Analog Games

While I haven't played a board game since moving out to CA( :/ ), I couldn't resist picking this up when I saw it as  http://www.miniaturemarket.com/  's deal of the day.  The title didn't jump out at me, but after a little research it looked like something that would be right up my alley. The game reminds me of a mixture between Axis and Allies and Twilight Struggle.  You break down into two asymetrical sides, with players controlling a different amount of countries based on the number of players in the game.  Each country is represented by its board position but also has a unique deck of cards, which is what really sold me on the game. Gameplay itself looks fairly simple.  The game is played over 20 rounds, and on each turn you play a card, check for supply, update victory points and then discard/draw.  Some cards give immediate effects like attacking or building more armies, some cards give a permanent bonus and some are kept hidden until they...

Even though I'm not actively playing X-Wing I couldn't resist picking up one of these.  It reminds me of a Star Fury and is exactly the sort of ship I am drawn to in X-Wing despite myself(see my 3 TIE-Defenders).  What do I think of the Star Viper? Compared to the X-Wing golden standard, it gains a defense die and trades a shield for an armor.  The viper also gains the barrel roll and boost abilities.  Where it really shines is the movement dial.  Having a full row for one and two is really hot and the curved K-turns have potential too.  Sadly, this all comes in for 4 extra points...which gives me real doubts about its general use.  IMO they compare favorably to the E-Wing or Defender but generic versions of those don't see much play either. Guri and Prince Xizor are the two named pilots.  Guri seems solid, any ability to gain a free action is one I am happy with.  If he ends at range one he can have both a focus and a target lock, or h...

So I won the local Attack Wing Resistance is Futile event.  This sounds longer than it really was, as it was just playing 3 separate events once per month.  To keep the Borg theme, the ships won were all partially converted Alpha Quadrant ships, with the grand prize being a variant Borg Tactical Cube. I'm honestly more excited for the Galor class The local Attack Wing community has been excellent.  Great gamers who also appear to be into Euro-style board games.  The organizer changes things up in a few ways that I really appreciate too:  they order more packs from Wizkids so that for most events everyone gets a ship and offers 3 bounties per event when building your fleet.  These are restrictions like equipping every ship with a photon torpedo or playing a pure Cardassian fleet(which I was more than happy to do). The changes in scenario and terrain are nice too.  I hear X-wing hasn't really changed at all in regards to that and its really a sham...

Right from the start the MK II point system was controversial.  While the Mk1 system was incredibly fiddly, in both scale and how you purchased units, the MK II system was incredibly simple.  The suggestion to double the scale was rejected in the field test with DC stating that there wasn't any problem and you could simply tack rules onto a model to make it worth its points. Enter the Adepts... At this point its rather obvious that this didn't work out.  A common, and justified criticism, is the granularity on the smaller end of the scale.  Jumping from 1 to 2 points is a 100% increase and 2 to 3 falls to a mere 50%.  Rules can't just be added to a model to balance this either.  There aren't half rules steps so you still fall into a granularity trap alongside other issues such as models not being able to fully utilize their special abilities package. The One Point Difference From a game design perspective a less obvious takeaway is its important ...

While I am completely out of modern X-Wing it was fun to see this: http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/02/x-wing-rise-two-ship-meta.html One, its good to see those X-Wing players finally catching up to what Attack Wing was doing a year ago.  Its a funny bit of parallelism there. I also remember trolling Matt with Lucas on this very subject when they changed the scenario rules.  "Good" to see we weren't off on that one.  I always did want to fly double Decimator.

Price on the other hand... As an understatement, I've been a bit of a critic to 40k.  However there are aspects of the design of 40k that have become more apparent both over time and due to lack of it.  From an outsiders perspective the game 40k appears to be very approachable.  This isn't quite the right term for it, but 40k is a game where to get the experience that it will deliver ,as it were, doesn't require a large learning curve nor are the rules a barrier on entry. These are really pretty books. Where am I going with this?  Recently thanks to work, I don't have quite the same mental energy for gaming.  While work has been very engaging, it has also involved plenty of learning and plenty of background cycles.  I've also been wanting a sci-fi miniatures game and  Infinity  has just come out with a third edition.  This has not meshed well. A brief summary of the hacking special abilities 0.o Now, I've read through N...

Huh.  I wasn't expecting a fleet battle game as the first thing out of the gate for Spartan Games.  The two sides were just so asymmetrically matched in space.  From what I remember it the UNSC needed a 5:1 ratio to really win space battles against the Covenant.  Now this could be set post-War were there is more of a balance to things but that is unlikely with them showing Marathon class ships. What could be neat is if that asymmetrical nature is captured somehow in scenario play, or scenario play with the Covenant trying to glass human planets. From the sounds of it, the ground battle games are going to be 15mm as well.  Its a scale I really like  for sci-fi games but I wanted a 28mm Master Chief to paint.

Curiosity piqued.

While I am ditching games, there are some games I am going to keep around despite the lack of play on their part.  At the very least there should be more swap meets later down the road... What I don't have is a good group that moves between games.  Really missing the MNI in that regards, as during the golden period it had a great schedule between mini gaming and board gaming.  Knowing I have a group like that would help ease some of the issues here, but CA gamers seem to be more single game focused. I haven't played a board game since moving to CA.  Thankfully I honestly miss playing board games and have been invited to play with a more established board game group(if only I could stop being busy randomly Monday evenings).  These were also dramatically thinned down so I can't think of a board game I own now that I wouldn't want to play.  Hopefully I will get a game in soon... Turret-Wing is another game I haven't played since moving here.  ...

So one of my local stores,  Game Kastle , is having a swap meet.  As I'm on my fourth month in CA I've had plenty of time to see what I actually play.  Moving has helped focus this as well, I had far too many games that I just wasn't playing even if I enjoyed them and space is at far more of a premium here. What I'm thinking of selling: 40k is easily on the table.  I haven't really played this game in years, nor do I think I would enjoy it if I did.  On top of that it's incredibly expensive.  GW is the sick man of Europe and it seems best to dump this while I can.  I'm somewhat curious what my Chaos Dwarves models would bring me too. Why should I keep it? I really do love how Tau look and I think I would enjoy painting them.  Sadly HG scratches this same itch. Malifaux is on the table as well.  I enjoyed playing it in Dallas, but that was largely due to the community that played it there.  The 2nd edition, while excellen...

Thanks to the rain I haven't wanted to risk priming models so I've knocked out some random terrain projects I've been meaning to do forever.  The first is making some 3'x3' gaming mats for random space game.  I started with some black felt and lightly dusted them with white spray paint.  I think splattered some paint on them to finish that star look. Before/after spray: After stars added: I kinda want to try this for both Warmachine and Malifaux.  The 3'x3' would be especially great for Malifaux.  Spray painting helps the felt not look a flat boring color like it normally does and also helps matte it down some so its not as bad to play on. I also assembled and painted some Warsenal terrain: I love the computer terminals and communications array.