Callis & Toll – Saviours of Cinderfall
Callis & Toll have rules up on Warhammer Community. Though I’ve never read any of the books, they look like a fun group of adventurers. They’re ideally suited to go up against the ghouls in White Dwarf 498-499. We now have a ton of heroes with Cursed City rules. It’d be great to have some more rules/adventures with other factions. Skaven maybe? How about orks? Dark Elves are always nasty. Here’s the video from Always Board Never Boring. Individual Character Rundown Armand Callis (Stalwart, Human, Order of Azyr, Saviour of Cinderfall) No surprises here. Callis wages absolute destruction. Hanniver Toll (Executioner, Human, Order of Azyr, Saviour of Cinderfall) Deadly, but less tough. Witch Hunters are cool. Lyssa Revenya (Blade, Human, Soldier, Saviour of Cinderfall) Very fun to play. We house-ruled the grapple to allow her to zip to visible locations, rather than limit it to the current board. Mistress Verentia,…
The Merry Mushmen
Have you ever heard of the Merry Mushmen? Now, I know that sounds like weird lyrics to a nursery rhyme from the 1700s, but it’s very much modern. But old-school. They’re contemporary is what I mean to say. The Merry Mushmen publish some EXTREMELY cool RPG stuff. They have their own games but most content is very much rules-agnostic, though heavy in the D&D universe. Their contributors, art, and layout are second to none. Take a look at their freebies, especially CRACK! They’re absolutely worth a look.
Diminishing returns and when to stop painting
When to put the brush down and walk away, you gotta know when to quit! So you’ve assembled, you’ve scraped, you’ve filed, you’ve glued, you’ve sanded, you’ve primed. Don’t stop here, you’re not done yet. You’ve base coated and things look UGLY. This looked better when it was bare plastic! Add a wash or shades and it’s looking better. Now you’re on to adding some highlights, maybe some fancy stuff, a gem or two. Now we’re talking. This mini will fit into a merry warband now. But should you keep going? No! Stop here! You have too many minis to paint and if you spend more hours on this mini (and all of your backlog) you’ll never get anything done! Put it down and back away! Now back yourself back to the table because you have more minis to paint! Get cracking!!!
White Dwarf 496 – The Cities of Sigmar Cursed City Heroes
These characters are a fun refresh for Cursed City. They come from three different sets: Freeguild Marshal and Relic Envoy, Alchemite Warforger, and Freeguild Command Corps. In addition to the 3 things below, I find the subtitles on the cards interesting. The original heroes in the box also include vocations (Soldier, Priest, Death Scholar, etc.), and we get a few new ones on these cards. There is no current game mechanic (that I know of) that relies on you being a Whisperblade vs a War Surgeon. Is that trait intended to be a portion of some larger/additional aspect of gameplay? I feel like GW could release a book (similar to WHQ 1995 Role Play) that could VASTLY expand roleplay, no additional components necessary, it’s a great box. Now, there’s nothing to stop us from doing that ourselves, but (zombie voice:) we must obey the marketing! And GW generally does a…
Squig attack!
Got these guys for Christmas last year. Always good to finish a fun project.
Only good things about Warhammer Quest: Cursed City
Sometimes people get a bit too down on Cursed City. It’s a fun game with lots going for it. Sure, GW has been pretty weird about it. Or at least we think they’re being weird because GW has literally NO stated position about the game at all! What’s not to like?
How much game is too much game?
It’s such a slippery slope. Young and casual gamers like smaller games with digestible rules, and fun, snappy outcomes. Grizzled veteran lifestyle gamers want complexity, depth, and advanced mechanics. So how much game is too much? For me, the test is: how often do I forget a step? In Mice and Mystics, we always forget to advance the ridiculous clock mechanism. So we don’t even mess with it anymore. It’s a fun game, but we spend so much time floundering with bad rolls we’d be facing continuous penalties. That is if we ever remembered to advance it. There are exceptions though. In Cursed City and Blackstone Fortress we often forget to roll for Inspiration Points. But that’s just like forgetting to draw a treasure card after an event. There’s no mechanic behind it. There’s definitely a point in the rules where I go: uggh, oh boy, this is too much.…
Why are models fun, and what is nostalgia?
Toy soldiers are a very British thing. Britains began in late 1800s, and European tin soldiers date back to the early 1700s! These toys are famous the world over, though sadly out of production now. So it stands to reason that a British company currently leads the world in model soldier production. Games Workshop, consciously or not, is the modern standard bearer of a legacy that goes back hundreds of years. So why are they fun? What is nostalgia anyway, and why to people feel it and/or seek it out? It seems like nostalgia for model wargaming and GW products are talked about so frequently that you’d think GW produced nostalgia themselves. And in some ways, they do. I imagine any entertainment company deals with nostalgia in some form or another. Disney has to maintain and update their parks to bring in and entertain guests. But they can’t change it…
Blackstone fortress terrain
Also check out Cursed City Terrain. One of the keystone differences between Blackstone Fortress and other Warhammer Quest game family is that combat employs cover. To indicate cover, lines are printed on the game tiles. Here’s a video that explains it. The gentleman in the video is non-coincidentally the designer of most of the terrain that I use. I REALLY like using the terrain. Without it, I guarantee I would forget about cover effects every single time. I really need those vertical elements for me to notice them. I haven’t inventoried every single tile so there may be an enormous map that requires more terrain than I have. I’ll deal with that if it comes up. Me – 2023 The tiles have three themes: tessellating geometrics, rocky crystals, and sci-fi elements. I’m not particular about when I use them, and many are tile-specific. There are also some blocking hex elements…
Is your hobby escapism?
Diving into your interests and working on hobbies is a lot of fun, but what is driving you? The lure of imagination land is strong. There’s no boss, no deadlines, no school or homework. The only problems you have are pre-agreed upon. You know it’ll be hard to sneak past the dragon and use your ray-gun to “liberate” that treasure chest. You know the road home will be fought with hazards, brigands, and of course a murky swamp where you get stuck for three weeks and eventually die by vampire frog attacks. You opted-in to all that. You might not necessarily be running away from something in your real life. But for a bit, you don’t have to deal with it. It doesn’t matter about global or national politics, who your family is, or how much treasure is in the chest. It’s like watching a movie and forgetting for a…