Just realised I've yet to register my monthly post. I'm still painting and hobbying but at a reduced rate as I am waiting my budget to recharge.
The Forest (haunted forest where overusing magic makes you lose your characters) is awaiting more ragged aventurers/wizards to complete three warbands (King's Rangers, Baron's men at arms, and the Mage's Guild). Parcel just arrived today! I continue to experiment with rules, namely (a) making a RPG 'feel' without the crappy/clunky mechanics that infests 99% of RPGs and (b) melee combat that has decisions without being too complex in its mechanics.
30 Year War/ECW. I've painted my Bloody Miniatures characters (recommend!) and have based/prepped another ~30 or so pike/muskets/horse each side. I don't have an exact project for them as yet - I've painted them blue/cool tones vs red/warmer tones as I often do to make matched enemies. I do know it will be bloody, violent, civil-war-esque and there will be a twist - some sort of dark twisted undead/sorcery/plague/hellmouth to mirror that very violent period (some parts of Germany lost 50% of their population.)
I bought these minis to revive my disinterest in my boringly similar Warlord ECW minis. I've found lately sometimes you need to buy more, to revive a project (kinda the opposite of the sunk cost fallacy) e.g. my Frostgrave plastics have allowed me to use/kitbash many unused sprues.
I'm still working out a suitable grimdark 'setting' for these minis that isn't just a zombie apocalypse. Suggestions welcome!
Given I haven't done a final highlight my paint job certainly does not do the minis justice. They ooze character and will spice up my boring rank-and-file collection.
Skull & Bones. But a lot of my gaming times has been spent rewatching Pirates of the Carribbean with my kids and playing Skull and Bones (a pirate ship PC game) with them as well.
Skull and Bones is a good example of how expectations and advertising can ruin a game. It was hyped as "AAA" and "Black Flag but multiplayer" and failed miserably. Compared to Assassins' Creed it's like 1/4 of a game - it's like they pulled the ship portions of Odyessey/Black Flag, turned it into a game but removed everything else - you can only leave your ship to go shopping(!) and as such it's inferior to Sea of Thieves (or Windrose) and even ancestors like Sid Meier's Pirates. However, if you view it as a pirate ship game where you roleplay as a schooner/brig it is competing more with indie titles like Windward or Tempest. It's also quite user-friendly, and shines in co-op.
....I call this "Anthem syndrome" - the game sets massive expectations, flat out lies/fails to deliver most of them, and gets hated into oblivion and nothing about the game can be good by players who have jumped on the hate bandwagon - many without even trying the game. It's possible for a game to completely fail to live up to expectations/deliver promises AND still be fun. They're not mutually exclusive. E.g. I paid $5 for Anthem, enjoyed zipping around in an Iron Man suit on an alien planet with mates for 30hrs. I don't plan to ever play it again but I certainly got my money's worth and had fun. Would I have been mad if I bought into the hype and bought a premium pre-purchase edition? Sure. But anyone who does that - it's kinda on them.
Anyway, Skull and Bones cost us $5 for each PC (Ubi panic sales ftw) and we can team up fighting ships, convoys, forts and (naturally) sea monsters in a mythic Indian Ocean. I've played 50 hrs and I and the kids haven't "ground" anything yet (i.e. we are still doing new missions and tasks and haven't had to repeat old ones ad nauseam to get stuff).
Anyway, I'll count the dodgy paint jobs. 658 minis painted this year - so far.
My pirate craze has inspired me to finally push past the first episode of Black Sails (I'm now on S2, really enjoying it) after trying to get into it twice previously. Naturally, I am now eyeing off age of sail ship miniatures but Black Seas (surprisingly affordable in Australia) has rigging (blegh!). I do have some 1:2400 from Tumbling Dice but I can't figure out what ship is which.... ...if someone knows how to identify them please let me know... They are also a bit too chunky to "spark joy" though they are very sturdy playing pieces. Heretic that I am, I'll probably pick easy/fun AoS rules like Fighting Sail instead of "proper" nerdy rules.
For 30YW/ECW witches maybe appropriate... although this would just be magic so maybe a bit boring.
ReplyDeleteOr given the religion worries at the time something like the devil and demons but then I think this is just Trench Crusade.
Or add priests to each side as miracle (or not) workers. Once again just magic with different named spells. Unless you add angels to each side as Heaven takes an interest 😁
Maybe vampires vs werewolves "Underworld Pike & Shot edition" but the religion aspect does seem kinda fitting. Maybe demon hunters aka Supernatural 1615? The old WoD Demon:the Fallen might have some ideas.
DeletePerhaps the change is just a magic system thats not traditional like psychic powers which are more modern/sci fi?
-eM
The demon hunters maybe a good way with competing bands or Catholics and Protestants chasing the demons, and fighting each other of course. "30YearWarGrave"😁 A strangely appropriate and depressing name.
DeleteWould you be able to use some of your haunted forest figures?
I'm surprised there isn't a 30YWGrave! There's a "grave" setting for everything else...
DeleteYep "The Forest" minis are pretty generic - the "bad guys" including peasant undead work all the way up to 1800s.
Having a setting gives the mini collecting cohesion and purpose.
Weirdly, the more of the plastics I get the more old minis I can revive (i.e. Wargames Factory ones with crappy arms have useful peasant bodies for grunts with bows, or extra vikings make zombie vikings). It's kinda like the opposite of sunk cost fallacy - the more kits I get the more old kits get used...
-eM
Just found my old world of darkness Demon the Fallen RPG pdf....
DeleteMaybe this in the ECW era?
-eM
> Maybe demon hunters
DeleteI suggest you go for a team of Prayer Book Demon Hunters.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
(Actually, demon or witch hunters is an appealing theme that is slightly less overdone than zombies).
"I suggest you go for a team of Prayer Book Demon Hunters."
DeleteSorry, that one whooshed me.... :-/
The kids at school do like KPop Demon Hunters, so maybe I could add singing as a game mechanic?
-eM
Hymnal Psalm Demon Hunters?
DeleteHaha I totally meant Kpop Demon Hunters, only with prayer books because I figured Kpop wasn't as popular during the Thirty Years War!
DeleteMore seriously, I do think demon/witch hunting has a lot of appeal for wargaming, and I suppose it can be done differently than zombies.
"Haha I totally meant Kpop Demon Hunters, only with prayer books because I figured Kpop wasn't as popular during the Thirty Years War!"*
DeleteI suspected as much, but my alertness isn't high of late (marking school reports to midnight)
*Well, if it 30YW was subject of a movie by Netflix or Disney recently there would be such forced cast "diversity" Kpop could totally be shoehorned into the 30YW.....
-eM
Isn't the historical 30 years war not already grimdark enough. You have basically all riders of the apocalypse at the same time (war, death, famine and pestilence). As you said the conditions in Germany were catastrophic with marauding warbands everywhere plundering the civilian population. Bad harvests leading to mass starvation. Famines taking hold of complete armies. Massacres of whole towns. Sounds much more serious than a zombie apocalypse.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteMaybe you can use the four riders of the apocalypse as super villains with their own specific retinue of humans and fantastic creatures fitting to their theme. They could either be antagonists for a group of villagers or other survivers in something similar to a (zombie) apocalypse. The alternative would be more like Chaos in the old World, the boardgame, where the four riders compete with each other in the destruction of Germany.
DeleteI'm not aiming to be that historical. My original idea was a civil war (not 30YW or ECW specifically, but maybe competing religious factions) where so many have died that the gateway between life and death is more "flexible" (not quite so one-way) with necromancers/undead.
DeleteBut it seems a bit.. passe. I'm pretty sure Zombicide will have done one of their 101 expansions on the period already...
I'm not basing it on precise historical events or locations, just a deadly civil war which can be based on a range of reasons.... yet to be decided.
I think I'm more interested in making it not just "WFB/Mordhiem with only the undead/chaos factions"...
-eM
I think it is really hard to come up with something that is not already within WHFB as they used some kind of kitchen sink approach for their factions. The WHFB Empire is basically a Pike and Show army, while you also have Undead and Demons in every variation. Religious fanatics are also part of the Empire and Bretonian factions. BUT in WHFB they are pretty much seperated along faction links. Why not mix and match humans with Underdog and/or demons. Maybe there are some religious groups that can justify morally to use undead people while others condemn it. Same with demons. Maybe there are some warbands that made a part with warlike demons (Khorne like) or plague demons (Nurgle like) while other factions are totally opposed to using demons as allies and are out to hunt them.
DeleteDamn auto correction. Faction links should be faction lines and Underdog should be Undead.
DeleteIt might be interesting to have different magic systems for the two civil war factions kinda like opposing religions. The troops are similar but the magic isn't. Remember how Warmachine vs Hordes magic? One had focus, the other had fury and factions worked differently but in the same game.
Delete-eM
"Faith" - you roll against your Faith aka Magic stat. You can pull the power out of the air, but every time you fail your Faith roll, your Faith stat is reduced. So your power is limitless but if you try for a big "spell" and fail to often you nerf yourself.
DeleteFaith=Risk mitigation - your power is limitless (infinite mana bar) but if you go big and fail too often you can nerf yourself making the odd worse and worse each time. Failing a roll is doubly bad - you fail AND reduce your stat. You will try only big miracles at the end as a 'hail mary'.
"Psychic/Willpower" - you roll against your Will aka Magic stat. If you fail, nothing happens. If you succeed, roll another dice to see if you have drained your stamina. If you fail you skip a turn of magic to recover or something or slowly deplete your stamina.
Psychic=Resource management. You more slowly grind down your "magical stamina" or "mana bar" but your basic skill to cast is unchanged. Successful casts tend to use stamina. You are limited but more reliable. You tend to have less magic as the game goes on as you use up your "mana bar."
Dunno if this reads clearly but basically:
a) faith - unlimited "mana" but if you fail a roll, you "lose faith" reduce your stat (% chance to succeed) meaning you will probably play conservatively until a big flashy play towards the end of the game.
b) psychic - failing isn't a problem, % chance to succed remains the sasme; success means you slowly drain a limited mana pool based on the effort/size of spell.
-eM
I like the idea of two different magic systems. Maybe you can link that with the idea that there is one religious faction that is opposed to necromancy which is supported by God (or a godly being) and uses the faith mechanic while the other religious faction made a pact with the devil (or demons) to receive the power to revive the dead and they use the Psychic/Willenserklärung mechanic. Maybe you could rename it to "Black Magic".
DeleteI like the idea of a Druidic/Nature based group and a Mechanics based clan. One magic system, and the other with Magic like tech.
ReplyDelete- Eric Farrington