Monday Mini: Belter Battlewagon

My group's current wargaming fix comes from playing Starmada - although we're starting to get tired of the "superweapon arms race", any suggestions? - and much as I love my little GZG Neu Swabians I've always been blown away by the Belter ships designed by Coines23 on shapeways.com. Here's someone who's embraced a new way of producing minis - these are 3D printed on demand, not cast in moulds - by designing ships that would be almost impossible to produce by "conventional" means.

Expensive? Yes. Awesome? Undoubtedly.

Friday Freebie: Warcanto

Not Friday, but still free - it's skirmish wargame Warcanto!

I got a copy of the rules from a friend when we were looking for filler games... And have just got round to reading them.

The rulebook is beautifully presented - not just for a free .pdf - and illustrated, giving the basic details of how to play and the various races. Each faction also has its own army book with more detailed info and ability ladders for their leaders - presumably these are being added to as the writers add more units and rules.

The basic concept:

RPG / Boardgame System Scan

Taking a breather from Pathfinder has got my mind wandering again - I guess my love of the crunch and my desire to tell compelling stories leave me lost in the no-man's land between rules-light and GURPS... I'm still looking for The Perfect System folks!

Site overhaul v2.0

Things are starting to get messy again, so it's time to overhaul the site design again!

I know what I want to see - but what about you? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated:

* Can you find what you're looking for on PP?

* Are there any design/layout niggles you'd want changing?

* Would you be interested in more articles rather than ramblings? :-)

* If guest blogging was an option, would anyone take the plunge?

I'm looking to: Make this site more readable / navigable, start to condense things under proper tags and headings, make better connections with other gaming bloggers and make more like-minded friends... I have my ideas, but I'd welcome any from the readers too.

Monday Mini: Widowmaker Kapitan

This week's mini - the very characterful Khadoran Widowmaker Kapitan, in this case painted by an ex-Rackham pro painter, from Privateer Press' Warmachine.

We tried Warmachine out... I really liked the Khador miniatures - Nath seemed to like Cygnar, which would be handy - but we dismissed it as too expensive, both in money and painting time. Handily the core mechanics were streamlined down for Monsterpocalypse at about the time I was being all indecisive about it...

If I did play Warmachine, I'd plump for Khador any day - mainly just to field a squad of these guys. I have a thing for steampunk, and PP's minis really appeal.

Gamma World: session 2... and sandbox world creation

Image (cc) Michael Welsing on Flickr

In which many things go BOOOOOM, and our heroes don't get quite the welcome they were expecting...

Our intrepid young heroes were last seen amidst a giant explosion in Redman town hall - and now was their chance to react. Picking up the unconscious town Elder, they staggered for the door just in time to bump into a shadowy figure fleeing into the gathering crowd. And the arrival of the town guard. Being strangers in town, they were naturally suspects, and were *supposed* to go quietly... but Murtt and Bugeye had different plans!

Playing With Myself: Monsterpocalypse #1

I've never tried solo gaming before, but I noticed there were rules for a solitaire game in the MonPoc book I'd dug out with all my old figures...

Monsterpocalypse is a deceptively strategic game - but as I'd only ever played the incredibly aggressive Planet Eaters, I'd never really given the nuances much thought. Time to switch sides: taking on the mighty Gorghadra (!) with the collection of Cthul units I'd swapped with a friend for the wimpy ShadowSun and Martian minis I'd had... The joy of collectible games - but I digress.

Monday Mini: Dwarven Veteran

I'm hoping to showcase a miniature that I think deserves it every Monday - and as I've been reading through the free Warcanto rules from the DwarfTales website, where better to start than with one of their amazing Dwarf veterans?

I've never been a massive fan of Dwarf miniatures, perhaps because of the GW Warhammer minis that always looked a bit too cheesy for my liking. What is it with the Dwarf being comic relief? In the Lord of the Rings movies, Gimli seems to exist solely for our amusement - Men are brave, Elves are "cool", Dwarves are simply... short. And invariably Scottish.

So here's to the Warcanto Dwarf! These miniatures hold true to the resilience and craftsmanship of the classic Dwarven race - to the extent that the game's other races look a bit poor in comparison - and, above all, these Dwarves look hard.

Science Fiction, Sextuple Feature! Surge buffer overload...

I was just sitting thinking about how to redesign my "bombers" for Starmada - I was hoping to use some of the nifty NSL strikeboats from Ground Zero Games to differentiate them from my corvettes - when I thought I'd slide by FireBroadside to see how the StarBlazers fleet was coming along...

Yet another awesome game moving under my radar, in the form of the very intriguing-looking Earth Reborn.

Gamma World - First Impressions

After a (long) break we're finally back to the table - and diving straight into the awesome post-apocalyptic Gamma World.

Gamma World is also available as a setting for d20 Modern, but I was looking forward to bit of a change from the d20 system, so I plumped for the 5th Edition that runs under Alternity.

The setting itself feels similar to the Fallout games, Mad Max, etc. and is pretty standard post apocalyptic fare...

New Year, new games?

Happy New Year to all!

My gaming resolution is to actually get playing stuff... so while I build my Arthurian Pathfinder world, I need something to jump straight into: