Painting Progress - 2012-06-17
I have retaken the Stompa project, and while I still have some gretchins unpainted along the hulk and windows of the "body", I managed to paint the whole right arm practically in one morning (a record for me, considering how much the Stompa is taking to get painted).
I still feel that it is too black and I should add more red, but probably will wait until the other arm and all gretchins are painted before taking a decision of adding more red (and where).
I am not going to paint anything else (see the exception below) until I've finished the huge ork machine.
I recently searched for and ordered some "biohazard suit minis" for the Pandemic boardgame, because the infection strains look quite cool, the map looks quite cool, but the player "pawns" were too simple. So after some googling I found cheap and good looking minis and ordered a pack of 5.
As an exception to finishing first in progress minis, I have painted them today. They are missing maybe one or two details, plus filling the holes in the bases, but taking into account I did a quick low level painting with 3 colors per mini and that they don't have much detail, the result is acceptable anough:
 
After the stompa, I still have to decide, if painting buildings (not much detail/attention needed), warhammer 40k minis (got lots and varied ones) or my recent purchase, Blood Bowl teams (Humans & Orks from the gamebox and Skavens from my friend's gift). We'll see :)
Started playing Risk Legacy
Since I read about Risk Legacy, I thought that the concept of an evolving/changing game, with permanent decisions, was something amazing (and fresh for boardgames). Now that I have tested it (actually played 4 games), I can confirm it indeed is amazing.
The game appears to be a customized modern Risk, where each player (faction) has a different army, with actual different miniatures (lovely tanks, mechs, cannons, soldiers...).
But if you look at the image above, the game box also includes some small white packages, with rules of when to open each. Stickers, new decks of cards, battle scars, resource coins... many components that alter the game, not only from the beginning but the pure rules as you play more games (some stickers modify the rulebook itself!).
I won't enter in details of how it works because internet has tons of reviews already, I will just say that the way it gets personalized gives you a huge feel of "I am actually shaping this world", instead of just playing on it.
I have prepared a permanent page where I will log all the battles I play of my Risk Legacy world.
Be warned that it contains SPOILERS of the decks.
I can't stop recommending this game to anybody that likes the original Risk.
Latest Boardgames: DnDs and Gears of War
I am lately lacking enough time for properly testing (playing few games of each) three out of the four products... So I decided this time to go for existing reviews as I cannot provide a decent opinion yet.
I bought "blind" Wrath of Ashardalon and Gears of War just based on what I read about them, and preordered The Legend of Drizzt after playing Ravenloft.
 
As I said, I have only played the first one, Castle Ravenloft. I´ve played the first missions, both solo and 5 players.
The game employs a really good dungeon crawling tiled-based system, with random tiles (in a stack containing special ones) and continuous monster spawning, which combined with the automatic monster logic provides a smooth and challenging gameplay.
I like that it is not an easy game. Many things are finally dependant on luck with your dice throws, but the spawning mechanic and event cards make all player turns dramatic and tense. And it ramps up the difficulty accordingly to the number of players (at least in theory, once again depends a bit on luck).
The missions are varied and Wizards of the Coast has already published some bonus extra ones for the first two DnD products.
 
I hope to test the rest of them soon, but anyway the reviews I've linked are very detailed, so go read them!
When Warhammer 40k Necrons really appeared?
Necrons are an enigmatic and really appealing race, both in how the miniatures look (frightening killing machines without remorse nor pity for the other races) but also due to their background, so I try to read as much as possible about everything related to them.
One curious point that only adds more mystery to them is when Games Workshop really created the Necrons.
Sources say that in 1998 the first miniatures appeared (Necron Raiders), then getting a full army treatment after releasing the third edition of the main game.
Old Necron Raiders, from Mis Olvidadas Figuras
Actual necron miniatures
But, being an old dog like I am, introduced to "RPGs" at an early age because of HeroQuest, I was trying to remember why those Necrons were familiar to me from earier...
And then I remembered: Space Crusade (aka Star Quest in some countries) was my second boardgame, and was also done by Games Workshop to introduce the Warhammer 40k world to new players (and then try to move them to proper fields with the normal miniatures and games). Exactly like Heroquest but for the futuristic setting.
I won't enter into details because you can just navigate to the wikipedia link and read by yourself, but I will point out one date: 1990. The date where it was released.
And now, look at how one of the most dreaded monsters the game had looks, the so called "Androids":
Space Crusade painted Android miniatures,from the great Zen StarQuest
Don't you agree with me that the similarities are more than noticeable? Excepting the glowing energy bar in the weapon... looks like almost the same model!
We are talking about 8 years before the official first appearance (in a White Dwarf).
It looks quite reasonable to think that GW first thought of a futuristic, alien version of the undead skeletons back in 1990 (probably early while designing the game), and when they wanted to create a new race around 1997 they just went back and redefined the "Androids" (and gave them a better name).
Played the 2nd edition of Betrayal at House on the Hill
This weekend the roleplaying session had to be boardgame-related due to various players not being able to come, so we played the new edition of Betrayal at House on the hill, recently bought and barely opened but not yet tested :)
We had time to play two times (box says 1 hour long games, but it will probably take more around 1,5 or 2 hours, depending on the hunt), and so far so good.
The game feels fun and varied. The randomly generated floors of the house (upper level, ground level and basement, with some cards specific but many generic), the card decks for items, omens (more on this soon) and events and the 43 different hunts provide a lot of variety.
All the players start as detectives entering a house, exploring and revealing the rooms and corridors and grabbing items while events happen. From time to time, some rooms will make the current player grab an omen card, which represents unnatural events, and after each that player must roll 6 dice and the hunt might begin (or not yet).
When the hunt begins, a table indicates which of the 43 hunts will be. For example, in one we had an alien spaceship inside a room and aliens abducting the players (controlled by the player that started the hunt), while in other a deadly virus was released in the house and one of us started infected and tried to infect more people while the rest gathered ingredients to build a vaccine.
The "Lovecraftian-like" sanity attribute is here, with hunts covering from vampires to aliens, cthulhu like monsters, ghosts or demonic possesions.
The game is really funny, specially if the hunt includes a "hidden traitor" (the bad guy is random and nobody knows at first), but it is also quite hard: In both plays we all died and loose. The game requires very good teamwork and quite a lot of luck: if you fail an omen throw too soon, your chances of surviving are quite low.
While hard, you always feel as if you were living a terror movie, with really terrible monsters, magic elevators (that move around the house) and terrible happenings.
Definetly recommended buy.
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