Twisted Almost Over

Posted on March 13, 2016 by Quirkworthy

I’ve mentioned the Twisted Kickstarter a couple of times before, and I’ll be coming back to them again, I’m sure. Hard to resist such lovely figures.

Twisted comparison resin-metal

As you can see in the picture, they offer these 32mm models in both resin and metal, and in both materials the detail is nice and crisp, capturing the high quality of the original sculpt. Painters should have a lot of fun with these, and that’s not all: there’s a jolly little game in there too 🙂

Anyway, I just noticed that it’s the last weekend of their campaign (it closes in 3 days), so if you haven’t had a look you might want to. It’s gone very nicely and they’re pleased with the results so far. I’m sure that they’ve got more up their sleeves though…

Posted in Kickstarter, Random Thoughts, Twisted | Tagged , | Leave a comment

A Dungeon Saga Question…

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Quirkworthy

DS-logo-badge…and answer.

This one came up yesterday, and I thought I’d pass it on before I forgot 🙂

The following follows my usual Question, Answer, Discussion format.

Q: What happens when a Hero that starts without any Shooting skill gains a Shooting dice through levelling?

A: The Hero gets to write 1 Shooting dice on their sheet and can now take Shoot actions. The range is the appropriate one for the weapon they have (see below). When they make a Shooting attack, note that they will often get an extra dice because they cannot roll fewer than 2.

D: This is a compromise between either two or three earlier versions of the rules (I can’t remember which now) and is slightly less harsh than the original DKH version. If you want to add a bit more realism, then play that you don’t get the 2 dice minimum if the modifiers reduce you to zero dice or fewer – instead you cannot take the shot. As it stands, a Hero with 1 dice gets a bit of an artificial boost and is effectively immune to problems like being injured or partially blocked targets: he’ll always get 2 dice to shoot. Like I said, it could be more realistic. However, it is fairly heroic, and that’s quite appropriate, which is why I don’t mind. Plus it’s not exactly a common issue, and compared to Heroes who are good at shooting it’s not much of a benefit. Professional archers are still going to be a lot better, and Heroes that only dabble in Shooting are still likely to have better things to do most of the time anyway.

Regarding the choice of Shooting weapon, personally I’d let people pick what they wanted, with the caveat that they must model the weapon on their Hero model if they want it to be long range. Short range throwing knives, etc could be hidden under robes. Not so with bows and similar weapons. If you want the extra in-game benefit then you should make the extra modelling effort 🙂

 

Posted in Dungeon Sagas, FAQ | Tagged , | 42 Comments

A New Gaming Magazine Coming Soon

Posted on March 3, 2016 by Quirkworthy

The folks who do Figure Painter magazine are branching out into gaming with their upcoming title Initiative Magazine.

Initiative magazine logoI rather like Figure Painter (even when I’m not daubing myself), and have found a number of great models and companies in there over the years. I’ll be interested to see how they pitch their gaming version. Personally, I’m hoping for coverage of the smaller games – in terms of publicity – because there’s a load of col stuff out there which deserves more attention and fails to get it because of marketing rather than game quality. I suspect that they’ll have to include some GW games, Warmachine, etc to get people looking though.

What would you like to see?

I don’t envy them the challenge. It’s tough doing magazines these days (on any subject) because the internet is already full of so much stuff. What they need is a unique voice, so we’ll see if they can find it.

Here’s hoping they can 🙂

 

Posted in Magazine, Random Thoughts | Tagged , | 35 Comments

A Moment’s Interruption

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Quirkworthy

Sorry if you tried to connect this morning and couldn’t find quirkworthy.com. The auto-renewal for the domain name was linked to an expired credit card and I’d forgotten to update it.

Oops.

All sorted now.

Posted in Random Thoughts | 2 Comments

Last Hours Of Age Of Tyrants

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Quirkworthy

Big gunsWell the clock is ticking down on the AoT Kickstarter. They’re fully funded, so it’s going to happen, which is great. They’ve also unlocked a bunch of extras, which is also good news for their backers. These include a whole bunch of flyers, free figures, and more troops to customise your army further. All told, they’ve ended up with a fairly well-rounded selection of options (including some humungous artillery pieces – like those shown above).

It’s been a bit of a roller-coaster, not least of which because Wayne England died in the middle of it. He was the main concept artist for the project, as well as a friend, so that was a blow on many levels. A real character who will be much missed.

Still, as the big man said when he heard it was funded: “We Are The Champions..WAAOOOOOOT” 🙂

 

Posted in Age of Tyrants, Random Thoughts | Tagged | 2 Comments

Buzzing

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Quirkworthy

No, not a game about bees (though I did do one of those). Just my mood this morning after a great gaming session last night. As I said on Facebook, I think everyone should try gaming. Why doesn’t everyone?

What is it that we (as gamers) aren’t doing to explain to the wider world that gaming is so enjoyable?

Is it really that 90% of the world isn’t wired to enjoy it? The studies I’ve seen on the value of play makes me doubt that.

Is it that people are too busy to meet up with real people face to face, and that “gaming” now means digital gaming and that’s it? I’d say there was a strong measure of this, though even these gamers are missing out on a lot of what I’d call gaming. As every study on communications will tell you, 90%+ of the information we communicate to each other is done by body language and tone of voice. It is simply not the same playing online (as much fun as MMOs, etc are).

Is it that people simply don’t know what’s there, and think that the world of games games is just Monopoly, chess and Ker-plunk? I think this is true too.

 

Working on the assumption that more players is a good thing, then what can we do about it, over and above what is done already?

Posted in Random Thoughts | 26 Comments

And Another One

Posted on February 8, 2016 by Quirkworthy

And Demented have finally set a date (for their Kickstarter) 🙂

12672062_1069317679767094_2149730122325890609_o.jpgI’ve been working with these guys for a while, though only on a rules front. They need zero help from me on the miniatures end of things. Their work is amazing!

It’s been an interesting experiment for me, as I’ve not been writing the rules, but critiquing and reviewing them instead, offering suggestions and options for improvement. Mentoring, if you like. It seems to have been quite a successful process, and I’ll be offering that service more widely later this year.

But back to Twisted…

The chaps are really keen to make their game as much fun as the crazy background demands. It still has all the normal moving and fighting stuff you might expect of a skirmish game, but it can all get a bit… well… Twisted when The Engine intervenes. And when does The Engine intervene, I hear you ask. Well that’s a big like the old one about the gorilla with a machine gun. What does it do? Whatever it likes.

I think there’s a bit more tweaking of the game left to do to really finesse it, and the KS will have some beta rules for you to try out so you can join in the process. It would be great to hear what you think. Personally, I think that Twisted has a really nice atmosphere about it, and tells a fun story, which for me is an important part of a game. The fact that the miniatures are so good is just a cherry on top 🙂

 

Posted in Random Thoughts | Comments Off on And Another One

While I Was Out…

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Quirkworthy

aot_facebook_placeholder…a whole bunch of stuff happened. As you’d expect.

One item of note was that the Age of Tyrants Kickstarter went live, and I’m happy to see that it’s already funded with a fortnight left to run. Just a case of seeing what goodies get added to the core set now 🙂

I’ve got a couple of the early test shots of the models that I can show you when I dig them out of the piles of boxes which turned up yesterday in the office. They must be in there somewhere. You’ll probably have seen renders and other people’s pics already (on the official website, for example), but it never hurts to show some more angles. They have done a very nice job of getting the models to look like the renders, and keep the fine detail.

Anyway, I’ll come back to this again when I’ve got more to say. Just thought I’d bring up the topic of big games with little tanks again 🙂

 

Posted in Age of Tyrants, Random Thoughts | Tagged | 4 Comments

Hello Internet!

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Quirkworthy

Back online. Finally.

This is all fallout from the house move, as regular readers may have guessed. It all went abysmally wrong at almost every step, and it’s been a massive time sink. No internet in the new place either, and the incompetents who are supposed to get it turned on promised me it would be in place last Wednesday, then Thursday, then Friday, then “please ring again tomorrow and ask because I don’t know when it will be live”. Seriously, that’s a direct quote. Turns out it’s not till the end of this week. Allegedly.

However, I have moved into a new office, and that does have a connection. In fact, it has a ridiculously fast one, which will be very nice for Skyping around the globe, as I often do.

Anyway, this is just a little note to tell you that I’ve not been ignoring you deliberately, and that I’m back now. These’s a small matter of a mountain of email to dig through before I see much light, but at least I can make a start now 🙂

Posted in Random Thoughts | 8 Comments

SF Skirmish Games

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Quirkworthy

I mentioned in comments on another post that I was working on two other SF skirmish games, and some folk have asked to know more. Well these are both things I’m sure I’ve mentioned before…

The first is Eternal Battle. This is the latest incarnation of something that has been an almost constant companion of mine for something like a decade (what you might call a long development cycle). I’m so used to it that I forget you don’t know all about it too 🙂

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll explain more about that at some point. However, mostly my recent work has been on another project that I’m calling Old Skool Skirmish (OSS).

OSS is an idea that was inspired by the nostalgia invoked by the style of Macrocosm and Colony 87 miniatures. Now the game isn’t designed for those models per se – they were merely the jumping off point. However, I do have all the Colony 87s, and many of the Macrocosm figures, so I expect they’ll get used in my own games. Speaking of my own games, this whole idea was originally just a piece of amusement for myself rather than something I expected to broadcast more widely. It was, in some ways, another of the periodic design exercises I set myself: in this case whether I could design something in a specific retro style. It’s been loads of fun to do, and I’m very happy with both the way it’s worked out and the reaction my gaming buddies have had to it. If I was carrying the 1980s thing to its logical conclusion I’d sell wonkily photocopied versions of it, stapled together slightly inaccurately. However, I don’t think I’ll go quite that far.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure I’ll release it at all. I’m in two minds about whether it’s best kept as a private amusement or opened for wider use. If I keep it just for my own group then I don’t have to make it coherent for anyone else (though vagueness is, in fact, part of the retro style I’m emulating, and the game would be wrong without it). That would save a lot of effort as polishing something for general release is a long part of the process. On the other hand, it would be a shame to keep it to myself. I think I’ll see how I feel when I’ve got the house move over and sorted out my new study 🙂

Posted in Eternal Battle, Old Skool Skirmish, SF skirmish | Tagged , , | 19 Comments