Not so long ago, and pretty close by..

After the better part of a year running the unwieldy Marvel Heroic RPG, a change was in order.  A new Good Games (FLGS) store has opened up in town and with the change in scenery has come a change in game.

Fantasy Flight's Star Wars: Edge of Empire is certainly more of a traditional RPG but uses a fashionable dice pool mechanic and funky dice.  I'm hoping to write a little review after I’ve put a few more sessions under the belt.

The move to a more tactical based combat system has allowed me the opportunity to knock out a few pieces of terrain, some modular desert tiles purchased from DriveThruRPG mounted on mat board and finally get a bit of use out of the 200 odd Star Wars pre-painted figures in my collection.  I had originally intended to re-paint all of the SW figures (madness) but may settle for touching up a few that suffer from factory paintjob retardation.  

The rock pieces are made from bits of styrofoam, cut up and glued with PVA to mini-cds before being gunked with a combination of texture paste, burnt umber craft paint, fine ballast and PVA glue.  After drying, the pieces were dry brushed with a buff coloured craft paint.

They should work for 15mm as well as 28s.

King Koboldikus

Alas poor Korrick!

Here is "Snar Mangebelly, Kobold King" by Reaper Miniatures.

I prefer to think of him as King Koboldikus, a deranged lawful-evil paladin I played in a short 4th ed D&D game a few years ago.  Ah, good times.

Coming soon...

...some updates!

When I re-started this blog I envisioned that I wouldn't blog about my hobby unless I had some photographic evidence to support it.  A pet peeve is reading a wall of text about a game or battle or painting session (!) which is not supported by a pic or two.  Preferably half a dozen.

That being said, I thought it timely to get on and say that no, I haven't dropped off.. I've just had a few months of hell courtesy of a wisdom tooth and heavy professional workload.  I'll just dry my eyes now.

So, coming soon I hope to share some more buildings that have been put together out of the Warhammer Townscapes set (aiming to make the full 30 odd!), some 15mm Sci Fi Nazis from Eureka that I painted last year but have yet to photograph and perhaps a few odds and ends as I try to ramp up the production line once more.

Outside of miniature gaming, I've run a couple of sessions of the controversial Marvel Heroic Roleplaying by Margret Weis Productions.  An obtuse, pompous, poorly edited and ultimately flawed game with an overly ambitious production schedule.... that can actually be pretty fun to play.  I'm torn on this one.  For the moment, it's being put to the side until (if?) the hard copy of the Civil War event book arrives. 

For a bit of a laugh, seek out the Amazon and other reviews of the game.  There's also an hilarous thread on RPG.net ("sell me on Marvel" or something like that) wherein in first few pages contain a play example that was convoluted enough to turn off a number of forum posters point blank. 

 Telling is the attitude of the author to the mostly valid criticism.  The comment "this may not be the game for you", repeated often across the web by the author says a lot.  A Marvel roleplaying game not being for everyone?  If there was an example of a licence or perhaps genre that should cut across the spectrum of rpg gamers and be accessible to all, Marvel and superheros would be it.  If the less trod path must be taken, at least deliver a polished product.  It also has to be said that the Marvel license is likely not the right property to reinvent the wheel with as MWP have attempted to do with their episodic play style.  It could have been, if the initial offering had clear and concise rules on event creation and how to administer them in the context of a campaign.  Well, I hope that Civil War fills some of these gaps but I feel that the horse may have already bolted.

  On to something that I'm genuinely excited about.  Scott Pyle over at http://four-color-figures.blogspot.com/ has pushed the big red button and launched the Goalsystem Delves: Dungeon Skirmish Role-Play Kickstarter campaign

  Scott's previous works include Chaos in Cairo and Chaos in Carpathia amongst other games.  If you're a fan of narrative miniatures warband play with a campaign system and scenarios, you can't go far wrong trying one of Scott's offerings.  He's a very regular gamer, painter and rules designer amongst other things and from his blog, it's obvious that he's got the chops to pull off another great release in the Goalsystem line of games.  These games continually improve with every release, so it's not a case of the serial numbers being filed off for Delves.  From the notes on the blog, it's apparent that there is going to be a good blend of traditional rpg tropes and fluid miniatures combat rules.  Hope this one gets up.

Cheers,

Pete - The Sentient Bean