How much?!

Over the last few days I have bought in to three difference skirmish games, Empire of the Dead, Freebooters Fate and Hell Dorado.  At Vapnartak I was also shown some minis for Wild West Exodus (WWX), I really liked them and wanted to buy into the game but was shocked at the prices.  For the three games that I’ve bought, the one player starter sets were between £20 and £25 and rules are available to download online for free, for WWX the one player starters are £48.

This really made me think a lot about the start-up cost for a lot of games and the comparison is enlightening.  Below is a list of some of the games I looked at and the cost of the two player starter box.

Warmachine/Hordes - £67

Warhammer Fantasy/40k - £52

WWX - £88

Flames of War - £45

Dropzone Commander - £54

Bolt Action - £54

Obviously the contents of the box change from game to game but it appears that game companies are aiming for the £50-£60 mark for the starter boxes (even the notoriously expensive DZC), this makes the price of WWX even harder to justify.  For games without  a two player starter box, the combined start-up cost of two starters would be roughly in that region (e.g. two Malifaux crews plus rules manual is about £60, two Infinity starters are around £50 and the rules are a free download).

In terms of box contents the closest to WWX is Warmachine, it contains roughly the same things and number of minis.  The key difference is that the WWX box contains all man sized minis and the Warmachine one contains some much larger ones (therefore using more raw material to make).

I have heard very good things about the gameplay of WWX and the majority of the minis are nice, I just don’t see myself buying into it at that price level when I can have two games for roughly the same cost.  That being said, if I see one going cheap I’ll be tempted to pick it up.

I am currently looking for a new skirmish level game to peak my interest, if you have any recommendations, please let me know (unless you’re going to recommend Warmahordes, it’s not a fucking skirmish game if there’s 200 minis!).

The Incredible Monkee

Yesterday at Vappa, pretty much everyone asked me the same question.

What are you playing now?

This question should have been easy to answer but sadly, it wasn't. Since leaving Malifaux I've only really played two games on a regular basis, X-Wing and D&D. I love playing D&D but, because it involves organising a big group, it's difficult to play as often as I'd like.

That leaves X-Wing as the game I've played most frequently. Garrison has a great bunch of guys that play it and I'll gladly spend an evening a week playing it. Part of the reason I like it may also be the reason it may not become my main game, pre-painted minis. A big part of gaming for me is the hobby side of things and that is lacking. Sure, I could touch up or repaint the minis but as they're painted and tourney legal, that seems like a waste of hobby time.

So, where does this leave me? At the moment I feel like I'm walking slowly down the gaming highway with my thumb out and sad music playing in the background (don't make me angry!). Sooner or later a game will pick me up, it's just not come over the hill yet.

There's a long list of games that I want to try including Wild West Exodus, Hell Dorado, Bushido, Infinity and Freebooters Fate. I already have plans sorted for trying Bushido and today I ordered a starter box for Empire of the Dead.

Until I find a game that sticks, I have enough board and card games to keep me going.

Vappa 2014, emotional and educational

Today was an odd day. It was York's annual gaming show, Vapnartak, and I had offered to help out local henchman Chris who was running the Malifaux tournament. I volunteered to help for two reasons, one was to catch up with the Malifaux tourney crowd and the other was to ease the pressure on Chris as it was the first he was running (I don't think anyone would have guessed though).

When I looked at the entry list, roughly half of the names were familiar to me and there were some that I really wanted to catch up with.

Old people often say that it's the little things that make memories and I finally understand that. It was the little things that made me smile today, as much as an ice hockey player can smile anyway. Here's some of the little things that made me realise why I miss the tournament scene.

Mike Marshall bounding into the room like a beardless Santa on a sugar high.
Matt Spooner opening a can of Dragon Soop at the start of game one (roughly 10am).
Joel Henry coming back from lunch with so much shopping even Barry would be impressed.
Meeting another Twitter regular for the first time in the form of Pete Wright (a thoroughly nice chap he is too).
Dave Chandler remaining the cheeriest man alive despite getting hammered.
Craig Johnson bitching about how badly it's going while battering his opponent.
Lee Batrick shamelessly whoring out bendyboards.co.uk (yes, the ironic plug was intentional).

I'm sure you'll notice that none of those have anything to do with the game being played. One of the random people I spoke to made a great point when I said the community is great, he said that the same can be said of any gaming group. Later in the day I saw Baby Jake who had not seen many of the Warmachine crowd in a year or two. Despite that, when he entered that area they welcomed him like a long lost brother.

Vappa is also a somewhat unique event. York has two gaming clubs (York Garrison and York Wargaming Society) and it is the only event where both clubs work together. Although in the past relations have been strained (all is good now), Vappa is the one day of the year that members of both clubs get in the trenches together.

I've been to YWS a few times and it is a very different club to Garrison (they're big in the Warmachine scene) but dealing with their members at Vappa makes you realise that gamers aren't significantly different just because they play a different game. This makes me confident that whatever direction my hobby ultimately takes, I'll find people that I can call friend.

Last time I wrote a post like this I got called a sentimental old git and to be fair, that's not entirely untrue. There are people I see on a daily basis that I genuinely don't give two shits about yet there are people I've met at tournaments that I'm proud to call friend.

As a final note I'd like to urge everyone to take a step back and really look at your gaming group and appreciate what it gives you. If you're one of the "tractor massive", please don't do this, all you'll realise is how fucking inbred you all are.

You can never go back

For the last few weeks I’ve really been struggling with something, my impending appearance in the Malifaux tournament at Vapnartak.  Malifaux is a game that I dedicated a number of years to (4 I think) and contrary to popular belief, I do want to like the new edition and that’s a big reason why I agreed to enter the tournament (that and being drunk and pressganged into it).

For me, Vappa was intended to be make or break for my relationship with Malifaux.  My hope for the tournament was that the preparation would reignite the love of the game and I could be welcomed back into the fold with open arms.  As Richi (@doctorloxley) eloquently put in his blog a while back, it’s no fun being the guy that doesn’t like it.

I approached this with gusto, purchasing the new plastic Justice box and the Guild arsenal deck with the intention of taking them to the tournament.  I started by building the Death Marshals which I had previously been very critical of due to the flaming heads.  I assembled them with the optional normal heads and was pleasantly surprised at how nice they looked.  On closer inspection, the facial detail was not as crisp as on the old sculpts (eye sockets appear to be a 1.5 thing) but that’s nothing a head swap wouldn’t fix.

The judge was next, he was easy enough to assemble and isn’t a bad looking model, he’s just a bit bland.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s an improvement over the original sculpt but the dead justice version really shows what they could have done with him.  Then can the scales, a bit fiddly to assemble but not a bad looking model, his skirt does make parts difficult to access with a paint brush though (the crouching DM had the same issue).

Last but not least is the lady herself and there aren’t words in the English language to describe my distain for that model.  For starters, the scale seems really off, she seems like an anorexic midget next to the rest of the crew.  I’m not sure if this is a scale issue similar to the ronin or if they were just making the men in the crew extra large but either way it just looks wrong.  Then you get to the model itself and my main issues centre around the sword.  The contact point for the sword is tiny making it very fragile and if you can get it to stay in place, most of the face is covered and inaccessible with a brush.

As a crew there was also one general issue, I’m not sure base size was considered at all during the sculpting process.  Of the six models in the box, three would not fix on the base that they were supplied with.  This wasn’t a big deal for me as I was intending to build up the bases anyway, it was just interesting to note.  I don’t know if these issues are a product of using digital sculpting rather than more traditional methods but it really detracted from the enjoyment of working with them for me.

On the gaming side of it, I’d had a demo of the final version but had intended the first round of Vappa to be my first game of the final version of the new edition.  Having played first edition for years and extensively playtested the new edition, I was confident that I could muddle my way through the games no problem.  I am normally a very quick player but my noob status did concern me slightly.  So there’d be no risk of slow playing my opponents (one thing I’d never want to be is a negative play experience), I spent some time reading through the cards to familiarise myself with the crew.

Now, I’m sure the astute readers amongst you will have noticed how much past tense there is in this post and that isn’t due to bad grammer.  I was looking for the build up to this tournament to be my decision maker, my shit or get off the pot moment, and that is exactly what it has been.  Going into this I was fairly confident that although I wouldn’t learn to love the game as I did with first edition, I would be able to find a way to enjoy it enough that I could go to the odd tournament to catch up with people.  Unfortunately that’s not really how it has turned out and it’s time to get off the pot.  Due to the past I have with the game, I have given m2e many more chances than I would have any other game and at no point has it grabbed me in the way that I’d hoped.

As of yesterday, I have withdrawn from the Vappa tournament to be replaced by Dave Chandler (bit of a downgrade I know, sorry!).  I did say to organiser Chris that I would only drop out if there was someone to fill the space.  He had a full list of people which really does say a lot about how people are viewing this event and the amazing job he’s done organising it.

There is a silver lining to this slightly depressing storm cloud, I will still be in attendance as Chris’ minion for the day.  The main reason I even considered this event is that I wanted to catch up with some of the great people in the Malifaux community.  This change will allow me to spend more time doing exactly that.

This isn’t the outcome that I was expecting but I have to be true to what I want from my hobby and that will be whatever I get enjoyment from.  Maybe the next edition change will see me returning, who knows but you can be sure whatever I’m doing in the mean time, I’ll still be drunk.

2 years, 1 Monkee

A new year is traditionally a time to reflect on the year gone by, the changes that have occurred and the goals for the year head.  For convenience I have separated this into categories.

Work

2013

Last year I discovered the job security has apparently gone the way of the dodo.  As this isn’t an employment blog, I’ll leave it at that.

2014’s aims

To keep gainful employment and not have to resort to selling my rear to Mexican sailors to pay the rent.

Health

2013

I beat cancer again, I’m starting to think it’s the Mike Marshall of the illness world.  I also walked away from a car crash relatively unharmed so I’m calling last year a win.

2014’s aims

To continue my 35 year long streak of being STI free.

Romance

2013

Not a winning category, let’s just move swiftly on!

2014’s aims

To be attending sex addiction therapy sessions with my nudist, Rachel Bilson lookalike wife.  A more realistic aim may be to not get RSI, Judy Finnigan’s absence from TV will surely help achieve this goal.

Friends

2013

I’ve met some really great people, both in person and online.  This last year has really opened my eyes to just how diverse the hobby community is, despite that diversity I can honestly say that there have been very few people that I haven’t liked (I’m actually struggling to think of more than one!).

2014’s aims

I am rubbish at keeping in touch with people, it’s always on my list of things to do but it never seems to make it all the way to the top.  This year I’m going to try and make regular contact with people that I want to keep in touch with.  If you receive an email in the next few days, I do care what’s going on in your life and want to try and make the effort to find out what that is.  I also want to try and get down to London at some point and play a game of something with Richi P (@doctorloxley), we seem very similar in the way we approach things so it’d be interesting to see how far that extends.

Gaming

2013

Last year was a real rollercoaster for me with the Malifaux 2^nd edition play-testing, etc.  That wasn’t a happy time for me but where life takes with one hand, it gives back with the other.  I discovered (with help) a lot of really good games and got to play games with people that I wouldn’t have previously had the chance to.  This also made me realise how insignificant games are in the grand scheme of things, friends will be friends whatever is happening in the background.  That being said, they are great for meeting new people as our first steps into the world of D&D have shown me.

2014’s aims

My main aim is to play all of the games that I have already bought and start making a bit of progress through my OG Games wish list.  There’s currently a couple of grand’s worth of stuff on that list and some of them I really want to get my hands on (e.g. season 2 of Zombicide and Battle Lore 2^nd edition).  For the most part it will be more of the same though, no need to fix what isn’t broken.

Hobby

2013

With the move away from Malifaux I became a bit lost in the latter half of the year and really lost my motivation to paint.  I started painting a 40k army (never thought I’d be saying that!) however that has been held up significantly by Royal Mail losing most of it (bastards!).  I have also found my way a little bit by working on a ‘different’ board for this year’s Vapnartak (I’ve been taking WIP pics throughout that project so a step by step blog will come when it’s finished).

2014’s aims

I really want to get back to enjoying my hobby, I used to chomp at the bit waiting to get home to get started and that enthusiasm hasn’t been there in recent months.  I’ve really enjoyed the 40k stuff that I’ve painted so far so am hoping the replacement army that is being sent to me reignites that passion for painting.

Soulstone Train

2013

Last year we evolved and matured a lot as a podcast, this is incredibly noticeable when we get new people in (it’s a sad day for humanity when I’m the sensible one in the room).  We have added some new faces to our ranks and widened the scope quite a bit.  For me SST was always about the community side of the hobby and it really has become an inclusive project for the local community (and wider thanks to our guest sections).  In the early days we struggled to balance the recording and drinking aspects of SST and we finally seem to have hit that level.

2014’s aims

So many plans are swimming round my head, some are already in the works and some may or may not happen.  One thing that I’m really keen on doing is giving people a little peek behind the curtain of how our recordings happen.  So little of the chaos makes in into the final episodes and it could be funny to let people see how much each turd gets polished before it is released.  This may well utilise our old YouTube channel, I’m not quite sure yet.  Another thing I’d really like to do is collaborate with some other podcast, there are a few out there with a similar mentality that could make for interesting listening.  There are also other plans in motion that we’re not going to give too much away about including a special something for Vapnartak.  I can reveal what our next episode is likely to cover as we have Memoir ’44 and Dust Tactics to review.  I would suggest not even waiting for the episode, just order Memoir ’44 now, you’ll be glad you did.

Well, that’s been my year in a nut shell and despite some fairly significant lows, overall it’s been a pretty good year.

I hope everyone had a good new year and let’s hope that 2014 is good for everyone.

X-Wing and the fattening side of the force

Last weekend I attended my first X-Wing tournament, it was at York Garrison and was run by my SST co-host Barry.  Aside from the 9am start, I had been looking forward to this for some time as X-Wing is a game that I am actually pretty good at and I’d almost certainly be playing people that I’d not played against before in any system.

 

As I had made some of the boards for the club that were still at my house, Barry came round to collect them Friday night and we squeezed in a couple of practice games.  I’d built what I thought was a reasonably solid Imperial list a while back that I had fully intended to take to the tournament so used it in the first practice game.  Suffice to say, I dispatched Barry’s rebel scum without too many problems making my record with that list seven wins and no losses.

 

The only ship that has causes me significant problems in the local group is the Hawk and its filthy focus shenanigans.  As I knew at least one person would be taking the dirty Hawk/mouldy crow/recon specialist combo (shame on you Ben!), I wanted to try and find a counter that would help dispatch that quicker.  As the format of the tournament was you picked your ships and could switch around cards between games (100 point games), I wanted to find the counter using my previous selection of ships so I could use either list.

 

My ship selection was a Firespray (pilot skill 3), 2 TIE Fighters (pilot skills 3 & 1) and 2 TIE Interceptors(both pilot skill 4) with no upgrades at all (I think I was the only player not to use upgrades).  The only counter for the Hawk I could see in those ships was Dark Curse, the pilot skill 6 TIE that you can’t spend focus or re-roll dice when attacking.  To accommodate that choice I had to adjust my list to Firespray (pilot skill 3), 2 TIE Fighters (pilot skills 6 & 3) and 2 TIE Interceptors (pilot skills 3 & 1).

 

I decided to try this list against Barry in the other practice game however he decided not to take the Hawk in that game so didn’t get to test the effectiveness of the counter.  Barry took what looked like a more competitive list including the Falcon and proceeded to absolutely rape me.  It left me with a lot to think about because, although it had failed dismally in that game, I did see potential in the revised list.

 

Come Saturday morning, I got up nice and early and headed to the bus stop to get there in plenty of time to help Barry set up for the day.  After waiting 55 minutes for a bus that is supposed to run every 10 minutes (thanks a lot First Bus!), I got to the building with 2 minutes to spare.  One of the great things about X-Wing is that it takes no time at all to set up and clear away so everything was ready to go when I arrived.

 

In the first round, I had requested a grudge match against Sean Gill (@apostlegillus on twitter) as, barring a Malifaux demo ages ago, I’ve not got to play against him and wanted to.  Gill being the fun guy that he is took a very different list to others, taking Han in the Falcon and Luke in an X-Wing, both with a ton of upgrades (that’s right, 2 ships in a 100 point game!).  I decided to go with my revised list which I ended up using in every game.  Having not played a game against that sort of list before I was having to really think about how to play it, getting rid of the 60 point Falcon seemed like a good place to start.  I targeted the Falcon early on and got very lucky with my dice rolls, getting rid of it quicker than either of us expected.  With 5 ships left to target Luke, he soon fell resulting in a 100-0 win to me.

 

In the 2nd game I was playing Julian who, along with his son Patrick, are the reason the club wooden spoon is called the Roberts award.  I had never played Julian before so didn’t really know what to expect.  I don’t really remember the details of that game, only that he destroyed 1 TIE and we called it with him having 1 ship left (there was 6 minutes remaining and food was being served).  I think it ended something like 76-12 to me.

 

In game 3 I played Tom, a guy that is fairly new to the club who had 2 flawless victories to his name at that point in the day.  To say that my trousers were on brown alert would be an understatement!  He was using the filthy Hawk combo, the Falcon (Lando I think) and a B-Wing.  I immediately threw everything at the Hawk and took it off the board reasonably quickly.  He managed to take out a couple of my ships before I chipped away enough damage to remove his other 2 ships.  I think that one ended up 100-36 in my favour, a somewhat surprising result for all involved.

 

In game 4 I was put against club leader Ben using more rebel scum, again with the filthy Hawk combo (with an X, an A and a B too).  I have played against Ben before and we have regularly discussed the combo possibilities in the game so this one would be a little different.  I wanted targeted the Hawk straight away but Ben did a great job making it difficult to target.  For the whole game I ended up chipping away at shields but not being able to sustain fire on one target.  Between that and my inability to roll more hits than Ben had evades, it was not going to be my game.  I don’t remember the final score from this one (possibly 100-0?) but it definitely went in Ben’s favour.

 

In game 5 I was against Josh, a friend of Tom’s that had not been to the club before.  He had not played the game much before but you would not have guessed it.  He was using a TIE swarm, my first Imperial opponent of the day.  Long story short, he started very aggressively, I spent the game rolling blanks and got thoroughly batter.  My dice rolling was by far the worst I’ve ever done, to the point it was actually quite comical, but I’m not sure how much it affected the outcome of the game.  I may have been able to destroy a ship or two rather than losing 100-0 (which is what happened),but defeat would have almost certainly still come.

 

I ended up finished 3rd and playing against some really nice people that I’ve not played against before so all in all a good day.

 

Only one real issue with the day arose and that was with the food.  Garrison is lucky enough to have a fully on-site canteen that does great food at decent prices, the only issue is though it’s not ideal if you’re on a diet.  Since starting a diet I have been very strict about my food intake, carefully counting every calorie but the reality hit that sometimes that is not always possible.  The canteen does food that gamers will like and unfortunately the average gamer tends not to be a health freak.

 

As it is clearly an issue going to a tournament while on a diet, I will be taking a selection of healthy options (fruit, low calories snacks, etc) to Vappa for people in Malifool Fat Camp as an alternative to the chocolate and crisps that will no doubt be included in the provided lunches.

I blame the Soop

This week has been a bit of a strange one for me, on many different levels.

Last Wednesday I had a Malifaux 2^nd edition demo with replacement henchman Chris.  Having previously been the henchman, I really made him work for it but he stepped up and did a great job.  That was the first time I’d looked at Malifaux in roughly 6 months and was pleasantly surprised by the subtle changes that have occurred during that time.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s still not as good as the game it was and I’m not going to rush back any time soon but it has improved since the final beta version.

On Friday we recorded our long awaited m2e episode of Soulstone Train, this is something that we’d been putting off for some time.  For a while, I had in my head an idea of how that episode would be structured which is pretty different to how episodes are normally planned.  As we were going back to our roots in a way, I thought it appropriate to obtain some Dragon Soop for the occasion (pay close attention, that becomes important later!).  We started recording the episode and it was much more civilised than expected until something rather unexpected happened.  I found myself agreeing to play in the Vapnartak (not Varpartnik!) Malifaux tournament in February.  Going into that recording I had absolutely no intention of entering that tournament so I can come to just one conclusion, it was the Soop!

That brings us to the bizarre conclusion to the week, me going on a diet.  Those who know me know that I like food and I like drink, neither of which are overly good for you in the quantities that I consume.  It is worth noting that I am not an average gamer, I regularly see my feet without the need to breathe in and regularly participate in a violent blood sport (in my case, ice hockey).  Due to a damaged ankle I have not played a massive part in the hockey season so far and have been piling on the pounds.  As I needed to lose weight anyway, I have signed up for the Malifools fat camp challenge to try and lose my excess weight before Vappa (which also coincides with the toughest part of the hockey season.).  I tend to lose weight pretty easily so hopefully by Vappa I’ll be rocking a 6 pack (totally not happening!).