More ATZ!

Game 1:

Again I headed to the LGS today with ATZ, some buildings and zombies. A friend of mine had a buddy in town and wanted to play some THW games. Since I’m a bigger fan of ATZ than 5150 (currently) I set up a simple ‘town’ and away we went. Each player was to start with a rep 4 civilian star (rolling two abilities and picking the one to keep). A fourth player wanted to try it out, so we split into two teams playing on a 4x6 board.


It didn’t go well… The end game was two idling cars and two turns of no action by the humans allowing the zeds to swarm both cars. One car (driven by me) managed to kill all the on zeds attacking while idling only to hit a zed and flip the car putting both passengers out of the fight!

There is our car, flipped with both humans OOF and no one to help them.

The other car was attacked and the driver was put out of the fight. The passenger was able to drive the car out of the area, but not before kicking the driver to the curb. In the zombie apocalypse, everything goes.

You can see where both cars are and why we were doomed to fail, 24 dice per turn!

Results: 3 KIA, 1 survived

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Game 2:

Another person who was watching was asked and decided to play. We moved to being gangers trying to take back the suburban area. Again each player is a rep 4 star. The first building held two gangers and the talk-the-talk moved to walk-the-walk and the enemy ganger leader (rep 4) gets the drop on our guy and fires a shotgun blast. Only the cover of the building and the bad die rolling saved our guy who fired his BA pistol dropping the guy! The other ganger makes his checks and will fire back when next active. In the end, our two guys manage to drop the guy, but now 7 zombies are busting at the doors and the two gangers leave the two OOF guys to act as food to slow the zombies. Our group now having about 15 to 20 zeds in the area begins to run off.

Here we have three of our gangers looking down 11 closely zed!

Here is our other two gangers checking cars and hitting zeds!

A car alarm goes off and all gangers hid in a building finding a sixth ganger (another person wanted to play) allowing the 20-25 zeds move slowly towards the alarming car (I decided that on doubles, a random effect would occur if that player rolled doubles again and a double 4 was car alarm). The zombies stay in the area for 5 turns until the alarm shuts off and the zeds begin to move again. We decide that it has gotten out of hand and attempt to flee. Splitting up, two jump into a car and the rest run to the other (we… er… one of us found two sets of keys). While heading to the cars, one of us happened to be within 12 inches of the zeek swarm who came from behind a building and an In Sight test later, all 30+ zombies begin to shuffle towards us.

The alarm of the car at the bottom of the picture is going off creating a possible 3 zeds a turn, but steering the zeds away from the humans...

One of us (the newbie) decides that he wants the shotgun and machine pistol that the two food… er… dead gangers and heads off. The zombie swarm follows. One car races off the board but the second fails to start, but it breaks about 10 zeds to turn about towards the car. The newbie tries to catch up to the car dragging the other 20 back towards the second car.

I flee toward the edge where the first car fled since I didn’t make it to the car, but the zeds created by that noise are able to charge (well actually one of them and even though I was a knifeman with a blade, I fail in combat going OOF). The newbie tried to check on me and head off, but before he was able to check me, 4 zeds are able to charge him and he also goes OOF. We keep zeds busy for 4 turns!

The second car has taken down (ran over) 14 zeds and made every check...

Meanwhile, the second car gets moving and begins to head off the map. With a turn of no player activations, the swarm catches up to them. The driver makes 24 successful “out of control” checks doing donuts running over the zeds before being able to move themselves. There are two zeds in the way and the car lurches forward killing one and knocking the second one. On the final zed until freedom, the driver loses control of the vehicle flipping it and causing both occupants to go OOF. The zombies slowly move over to the car finishing off the last of the two gangers…

Even if you make 25 checks, it's the one you fail that matters!

Results: 2 survivors (car with 1 unit of fuel), 4 KIA. One of the survivors goes up a rep becoming a rep 5!

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Game 3:

We decided to play a third game with those that died having a 50-50% chance in losing a rep. It turns out that of the 4 dead, I’m the only one that is a rep 3 (athlete) and our newly created leader decides to head to another suburban area with a military outpost in it to collect some resources. With the rep 5 ganger leader and some really great die rolls, we are able to make short work of the area barely making a dent in my 48 zombie horde (we learned our lesson I guess). At the time that we left, we had only 5 zeds on the board (and two gangers hanging out in the top floor of the military building).

Results: 6 Survive (3 are now Rep 5, 2 stay at Rep 4 and 1 goes to Rep 4). We found a machete, 9 units of food, some meds, a bow, but not a single drop of fuel. Looks like we are hoofing it to our next location…

Whew! This was a long report. I think I am going to run a couple of these at the local gaming convention in March. I need more zeds, some ragers and a bunch of survivors. ..

All Things Zombie

Last Saturday a couple friends of mine decided to play a little All Things Zombie by Two Hour Wargames. Each of us took a rep 5 civilian star and a rep 4 civilian buddy. Due to a friend saying there was an unknown umbrella Corp. in the area, we play in an urban area. I balked, but my idea was shot down so urban area it was.

The board was a 4’x4’ affair with eight buildings and two “roads” (we were unable to really pull much terrain since we were at the game store and there was a tournament that day). Still we managed to make a fairly “rustic” looking urban with the terrain that we had available (note to self: Pick up some grey felt to act as roads).

I didn’t take really good notes, but the board started with ~25 zeds on the map (I only have 48 assembled and painted). We made a couple of mistakes with the rules… again. Still it was a good time. What happened you say?

Well, my star was charged by three zeds from a building when my companion fled the area (one of the mistakes – she ‘retired’, but we didn’t read the rest of the rules on what should have happened) and I was forced to deal with allof them. A shotgun blast later, one zed was down but the other two stunned my star. A bad activation roll later saw those two zeds devour her (well in three, maybe 4 turns).

On the far right of the picture, you can see where my fallen star is (the orange dice are the removed building).

The other group found a couple of people in a building who decided to follow them for the remainder of the scenario. That group walked out of the building to a tide of zombies. In the melee that followed the Star fell to 4 zeds (and was feasted on later). The rest sped around the building and then saw the 10+ zeds heading towards them and fled the board.

A feeding freezy on the other player's star!

The final group slowly moved killing the needed zeds in their way and made it into a church where they found 2 zeds. Quickly dispatched, they searched the building and found a S.A.W. (another of our mistakes – this time using the risk and rewards cards). Once obtained, the pair made their way off the board.

The two looking down at the approaching hoard!

By this time, there were 54 zombies on the board (using plastic stand ins), 3 KIA, 1 possible infected and 3 survivors (two who went their own way). A fun time had by all!

I realized that I need to get a lot of zombie hunters painted up (with an array of weaponry) if we are going to do these games on a regular basis. I also decided that the 48 zombies are good for all but the massive urban area games. Now that I'm reading the new I Zombie book, I’ll need to find some cool looking Ragers!

Blood Bowl!

Whew! It has been a long time since I have made a blog post. Thankfully the lack of post is not due to a lack of gaming! One of my favorite Games Workshop games has had resurgence in the area which has me gaming almost twice a week now. The game I’m talking about is none other than Blood Bowl. If you haven’t tried this little gem, I recommend it! Simple rules and a fun campaign system and you only need around 13- 16 figures! We have a league going on (season 3). I even got my wife into it which in itself shows how great the game is!

So, without further ado, lets take a look at some teams (painted as well).

First off are the “Wildfire Witches” – my current team in the league (season 3). The miniatures come from Shadowforge miniatures and are great sculpts. I have 4 “Blitzers” and 4 “catchers” in order to play them as a variety of blood bowl team. Right now, I use them as Elves, but they can also stand in as high elves and amazons. I am in fourth in my division having a string of bad luck. Be warned, armor 7 is not for the weak of heart…

Here is a picture of the Blitzers and Catchers!

Another picture showing the linebunnies, throwers and the two catchers

Next, we put on a tournament on a couple weeks ago and instead of playing something “competitive”, I decided to play Ogres - thus the Gnomish Gearworks team was born. Instead of the normal ogres and snotlings, I went for a different approach and found some old mage knight golems to stand in for the ogres and tiny gnomes to stand in for the snotlings (the gnomes are actually 15mm gnomes produced by peter pig). I actually painted the little gnomes myself using dip method to get them done in a hurry. All in all, they turned out pretty good!

With a strength of only 1 and an armor of 5, snotlings don't stay on the pitch long!

Lastly, a “while” ago a friend of mine went to a GW Game’s Day and picked up an undead team which he eventually sold to me. I didn’t know at the time that I had a complete team of undead (20 miniatures total). This team is the one that my wife is playing and she’s getting fairly good with the rules, but now needs to work on strategy!

Here are the Mummies (right), Wights (middle) and Ghouls (left)

and the skeletons


and don't forget the zombies.

At the time of writing this, I have a new team on the way (Necromantic) as well as the needed figures to flesh out a human team. Was going to play the ogres as my next premiere team, but after the tournament, I decided that it wasn’t going to be all that fun…

I have a lot of back log stuff to talk about. Hopefully, I can get it all done over the Thanksgiving break!

Gencon - 2010 (LONG)

Last week was Gencon and again I went for all four days! It was a lot of fun and if you are any kind of gamer and in the area, I recommend it!

Wednesday – Day 0

Like last year, I decided to “Cull the Herd” and sell some of my games. In the end I had two containers full with 31 auctions. I had a mix of games that I was looking to sell and a bunch of old 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons. After a couple of hours of waiting in line (I pre-registered all my stuff this year), I got out of there happy that everything was in there.

My purchases started that day since I went and bought the Privateer Press Ram shirt like I have every year (it’s a tradition – like the hirstart mold). Once done, I headed to the Game Preserve (the local game store) for Urbie Wars! It’s a fun little pre-Gencon Battletech event that is a King of the Hill scenario. One of the guys had a bunch of Urbies – that’s Urbanmech for the masses – one of the crappiest mechs in the game and we tear about a heroscape board trying to kill each other. It’s a whole lot of fun (and very tongue in cheek). I managed to not be killed this year, but I able couldn’t hit anything so I probably was the most ineffective mechjock in the most ineffective mech (it’s a talent).

After the event, it was time to head to a friend’s house where I stay for the convention (he lives 15 minutes from the convention).

Spending: $20.00

Thursday – Day 1

I was helping at the Privateer Press booth most of the morning/afternoon so there isn’t much to tell here. I demo’ed all of the games since I was doing the break shifts. I like the break shifts since they are a bit shorter, but more importantly, I get to do all the games so I never get bogged down on any single table. It works for me and my style... The only downside is I have to keep current on all their games, but I got that so what can you do!

That evening, I had an obvious zombie event (it was called the Umbrella Chronicles). As fate would have it, the game system that we were played under was Ares (by Majestic Twelve Games - www.MJ12games.com) which was on the description, but I somehow missed it. Actually, the game itself was a mash of Ares and ATZ (from two hour wargames). It took a little time to get back into how the mechanics worked, but soon we were playing and keeping the game moving. In the end, I was surrounded by zombies in the middle of the field I was trying to escape) and was slowly mauled (normally you only get a +1/die if you are outnumbered, but zombies get to add an additional +1/die for each extra zombie in the fight – when my final models died, I had 4 zombies on both my remaining characters they were rolling +4/die or +8 – bloodbath). Still the game was a blast and I have played Ares with that GM at Origins a couple years ago. The refinements that he has made to the game have really made it work.

If you look closely, I'm in the middle of all those zombies near the yellow truck.

Friday – Day 2

Friday was jammed packed with events for me. I really loved being able to pre-reg for events. My first one was a Malifaux Demo. Both of us to play the demo had a basic understanding of the game, but we only got into the second turn before we had to stop. Still, it was a great little game and to be honest, any game that requires only 5 to 10 models is awesome! We didn’t get through much of it, but I really enjoyed the demo and the game system has some real cool concepts and ideas. I’ll have to put that on my watch list once the Great Painting is complete!

My Malifaux models line up for a picture!

I had about two hours in the dealer’s room and I spent that wondering about with Jarrod (and getting a Dr. Who cup for Meghan). We just combed through the hall and I was making a mental list of all the places that I wanted to stop on my larger shopping break on Saturday. I did manage to play a little bit of Claustrophobia before having to head to my next game (it wasn’t that bad, but it’s only for 2 players).

From noon to 4pm, I was scheduled to play in Battlestations – Bot Wars. Due to the number of players, both brothers ran a game and since I kinda knew what was going on in Bot Wars, I moved and played with Jason in a Deep Ones in Deep Space game. My returning character is a mad genius and get into trouble with sanity check more often than you would think! Still, the game was a blast and we barely made it out with our lives (go us).

Right after that, I moved to the main mini’s hall and played in a Star Wars – Full Thrust game. I played on the rebel’s side looking to destroy one (or more) of the Star Destroyers. We had the option in setting a trap for the Imperial players and it worked perfectly! We skirted out of our hiding place and got one of the smaller Star destroyers with minimal damage to ourselves. It was a lot of fun for us, but I’m sure that the Imperials (who were way out of position once we showed up and as a result got barely any shooting in) would say otherwise.

The trap works perfectly and the Star Destroyers are facing the wrong way!

Finally I had a Desperado game sponsored by 19 & 1 gaming group (they are based in Indianapolis and I used to hand out with them when I lived up there – heck, I was a member of the club for a while). Due to a scheduling issue, I had to leave after a single hour, but I did get a head shot in before I left killing a guy outright (thankfully, you got to come back in once killed). After the hour was up, it was time to run to the Press Ganger party at Jillian’s. I thought it started at 9pm, but it was really 8pm, so I missed the demo of the computer game that is coming out (heard from others that it was sweet).

Saturday – Day 3

My first game was a Song of Blades and Heroes game and it was a lot of fun (even if a bit one side – action-wise). The scenario was that the dwarves are looking to settle the score and reclaim their lost items. In my case (since I played the dwarves), I was looking to kill the Rat-man and take back an anvil that was stolen. My opponent had lower quality than me and really had a tough time keeping his warband together. Using my better quality (and thus more actions), I was able to take the battle to his flank and kill some of his rat-man and then slowly grinded away the middle until finished.

I actually had a game from noon to 4pm (Circus Magicus), but due to a major problem, I didn’t have any time to really check the dealer’s hall. Due to that, I had to cancel that event. In the end, I should have played in that cuz it looked great (and the home-brew rules were promising) instead of the SBH (since I’ve played a bunch of that). In any case, these four hours were the only time that was going to get to all my purchases done.

Without really slowing down to look at anything else, I went to ‘work’. I had a list of all the booths I needed to stop at and I quickly went from one side to the other getting all my stuff. I did get a ‘demo’ of Settlers of America and it was good game (and I needed it to complete my Catan good set and my 50% off a game). My only beef was that the demo lasted 45 minutes and was a bit too long for me (give me a 15 minute demo – I have stuff to do). Of course, once I got all my goods (did some serious trading – Ore for Wood, Grain for Clay and Clay back for Wood) and was looking to buy Settlers of America, the coupon was not usable for it so I picked up Nuns on the Run instead.

The buys: A battlefoam Warmachine bag ($145), the Iron Dynasty RPG book using the Savage Worlds Ruleset ($25) - I thought it was going to have more in the skirmish side of things in it, but that’s okay should be an interesting read regardless. Then a starter deck for World of Warcraft: the card game (Jarrod and I did get a game in and it was only 5 bucks with a coupon so what can I say – it was an impulse buy). Next was Deep Ones in Deep Space for Battlestations($20), a Devil’s Panties Comic - after all this time reading that comic, I finally got to meet the artist and I totally geeked out ($20). Lastly, the above mentioned Nuns on the Run game ($18).

At 4pm, both Meghan and I had a WEGS Old Skool (see http://www.gamewick.com/ )game called Tale of the Trojan Pig (ran by one of the ‘designers’ in the Table Top Gamers area – a great set of guys/gals based out of Ohio). The game was a basically a long-winded demo, but it was entertaining and that system is quite good for the quick ‘hack and slash’ game of old. Personally, I think it would be a lot easier to run it as a boardgame than say Descent (less prep, still a ton of options). Definitely need to get into the larger games for the next year. Did I just say I was going to move away from miniatures at a convention to play in a RPG???

See, a Trojan Pig!

Spending: $233 + $40 just now for the new edition of WEGS

Sunday – Day 4
The final day, I worked for Privateer Press. I started in the Iron Arena area, but due to a double booking, I actually found myself giving breaks in the dealer’s hall. Not a big deal, but I didn’t want to completely kill my voice. Thankfully, the hall was more subdued and I didn’t have to scream the entire time (like Thursday). Once the hall closed, I helped with some minor clean up and got to heading home! No buys and no ‘fun’ on the final day – just work!

Final Thoughts:

Of the 31 things I put up for auction/sale, all but 4 sold netting me just over $500. After the 15% processing fee, my total take home was around $420. Not a bad haul if you think about it. Now the remainder of the money from Gencon is going to probably get me a better Subbuteo setup.

Red Sand, Blue Sky

After reading all the battle reports on this game I went ahead and picked it up. After reading the rules for myself, it was time to get into the arena and finally play a game. So excited about this game, I made an arena for all my gladiator combats using a pizza pan (see previous entry). I don’t have any actual gladiator figures, but I have a ton of fantasy figures laying about so I grabbed a couple and placed them in the arena for the first contest! I have been thinking and talking about working a more fantasy spin on RSBS since I purchased it. However, since this is my first technical game of RSBS, I decided that I should use the regular rules and not add any specials, weapon or armor modifications into the mix.

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In the early morning light, two gladiators face off for what could be the start of their glorious careers. Our first combatant is a lizardman Retiarius named G’agg and our second combatant is a human Secutor named Fetch. Both are REP 4 on the Fringes of the Empire (whatever that would be in my fantasy world)…
Both combatants are sent into the arena and the fighting (and betting) begins in earnest…

The first turn sees both move straight towards each other. Fetch closes the distance, but it looks like G’agg will still get to throw his net! G’agg lets it fly, but Fetch grabs it out of the air and causes a tug of war! Both gladiators fight with all their might, but in the end, the net is flung useless to the ground.

Both square off in the arena

Fetch moves in grabbing the initiative (again) and strikes at G’agg (not having enough movement for a bash). What looked like a telling blow turned to be a mere scratch on the left arm of G’agg. G’agg doesn’t opt to flank and attack and both exchange ineffective attacks. G’agg grabs the initiative, but both fighters fail to damage their opponent. Fetch seeing a possible opening attempts to flank and attack, but G’agg was ready for him and all Fetch does is tire himself out (G’agg passed one more die then Fetch). Wanting to conserve strength, Fetch backs down for this attack and it works. It looks like G’agg saw an opening that wasn’t there and wastes energy on nothing (Fetch rolled a single die, where G’agg rolled 3 – no successes for either however).

Current die pools:
Fetch at 12, G’agg at 11

G’agg retains the initiative looks to flank Fetch and end this, caught a bit off guard, Fetch wastes some energy and gets a spear shot into his upper Left Leg causing him to stumble back (G’agg passes one more die then Fetch and forces him to spend a 1d10 to keep G’agg to his front). On the attack, G’agg hits Fetch in the unprotected upper left leg and causes a wound that does a total of 3d10 and pushes him back an inch). Not to be outdone, Fetch rushes back in to attempt to win this battle, but G’agg is faster and stabs Fetch for a deep cut into his chest. Exhausted Fetch falls to the ground. G’agg is awarded his first (of many?) Laurel wreaths (and 4 AP). In the coming months both of Fetch’s wounds do not heal correctly and he is sold off never to combat again…

G'agg stands victorious over his foe!

Final thoughts: The game plays great. Between this and Fight Night Fights, I feel there is a lot more options available for the player to choose in RSBS than in FNF. Still, I can't wait to play again.

Gladiator Arena!

There have been a lot of people playing Red Sands, Blue Sky (RSBS) on the THW forum so I went ahead and bought the game while at Origins. After reading through the rules, it occurred to me that I was going to need a suitable gladiator arena for my combats. In a bit of inspiration, I realized that if I could find a decently sized pizza pan, that I could have a quick (and cheap) gladiator arena! A trip to Walmart netted me a 16” metal pizza pan for a mere 4 bucks.

I scuffed it up with some sandpaper and placed felt on the bottom to keep it for sliding (yellow was on sale).

Then, I glued down a mix of sand and rocks (I find that the best time to get my 'perfect' rock mix is to get some from roads during winter - my city uses sand instead of salt for the roads).



Next step was to spray painted the whole thing brown (I use the cheap spray paint for terrain. I think the can cost about 2 bucks).


A couple of lighter browns and a few tan colors later, I had a nice effect. Clear coated it with cheap matte spray and was ready to play! I found out later that the pizza pan that I bought is metallic and I can add terrain to the arena with a couple of strong magnets (talk about convenient)!

Origins!

The last week in June was Origins Game Fair, a four day gaming convention in Columbus, Ohio. A group of my friends and I go every year and it’s always a good time. This year didn’t disappoint in the slightest.

Thursday – Day 1

I was helping Privateer Press run a Warmachine/Hordes tournament so I had to be at the convention center around 9am. I got my badge and my pre-reg tickets (not a fun prospect this year) and was the Co-tournament organizer for the morning and most of the afternoon. After the tournament was finished I wandered through the Dealer‘s Hall seeing if there was anything that I wanted/needed to buy. In the end, I went ahead and picked up the new Risk’s and Rewards card for ATZ by Two Hour Wargames. As an added bonus, I got Red Sand, Blue Sky for half off. There has been a lot of talk of that game on the yahoo board and I could pass up the 50% off sale!

The only game I played in before heading to sleep was Assault on Vault 51. It’s a fallout scenario using the Mutant’s and Death Rays rule set produced by Ganesha Games. It had a wonderful looking terrain and the game was well thought out and provided a ton of enjoyment. I am going to keep my thoughts and game recap to a minimum since I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who is going to play in it. After the game it was around midnight and since I woke up at 5 am to get to the convention on time, I didn’t feel all that bad for cutting out early.

Some of the beautiful terrain used in the Assault on Vault 51 game!

Spending: $20

Friday – Day 2

I got to the game room a bit early so I had some time to kill. As I was wondering around, a game of Deathrace (based off the Warlands system) was starting and even though I told them I couldn’t stick around for the while race, I jumped in. The rules are quite simple and the game itself was a lot of fun. I was bumped by a car during the first turn and that player managed to do a critical that killed my driver. It turns out with all the crashing and bumping that no car survived to the first ‘curve’. I was killed by my awesome ram in the back of two vehicles (after using nitro of course).

If you look closely, there is a car barely over the start/finish line (way behind yellow), that's me!

Again I was helping run a Warmachine/Hordes tournament. This only was a 2 caster/’lock, 50 point beast/warjack and it was a whole lot of fun to watch. Since we had an odd number of players and the second TO left to hang with his father for a round, I even got to play a Haley/Striker list against a Cryx player. Due to the number of players, the tournament ended a bit early so I spent the remainder of my time wandering about the game hall before my game that night. I picked up a couple of block die from Impact miniatures and some counters from Litko (http://www.litkoaero.com/)

In the evening, I played in an “Adventures in Lost Lands” game (by Two hour wargames) ran by Ed himself. There were 8 players so we split into two groups of 4 (with a bearer apiece). This game was a lot of fun. For some reason, the fates were against my side and we had to deal with a couple of feeder dino’s (which we wounded and sent towards the other group), Trogs (which we handled without any issues), Early Man (who surprised us and kill most of our team’s bearers) and second dino (who turned out to be a meat eater). We managed to kill it, but one of us was wounded in the process.

See the other dino's flee in the wake of KONG!

While trying to skin that dino (to prove their existence), three PEF (that’s possible Enemy force) showed up right on top of us… One of those PEF turned out to be King Kong! I fled when he came “In sight” but the others fled when Kong went after one of our hunters. Of course, we flee towards the other group and after losing one of their hunters, manage to kill Kong (amazing die rolls I might add). I didn’t make it off the table. I was attacked by the other of those PEFs after Kong ran through and we grouped back up. A great game!

Afterwards, I found a group just starting Red Dragon Inn and sat down to play. It was great fun and I even managed to win the game allowing me to have a chance at a prize. I rolled amazing (a 17 on a d20) and got Street Illegal for free.

Spending: $25 (but I knew I was buying Warlands when I came home)

Saturday – Day 3

This day was jammed pack with gaming starting at 8 am and heading straight through until 4pm. First up was “Wings of War” with miniatures. I really enjoyed the game with its simple rules and quick play. Due to an error in scheduling, a second group of people showed up to play at 9am and we all just played a huge 4 on 4 battle. Great fun… I can’t remember the young lady that showed us how to play, but I can tell you that she was a fighting ace taking down at least 4 planes in the short time we played… Even got me on turn two (took 4 damage cards that were enough to destroy my plane).

After that, it was time for some Savage Showdown in the Iron Dynasty campaign setting. The book is not out, but they are hopeful for Gencon. When I signed up, I wasn’t so excited about the setting since it’s ancient Japan with steampunk included, but I couldn’t find any other Savage Worlds non-RPG so I figured I’d take a stab at it. The game was a lot of fun even if my side (with the designer no less) didn’t manage to win. Each team had a clockwork vehicle of some sort, a magician of some sort (a wild card) and a couple of units (some samurai and some ‘shooters’. I was playing the vehicle (which tried to go toe-to-toe with the other vehicle and was destroyed). The system plays great as a skirmish wargame, but the point system can be easily abuse. I figured that I enjoyed the rule changes and the game enough that I’ll probably pick that up in the end.

The two steampunk vehicles command respect (at least their's did).

Final scheduled game for the day was a Battlestations game called Bot Wars ran by one of the designers (Jeff instead of Jason) and it was a hoot. There newest release is a mini-campaign where the bots have gone crazy and are attacking the humans (and the rest technically). We barely managed to survive the game. The only major beef with the convention games is that the returning characters can be a pick strong which really can have a huge impact. Our game was super rough since we had a level 6 pilot that was awesome at flying the ship, but the scenario we played was all about fighting robots. A friend of mine said his game was a mess since they had a level 6 marine who single-handedly fought most of the robot attackers! I’m glad that our game wasn’t that one-sided.

After that, it was back to the dealer’s room to again look about. Due to how much fun I had playing the Lost Lands game, I picked up a bunch of prehistoric models (mostly dinos, but I did pick up some prehistoric men).

Most of Saturday night was a trip to the Sausage house that we always go to. It’s has an all you can eat brat buffet with all the fixings. My only gripe (and it’s minimal at best) is that I eat too much good German food and am a mess for the remainder of the night (it’s also disheartening to leave the convention for ~2 hours, but I wouldn’t miss “Sausage Fest” for anything).

When I got back to the convention, a friend of mine (Justin) bought All Thing Zombie including some Rebel Mini 15mm zombies/survivors. Since we had some free time and didn’t have anything lined up, we put together a little scenario and played through the game. It was a bit rough to remember all the rules and such (it’s one thing to read the rules, it quite another to actually explain and play it). Still, with a lot of page flipping, we got through the game pretty well. Both of us had a Rep 5 survivor (star) and a Rep 4 grunt so things weren’t as bad as they could have been (like lower rep civies). I think we ran into only a couple of minor problems on our trek across the board (to a car park).

Spending: $60

Sunday – day 4

I had a single game lined up due to one getting cancelled. It was another from Ganesha Games called Song of Armies and Hordes. I wasn’t going to play this since I’m not a big fan of large scale battles, but in the end I stuck it out and played in it anyways. In the end, I’m glad I did; using their activation mechanic made famous in their “Song of…” series, it played fast and fun. Honestly, there were just a couple of minor changes to the core mechanic, but really made the game a lot of fun.

The Dwarven and Elves clash!

Afterwards, I went back into the dealer’s room for some last minute buys. I first picked up a copy of Bot Wars complete with autograph! Next, I picked up three boxes of Starship Trooper models (costing 5 dollars a box), a dreadnaught for my ‘space marines’ (I have a couple of squads from Space Hulk) and some of the Iron Kingdoms RPG miniature line (including a bridge troll for use in Blood Bowl). If that wasn’t enough, I bought more dinos and lions for gladiator gaming (when I finish reading the book of course).

Spending: $80

Somewhere in there I played in a Leviathans demo from Catalyst games. It has some really cool ideas to it and I can’t wait to see some of the finished product. I wish I would have taken more pictures of it since my memory is fuzzy on when I actually played it. The system is easy. You pick a weapon that has a color code which coincides with a die type (I’m told that the polyhedron dice are ‘weighted’). To that add any addition dice for ‘crew’ (green die) and a die from the target (its speed & trajectory). With those dice, a final normal d6 is rolled to determine location (much like in Warmachine for the column). Sum the value on the dice and check to see if equals or exceeds the armor value in that space that location is damaged and whatever was ‘there’ is gone. I guess the idea is the hull of the ships are standard, but the ‘slots’ for each ship are going to be customizable. We will see once it gets closer to release on the full rules and the like. If I didn’t have a bunch of other game systems sitting in the house, I’d probably get into it.

Final Thoughts:

Origins Game Fair is always a fun time and if you can make it, I recommend going. Nothing many of the big game companies there, but don’t let that stop you. The dealer’s room has more than enough stuff to keep a gamer like me happy and the games being played are always fun to watch and play! I can’t wait until next year.