svan_1004

• There were originally supposed to be two combat encounters – zombies in the bar, and zombies in the farmhouse.
  • The bar was handled by getting on the radio to the sheriff and bartender trapped inside, telling him to get down, and then putting a few hundred rounds through the front of the building at about 4′ high. Zombie chop suey. Of course, these were spore zombies, so half the team got infected by the inhaled spores.. not that it was really dangerous – they happened to have two magical healers who cured the infection.
  • The farmhouse was supposed to be fighting with a possessed human, a walking space-tree thing, and a couple dozen zombies coming out of the corn. This didn’t take very long, considering that they tried to talk to the girl, then dropped her with a headshot when she pulled a scattergun on them. At that point, everyone else wasn’t human, so bring on the propane truck and a fuel-air explosion.
• They broke into a radio observatory, stole these poor students’ data, then never used it.
• With all that, they got finished early, so I had to invent more encounters.. hence the zombie pigs, cows and crows.

I think that’s about it.

I’m still impressed with Savage Worlds.

Specifically, Liz was playing Cygnar (shooty) and I was playing Khador (stompy). We were still working out the system and figuring out the wrinkles for the first couple of turns, as my guys charged in. I realized I had to close, so I allocated points to have them run. Liz shot at my guys as they came in, but was limited by the rate of fire of her weapons. So, she hit my guys, but not enough to do any substantial damage.

Once my guys closed, I allocated all the points to them, allowing for massive numbers of melee attacks with boosted (extra dice) to hit and damage rolls. This allows my heavy hitter mech to just crush her light mech in a single turn.

Now, at that point it was 10:00, so we stopped because we’d both had a long week.

If you’ve played Monsterpocalypse, it feels a lot like that.

Its at least as good as 40k, and they’ve put out fewer editions in the given 10 years. Whether this is maintained, or they end up going in to the same edition churn as GW (3 editions in 10 years? Really?) remains to be seen. Further, the minis are in the same price class as GW minis, but (at least theoretically), you need fewer of them – however I’m not sure how true this is. The entry cost seems to be about the same ($50 for a basic couple of units), but with 40k armies, I find that you need to bulk it out to the tune of $200-$500 in order to really get enough variety to work well and keep things interesting. I’m not sure how this works for Warmachine.

(For the curious, I’m not getting rid of my GW minis – after all, I already own them. I’m willing to play 40K under either 3rd or 4th edition rules, as those are the rules I own, and am currently experimenting with the F.A.D. 4.0 rules. I also have some modern minis which I’m going to play with around these rules.. especially since they’re almost all painted..)

The Chaos ships are painted dark green with a couple coats of black wash. The tanks are green and kind of a sand color, with appropriate highlights (treads, etc.) then black wash. The base is painted, and then after this I flocked them (not pictured).

• A goat
• About 5 lbs of C-4
• Containers of salt and nails

Answer: The world’s largest, walking, demon-spawn attracting Claymore mines….

Roleplaying game players are often very, very creative..

Oh, and Savage Worlds works really well.

• Played in a 5150 (by Two Hour Wargames) game. As the name suggests, it is a pretty quick system, but I’d argue that it was only so quick because half the people knew how to play, and it is *very* bloody. We played two games in two hours. The mechanic which makes it so bloody is that every time you take fire, you roll a check. If you pass, you get to return fire… and then the other guy gets to make the same check. This continues until someone routs, runs out of ammo, dies, or fails the check. The system is about as complex as battletech or 40k, which is acceptable for most folks, but I’m not really interested in picking up another set of reasonably complex rules unless they really speak to me. These don’t.

• As always, there’s lots of stuff in the dealer’s area, including a few lines of 15mm modern. I’m finding I like the smaller scales as opposed to the large ones. For fantasy or small squad or team-based games, 15-30mm is nice. However, when doing armies, the ground scale gets stupid (my 6″ long tank can only shoot 48″!!!) and the armies get expensive. I think it’s better to buy 15mm figures, base them individually, and just play with the 25mm scale rules. For smaller stuff (6mm), base in groups and run like that.

• I also found some guys selling micro armor for about $1 per mini, new, which is considerably less than GHQ. The quality seems decent too, but the modern selection seems limited to US and Russian. However, since SO many countries use Russian equipment, this is not as bad as it sounds.

• I also spent some time with the bored people at the painting university (well, I shouldn’t say bored per se – they were painting or otherwise working on things, but they weren’t teaching them). A very nice lady named Dorothy from The War Store sat with me for about an hour, and cleared up a lot of what I’ve been doing wrong all these years.
  • There is a DEMONSTRABLE difference between cheap brushes and good brushes. Good brushes end up being more expensive, but they last longer, so it is a wash in the end.
  • There is also a similar difference between paints. Craft paints work well at the thicknesses at which they come, maybe a little thinner. However, the size of the individual bits of pigment is quite large, so they end up not thinning out as well – they get chunky and grainy.
  • Liz and I quickly realized the above things (quality mattering) when it comes to house paint – I don’t know why we thought differently when it came to model paint.
  • Gloss paints seal the model, so that will TOTALLY mess up any washes you’re trying to do.
  • She also introduced me to a wonderful idea, the wet palette. The idea is that it is a plastic box, with a wet sponge in the bottom, and a special paper (somewhat like wax paper or butcher paper) above that. Paints go on the paper, and the sponge keeps it moist for hours. Seal up the box, and it will last for days or weeks – no more mixing a color only to have it dry out too fast!

And now, some pictures…

• TV goes on this wall
• That determines speaker and seating placement
• We’d like to have the kegerator over there
• Popcorn machine goes there.
• That leaves this big empty space… what goes there?

Enter, GeekChic, and their Spartan gaming table. Bar height, perfect for the spot, just needs some stools with backs and we’re good.

Now, I should mention that they don’t yet have it on the website, but I heard about it in an interview on All Games Considered, so I emailed them. A very nice woman named Brenda sent me information on it (and her email is enabler@ – how cool is that?) including some pictures, which are included below. I am reposting with their permission.

The real nice thing about it, in addition to the under-table storage (I’ll likely go with proper doors. While I like Shoji screens, I don’t think they’re survive kitties), the recessed play surface can have terrain and bits on it, and then I can put in the leaves to cover it up and present a smooth surface. Kitty proof and out of sight. The main compelling feature for me is having a safe place to leave terrain set up.

• Been sick with the seasonal flu. Got better. Mostly. Have this nagging cough which is bothering me. But, feeling a little better each day.

• A guy emailed me asking about his website. WTF? Well, apparently there is another Matt Caron, who owns 8bitorange.net, and this guy was looking for web design. Of course, I go look at the site, and I’m like “gack! You need a website redesign, so instead of just doing it, you put up a witty placeholder?” So unprofessional. I didn’t even do that when I redesigned this site, and it’s just a hobby/personal site, not something for a business. But, this ia one of the problems with the state of the industry today. Surprising that anything works.

• A friend sent me this very amusing video clip

• Traveller
• Alternity
• Full Thrust

(Primarily the last one).

Full Thrust is a very good space combat game, and the rules are available for free from Ground Zero Games website.

The main issue with them is that the rules are spread across 4 books, and later books replace rules in earlier books, so it’s pretty hard to learn to play just from books and playing – you kind of need someone to teach you.

A couple of years ago, the thought briefly crossed my mind to do a revised compilation of the rules (with GZG’s permission), but it appears that someone beat me too it, and good for him!

Anyway, I’m also thinking of a Transhuman Space / Traveller / Alternity: Star Drive game, likely using Savage Worlds rules and exploring the worlds a bit.

Of course, there’s also Eclipse Phase, which I’m still reading.