Blog Reader Competition – November

Hello Everyone!

I’ve just purchased a copy of Warlord Games new rules, Black Powder, to review on the podcast (All being well, I’m recording this show on Friday night)

If you purchase this rule set from Warlord Games, you get a special miniature included in the pack – ‘Big Wullie’, a Highlander from the Crimean War.

As a new feature on the blog I’m going to be running a Prize Competition every month, and I’m starting by offering this figure as the prize for November.

Interested?

All you have to do to enter is answer the following (easy) question:

One of the most well-known incidents of the Crimean War was the “Charge of the Light Brigade”. In what battle did this take place, and when was it fought?

Know the answer? Then simply send the answer in an email to me neil@meeplesandminiatures.co.uk with the title ‘Big Wullie Competition’. The winner of the figure will be drawn at random from the correct answers.

The competition is open until Midnight GMT on Monday 30th November, so you have plenty of time to get your entries in. This competition is open to anyone, worldwide, and the figure will be sent out post-free.

The winner will be announced on 1st December, along with details of a new competition.

Good Luck!

Arcane Legions – worth a look?

What do you do when driving for 20 hours (to and from Western Scotland) – catch up on your podcast downloads of the D6 Generation of course!

Well, I’ve managed several shows, which is more than any sane person would want to listen to 3 American gamers in so short a period

However, one show did intrigue me – which was when they covered the new minis game Arcane Legions.

This has now been released in the UK, and with a starter pack plus a Cavalry pack for each army weighing in at about £50, this looks interesting (and cheap) enough to at least have a look at.

However, with so much other stuff currently vying for my hard earned cash (and with Christmas just around the corner) I just want to ask – is this game worth the investment? Is it any good?

Your comments would be appreciated…

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!

100,000+

Today has seen the 100,000th visitor to this blog since it’s creation in February 2008.

Can I just express a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has visited this site, and especially to those of you who have left comments and emails of encouragement along the way – I very much appreciate it.

“It’s one small step for man, one giant leap for a Meeple!“

Meeples & Miniatures – Episode 52

Download Episode 52

Can you believe the summer is almost at an end? Everyone is planning for ‘going back to school’, England are preparing to finally lose the Ashes series – and I finally get to go away on holiday!

However, as a parting summer gift, I’ve uploaded Episode 52 of the Meeples & Miniatures podcast. This is a look back at what I’ve been doing over the summer – the UK Games Expo and Manorcon mainly – but with a bit of extra chat about my favourite Gen Con highlights (I almost felt like I was there) and even some chat about a computer game that would make a great miniatures game.

I hope you enjoy the show, and look out for lots of new content coming in September.

Show Details

00:00 – Intro

03:15 – Podcast news

13:55 – The UK Games Expo…a look back at the 2009 event

39:25 – X-Com: UFO Defence

49:55 – Manorcon 2009

61:20 – Shiny new stuff from Gen Con…and Space Hulk!

71:00 – Closing Comments

New ‘Space Hulk’ – oh so tempting…

So, the 20th Anniversary edition of Space Hulk – the best game that Games Workshop have ever produced – has gone on pre-order today.

Whilst the new edition looks very nice – all new unique Terminators, new Genestealers (which look at least partly inspired by the Horrorclix Aliens – leaping off scenery etc), plastic objective markers – it’s already flagging up a single question…

…should I buy it?

OK – if you don’t own the game, it’s a no-brainer – yes, Yes, YES!!!

However, I own the 1st (and best IMO) edition of the game, plus all the expansions, the extra missions and board pieces from White Dwarf and a load of extra board pieces – plus lots of painted (yes PAINTED!) Terminators from my Dark Angels Deathwing army.

People are complaining at the price – £58.75. It’s a lot of money…no more than a big box game from FFG (Middle Earth Quest, for example) but still a lot of money. The new game components would seem to indicate that the rules have gone back to 1st Edition (flamer templates, timer for Space Marines) with addition rules from Deathwing (extra Space Marine weapons, plus Librarian/Captain)

So, should I buy this game?

To be honest, it’s really put me into a quandry. The game components, though nice, are a simple artwork update from the original game  – and my copy is still in perfectly good condition. No plastic doors, no plastic floors or walls, all cardboard. Yes, we now have nice entry point markers for the Genestealers – and a sandtimer – but that’s nothing too groundbreaking is it?

So, other than the new minis, this looks to be the same game that I already own – and indeed, I own much more than what is provided here. Yes, it’s only £60, but having seen several new releases from FFG which should be in the UK before the end of the year, I think I can spend my money elsewhere more wisely.

But its a new version of Space Hulk…

I haven’t got long to decide – with only 35,000 copies, I can see this selling out very quickly on pre-order.

My car insurance doesn’t really need renewing at the end of the month, does it?

…and then of course I remember that I’ve actually got a whole load of painted Eureka Aliens, the full set of Colonial Marines from Gripping Beast, and a whole host of ‘Alien-esque’ scenery from people like Graven Images and Scotia Grendel – and all is well with the world – let’s face it, Space Hulk is really ‘Aliens‘, isn’t it?

Between a rock and a hard place…

I can’t help thinking that this is the place I’m destined to be…

When I started Incoming! I got some flak for having the audacity to review figures based simply on looking at the pictures that a company has produced of that figure – “It’s not a proper review” they cried.

Now it seems I’m being taken to task for not being harsh enough in my comments…

So, I just want to clarify where I stand on this.

It is very difficult to fully judge a figure without actually having it in your hand. However, you can pick up on a certain amount of detail from a picture, and certain flaws of scale or detail are usually pretty obvious.

Now, I’m usually a pretty positive sort of person – especially when it comes to the Miniatures hobby. I like being upbeat and positive about new products, and I actually dislike giving negative reviews  – especially when I’m not referring to a physical figure, but rather a picture which can be open to issues both with the photography and whatever paint job has been applied.

Also, if I’m not familiar with the subject matter, I can’t give comment on historical accuracy.

So, I’m inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I’ll simply revert back to whether the figure makes good ‘eye candy’…and as we all know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

However, it does seem that I may be somewhat overstepping the mark in my positive attitude – or at least according to some this may be the case.

Now, the one thing I try to take pride in is my honesty – I want you to know that what you get with anything I review is based on my honest opinion, and is not influenced by any other factors. It seems that my natural positive, enthusiastic attitude may be in danger of compromising my objectivity – or colouring my subjective opinion, as that is what any sort of review actually is.

So, maybe it’s time to change – time to talk about what I don’t like about a figure, rather than just what I do like. Time to remove the coloured spectacles?

OK – I hear you.

However, given that you can’t please all of the people all of the time, I’m sure that this runs the risk of upsetting a whole new sector of my audience…

Distractions too…

OK, so time to come clean about what I’ve been up to for the last week…

It all started with a conversation I had at work about 10 days ago. My work colleague (Who is a serious computer gaming geek) was telling me that he’s just bought a package of strategy games on STEAM, and was going through what it included. As he went down the list, he mentioned the X-COM series of games and I suddenly became seriously interested.

X-COM UFO Defense is my all time favourite computer game. It was produced in 1993, back in the days when a 486 processor was considered to be fast, but despite this it is still as good as ever.

You play the head of X-COM, an organisation which has been created and tasked to defend the Earth against increasing alien attack (a bit like S.H.A.D.O. in the Gerry Anderson TV Series UFO)

You do this in two different ways.

The first is at a strategic level. You manage the creation and maintenance of various bases throughout the world. You start with a single base, complete with a complement of a couple of Interceptors, a Troop Transport, some Troops, Engineers and Scientists and a bare minimum of equipment.

As the game progresses, you can build other facilities, research new technology (including alien tech) and manufacture new goods – anything from laser weapons through personal armour, heavy weapons platforms and even new fighter craft based on UFO technology.

However, the first role of your bases is to detect and intercept UFO’s entering Earth’s atmosphere. Once these have been intercepted and (hopefully) shot down, you can deploy your troop transport to the crash site in order to recover any alien artifacts.

This is where the second part of the game starts. When you land at a UFO crash site (or at a city that is being attacked – another type of encounter) the game become a tactical level, turn-based wargame.

You have a squad of troops, plus possibly a tank or 2 (Heavy Weapons Platform), and the aim of this part of the game is to kill or capture all the aliens in the area. The game area is an asymetric view of the landscape, and is varied depending on where the encounter takes place (city with buildings, desert, forest, farmland etc)

Each of your troops has several stats, which cover such things as shooting, throwing, morale, encumbrance and the number of Time Units (Action Points) that he has.  Every action (moving, shooting, reloading weapons etc) require the expenditure of TU’s – very much the equivalent of a tactical miniatures wargame where you use Action Points to order your troops.

In order to complete a successful mission, you must explore the area in which you are in, and as I’ve already said, kill or capture any aliens you encounter. There are several different types of alien, from the archetypal ‘grey’ (called a Sectoid) to such things as Snakemen and genetically enhance super-soldiers called Mutons.  This will usually mean that your squad will have to find and explore the UFO that you have previously shot down.

Tension during gameplay is usually quite high during this part of the game – full LOS and spotting rules are in place, so it’s quite possible to get surprised by aliens which ‘pop-up’ from behind cover to fire at you – and you never know what is around the next corner, or the other side of the door (although Motion Scanners help )  As I said, this part of play is turn-based, so leave your troops in vulnerable positions without sufficient TU’s to react to the enemy and you may find that they pay the ultimate price for your lack of judgement.

Once all the aliens have been killed/captured, you recover various artifacts from the UFO and take them back to your base. These can then be researched and subsequently used to build/upgrade your own equipment.

The aim of the game is to discover what the Alien plan is for Earth, and find a way to stop it.

So why is this game so good? Well, the theme is just fantastic, and the gameplay is easy and intuitive – that’s not to say the game is easy! Even on the easiest of 5 settings, it provides a decent challenge and on ‘Super-human’ it is a complete swine!

The music adds a tremendous atmosphere to the game too – creating a very tense undercurrent during the tactical play especially.

OK, the graphics aren’t much to write home about in this day and age – very much from the pixel & sprite generation of graphic design – but the quality of the game shows through in the fact that the graphics don’t make a tremendous amount of difference to the game experience…you are so immersed in the actual gameplay that you cease to notice the now-dated look.

In short, this game has got everything – especially for the tabletop wargamer. A great theme, an immersive (and addictive) environment (just one more mission) and buckets of atmosphere, along with a good tactical skirmish wargame at it’s heart.

And at a mere £2.99 to download from STEAM, it’s an absolute steal.

As if I needed more things to distract me from painting…

Distractions…

You may have noticed that I have fallen behind with my podcast releases…

Well, my only defence is that I’m getting distracted by too many other issues.

“But what can be more important that Ep 51?” I hear you ask  – a fair question.

First off, I have been trying to get out some more varied podcast content, so whilst you haven’t had the latest ‘monthly’ show, you at least have been treated to a couple of interviews and another VftV episode to keep your ears busy.

Secondly, I wanted to include an interview in show 51 with Richard Denning, as I wanted to talk about the UK Games Expo from June – it has been difficult to get recording time for this, so I might have to delay this to a future show.

Thirdly, real life (in the shape of work, courses and end of school term) has got in the way, which has led to me having very little free time over recent weeks.

Finally, I’ve been distracted in the last week by a computer game…more on this in a later post.

What can I say? Summer is always a little bit disruptive, and so I’ll probably try and get some ’snippet’ shows out in the next few weeks, rather than the single ‘big’ show – simply because they are quicker and easier to put together and my free time over the summer is going to be a little more limited than normal (unless Angie and Josh disappear off for a few days, which may be likely)

And as a warning, I’m away on this coming weekend at Manorcon, and I’m also away for a week at the end of August, so we are not likely to get back onto an even keel before the September show.

Sorry guys, but I’ll do the best I can to keep things coming…

Vote for Me!

Would you believe that Meeples & Miniatures is in the final of the ‘Best Wargames Blog of 2008‘ poll on The Miniatures Page.

If you like what you read, and what you listen to, then please vote for me…

‘Best Wargames Blog of 2008′ poll

Thank you!