The TGN voting pages are now back up, fixed (supposedly) and with all the nominations. Sort of. I did suggest a certain Dragon that’s missing…
Anyway, I’m just reminding you because it’s a fun thing to peruse with lots of stuff you might have missed from the avalanche of new toys over the year. I know I’ve found a gem or two in there.
You can also vote for Dwarf King’s Hold on the Rules/Expansions section, should you feel so inspired 🙂
Happy voting!
This is the first version of my house rules for Dreadfleet. It’s not a complete rewrite, but a cutting away of what I think of as dead wood that hides the worthwhile game underneath. Or, put another way, murdering some darlings that should have long since been safely hidden away under the turf.
This is only the first cut of these house rules and needs a load more playtesting to call finished. I just thought you might like to have a peek at where it is now, and perhaps play some games yourselves and let me know what you think. That is, after all, why I have comments section 😉
I’ll be saying “I decided this”, and “I came up with that” because I’m writing it (and because I can’t recall who actually thought of every little bit), but this is really a collaborative effort. I particularly have to thank the Jolly Old Tar known as GloatingSwine who did indeed come up with many of the following thoughts – even if I’ve subsequently put them through the mangle…
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I’ll be putting up the House Rules in their own post so I can track comments better (and after I’ve got them a little more straight). For now, let me run you through the game GloatingSwine and I played.
We were playing scenario 9 in which the Grand Alliance has to charge the length of the table and get off the other side. The only scenario rule we changed was the way you calculate victory. Instead of rolling a dice you tot up VPs. Alliance get VPs for getting ships off and Dreadfleet gets them for sinking Alliance vessels. The Grand Alliance don’t get anything but an easier life for sinking enemy ships.
The first turn was a race for the middle, with only the odd long ranged shot being fired. The first Fate card (yes, we’re still using them, but only one per turn) was the Tsunami. Wot larks! We’d already decided to reduce that to D3 damage, and it did some damage to 4 enemy ships. I should perhaps have waited till some were close to sinking, but I just blurted it out. By the end of turn one we were in among the central line of rocks.
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Tabletop Gaming News (TGN) have an annual Reader’s Choice Award, split into several categories to cover the best in gaming for the past year. They’ve just put up the 2011 voting and Dwarf King’s Hold is in the Rules and Expansions section 🙂
Whilst there are always enough cries of ballot stuffing and vote rigging to satisfy a medium sized dictatorship, I think it’s a bit of fun and encourage you to mosey on over and cast your votes in the various different categories. Naturally I’d like you to vote for the sell out* Dwarf King’s Hold in the rules category because I wrote it, but actually I think the most useful bit is already done: the nominations. Each year these shortlists includes a gem or two that have slipped by me either unnoticed or without garnering the attention they perhaps deserved and this list is a reminder to go back and see if there was something I missed. It’s even worth going back through the searches and looking at previous year’s nominations. You never know what cool stuff you’ll find.
So what are you waiting for? Get out there and vote!
*Don’t panic if you haven’t got one already. It’s back in print now and can be found in your local game store or direct from Mantic Games who have the good manners, taste and charm to publish it 😉
As those of you who have read my reviews of Dreadfleet will know, I wasn’t entirely impressed by the rules. The models are well made, the mat looks great and the rulebook is very pretty, but the game itself? Well, that’s way too random and way too long for my taste.
So, I have a very expensive box of nice models sitting about not likely to do anything but gather dust. I could just stick it on Ebay and have done with it, and I was sorely tempted when I played it. Well I never got round to that, and now I’m curious. Instead of just binning it, can I tweak the rules a bit and get a game I like?
I like naval games, and have quite a few. Individually, most of the rules in Dreadfleet are fine and are often “industry standard” – it’s just the whole ensemble that doesn’t work. I don’t have either the time or the inclination to start from scratch, so I decided on a brief for my project:
…that is the question Shakespeare wrote so eloquently about.
Well I’ve been talking to people, soliciting opinions (thanks Richard) and mostly mulling this one over since it blossomed into a big discussion in one of the comment threads. Because I love you all I have selflessly burned whole tens of brain cells to bring you this considered opinion on the matter. Of course, there’s no telling whether this is any more valid than my unconsidered opinion, but I like to feel that those brain cells did not die in vain.
So, what’s it all about?
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With the “leak” of a credible looking version of the (supposedly) upcoming 6th edition of 40K, I am prodded again into thinking about the curiosity that is False Flag Marketing.
It’s a term I made up rather than read, though the principle is an ancient one. To explain what I mean: “marketing” we all know as the planned relationship between company and customer of which advertising, brand management and so on all play a part.
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Tears of Envy is no more.
If you didn’t know, Tears of Envy is the brilliant graphic artist who designed the tiles for all the Dwarf King’s Hold series as well as the upcoming Project Pandora. She’s also worked for loads of other people designing logos and board art as well as books and other graphics. Quite apart from her undoubted skills as an artist, she’s a lovely lady with a lively and somewhat eclectic mixture of interests.
She’s not fallen under a bus or been abducted by aliens, instead she’s been snatched up by Games Workshop to do her thang for them full time rather than working for the rest of us as a freelance artist. Good for them; bad for us.
Personally it’s a mixed blessing, because it means that she’ll be up in Notts for a game or two rather than at the other end of the coutry. On the other hand, we now have the rather tall order of finding someone else who can live up to her graphics if we want to do any more Dwarf King’s Hold or Pandora tiles. The lengths Workshop will go to undermine me!
Anyway, enough whining. I just though this might interest a few of you, and explain in advance why things might have to change in the world of tile games.
Good luck Tammy!
Oddly, given the title, I wasn’t really intending this to be a series, but here I am. Today I’d like to bring your attention to the unjustly ignored:
I’d have hoped that more would know of this excellent site, but judging from some recent conversations I’ve had it would seem that they’ve snuck under a lot of radars. Anyway, if you don’t know them, Under the Mountain is an outstanding site for news on top quality figures in general, and Rackham’s Confrontation range in particular (plus Legacy Miniatures’ continuation of the same).
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I spent this afternoon playing Project Pandora: Grim Cargo with Ronnie. After some awkwardness to start with, she’s suddenly decided to behave herself. Yay!
I’ve talked before about the variable helpfulness of different game designs, and this was another variation of awkward. I could always see the game lurking within the tangle, and it’s nice to see it finally doing what I wanted it to from the start. We’ve been playing the first training mission a lot. Like the first scenario from each of the Dwarf King’s Hold starter sets I’ve aimed to make it a scenario that you can play again and again as you fine tune your tactics and (in this case) go for a high score. It’s proving very popular with the testers who keep asking for “just one more go”, and this is exactly the response you hope for. Once you move onto the other scenarios you get some extra features and the game gets a little more involved, so it’s a really good idea to get a firm grounding of the basic tactics on the training ground, before they try to rip your head off for real.
When I got back from the carnage (and after snaffling some of the splendid Mantic ghouls for my upcoming undead army project) I found an email from Foundry telling me that Tribes of Legend has survived the Somali pirates and escaped the dastardly clutches of customs, and even now is ready for pre-orders. If I’m really quick I can get one of the first 50. Apparently they’re signed by the author!
Really?
Anyway, my gaming year’s starting off nicely. It also looks like I might be visiting the Beasts of War chaps again, and heading off down to Salute. This year I’ll be trying to sneak away from the stand to have a bit more of an explore around the rest of the place and perhaps do one of my event reports. If I can smuggle in a file to get through the chains…
Quirkworthy 