Defiance Games Marine

Defiance Games, which was born from the fallout of the Wargames Factory breakup, posted a preview of their first hard plastic scifi figures.

Looks pretty good so far, and I am certainly interested in these. Those arms looks as if they would take other guns pretty easily too, so this guy could get a lasgun, or a pulse rifle without much work.  Obviously we still need to see these compared to other figures, and some of the detail of the helmet looks strange, but I am much more excited than I was previously about these.

Dreadfleet

The long rumored "special September release" from GW has been reveled... and it is a Warhammer World Pirate game.  Two years ago, they rereleased Space Hulk, and I failed to get it, so I was pretty interested in this year's release.

Araby Djinn powered ship

Skaven "ship"

Fighting it out on the battlemat with some skull islands

Here is what Games Workshop has to say about it:
Dreadfleet is a boxed game for two (or more) players that includes everything you need to make war on the turbulent seas of the Warhammer world. At your command are two fleets of ships - the Dreadfleet led by the Vampire Count Noctilus, aboard his gargantuan sea-hulk the Bloody Reaver; and the Grand Alliance commanded by the Pirate Captain Jaego Roth, who recently stole the Heldenhammer - the pride of the Imperial Fleet, and one of the largest galleons to ever sail the high seas.

As your ships engage in furious battle, it's down to you, the fleet captain, to make important split-second decisions. Do you bring all guns to bear on the closest enemy warship, or do you sail into position for a furious broadside? What happens when the warship catches fire, or worse, the powder kegs ignite? Exactly how much punishment can your warship take before it sinks without a trace? Are those Undead seagulls or flying piranha fish? And, when all else fails, do you have the courage to ram your foe, board their ship, and engage them in a duel to the death?

This boxed game contains:

98-page Rulebook
Seascape Gaming Mat
10 Warships
10 Scenic Bases
7 Cog Auxiliaries
1 Dragon Auxiliary
1 Dirigible Auxiliary
7 Islands
5 Shipwreck Pieces
3 Sea Monsters
5 Treasure Tokens
12 Dice
1 Wind Gauge
2 Ship's Wheels
1 Navigation Rod
10 Warship Cards
55 Damage Cards
40 Fate Cards
12 Auxiliary Cards
10 Wound Cards
11 Miscellaneous Cards

For $115 in the US, it unfortunately does not rise to the level of product I expect for that price.  At $50 I would be very interested, but at double that price... not as much.  I am also disappointed that it is a "Grand Alliance" styled game, where each race only has a single ship, which means it is certain that there is a race you are not interested in.

Pity.  Maybe next year will be the year that they rerelease Warhammer Quest.

Character Sheet

Building from my one page character generation, I have been working on a character sheet.  The concept is to have everything that a player needs on one sheet, and further, all the "core" data needed to play in a single quadrant of the page.

I still need to work on the "fluff" quadrant, which is pretty basic right now (and fairly unattractive) .

Other design choices:
Silver pennies are the main coinage used in the Deepest Sea, so instead of a box to track GP, we have S/d/cp
Retainers are placed on the character sheet
Encumbrances are handled by lines in the item list, so that a character loses one move (5 feet) for every two lines filled.  Heavier items take up more lines.
Spells, skills, and such like are in KSAs

Anyway, here is what it currently looks like:

Let me know what you think.  Any suggested refinements?  Improvements?  Something I forgot?  Would it be useful for new players?

Also, welcome to new follower Lum. Hope you see some stuff you like here!

The Passage

I finished reading The Passage yesterday.  A newer book by Justin Cronin, it is an account of what happens when a "vampire" virus is found and released by the US government in a near future setting (2016?).  The first part of the book is concerned with collecting subjects for the testing, and then as things inevitably fall apart, what happens to those who survive, and their decedents, leading up, as all modern books do, to the inevitable sequels.  Over all it was a fairly interesting book, and one that fans of the end of the world genre may enjoy.

I do not want to give away too much, but it does have some great ideas for Post Apocalyptic gaming, and some of those could be  adopted for more sci-fi type games too, just replacing the virals (as the vampires come to be known) with very strong aliens, or genetically modified soldiers.  The post fall fortifications in particular are very interesting, and could be easily extended to, say, zombie gaming.

Perry Miniatures

Perry Miniatures, the company founded and run by the Perry Brothers, has a modern new website. 

The most exciting aspects of this are that the company appears to be VAT listed, which means those of us located outside the EU save 18%, and it has more pictures of miniatures, some of which have been for sale for some time without any official pictures, as well as pictures of the 3ups for future plastic work. 

Most exciting is this splendid example of the future Men At Arms sprue for their Renaissance range, which will have Flemish/English/Italian and German armor styles, as well as separate horse armor and a ton of weaponry.  Certainly one to look out for in the future, and they should make perfect WHFB DoW knights.

New website, 18% discount... sounds like a good time to make an order right?  And I will be getting that per diem check soon...

Foamular-tastic!

A chance glance at the Lead Adventure Forum subforum Workbench, led to the discovery that I can in fact buy extruded polystyrene in California, and better, locally!

Owens Corning Foamular sheet insulation, available in varying thickness, can be had at several local Home Depots, just not the one right by me.  As you are probably aware, this stuff is great for terrain, model building, and terrain building, as it is fairly strong, easily worked, and takes textures well.

Unfortunately the 2" thickness is a bit pricey, at $25 a sheet, but on the plus side I would only need two sheets to populate my currently strictly theoretical 6'x6' table.  1" is far more reasonable at $13.67 a sheet, and the thinner sheets are in a similar range.