An odd thing just happened.  The Dr Who episode that just aired in the UK (The Curse Of The Black Spot) had, other than the setting, the exact same plot mechanic as a story I pitched recently.  I am not alleging shenanigans, of course – there is no question of that – but it does make the point that in writing, no matter how good your idea is, it will always be similar to something someone else has done before.  The value writers bring is not in the ideas but in the execution.  No-one wants to read an idea.

As you were.

Man cave.  As the name implies, gamers from before the dawn of civilization have wanted – nay, needed – a place to call their own.  A place to hold their dreams.  A place to store their junk.

The very first gamer probably used an actual cave to hold his collection of carved whalebone figurines and customised mammoth-tooth dice, but that is pure conjecture on my part, and I cannot back it up.   Suffice to say that today, few of us will use an actual cave to hold our proliferation of gaming goodness, and progress is a good thing as caves are damp, dark and lacking in the door department.  I suggest a garage or spare room, but whatever.  Here is my man cave:

Here you have your classic B&Q plastic shelving.  Clockwise from top right you got terrain and bitz, more terrain and rulebooks, more terrain, and terrain-making supplies in that white tub.  Under the tub is a box with a painted Macharius Vulcan tank, and more bitz.  Carrying on there are boxes of AT-42 armies, a landing pad beside a tub full of plasticard and a bazillion other modelling supplies and above that more and more terrain.  Out of shot above is, yes,  more terrain (and Heroscape).  Models?  Yes, I am getting to those.  In fact, there are some excellent Chaos models in that briefcase.

From top left down.  Two hefty tool boxes with two Deathwing Land Raiders apiece.  Next down, my shelf of bottles – everything from spray paint to liquid rust to varnish to glues to paint additives.  Below that, my modelling toolbox (worth a post in itself) sitting on a stack of paper terrain I have not yet got round to cutting out.  Next to that is some of my Malifaux terrain.  Below that is two tubs.  The left one has sprues – loads of spare sprues, most with plenty of bitz on them.  Also all my Robogear bits.  Next to that is a tub full of Hirst Arts pieces.  My airbrush is in there, too.  Bottom shelf holds – well, not sure what is in that tub on the left!  Hmm.   Unassembled cardboard boxes by the look of it, from my last Ebay selling spree.  The tub on the right has lots of terrain painting supplies, as well as a Bio Chemical Plant kit I use for bitz.

Bored yet?  I’ve only just got started!!!

A stack of boxes.  My office will never miss them…  From the top, Malifaux terrain. Then some Necron terrain that I will rip up for bitz one day.  Below that is a box full of my Chaos army vehicles and daemon princes.  The three boxes below that are all terrain, either home made or bought.  The orange box has small terrain elements in it (mostly resin), and the heavily spray-painted box below that has all my Chaos infantry models packed in foam.  I have about 2500 points of infantry in there – my original Chaos horde of Ebay

On the right is my foamboard, three MDF boards for a gaming table, grass mat and some 3″ thick pink foam for terrain.

Two sets of trays full of minis.  Deathwing, Witchhunters, Malifaux, Chaos Renegades, Orks, moulding supplies and some Tau that won’t fit anywhere else.

The pressure washer is for stripping minis.  It really works*

Painting station up the top.  I don’t paint in the Man Cave – I take that out so I can paint somewhere else.  Like Starbucks, or the local pub.  All the foam trays have Tau in them.  The  black laptop bag is packed with everything I need to play Malifaux, including a couple of small foam cases of models.  Under that are two foam hardcases, both empty for now.

Hey, there’s my Munchkin game!  I was looking for that!!!

Underneath is a load of terrain bitz and supplies, and 3/4 of a large cardboard box I use as a spray booth.

Two Figures In Comfort foam cases full of Tau.  Both of them still have my 3350 point army from my recent game against Jamie.  On the right are bags of cat litter and sand for, yes, terrain.  I also have cats, but this litter is not for them!

The workstation folds away, but it is handy for doing the odd small job.  As I said, I don’t usually work in the Man Cave itself.  I made the mistake of sawing some wood in here last year, and covered everything in sawdust

And lastly, a shot of the whole thing:

And there you have it.  I keep telling myself I have enough junk supplies here to keep me hobbying for a year or three, but I also keep buying new stuff.  Damn hobby!

(*this is a lie)

I am sorry to say that it looks like Wyrd and WWG have run into yet more problems with the production of Terraclips, and the design team have had to go back to the beginning. I know this sucks, as I have been looking forward to Terraclips for months, but it seems we will have wait again.

Turns out the cardstock material was considered too flimsy to bear the weight of multi-level structures. Various other materials have been tested, including Plasticard and Foamed PVC, but I understand Wyrd have opted for a high alumina silica compound with an excellent compressive strength of around 50MPa.

The clear plastic clips proved unsuitable for holding the material together, and have been replaced with a flexible bonding system utilising a workable, aggregate paste. Setting time is fast, although the adhesive offers a reasonable working window for manipulating the build.

The only remaining problem is unit weight, which means that Terraclips has now moved to a much more modular system.

Wyrd/ WWG will sell walls in single units at a time:-

although the adhesive paste is readily available in larger quantities:-

…might just be the best movie I have seen from the whole of last year, or even in the last few years.  I can’t remember the last time a film left me feeling actual excitement (no, not like that!).  The creativity and energy is infectious, but it is creativity to a purpose, and in service of a story worth telling.  It all adds up to a bit of a masterpiece.

I will now make other people watch this film, in order to improve their lives   Starting with you.

Tutorials are great, but there is nothing like a good Youtube video to show you how to do something.   Here are the channels that I subscribe to, and why:-

How-To Videos

Awesome Paint Job.  Les Bursley’s production quality is top notch, with well-shot, detailed, high-res vids.  And he can paint!  Loads of Space Marine How To Paint videos, as well as some back-to-basics stuff.  He’s been focusing on using airbrushes to paint miniatures recently, and I am loving what he is doing.

Girl Painting.  Alexandra (from Germany) has produced hundreds of quality videos, from speed-painting ones to lengthy, in-depth tutorials on master painting minis.  Plus, I love her accent!

Dr Faust’s Painting Clinic.  This guy’s website has been in my bookmarks for ages.  His tutorials are top-notch and he has loads of great painting advice stored there (eg. painting oxidised metals)  and I was delighted when I found he also had a Youtube channel that continues the quality.  A detailed two-part video on painting Cassandra from Wyrd Miniatures, brain-smackingly good advice on making wooden textures in plasticard and a 36 minute video on painting flesh tones.  Go check him out.

Terrain Makers

These guys are prolific and/ or fantastic terrain makers.  Either way,  sources of inspiration:-

Rubbish In Rubbish Out

Terrainaholic

Terranscapes (check out this one, for example)

General Hobby Channels

Some Youtube channels cover all aspects of the hobby, and include painting, terrain, conversions and battle reports.

Beasts Of War.  This one has the production qualities of a decent cable TV programme.  It even has sets.  Shame their Daily Tips on 40k rules are so frequently full of mistakes, but the rest is good.

Blue Table Painting.  Shawn at BTP has been making these videos for years, and in addition to showcasing some great painting, conversions, terrain and batreps we get a behind-the-scenes look at a large commission studio going about its business.  And dancing.  Don’t forget the dancing.

Mini Wargaming.  Lots of batreps and good terrain articles, as well as unit tacticas, usually delivered with a slice of humour.  Also, a Daemon Prince that talks.

40k Tactics

Some channels focus on playing the game, with tactics and list discussions and/ or batreps.  Not to say they don’t cover other aspects:-

Jawaballs

WayOfSaimHann.  Used to focus on Eldar, but has branched out into other armies, and the general principles are applicable to all armies.

Tau of War.  Lots of good Tau tactics here.

So – anything you can recommend?  Any great channels I am missing?

I run for around 3 hours a week, so that (along with train journeys) gives me a good chance to keep my podcast listening up to date.  Here are the ones I currently have on Google Listen:-

The D6 Generation (link)
Russ, Raef and Craig produce a fantastic show, with terrific production values but also plenty of solid content.  They cover all manner of miniature and board games.  I especially like their in-depth discussions and reviews which frequently delve into the underlying mechanics and how these work, or don’t.  The three have a broad knowledge of gaming tropes and standards, and it was, for example, their enthusiasm for Malifaux that led to me getting into the game.  Some of the segments are a bit hit or miss (The Hollywood Minute has taken a foray into roleplaying that I am not interested in and the new one, Hype Or Tripe, represents the first serious mis-step by the guys since I’ve started listening*) but mostly these podcasts can be listened to from beginning to end with me enjoying every minute and eagerly awaiting the next one.

(*I really hope they ditch this.  Talking about upcoming products or games is fine, but rating the hype around incoming new goodies seems an odd thing to do, especially when one of your two ratings is offensive – ie. ”tripe”.  Rating hype in a game review show is like rating a movie ad-campaign on a film review site - an exercise in pointlessness.  Case in point was a fledging company whose new game was up for discussion.  I would expect the D6G to discuss the game itself rather than the marketing budget, but instead they spent their time be-moaning the lack of professionalism on the website and how it didn’t make them want to play the game.  Two of the hosts clearly had problems with the segment, struggling to actually pronounce the company’s efforts as “tripe”, but they did it anyway.  It was misguided and mean-spirited, and I hope that’s the last we see of Hype Or Tripe)

PrecinctOmega Hobbycast & Battlecast (link)
When Robey Jenkins mentioned he might be doing a podcast about the hobby side of gaming, I thought he was a bit mad.  How do you cover assembling and painting miniatures (and all the stuff that surrounds that) in audio form?  Isn’t Youtube the proper channel for this?  The answer is that he has managed to do it in a way that completely exceeded my expectations.  While video is still tops for showing, not telling, Robey has an assured, meticulous approach to his podcasts that ensures the listener grasps the concepts he is describing, and as this podcast covers everything from basic to more advanced techniques, there is something for everyone.

The Battlecast is brand new (a prologue edition only so far), but promises to cover game design.  I am eagerly awaiting this!

The sound quality of the podcast is a little poor, as I think Robey is still recording into his laptop’s built-in mic, and there are times when he could use a co-host to provide some variety and dialogue, but these issues aside these are brief podcasts (less than an hour, usually) which are well worth listening to.

World’s End Radio (link)
Luke and JJ are two affable hosts from Oz who cover all things GW, albeit with an unseemly focus on non-40k GW games   They have reviews of new codexes and models, as well as rumours, news and tournament coverage.  They introduced me to the wonderful comp argument that “winning is a theme”!  An enjoyable podcast with some good banter between the hosts, although it’s not in my top tier.  They’ve been off the air for a good few weeks now – hope they come back soon.

Dice Like Thunder (link – goes to The Eternal Warriors)
Loud, obnoxious and NSFW, DLT is (was) the bad influence of 40k podcasts.  After 105 episodes they stopped DLT for unspecified but definitely not IP-breach related issues and rose like a phoenix from the ashes as The Eternal Warriors.  Yeah, not sure what all the drama was about, frankly, but who cares?  These guys bring some welcome trash-talking and humour, with Dan in particular being one of the highlights.  Host Tricky Dick doesn’t really have a voice for radio, but other than that this is (was) (will be) one of the best 40k podcasts out there.

Gamers Lounge (link)
I picked up on this one following a link over on the Wyrd forums.  It is the only podcast I have found that has a regular discussion of Malifaux.  Bill and Jay have a good dynamic, and the Malifaux section (the M&SU Bar) is worth the download.

The Independant Characters (link)
Carl and Jeff do a great job with this one, full of energy and good humour, and it is quickly becoming a tier 1 podcast for me.  These guys share my interests in the Forgeworld books, and their indepth reviews and discussions keep the miles flying by on long winter runs.

The 11th Company (link)
A much more strategy-focused podcast than the others listed here, while I enjoy the 11th Co., it’s not a must-listen for me.  One of the problems is Pat, whose voice is the least interesting one I have ever heard on a podcast.  He has a dull monotone with little to no energy or inflection, which is death on radio.  Sorry, dude – nothing personal.  The IG codex run-down was great, though.

The Tabletop Hooligans (link)
It was the Precinctomega Hobbycast that put me onto this one.  I haven’t listened to enough episodes yet to form a solid opinion, but it’s promising so I’ll keep listening.  NSFW.

Any good ones I am missing?

Sweet Zombie Robot Hitler!

So, if you’ve read this post, what I am about to tell you will make about as much sense as – oh, I dunno, some kind of crazy political alliance, something fundamentally inconceivable, like the Lib Dems suckling at the Tory teat:  I am writing my own miniatures ruleset.

Long time readers of this blog will remember Throne Agent!, a 40k-based skirmish game with campaign elements – imagine Necromunda is a hot chick in a casino and James Bond totally digs on her and knocks her up with his own little Kill Team – the baby would be something like Throne Agent!  And, yes, I know how visually unappealing that metaphor is, but it’s better than the one where Necromunda ties up James Bond and injects Kill Team directly into his scrotal sack before shaking his martini.  Ahem.  Throne Agent! is still a work in progress (is that the fate of 99% of homebrew rule sets? Discuss, but do it out of my hearing, plz), and my own ruleset has nothing to do with 40k.

According to the poll on the sidebar, I just lost 20% of my readers.  See you next post, guys!

Anyway,  I am a big fan of Sirlin.net, and although I have been keeping up with the articles on that site, I never considered actually applying some of the key concepts he discusses.  I am in the middle of doing so, and the basic game mechanic I have come up with looks like it will be not only fun and simple to grasp, but should inject (there I go with that word again) some depth and brain-fodder to what is ordinarily a fairly mechanical part of any miniatures game.  No, I am not going to tell you what it is, because I am still working on it, and that’s not why I am writing this.

I just wanted to say what a great bunch of people it is I game with.  About a day or two after I mentioned what I was doing and what the backstory to this game was, they had sought out suitable miniatures and placed their orders.  I now have the very entertaining and challenging prospect of coming up with a ruleset that lets Odysseus take on a Harlem pimp and a bionic Chairman Mao.  And also possibly Captain Kirk.

Another thing I learned in my previous trawls through game design blogs (a passing interest of mine for a while now) is that you need to focus, at the very outset, on who you are writing your game for.  Who is your audience?  Trying to write a game that appeals to everyone usually ends up with a game that appeals to no-one, so this one is solely for my gaming buddies.  I will write the game they want to play, and then – with a fair wind and some amusing models – we might even get to play it.

And if it’s not half bad, I will share it with you all.

If it’s brilliant, of course, then I’ll see you at Gencon

Broods of Ymgarl Genestealers that are left behind when a Hive Fleet passes through are sometimes able to ingest some of the bio-matter of the Hive Fleet – eating the corpses before the Ripper Swarms can reach them.  In such cases, the biology of the Ymgarl Genestealers, already very much in flux, can assimilate the bio-matter and render new forms.  One such form is the Ymgarl Broodlord.

Unit Type: Infantry

Weapons and Biomorphs: Rending Claws, Hardened Carapace

Special Rules: Fleet, Move Through Cover, Psyker

Brood Telepathy: See Genestealers

Dormant: See Ymgarl Genestealers

Alter Form: See Ymgarl Genestealers

Upgrade Character:  The Ymgarl Broodlord is an upgrade character for a unit of Ymgarl Genestealers.

Alpha Broods:  If an Ymgarl Broodlord is taken, then the army may not contain any units of Genestealers.  Ymgarl Genestealers may be taken as Troops.

Psychic Powers: Catalyst, Impel

Impel: Used at the start of the Tyranid Shooting Phase, this gives the Ymgarl Brood the Bounding Leap special rule for the remainder of that Turn (roll 3 dice when Running and use the highest to determine how far they move).

Options:

• An Ymgarl Broodlord may take:
  • Scything talons…2pts
  • Implant Attack…15pts
  • Acid Blood…15 pts
  • Frag Spines…2pts

Comments: The Ymgarl Broodlord lets you take Ymgarls as Troops, but you cannot take ordinary Genestealers if you do (since these upgraded Ymgarls won’t tolerate the competition!)  You lose infiltration, obviously, but you gain the Dormant rule and the two psychic powers of the new Broodlord.  Of course, he can only use one per Turn!  Combined with Move Through Cover and Fleet, Impel lets you get close to the maximum charge range in any Turn, regardless of terrain.  Catalyst lets you give the Ymgarl unit Feel No Pain (or any other unit within range), which is handy if you are charging into cover – you will go last, but you get will a FNP save on all those wounds!  The Ymgarl Broodlord can have Frag Spines, but they only benefit him, not the others.

Lastly, Alter Form will affect the Broodlord as well – how about a S6 Broodlord hitting in Initiative order with FNP?

Which is why he costs +60pts.

An Infinity table made by (I think) Antenociti's Workshop

I played Infinity for the first time recently.  A fellow gamer at the Glasgow club set up a demo game for me, and I played a 140 point list of Haqqislam in a fairly simple game.

I will tell you a little about the game, but there is a larger point that I started thinking about afterwards, to do with the games we play and why we play them.

Infinity (made by Corvus Belli) is a tabletop miniature skirmish SF game (ah, labels – what would we do without them?).  Its unique selling points are (i) the setting is not some horrible future nightmare/ post-apocalypse ruinscape of doom, but instead a very glossy, high-tech, anime-influenced SF world, (ii) the models are very nice indeed, and firmly on the realistic end of the spectrum and (iii) the game is all about manoeuvre and fire-lanes, through the enormous influence that reaction moves have over the gameplay.

This intrigued me enough to want to get a game, and Andy obliged.  I won’t do a review (unless anyone wants more information), but the game plays out in Turns much like 40k.  One side takes the initiative for the whole encounter, they activate their models and take their actions, you do the same, onto the next Turn and so on until someone bumps into a Victory Condition.  A lot of skirmish games have alternating activation, but Infinity has an I-go-You-go structure, where you move all your models before your opponent gets to go.  However, Infinity has an ace up its polished chrome sleeve – every time one of your models sees an enemy model take an action, your model can make a reaction.

So, for example, if it’s your turn, you might move one of your models out of cover and take a shot at one of mine – you give your model a Move and Fire Order.  Except that three of my models can see your model as it carries out your order, so all three get to react!  Reactions generally involve shooting or dodging, so although your model will get his shot(s) off,  there’s a good chance he’ll be dead immediately after.

So, manoeuvre for position, watch your fire-lanes and keep your head down.  Most models have one wound, and being hit in the open means being dead more often than not.

Which would tend to force players to play very boring games where both sides sit back and wait for the other to make a mistake, but that is where missions and objectives come in.  Plus there’s all sorts of fun SF stuff, although of a more serious Iain Banks SF nature than a fantastical 40k SF nature, as well as the usual weapons and things that go boom.

And speaking of things that go boom, there seems to be an explosion of miniatures games at the moment.  Since everyone loves a list – AT-43, Malifaux, Freebooter’s Fate, Monsterpocalypse, Uncharted Seas, Firestorm Armada, Warmachine/ Hordes, Urban War, Dark Age, Brutal, Anima Tactics and Hell Dorado are just the ones I can think of, not to mention miniatures board games like Space Hulk and Dust Tactics.

Am I going to play all of them?  No chance – I barely have enough time (or money) to play 40k and Malifaux.  Do I want to play all of them?  Hmmm.

And that’s the big question.  With such a crowded marketplace, what makes Yet Another Miniatures Skirmish game stand out?  (And they will be skirmish games, since the company that releases a game where you need 100+ models to play had better be an anagram of “grasps homework” or they’re going out of business.

For a long time I was happy playing 40k and wasn’t bothered about other games.  Weren’t they, like, inferior?  But then I started listening to some gaming podcasts (The D6 Generation being the main culprit) and that opened my eyes – these guys were describing games I wanted to play!  Malifaux sounded cool and weird and different.  I persuaded my friends to try it and never looked back.  But I don’t think I will ever be a Total Gamer, getting into each and every miniatures line and rules-set around.  I know guys like that, but it’s not me.

Not yet, anyway

I suppose the post of this title is a little misleading:  it’s not just about time.  A new game needs to excite something in me that none of my current games do.  It needs to offer a new experience, not just a new race of aliens, a new table of Action Points and some new models to try them out on.

As for you, there’s a poll over on the right, and a comments section down below.  Let me know what floats your boat about trying new games.  What makes you want to play something you’ve never tried before?  What stops you from trying the ones you are interested in?

Following up on my post last week about buying armies on Ebay, if I was still in the market, this Adeptus Arbites force would tick every one of my “Must Buy This” boxes.

Very characterful, very unlikely to see something like it come up again in the near future, very well painted and based, loads of attention to detail, well painted and converted etc etc.

Whoever gets this – you’re a lucky guy.