Opportunity Lost

Most people who care would already know that Games Workshop has canceled its production of its Specialist games.
Apparently the speculated reasoning behind  this decision is that they were unprofitable. Now I don't have any idea how much it cost to produce, store and ship the diminished quantity of models they would sell to the public.
It must be significantly less then what they make out of their big three games Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and Lord of the Rings/Hobbit strategy battle game. Perhaps they think that redirecting their resources towards the big 3 will reap higher profit margins.
However there must be some money to be made, there has been a surge in the last ten years of other games companies moving in on GWs turf. Some of these companies compete directly with GW fan-base while others have moved into the margins that GW has abandoned.

Tiny cute 40k perfect for roleplay.

Spartan Games is a company that produces some very nice games.  Their three most popular are Uncharted seas, Firestorm Armada and Dystopian Wars and are very similar to three of GWs specialist games Man O' War, Battlefleet Gothic and Epic Armageddon. Spartan Games has not ripped off GamesWorkshop, their games are fully realised creations with their own unique rules and back-story. But would there have been room in the market had not GW abandoned its share of the customer base?

Another very popular GW specialist game is Blood Bowl and another Company that has found a receptive market in the space abandoned by GW is Mantic Games -  their DreadBall has become quite popular. I wonder if people will stay loyal to Blood Bowl when DreadBall has a slew of teams and with more on the way?

In the grim darkness of the far future
there is only gang war!

My last and favorite GamesWorkshop Specialist game is Necromunda.  I never got a chance to play but the time for that may still yet come. The image of Necro/Goth Punk gangs battling over turf in the twisting foundations of a hive like mega-city has haunted my dreams. It seams that the idea of a SiFi skirmish level game, dominated with dense terrain is a popular concept. There are numerous companies that compete for this sliver of the wargaming market, a pair of the notable are Corvus Belli that produce Infinity and the upcoming DeadZone by Mantic.

While the percentage of profits of these smaller and less popular games may be a lot less then the big 3 they also were never supported like the big three. Some were given new rules and campaign supplements and the odd WhiteDwarf article. But there was nothing like the host of new editions, rules revision, FAQs and the army book/codex system for faction specific updates. The specialist games also helped newer customers enter the hobby who would otherwise be excluded because of the high cost of starting one of the core games. I myself was lured in by playing HeroQuest and SpaceCrusade. Another aspect is the specialist games with their often radically different play-styles, which helped prevent gamers from getting burnt out or bored with the core systems.

The main reason I am currently upset is the Epic & Battlefleet miniatures work great for role-play especially since Rouge Trader has some nifty rules for spaceship, ground vehicle & aerial combat. Also one of the recent acquisitions of my players was an Aquila Lander. I have loved the unusual look of the Aquila and the utilitarian style of the Arvus Lighter since I first saw it on the Forge World site. I have longed for a reason to purchase one of each but it seems it has been removed from the Forge World site along with its more reasonable prices Epic scale incarnation.


So many links 

Roleplay & Gaming Aids

When I first started playing tabletop games it was the Games Workshop based Milton Bradley board games HeroQuest and Space Crusade. My brother and I then moved to Warhammer 40,000 2nd ed. These games had a few things in common a great story and game universe, narrative driven conflict, loads of miniatures and 3D terrain.

Many years later my first experience of a true Role-playing game was a sit in on a session of D&D 4th ed. I wasn't familiar with the game universe but I could appreciate the imagery that the DM was weaving as the party played through a few interactions. I enjoyed the free form and unstructured nature of play. You could declare that you character was taking any type of action only constrained by your imagination and the roll of a d20.
I was a little bemused when it came to combat the DM would draw simple maps, the party and adversary's were represented by paper tokens.

HeroQuest Dungeons

I was expecting a board more like the HeroQuest dungeons of my childhood. 3D Doors and furniture, swarms of horrible monsters and mighty heroes all in miniature form. I was wondering why bother with the paper maps and tokens at all? The magic of the noncombat encounters seemed broken by the board game like combat. It wasn't until I got my hands on the player's hand book that I realised that D&D was two games. The free-form Role-Play game and not a bad tactical miniature skirmish game with structured rules. Any combat using the book rules would be difficult without a tactical map movement and positioning in combat was immensely important and tokens would be necessary to avoid confusion. After some research I found that in previous editions this was not always the case. And in the future it may no longer be the case.

Now that I am running a game, I find myself at an impasse. I like the feeling of a game has when it is condensed from the combined imaginations of my players. But I still long for a scene of tiny heroes crawling over the ruins of a destroyed alien city in the pursuit of forbidden treasure.

Warhammer 40K Terrain

The game system I am running is Rouge Trader and the combat rules seem malleable enough to used in a purely narrative fashion. However my long time geek love has been Warhammer 40k and its universe. A lot of what defines 40k is its armies of overpriced plastic warriors battling to the death on top of synthetic battlegrounds.

So the compromise I have reached is all of the noncombat and most of the minor combat encounters are played out in purely narrative form and the larger more important cliffhanger combat encounters I plan to do something special. Full 3D terrain and miniatures. I only have a small assortment of minis suitable for Rogue Trader mostly Reaper stock. The bulk of my GamesWorkshop figures are Orkoid so I have turned to paper-craft to fulfill my vision of blood-soaked away missions. Terrain would be supplied by the excellent quality World Works Games TerrainLinkX and the bulk of the opponents will be paper standees obtained for a very reasonable price from OneMonk Miniatures.

Paper-craft  products may be incredibly cheap but to produce a quality product takes time if I wasn't running a campaign book I don't think I would be able undertake these projects. Even with a pregenerated plot to follow I found I didn't have sufficient spare time, the TerrainLinkX is a nice product but it takes forever to cut, fold, glue and then leave to dry before gluing again. With a little CADfu and a A0 plotter I found a quicker way. The props and standees were still done the traditional slow way. While googling Paper-craft I stumbled upon some insane 40K vehicles by Eli Patoroch an insanely talented Russian 40k fan on 4shared.

A1 battle mat  

Closeup of TerrainLinX detail

Giant paper-craft bugs

The party is jumped in an alleyway

Tiles & alleyway junk from Worldworks

The Trading of Rogues... and baked goods

So I finally took the plunge and have become a GM the system I have been running is Rouge Trader. So far I have been enjoying it immensely, so much of my childhood was spent completely immersed in the 40K universe, and still now remain heavily invested. I have been running one of the Fantasy Flight campaign books Lure of The Expanse  with some personal flavor. I was a little daunted about how to shepherd a group of PCs that would have some very powerful role-play abilities like the purchasing power of Warren Buffett and a star ship able to nuke any site from orbit. So I decided to limit there amount of obscene wealth and access to ridiculous interstellar craft.

Previously on Rogue Trader...

Ravion Havelock was commandeered by the imperial navy to serve as escort for supply’s to Segmentum Solar during the second war for Armageddon. Ravion was mortally wounded in the war. Singled out for special honours by the lord sub-sector militant, Ravion died before he received any official recognition. He is remembered as a great war hero. 50 years later. The explorers received a summon from the family solicitor Maximus Pembroke, to attend the execution of the last will and testament of Ravion Havelock. Pembroke selected one of the public observation bays near the main ship docks for the formalities. The view of The Emperor’s Hand as is was being returned from service from the Imperial Navy having been refitted and repaired at the Imperial Navy Dry-docks was spectacular. 2.25km long, 9 megatonnes, painted in the black and red of the Havelock family the Emperor’s Hand was an inspiring sight but it was still dwarfed by surrounding larger transports of major merchant families. In attendance were the remaining family members there personal retainers, most of the household staff, several old family friends and some anxious creditors. At the conclusion of the reading of the will Pembroke announced that the final matter for the day was the opening of Ravion’s personal correspondence. There were two items of note. One large envelope and a small bundle of leather journals. The the envelope contained a rare and powerful reward, a warrant of trade granted to Ravion Havelock and all his line. As the explorers digested the gravity of there new elevation in life the room erupted into chaos a grill in the floor exploded as a large rodent snatched the bundle of journals and scampered across the room to escape and five men wearing large coats sprayed the party in auto-pistol fire.

So beside hamstringing my players wealth and supplying them with a hunk of junk to fly around the Galaxy. I have had to take a lump of my imagination an smear it over the pages of a notebook in an attempt to form a corporeal world that others can join. So far I have been somewhat successful, but my players have had me sweating over a possible change in direction for the game.

GM: "So everyone free tomorrow?
I have prepared a bunch and should be ready for anything."

Captain: "Haha ready for anything eh? Them's fightin' words"

GM: "Please don't force me to drop a moon on the party"

Void Master: "Who's ready to give up on all this dread pearl nonsense and start up an intergalactic catering company? Havelock's tea and cupcakes, the must have food for every loyal servant of the emperor. I can see it already..."

Captain: "Hmm I read that in Guybrush Threepwood's voice, it made a lot of sense... Maybe that's a sign that Havelock should spend more time walking around trying to combine stuff with a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle."

Void Master: "I'd love to see you insult power-sword fight our rival rogue trader Fel."

Captain: "You fight like a dairy farmer!"

Seneschal: "Cupcakes.. maybe not. Are communion wafers a thing in 40k?"

Void Master: "They would be grimdark cupcakes, made in the shape of skulls and such."

Seneschal: "That's gotta be good for a laugh at the cake supply shop.. "Uhh, I was wondering if you have any skulls? Double-headed eagles maybe?"

Void Master: "A double headed eagle decorated with skulls! So good it's almost heretical! Havelock's Heretical Treats, place an order today!"

GM: "The inquisition may may have something to say about that...

Hi I am Eisenhorn of the Ordo Xenos and when I am hungry from purging the unclean I always look forward to a snack from Havelock's Heretical Treats. They are so yummy you can taste the Grim Dark!"

Former player: "I hope they have gooey centres."

Seneschal: "Try our new Cup'o'Chaos cupcakes! No two alike, but every one tastes of sweet heresy! Use the pass phrase 'The Ruinous Powers sent me' for a free sample!

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is war and also cupcakes."

If a Rogue Trader sold his ship and turned his attentions to catering they would be an unstoppable force in the culinary world.

So Many Zombies

After completing the task of painting my HeroQuest minis my attentions have turned to the ridiculous amount of  zombies I got with Zombicide Kickstarter. If I don't make a start on this hoard soon then I will end up buried under an avalanche of unpainted plastic with more Kickstarters on there way.

One of problems with painting any gaming figure is the tendency for paint to be rubbed off with repeated use. Zombicide does provide good box control with the use of plastic trays but I was concerned that the tight fitting vacuum formed trays would quickly remove any paint I applied. I remembered that Romeo from BattleFoam was offering a special foam tray set designed for the Zombicide Kickstarter. After a quick search on there site I found they are still offering it for sale. So with some suitable protection for my zombies sourced now I just need to paint 114! miniatures. The thing is most of the tips for paining bulk amounts of minis are aimed at wargamers who field bulk amounts of rank and file troops. I need to figure out how to paint all these zombies without them looking like a platoon of soldiers.
And I need to do it before my Bones, WWX and Zombicide-season2 arrive.

One of the old trays

The two trays hold nearly everything

Everything but the dice, and  books

Laser cut to fit the box

Foam & dice are a little higher than the box 

Testing some color combos

Nostalgic and Contemporary Gaming

Something New

With My DM still lost in the wilds our DnD group has been continuing to look at some different game systems. And with one of our players off busy with the duty of his gainful employment I took the opportunity to bring in my nephew in for a game. He had never played a pen and paper RPG and his only table top experience was a couple games of 40K years ago. Lately his gaming has been restricted to DotA and CoD basically he was supporting everything that was wrong with the gaming industry.
The Savage Worlds game we played was set in Deadlands. It was just one of the free one sheet adventures. I have't tried many different RPG systems and never tried Savage Worlds but the game we played was tons of fun. I gave the rules a good read and I liked what I found. The game is designed to be fast, fun & the rules don't get in the way of role play like the way some of the DnD 4e rules do.
Some of the more notable moments include.

• my gunslinger fanning her hammer to take out a Zombie bandit
• a mad scientist blowing a hole in wall with a lighting bolt to escape a burning building
• a tophat clad huckster exploding two zombie cowboys in showers of gore with a deck of magic cards

My nephew who was a little apprehensive of the whole RP thing loved it, he really liked the whole aspect of building the world in his mind. I was a little worried that he wouldn't get it but despite the paper standees and simple dry erase lines on a perspex sheet he was immersed.

Something Old

The game that started it all for me was HeroQuest I played this game so much with my brother and our friends I think I had memorized the location of every trap on all the maps. we played that game to destruction and years later the few remaining minis were fodder for my first painting attempts and conversions. While my young mind had found new fantastic worlds to explore HeroQuest still held a special place in my geek heart.

A lifetime later a young man and his wife are browsing a thrift shop when the man discovers an ageing but complete copy of his favorite childhood game. He seizes his chance to relive a segment of his past and to finally get a fully painted set of miniatures for HeroQuest.
After much struggling I have managed so slap some paint on my set. Playing with a set that is fully painted felt amazing  but perhaps I see it through a haze of rose tinted nostalgia. The other players stated that they would prefer to play Deadland instead.

Questing Heroes

Goblins

Orks!

The Fimir - I hated theses guys

Chaos Warriors & Wizard

The Bloodthirster Gargoyle

Undead Peasants?

Zombies & Mummy s 

Q:When the DM is away will the PCs still play?

A:Yes 

The DM of my regular DnD group is away on a Holiday to South East Asia. Leaving his PCs to there own devices. This would normally be a bad idea with the shenanigans we normally get up to, but as this time we will be outside his universe he is unconcerned with what we get up to.

The decision has been made to try a few different systems over the next few weeks Deadlands and Rogue Trader on top of the list to try first. Our DM has expressed an interest at trying out some other systems but we normally demand that he continue to craft fulling experiences for us as we stamp around in his imagination. It is a pity that when he returns we will had out fill of new systems and expect that he have used his time away to compose a new story ark.

So far while preparing to run these new systems we have played five game of Zombicide each game ended in player victory even if not all the players survived the zombie hordes.

Asshat Hammer

The gaming sites have been exploding with the news that GW  is swinging there legal hammer this time aimed at an author using the term Space Marine this is nothing new. GW has been heavy handed in defending its IP for some time now. However there was I time when GW wasn't the heartless multi-million dollar publicly traded company it is now. In that lost epoch perhaps they had a different view on intellectual property rights.

Lasers Make Everything Better

So a while ago I posted some images of some industrial platforms that literally came to me in a deem.
I refined my designs and sent them out for some CNC laser operators to quote on.
I was surprised that two of the local operators had some of the best prices and were actually interested  in such a small job. Well I had a local guy Lazer GraFX and Carlos from Mechanical Warhorse both make up some sets so I can compare price and build quality.

The Lazer GraFX guy was super fast and I have had there set for a couple of weeks, I expect Mechanical Warhorse to take a couple of weeks for fabrication and then ship from the the US.
Anyway I have had a chance to assemble a set and see if it fits together. It's an interesting experience to visualise something plan it out then then have it arrive on your doorstep. It looks just like I expected it and fits together just as I imagined. I think they will look great painted up. After fitting them together and checking them with some miniatures I have discovered some problems that have made me adjust my designs.
The angles of the ramps are too steep, miniatures tend to tip over also the spacing of my ramps don't allow a standard GW mini base to fit between the notches I designed to prevent minis from slipping along the ramps.
Also the ladders I designed need to be wider to better grasp the edge of a base so the minis can actually climb the ladders.

I need to send wait to see how Carlos dose with his set then I can start sending my revised designs for fabrication then the some I get to paint them and play some games with it.


Except Alderaan

Some of the original plans

The pieces are modular so they could be rearranged  for each battle.

Long ladder.

Short ladder.

The scale looks good.

The ladders actually work.

All the fine detail cut outs look great.

I think a table full of this would be fun to play on.

These are the only sample pieces I had cut