Unleashing the Beast

Those of you who keep up with my increasingly irregular diatribes on the House of Paincakes have no doubt bewailed and bemoaned the recent loss of my RPG mojo (and if you haven’t, I don’t wish to hear about it, so could you just feign a spot of bewailing and bemoaning for the sake of appearances? ta very).

The good news is, I’ve found it again, down the back of a sofa in Wolverhampton. Over half term, the Dark Ages Vampire game received a monumental boot up the arse as I finally got to run a proper RP session of some eight hours. With all respect to the in-house group, whose preferences are clear, valid and informed, two and a half hours of intermittent play is not as rewarding as eight hours of sustained play, and that’s an end to it. The Dark Ages game is everything that I think a good game should be – by turns moving, hilarious, wildly improvised by the minute but excruciatingly planned in the grand scale.

M:tG – Creating The Monster

It’s all this bugger‘s fault, him and the rest of my so-called friends from the good old days. These rascals like a spot of Magic and have roped me in, on a strictly irregular and casual basis, and so I took my two decks away with me on holiday. I wasn’t quite expecting it to end up like this.

Read And Respond: Warhammer 39,999 and Not Playing Games

In the comments to this I Do Not Play 40K post, Rob at Warhammer 39,999 asked me a Question.

Have you given any thought as to whether your interest is finally waning (And perhaps you’re “done” with warmachine), or maybe it’s just a slightly longer than normal cycle?

I’ve definitely been giving it thought, if only because there’s so much Warmachine stuff and it’s making packing for the house move inefficient, plus so much of it is just collecting dust. Now, the following post is me putting those thoughts down into words and thinking aloud. It may not be organised, it may not be logical, it may not even be correct. Please bear that in mind.

WFB Is Not Plug And Play

So, it’s been a month, and the case foam has turned up, and I… sort of still haven’t actually played a game with my Vampire Counts, owing to an outbreak of Real Life, and the deadly West Midlands Man Flu. This is Not Good. I haven’t even written an army list. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about army lists, but haven’t actually gotten one down.

The thing is that I’m not really a fan of pick-up games, or indeed of points matches; in an ideal world some chaps who want to play a game can sit down and discuss scenario, forces and so on beforehand, negotiating the objective and style of play like civilised adults.

For a variety of reasons, some more valid than others, this doesn’t get to happen as often as I’d like, and so sometimes I do actually need to make lists happen. Now I like my lists to reflect the way I imagine my army is, because at heart I’m a little fluffy bunny hoppity-skipping through the forest… but I’m a bunny with a steel core and if you try to run me over, I want you to break your front axle doing it.

Privateer Press Announcements – The Frugal Perspective

I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that Privateer Press have been busy little bees.  Lots of people have been reposting their announcements and talking about them. I’ve been holding off because… well, two out of three things I don’t care about, and the third is one I’ve been having trouble articulating my thoughts on until I had four lovely hours to think out loud.

I don’t own an iPhone or Android and probably never will (I don’t like, or work well with, touchscreens) so I don’t, personally, give a toss about War Room.  I think it’s an awesome idea for them that are riding the wave of progress and it’s the sort of thing that I think tabletop gaming needs to embrace so long as it doesn’t become the only way to play (see previous re: touchscreens).

The IKRPG? A few years ago I’d have been mad excited, but I think I’m more interested in inventing an industrial fantasy world of my own that draws on the Iron Kingdoms and other influences than I am in playing in the Iron Kingdoms themselves, and in a generic system I already own rather than one specifically built for One Company’s Vision that I have to buy another book to get.  Good luck to ‘em though, it’s a good setting and people have been waiting long enough.

As for Colossals… I have a comment that I’ve been wanting to make but that I’m having trouble articulating without it descending into entitled whining, or something that can easily be misinterpreted or dismissed as such. Still not quite sure I’ve managed to work out what I want to say and say it yet, but the closest I’ve come was yet another conversation with Lex at stupid-o-clock in the morning.