Blur Boy

WHAT'S NEW?

 

Life has been pretty much a blur since I got back from ORIGINS. I've been knuckling down on design work for my Sword of Severnia miniatures wargame. Progress is being made in huge chunks of late, which is always a good thing. The rules are nearing completion. I can finally see this darn thing getting done. Don't get me wrong, there's still A LOT of work left to do. But it's doable and I'm beginning to feel the wargame taking on a more concrete shape. Yea! 

 

We had a very interesting playtesting session of SOS this past Sunday. It spurred a bunch of refinements. Miniature wargames, especially big battle games, are notoriously complex, so I keep striving to streamline, refine, streamline, and refine. So far so good. Aside from tweaking and adding to the Racial/Creature Game Stats, writing the detailed rules for magical Spells, and designing the Scenario Deck, there isn't anything that major left to finish rules-wise for Version 1 of the game.

 

With the help of my friend Barbarian Geoff, we're more than halfway finished with the formulas for the Point Costing system. That will be tied into the Army Builder software that I'm developing for the game (this wargame has some computer assisted components). I need to get cranking on this soon. With all my focus on design & writing these past 6 months, my PowerBuilder skills are starting to get rusty!

 

 

HISTORICON

 

Only 8 days left until Historicon 2008! That's just unbelievable to me. It really snuck up on me this year, probably because I was at Origins less than a month ago. 

 

Unlike most HMGS East miniature wargaming conventions, I'm not really dying to buy anything specific this time out. Perhaps it's because I spent $400 bucks buying boardgames at Origins and haven't recovered from the sticker shock of that, which really ate into my wargaming budget. Oh whatever, I find it virtually impossible to go to Historicon and not spend at least $200 (oftentimes much more), so I know I'll be walking away with new toy soldiers and/or terrain.

 

I need to slowly back-away from all the unpainted tin, because I have too many unpainted minis as it is. That said, damn those Crusader and Artizan vikings look sweet, the Renegade Orcs are way tempting, and I can never resist the Gnome Wars figures. And I gotta get me some Eureka Frogs, and Croc-Men and Ghouls from the WarGods of Aegyptus range! Heck, the new Warlord Games plastic romans even scratch an itch. Down boy!

 

Mostly, I'll be looking for nicely painted minis that are affordable. That's a real trick. Most inexpensive minis generally look like crap. I'm not going to buy something I can paint 10-times better myself. But the cool stuff that I really like can get pricey fast. I have a difficult time plunking down $175 to $200 for a beautifully painted unit when I can get something just as nice on eBay for 60% of that price. So I'll hunt around and hope I get lucky. I love Stan Johansen's stuff, and Albright's and Evil Bob's are always worth a good look. Everything is else is hit or miss. Barbarian Geoff and I are heading down on Thursday (7/24), so hopefully it will be more HIT in the vendor hall at least.

 

The flea market at Historicon is always a crapshoot. Last year's Historicon flea market was quite disappointing (I'm a fantasy and ancients/medievals guy, so your mileage may vary). But the flea market at the last two Cold Wars was good. So it will be interesting to see how it turns out this summer. It's always a friggin' zoo in there. The crush of bodies (some of them fat & funky smelling) can be a real turnoff, but it's the price you pay to find miniature wargaming treasures. And we tin-pushers love our treasure! Arrrgh! Anyway, I'll report back here and let you know how it turns out.

 

 

PAINTING

 

I've started to paint miniatures again. Now I just gotta keep it up. Right now I'm repainting a unit of large Troll-bloods that I got off eBay, along with a Cave Troll (Privateer calls it a Dire Troll). They're about 85% finished and just need some final highlights to really make them snap. Then I'll move on to something else -- probably some Gnome Wars minis that are softly cooing to me. Although I've got a nice batch of Front Rank Hundred Years War figures (foot knights, archers, men-at-arms) that are enticing as well. There's also a box of GW lizardmen cavalry that's lurking in the shadows. And I could go on...and on... and on. Tough to make a decision when there's so much to paint and so little time to do it all. Oh well, Rome wasn't built in a day! 

 

My buddies and I are talking about sending a pile of unpainted lead to Fernando Enterprises to get more troops painted. We'll see how that goes. Fernando does great work, it's just that the shipping to Sri Lanka is pricey. But I still think it's worth it, especially for us wargamers who don't have nearly as much time to paint as we'd like. 

 

 

BOARD GAMING

 

Soon. Soon. Soon. Soon I will get together with my friends and play some of these new board games that are stuck in my closet, wondering why they haven't been opened and gotten the chance to breathe fresh air. I gotta call Wally... and Kev... and Mayer... and get in touch with a few other folks as well. I mean two gaming session a month isn't too much to ask is it? How do some of those boardgame geeks end up playing 10 or more games per month? I mean c'mon. Don't they have a life? Maybe I have too many competing interests compared to them. Between rotisserie baseball, wargaming, reading, work, going to dinner/movies/plays with my wife, and everything else, there's only so much time available to squeeze in board gaming. I love it, so I need to make the time for it. Nuff said. 

 

 

ALL STAR GAME

 

What in the hell was Major League Baseball thinking when the All-Star Game didn't start until 9 PM Eastern Time. I mean crikey, I stayed up until almost 2:00 in the morning to watch my National League squad get beaten yet again. It was a really good game (some spectacular fielding and great pitching), but man this is getting ridiculous. I don't really like the AL, so to get continually beaten by them pisses me off... at least a little. 

 

They need to start the game at 7 PM EST, like a normal baseball game. Are you listening Bud Selig? 

 

 

Until next time.... BE GOOD!

 

Zen Again: Midgard Models

For those miniature wargamers out there who like me, enjoy purchasing nicely painted miniatures on eBay to add to their collections and supplement their own painted models, I wanted to alert you to the fine work done by Midgard Models (eBay is = midgardmodels).

These guys are located in Venezuela and do a great job painting fantasy miniatures and offering them at reasonable prices on eBay. I've bought several pro-painted minis from them in the past, including 2 recent purchases that I'll show right now.

The first, and most recent purchase, is an Orc General (or Hero) which is absolutely fantastic. Here he is in all his grisly glory...

I believe he's a Citadel (Games Workshop) model, and he'll make a fantastic Orc General for the marauding Odessian armies in my Sword of Severnia wargame. He's quite an imposing presence on the tabletop, sized more like a Troll or Ogre than a standard orc. The rock-like base is exquisite.

My second MidgardModels purchase (from 8 weeks ago), was this splendid Troll Lord...

He's a Reaper model and would serve as an excellent Hero. The shading and highlighting, terrific basing, and nice blend of colors makes him really stand out.

Both of these models were marked as "Master Painted" and were in the $20 to $25 price range, which is reasonable for expertly painted special characters of large size.

So if you find yourself short on time to paint, or overwhelmed with way too much stuff to paint, you owe it to yourself to check out some of the minis for sale on eBay. Prices and quality vary widely for painted miniatures on eBay, but I gladly recommend MidgardModels for nicely painted figures at fair prices. Expect to wait around 3 weeks to get your figures if you live in the USA since they're coming from South America. But it's well worth the wait.

My ORIGINS Game Haul

Sultan Sevy (that's me in Orcish form on the left) reports about his trip to Origins...

Greetings, hobby game lovers! I'm back from Ohio. I spent a fun and exciting 3 days at the Origins game convention from June 27 thru June 29 in Columbus, Ohio.

In actuality, it was really more like half of a Friday afternoon, a good chunk of Saturday, and a quick Sunday morning last-chance visit. Prior to the trip, I hoped that I might have a little more time available to engage in some open-gaming, but unfortunately that didn't turn out to be the case. Bummer dude. Maybe next time. I still had a blast anyway.

The trip was bookended by a 6.5 hour drive on Friday from Harrisburg, PA to Columbus (we got caught in a long traffic jam created because a stretch of the interstate was flooded), and a 6-hour trip home on Sunday afternoon. In between those lengthy drives, I spent time at the convention and also wanted to make sure to spend some quality time with my wife Anna. She told me it wasn't necessary ("just go have fun" was how she put it), but anyone who sacrifices their weekend so their hubby can act like a kid again deserves some quality time! Anna is a casual gamer but wasn't too keen on going with me to the geek infested Convention Center, so she hung out at the hotel and worked on a cross-stitching project while I went on my game shopping sprees at the Origins Exhibit Hall.

My basic day consisted of:

1. Get up, get washed and dressed, and go to breakfast with Anna.
2. Make the 8 minute drive from the hotel (Homewood Suites) to the Chestnut Street Garage and park the car.
3. Hoof it from the Garage through the Skywalk to the Convention Center.
4. Make a beeline for the Exhibit Hall and shop 'til ya drop!
5. Carry packages back to the car -- a damn long walk when the games are heavy.
6. Cycle thru steps 3 to 5 as many times as necessary.
7. Drive back to the hotel around 6 or 7 PM
8. Go to dinner with Anna. (We went to the Cheesecake Factory and Smokey Bones, both located in the Easton Town Center, which is a superb place to shop & eat.)
9. Go back to the hotel and crash.

We added going to the movies to that fine mix on Saturday Night (we saw Wanted -- a really weird, far-fetched movie, but loaded with tons of action. Angelina Jolie is easy on the eyes too).

So what did I do while I was at ORIGINS 2008? See item #4... I shopped until I dropped!

There are very few things in life that stimulate the "shopping lobe" of my brain as much as tabletop games and toy soldiers. Since I usually go to 3 miniature wargaming conventions in central Pennsylvania every year (Cold Wars, Historicon, and Fall In), my focus at Origins was going to be mainly on board games and card games.

I stayed within my pre-con budget, but still spent a darn good chunk of change. Thank goodness the hotel was relatively cheap! By the way, here's a fond shout out to the folks at the Homewood Suites. It was a really nice place to stay (quiet, clean, comfy, plenty of space, free breakfast) and I would gladly stay there again.

I picked up 8 games (one was an expansion), along with some sexy new Chessex dice, a pack of pre-painted Confrontation minis (Wolfen), and some neat terrain from War Torn Worlds. I also purchased a copy of Campaign Cartographer 3, a software program for creating maps. I'm going to use it to create the world map and some battlefield scenario maps for the fantasy miniatures wargame that I'm currently developing (Sword of Severnia).

So what tabletop games did I end up buying?

• El Grande (Decennial Edition)
• Fearsome Floors
• Battue: Storm of the Horselords
• Last Night On Earth
• Drakon (3rd Ed.)
• Downfall of Pompeii
• No Thanks
• Cutthroat Caverns: Deeper & Darker

All of these games were on my personal Hot Games WishList, so I was pretty ecstatic about this haul of goodies. By adding these games to the batch that I recently picked up on our wedding anniversary trip to New York City in May (a group that includes Kingsburg, Colossal Arena, Cutthroat Caverns, and Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage), and several games I received for Christmas and still haven't gotten to play yet, I'm pretty well set game-wise for quite a long time. At least that's what I'm telling myself today!

So what are these new games all about, you ask?

El Grande is a game about spanish knights acquiring territory, and it's widely regarded as the definitive euro-game focusing on Area Control (a category of games that I really enjoy). This is a truly elegant game and one that I've wanted for quite some time.

The Downfall of Pompeii was another euro-game that I was after because the cool theme (getting your people to escape from Pompeii before the hissing volcano erupts and they become extra crispy) sounded too fun to resist. The fact that it was designed by Klaus Jurgen Wrede (of Carcassonne fame) and includes a volcano cone game piece is icing on the cake! The folks at the Mayfair booth suggested using M&M's instead of the wooden bits that come with the game so that you can eat your little people when they get drenched in lava. I guess gaming can be fun and tasty at the same time!

I really wanted a light, fast-playing card game that I could play with my family. No Thanks fits the bill and I've heard good things about it from members of the Dice Tower podcast whose opinions I greatly respect.

Everything else falls into lighter, beer & pretzels fun with themes that I absolutely love (monsters, zombies, fantasy dungeon crawls, and heroic battles). While I like a wide variety of games, I am unabashedly a person who gravitates towards exciting, colorful themes in games. When faced with the choice of a picking a dry game about finance, farming, colonization, or medieval merchants trading goods, versus thrilling games about war, knights, flesh-eating monsters, robots, baseball, gangsters, tanks, or trolls, well I'm gonna pick the later types of games in a heartbeat.

I stopped by the Red Juggernaut booth and was shown a demo of Battue. Not only does it look nice (lots of nice minis), the tile-flipping mechanic, card draws, and swarming style of play should make for a very chaotic battle game full of surprises. Matt Drake's review on his excellent blog (Drake's Flames) also played a big part in selling me on the virtues of this game.

I also stopped by the Flying Frog booth and saw a demo of Last Night On Earth. Like Battue, it comes with some very nice minis, and the production values of the game are just excellent. It's a zombie-killing adventure game with a heavy emphasis on theme and capturing the campy feel of classic zombie movies, rather than on heavy mind-taxing strategy. It's basically a fun little romp of blasting zombies before they eat you. Sounds like plenty of fun for me and the guys I regularly game with. I even got to talk to the very polite and soft-spoken lady who adorns the Lizzy the Shopkeeper card in the game's expansion set (Growing Hunger). I didn't even know who she was until I turned to see her gun-toting visage on a display piece in the Flying Frog booth. Kewl.

Fearsome Floors is a game about racing through a dungeon before it collapses on top of you and before a Frankenstein-like monster eats you for dinner. It's another beer & pretzels game, but since it's designed by Friedemann Friese (the man who invented Power Grid) it's bound to have some interesting strategy to it.

Drakon (3rd edition) is a dungeon crawling game designed by the famed designer Tom Jolly (the man who created the classic fantasy game Wiz-War among other games). It's a fast-playing dungeon crawl / strategy mix, with some nice production values from Fantasy Flight Games. I can't wait to try this one.

Lastly, I picked up the first expansion to Cutthroat Caverns, a game where an adventuring party cooperates in killing a series of monsters, but each character backhandedly tries to "steal the kill" and screw everyone else out of the glory. It's a lighthearted game of screwage with a fantasy twist. The guys at the Compleat Strategist in Manhattan told me I really needed to buy this some day because it made the game tougher and better, so I went ahead and took their advice.

There were a few games on my wishlist that I simply couldn't find (Manhattan, Aladdin's Dragons, Wallenstein, and Dragon's Gold), and a few others I passed on for now but hope to add to my collection some day down the road. But you just can't afford to buy everything you want. Nor do I have the room to store it all. In fact, I'm looking to sell off some of my other games on eBay to make room for the new stuff and recoup some of my expenses.

So that summarizes my game haul at Origins 2008. It was a blast. I saw lots of really cool games being demonstrated, lots of people having fun, and it got me really excited to start organizing some summer gaming get-togethers with my friends and family. I'm so loaded with new games now, that I probably won't be going back to Origins for a few years!

If I had to find fault with anything at Origins (which is something I really hate to do because there are much bigger things to worry about than finding perfection in life), it's that the miniatures gaming room was not nearly as impressive as I remember it in past years. Perhaps I'm spoiled by going to the 3 excellent HMGS East conventions each year and seeing the massive amounts of stunning games played there. Maybe I wasn't there at the right times. Whatever it was, Origins just didn't measure up to Cold Wars or Historicon in regards to the sheer amount of miniature wargaming spectacle or the massive variety of awesome toy soldiers to buy that's for darn sure. Origins is the place for board gaming; everything else (although fairly represented) comes second.

One final note to my readers: If you've never been to Origins, GO! There's so much to do, you'll have a hard time fitting it all in unless you stay on-site and devote several 10-12 hour days to it. If you live on the East Coast and love games, it's worth doing at least once in your life. I can't imagine you would be disappointed. And if you're a board game enthusiast, this is basically heaven. I've never been to GenCon, so it's not really fair to say Origins is better, but I can't imagine Origins being less-fun than GenCon from a board gaming perspective.

Anyway.... Sultan Sevy out!

Games Games Games! -- ORIGINS 2008

This past weekend, I made a last minute decision to go to the Origins game convention in Columbus, Ohio. It's a true gamers haven. What can I say other than I'm pumped!

The last Origins I attended was in 2005. That convention, along with the truly wonderful, in-depth games database at BoardGameGeek and the entertaining and informative Dice Tower podcast by Tom Vasel (along with co-host Sam Healey and former co-host Joe Steadman), were the things that really rekindled my current interest in board games.

I'm not a total newbie when it comes to the hobby gaming scene. I grew up playing lots of board games as a kid, teen, and young adult. From Talisman to Statis Pro Baseball to Slapshot to the 3M games like Acquire and Feudal and Win-Place-&-Show, there are several old classics that I still love to this day.

But post-college, my gaming focus shifted to other things (namely rotisserie baseball and miniatures wargaming). Part of that change was just a lack-of-time for multi-player gaming get-togethers. But part was due to the board gaming scene's slow fade into the sunset. At least that's the way things seemed in the mid-1980's. But from the late 90's onward, board-gaming has experienced a major resurgence.

As I sit here and write in June of 2008, the sheer number of good games available to the board game enthusiast is staggering. Whether you like light, family-friendly Euro games, highly thematic and colorful American style games (Ameritrash), quick playing card games, abstracts, or captivating 2-player wargames, there's bound to be dozens of games out there to suit your particular tastes. And there's really no better place to soak in the atmosphere of gaming as one of the mega gaming conventions (Origins, GenCon, or Spiel in Essen, Germany). If you love games, you really owe it to yourself to make the journey to one of these conventions at least once in your lifetime. I have a hard time imagining you would be disappointed.

While I don't get to game nearly as often as I would like, and my game collection is already big enough in most casual gamer's eyes (close to 150 games), the lure of NEW GAMES is way too hard for any true tabletop games enthusiast to resist. Even though I have easily 25 games in my collection that have yet to hit the table, there's always room for more -- although my closet is starting to disagree with me on that point! I know that in order to make room for new goodies, I'm going to have to start selling off those games that I'll never play again. eBay awaits.

So the biggest blip on my mental radar as I head to Origins this weekend is "what cool new games should I buy?" Here's my HOT LIST of games:

ADVENTURE = Fearsome Floors, Drakon, Last Night on Earth, Fury of Dracula, and Bootleggers.

CARD & PARTY GAMES = Wits & Wagers, No Thanks, Dragon's Gold, Odin's Ravens, Dragon Lairds, and For Sale.

EXPANSIONS = Battlelore (Goblin Marauders, Earth Elemental), Wizard Kings (Maps 5-8), and Carcassonne (Traders & Builders).

SPORTS = Pizza Box Baseball, and Blood Bowl 3rd Edition.

STRATEGY = El Grande (Decennial Edition), Manhattan, Hive, Aladdin's Dragons, Mr. Jack, Downfall of Pompeii, Fire & Axe, Railroad Tycoon, I'm the Boss, Jamaica, Power Grid, and Taluva.

WARGAMES / BATTLE GAMES = Titan, Crusader Rex, Conquest of the Empire, Command & Colors Ancients, Battue, Wallenstein, War of the Ring, Warriors of God, Quest for the Dragonlords, and Age of Gods.

FUTURE RELEASES / NEW EDITIONS = Age of Conan, Cosmic Encounter (FFG edition), Battlelore (Heroes), Monster Liner, and Wiz War.

I'm not Bill Gates, so obviously I can't afford to buy all of these games in one fell swoop! So if I had to pick a Top-20 Most Wanted Games today, here would be my list:

1. Fearsome Floors
2. Drakon
3. Age of Conan
4. Titan
5. Wits & Wagers
6. Hive
7. El Grande
8. Manhattan
9. Last Night on Earth
10. Mr. Jack
11. Blood Bowl (3rd Ed.)
12. No Thanks
13. Wiz War
14. Battue
15. Downfall of Pompeii
16. Aladdin's Dragons
17. Wallenstein
18. Conquest of the Empire
19. Fire & Axe
20. Dragon's Gold

I'll let you know if I purchase any of these tempting games at ORIGINS. I sure hope that I'm able to snag a couple of them!

Game Droppings

Man, I've really got to find a way to write more often. Seems like life has me sidetracked from writing to this blog as often as I would like. Perhaps with Summer here, things will get better in that regard. It always seems like a much more exciting time for gaming, conventions, rotisserie baseball, road trips, and exciting new game releases.

Here's what I've been up to recently, as well as cool things which are on my radar...

Wizard Kings Sale = Columbia Games is having a Father's Day sale on their Treasures & Heroes block expansion sets for the Wizard Kings game. If you're a fan of the game, you should definitely check this out. I ordered 2 expansions, plus Map Pack #1 this weekend.

If you've never played any of the excellent Columbia block wargames, I heartily recommend giving them a try. I have both Hammer of the Scots and Wizard Kings in my game collection, and am hoping to add Crusader Rex to the mix some day as well. If you're a fan of Dark Ages and Medieval history, or a Fantasy gamer, and you like large-scale wargames of moderate complexity, you won't be disappointed with any of these games. They're fun, and each one has a very different feel due to its subject matter and how that's implemented in the game system.

Sword of Severnia Playtesting = This Summer, my playtesting group and I are hitting the wargames table on a regular basis to put the Sword of Severnia rules through their paces. Things are going well so far and I'm getting more & more excited about the game with each passing day.

Sword of Severnia (or SoS for short), is a card-driven miniature wargame of fantasy combat. There's a heavy emphasis on Command & Control, fog of war, and using smart battle tactics to manuever and attack with your troops (up to 12 different Troop Types). The importance of good Leaders, Morale, Disorder, Fatigue, Formations, using Reserves, and intelligent Deployment are also major facets of the game. And since it's a fantasy game, mighty heroes, wizards & spells, monsters, heroic duels, magic items, and unusual battle events are all nicely accounted for.

Armies are comprised of 9-15 regiments (most units are on 80 x 60mm or 80 x 120mm element type bases) formed into 3 brigades, with each brigade having its own field commander. Typical armies are comprised of 60-80 figures, which includes your core troops and any leaders, heroes, wizards, and specialists in your army. The rules were designed with 25mm to 30mm figures in mind, but are very easily adaptable to smaller scales such as 15mm.

SoS is not tied into any specific model manufacturer, so you can use whatever figures you like and have available. So whether it's models from Warhammer, Hordes, WarGods, Confrontation, HeroScape, Reaper, D&D Minis, Dwarf Wars, ancient Romans and Greeks, Knights Templar, Vikings, Celts, Saxons, Hundred Years War Medievals, Samurai, Persians, etc., you can use them in this wargame. In fact, SoS currently supports over 140 different races and creatures in the game.

Aside from the interesting game rules themselves, one of the things that really differentiates SoS from other fantasy wargames is that it's a Computer-Assisted wargame. Initially, the computer software component of SoS involves Army Creator tools for building your Regiments and Characters, assembling your Armies, crunching Point Values, and generating & printing custom Troop Cards which contain all the important stats you need to reference during actual game play. There's also a searchable digital Rulebook for quickly looking up rules or charts.

A bit later on, we'll be releasing full-blown Battle Moderator software for SoS. The software (run by a game umpire) lets you track troop status, victory points, and other key data during the battle, allows for some automated dice rolling if your group desires that option, quickly handles chart lookups, and helps enforce the game rules. Plus, the computer-assisted battle version of SoS really aids in learning the game (much less information for new players to remember since the computer does most of that for you).

So anyway... I'll keep ya posted as to our progress on SoS. It's gonna be pretty darn cool!

HeroScape Campaign = I'm also hoping to kickoff a HeroScape campaign game fairly soon. Last Fall, I wrote up a set of campaign rules that will form the basis of the campaign system in my Sword of Severnia miniatures wargame. But pieces of the system were adapted for HeroScape, so that our gaming group could use that simple yet fun system to resolve tabletop battles while our more advanced SoS miniature battle rules are still under development.

My hope is that within the next 2-3 weeks, I can get a small group to playtest these campaign rules with me. The campaign is played about 75% via email/web (sending in orders, plotting map moves, engaging in diplomacy with other players, buying items/buildings/specialists, recruiting new troops, etc.), while the remaining 25% consists of actual tabletop battles when armies encounter each other in a province on the campaign map. 

It should be great fun, so hopefully I can get this started soon.

Historicon 2008 = It's hard to believe, but the Historicon miniatures wargaming convention in Lancaster PA is only a mere 6 weeks away. Pre-registration for HMGS East members is now open, so if you're planning on attending this excellent convention, you should sign-up soon. I believe that pre-reg ends on July 3rd. I'll be there. The lure of tiny tin men is always too much to resist for this wargaming geek!

Well that's all for now.... Coming up on the blog in the coming future (God willing), will be some mentions of some new wargaming books on the market, a look at the 5 different types of wargamers, a rundown of board games on my Wishlist of games, new ideas for Rotisserie Baseball, more news about Sword of Severnia, and hopefully some game session reports. Stay tuned!

Oh GODS, Oh GODS... Oh NO!

Hi Folks,

 

As of today, I'm sending the GODS gaming group off to boarding school in a land, far, far away. It's goodbye for now. Maybe we'll see you again some day in the promising future when you're all grown up.

 

The PROBLEM: Numbers and Scheduling  

 

Despite my recent efforts to relaunch the GODS gaming group, things just haven't worked out as I had hoped. There are 2 pretty big problems preventing the GODS from becoming a viable gaming group:

 

1) There are currently only 5 people who are highly interested in regular tabletop gaming. They are: Kevin Sarnowski, Wally Wenklar, Mayer Foner, David Schlankser, and Steve Severino.

 

Geoff Kyper is a special case. He's very interested in playing miniature wargames (being a member of the SOS playtest/design team), but unfortunately doesn't have any additional free time to join in for multi-player non-wargames.

 

While several other folks have expressed an interest in this type of face-to-face gaming, the simple fact is that they haven't done much to prove it. Whenever I've requested email responses to questions about the gaming group, or have scheduled gaming sessions, it's only the 5 core people that respond and/or show up for the occasional board game. I expected more, so that's been very disappointing.

 

While I'm certainly very happy at least a small group of gamers exists, the simple fact is that if you want 4-6 people to show up and participate in a regular "Game Night", then you really need to have about 10-15 gamers in your pool of people to play games with.

We don't have that critical mass of numbers, thus most Multi-Player gaming sessions I've tried to schedule just didn't pan out.

 

2) Scheduling group sessions has been a nightmare. Everyone has varying days and times when they can play. Finding the perfect match when everyone can attend one big game session has been an insurmountable hurdle. What's supposed to be a fun thing, has turned into a headache for me from the scheduling end of things.

 

The SOLUTION: Off-the-Cuff Gaming

 

After several failed attempts at organizing a large gaming group, I have finally resigned myself to the fact that the "formal approach" to face-to-face gaming (i.e. having people vote on various "club issues/topics", setting up a bi-weekly games schedule ahead of time, posting "club news" via email), just isn't going to work right now. Mobilizing a large group of people to action has been a real struggle; one which I've been frustrated by and don't feel is worth wasting any more energy on. All I ever wanted to do is play some fun games and get to see my friends on a more frequent basis. I never intended to get caught up in administrative and organizational duties. This was always supposed to be FUN, not WORK. 

 

Since there's still a small group of people eager to play an assortment of tabletop games, I'm not about to abandon them. Instead of the formal, highly organized approach, I'm going OLD SCHOOL. I'm going to arrange "Off the Cuff" game sessions at my house. 

 

Simply put, when I have the free time to play a game during a given week, I will simply contact a friend or two via email/phone and say something along the lines of "hey Kev, what are you doing on Wednesday Night? Do you want to come over and play Battlelore?" And I will either get someone to play a 1-on-1 game with me, or if I'm real lucky, I'll have 2 or 3 people come over for a multi-player game.

 

For now, the only people on my Gamer Contacts list will be Kev, Wally, Geoff, Mayer, and David. If anyone else is truly interested in having me contact them for some face-to-face gaming, then feel free to email me or call me. Otherwise, I won't be bothering you about gaming stuff anymore.

 

Last but not least... I'm also going to explore the CPA Games Club, and perhaps play games there some weekends. They hold gaming sessions every weekend (on the West Shore on odd numbered Sundays, and the East Shore on even numbered Saturdays). There's no membership fee to become part of the club, and they welcome all comers. They play a lot of eurogames and train games, but also some wargames and adventure games as well. If you have a particular game you really want to play, you're allowed to bring it and ask people to play it with you. A bunch of them also travel to Origins and other game conventions in Maryland each year. 

 

 

So that's the scoop. GODS, it was nice knowing you. Rest in peace. Hopefully, Off-the-Cuff gaming will work and I'll get to play more games with my friends. Maybe some day, the number of interested gamers will grow large enough to organize an honest-to-goodness game club. Or maybe, someone else will pickup the ball and run with it, and have better success than I did in getting it going. Or perhaps we'll all be assimilated into the CPA? Who knows. 

 

-SEVY-

 

June Schedule for the GODS

Gamers,

 

Here's a few brief, additional details about the June Schedule for the GODS gaming group.

 

<> Nobody was interested in attending Games Day Baltimore on June 14, so I won't be attending that convention. Truth be told, it's probably way too overpriced for what it is, especially since us Central PA wargamers already have 3 much better conventions to attend that are close by in Cold Wars, Historicon, and Fall In.   

 

<> I have only received a small handful of responses so far (from Wally, Mayer, and David), but it looks like at least 3 people (including myself) can attend the gaming session on JUNE 14, and 3 people can attend the JUNE 25 session. So it looks like those gaming sessions are a go barring any unforeseen disasters.  

 

<> With only 1 person responding with a Yes, it looks like the JUNE 1 group session may be cancelled. Unless I get some last minute affirmitive responses by 7 PM tonight, I'm going to go ahead and cancel it and make other plans. 

 

<> I know that arranging your personal schedule 1-month in advance is a dicey proposition for some folks. Some people love the advanced notice of a monthly schedule, while others prefer to hang loose and plan their events only a few days in advance. Whatever floats your boat. All I can ask is that you try your best to LET ME KNOW at least 4 days ahead of time if you plan on coming to a planned gaming session. I would prefer that you let me know even earlier than that if possible, but if you're a last minute type of person, then at least give me the courtesy of 4-day advance notice so I can plan accordingly. Thanks. 

 

<> From time to time, I plan to extend personal invites to friends to come over and play 1-on-1 games. I've got a bunch of wargames, battle games, abstracts, and strategy games that fit the 2-player mold quite nicely. In fact, I might even go as far to say that 2 player games are my favorites (although it's a fine line). Anyway, I'll try to squeeze some head-to-head sessions in from time to time as my schedule allows it. Right now, with group playtesting of my Sword of Severnia miniatures wargame going on, finding the extra time won't be quite as easy as I would like, so please bear with me. 

 

<> Lastly, I put the first-ever POLL up on the Six Sided Rhinoceros blog. To find the poll, check the right-margin of the blog, just below the Blog Archive section. This week's poll asks you to choose your favorite Adventure (or Adventure/Strategy) games. You can check off as many games as you want. Feel free to choose both those you're already familiar with, as well as those that you're most eager to try out. 

 

Later gamers...

 

Back in the Gaming Saddle Again

It has been quite awhile since I sat down at the table with my friends and played some good old fashioned board games and card games. Hopefully, all of that will change fairly soon.

February through mid-April is always a real killer for me with respect to my free-time. I'm typically swamped with preseason baseball stuff. Whether it's working on enhancing, selling, or fulfilling orders for Rhino Baseball during the day, or planning and managing all the events associated with HARL, my longtime fantasy baseball league, I basically have close to zero free-time during the 1st quarter of each year. I'm learning to deal with it a little better, but it's still far from perfect.

Once May rolls around, I start to get my life back again and can actually enjoy it a lot more.

Although I had hoped to get my on-again, off-again tabletop gaming group (the GODS) kick-started in early May, I was just too busy with other things to address that. Part of May was spent planning and going on a short vacation with my wife to New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore on a whirlwind east-coast city tour. We had a blast, despite the fact that it was rainy a few of those days. We went to see Young Frankenstein on Broadway at the Hilton Theatre, which was absolutely fantastic; go see it! We also visited the Liberty Bell and took in a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game in Philly, and visited the National Aquarium in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.



My other free-time was spent doing an assortment of gaming-related stuff.

Some of it involved buying goodies on eBay. I finally scored all 4 packs in the Wave-7 expansion set for HeroScape for under $40. Those cool Templar Knights are finally mine! I also purchased a miniatures game called Monster Island, which involves (you guessed it) giant monster combat.

And finally, I bought some new miniatures (a bunch of Trollbloods made by Privateer Press), and an absolutely stunningly painted Troll Lord (shown above) painted by MidgardModels in Argentina.

I was pretty bummed with the Trollbloods, as they arrived from Canada in a zillion pieces and the painting was chipped in several places. They were poorly packed (heavy models wrapped in very thin tissue paper) and consequently broke apart during shipping to the USA. It took me well over 2 hours to glue everything back together again, and I'll be spending a lot more time than that touching up the paint jobs to a more suitable level. Oh well, eBay sales have generally treated me very well, but I guess you can't win 'em all.

I also made a very big boardgaming purchase at the Compleat Strategist in Manhattan. I picked up copies of Cutthroat Caverns, Kingsburg, Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage, and Colossal Arena. The guys at the Compleat Strategist in NYC were extremely friendly, and were kind enough to ship the games to my home in Pennsylvania for free (so I didn't have to get them soaked in the rain). Now that's excellent service!

Recently, I began my efforts to get the GODS gaming group going again. The GODS are a small group of friends and acquaintances that occasionally get together at my house to play board games, card games, and miniatures games.

I just setup the biweekly schedule of get-togethers for June, so we'll see how that pans out. Although getting friends to show up to play games on a consistent basis has been very difficult in the past (scheduling is always tricky when you're dealing with adults who have family commitments), I'm not giving up yet. I think it's just a matter of the group gaining some momentum and getting people to make regular gaming get-togethers a habit much like their other extracurricular events. FUN is NOT the problem. We always have lots of fun when we play these games. It's just scheduling the darn things. Of course isn't that true of just about any club/league/organization that you try to form? So I'm going to be patient.

With the pending onset of summer, convention season is also upon us in a Big Way. Over the next few months, we've got:

• Games Day Baltimore - June 14 (Baltimore, MD)
• Origins - June 25-29 (Columbus, OH)
• Historicon - July 24-27 (Lancaster, PA)
• World Boardgaming Championships - August 5-10 (Lancaster, PA)
• GenCon - August 14-17 (Indianapolis, IN)

I'm still not sure if I'm heading to Games Day (about 50/50 right now). I will definitely be going to Historicon. And I really want to go to GenCon, since I've never been there before. That's a very long trek for someone in Central PA, so I'd probably make a mini-vacation out of it and spread it over several days. Gonna run this one by the guys and my wife to see what's cooking there.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for an upcoming post covering my board game / card game wishlist, and information about a HeroScape campaign that I'm hoping to start sometime soon.

See you next time!

GODS Schedule for June 2008

Here's the current Schedule of GODS Tabletop Gaming Sessions for June 2008:

• JUNE 1  = SUN, STARTS 5 PM, LASTING 2-4 HOURS 
• JUNE 14 = SAT, STARTS 1 PM, LASTING 2-4 HOURS 
• JUNE 25 = WED, STARTS 7 PM, LASTING 2-3 HOURS 

All gaming sessions are held at my home in Enola PA. For those needing directions to my house, please contact me via email or by leaving a comment on this blog post.   

 

Note that the JUNE 14 session date may change. That day is also the date of Games Day Baltimore, a 1-day miniatures convention sponsored by Games Workshop and held at the Baltimore Convention near Inner Harbor. I won't bother going to this show myself, but if someone wishes to join me for a day-trip, then let me know by no later than this Wednesday (May 28) so we can plan a carpool down there accordingly. If some of us do head down to the con, then I'll be rescheduling the JUNE 14 session to another date (either evening of 6/11 or evening of 6/15). If nobody else wants to go, then the JUNE 14 gaming session will remain scheduled as-is. 

 

With the GODS schedule in-hand, please review it and let me know which gaming sessions you plan to attend. Based on the responses and participants planning to attend, I will choose games to play at a later point (since virtually everyone said they're game to play anything).

 

FINALLY.... Shortly, I will have news of a HeroScape campaign that I'm going to start soon. It can accomodate up to 6 players, each controlling their own kingdom and 1200-point army (broken into 3 legions). The game is centered around a new campaign system I've developed, where the object is to capture provinces within the world of Valhalla through conquest and diplomacy. The campaign will run for several months, with the eventual campaign winner being awarded a prize. More info will be forthcoming, so stay tuned to this blog. 

 

SEVY out!

 

GODS Game Group -- Game Inventory

Hi Folks,

The following is an inventory of tabletop games that I have available to play during our gaming get-togethers.

I have compiled this list so that you're aware of the types of games that we might play together at GODS sessions. You can find detailed info about each game by visiting BoardGameGeek (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/). Also, feel free to ask me questions about any of the games in my collection. Many of them are new to me as well!

If there are particular games on this list that you're really eager & excited to play, then please let me know and I'll make sure that they get to the table during our scheduled sessions.

I've broken out the list into 6 major categories (Adventure, Miniatures, Party, Sports, Strategy, and Wargame).

<> My personal favorites are highlighted in blue.
<> Games that are on my "Sell List" (to be sold) are highlighted in red. Contact me if interested.

On with the list!

ADVENTURE

• Co-Operative = Arkham Horror, Shadows Over Camelot
• Head-to-Head = Dungeon Twister, Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation
• Quest = Dark Tower, Doom, Pirate's Cove, Prophecy, Rogue Trooper, Talisman

MINIATURES

• Mass Combat (Historical) = DBA, DBM, Tactica, Ancient & Medieval Warfare (Neil Thomas)
• Mass Combat (Fantasy/Sci-Fi) = Armies of Arcana, Battlestorm, Celtos, Crucible, Hordes of the Things (HOTT), Orc's Drift, Sword of Severnia, Vis Magica, Wargods of Aegyptus, Warhammer, Warmaster, Warrior Heroes
• Skirmish = AT-43, Chronopia, Gnome Wars, HeroScape, Monster Island, Warlord, Wings of War
• Racing = All Wound Up

PARTY

• Dice = Pass the Pigs, Yahtzee
• Drawing = Thinkblot
• Trivia = Facts In Five*, Image, Scene It! (Movie Edition), Trivial Pursuit, VH1 Pop-Up Video
• Word = Apples to Apples, Balderdash, Jargon, Password, RSVP, Scrabble, Wise & Otherwise

* Good party game, but currently have 2 copies of this (one to keep, and one to sell).

SPORTS

• Dexterity = STIGA Rod Hockey
• Simulation = Bowl Bound, NHL Strategy, Pursue the Pennant, Sports Illustrated Baseball, Sports Illustrated Football, Statis Pro Baseball, Strat-O-Matic Hockey
• Strategy = Americana Golf, Battleball, Blood Bowl (1st Ed)*, Blue Line Hockey, Let's Go to the Races (VCR game), Thinking Man's Golf, Win Place & Show

* Looking to sell old 1st Edition game and purchase new 3rd Edition game w/ minis.

STRATEGY

• Abstract = Backgammon, Breakthru, Othello, Rummy-O, Twixt
• Area Control or Route Building = Carcassonne, Domaine, Through the Desert, Ticket to Ride
• Cards = Chaos Marauders, Citadels, Colossal Arena, Condottiere, Cutthroat Caverns, Guillotine, Illuminati, Ivanhoe, Monkeys On the Moon, Mystery Rummy, Pinochle, Poker, Saboteur, Slapshot, Starship Catan
• Deduction = Mystery of the Abbey
• Economic / Resource Mgmt = Acquire, Executive Decision, Kingsburg, Monopoly, Rollout, Stocks & Bonds
• Negotiation = Cash 'N Guns, Cosmic Encounter*, Diplomacy

* Have the old West End version. Looking to sell it and buy the new FFG version once it's released in 2008.

WARGAME

• Abstract = Feudal, Knightmare Chess, Lionheart
• Campaign = Attack!, Battle Cry (American Heritage), Dark Emperor, Hammer of the Scots, Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage, Monsters Menace America, Nexus Ops, Russian Campaign, Wizard Kings
• Tactical = Battle Cry (Avalon Hill), Battlelore, Gettysburg, Tactics II, Tide of Iron

That's all for now!

Severnius
Keeper of the Games