My daughter and I spent an afternoon in the shed - she painting her toy Hogwarts into a medieval monastery, and I pottering around finding and painting some LoTR models - I found 9 Easterlings from 2022 which brings my total painted LoTR for the year to 344.
The Hogwarts may not win any modelling competitions but it's not bad for a 9-year-old occasionally assisted by dad. Here's what it originally looked like:
As part of the deal, she had to help me paint some barrels I found in a box before I helped her with the inside.
They aren't to scale at all, but it kinda looks OK from distance. Maybe a medieval inn or manor house?
Finally, I managed to paint some Rangers as "Blackroot Vale Archers" and Prince Imrahil and some random Fiefdoms dude who will be a captain for them. Along with 4 more Guards of the Fountain Court it brings my total of LoTR in 2023 to.... 10.
OK, just 335 more to go this year to beat my record...
In other news, my Battletech: Game of Armoured Combat arrived. The mecha minis are great but the rules are just as clunky and awful as I remember. Back to scratch building my own rules I guess...
As I was disgusted with the $50+50 postage price of Spectre:Operations I decided to make my own game, and bought two rulesets with the money I saved. Since they were $40 and $45, I actually "earned" $5. Or that's how I explained it to my wife...
Both purchases somewhat have my kids in mind. As we are reading Redwall, Burrows and Badgers looks interesting. While my daughter likes the cute models she was asking about pirates (I do have some nice Black Scorpion metals) and my son was asking about sailing ships as we have been playing Sea of Thieves together on PC. I've dug out a copy of Fighting Sail (the least clunky sailing rules I own) and some Tumbling Dice 1:2400 which haven't seen the light of day since 2018.
The second is I have been cleaning out old minis by the simple expedient of handing them to my son. Since we are reading Rosemary Sutcliffe's Beowulf he has come into possession of some PSC vikings with the warning I regard them as annoyingly breakable, so his viking dudes flimsy weapons may not survive long. Thus I bought a copy of Ragnarok: Heavy Metal, a game which seems almost impossible to obtain a review or playtest (or perhaps my Google-Fu is weak). For a game with several follow-up expansion books, it seems pretty unknown. Like Burrows & Badgers, it is also a skirmish, narrative campaign system about vikings who collect and level up god powers after said powers were scattered about after Ragnarok. Hopefully they are winging on their way, and Australia Post doesn't lose them like my $90 skateboard trucks *shakes fist*.
If you are interested, here is my take on Ragnarok:
ReplyDeletehttp://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2020/02/review-ragnarok-osprey-games.html
Thanks! Luckily your description matches what I guessed; interestingly their stat vs stat, 2d6 is pretty much identical with what I am doing in my not-Battletech game, but with d10.
Delete(I compare stats, then use the difference to modify a TN which is 5+ (50%) on a d10... is this kinda the same, but with 2d6? I think?)
I almost do the same, but my 4+ is a 'critical hit' on the mech, not Godspark....
A nice review, I think you summed it up great! Have you had a chance to look at either of the two expansions for the game? I'm curious whether they add anything significant to the game or just pile on more additional options (which there is plenty of in the original book). For me the biggest problem is the way you generate godspark, basically the game wants everyone to end up in a bih pile in the middle just bashing each other up to generate the most godspark the fastest.
DeleteI never picked up the expansions. However, I know that Osprey is relatively averse to expansions unless the previous one sells rather well. The fact that it has two means it sold well, but like you I have seen very little about it online.
DeleteAsh from Guerrilla Miniature Games made both a review and a playthrough on his youtube channel if that's any help. The game was super hyped at the time of it's release and then completely fell of the radar as if overnight, not sure what happened there. I only got to play it like 2 times, the mechanics were decent and easy to pick up - I like the 2D6 system that the author calls the 'Morpheus engine' - makes it sound like it's something super unique and revolutionary ;) The scenarios might need some extra secondary objectives or something, otherwise it seems to end up as a big brawl in the middle. I'd really like to play this game some more, a small campaign perhaps even, sounds like it could be fun. Looking forward to see how you feel about it after a few plays.
ReplyDeleteBurrows & Badgers get an instant +1 from me. The setting and minis are just gorgeous and immediately draw you in. It has a solid campaign system and a loooot of options to personalize 'your guys' the way you like. My only gripe with the game was the 'hide & ambush' system which seemed to be needlessly fiddly and imho the game would work just fine if it weren't in the game at all.
Good luck and have fun with the games!