Saturday 26 February 2011

Gaming with the kids: starting small

Trying to get my children into gaming... this is going to be an ongoing project!

Last night we played Battleships, which is supposedly for 5+ but a bit beyond my 5 year old... not enough action to engage him.

This morning we've all had a fun game of MiltonBradley's Pac-man game: A trip down memory lane for me, a fun tactical experience for my eldest and a counting / gobbling giggle for the two year old.  And aimed at 7+ too!

Aces.

Friday 25 February 2011

Friday Freebie: Skrapyard

Hungering for a VSF skirmish game?  Skrapyard may be for you.

I discovered this game while merrily wandering the Twitterverse - I got a message from Precinct Omega saying I'd won one of their minis, and decided to check the game out... and as I'm no good at painting I thought I'd put the mini up for grabs too.  Check back on Monday for details.

How does the game play?  It's nice to see a slimmed down system these days - especially after so many years of 40k - and Skrapyard's core idea of only needing a single d12 really struck a chord with me.  It's a nice, streamlined roll-under-stat system - but the beta rules are coming down at the end of the month, to be replaced with a fluffless "light" version... so if you want to check it out I'd head over to the Skrapyard download page sooner rather than later!

It sounds like there are plans to introduce some more Steampunky war machines too... I'm definitely keeping an eye on this one!

Holy bundles of RPG stuff Batman!

Essentially: free product when you donate $20 (£12 ish) to the Red Cross via RPGNow... I had to grab this one after missing out on the Haiti bundle - in the fact that when I clicked the link, it was available no more, so I donated otherwise instead - click here to see just what you get for your generosity! (Not an affiliate link!)

What to read first... PFRPG bits or CthuluTech?

...and the Supernatural RPG is a chance to get a look at Cortex for free on top...

Wednesday 23 February 2011

15mm Infinity: The concept

It's an idea I've had in my head for ages now, having played Infinity and liked it - but not having the cash to buy the (frankly beautiful) minis or the time to convert and paint them in a manner that would do them justice:

15mm scale Infinity!

OK... why?  Because I've been looking for a decent skirmish game for ages, and I like the way Infinity plays - and I could get much more mileage from, for example, Ground Zero's 15mm StarGrunt SF range as far as troop minis go.  Plus there's little need to convert for the right standard/support/heavy weapon types as they've a pretty comprehensive range, whereas the Infinity minis - at least when I first got the beta rules - were pretty limited.

Friday 18 February 2011

Friday Freebie: Full Thrust!

HPIM3829Image (cc) robartesm via FlickrIt seems my internet is back on, temporarily at least, which allows me the pleasure of introducing the free game that's probably inspired me the most:  GroundZeroGames' Full Thrust.

Full Thrust got me completely and utterly into space fleet wargaming, and it can't just be coincidence that GZG also make and sell some very nice starship minis to play the game with.  The newer designs are particularly nice - check out the ScanFed, for example - and far as I can tell from my research, GZG ships set the benchmark in 1:3000 scale space minis.

So... what's the game like?

Sunday 13 February 2011

This service is temporarily available...

Hi all gamers, bloggers and readers...  My ISP and phone provider has been letting me down BADLY of late: My carrier drops about every 5-10 minutes and signal-to-noise ratio on my line is about 3:1 at the moment.

So - I'm still alive, and awaiting a new line and broadband provider at the beginning of next month.

I'm considering whether or not to move this blog over to 6sided.net and their dedicated gaming blogs philosophy... any opinions welcome.  Their network feed has been added to the sidebar, some interesting stuff up there already.

See y'all next month, for those missing my random wittering you can always follow @plaspoly on Twitter as I can tweet from my phone.

Friday 4 February 2011

Friday Freebie: LEGO wargaming!

Pirates vs Ninjas!  Blacktron vs Atlanteans!  Romans vs Police!?

This week's free game is the amazing BrikWars tabletop minifig wargame - quirky and beautifully illustrated, and available in online rulebook form HERE and handy downloadable pdf HERE for all your genre defying death-dealing needs.

The appeal of this game is nicely summed up by the the rulebook:

Please consider indie and small press RPGs, and support the blogosphere.

Image content used that is not original was sourced via creative commons or similar and is used in good faith - and because I love it - however please contact me if there are any issues.