(Kickstarter) Flash Gordon RPG for Savage Worlds

It's a bad week for Kickstarters I should otherwise love.  It must be the upcoming holidays blues.

Shane Hensley and Pinnacle Entertainment Group have recently launched their Flash Gordon RPG for Savage Worlds.

I'm thinking the Savage Rifts Kickstarter hit my sweet spot.  The softcovers/pdf from Savage Rifts for just over $30 hits that middle ground between Flash Gordon's $20 pdfs and $45 (+$9 S&H) for the limited edition hardcovers. The baubles, add-ons, and trinkets do nothing for me.  

It's a bad week for Kickstarters I should otherwise love.  It must be the upcoming holidays blues.

Shane Hensley and Pinnacle Entertainment Group have recently launched their Flash Gordon RPG for Savage Worlds.

I'm thinking the Savage Rifts Kickstarter hit my sweet spot.  The softcovers/pdf from Savage Rifts for just over $30 hits that middle ground between Flash Gordon's $20 pdfs and $45 (+$9 S&H) for the limited edition hardcovers. The baubles, add-ons, and trinkets do nothing for me.  

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Brigade Models is Lovin' It!

Brigade Models over in the UK recently posted a cool new terrain piece using their 15mm products:

Brigade Models over in the UK recently posted a cool new terrain piece using their 15mm products:

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

(Kickstarter) Mini-Gangs Skirmish Game

Curtis Fell at Ramshackle Games is at it again.  This time, it's Mini Gangs, a sci-fi skirmish game with minis, designed to appeal to new or young gamers, casual players, and even hardcore fans of the genre.

$100 US

Curtis Fell at Ramshackle Games is at it again.  This time, it's Mini Gangs, a sci-fi skirmish game with minis, designed to appeal to new or young gamers, casual players, and even hardcore fans of the genre.

$100 US

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Terraforming Mars: The RPG

While we're just getting our traditional Sunday RPG session converted to online play, the Monday night 5e game on Roll20 is going swell.  My elf barbarian, Falgor, has reached 2nd level, and is ready to cleave into a new character this past Monday night, after we wasted the last session in PvP mode.

But that session never materialized.  Jeff, our GM, gave us notice that he was bailing a little more than an hour before start, so Nate, Steve, and myself completed the second half of my Terraforming Mars RPG, using Risus.

Setting:  Mars 2048
Early Colonizers have only partial successes in terraforming Mars.  With fertilizer, soil has produced bumper yields, water has been extracted from beneath the surface, but protective greenhouse tenting is still required to protect the plants from radiation and the sudden high winds.

Excavation of a new agriculture plot has netted a strange discovery: a piece of curved steel with what appears to be hundreds of tiny rivets.  A team of geologists are dispatched to clear that corner of the site while your team continues the mission.

Over four hours of online play, botantist Beth Bowers, techs Newman Ramirez and "Burps" Ramirez (no relation), and "Project Liaison" Rick Vogel investigated the strange site, drove the colony manager insane, and infiltrated a plot about "Red Power."   In the end, a mysterious source of oxygen was rapidly filling the atmosphere, and only Liaison Vogel was saved to tell the tale.

Not a bad playtest of a scenario given that a) Steve and Nate can undermine the best ideas (including attempting to seduce a hostile in the middle of combat) and b) the scenario idea started with the phrase "Nazi-infused Martian DNA."   Probably a random statement from Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff that caught my interest, but time has buried that memory.

Still, with some touch-ups, I have a decent convention event.  

While we're just getting our traditional Sunday RPG session converted to online play, the Monday night 5e game on Roll20 is going swell.  My elf barbarian, Falgor, has reached 2nd level, and is ready to cleave into a new character this past Monday night, after we wasted the last session in PvP mode.

But that session never materialized.  Jeff, our GM, gave us notice that he was bailing a little more than an hour before start, so Nate, Steve, and myself completed the second half of my Terraforming Mars RPG, using Risus.

Setting:  Mars 2048
Early Colonizers have only partial successes in terraforming Mars.  With fertilizer, soil has produced bumper yields, water has been extracted from beneath the surface, but protective greenhouse tenting is still required to protect the plants from radiation and the sudden high winds.

Excavation of a new agriculture plot has netted a strange discovery: a piece of curved steel with what appears to be hundreds of tiny rivets.  A team of geologists are dispatched to clear that corner of the site while your team continues the mission.

Over four hours of online play, botantist Beth Bowers, techs Newman Ramirez and "Burps" Ramirez (no relation), and "Project Liaison" Rick Vogel investigated the strange site, drove the colony manager insane, and infiltrated a plot about "Red Power."   In the end, a mysterious source of oxygen was rapidly filling the atmosphere, and only Liaison Vogel was saved to tell the tale.

Not a bad playtest of a scenario given that a) Steve and Nate can undermine the best ideas (including attempting to seduce a hostile in the middle of combat) and b) the scenario idea started with the phrase "Nazi-infused Martian DNA."   Probably a random statement from Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff that caught my interest, but time has buried that memory.

Still, with some touch-ups, I have a decent convention event.  

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

(Kickstarter) The Legion of Steel by Macrocosm Miniatures

If you're going to pique my interest with a Kickstarter, unintentionally combine two of my nostalgic interests for your project.

Macrocosm Miniatures did just that on some early promo e-mails, mentioning "Legions of Steel" (my favorite sci-fi minis game of the 90's through today), then revealing that was title of their latest Sq.... Space Dwarves.  My only concern was, keeping the pledges and shipping reasonable, and with The Legion of Steel 28mm Sci-Fi Space Dwarves, they have.

While the sculpt quality is as excellent as ever, the Legion as a unit are far more "professional soldier" minis than their previous Digger Corp KS.

They are also offering some pretty cool auxiliary units, including some kickass space elf corsairs, space cyclops, and some 40mm aliens that are a mix between space orangutans and HR Puffenstuff.

They are offering the Digger Corp minis as optional add-on, and the stretch goals include artillery, and an armoured scout car.

If you're going to pique my interest with a Kickstarter, unintentionally combine two of my nostalgic interests for your project.

Macrocosm Miniatures did just that on some early promo e-mails, mentioning "Legions of Steel" (my favorite sci-fi minis game of the 90's through today), then revealing that was title of their latest Sq.... Space Dwarves.  My only concern was, keeping the pledges and shipping reasonable, and with The Legion of Steel 28mm Sci-Fi Space Dwarves, they have.

While the sculpt quality is as excellent as ever, the Legion as a unit are far more "professional soldier" minis than their previous Digger Corp KS.

They are also offering some pretty cool auxiliary units, including some kickass space elf corsairs, space cyclops, and some 40mm aliens that are a mix between space orangutans and HR Puffenstuff.

They are offering the Digger Corp minis as optional add-on, and the stretch goals include artillery, and an armoured scout car.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Spartan Games Closes Its Doors!

In a stunning press release today, Spartan Games announced that they are ceasing operations.

Spartan was the publisher of Dystopian Wars, Dystopian Legions, and Firestorm Armada.  Despite an active Kickstarter campaign (now cancelled) that was only a few hundred Pounds away from reaching it's goal, they claimed challenging business conditions in the miniatures wargaming market, as well as health issues of a key board member for the decision.  

At this point, I need to put on my ViscountEric, former retail manager, hat on, and not that I would have written off the Spartan Games as part of the stock in my (imaginary) game store in 2013.  I don't like being right about a company I had no stake in, nor any bad experience with, but an aggressive expansion on multiple lines for products only a handful of people in the States knew about made me extremely nervous.  I've seen it before, and I've mentioned the same thing in this year's Apathy of the New Releases columns for companies that can't even make it through distribution.

I may wait a bit to see if the impressive discounts from sites like Miniatures Market grow larger after the weekend.

In a stunning press release today, Spartan Games announced that they are ceasing operations.

Spartan was the publisher of Dystopian Wars, Dystopian Legions, and Firestorm Armada.  Despite an active Kickstarter campaign (now cancelled) that was only a few hundred Pounds away from reaching it's goal, they claimed challenging business conditions in the miniatures wargaming market, as well as health issues of a key board member for the decision.  

At this point, I need to put on my ViscountEric, former retail manager, hat on, and not that I would have written off the Spartan Games as part of the stock in my (imaginary) game store in 2013.  I don't like being right about a company I had no stake in, nor any bad experience with, but an aggressive expansion on multiple lines for products only a handful of people in the States knew about made me extremely nervous.  I've seen it before, and I've mentioned the same thing in this year's Apathy of the New Releases columns for companies that can't even make it through distribution.

I may wait a bit to see if the impressive discounts from sites like Miniatures Market grow larger after the weekend.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad