Posts Tagged ‘review’
Actual Play Review: Freebooter’s Fate
I have a cold.
I have a cold because I spent part of my Friday night sitting on the platform of a suburban station somewhere in the greater Birmingham area.
I spent part of my Friday night sitting on the platform of a suburban station somewhere in the greater Birmingham area because I’d popped over to meet the Frontline Gamer and play some Freebooter’s Fate.
Of the available factions I alighted on the Brotherhood because, frankly, they look prettiest, and I’m trying to learn about stealth and actually using terrain intelligently.
Vampire Counts: Eating My Words?
We all knew it was going to happen. I’ve bought every other Vampire Counts book on release day and I’m not about to stop now. Yes, I know, I know, I’m a fanboy, gaze into the abyss and it gazes into you, now shut it. I have my reasons. I’ll get to those.
Last week, I said there were a few things that the book needed to provide if it was to make a meaningful difference to how the army worked and played in eighth edition:
- A meaningful presence in movement, magic, shooting and combat phases.
- Less dependence on or more insurance against the magic phase, with ref: dice screw, exploding generals and needing more in the magic phase than Necromancy can offer.
- Genuine strategic and thematic options, derived from True Core choices that aren’t M4 melee-only blocks.
- An understanding that autobreaking from Fear is gone, and that Vampire Counts can’t rely on Psychology as a win condition now that it’s less effective and easier to resist.
- Bloodlines in the background, genuine options in the rules.
Now, my initial reading is always a ‘read for squee’, and then I go back and actually think about things. I have to go and play Warmachine today, so I only have time for the very superficial only-read-it-once thoughts which I reserve the right to redact once the squee has worn off.
Wot I Did On My Holidays
A’right?
I’ve been away. You may have noticed. I’ve been away because I was presenting a panel on fantasy gaming and economic recessions at ArmadaCon, back on the ol’ stomping ground in the South West. It’d be slightly antisocial of me to sit in the hotel bar blogging when I could be off attending panels and playing games and laughing at costumes, especially when I was already being antisocial by spending two to three hours a day writing (never turn down a paying gig, that’s my motto), so I didn’t.
Panel went well, thanks for asking, and while we did catch it on film the footage I have is ninety minutes of my talking head, and could do with some editing down, but I’ll stick up some select nuggets and my notes just as soon as I’ve time to make ‘em legible. No doubt the ArmadaCon YouTube channel will have some highlights available in due course… at least, I hope that’s what they were filming for… anyway, that went well and I picked up some writing tips from another panelist, which is always a plus.
Anyway, while I was down there I played some games.
Blood Bowl: Dead And Loving It
The two Templehof teams represent half of a bet between two rival Necromancers, Johannes Rosencratz and Emmanuel Guildenstern. Both swore to provide their vampire sponsor, the elusive Lord Ruthven, with the perfect Blood Bowl team to ensure his dominion over the sporting world continued into eternity. Their difference of opinion over exactly how this was to be achieved has seen the two become sworn enemies, and each has founded a team in order to demonstrate their approach’s validity.
Rosencratz’s Templehof United have successfully leveraged their purchasing power into the hiring of up (from the grave) and coming (back from the dead) players from all over the world, including two pairs of Ghoul twins from the Plain of Bones, and two ancient Khemrian mummies who lend their millennia of experience to the modern game. Guildenstern, meanwhile, is a passionate believer in fostering local talent; Templehof City sponsors ambitious necromancers, alchemists and bonepickers in the creation of new players from unfortunate citizens of southern Sylvania, and relies on loose, experimental plays rather than the tried and tested routines.
The two teams have an absolute and impassioned hatred for one another; the typical derby game results in the greatest number of fan casualties in the eastern Empire, and keeps the local grave-diggers, grave-robbers and grave-detectives busy for months to follow.
I have a deep love for undead factions in games, and Blood Bowl has something of an abundance of them. But which one’s best? The classic Undead team, with its solid set of starting skills, or the more eccentric capabilities offered by the Necromancer team? Or is it the Vampires, with access to six superlative statlines and cheap rerolls – or the Khemrians, with… umm… whatever they’ve got? Okay, so it’s not Khemri. That said, I’ve played ‘em all at some point in the last year and I’m going to bend your ears about my discoveries, discussing the pros, cons and league play viability of the four variants. Team shots are all via Sons of Twilight.
Meta Gaming: ‘Ultramarines’ and unrealised potential
For the blog was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep…
An uncharacteristic bout of nine-to-five work means less in the way of worthwhile gaming activity and pompously bearded pontificatings about same. Therefore, allow me to share with you something from the back burner – an entry concerning Ultramarines has been on the cards since March, but I couldn’t be bothered to actually watch it until fairly recently. In the following post I unashamedly saddle up my cultural studies high horse and claim that Game Settings Are Art With Symbolic And Narrative Value - and I won’t apologise for that, because a) I’m a godawful snob about these things and b) I think it’s a valid claim that co-exists just fine with people who just want to play with their toy soldiers – but I feel you deserve some sort of warning, and this is it.
