Next Project - Ork Jet

When I finally get done with the Baneblade and some other projects I have on on the go (some of the 101 projects, not all of them by any means!), I will need/want another large kit to work on.  There is something satisfying about building and modding a larger kit vs. the relatively tiny customizations you can make with figures.

Thankfully, GW saw my need, and will be releasing this lovely bit of kit next month:

That's right, an Ork fighter.



The kit builds one of three options (dive bomber, level bomber, and gun bird), and seems to have a bunch of tail, cockpit, and underwing stores options.  Rumored retail price is $45, which is not too bad in my opinion for a beefy game piece like this.  I like it because it looks "real" in comparison to 90% of the stuff produced by GW these days.  (it even avoided having square edged wings!)

Planned alternations?  Reaction jet nose piece, pair of auto cannons as wing stores, and removal of the "teef" on the main jet intake cowl.  Should be a blast, and pretty quick to build in comparison to the 2+ years I have been working on and off on the Baneblade.

And I wonder if it would be possible to remake this as a locally produced Imperial PDF Fighter....

Overland Travel

Travel is one of the areas of DnD that is least understood, because few of us have traveled to distant locations on foot, or by horseback.  In this day and age of cars, fast trains, and faster jet planes, the amount of time that it takes to walk from point A to point B is not understood on an intuitive level.  Consequently all of the various rules for overland travel give very high rates of progress, and have very few encounters per day, particularly when one considers the amount of territory crossed. 

One way to handle the issue of too much  distance covered is to reduce standard travel to, say 8 hours a day, so 8 leagues, or ~24 miles. [thank you Talysman for pointing out my error here]  Pressed travel rates would be more hours per day, as you really can not hike much faster, but could do so for longer.  Horses would allow for slightly faster travel, but not if heavily loaded, and not for more than the 8 hours without running the risk of killing the horses over more than one day of travel.

A way to handle the second issue is to increase the frequency of encounters, while at the same time making more of them non-combat related.  Mixing in some mundane encounters like "peasants" or "attractive local features" allows for more creative descriptions and role play potential than "a hex of woods, no encounter" ever would allow for.

Telecanter has another way to deal with the tedium of travel, by making the upkeep and wear and tear into a sort of mini game, where the travel itself causes a sort of damage that needs to be allocated to the various aspects of travel, i.e. animals, gear, supplies.  Traveling through areas like swamps, or desert, or in the winter cold would create more damage points, which then need to be allocated to the animals and gear until they are used up/die etc.  Resting in good terrain for extended periods "heals" some of the damage.

I personally have been backpacking several times before, and it is amazing what adding a bit of altitude, 40 pounds of equipment, and reducing the amount of oxygen available will do to your endurance and your perception of the amount of ground covered.  Walking as the only means of transportation, and having to lug a hauberk, sword, and a bundle of torches to the scary cave from which no man has returned... well, that would be pretty hard on the old body.

On another note, my friends from back east are going to be in town for a week or so, and there was talk of running a game which has me thinking about deep dark places in the earth, and what creepy things may be found there. I have been looking over real-life tomb maps, and it is easy to imagine how a few pit traps, animated skeletons, or falling ceilings could make them into death traps.  Great risk for a possible great reward... sounds like a fun session to me, so we will see how it goes.

Ogre v6 successful!

I passed the test, and did not buy the Ogre Designer edition.  However it looks like thousands of other people did do so, so great news.  The Kickstarter raised over $920,000, which is a tremendous amount of money for the re release of a board game!  That made the game better for everyone, by increasing the quality of the game, and decreasing the risk for STG.

Now I just have to suffer with the nagging feeling that I did really want this thing...

In any case, it seems like Kickstarter is now here to stay, and should prove to be interesting in the years to come to see what sort of projects get made following this method vs. the old fashioned "max out the credit cards and pray" method of game publication.

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

My wife and I watched Conan the Barbarian (2011) earlier this week, once again thanks to the local library. [technically, I watched it, and she mostly worked on a project using her laptop]

I was not super impressed.  The story was a bit weak, and some of the action was a bit too fake or staged seeming.  The early sequences with "young Conan" were pretty good, and the bad guy was pretty menacing in that sequence.  The first bit with a "grown up" Conan gave me exactly the feel I expected from the stories I have read, replete with T&A, drinking, and enjoyment of combat.  Some of the elements were a bit off though, like dragging a boat around to use as a tent seemed a bit excessive, particularly as it seemed to be both elephant borne and pulled by slaves.  As is often the case in these sorts of movies, the technological levels were wildly inconsistent. (Cast iron and watermills with semi-nomadic fur wearing barbarians)

Jason Momoa was pretty good as Conan, giving what seemed like a closer representation to the character from the books than Arnold did.  Rachel Nichols was OK as the love interest, with some unevenness to her character depiction, resulting from script issues more than acting I think. Rose McGowan was adequate, but not as menacing as the actress who played the young character. With a box office return of about half of its budget, I expect we have seen the last of this Conan series, which is too bad, because I would have liked to see what they did with another film or series of films.

A number of visuals from the film would be good to steal for D&D games, such as a skull shaped temple on the edge of a cliff, spewing water out of its mouth. The ruined city in the hidden valley, although the ninja guardians would perhaps be a bit much.  The sand warriors poured out of a vial were pretty cool, and would definitely make for a great D&D item.

In other news the Ogre Designer Edition Kickstarter is over $500,000 as of this writing, and still has six days to go.  If you get the kickstarter backer version ($150), you get an extra sheet of counters, a box with your name on it, PDF copies of the rules, and some assorted swag.  Pretty pricey for a game I have never played... but it does look amazing.

Isometric Dungeons

Telecanter, of the awesome silhouettes, has a couple of recent blog posts about drawing isometric dungeons, which give the illusion of depth to your maps.

Very cool, and it seems like the basics of this technique would work when done by hand, or with layers in a GIMP/Photoshop sort of way.

The aptly named Fantastic maps shows some of the basic steps involved:

1: Draw Map, 2: Rotate Map, 3: Magic!

This may be what I need to get me to finish the semi isometric tomb map I have been idly sketching on a post-it for a few months.  Then I can get on to trying to kill the players with it.

Dungeon Master for Dummies

Thwarted in my quest to read D&D material from the local library due to lost or stolen material, I settled for the Dungeon Master for Dummies book by Bill Slavicsek and Richard Baker, written for Dungeons and Dragons version 3.5.  I had pretty low expectations for this book, and it took me quite a number of lunches to get through, but here are some thoughts:

Much is made of the concept of "DM as social director" where the DM is essentially hosting a party and providing for the entertainment of same. This makes sense if the DM is actually the host, but it seems like there must be groups that meet at clubs/game stores who follow a different arrangement, and someone else is the host and the DM is the "entertainment" for the get together.  Still, in game, the concept makes sense, as the DM needs to juggle the personalities of the players to make sure everyone is having "fun" (or otherwise deriving benefit from play). 

Feeding into this concept of the DM as entertainer is the idea that the DM is not trying to kill the player characters, but rather, allowing them to play.  There is some discussion of when to allow the dice to kill PCs and when to fudge things.  An interesting idea on keeping players engaged is to have them recap previous sessions at the start of the next session.

The book effectively summarizes the bloat issues of 3.5 edition by discussing the addition of a class to your game.  When adding a class, you are not just adding a single option, but rather dozens due to class/race/feat permutations.  An example is given where adding a race is too "powerful", by suggesting a Medusa sorcerer.  (actually, I want someone to make a Flailsnail character of that one)

The book includes some random dungeon material, which could be useful to add to other tables you have for that purpose.  Also has random encounter tables, and random treasure, as well as a number of "ready to go" encounters and traps with stats and details for 3.5.

The book has a chapter discussing high level play issues, which are different than in earlier editions of D&D, given the power increase of the characters with feats and various powers.

An interesting section of the book discusses how to have a memorable villain, which I think all longer term games could benefit from, even if they are sandboxes.

I do not want to put everyone off this book, but rather suggest that it was not for me.  If you were completely new to DMing, and did not spend a year reading blogs on the Internet before doing it, you could read this book and get some useful advice.  For me though, it was mostly repetitious of things I have already read or learned on my own, and a bit too specific to the challenges or running a 3.5 game.

In other news, still have not had the time/motivation to paint, so that is nearly four months without touching a brush.  Not a great state to be in, particularly when I had three largish projects I wanted to accomplish this year (baneblade, D&D figures, and Dreadfleet).

Ogre Kickstarter

You may recall that last year, I had a post about 6th Edition Ogre (the game with giant robotic death tanks, not one about dim witted large fellows with clubs).  It was supposed to come out in the fall of 2011, but funding was apparently an issue, and it has not happened yet.

Here is a reminder of what it is going to look like:

Well, now that Kickstarter is apparently a thing (or is trying to be), Steve Jackson games is using it to help get their 6th edition of the game off the ground, and ideally to include extras.  They have already reached the first funding goal, so the game will be able to go forward, the only question remaining, is what extras will it contain?  With 29 days to go, they should be able to get at least a few more bucks...

Game of Thrones

I have long been a fan of the Song of Ice and Fire universe, ever since I got all three of the first books, and read them in a week while my then girl friend (now wife) was out of town, and I was sick and bored. The gritty realism is of course part of the draw, but the characters are another.  I got through all three books, and then was eager for #4, which came out that fall. (a quick peek at amazon indicates that it was 2005, so nearly 7 years ago).  The long delay from Feast to Dance sort of cooled things off for me, and I have not thought as much about Westeros lately.

In any case, the wife and I have just started watching the Game of Thrones TV show, and it has rekindled some of that heady feeling I had when I crammed in 2400+ pages in a week. (Astonishing my wife's cousins who are devout fans of the series) Naturally, as these things go, I started to think about how to game the series, and what miniatures to use...

Obviously, there are the official miniatures from Dark Sword, and while they are generally lovely, they are quite large, expensive, and not suited for gaming in my opinion.  (although still retaining utility for characters and unusual types)

Fortunately, the Westeros way of war seems to be broadly similar to the War of the Roses/mid Hundred Years War here on earth, that is to say "high medieval" in arms and armament, minus, of course, guns and cannon (so 1420-1450).  So full harness for well-to-do types, mail and partial plate for those poorer, and cloth and helmets for the lower level retainers.  Fantasy elements are limited, particularly in the first three books, with valarian steel swords being the main thing needed.  Heraldry from here and from this amazing map.

The Perrys have a lovely series of figures that would fit in well here, in the shape of the War of the Roses line.  The plastic boxes for this yield archers, Men-At-Arms, billmen, pike men, and crossbows. Metals fill in a few of the other needed elements, and the Hundred Years War line would provide for the poorer lords' forces. 

Gaming wise, I would use the LotR skirmish game engine, which allows for low powered heroes and warbands.  Figures would be assembled into groups, representing minor lords and their retainers, which should allow for surmountable painting as well. (I would make mostly Northers, Riverlands, and Lannister allies) Larger games could be accommodated by the same engine, or by moving to the WotR mass battle game, although I do not foresee things getting that out of hand...

Obviously I am treading the same path that many have gone before, such as this recent thread on The Miniatures page. (or this older one) Or the several lovely threads on Lead Adventure (This one, Stark, Lannister, plus Captain Blood's WotR figures)

Now I just need to finish off about 25 other projects, and I can move on this one!

Perry Plastic Men At Arms

As some of you probably noticed over on The Miniatures Page, the Perry Brothers have announced that the Mounted Men at Arms will be available at Salute, and that if you buy three boxes, you get a "free" Charles the Bold figure also, which is pretty cool.  I should probably paint one of my existing knights regiments before buying a new one, but these are pretty good looking figures, and should work nicely with my Empire/DOW army, as well as being useful for various historical battles.  I have frothed over these figures before, but they look great, and you should buy some.  [12 Knights and horses for £18]

Also, I apparently missed Conquest Sac again, which probably says more about my attention to conventions than about their advertising.  Looks like a good time was had, and Black Cavalier reports that attendance seems to be up as well.  Maybe next time then.

We have been sick at our house, so not much hobby activity going on, which will hopefully change soon when the taxes are filed.

Dungeon Masters Guide

I finally finished reading the Dungeon Masters Guide (DMG), which I got through the magic of inter-library loans. The copy I read was the revised edition from December 1979, and was in pretty flawless condition considering the age. This is my first exposure to the book, as I was far too young to play AD&D when this book held sway.

I suspect that most of you have read this book before, if you do not own it, so no need to recap its contents, but suffice it to say that it is a fairly comprehensive collection of tables and rules for running an AD&D game, hampered by a lack of organization, and a primitive layout.

An interesting aspect of this book is that it clearly strives to present itself as "official" in a way that modern books do not. Modern RPG books either assume that you are only going to use the book you are reading, and make no mention of other books, or present their ideas as a menu from which you can pick and choose. The DMG is very strident in stating that it is the only way to do things... even while saying that "in your world you may do things differently".  I suspect this has something to do with the various clone and competing games that were starting to appear at the time of its publication.

Another aspect of the book, is that it is significantly less "generic" than most modern fantasy RPG books. By this I mean that even though most fantasy books have an assumed setting, it is expressed in such a way as to make it fairly easy to reshape. The world of the DMG is not presented in this fashion, instead, it is concerned with handling the minutia of planes, spell interactions, and potion creation. This presents a magic heavy world in a way that would take some work to refine down to a low magic world.

All in all, this is a useful book for a DM, and even if you are not playing an AD&D game, there is some utility to be had here, if only for the random tables, and it is something that I am looking forward to adding to my permanent collection, even though I doubt that I will ever play the rules as written herein.

The next book I am trying to get from the library is the Monster Manual II, so we will see how that goes.