking stuff, but I'm more interested in seeing the models (the Scavenger model already looks cool!).
So, there you go. I think it's another fantastic issue by Privateer Press, and if you haven't picked it up, you really should.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Going to PrezCon 2011
Well, PrezCon 2011 is coming up (end of February!), and I've finally begun planning what I'm going to be bringing and playing there.
I posted a geeklist on Boardgamegeek with the games I will be bringing to PrezCon, as well as what my buddy Rob will be bringing as well. He'll bring a few other games as well, which are also on the list. Check out the list here.
If you see these games being played, and see me playing them (I'll be the handsome guy with the red hair. Handsome-ness not guaranteed), come up and say hi!
I posted a geeklist on Boardgamegeek with the games I will be bringing to PrezCon, as well as what my buddy Rob will be bringing as well. He'll bring a few other games as well, which are also on the list. Check out the list here.
If you see these games being played, and see me playing them (I'll be the handsome guy with the red hair. Handsome-ness not guaranteed), come up and say hi!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
2010 Recap, and my hopes for 2011
Just as with all my blogs, I'm putting up a post to summarize the last year (as far as gaming is concerned), and look towards the next one.
First, let's start with the blog. I finally moved away from doing news, because CSW does it better, and started putting content up on here. Last year that consisted of 53 posts, most of it news, but resulted in 950 visits from 589 visitors (since April). The five most popular searches that led here were "Cardboard Warriors", "Cardboard Soldiers", "White Star Rising", "Wargame Publishers", and "Spearpoint 1943". I managed to get 3 Battle Reports and a discussion about a book up here, but that's about all for real content. Not very impressive.
Gaming wise, I did a lot better. Looking through my plays listed on Boardgamegeek, here are my wargame plays for the past year:
Reviews are something I've not quit gotten around to on this blog. There are two reasons for this. First, I feel that a person should play a game several times, be familiar enough with all of the variants and ways to play the game, and have a pretty good experience handling the game as a whole to give a good review, and there aren't many games I'm qualified to do that with. Second, most of the games I'm at this skill level with are older, and the average person who wants to read a review is going to want it about a newer game which they are interested in buying. With that said, I may still throw a few up there this year, simply 'because'. We'll see.
I may take a crack at designing a scenario or two for various game systems, but we'll see if I get that far. With my life a bit more stable, PrezCon and the Winter Offensive coming up, and a lot of new games to get on the table, you can be sure this is going to be a great year to read this blog!
First, let's start with the blog. I finally moved away from doing news, because CSW does it better, and started putting content up on here. Last year that consisted of 53 posts, most of it news, but resulted in 950 visits from 589 visitors (since April). The five most popular searches that led here were "Cardboard Warriors", "Cardboard Soldiers", "White Star Rising", "Wargame Publishers", and "Spearpoint 1943". I managed to get 3 Battle Reports and a discussion about a book up here, but that's about all for real content. Not very impressive.
Gaming wise, I did a lot better. Looking through my plays listed on Boardgamegeek, here are my wargame plays for the past year:
- Advanced Squad Leader 17
- Some Poles Apart: The Battle of the Westerplatte 9
- Frontline General: Spearpoint 1943 7
- Manoeuvre 6
- All Things Zombie: The Boardgame 4
- Dust Tactics 2
- Nations at War: White Star Rising 2
- Wellington 2
- 1898: The Spanish American War 1
- Corps Command: Dawn's Early Light 1
- Dixie: Bull Run 1
- Hold the Line 1
- Jena 20 1
- Kingmaker 1
- Panzer Grenadier: Airborne (Introductory Edition) 1
- Triumph of Chaos 1
- World in Flames 1
Reviews are something I've not quit gotten around to on this blog. There are two reasons for this. First, I feel that a person should play a game several times, be familiar enough with all of the variants and ways to play the game, and have a pretty good experience handling the game as a whole to give a good review, and there aren't many games I'm qualified to do that with. Second, most of the games I'm at this skill level with are older, and the average person who wants to read a review is going to want it about a newer game which they are interested in buying. With that said, I may still throw a few up there this year, simply 'because'. We'll see.
I may take a crack at designing a scenario or two for various game systems, but we'll see if I get that far. With my life a bit more stable, PrezCon and the Winter Offensive coming up, and a lot of new games to get on the table, you can be sure this is going to be a great year to read this blog!
Recap of 2010 for this blog, and what to look forward to in 2011
Well, another year gone away, and a new one to look forward to.
I'm going to spare everyone a long post about how and why I failed probably all of my last year's resolutions; instead I'll look at what I managed to do last year, and what I hope to do this upcoming year.
To start, last year I played 19 games of Warmachine and Hordes, 7 games of Warhammer Fantasy, 2 games of Arcane Legions, 2 games of Space Hulk, 2 games of Warhammer 40K, and a game of Lord of the Rings. That's not a terrible amount (almost 3 games a month), but I'm sure I could do better, and I plan to.
I put up 101 posts last year, here on this blog. I won't pretend that many of them were worth reading to the random person on the Internet, but there were a few articles that I think turned out well, in particular my Skorne and Dark Elf articles. The posts resulted in 9,350 visits from 5,291 visitors... and that's just since April (when I started using Google Analytics). The 5 most common searches, in order, that sent people to my blog were "Dark Elves in 8th" (in a variety of forms), "Boisterous Exhuberance", "Deneghra Tier List",
"No Quarter 31", and "Asphyxious Tier List".
I didn't really paint that much last year, although I did make progress in several areas, especially on my Cold One Knights and my Skorne stuff. Nothing finished, but if I can focus on working on it, I just may get things completed this year. I also assembled a bunch of models last year. Not too terrible from that standpoint.
So, what's in store for 2011? I'm not going to make hard resolutions, since my success rate with them has been... well, terrible. The big goals this year will just be more of the same, but also more of the stuff I haven't been doing. For instance, although working on my Warmachine/Hordes armies is a blast, and I enjoy playing them, they aren't the only game I love. I really want to get more games of 40K in, especially with the Chaos Space Marine army I'm building (I also want to play a bunch of Killzone games). I plan to play more Games Workshop games, in addition to giving Malifaux and probably Firestorm Armada a try this year. In addition, the building and painting will definitely be happening in the background.
Once again, I don't intend to proxy. I got in the habit of proxying a little over the years since college, and I'm glad I forced myself out of it the past year. We play with miniatures because it creates a visual experience we can't get with other boardgames. Part of the joy of that visual experience is to provide the tools (models) that we are expected to provide for that game. I don't plan on proxying again, if I can help it.
As for articles, I'm going to start working on my Skorne articles once again, and I may even throw out some Cryx ones. I also have some basic designs for some posts on a miniature game based off a popular fantasy book series, just to keep me busy. All of this and more coming in 2011 :).
Thanks for reading guys!
I'm going to spare everyone a long post about how and why I failed probably all of my last year's resolutions; instead I'll look at what I managed to do last year, and what I hope to do this upcoming year.
To start, last year I played 19 games of Warmachine and Hordes, 7 games of Warhammer Fantasy, 2 games of Arcane Legions, 2 games of Space Hulk, 2 games of Warhammer 40K, and a game of Lord of the Rings. That's not a terrible amount (almost 3 games a month), but I'm sure I could do better, and I plan to.
I put up 101 posts last year, here on this blog. I won't pretend that many of them were worth reading to the random person on the Internet, but there were a few articles that I think turned out well, in particular my Skorne and Dark Elf articles. The posts resulted in 9,350 visits from 5,291 visitors... and that's just since April (when I started using Google Analytics). The 5 most common searches, in order, that sent people to my blog were "Dark Elves in 8th" (in a variety of forms), "Boisterous Exhuberance", "Deneghra Tier List",
"No Quarter 31", and "Asphyxious Tier List".
I didn't really paint that much last year, although I did make progress in several areas, especially on my Cold One Knights and my Skorne stuff. Nothing finished, but if I can focus on working on it, I just may get things completed this year. I also assembled a bunch of models last year. Not too terrible from that standpoint.
So, what's in store for 2011? I'm not going to make hard resolutions, since my success rate with them has been... well, terrible. The big goals this year will just be more of the same, but also more of the stuff I haven't been doing. For instance, although working on my Warmachine/Hordes armies is a blast, and I enjoy playing them, they aren't the only game I love. I really want to get more games of 40K in, especially with the Chaos Space Marine army I'm building (I also want to play a bunch of Killzone games). I plan to play more Games Workshop games, in addition to giving Malifaux and probably Firestorm Armada a try this year. In addition, the building and painting will definitely be happening in the background.
Once again, I don't intend to proxy. I got in the habit of proxying a little over the years since college, and I'm glad I forced myself out of it the past year. We play with miniatures because it creates a visual experience we can't get with other boardgames. Part of the joy of that visual experience is to provide the tools (models) that we are expected to provide for that game. I don't plan on proxying again, if I can help it.
As for articles, I'm going to start working on my Skorne articles once again, and I may even throw out some Cryx ones. I also have some basic designs for some posts on a miniature game based off a popular fantasy book series, just to keep me busy. All of this and more coming in 2011 :).
Thanks for reading guys!
Monday, January 3, 2011
Local Competition December Results
Painting: Frans painted a ton of models this month, as you can see on his blog, so he won here.
Construction: Frans also did the most assembling of anyone, including a small conversion for his Plagueclaw Catapult. Definitely a point here as well.
Blogging: And Frans wins the point here! He's begun a series of articles on the Skaven army in Fantasy, as well as posted a ton of progress about his Skaven. Great stuff!
Gaming: I get the point here, since no one played many games this month.
Totals, and final results:
Frans: 9 (3 Playing, 2 Construction, 3 Painting, 1 Blogging)
Steve (me): 7 (4 Blogging, 3 Gaming)
Ben: 4 (3 Painting, 1 Blogging)
BK: 2 (2 Construction)
Rob: 2 (2 Construction)
Nathan: 0
So, the final score has Frans as the winner. CONGRATULATIONS MAN! Not only does he get the joy of beating us all, but he made some good progress on his Skaven army as well.
For this upcoming year, we're not really sure what we'll do with this, or indeed if we'll have it at all. I certainly hope so, but that's going to depend on interest :).
Construction: Frans also did the most assembling of anyone, including a small conversion for his Plagueclaw Catapult. Definitely a point here as well.
Blogging: And Frans wins the point here! He's begun a series of articles on the Skaven army in Fantasy, as well as posted a ton of progress about his Skaven. Great stuff!
Gaming: I get the point here, since no one played many games this month.
Totals, and final results:
Frans: 9 (3 Playing, 2 Construction, 3 Painting, 1 Blogging)
Steve (me): 7 (4 Blogging, 3 Gaming)
Ben: 4 (3 Painting, 1 Blogging)
BK: 2 (2 Construction)
Rob: 2 (2 Construction)
Nathan: 0
So, the final score has Frans as the winner. CONGRATULATIONS MAN! Not only does he get the joy of beating us all, but he made some good progress on his Skaven army as well.
For this upcoming year, we're not really sure what we'll do with this, or indeed if we'll have it at all. I certainly hope so, but that's going to depend on interest :).
Accomplishments for December
Annnnd ended the year on a fairly un-productive note.
I did no painting this past month, and as you can tell from my blog I really didn't do a whole lot of blogging, and certainly nothing outstanding even so.
For Assembly, I finished the assembly of my Soulhunters, as well as assembled my Warwitch Siren and Rutger Shaw.
With gaming, I played a single 35 point game of Warmachine, as well as played 2 games of Blood Bowl.
I'll have the final results of the local competition up soon!
I did no painting this past month, and as you can tell from my blog I really didn't do a whole lot of blogging, and certainly nothing outstanding even so.
For Assembly, I finished the assembly of my Soulhunters, as well as assembled my Warwitch Siren and Rutger Shaw.
With gaming, I played a single 35 point game of Warmachine, as well as played 2 games of Blood Bowl.
I'll have the final results of the local competition up soon!
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