Up Front Kickstarter In It's Last 48 Hours

If you are like me and have been waiting for Up Front to be re-printed, make sure you get in on the Kickstarter campaign. The 48 hour count down has begun. This deal is rediculous. The base game and additional core nations alone is over 1300 cards. At the current stretch level, the number of cards you get is more than doubled. To get all the cards, a pledge of $125 USD is required (shipping included for US adresses).

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1325766284/up-front-the-card-game

Posted with Blogsy

The Kessel Run Event

Millennium Falcon and A-Wing

I was fortunate enough to participate in the FFG Kessel Run event hosted at my FLGS, Six Feet Under Games. And, despite my many mistakes I was lucky enough to walk away with the Millennium Falcon as my prize. I have been wanting to use and check out this piece ever since it was announced. The model is very nice and I am quite please I walked away with it.

The ship boasts of 5 shields and an 8 hull, but only 1 evade die (with Lando as pilot). In this configuration, it is a smart idea to use your actions each turn on an evade action.

Slave I and Tie Interceptor

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Thrawn Trilogy

 

I recently finished listening to the Thrawn Trilogy audio book on Audible. If you are a Star Wars fan and are looking for some source material for all the cool new Star Wars games then I highly recommend this read (or listen as it were). Before listening to the Trilogy, I didn't know much about what happened after episode six, so this was a nice tie-in to the movies for me. I am hoping to use some of the background story and event in the Star Wars RPG by FFG. If you haven't read or listened to it, check it out. It is pretty good!

 

BTR

 

Posted with Blogsy

Fantasy Flight Holiday Sale

 

Most large board game companies have an online store and most of them do some kind of Black Friday, Cyber Monday or Holiday sale that offers 10%, 15% or even limited 50% (for loyal customers) savings. To my surprise, FFG has several items at 75% savings. Most of these items are not things I would buy at full retail, but at a huge discount these items become a little more palatable. There are a few $100 games marked down to $25. It might be worth buying a few of these just for the components to make your own games or to give away as Christmas presents. LINK

 

BTR

 

Posted with Blogsy

Legendary

 

I just finished playing my first game of Legendary. I wasn't blown away, but I am not ready to trade it off either. I only played solo and I am sure a group dynamic will add to the experience. This was a learning game too which sterilized the game play a bit. I see a lot of potential here. There is room for breadth as well as depth. We'll see what they do with it. For now I am giving it a 7.5 out of 10.

BTR

 

Posted with Blogsy

Veterans Day 2012

Thank you to all the US veterans, both past and present.

Remember, Freedom is not Free!

DVG's Phantom Leader Released For iOS

This looks like Red Finch's first iOS release. The app is a digital port of DVG's solo player boxed game. For all intents and purposes, it is the boxed game on the iPad screen. I believe this is exactly what they were aiming for. There are no fancy platform shooter animations or AI, but there is some nice background music and limited sound effects. At $14.99, most people who are not familiar with this type of game will probably be ranting all kinds of nasty childish comments on the app store about how 85 other apps do more and look better for 99 cents .... whatever!

This is the app I was hoping for and expecting. I was not expecting the price tag though and I fear that will deter many people which will likely make it difficult to justify further releases. I hope this isn't the case. I would like them to release all their Commander and Leader games in this way.

I have played 3 or 4 games and enjoyed getting my ass kicked in each of them. :-) The game has a few flow issues and maybe a few bugs, but these types of things are expected on a new release and it does not appear to be anything that Red Finch can't handle. The game is difficult to win, just like the boxed game and should provide many challenging hours of entertainment.

Posted with Blogsy

Blogsy, 2 Thumbs Up

If anyone who reads this is a mobile blogger with an iPad, I would like to put a good word in for Blogsy. It is very feature packed and quite honestly my preferred way to create my blog entries. Initially I used it just while I was traveling, but became attached to the flow and control. I have only tried one other blogging app and decided it didn't work well enough to use on the iPad. I give this app 5 stars!

 B.

Posted with Blogsy

Star Wars Edge of the Empire RPG Beta Released

 

Along with Fantasy Flight's other Star Wars related offerings is a new RPG, Star Wars Edge of the Empire. This is a bit of an odd ball. The book is a Beta test for the new system. I have never heard of releasing a printed Beta for something like this, but they got me to buy one ....

 

Something cool I didn't realize is the dice app I mentioned a few posts ago actually has the proprietary dice for the RPG built in already, so I guess I'm good to go. :-) We'll see how it all works out .....

 

B.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Adventure Games Guild Releases Dungeons

Adventure Games Guild has released their first offering, Dungeons. Dungeons is lite solo RPG game. This might do well as an introduction to role playing for younger folks who are interested in fantasy roleplaying. The budding publisher has a meatier project due early next year as well. I haven't played Dungeons yet, but I have read the rules. As soon as I get some play time I will post an update.

B.

Posted with Blogsy

Solo or GMless Roleplaying

Recently, I have been doing a little research on solo RPGs. Some of you might ask why I would want to do such a thing. It is pretty simple; circumstances do not allow me to be as social with my gaming friends as I once was, but I still want to play RPGs. The trick is finding a way to surprise yourself or have the adventure unfold in a way which isn't obvious so that it doesn't feel like you are the player and the GM. There are a couple of options here, especially for the roleplayer who enjoys story telling games.

Mythic, by Word Mill Games, is an RPG system in its own right which can be adapted to play other RPGs GMless or even solo. This system combined with the two player game World vs. Hero, by the same publisher, can up the story telling ante considerably. Check out the solo play World vs Hero webpage HERE and see if that sounds like something that would interest you. The rest of the site has many interesting tidbits as well. I especially enjoyed reading some of the story dialogue that was generated using these systems. There are several examples on the site.

 

When the roleplayer uses these resources along with other resources like donjon, Ptolus or the multitude of other resources available, there is no telling what adventures may be had. While reading the World vs. Hero web site I could not help but crave adventures in all my favorite genres using that system. I am hoping to put these resources to the test. I would enjoy hearing from others or reading the adventures of others who are like minded.

 

B.

Posted with Blogsy

donjon

The donjon web site is a fantastic rpg resource. Not only will the site generate a fully stocked dungeon with the size and level specifics you provide, but it will do so for several different versions of D&D as well as generic fantasy too. The generated dungeon material can be downloaded as a nice pdf package once the desired results are obtained. What an awesome FREE resource. Cudos to the donjon folks!

 

Dungeon created as a result of the settings above.

Example dungeon and room description for the dungeon above.

There are other generators that are handy for several genres of rpgs, not just fantasy. The person or persons responsible for this site have been doing it for quite a while and as a result, many of the offerings are quite polished and offer lots of variety.

B.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Woo Hoo! Phantom Leader Coming to IOS

Phantom Leader is coming to IOS! I thought I was going to have to wait until next year for the re-print. I am checking the app store daily now. I hope this does extremely well and Dan Versen Games will decide to release other games as well. If they are listening, at least all the Leader and Commander series games please. As soon as I can get my hands on it and play, I will post something.

B.

Dungeon - New Version Coming

A new version of my favorite childhood game is due to be released very soon. I have already pre-ordered three copies. I intend to give my nephews the same opportunity I had as a child for such memories. This is one of those games that, judged all by itself, would not rate very high in my book, but because of the theme and the memories it is still a favorite. I even still play the game from time-to-time with my nephews and since finding a solo scenario recently I have even played by myself too. I highly recommend playing this with any youngster who shows an interest in this type of game.

 

Posted with Blogsy

ZunTzu

I can't believe I haven't written about ZunTzu (www.zuntzu.com) in the past. I really like this program. It allows people to create and share digitized version of games by re-creating the components in a virtual environment. If you have heard of Vassal, it is much the same idea without the automation. Game box creation is pretty easy once you understand what is going on.

I have completed a Star Trek Deck Building Game Box, a Field Commander Rommel Game Box and a play-test Game Box for Battle of the Bulge.

Star Trek Deck Building Game

With some imagination, I believe this platform could be used to play skirmish miniatures games as well. I have been wanting to try this idea With Battletech and Where Heroes Dare. Maybe that will be a project for this winter.

The program's creator has announced an iPad version expected sometime late this year. I will likely give this new version a go when it is available. I am actually pacing in anticipation, but am trying to remain calm. :-)

Posted with Blogsy

Banners on the Cheap

You may have noticed the playing surface we used on our X- Wing game. It is actually a banner printed from images taken by Hubble. A company named Banners on the Cheap (www.bannersonthecheap.com) prints banners using all sorts of images. They even make roleplaying maps. The 4' x 4' banners I purchased cost $22 plus about $6 for shipping. I have ordered a total of four of these play mats. So far my experience with this company has been very positive and I highly recommend them.

 

Posted with Blogsy

FFG Star Wars Dice App

To go along with Fantasy Flight's Roleplaying and Miniatures games is a dice rolling app for iOS and Android devices. The dice roller supports other roleplaying games with a generic set of multi-sided dice as well. There are all kind of sounds and backgrounds to go along with the dice rolling, but for $4.99 I expect a few extras. In general I think this price is high for an app of this type, but they did an excellent job and it really helps set the atmosphere for X-Wing games.

 

Posted with Blogsy

X-Wing Released

Fantasy Flight Games has released a Star Wars themed ship combat game with rules similar to Wings of War. Each ship can have various attachments and pilot abilities which give it varying point values. Each player creates a force of the specified point size. All manner of space accessories can be added to the play surface to create any scenario imagined.

Initial ship choices are limited. An X-Wing and two Tie Fighters come with the base set and additional X-Wing and Tie Fighters can be purchased as well as Tie Advanced and Y-Wing ships. The Millenium Falcon, Slave 1, A-Wing and Tie Interceptor ships will be in the next wave of ships offered.

We have played three games so far and certainly recognize the huge potential this game offers. Each game was quite fun as well. I think we'll get lots of mileage out of this one.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Axis and Allies Simulator App

Whenever we played Axis and Allies in college, one of the tools that always accompanied the game was a calculator. Yeah, we really geeked out when we played, but what do you expect from physics students. So, I was kinda excited to see someone actually made an app to calculate the same sorts of things we used a calculator for. It is free too. There are other apps that do the same thing that are not free. This one comes with my recommendation.

Posted with Blogsy