Reports from the Badlands: Heavy Gear Battle Reports

These comms have been intercepted and confirmed factual.

From Richard:

"This is a couple of pictures from me and Addisons 500tv game a few weeks ago.

 

Addison's CEF won the day over my SRA units in a hard fought engagement.

 

During the conflict Maj. Toht, the political officer in a Jeager moved too far into the front in a brave attempt to recon a cowardly CEF force hiding behind a hill. He was ambushed and engaged in hand-to-hand combat; a melee he would have obviously won; when a volley of mortors rained down from above striking both he and his opponent. He was heavily damaged, but survived. His opponent took a hit and was stunned. Toht saw an opening and struck with his vibro blade and penetrated the CEF Flail's torso, killing the pilot instantly.

 

The volley of mortor were fired by an SRA pilot. Sam Trainer, the pilot of a Spitting Cobra saw his chance for some payback to that bastard Toht. Six months previous Maj. Toht had cited Davian Trainer, Sam's brother for not following regulations and had him tranfered to a post in the Badlands. Davian was killed a week later in a battle with Northern gears. Sam fired the mortors at the CEF flail and SRA Jeager secretly hoping the mortors would take out both. There was a 50/50 shot. Maybe today wasn't his day after all. At the last minute the Jeager went low and was shielded from most of the damage. Maj. Arnold Toht had survived and was probably wondering what idiot had almosst killed him.

 

Crackling with static from damage or volume, Toht's voice came through the com. "Who the frack fired......"

His rant was cut short as the Flail's comrade fired his weapon at point blank range and found its mark.

Toht didn't even see the kill shot coming.

 

Sam's Spitting Cobra now had a clear shot  on the Flail and the enemy pilot knew it. With hand signal of non agression to the surviving Flail, Sam piloted his gear to the west as the call came through to fall back and wait for reinforcements. Davian was avengend and that snake Major Toht was surely on his way to hell."

Year of the Gear update!

So I have completed assembling my initial obligation to our Year of the Gear gaming concept. My two Hussars are done and ready for painting. I began with my General Purpose squad to get a good idea how the new paint scheme will look. Using the Army Painter method, this army should paint up nicely and rather quickly. Here is a sneak peek! More to follow.

Strength and honor,

-Wicked

Second Look: Pathfinder Starter Box

When my buddy Tom moved back down to New Orleans from his brief hiatus, one of the first things on his To Do list was to get back into role playing. I was running a Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition campaign with him, Adam and Mike before Tom and Mike took advantage of a career opportunity and moved to Seattle. We met on Sundays after work at +1. It was a blast and gave us something to look forward to on Sunday nights. However, I have been running D&D Encounters every Wednesday night for almost the past year, so when he suggested we get a new campaign going, I did not have it in me to run another D&D4e game.

Enter Pathfinder.

With all the new changes coming to the D&D world, I felt it prudent to step away from 4e a bit and choose a system I've not played before. I remembered how fun Pathfinder was when I ran it for Jason and Henry, so I thought I'd give it a go again. Now, I know Pathfinder is D&D 3.5+, so it did feel intensely familiar, but it was different enough (or in my case, refreshing enough) to feel like a whole new game. This time around, I took Tom, Adam, Matthew, and Davide through Raven's Gate in search of the dreaded Black Fang and it was a lot of fun. First, it was Davide's first time playing a traditional pen-and-paper role playing game, so it was great that I was using the started box. And I must say, Paizo has done an excellent job on making the components easy to read/use for first time players. The premade characters are well done, the sheets easy to read and very "how to". The game play text on the margins is a particularly brilliant idea. The two rule books (a Game Master Guide and a Hero Handbook) are easy to read, flip through, and very good at explaining core rules and concepts. The intro dungeon, ten rooms, is just challenging enough for new players. I did have to cut corners a bit for the sake of time, which I think made for a more "generic" feeling game, but we got through it in just under three hours. The Pathfinder starter box does its job of giving new players  a snapshot of what role playing is and gets their feet just wet enough to leave them wanting for more.

The refreshing thing I found about Pathfinder is that I find it less constrictive than 4e. In essence, I get to role-play and tell a story and the PCs get to do what they like. The difference is really felt I think during combat. Combat in 4e boils down to power management and timing. When to use my Daily or Encounter, or which Utility power to use. It focuses on the use of the powers instead of simply doing something a player may find interesting or cool. While this does indeed speed up combat, an argument can be made that it restricts game play. Personally, I do not find 4e that restrictive, but it was neat to hear players come up with neat things they wanted their characters to do instead of focusing solely on power card management.

However, this is something that Wizards of the Coast is addressing in the new D&D play testing. I look forward to what they come up with. While I will always be a true, died-in-the-wool Dungeons & Dragons fanboy, it is nice to see what Paizo has done with the 3.5 rules.

Our campaign starts in one a month, so once I get a few more games in under my belt I'm sure I will be singing the praises of Pathfinder, too.

Strength and Honor,

-Wicked

Heavy Gear Blitz League!

With the success of our Heavy Gear Blitz tournament and the recruiting efforts of some dedicated Pod Squad members, we have attracted some new folks to this great miniatures game. We now have enough players to run a small League over at Big Easy Comics and we have put the first week of it behind us. It takes place in the Badlands, where players fight over the resources found there. After nine weeks of play, the players with the most resources will fight one another in a single elimination play-off style tournament. There will be official prize support from Dream Pod 9 and a Painting Award, awarded to the player judged to have the best painted army.

I find small leagues like this are good and fun to participate in. For this play group, it gives us focus and a goal to work towards. The rules are simple enough and accommodate most everyone's needs and they provide some structure and narrative to what would otherwise just be pick up games. A league also fits in with our Year of the Gear concept and continues to showcase the game and expose even more people to Heavy Gear Blitz. Steve has a few starter sets in just in case someone else wants to take the plunge.

(Come October, I will be running my infamous Mordheim campaign!)

I am enjoying learning many nuances of the game. Indirect Fire and Target Designators really make my NuCoal Chevaliers and Jerboas shine. The game has many subtle layers. Discovering how those layers interact with your faction is part of the fun of Heavy Gear. Speaking of, I just love the NuCoal models. I really lucked out by choosing the New Coalition as my faction for Heavy Gear. Fun to play, fun to paint, and they look just awesome!


I hope I fair well against my opponent for this week. Jason and his Northern army is a tough nut to crack. I'll let you know how I do!

Strength and Honor,

-Wicked

A Fourth of July to Remember...

I had a great day celebrating the birth of our nation by spending time with my family. Everyone met at my brother's house and we enjoyed a delicious barbecue, beer, and swimming in the pool on a very hot day. Before the party was over, Britt and I played a game of Memoir '44. He played the Allied Forces attempting to storm Sword Beach while I took command of the Axis powers and tried to repel the invaders. However, my defense was short lived, as my left flank collapsed under his unrelenting Armor and Infantry assault and he quickly turned the tide of battle. While the dominating presence of my twin 88s Artillery in the center forced him to the right flank, my own Tiger tanks were not enough to repress his advance there, and soon my right flank fell as well. He was able to clear a path to the occupied towns and claim a Victory for Allies on D-Day.

I was very happy to get a chance to play a board game with my brother. We play online FPS games a lot together, such as the Call of Duty series and Battlefield 3, but we do not get to play "analog" games all that often. Hobby gaming is more my thing, though Britt is an accomplished Fantasy Football mastermind. A few weeks ago we did play a game of Magic: The Gathering with a Duel deck I happened to have with me, but mostly our gaming kinship is through the Xbox. Not that there is anything wrong with that at all, but I appreciated his willingness to play one of "my" games. In fact, I think it was the first time he and I have ever played one of my hobby games. It was really fun and very cool to play with him. I'm just glad he enjoyed it, as he said he wants to play again. But next time, we will up the ante with a more challenging scenario!

So thanks Britt for making this year's 4th of July truly memorable for me!

Strength and Honor

-Wicked

Game Review: Alien Frontiers

One of my great finds at Bayou Wars this year is a game called Alien Frontiers by Clever Mojo Games. I really feel it is the crown jewel of my convention swag. Jeremy over at +1 Gaming mentioned it to me a while back, saying that he knew I would like it. At the convention, +1 Gaming ran demos of several of the games they were selling, and I just happened to walk by when they were demoing Alien Frontiers. Seeing the game all ready to go Henry, Seth and I jumped in. Twenty minutes later, the game was bought!

In Alien Frontiers, you control a fleet of rocket ships used to manage resources and acquire alien technology in order to colonize a planet. You score points by controlling certain areas on the planet, such as Herbert Valley or Asimov Crater, and once a player's last colony is placed, you tally up who has the most points at that time by using the handy dandy point tracker with cool 1950's sci-fi style rocket markers. The person with the most points is the winner!

Henry surveys the Alien Artifacts!

Now the cool part is the fleet of ships you control are actually six sided dice. You begin the game with three. You essentially are rolling for your resources each turn. Resources come in the form of Ore mined from a moon or Fuel converted from solar energy. After you roll the dice, you consult the different docking stations and place the die/dice at the stations to generate an effect. For example, you may place a 5 on the Solar Converter to generate three Fuel, a 4 on the Lunar Mine to generate one Ore, and place a 2 on the colonist hub to begin the building up for colonists. When you are done rolling dice and generating effects, it is the next player's turn. And this is the key, addictive mechanic of the game: rolling dice and deciding where to place them on the board. Do I go to the Alien Artifact and purchase one of the dynamic, game changing Alien cards? Or, if I rolled three consecutive numbers, place the die on the Raider's Outpost to go pirating other player's resources or cards? Should I build more ships (which generate more options in subsequent turns) or should I add more colonists to the planet? Each territory on the planet correlates to a docking station, and thereby grants some bonus or effect to the station to whomever controls the corresponding territory, such as generating one extra fuel or reducing the price of building new ships. The trick with the dice placement is there are only so many spaces for ships to dock at any one docking station. So if someone else has taken an area you may need, you are out of luck!

When we played, the common strategy was to acquire Ore and Fuel quickly and then build additional ships. Whomever controls the Burroughs Desert territory can access the mysterious Relic Ship and add this colorless die to your fleet of ships. Once your fleet is up and running, we then began going after the Alien Artifact cards, colonizing the planet as quickly as possible, and sometimes working together to slow the leader down, then just as quickly, going off on your own in order to surge ahead.

Another appealing aspect of the game is the theme. Alien Frontiers definitely has a 1950's "Retro Ray Gun" sci-fi type theme going on. The graphics are excellent, with glass bubble helmeted space men and long silver, rocket ships adorning the game board. The docking stations are glass dome looking cities reminiscent of something out of The Jetsons. To me, this theme and the rolling resource mechanic really fit well together. It gave me the feeling of exploring and colonizing space as some sort of Space Tycoon. The game components are excellent quality and easily surpass the standard of many games on the market

Alien Frontiers is a must have game for those who enjoy resource management style Euro games and rolling lots of dice! Kind of like Yahtzee meets Puerto Rico. I really enjoyed playing this game. Jason pointed out that it my not have some of the direct "mess with your opponent" actions such as he enjoyed with Lords of Waterdeep, Alien Frontiers does cause you to make decisions quickly that may effect your opponent. For me, I can see reaching for this game a lot more when we get together for board game night.

Two thumbs way up for Alien Frontiers!

Alien Frontiers MSRP $49.95

Strength and honor,

-Wicked

Warhammer 40,000 6th Edition

Here is the date!