State of Affairs at Mik's Minis

ha, I 'googled' "Mik" and got this...

So, the first month of the new year comes to a close. What do I have to show for it? Umm, not much! Looking back at last year, especially near the end of the year, I was posting every day, now I'm lucky to get a post in every week if that.

My gaming has somewhat slacked off, still getting in board gaming and what-not, and of course you can follow our RPG group on our podcast, but I haven't put brush to fig whatsoever. In fact, I've got a Rackham Dwarf, all he needs is some basing and layer of Dull Cote and he's done...nothing. Have I been playing video games? Yeah, but it's not a guilty pleasure, I stand behind my XBox 100%, but I also can't deny how it completely destroys any other hobby time. Obviously Dragon Age has been the largest culprit, but you know Mass Effect 2 came out this week, right? Oh, and I bought it already, of course. It came out the same week I beat Dragon Age, so I think those blighters had it planned all along!

I missed out on an awesome game of Pig Wars just the other night, and I'm kicking myself for it still. "Vikings" were at the top of my 'get it done in 2010' resolution too. In the 15mm sci-fi department, the rules we were playtesting got a "major overhaul" and I like to think it's in part to our feedback, ahem, but probably not. The Centaur Princess Chronicles have been a pretty big hit as well, so keep checking back here every Tuesday for her exploits.

Centaur Princess Chronicles, pt. 1

image © Isaurus Simon

The Centaur Princess Chronicles

"There was a princess who lived in the forest. She was a centaur; half horse and half human. She wore her long, brown hair in thick braids and she had sparkling green eyes. She and her tribe were respectful of nature. Today was a special day because it was her birthday."

Welcome to the first weekly installment of the Tales from the Lunchbox! To recap what I'm doing if you didn't click the link, these are the little 'notes' I leave in my daughter's lunchbox every day for her to read at school. After I found a stack of them in her room she had collected, I realized I had a neat (if simple) little story developing. So here you go, mind you these are written for a six year old, also, I'm writing these on a 'grocery list' sized sheet of paper every time (about 2.5"x5" with Easter bunnies on top) so there's not a whole of room to work with. I don't write these every day, but maybe two or three times a week. It's been a lot of fun so far and it keeps growing. She's said she wants the last page of the story to be on the last day of school, I don't know about that, but I'll try!

Jupiter Rotation

Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Southwest Research Institute

Explanation: What would it be like to coast by Jupiter and watch it rotate? This was just the experience of the New Horizons spacecraft as it approached and flew by Jupiter in 2007. Clicking on the image will bring up a movie of what the robotic spacecraft saw. Visible above in the extensive atmosphere of the Solar System's largest planet are bands and belts of light and dark clouds, as well as giant rotating storm systems seen as ovals. Other movies compiled by New Horizons and other passing spacecraft have captured the clouds swirling and moving relative to themselves. Jupiter has a diameter of about eleven times that of our Earth, and rotates once in about 10 hours. The robotic New Horizons spacecraft, launched four years ago last week, continues to speed toward the outer Solar System and has recently passed the halfway point between Earth and Pluto. New Horizons will reach Pluto in 2015.

Playtesting Galactic War

I took a few minutes out of my "oh-so" busy Dragon Age schedule to get in some 15mm sci-fi gaming! Andy and Chri3 came out last week and we finally got a game going. Last time we had two people back out at the last minute, this time though, we were good to go. Andy adjudicated the rules while Chri3 and I duked it out dirt side.


The world of Playtestia XII

Playing in 15mm means a 4x4 table gives you plenty of space to romp around in. With GWI, you'll be using a lot of troops, so that'll fill up fairly fast. The units are ideally based in "stands", much like Flames of War, so even if you have a ton of figs on your side of the table, keeping tack of them and moving them around isn't a chore.


For my army I used a bunch of my Star Grunt II army. It's mostly Islamic Fed troopers, with some NSL power armor, and New Israel troops acting as my overall command squad. It's sounds like a mixed-bag army, but they've all been painted using the same desert color scheme. Rounding out all the foot troops are six Mechwarrior flying vehicles (VTOLs) in two squads of three, and a couple of vintage Battletech mechs to use as walker. All in all, it may look like a lot, but it's small force, weighing in at just 500 points. I get the impression from the rules that a standard game is going to run around 1500 points or more.


Andy brought his 15mm stuff to the fray for Chri3 to use. A lot of it is old Citadel Traveler figs with a good amount of GZG stuff thrown in to boot. As you can see, he's got a good deal more vehicles than I to round out his force.


Not only do you determine planet type by rolling on a few tables, but you get into scenarios as well. We rolled a planet with gravity lighter than Earth, and an atmosphere which was the same. We got a "defend the object/take or smash the object" scenario in which I was the defender. You start with putting infantry around the objective, then duke it out from there. The stats on the scenario objective were pretty beefy, so instead of wiping it out, Chri3 was going to have to just outright steal it and get it off the board.


Hover tanks glide between the urban terran...


Brutal melee breaks out between infantry near the power conduit. I like a lot of the aspects used in the rules, first and foremost is that rolls are usually contested. To shoot, I roll my dice with modifiers and your dice roll with your own modifiers. Hand to hand combat works in the same way. This keeps players involved in the game "around the clock", and adds a neat little "tension" mechanic to rolling off head-to-head in combat. In the above pic, Chri3' troopers were charging in, but I passed a morale-type roll that let me get in a round of defensive fire first, effectively dropping them in their tracks before they closed.


SPANG! My airships take down an armored vehicle...


A flamer-armed soldier sealed the fate of my defenders

Instead of having mechs out there, Chri3' army had three "walkers" represented by large riding beasts. These are some fun figs, and are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Andy's excellent collection of 15mm sci-fi stuff.

I'm horrible when it comes to relating things mechanical. If you're at all familiar with my blog, you'll know it's usually the fluff that takes center stage. That's a tough place to be in though when you're doing a playtest of new rules; authors want to know how the rules stack up, not the fluff. I will say this, and you can ask the FoW group I game with, when it comes to "odd" tactics, and pulling off something on the table that is just plain goofy, I'll usually be the one to do it. In that respect, I'm a perfect playtester! Mind you, it's not like I'm a tactical "genius" or anything, in most cases it's that I'm a tactical moron, but every now and then some zany move on the tabletop works very well and leaves everyone else scratching their heads.

Tales from the Lunchbox

As I was thoroughly chastised last night by my gaming buddies (Andy and Chri3) for a complete lack of any blog presence, due to Dragon Age: Origins mind you, I realized I should get on the ball. Last year I was averaging about a post a day, this year, umm, not so much! So this will hopefully be a regular installment known by the post title.

I'm a dad, quite a domestic one actually, and I'm the lunch maker in the house. In my six year old's lunchbox I always put a little note in there too, usually this is something like "Have a good day!", "Don't forget to...", and the like. Every now and then I will just draw a picture or something, and on occasion I will write a small, episodic story. These have been her favorite so far. It's a small piece of paper (grocery list size) so there's not a lot of room, just enough to get a paragraph or so down. It's good because it flexes her reading muscle (and my writing muscle to boot) and gives her something fun to read at lunch. Where's the story? Patience, I'll have to post them in increments because I don't even know where the tale is going. I've done a few so far, many more to come, so I'll get them posted soon, just letting everyone out there that I haven't disappeared entirely off the face of the blogosphere.

Return to the Blighted Lands

In an ongoing effort to tweak and test Bob Bryant's Clans and Companies rules, we returned to the Blighted Lands. Last time Bob and I played out this scenario was around the holidays and no one else could make it, this time however we had a full house including Repple Depple's Brian. This time around the units themselves got a mechanical facelift and closely resemble those found in Pig Wars and the magic system got an overhaul as well. The same characters returned however and the scenario itself was unchanged.


Just like the units of undead last time each had their own character model to lead them, the human forces (I kept calling them the 'kingdom') were now lead by a character model, actually, two models. One was the unit champion, mounted on horseback; this was the true 'leader' of the unit itself. Different than last time though, each unit had a wizard accompanying them as well, each one of varying strengths. Wizard strength is determined by 'caster level', a number between one (novice) and usually three (experiences. These numbers help determine if the caster actually gets their spell off or not. The same goes for the necromancers accompanying the units of undead on the other side of the board.


Release the...wargs!

In the realm of "Boblandia" most of your stock fantasy races are present, but have been redefined in their scope. The goblin tribes are back, a race so alien in their culture and demeanor that the other races of the world can only guess as to their motivations. For some reason, the tribes have thrown their lot in with the undead.


Wargs face off with the kingdom's heavy cavalry...


A monstrous visage compliments of the phantasm spell


Lady Talon returns

Emerging from the trees the elf wizard solemnly knelt by the fallen, gave her regards, and scanned the battlefield, eyes narrowing on the source of their demise, necromancer Lady Hexus. In game turns, Lady Talon got quite the upgrade, being both a level five wizard, as well as a more-than-capable fighter in her own right.


Cat fight! Lady Talon immolates Lady Hexus...


A models' eye view of the tabletop


The carnage was plentiful as the human cavalry and goblin warg riders tore into each other, supported by human archers and skeletal warriors on both sides respectively. In melee you 'bounce back' after each round. You can re-engage if you want to, or if you're lucky, that's just enough respite to get away. This helps prevent, say an elite unit being quagmired all game, by a weenie unit. It also helps define combat a bit more realistically by aligning more in terms with historical accounts.


I do believe the most prominently featured character on my blog has got to be Lady Talon, I had no idea. She made her debut here, sheesh, three years ago now. Just use the search window at the bottom of the blog and type in 'Lady Talon', you'll see here all over the place. She started out as a Warhammer Quest character, did a stint in a role as leader of the Livwald Delegation in Song of Blades and Heroes, and now she's back again.

Today's writeup focused more on the rules, well loosely, of the game we played. It looks like the wheels have been turning in Bob's head, and with a healthy infusion of arcane mechanic ideas from Brian, I see these rules shaping up to be pretty cool. I like the focus on the character models, and wizards (necromancers, warlocks, shaman, etc.) in particular, and the fact that although it's a fantasy setting, it feels a little more grounded than that. Last writeup I lavished a good deal of fluff to the characters, so to save this post from being too redundant, refer back to the first Blighted Lands post. Rock on...

Vehicle Reinforcements in 15mm

Above I have a selection of 'light' walkers, the five on the right are classic Battletech mechs. In the foreground is a 15mm soldier for scale. The two larger mechs on the left will be more like "flavor text" mechs or special scenario mechs that require large mining mechs or the like. These come from the defunct line of WizKids' Mechwarrior 'clicker' game. Speaking of which, the two larger 'dreadnought' sized suits immediately to the left of the sample fig are pretty cool and can function as mega-power armor or something.

Apparently walkers are a big deal in the future. Now aside from the age-old arguments that the design of a walker just doesn't make a lot of sense (just ask the Ewoks), there is one irrefutable reason walkers are still prevalent. They look cool. Keeping in mind the Galactic War playtest rules we're dabbling in, walker elements, both light and heavy, play a significant role, but other rulesets, such as the venerable Star Grunt II also use walkers.


Now we have some 'heavy' walkers, and again, the Mechwarrior line comes through in spades. These were a little banged up, sitting in a shoebox in the garage for years, so I've had to do some hack 'n slash 'n superglue action to get them up to par. The primered model, weighing in heavily being all metal, is from the Heavy Gear line.

A note on Heavy Gear models, they are simply beautiful and if I had the money, I would just replace all my walker and mech models with these models. The Mechwarrior models are great, super cheap (in some cases, free) and will do just fine in a pinch, but to really do up 15mm sci-fi "right", it'd be the DP9 models for me, hands down.


I was getting out of Mechwarrior about the time they started to introduce flying units, so unfortunately I only have one of these transport choppers (I cut off its armament). I like the style of a "near-future" battelfield where helicopters and other "mundane" devices are still used. To that end, this chopper is also great.


A removable stand on the base allows the chopper to "hover" on the ground

Here's a smattering a ground vehicles, all of them from the Mechwarrior line. Last month Eli had shown the same HQ Rover in a post of his over on I See Lead People. It was that post that caused me to get all of these models out their eternal shoebox in the garage in the first place. There's also a couple of cool "jeep" like vehicles, one solid looking tank, and a missile truck that I had to convert a bit so it wouldn't look so goofy.

Rebel Minis Sahadeen Army

Sahadeen Army from Rebel Minis

In my spending frenzy at the end of last year, I picked up a few packs of 15mm figs from the fine folks Rebel Minis. Thanks to the Dropship Horizon, I heard about these guys in the first place, plus they were having an end of year sale to boot.


I picked up every product code they offered in the Sahadeen range (well, except the hab tents), these included a good mix of troop types. I love these snipers, they have a lot of character. They come in pairs, obviously, a gunner and a spotter, I like the extra touch of putting a 'big fifty' style muzzle brake on the rifle.

I have a sizeable force so far with my Star Grunt II figs, pushing seventy five troops or so, and I was looking for something that was a style departure. These Sahadeen were just the thing with their desert fatigues, goggles, and hooded heads.


Sahadeen sniper (left) compared to FoW sniper (right)



heavy and special weapons

The snipers also came with a SAW gunner and rocket launcher. You get two of each type, six total, for a mere $3.49. The tripod gunner and kneeling rifleman came in the separate gun team pack, also with doubles of each miniature.


detail of the SAW gunner, remember, these are 15mm!


detail of the support gunner


kneeling comparison of FoW (left) and Sahadeen (right)



I picked a pack of the Sahadeen infantry to be core troops, but I should've picked up two packs at least. You get 21 figs for eleven bucks and as you can see, a good mix four different poses with five troops each and a separate leader fig. These guys had a fair amount of flash on them, fortunately most of it is on the underside of their bases. One of the four poses has the hood pulled down and you can see the trooper's goggles.



While I was at it, I went ahead and picked up the War Maidens pack too. As you can tell from their name, they're all females, and even though they're on a smaller scale, you can tell a difference between the men and women. These are also neat because they are armed with large pistols in one hand and swords/knives in the other. As you can see, the distribution with the War Maiden poses isn't quite as equal as the infantry.


Here's a little size comparison with a Rebel Minis Earth Force marine in the middle. No, I didn't order this one, it came as a freebie with my order. As you can see, the height is slightly tall, and he's just a tad thinner than GZG. So, from left to right we have a Flames of War trooper, an older RAFM Traveler fig, Rebel Minis marine, GZG Japanese Corp troop, and finally a "predator" that I don't know who made.

Communication was great and I received my order the same week I placed it. The figs looks nice on the website, and sometimes they don't always show up looking as cool, but not this time. There is a great amount of detail on these guys, and plenty of character too. I will definitely order some more from here, not just Sahadeen, but some of the other factions too. It doesn't stop at sci-fi either, they've got plenty of zombie packs, modern military, and even civilians. It doesn't just stop at 15mm either, they've also got plenty of offerings in 28mm too. So what more can I say? I was very pleased with my overall transaction and figures. Check them out at Rebel Minis, the prices are good, the shipping is fast, and the figs look great. Tell them "Mik's Minis sent you"...I've always wanted to say that!

The Martiangeddon is Here!!!

them's a lot of Martians!!!

So I mentioned finally getting to play Zombies!!! a couple of months ago at Ruchtcon II. It was a blast, and before that game was over I knew I wanted to go buy it. However, there's tons of expansions, and a lot of people already own it, then I saw its cousin, Martians!!!, also by gaming company Twilight Creations.

Thanks to my girls, a copy of Martians!!! was just one of a few geek-related presents under the tree this year. There's a couple of things that Martians!!! beats out Zombies!!! in my book. First off, if I had to pick between aliens and zombies, I'd go aliens hands down. I like zombies, sure, but I'm not a huge zombiephile like some out there (I guess I'm a xenophile). Also, sinc eit came out just this past summer, there's just the core box to get, not multiple expansions. Lastly, and this was cool, the game can be played cutthroat screw-your-buddy style, or as a cooperative game with everyone working together.


There was quite a learning curve involved however. It might have been a case of being so easy we made it complicated, I don't know. A lot of the rules either just didn't make a lot of sense, or they were too vague and left too much to interpretation. The one thing that gave us the biggest hangup were those darn white grid lines! Looking at the pic above, you'll see not every tile has a full grid on it, and you can only move if you cross a white line. So how do you get from on tile to another sometimes? We just made do.

Like a tile laying game, you draw a city street randomly and 'connect' to an existing tile on the board. Unlike, say Carcassonne, the tiles don't always have four compatible edges. Sometimes you don't have a lot of options for where to put the new tile, the rules even cover what happens if you can't place the tile at all (though this didn't happen to us).

Other than the trickier-than-expected learning curve, the game was still fun. After a little more familiarity with the rules it should go much smoother. The first game we played was a fluke, we beat it cooperatively in less than ten minutes. The second time was more like it, and it was a long game, ending with us succumbing to the Martian hordes.


The components are great and for the price point, pretty darn impressive. You get a couple of decks of full color cards that cover items, actions, and equipment. You also get a sizeable stack of map tiles, which are illustrated well, but seemed like they were printed awfully dark, making it kind of hard to make out all of the detail. The player pieces are slightly above average as far as boardgames go, but the most impressive part is the one hundred Martians it comes with! These come in several different poses, and their detail is excellent, much better than the player pawns. In fact, if you're looking to acquire a large number of alien figs, this might be the route to go, even if you don't intend on playing the game, their quality is that good. They are a little small, say 20mm-ish, but being aliens, that's okay.

All in all, it's a fun game, and once you know what you're doing, it promises to give you something different every time you play it. Using the cooperative rules require a little 'houserule' tweaking, just to keep it challenging, but just use common sense. We took some notes, and maybe I'll post them once they're finalized. It's a solid addition and makes for a quick pick up game too on nights plans might fall through.

Gearing up for Galactic War

A sad, little battlefield with no battle...

Keeping true to my "resolutions for 2010" I am focusing on just two projects right now, 15mm sci-fi, and vikings. This week was failed attempt number two at sitting down and playtesting the work-in-progress Galactic War I rules by Scott Pyle.

Galactic War I looks like it will be a pretty solid rules set, and unlike the individual hero style of Pyle's SuperSystem, or the small retinue warbands of his "Chaos in..." series, GWI focuses on large scale formations of troops and vehicles. That's the great thing about 15mm though, even with fifty troops, plus vehicles, on each side of the table you can still get by with a 3x3 or 4x4 table, oh, and you're not painting for months on end!


x1 CE, x1 IAE, and x1 LWE

You'll need lots of troops, that's for sure! Oh, and some vehicles too, more than likely walkers. GWI is all about the elements of your army. You start with a single command element (CE) that has your command squad with your CiC in it, plus anywhere between two and five additional squads attached to it. This is your CE.

Then you will add at least one, but probably more infantry attack elements (IAE) to your army. This will consist of anywhere between two to six squads in each IAE. Each squad is considered a fire team with 3-8 models. An IAE will have one squad as a regular commander (think platoon leader) with the rest completing the IAE.

There's a lot of other types of elements to add, but the above two will most likely be your compulsory choices. You can add light or heavy walker elements (LWE's have four walkers, and HWE's have two walkers), grav artillery elements, anti-walker elements, and of course my personal favorite, the ALE's, or alien levy element.

In the end you are going to have a lot of choices on how to build your army, and once built, it's going to look pretty impressive. The basing conventions are going to be Flames of War style, with multiple figures per base. My troops are already individually based, so I will continue to do that in the future, I may make magnet stands.


a smaller, more elite force with heavy walkers


a couple of cheat sheets prepped for the game

You know, as I write this I don't know what I can write about really! I didn't sign a non-disclosure agreement or anything, but these are playtest rules in the end. Plus, they are more than likely to change in scope and scale. Years ago, Andy, Oz, and I were play testers for a dozen or so books for the Legend of the Five Rings roleplaying game, and in that case, yeah, we signed forms and the whole nine yards.

That being the case, I'll leave this 'review' rather light, more like a 'preview' I guess. Needless to say, we will be using these rules in the immediate future and I'll be reporting on future games and my thoughts on how the rules facilitated them, even if I leave out all the crunchy, juicy tidbits of the rules mechanics themselves.

Dragon Age: Origins

So I got an email the other day title "Dude, where's my blog?", short and to the point, T-Bone stated, "You haven't updated in a while, what's up?". Hmm, that's a good question, normally I'm posting quite a bit, painting figures, playing tons o' game, you know, the good stuff. So to answer the question, where have I been? Ferelden.


I started off my adventure the day after I got it as a present for Christmas. It definitely pulls you and becomes quite the blackhole of a time sink. I could tell you it's a fantasy RPG, yada yada yada, but I'll leave the official reviews to the pros like on GameSpot and Diehard GamFAN. Needless to say, it's obvious I've been enjoying it.

You're tromping around a big ole fantasy world, putting the hurt on some bad guys, and solving tons of little sidequests, if you choose, or you can jump right into the expansive storyline. The 'origins' part of the title, I'm guessing, comes from the fact that you play your character from the beginning, their origin tale. I was impressed right out of the gate, my Dwarf noble rogue backstory was well written, had plenty of twists, and really got me invested in the game right from the beginning. It took a couple of hours to play through the opening too, so it's not just tacked on, it's incredibly thought out with repercussions stemming from your actions and decisions that last throughout the game.

That's the other thing, you are given free reign and tons of dialogue options to pretty much do whatever you want. You can stick to being goody-goody and help your fellow man, you can go the dark route and take on assassination missions and robberies, or do what I do, play somewhere in the middle of the road. By the time I was done, there were several missions (sidequests) on my to-do list that never got finished because I made decisions that took me in other directions. Given this, you've got tons of replay value. Different character options; race and class, and tons of different paths to take.


Gaining allies is another key facet to the game, and how you make choices in the game will gain them or not. I was talking with a buddy about my one of my favorite characters who I rescued from a cage and used ever since. They weren't able to get the character out at all and ended up playing the whole game without them. There's plenty of options in who you add to the group, so if you miss one along the way, there will be more chances.

It doesn't just stop at recruitment. Once you have allies you can improve their disposition (approval rating) by carrying on all kinds of dialog options with them in your save area (camp) or while adventuring. The more they approve the better they do in combat, and you are able to unlock new skills and specialties. You also come across tons of loot int he game, some of which are marked 'gifts', if you match the right gift with the right party member, you get more of a bonus. Some are obvious, like finding the 'lamb bone' and giving it to the dog character. Yeah, there's a dog character! I never made a party member mad enough to leave the group, but I could see it happening. Also, if you get really chummy, you will unlock a little 'intimate' cut scene of you and said party member, well, being very close.


The storyline doesn't suck, it's surprisingly good. There are enough plot twists along the way where you stay on your toes, and even the most innocuous comment could have disastrous ramifications. The voice acting is great and really brings party members and NPC's to life, some are downright funny and charismatic. You've got a ton of options in combat and backgrounds, and if you're a tactical gamer, you can program combat behavior and tag key abilities to activate with preset triggers.

For good or bad, it boils down to this. It's basically a console version of World of Warcraft. You have plenty of choices and the game is all about the story, not just the endgame, but choices you make along the way. You will have item management, tons of it, as much as you stand and then some, if you want. Overall, I give it a two thumbs up, five stars, whatever. It has seriously killed my other hobbies though, my blog being just the tip of the casualty list. I've finished it up on my first play through, so it may be time to put it to rest for a little bit at least and get working on some more tactile (tangible!) endeavors.