My Painting Table: Where All the Fun Begins!

Part of the hobby aspect of miniature gaming is assembling and painting up your models for the battlefield. This requires all manner of hobby supplies. From clippers and files to glue and paint pots, having a dedicated area to work on your miniatures goes a long way to enjoying the process and makes organizing your supplies easier.

Now, this area can be as simple as a desktop or portion of the kitchen table. Even a shoe box and box top can make a great painting area. The point is to have a space where you can work on your models from start to finish that makes this a fun and rewarding project for you. For me, it is a corner table in my soon-to-be game room. Now, wherever your place is, the most important advice I can give on its location is make sure it is well lit. To me, lighting is one of the more crucial aspects of assembling and, more importantly, painting miniatures. Proper lighting allows you to see the miniatures better, see the colors sufficiently, and to overall see what you doing. It can be disheartening to have worked on a model to completion and bring it outside and then you notice a paint blemish, piece of flash, or mold line that you thought you got got rid of. My light set up consists of the room light, a desk lamp, and a third light the extends over my back shoulder. As you can see from the photos, I prefer the desk lamp to be higher than most, as I like that lamp to provide the most light. The shoulder lamp helps fill in any shadow areas as I move the model around. Combined the lights really define how accurate my color hues are. This is why I use white bowls as my paint palettes. I can see what the paint color truly is.

I also find having ample area to work handy. I know I am not the norm, but having space to put boxes, trays, primer boxes, etc. is very helpful when trying to manage several models at once. I often have many projects going at once (which explains why I have some many incomplete armies!) and the space help me keep them, organized. (Where are Lassider's Lizardmen, I wonder? :-)

With our upcoming Warmachine/Hordes campaign soon approaching, I will be assembling and painting a small Blindwater Congregation army to plunder the land of Firecanium and slaughter my opponents. More on that campaign later, but I will document my progress with this army here on the Dojo. So here are the beginning models ready for assembly. Check back to see how it turns out!

Strength and Honor,

-Wicked

Game Review: Star Trek Online

Space. The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise....

Like many folks of a certain age, many a night was spent watching the original Star Trek t.v. show. I was just a young boy then, but the show has left a lifetime impression on me. This impression was solidified when the Star Trek franchise made the jump from television to film, riding the wave of science fiction movies of the late 1970's and early 80's. Seeing the Enterprise on the big screen was cooler than cool, and still is to this day. I remember fondly playing with my Start Trek action figures on the bridge of the Enterprise (anyone else remember these Megoo toys?) and getting a bed spread that was full of space ships and laser blasts and space stations. Of course, Star Wars was an influence as well (that is a whole other topic!) but there is no denying that Star Trek had become part of my science fiction DNA.

The Star Trek Universe has since become an iconic part of Americana. Star Trek has spawned an industry of licensing, encompassing movies, books, cartoons, toys and (among other things)...video games. As video games keep pace with technology, the scope of what these games offer has also increased. Building on the success of other MMO's, Cryptic Studios has boldly gone where no game company has gone before and developed Star Trek Online. This is the first and only officially licensed Star Trek MMO and, to borrow a line from a certain Science Officer, I find it "Fascinating".

Canonically, Star Trek Online is in a unique position. Working closely with Paramount, who has rebooted the film franchise by setting the movies in an alternate timeline, Cryptc lets STO players continue the storyline from where the reboot movie takes off (I think this is a very cool thing to do, as it puts the "original" Star Trek timeline in the hands of the fans. Very cool indeed). Romulus and Remus have been destroyed. Both of these empires are struggling to gain a foothold and rebuild. The Klingons are moving to take back whole sectors of space they claim are rightfully theirs. The Dominion are rebuilding. A new threat from Fluidic Space has emerged. And on top of it all, The Borg are back, once more. The Federation is at war on multiple fronts, fighting hard to reestablish peace across the galaxy.

Star Trek Online is a unique MMO in that it allows players to play in two modes. There is a Space mode, which allows players to captain starships, explore uncharted space, and engage in space combat. There is also the Ground mode, which allows players to go on Away Missions, dock at space stations (such as Deep Space Nine) and beam down to planets or onto other vessels. This makes for some dynamic and engaging game play. It also presents players with a unique challenge. By this, I mean your character is not just one person, say as in World of Warcraft. Rather, it is a combination of your Captain character, your class, your starship and your Bridge Officers. All of these combined make up what and how you play STO.

Players can choose from one of three Officer roles: tactical, science, or engineering. These correspond to DPS, Healing, and Tanking, respectively. There are also corresponding starships one can captain: Cruisers, Escorts, and Science vessels. Your Bridge Officers man the various stations on the Bridge, each bringing a unique set of skills that they may use at each station, depending upon their rank. You begin the game as an Ensign and can advance all the way up to Vice Admiral (1-51). Every ten levels grants you access to different Tier starships as well as the ability to promote members of your crew. These Tier ships provide more console slots for various gear upgrades. Of course, the higher the Tier ship, the more powerful it is.

There are many different mission types in STO. From patrolling sector space or engaging enemy contacts to exploring uncharted systems or engaging in diplomatic missions that require the player to "think" their way through to a solution. My favorite are the Episodes. Episodes are missions that follow a storyline and develop very much like a Star Trek t.v. episode. These Episodes further the continuity of Star Trek along and are usually a mix of diplomacy, space combat, and Away Missions.

In addition, there are PVP zones, material gathering, item crafting, accolades, titles, Fleet Actions, Task Forces, and other such odds and ends that add to the immersive experience that is Star Trek Online. And for me, that is one of the more entertaining aspects of STO. The immersion and total sense that you are a part of the Star Trek story, not simply watching it unfold on t.v. or on a movie screen. This is further punctuated by certain parts of the game being voiced by Leonard Nimoy, Zachary Quinto, and Chase Masterson.

Now, it is by no means a perfect game. I still think it has a few things that could be made better (at times Ground combat does feel a little clunky). Fortunately, Cryptic is aware of them and is diligent in gathering player feedback and makes changes where appropriate. Indeed, after a year of being out, it feels much more polished and vastly improved than when the game first went live. I was lucky enough to have been in closed beta testing, and the improvements over the year are quite noticeable. I can only hope that Cryptic continues to further innovate and update STO in the future.

So if you have ever wanted to sit in the Captain's chair of a starship and warp into space, Star Trek Online is your chance to "make it so".

Strength and Honor,

-Wicked

New Year. New Games. New Blood!

Happy New Year Everyone.

Now that the dust from the chaos that was the 2010 Holiday Season has finally settled, I can now focus some attention back to The Dojo. Last year was a roller coaster of gaming goodness, I can only imagine what is in store for 2011. From the few industry rumors I have heard so far, this year looks very promising for all types of gamers. But before I get into what is in store, let me first give a quick round up of what has happened since my last post.

(<--Jason fielding Lord Carver and his Farrow army for the first time at Big Easy!)

Traditionally, my gaming club goes on hiatus during the holidays. It is just too difficult to coordinate with every one's schedules with all of the holiday preparation, celebration, and aftermath. So we have not met for Game Night in quite some time. We have put our D&D campaign on hold until we get some group dynamics worked out. I for one was sad to do this, but I can see the wisdom in doing so. I love the new edition of D&D and I hope we can pick it up again this year. In the months that have past we lost a local game store, but gained a new one here on the North Shore. I am working on creating a game room of my own, but that is a slow process. I now own a gaming table that originally hails from one of the game stores here, which is fortunate. So once the room is set up, it will give us one additional place to play and that is a good thing.

Presently, we are beginning to set some things in motion to kick off our 2011 gaming. We now have a new game store to play at, Big Easy Comics, located here in Mandeville. I'll cover Big Easy in more detail in a later post, but Steve and Tracey have been very gracious and accommodating for us and we are very thankful for their willingness in hosting our games. Warhammer 40k seems to be the game of choice there now, with a tournament scheduled in March. Friday nights are shaping up to be the best day to get some games in there, as we can stay waaaay late if we need to. Roman has plans for a Warmachine/Hordes campaign of his own creation that we will participate in throughout the year. He is also hosting Game Nights at The Cave once again, with the first one to be all about board games. Namely Puerto Rico and Power Grid in particular. I am looking forward to playing a few new board games, too. I would like to give the new version of Tannhauser a go. Jason and I are looking into two new game systems: Freebooter's Fate and Dystopian Wars. They both look promising, but we are committed to playing what we have now first, so look for more scoop on those games later in the year.

So for now, we are getting things going with a new game shop, several new players (which is always a good thing) and planning ahead to get our game on. With multiple things going on, it should not be difficult to get a game of something in, somewhere.

For Thunder Dojo, I am setting the ambitious goal of writing three articles a month. This may not sound like a lot, but it is all I can comfortably handle at the moment. So check back here a few times a month and see what nuggets of gaming awesome I have come up with!

Strength and Honor,

-Wicked

Ultramarines Movie - Trailer2

This looks to be decent. The CGI animation looks video game quality rather than movie quality, but I blame that on Avatar spoiling us as to what is quality movie computer animation. Enjoy!

Arkham Horror Halloween

Happy Halloween! Instead of playing our Dungeons&Dragons game this month, we decided to play a game of Arkham Horror. Being the Saturday before Halloween, we thought it would appropriate to wear costumes in theme with the game. So here I am as an Ancient One Cultist and the guys are dressed as Investigators. Thanks for playing and being such good sports, guys!

Update: Power Grid Strategies

I think that some of the best games are the ones that afford many different paths to victory. Deciding on the best strategy is often equal parts blind luck and sheer cunning. In games that afford different ways to win, being able to pick a winning strategy and minimize the luck factor is one of the the fun things about gaming. I think that is why Puerto Rico is such a fun game. It is never the same game twice. The same can be said about Power Grid.

Before I get too far here, let me define a few things. In gaming, I define strategy as the over all plan of action one uses to reach a specific goal. I define tactics as the actions one implements to achieve the goal of one's strategy. For example, in table top miniature games, my strategy could be to flank my opponent and get my army into his back field. The tactics I would use to do this would be to deploy my fastest units on one side of my battle line and move them as fast as possible into his back field while using my ranged units in the center to concentrate fire where my fast units will be going.

Now that we have had a chance to get several games of Power Grid under our belts, it has risen to the top of the list of our favorite games to play. Last night I think I played my best game of Power Grid ever. It was also the first time I won! I have noticed certain play styles emerging among my game group. So there is a little local meta factor involved, but that is one of the great things about gaming. Being able to recognize the strategies of your opponents and adapt accordingly. For example, in my game last night I noticed how one of the guys likes to get into a bid war over a power plant he really does not want just to drive the price up. We went back and forth bidding when I finally passed after his last bid. He just had this "look" about him while he was bidding (in poker I think this is referred to as a "tell") and the plant did not seem to fit in with his current power plant selection. After winning that power plant, I don't think he fueled it the whole game.

So some of the strategies I have seen in Power Grid have had varying degrees of success. However, many do share a few things in common. The simplest tactic so far is kind of a no brainer: purchase the most efficient power plant you can get. This tactic has now been immortalized by Jason's statement in an email "Buy Wind!" While it is true purchasing wind power plants is often advantageous, knowing when to ditch them is equally important. While free to fuel, they usually can only power 2 to 4 cities. This is a huge advantage until you have more cities than your plants can power. So it is better to dump a wind power plant for a 2 for 6 or even a 3 for 7 (read that as fuel to city ratio). Another strategy is focusing on the hybrid power plants. By using all hybrid plants, this allows you the ability to adapt to the fuel market. Oil too expensive? I'll go with coal. Coal in short supply? I'll stock up on oil. This allows you to use the cheapest fuel available to power your cities.

One aspect of the game we explored more in our last game session was strategic use of the game map. Deciding which cities to start in and move into can be a game changing tactic. The easiest tactic here is to select cities that have the cheapest routes connected to other cities. As with using the efficient power plants, this gives you the most bang for your buck. By purchasing the cheaper routes you have more cash on hand to do other things, such as buy into more cities. However, a more meta tactic in city placement is denying your opponents cities. Buy buying into cities before your opponent can, depending on the phase of the game, you can block his access to cheap cities thereby driving up his purchase costs or even "box" him in forcing him to wait till until later in the game before he can branch out into other cities, denying him income.

I have also seen what I can term as the "burst" strategy. This involves using efficient power plants to power just enough cities as you own, which are usually very few. This allows you to maximize your income each turn. By spending the exact amount you need to get your income, you essentially are hoarding cash. Over the course of several turns a substantial cash reserve can be built up and when the game kicks into step 3, you are poised to move into several cities all at once and to purchase all the best plants to power them. This can quickly shoot you into the leader position. The catch is, since it is a late game strategy, it relies heavily on the auction step of the turn. You simply must get those power plants, and a canny opponent will get into a bid war with you to drive the price up or deny you the plant all together. If that happens, your sunk, as the game is almost over. However, with that much cash, odds are you will be able to weather this.

Cornering the resource market is another viable strategy. One way to do this is to purchase multiple power plants of a single fuel source with high fuel costs. This allows you to store the most fuel sources on each plant. Over the course of the game you buy as many fuel sources as you can store each turn, eventually owning all of your chosen fuel source. As with happened to me one game, not realizing what my opponent was doing, I was stuck with power plants that were unable to produce power because my opponent owned all the fuel needed to power them. This was a bad thing! The hybrid power plants are good for this strategy as they allow you flexibility in choosing your fuel.

Now the strategy I used and won with was one of parity. By this, I mean I tried to maintain a balance of purchasing plants, fuel and at least one city each turn. Inherently, the game makes it difficult to do everything you want to do each turn. However, the goal here is to always be able to power the exact number of cities you own. So if I purchased a new power plant I was sure to be able to fuel it and buy enough cities to reach my power capacity quota. I rarely stocked fuel and always had to pay a premium for my fuel (which meant I was always in first place, a position we deemed undesirable previously). This lead to aggressive city purchasing early on in the game, which in turn lead me to maximize my income each turn, which in turn let me always buy fuel or buy into new cities. Now, I was usually broke by the end of the build step, but I did always make a return on my investments. Picking up a free for 4 wind power plant mid game and moving into several cities each turn late game all but sealed the victory. By the time I reached my 17th city, thereby ending the game, my closest competitors were in their 14th cities.

I am sure there are more complex and in-depth strategies out there. I imagine being able to manipulate where you are on the leader board with impunity as very handy. I need to buy fuel first, bam! I need to buy a power plant first, bam! Also, I imagine being able to calculate your income/purchases two or three turns in advance as viable.

I really found playing with four people more enjoyable than playing with three. It made for a more competitive auction step and made city purchasing crucial (cities can only sustain three players max). The fuel resources was spread fairly thin early game so cash management and plant selection seemed more critical. I guess just in general the game seemed overall more competitive than in previous games. I can only imagine how playing with five people is going to be like.

While strategies and tactics are fun and cool to pull off, even the best laid plans can end in disaster when your opponent does something to upset them. And this is the fun of gaming. Player interaction and participation adds to the sense of competition and challenges us to play better. As a friend of mine once said "The point of the game is to have fun. The objective of the game is to win."

I often try to do both.

Enjoy!

-Wicked

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