Sci-Fi & Fantasy Incoming! – Episode VI

Welcome to Episode 6 of the Sci-Fi & Fantasy Edition of Incoming!
This show features new releases from Reaper Miniatures, Taban Miniatures, Dragonblood Miniatures & Darkson Designs

Incoming! – Episode 21

Welcome to Episode 21 of Incoming!
This show features new releases from Reaper Miniatures, Company B, Eureka Miniatures & JTFM Enterprises

Ghost Stories – Oh, the horror!

Last night was another meeting of Scimitar Wargames Group. Since this is the Wednesday closest to Halloween, we traditionally play games  with a ‘horror’ focus.

I got to play Ghost Stories, which is a co-operative game which was released last year to rave reviews – and after playing it I can see why.

The players are a group of Taoist monks, defending a village from an invasion of ghosts – led by the dreaded Wu-Feng, Lord of the Nine Hells, who has come to the village to reclaim his ashes, rise from the dead and plunge the world into eternal darkness – you know the sort of thing.

This game (even played a the easiest level, which we did) had all the classic elements of co-op. Everything appeared fine, we commented on how easy things seemed (although I was somewhat suspicious, given the games’ reputation)…and then we all died very quickly!

A post-mortem discussed revealed several ‘lightbulb’ moments – the classic one being that when we started the game, we didn’t ‘click’ about ghost placement…always put the weak ghosts on the corners so you get the chance to defeat two at once. And other things…like actually using the Buddha tokens early in the game, when you’re not overrun and too busy rushing from one ghost to the next to think about them.

In short, a really good game, and I can’t wait to play this again. It’s theme and gameplay appeals to me much more than something like Pandemic, and it has all the classic co-op issues – things get worse every turn, and you always have a really hard choice of what to do from several different options. The variation of player powers, plus the different manifestations of Wu-Feng lead to some great replayability, and that’s before you up-the-ante to Nightmare and Hell levels.

Another one on the shopping list!

Meeples & Miniatures – Episode 53

Download Episode 53

Welcome to Episode 53 of the Meeples & Miniatures Podcast.

In this show, I review Battleground Historical Warfare, the new wargame from Your Move Games, and I interview Chad Ellis of YMG about the development process behind the game.

I also chat about the Blood Bowl computer game, plus the usual podcast and gaming news.

00:00   Intro

03:40   Podcast News

09:30   Gaming Report

17:20   In Depth Review – Battleground Historical Warfare

54:05   Interview – Chad Ellis, Your Move Games

93:15   Review – Blood Bowl for the Nintendo DS

105:55 Closing Comments

Incoming! – Episode 20

Welcome to Episode 20 of the Incoming! Video Podcast

This show features new releases from Victrix Miniatures, Perry Miniatures, Essex Miniatures & Warmodelling.com

Sci-Fi & Fantasy Incoming!- Episode 5

Welcome to Episode 5 of the Sci-Fi & Fantasy Edition of Incoming!

This show looks at the new miniature releases for w/e 9th October 2009, and features new models from, amongst others, Dark Age, Red Box Games, Black Hat Miniatures & Hasslefree Miniatures.

View from the Veranda – Episode 3

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Welcome to Episode 3 of View from the Veranda, with Neil Shuck & Henry Hyde.

In this show, we discuss our inspirations for wargaming – but with typical verbal diversions into the realms of British school history curriculum, Michael Bentine’s Potty Time and the mysterious disappearance of the Battle of Bosworth diorama.

Blood Bowl mania…

Don’t ask me why, but all of a sudden Blood Bowl seems to have had a resurgence in our gaming group.

This has led to some frantic searching – both about the web, eBay, and even in my shed(!) as we have been digging around for rules, boards and miniatures, as it now appears decided that a Blood Bowl league will be starting shortly (I’ve a game in about 3 weeks, allegedly!)

Now, I’m no stranger to this game. Indeed, somewhere in my sons’ wardrobe lies both 1st Edition boxes, complete with all the teams in all their cardboard glory. I enjoyed this game immensely at the time, though looking back it was a somewhat long-winded affair.

I also purchased the second edition of the game (the one with the Astro-granite pitch), although its whereabouts where a mystery until recent days…

So, back to the present, and there has been much exchange of email about how we go about getting a game together. The Living Rulebook is a free download, but you still need a pitch, some templates and a board – plus the miniatures, of course.

OK, GW still sell everything, but it’s £50 for the Third Edition game, and the teams retail about £30 – £40 each (figures are almost £5 each!)

Luckily, there are alternatives. Impact miniatures produce a range of miniatures for their Elfball game, Heresy produce some great figures for Deathball (including a fantastic Ogre & Minotaur) and Hasslefree also produce several examples of ‘Fantasy Football’ figures.

And then, as if by magic, I found my 2nd Edition box set – whilst clearing out the shed.

It was lying on a bottom shelf, covered in cobwebs. The box had seen better days, but the pitch, templates and figures were OK – the figures were even painted! (I’d forgotten about that!)

And sitting on top of the 2nd Edition box was a copy of DungeonBowl. This was almost as new – completely unpunched. However, it has become a victim of the damp, and is almost completely ruined – except for the plastic Elf and Dwarf teams in the box.

Mind you, one thing that quickly became apparent was the poor quality of the playing ‘boards’ in this game – they are little more that thick paper…they make cereal boxes look thick!

Also in the boxes were the 2nd Edition expansion books – now completely useless, but an interesting read, all the same.

And so this leads me onto my final Blood Bowl related purchase – the new computer game.

Since I don’t own a games PC (and my laptop lacks a 3d card) I went for the DS version to play on my sons handheld.

OK, the graphics aren’t a patch on the PC version, but all the gameplay is there – or so I thought.

However, half way through my first Championship game, the game hung. Reloaded the game, it hung again – in the same place. Not impressed.

Some of the control interfaces (especially substitutions) are problematic, at best – and this is a major issue in the ‘campaign’ game.

Solo one-off games seem OK, so far – but this has led me to the Focus Interactive forum and what I’ve found in the two days I’ve been playing the game looks to be the tip of the iceberg.

OK, if a PC game has bugs, you can install patches and fix them – but how are you supposed to ‘patch’ a DS cartridge? I feel a customer complaint to Focus and/or Nintendo coming on.

I’ll give a full review of the game in the next Meeples & Miniatures podcast.

Podcast & Vidcast news – October 2009

Hi everyone

Just thought I’d give you a quick update with what is due to be happening during the course of October…the answer is ‘not a lot’.

Meeples & Miniatures – I’m hoping to get a short show out sometime in the next two weeks. This will probably be missing it’s ‘in-depth’ review though…

View from the Veranda – Henry and I recorded a show last Thursday, but I’ve been struggling for time to edit it (it didn’t help that we talked for 150 minutes!). Editing is ongoing, and I’m hoping to have this published (and running for under 2 hours!) next week.

Incoming! – Well, the vidcasts were published as normally last week, but are likely to take a small hiatus until the end of October.

Miniature Review Vidcast – I’m desperate to get some of these out, but I simply can’t see it happening until the end of the month.

“What is the problem?” I hear you ask?

A simple lack of time, I’m afraid. I spent half of last weekend in Oxford, and I’m away again this weekend, as my niece is getting married. Schools Half-Term week is upon us in October as well, and I’m away for two consecutive weekends as the family are on holiday in Skye (and the laptop has been banded from being taken!)

I’m (somewhat desperately) hoping that things will return to something approaching normal come the end of October – assuming I remember what normal is, of course!