The Political Game.

The first Presidential debate is now over so I can blog at last. I had my priorities this evening. Speaking of which if you follow this blog you should also be reading GamePolitics. Have you figured out who to vote for to preserve the right to play the games you like? Have you been playing The Political Machine to see who will win in November? It seems my games of Obama and McCain keep coming down to Ohia and Michigan, can't win without them.

I've been doing some more resurgent MMO playing lately. My wife has been playing LotRO again sporadically and I've been playing Saga of Ryzom now that it is free to play. Free is a very good price for this MMO. It had a lot of features that were very promising for roleplayers, but in the end it remains a hall of broken promises and missing content. The mechanics are neat, but grinding gets old and you can choose to do that in any game. Never the less if you like MMOs you should check it out because there are numerous features that many good MMOs should copy from it. They have a great way of avoiding the class sytem and an interesting take on skills. Their faction system has a nifty way of gaining loyalty with factions... they just need some real incentives for actually doing so. The difference between a faction that totally loves you and one that is neutral is ... nothing. None the less you can grind it for the sake of seeing numbers scroll on your computer screen. I'll continue playing it while its free but I wouldn't pay anything for it in its current state. Say "Hi" to the lonely Pilgrim guild leader Svayvti if you stop by, the last Pilgrim leader of Atys.

I had a good post-PAX match up of Anima: Tactics at my friendly local games store (FLGS). My Church force Vs. Church Inquisitors Vs. Dark side. You can see me and the dark side player going at it to the right here. However, now that I've got the Konosuke figure from PAX... I've changed my playing allegiance to Samael for the time being. People seem to be down on them but I've found they can really put the hurt on. I've had one 300 point game with them and won it handily while still learning to field a Samael force. Good things appear to be in store with this force so lets hope we can really stir up a lot of local interest in this game.

In VOR news I haven't gotten any good games in lately with Scott and to a lesser degree myself being fairly busy. There is however a new Golden Growler contest going on. My wife took second place at the last one and I'm glad in this one we won't be directly competing. She is doing a Diorama entry for the Diorama contest and I'm doing a special character entry for the special character contest. Can you guess which special character I'm going to bring to life? For a harder question guess what Kirara's diorama will be of... You can see a picture of the fantastic trophies that Merc created. Will there be more good Shard entries? Last time I was totally impressed with Balrog's Shard Axion and thought is should have won first place. I hope we get more Shard entries ths time.

On the subject of RPGs, I've got yet another new RPG to try out. This one is the Chronices of Ramlar "Revised edition". The setting is classic fantasy, but the system mechanics are very intriguing and completely oriented towards hardcore roleplaying that I like. Tomorrow they have a RPG day at my FLGS and I'll see if I can poach some roleplayers to try and get a group going. Expect to hear a good deal more about Ramlar in the future. Shadowrun 4th edition continues to disappoint and their 20th anniversary is focusing on the failed Earthdawn crossovers rather than anything truly good and original from 1st edition. Smith & Tinker, please, please don't let me down in my hopes for a good Shadowrun game. Just trust Mike Mulvihill and Jordan Weisman because they made 1st and 3rd editions rock.

I'm getting back into the swing of applying for regular employment. Some of the jobs I'm well qualified for just look too boring. Would I like to make good money working in a boring downtown job for a soda distributor or dare I hold out for something interesting but less lucrative like game testing or working for government environmental consultants? I've inquired into both and potentially may have something next week involving contract work for Microsoft. We'll see what happens. Any ways it goes, my twice a month blog schedule I have going probably won't be impacted.

Peace and Fragging Happiness to you.

PAX 2008 is over, long live PAX!

Well it has taken me a while to catch up on things to blog again after PAX. Much is happening especially with a 3rd child on the way!!!

But back to PAX. Friday night of PAX I just enjoyed the show room mostly. My personal highlights were the Turbine booth, Stardock booth, Blizzard booth, and Nintendo Wii booth. I like seeing that Nintendo is making use of the balance board in future games coming out as Wii fit just doesn't seem to do enough on its own. Now if they'd only rush out an adapter for their wireless LAN on the wii because some of us don't like the security issues of wireless or need to unnecessarily upgrade our wired routers. Starcraft 2 impresses, hopefully it isn't a DRM let down like Spore was. At the same time Stardock made a showing of the Gamer's Bill of Rights. The battle is on and I fully expect Stardock to win it, put my money down on David rather than Goliath. Customers want to be treated like respected customers and not like criminals who are all suspect of being thieves.
Best PAX party award definitely goes to Turbine and LOTRO again this year and was supported by Stratics rather than IGN. Got to love a party with catering, games, and prizes! This year our whole family got awesome T-shirts and I won a "Razor" gaming mouse. The Mouse is actually spiffy and my ability to frag in CounterStrike is slightly improved! The girls as you can see fit into their shirts very appropriately.

I also got to try out the new character classes for Lord of the Rings Online expansion: The Mines of Moria. The Warden was an interesting character class, if you like a medium range Guardian with special solo conjunctions called Gambits then the Warden class will be for you. Myself, I was instantly hooked on the Runekeeper. This is a squishy caster class with nuking and healing, both of which are very powerful. Most people's reaction will be that it is overpowered and it would be if they could do both at once. Runekeepers have an interesting new dynamic where there is a slider based on what type of abilities you've been using. Are you tending towards greater attacks or trying to heal? As the slider moves towards damage or healing you get a boost to the effectiveness of the one you're using and a reduction in the ability to do the opposite. Also the slider being at a certain position is required for some of the more powerful abilities. So yes you can be an incredible nuking mage type if needed but you're healing abilities will be inferior to just using a potion, but if the encounter needs it you can be all healer. Very interesting gameplay and very tactical by the seat of your pants, I'm instantly hooked on it.

Saturday was Anima: Tactics tournament day and was disappointing in turnout. We didn't get the proper tables from PAX, Fantasy Flight didn't show up with terrain, and only 3 of us where there in an undecorated room to play. At least we had a healthy amount of interest in spectators. I also got to purchase the RPG book in advance at PAX along with a large character Konosuke who probably won't be in stores for another month yet. I sure hope next year the tournament scene is done a lot better.

VOR on sunday was also slow but got a lot of interested people looking at the battle Scott and I were having. Only two of us playing with paper terrain, but it was fun as always! With any luck if things keep up we'll be playing Vor 2.0 early next year. Next year PAX will hopefully be even more fun, I'm always looking forward to it!

PAX is coming

PAX is coming this weekend. I'm greatly looking forward to it at this point.

Friday I'm heading straight for the Fantasy Flight Games booth and hoping to pick up a copy of the new Anima: Beyond Fantasy RPG. Also maybe a couple new early release figures for Anima: Tactics. Second will be Turbine to see what LotRO has to offer for going back to the game. I am looking forward to the expansion and maybe it can get me back into the game on a somewhat casual basis. My family will be going to the party they sponsor that evening. Also on the agenda is to scope out any good Wii games that nintendo or other companies might be showcasing. We've got like 4 games for it right now? Most of the games just don't interest, but PAX is the place where the good stuff will be shown off. Friday if possible but maybe later in the weekend I intend to stop by Microsoft and tell them that I'm a Shadowrun player waiting for them to make good on the franchise. The most recent x-box game and the latest edition of pen and paper have been serious disappointments so make this latest one something to be proud of.

Saturday I'll be helping with the Anima: Tactics tournament since I'm an official demoer. I'm hoping we have a good turn out and I really wish I could be playing in the tournament but I think it will be a lot of fun just getting the playing scene going. Maybe Cipher Dave and I can get a good game going on the sidelines though at least!

Sunday is our guerrilla VOR gaming. There will be at least 3 of us there for playing VOR and just showing people that the game is still alive.

That is a lot of gaming for one weekend and I can't wait for it to get here!

Gaming, Politics, Working

Woo Hoo!

I'm still unemployed and gaming. I've had one interview and have another one soonish here. Honestly until August is over I don't care if I have a job or not though, it is great just being able to get up in the morning and see my children happy that I'm here and have some time to game or do other things going out and enjoying life.

So in case you haven't noticed, there is a political election going on here in the U.S. Have you been to Game Politics? Apparently the last game Obama played was Pong. I find it amazing that using a crackberry is enough to create generational appeal. But at least all the virulently anti-fun politicians didn't make it through the primaries. No word yet on what the last game McCain played was, the Political Machine wouldn't count though. No, these issues aren't too serious on my list of voting issues but you needed a good distraction from all the regular political news right about now right?

Another local player (Scott) and I have been giving VOR the old beatdown. I've certainly had fun playing with some new figures that I haven't been able to play with before. Lately we've been giving vehicles some beat down, you can see one of our vehicle missions pictured. The results of which are over on the bioplazm forums. Between VOR, Anima, and Arkham I've just about given up electronic gaming. I've taken the time to be the latest campaign on the second Galactic Civilizations expansion and created the Pharon and Golem enemy races in honor of VOR.

My wife and I played Shadowrun 4th edition at a game store recently. I've been very critical of it but hadn't given it an actual play. I had fun in that it resembled Shadowrun but I found it full of a lot of unnecessary mechanics changes and downright annoying changes to the story or "fluff" of the game. This next weekend I'm hoping to get a good old game of 3rd edition in, I still keep hearing about other old 3rd edition players who don't like the new edition either.

The reason I expect to be able to play 3rd edition is because I'm going to the Dragon Flight convention in Bellevue, Washington to demo Anima: Tactics. I was going to do it for my friendly local game store, but I also got accepted into Cipher Studious (the manufacturers of Anima: Tactics) program for Free Agents. Which means I'll be helping with demoing the game a lot locally, helping with conventions and tournaments and in exchange I hope to get some interesting little rewards to show off on the blog here someday. Just today I demo'd the game to 3 guys who were in the game store and hope to get a regular game night actively going. This weekend I'll be demoing at the Dragon Flight convention and I'll be having some games at PAX. Since $40-$50 is a full army for this game, there is no reason not to pick it up if you're already playing other war games.

Seattle Gaming

So laid off in Seattle has been a great opportunity for gaming. I've played 3 complete games of Arkham with my wife so far and we purchased the Dark Pharoah expansion for it which has made it a lot better and more interesting. The biggest thing is just not repeating Arkham Encounters like we used to and having a lot more interesting ones to really stir it up. They did a great job of balancing the basic game with it.

I've also gone back to playing Galactic Civilizations II on the computer since my Tabula Rasa accoutn expired. I've progressed a ways into campaign play for a change and I am enjoying it.

I made a road trip up to Vancouver B.C. that was a lot more difficult than expected. Actually got a grilling going across the Canadian border and had it easy coming back. Makes me really curious how many border incidents there are though. It is one of the biggest borders in all the world and easily one of the quietest too. Last time there was serious cross border action was the war of 1812, so why all the paranoia? Anyways I got to meet Skuzzy and discuss lots of wicked stuff about the future of VOR: The Maelstrom. One of these days we WILL throw down dice and a serious conflict will ensue.


I also got to have a good Union versus Shard play session with "Scott" yesterday. You can read a full Battle Report on the Bioplazm forums.

Now we're working on Anima: Tactics which I've yet to play since moving up to the Seattle area. There is definitely plenty of interest at the local game store though and I will likely demo for the game if I have time between my VOR playing projects and actually working.

Speaking of work, I've got plenty waiting for me to do up here since moving.

June is Game Time!

Ah, the blessings of being laid off AND having money! I've gotten in two more games of Vor and for father's day I got Tabula Rasa which I've been playing. It satisfies some of my shooter urges while at the same time is a MMORPG. Tabula Rasa is a sci-fi MMO that is first-person and set in a weird apocalyptic stargate type world. It isn't great, but it is a decent game and better than all the standard fantasy fare cluttering up the online market right now that is getting old and stale. If you're curious check it out at www.playtr.com

I recommend it, but not highly.

It is nice to scratch that computer game itch, but I look forward even more to moving to Seattle home of PAX and many game companies. I hope to be able to play Vor and/or Anima: Tactics on a regular basis. Time spent not being a husband/father or looking for work or a new place to live gets to be spent on gaming though. Hmm, or spending all day yesterday helping my parents move. So really I've had at least a couple days this week to play!

It is in my plans that with my wife I will get more of this in:

You weren't being a pervert were you? I'm a married man and I wouldn't think of such things...

There are currently two other Vor players on the VORmap (see older blog) and one in British Columbia. Plus there is PAX and plenty of opportunities to indoctrinate new players to the game! Plus I know that Anima: Tactics has more players up in the Seattle area so it might be possible to get games of my other miniatures game as well.

Meanwhile however, everything is getting packed up so it will be the occasional Tabula Rasa until we're settled in a new location. It is likely my next blog won't be until then either.

Game Time!

Well I managed to get laid off at work with a severance package! This means game time finally!!!

Got to play a game of Vor with Shard versus Razorback the friday I got laid off and came home early. I had fun writing a detailed Battle Report of our game on the Bioplazm website for Vor 2.0
You can read about my battle and see the detailed pictures for 3.75 turns of a game before interruption commenced. I'm also interesting in a painting competition "Golden Growler" through the Bioplazm website. I'll be sure to have a follow-up blog based on how myself and Kirara do.

On the other hand last night I got to play 1.5 complete games of Arkham Horror. I started off playing the board game by myself in a game shop and got 3 other people including the store owner to join in and we had a blast. 4 players trying to stop the awakening of Elder Lord from another dimension. It was actually a fairly easy game and we managed to dominate the streets of roaring 20s Arkham, Massachusetts so it was just a matter of enough of us making it through the other dimensions to come back and seal enough gates. Once enough gates are sealed it becomes difficult for the Ancient One to burst through in this basic version of the game. When Curse of the Dark Pharoah is restocked I intend to get that expansion and have at it again. I have high expectations that the expansion will make the game a little more difficult and a lot more interesting.

So while I'm job searching and hoping to move back to the Seattle area things are looking a lot better for me and a lot more fun!

Digital gaming again

So mmorpg.com this weekend gave me a nice trial of Tabula Rasa which I played for 3 days and enjoyed. Reminds me of some of the good days of Half-Life mixed with a little mmo level grind.

If I had time I might sub for a month or two, though I have no delusions about it staying interesting long term. I tried the beta a long time ago and it was too buggy to think about getting at release. Now I just find there weren't enough new people to do any instances and I only teamed twice in many hours of playing. Still it was a nice change of pace.

I also spent a good portion of my memorial weekend working on terrain, and a little bit of it doing painting and basing of Vor miniatures for a Golden Growler contest. The Golden Growler is a trophy that goes to the best figure painted. I look enviously at my wife's Growler Chieftain and I'm sure she must have a decent chance at winning. Myself I just love showing off and so I'll submit something anyways. I really wish doing a lot more social gaming like Arkham Horror or miniatures because the easiest way to game with others these days is definitely from my computer. It just lacks the comraderie and isn't nearly as fun as playing with others in person, but alas I won't fail my responsibilities as a parent.

On an amusing note my boss who just chewed me out for being unreliable didn't show up to work last week, and I guess isn't going to be in this week either. In fact I'm probably going to be temporarily reassigned to work under someone else. The next person I should report to is on the other coast of this continent and they don't want to manage my work remotely... I wouldn't want that job either! So it looks like the next couple weeks will be a little less stressed out for me. But I'll still be looking for new work. Maybe with a little pressure off I'll fit in a game somewhere this week of the face to face kind.

Ah, good old table top gaming. Nothing is a substitute for it!

Seattle bound

Well changes at my place of employment are starting to suck. After being chewed out by a new manager for being too much of a family man despite getting all my assigned projects done [b]ahead[/b] of schedule. I'm "unreliable" by which my current manager means predictability and unambitious is better than an employee who gets results. I like to teams, efficiency and achievable goals, not just punch a clock for 40 hours a week so this is kind of tough for me. So since my wife and I have discussed moving to Seattle this has kind of clinched it and we're definitely planning on making the move back to my northern stomping ground.

So I guess this hopefully means I should have no excuse to miss PAX08 this year! Unfortunately it is too late for Vor 2.0 to be part of the PAX 10. I still look forward to meeting the Turbine crew again and razzing them, free stuff, new games to see, and most of all this year hopefully getting in a good tournament of Anima: Tactics and finding Vor players to play against.

In the meantime I'm hoping to get down and finish up some of the many terrain projects we have floating around. I've finished up most of my models but have way too much terrain in an incomplete state. I hope to get some of it down and have some pictures before my next post. Which is kind of easy since I decide when I will post. Mwa ha ha! Any bets on when?

I need a babysitter

Because my wife and I just haven't had the time to play anything. Originally we said we'd try and get a game of Arkham in weekly, but it just hasn't happened. The problem with moving to our current city of residence to have kids is that we have no friends here and haven't had an opportunity to socialize and make more. With a good paying job we're not to eager to upset the balance right now (who wants to risk a good paying job in this economy?) and find a way to be more active gamers.

At least we find we can steal some time to paint. With the announcement that VOR is coming back (and hopefully it doesn't end up like the announcements after FASA closed in 2001/2002 I've felt inspired to try and paint some more. If nothing else I might hope to meet with someone and get some play time again. While we still love board games, RPGs computer games, etc all we have time to do is paint and rarely even play the miniatures we paint.

I promised some people pictures of my new shard. I removed the first picture to include a better one instead.

Vor is coming back!

It was announced on the Iron Wind Agora forums that VOR is making a come back!

Now I have two great and very different miniatures games to play. Looks like my old wish is coming true.

Now I wish that Shadowrun would go back to 3rd Edition? Hmm, that just might come true too with their Changing of the Guard at Catalyst Games. I'm glad to have worked with Peter Taylor on the Euro Sourcebook early on as an editor for all the European writers trying to keep them consistent with their sections. When they got the go ahead from Fanpro to print "Shadows of Europe" I of course along with many others stepped aside for their professionals to take over. But Peter is a great guy with a love and knowledge of Shadowrun and its universe and I hope he'll make it more of a Gamer's Icon again.

Meanwhile for you VOR players I'll try to get some more pictures up soon as I've recently finished some great pieces (had some sudden inspiration to finish painting when Balrog posted). Meanwhile I've created a Frappr map that I hope VOR players will use to find each other before its relaunch so we can play some more.

Miniatures

Well I've finished Damien finally from my Anima: Tactics Church force. I easily think this is a new personal best for my own paint jobs.

His teammate Justina is looking to be an awesome figure as well. I'll have a picture of her when she is done.

and just to finish off this photo blog I've got a picture of the clash of the Union and Growlers diorama that we currently have on our wall.

Arkham Horror and more

The Wii is good, but it lacks enough good games. Still I feel in better shape every time I play dance dance revolution and my arms are stretching out from playing Godzilla.

The craze of the moment for both myself and my wife though is Arkham Horror. A lovecraft horror board game that has more role-playing elements than most "role-playing" games these days. If you've got a small group of friends who like role-playing games or board games then I seriously recommend this one as a great cooperative game.


Anima Tactics continues being a very fun game to play when we can. The continuing sculpts are unbelievable and we've added a diorama shelf to our house to proudly display both my wife's and my own painted figures. My wife has settled on playing light forces because she likes so many of the figures and can't be made to pick just one organization. Her most recent finished model is the painted asian princess in the picture. I expect we'll continue playing this game for a long time.

LotRO playing has all but ceased but they're recently announced Mines of Moria expansion will likely get us back into the game right away. Maybe with a new high level playing zone we'll play some more again as well whenever they release the next book. My only current wish right now is to find the play time around my children to get my Captain up to at least level 25.

I'm also hoping to finish up the last few figures on my shard force for VOR and then retire them to a box somewhere for safe keeping. The last razorback growler is being worked on as well, though I expect some more Firegut growlers in the future. Rest assured I can't resist showing off pictures of painted minis.

Until then keep on playing and leave a few comments in my blog if you're enjoying any of the same games I am.

Godzilla and painting

Who remembers the old day of "Nintendo thumb" when you had blisters on your thumbs from button mashing all night long? Now I've got "Nintendo arm" where my arms are feeling sore from so much vigorous movement on the Wii to play Godzilla Unleashed for two evenings. But unlike the old Nintendo thumb it feels like my arms are sore from growing new muscles rather than blisters. Thanks to Nintendo for changing the unhealthy way that people play video games. My kids and wife are getting more exercise thanks to the Wii Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). Even the neighbor kids have come over during the day for dance sessions already.

The game I'm really obsessing over these days however isn't electronic, it is old fashioned paint and play Miniatures game of Anima: Tactics. Both my wife and I are playing this game and I try to get the occasional game in at the Friendly Local Game store when I can escape for a while. The models are exquisitely beautiful and we are enjoying the Anima inspired setting. The rules are also very simple, yet allow a lot of great tactical variation. The organization I've chosen to play is "Church", the figures are obviously inspired but some of the beautiful medieval imagery of Catholic church. Story wise they're based off of some of the weird medieval groups like the Spanish Inquisition. Pictured you'll see a nun, an Inquisitor, and.... a girl with wings who can fly and fight.


The winged girl and the Inquisitor are my own paint job while the Nun was painted by my wife.
I choose purple and pink and dark colors for them to represent the flamboyant clothes worn by what I consider the corrupt and decadent churches of the medeival era in Europe.

Does my painting suck? got suggestions, praise or something else? Feel free to leave comments.

Gaming update

Well I took a break from Lord of the Rings Online in December when a cousin of mine died. Haven't felt inspired enough to go back currently though I'm sure I will in the future.

I picked up Neverwinter Nights the original, a good game that I never picked up when it was all the rage because I personally don't care for D&D settings. Bioware makes quality games however and I envision spending more time with it when I have a chance.

What I've really been into is miniatures gaming again. Yes, still more VOR but I also found a new miniatures game to play for the first time since VOR - Anima: Tactics. A great small-scale skirmish type miniatures game, the rules are simple but allow for many tactical possibilities. The minis themselves are the best part having a mange/anime theme to the imagery. Both my wife and I have picked this up making it our latest "couples" game.

While we do that, we're looking at getting and setting up a Wii for the little ones. Have to start the kids out right so they can connect on a gamer level with their parents when they're older! That and if they don't get out much in the rainy weather this will allow all of us to get more exercise than sitting and playing computer games. Hopefully more developers get the idea of "active" gaming in the future.