Game Review: Power Grid

So last night we finally opened my copy of Power Grid that, through a dealer's room gift certificate, I won from Bayou Wars a few months ago. I knew what the game was about, but I still kept thinking "Where are the dragons? Where is my sword?" However, we had a very enjoyable evening playing this fun, economy based game.

The objective of Power Grid is to be able to supply power to the most cities by the end of the game. It utilizes several different and engaging game mechanics as players jockey for board position by purchasing cities and routes to power them, bid on power plants, purchase raw materials such as Coal or Oil, generate income, and manage resources. The player who powers the most cities in his network by the predetermined city limit (set by the number of players) wins the game.

Power Grid is not overwhelming in its components. It consists of a game board, several colored tokens to represent the players and resources, power plant tiles, and Monopoly-like colored currency called Electros. It also includes several plastic baggies to hold the various tokens. Game set up is pretty quick and easy. Power Grid is designed for 2-6 players.

Game play breaks down into several phases, and each phase has a few steps. Without going into too much detail, players take turns bidding on the currently available power stations. The power station types are Coal, Oil, Garbage, Oil/Coal hybrid, Nuclear, Wind, and the technologically advanced Fusion Reactor, which we affectionately dubbed "Nemo's House." However, not all of these power plants are available at one time. As power stations are purchased, new ones become available. Power plants use raw material to supply power the player's cities. Some of the power stations are more efficient in using their raw materials than others, and appropriately, cost more. Bidding on the power stations is a very fun and strategic portion of the game.

Once players have their respective power stations, it is time to purchase the raw materials needed to power them. These are Coal, Oil, Garbage, and Uranium. Wind power stations do not require a purchasable raw material to generate power, as they are powered by the wind. Free power! This is a very nice advantage, as it frees up resources for other things. There is a set production of how many of each raw material type becomes available in the market each turn, but the amount of materials that is available is set by the players. For example, if several players are using Coal powered Power stations, the amount of Coal available will decrease as players purchase Coal. Also, as the supply of a material decreases, the cost of the material increases. So if everyone is buying Coal, the last player will be paying more for his Coal than the first player. Again, some "strategery" here as you can see which players need which material and you can drive the cost of materials up. Or even corner the market in a specific material completely. (I'm looking at you, Seth!)

With all stations purchased and fueled, it is time to power some cities. In order to do so, players choose a starting city location during set up on the map portion of the game board. Each city has one or more power lines connected to it and other cities. These power lines form the network of interconnected cities, or "power grid", that players buy into to supply power. Each city has a price and each power line has a price that must be paid in order for a player to move into a city. The cost of the city is dependent on the phase of the game, while the cost of the power line is set by the game board. For example, a player starts in Atlanta. He decides he wants to move into Savannah. He must pay the total of the cost of the power line from Atlanta to Savannah and the cost of building into Savannah. Only so many players are available in a city at a time. As the game goes on , more players can build in a city, but a city can only support three players maximum. Therefore, you can cut other players off from neighboring cities forcing them to branch farther out to supply power, increasing their building expenses.

Lastly, players now "hit the switch" and power up their networks and earn income. The amount of income earned is based on how many cities a player is powering. The more cities, the more income. Sustaining a large network is expensive and a certain amount of diminishing returns is possible if not managed correctly. Once this phase is complete players take the next turn and repeat the process.

In general, that is playing Power Grid. There is lots going on and lots to do! The combination of different strategies, engaging game mechanics, and resource management makes for a very fun game. Decisions, decisions! "Everyone is using Coal or Oil. A nice Garbage Plant just came up for auction and Garbage is cheap and plentiful now. But I need to move into two cities to maximize my income, as I am really low on Electros. Hmmm....what to do?!?!" You really have to pay attention not only to what you are doing, but what the other players are doing as well. They can directly mess up your plans! The base game has maps for the United States and Germany. There are also several expansions to change game play up a bit and add more maps to play on. I think Seth wants to play in Japan. I am looking forward to playing in China! All in all, Power Grid is a game worth checking out.

Power Grid was designed by Freidemann Friese and is published by Rio Grande Games.

Enjoy!

-Wicked

ULTRAMARINES Movie - Trailer1

Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine

Wut?!?!

PS3 Games - E3 2011 - Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

Star Craft II: Wings of Liberty

En Taro Adun, Ambassador!

Blizzard Entertainment seems to have hit another one out of the park with their release of the highly anticipated real time strategy space game Star Craft II (SCII). For fans of the 1998 original, you will greatly enjoy this game. The human Confederate South themed Terrans, the technologically advanced, psionic Protoss, and the insectoid, swarm hive of the Zerg are all back to do battle once again. Loosely defined a Real Time Strategy, or RTS, is a game where you and your opponent work concurrently, not turn based, to defeat one another. In Star Craft II, this involves a race to gather resources and begin constructing the necessary forces to eventually conquer and defeat your opponent. Most RTS games require players to multi-task in order to maximize efficiency in resource collection, unit production and order assignments. So what does all that mean?

In short, a really fun and addictive game. SCII does not reinvent the wheel. The game mechanics and interface are exactly the same as in SCI. If it ain't broke don't fix it! In fact, I found playing SCII very nostalgic for the first few sessions. You begin play on the map with some drones to gather natural resources, crystals and gas, and a base to process the crystals. This allows you to build different buildings that can produce different units. For example, the Terran Barracks produces many infantry units. Many units can be upgraded, provided the buildings are upgraded themselves or specialty buildings are constructed. However, the upgrades lead to many unique and powerful units that can have a huge impact on the game. However, everything has a cost, in terms of resources, that must be met before the unit or building is constructed. It is the gathering of resources and the careful management of their expenditure that is crucial to success in Star Craft II. It is the core and most fun part of the game. Once you have sufficient forces, you may then set out for mission objectives or attack an enemy's base. So the order you gather crystals and gas, construct your base, defenses, buildings, upgrades, and units (or "build" as it is known) is very important. In the end, this is what makes Star Craft II so fun. The mechanics are the same, and really, not much improved. However, that is a good thing.

What is vastly improved though is the campaign storyline, missions, battle.net interface and game graphics. The campaign story picks up where the last game ended. During SCII installation, there is a nice slide show summary of the events of SCI to bring you up to speed. The storyline is linear, but in SCII you have multiple missions to choose from. This means you get to choose how the story is revealed. You have several NPC contacts to interact with that provide storyline dialogue. In between missions, there are movie like cut scenes that tell the story of SCII. They are very well done and entertaining. I ofter find myself doing "just one more mission" just to get the next bit of story!

The battle.net interface, which you have to open an account with to play the game, is very impressive. Once you open your account, you create an online character. This is not a character in SCII, but rather your online persona to interact with other players over battle.net. A word of caution here, as once you name your character, you cannot change it! From the interface, you can select to play the campaign, other players, the computer, mulitplayer games, or participate in the online league. You can even set the difficulty level of the campaign and AI matches. The league ranks its members and the competition is on! There are also many achievements you can unlock in the game, earning you points and other rewards. In addition, there are community forums, a newsletter Com Link Online and other neat bits of information found in the interface. A nice feature of battle.net is realID. This allows you to enter the email of a real life friend to add them to your realID friends list. This allows you to communicate with them in a facebook type fashion across multiple Blizzard games. Currently, these are World of Warcraft and Star Craft II, but others will be added later (Diablo III anyone?).

The game graphics are amazing. The maps are detailed, some with creatures or inhabitants milling about. The different units and buildings are all also very detailed. This gives the game a very polished and unique look and feel. How the units attack is one of the cooler graphics in the game. It's pretty neat to watch a Firebat engulf some Zerglings in flames! The sound effects and sound track are equally well done and simply add to the immersion of playing in the Star Craft Universe.

All in all, with great RTS play, battle.net interface, and superb graphics quality Star Craft II is fantastic game. But then again, coming from Blizzard, I was expecting nothing less.

Enjoy!

-Wicked

Cryx Complete!

I finally finished my first twenty-five point Cryx army. It was fun to paint real fast and loose. Not having to worry about sharp contrasts and using very dark colors made for some fast painting. Well, fast for me anyways. Here are the photos of the Slayer, Skarlock, Withershadow Combine and Bane Knight unit. I'll get a group photo once I dig up my tripod. My gaming group meets tomorrow night so I will see how Asphyxious and his forces fair against Skorne and The Searforge.

For my painting techniques, I followed the same method I used on the Bonejacks, with additional colors as needed. For example, the Skarlock soul snowball. I tried to tie the armor on the Bane Knights into the armor Tartarus is wearing by applying Great Coat Grey to the shields, shoulders and chest plate. The Withershadow Combine got a splash of color in Warlock Purple used on some of the cloth pieces.

Again, speed painting here to get the models done and on the table. This project was done in just under two weeks. I am happy with the results. Next for Cryx will be a Pistol Wraith, a War Witch Siren, and the Cankerworm!

-Wicked

As I continue to slave away over my Cryx, I thought I would share some photos of some other work. Here we have my Circle of Orboros warpack. I painted them way back when Hordes was released. I tried to play on the Little Red Riding Hood/Big Bad Wolf theme from the painting in the MkI rulebook by keeping Kaya's cloak a very warm red. I tried to keep the tones dark and earthy while having the deep green in the golden armor as the unifying color. Recently, I won a painting award for Best Unit at Bayou Wars with these models as my entry. As with many of my forces, the rest of my Circle army is a work in progress. I'll post more as I finish them.

Oh yeah, this is a painting blog!

I have several painting projects going on right now, with all of them at various stages of completion. Despite how much I enjoy painting, I definitely have to be "in the mood" to sit down and paint miniatures. One of my projects is a small Cryx force for my game club. A few of us decided to play with an alternate faction than the ones we primarily play, just to add a little diversity to our games. We choose 25 point lists as a reasonable place to start. It just so happens I have been picking up certain Cryx models here and there over the years with the alternate faction idea in mind. And then Privateer Press released the Retribution of Scyrah and I choose them instead. I have a weakness for space elves, it seems.

Anyways, in painting these models, I decided I wanted to go with a very limited palette and use some speed painting techniques. I want to get the models painted quickly, as I would like to play them fully painted. I think Cryx lends itself to a speed painting method because the ragged, tattered and dirty nature of the faction does not have to be perfect. I mean, they are a legion of Undead, Necromancers, and Pirates, right?

My 25 point list includes:

Iron Lich Asphyxious

-Slayer

-Deathrippers x 2

-Skarlock

Bane Lord Tartarus

Bane Knights x 6

The Withershadow Combine

The base colors are P3 Greatcoat Grey and Necrotite Green and GW Brazen Brass, Bolt Gun Metal, and Bleached Bone. My version of "speed" painting involves glueing the base substrate on before spray priming the models with P3 black primer ( I love this primer). I then base coat the model with the above colors. Once that is done, I give the whole model a wash of P3 Armor Wash and GW Chaos Black thinned down with water. This really darkens the model. Then I hit the base coated areas again with a thinned down wash of the base colors. Afterwards, I do a very light drybrush of the Greatcoat Grey and Bolt Gun Metal areas with paint straight from the pot.

For the Brazen Brass areas, I do an additional straight GW Black Ink wash to for more shading. Then I use Windsor Newton Inks sepia tone for a rustic metal effect. Finally, I do a very light drybrush of GW Shinning Gold and P3 Radiant Platinum.

For the bone colored areas, I used GW Bleached Bone. On top of the shading the entire model gets, I add another P3 Brown Ink wash. Once that is dry, I mix GW Bleached Bone with P3 Menoth White and some mixing medium. This is then drybrushed over the raised areas before the final P3 Brown Ink wash is applied. Finally, I pick out the teeth P3 Menoth White.

The bases are done in GW Vermin Brown. I then add GW Bleached Bone to the base color and drybrush this mixture over the raised rocks. This is done two times, with the second drybrush having more Bleached Bone color than Vermin Brown. Finally, I use superglue and dip the base in some static grass. Once all of the excess static grass has been removed, I hold the model upside down and gently blow on the grass. This causes it to dry sticking up rather than laying flat once the model is held right side up again.

Finally, I hand seal all of the models with Microsystems matte varnish mixed with water.

I know that is not the traditional "dip" speed painting method, but using this method, I cranked out those four models in two nights. For me, that is fast!

I'll post more photos as I get more of the models done. And I know I need to take better photos, but I need a tripod and a lightbox to do them correctly, so I was improvising here.

Enjoy!

-Wicked