My Wargames

A little review I did of one of my two miniatures wargames, Anima: Tactics. Who sadly are not showing up to PAX to do anything this year.

I find it amusing that VOR and Anima: Tactics have so little in common. VOR is an army game, AT a hero combat game. VOR has army books, AT has cards for miniatures. But I think what they both have in common that I love is that neither is super expensive and neither has a lot of sitting around doing nothing. In VOR you alternate activiation and quickly have a turn to do something besides defend. In AT it works that same way while also having reactive actions to decide on like dodge or counterattack during your turn (and sometimes special abilities).

In addition to possibly doing more reviews of Anima Tactics sometime I'm also thinking of doing a review of VOR and the Shard force. Anyone interested in that?

They don't like our Games

I asked before if being against free speech in video game development was a liberal or conservative thing. In my opinion it is neither, it is a generational thing where both parties tend to attack the hobby of the young in misguided cultural warfare. Just as my grandparents generation hated watching as much TV as my parents generation (and my parents themselves) do. Well now it is time for the Boomer generation who are totally addicted to way too much sex and violence on television and in movies to complain and pretend the world is ending because we have half as much in the interactive environments of video games. But somehow it is worse because kids are interacting with the virtual environment rather than staring blankly and closed-mindedly at the television.

President Obama has been one of the repeat offenders urging people to be more active by putting down their Wii (The video game system in his family is a Wii) and ... prowling the streets or something. So message to Youth, get off the streets and go indoors where we expect you to put down your video games and go outside.



Maybe it would be slightly easier to take if Obama was really more concerned about setting a healthy example for his own children. Like by showing proper bicycle safety (his daughters and one other are wearing helmets in the picture) or... not smoking.

But Obama is not the current offender getting me riled up. Those awards would go to the Socialist government of Venezuela and the conservative PajamasTV. The first one is just continuing their waves of censorship of all media because they might contain a subversive message that says something almost critical of the government. The second is a bunch of old guys trying to typecast the young guys with guilt by association.

Venezuela isn't all bad, as they crack down more and more they make more and more enemies. Now they're going after the pasttime of the army and in so it wouldn't surprise if they seal the fate of their own evil government. Yes, power and wealth in Venezuela are gained by working for the corrupt Chavez government... but the other side has more fun. That administration's days are numbered as they just get more and more fanatic.

The PJTV guys are the ones I expect better of. The conservatives are not aging well and they wonder why young people go to folks like Jon Stewart rather than those who tell them they're evil because some kid of their generation (and might we say probably from an abusive family or other bad situation that had nothing to do with game playing) threw a tantrum. I'm not trying to make Gamers out to be saints, 2 minutes on the World of Warcraft forums will show you there isn't a lot of maturity there... but there usually isn't among the 11 year old crowd and online anonymity can only make that worse. But these kids grow up, they learn that even while anonymous their bad behavior has repercussions and has disadvantages. I'm glad we have these online worlds because we're making more socially advanced kids out of it. They're learning about adults and adult social behavior and they're learning about the fallout of bad behavior in a way that is less damaging than reality.

Mark my Words: This MMO generation is going to be a lot more socially aware than the Boob Tube Gen... I'm sorry the... "Boomer"Generation that is mocking them across the old media spectrum.

Media showcases Elemental

Elemental: War of Magic is the PC game I'm following most avidly right now. It seems as they gear up for PAX they're really ramping up the media blitz. No surprise either as Stardock intends to really show off the game for the first time at PAX. My favorite article so far is the one from Kotaku.

Youtube Wargaming Community

It is a said statement of the times when I'm seeing more news from Blizzard Corp's convention that Gencon. I'm following the announcements of the new World of Warcraft expansion with amusement (I dropped WoW hard, so excuse me all you still fans of the game) and watching eagerly the news of Starcraft 2.

More importantly to me right now I wanted to announce what has long been coming on Youtube, the development of the Wargamer's Community. Just founded and already with over 205 members at the time of posting and at least a hundred videos. You'll find videos on everything related to wargaming from battle reports, to painting guides, to terrain making guides, and a lot more. If you are one of my wargaming blog followers you should check it out because you'll love it!

Back briefly

Well the ocean was fun... and a lot of work with 3 kids. The kids are stressing me out these days, but we're all cooped up at home together going nuts. Hopefully I can leave the unemployment rolls soon in a good way and life returns to sanity.

Though when I got back I learned that PAX 3 day passes had sold out before I got a chance to buy one!!!! ahhhh!! Anyone got one they're not using?

Post GenCon and pre-Pax gaming news seems to be rather slow. Doesn't seem like much in the way of big announcements came out of Gencon. Did I miss something?

Also, the head (outgoing? they're being absorbed into Square-Enix) of Eidos is an idiot. He hates the whole second-hand games market. Does he prefer people just pirate his games if they don't want to pay full retail price? Look, the reason people sell games is because of these:

1) they didn't like it - it sucked.
2) There wasn't enough game there - they played it out thoroughly in a short amount of time
3) Post release support for the game was lacking

People BUY games, they DON'T RENT GAMES. Ask the "U.S." (no, not Toyota and the companies which make their cars actually in the U.S.) auto companies, they don't like used cars either but there are benefits to it. Why do people trade in cars at auto dealers? the same reason people sell USED games... to buy new ones. When you're a game producer complaining about used games... it is because people are selling your game for one of the above reasons and buying new someone elses game.

The solution is simple MAKE QUALITY GAMES. Pick one of the above three reasons for game sales (problems for some designers) and work on it till people don't sell your games any more. So that instead they sell your competitors' games in order to buy yours.

Maybe notice that you'll never see a Stardock game for resale, but plenty of people ditching bad Eidos games to buy them. Stardock are the ones who introduced The Gamer's Bill of Rights pictured to the right. They're also one of the companies with top selling games who never use any DRM on their games. How can they do it? They're games are great, replayability is high, and you'd never pirate their games because you wouldn't get the wonderful post retail support Stardock offers.

It is why Elemental is the only MUST BUY game of the year.

Upcoming

The Guild Season 3 is coming... and they have an awesome music video as a commercial.



and in other fantasies... Elemental is getting close to a public beta release. It isn't going to look like the picture during early beta they've warned us... warned us! After years of overhyped games (*cough* FU_com *cough* EA_Fail) it is a breath of fresh air to be warned about the unplayabilty of a beta. This is now the beta I'm waiting for with eager anticipation. For the rest of you too... this beta has no NDA.

So I hope these teasers tide you over, I'm going on vacation to the beach for a while. Then I'll be putting my possessions in hoc so I can have some spending money for PAX!

I prefer Gamer Chic

Gamer girls and Gamer wives are a rare and wonderful commodity. I already got mine and I'm quite glad to be the envy of so many guys who are stuck with non-gaming wives.

Why? well one reason is when geeking out on Star Wars you don't want your girl to need a script and have bad acting when you're playing around... in your swimwear.

and if the philosophizing doesn't work for you watch the video anyways, it is hilarious!



"When 900 years you reach, look as good you will not"

Terrain: My project update

So it has been a while since I did an update on my terrain projects. Work on my swamp terrain stopped when I got sick and I really want to get some trees done more to my satisfaction. Also some river terrain pieces have been started as you can see in the following video:

Other people blog too

If you even casually enjoy watching The Guild like I do then you would be interested to know that Wil Wheaton is appearing in season 3. He blogged about it for quite a while about his trip to Comic-Con with the cast of The Guild. Though I do wonder about Felicia Day's alternate identity wearing a costume like that. (Edit: Picture "like that" was deleted from its source)

Brad McQuaid has also completed his part 3 of his Vanguard Post Mortem about why he created a flying flop. Have to give him some credit, most people in the MMO industry never admit to failure. SWG NGE... they never admit failure. Gaute Godager driving AO to needing to give away free accounts to keep the player base alive and single handedly destroying Age of Conan... not in his words. So it is nice to see someone in the industry publicly learning from their own mistakes.

or read the very weird Emerson Wild: Monster Hunter blog. I did warn you it was weird though so don't come back complaining.

Been under the weather a bit so enjoy other people writing about (hopefully) something interesting.

My childhood replayed

It seems like these days everything big and new from mass media is just an attempt to remarket my childhood. Transformers, G.I. Joe, Ghostbusters, Land of the Lost, Mechwarrior, whatever. Most of them are pretty big failures, or in the case of Transformers don't manage to find that winning formula even if they hit upon success.

But wow! I just saw the new Mechwarrior trailer...

when I was a kid playing the old battletech and citytech I imagined it just like this. No matter how bad they screw it up as the years go by, you never entirely forget that original feeling playing the game.

Incredible job Smith & Tinker, now what are you going to do for Shadowrun?

Terrain: Play mats & craft store bought terrain

It is surprising to a lot of people how many good terrain pieces can simply be bought ready to go for cheap from a craft or hobby store. If you've got a small budget this is the way to go!

Fabric stores often have on discount weird or exotic fabric types that work great as play mats for wargaming terrain tables. Most won't even need any changes done to them. Honestly when you see playmats from "terrain stores" they're often buying the exact same fabric store mats and marking their retail price up by as much as 4 times! When if you go into the fabric store you'll usually find them on discount. The ones I've picked up I generally picked up at 60-75% off discounts which is a HUGE savings. Not to mention I like seeing stuff in person and having the instant gratification of walking out the door with it.

Not enough players who want some decent tabletop terrain consider hobby and craft store pieces. Your friendly local game store probably doesn't carry model train supplies, but hobby stores often do and many of the items you can find are perfect. Bachmann trains for instance has a lot of trees and vegetation making material which is perfect for any scale of gameplay. See in this video where they are being based and put to use by Terranscapes:


Your local craft store might require more work to find something in the correct scale for 28mm wargaming, but you should be able to find it or modify it without too much difficulty. The extra nice part is that the terrain pieces sold at a craft store tend to be on the very cheap end. Woodland scenics sells a lot of very nice terrain making materials mostly intended for use in school projects or modeling. I've bought some of their trees before and they work very nicely as cheap tabletop terrain throw-downs. You can go a lot further in making elaborate designs with some of their other materials and best yet for those of you new to making your own terrain is that they have a lot of instructional materials as well. Another one in the "love-it but won't admit it" category is Lemax collectables. A lot of these aren't in the correct scale for 28mm gaming, but a fair amount of them are. Gravestones, vineyards, and crypts can be found in the correct scale and they go a long ways towards making a very realistic setting. Plus when can't it be fun to detonate a traditional halloween or christmas display in a fantastic battle of miniatures wargaming?

Terrain: My projects

So I thought it time to show you some of my own projects that I'm working on. You can see a thatched roof and a project just started where I'm using a wood base to plan a new project in this video:



You can see the progress on the roof thatching and how well the paper mache worked in the followup.



This blog entry was supposed to have a lot more info in it. It got cut short however by a glass explosion in the kitchen where my wife detonated my favorite cobbler dish. More entries on terrain should be coming soon and I should have some videos showing off making realistic water with envirotex at some point.

It sure is hot

One of the things I looked forward to when moving back to Seattle was the more moderate climate. Doesn't feel like it right now though I know things are a lot worse in the interior of the state.

Speaking of heat, I wonder if anyone at EA is ever going to feel it?

EA and their Dante's Inferno publicity stunds are a Penny Arcade punchline now. I'm almost eager for them not to repent, they're a sponsor of PAX and if they pull this kind of stunt there they'll be invoking unholy retribution. The kind that would just put a smile on my face.

I've been working a lot on terrain lately and I intend to do a terrain segment showing off what I've built and how I've done it. Here is a prelude of what is to come.



Speaking of excitement, all you VOR fans are going to start getting excited next week I'm informed. I'm sworn to secrecy but I think monday will be a good day to be camping the bioplazm forums. Meanwhile I've been working on my Golem, trying to figure out what detail colors I'm going to be using for my Pounders.

The Inevitable Fallout of EA & "Sin to Win"

How is it that EA manages to stay in business? They're just one EA-Fail after another, such that they just got the before linked twitter site dedicated to their constantly occurring failures.

So well now they've issued an apology... sort of... on the obscure twitter service twitpic:

We understand there's a lot of debate right now around our "Sin to Win" promotion at Comic-Con and wanted to clarify a few things. We created this promotion as part of our marketing efforts around the circle of Lust (one of the nine sins/circles of Hell). Each month we will be focusing on a new Circle of Hell. This month is Lust. Costumed reps are a tradition at Comic-Con. In the spirit of both the Circle of Lust and Comic-Con, we are encouraging attendees to Tweet photos of themselves with any of the costumed reps at Comic-Con here, find us on Facebook or via e-mail. "Commit acts of lust" is simply a tongue-in-cheek way to say take pictures with costumed reps. Also, a "Night of Lust" means only that the winner will receive a chaperoned VIP night on the town with the Dante's Inferno reps, all expenses paid, as well as other prizes.

We apologize for any confusion and offense that resulted from our choice of wording, and want to assure you that we take your concerns and sentiments seriously. We'll continue to follow your comments and please let us know if you have any other thoughts or concerns. Keep watching as the event unfolds and we hope you'll agree that it was all done in the spirit of the good natured fun of Comic-Con.

There is a lot of debate? Yeah, about whether the people at EA are stupid or just sexist misogynists. They take the concerns so seriously they're not even willing to give the apology the same attention they gave the contest. The good news is that apparently not even the lowliest comic-con attendee can match EA's level of low... because nobody sent in any entries for the contest. Wow! EA thought we were confused but the reality is everybody thought you were just stupidly misogynistic to participate. Plus the marketing morons advertising yourself like a game of Evony is not a way to impress hardcore gamers into playing your game.

So at least EA sticks to its guns. In the EA manuscript their customers are pirates, they're stupid, and they just don't understand these disgustingly stupid mysogynist contests they produce... they will never admit to making mistakes, being outright wrong, or making bad management decisions.

Maybe instead of laying off competent people at your studio acquisitions, you should be laying off the managers at EA. Instead of merging and firing the heads of successful studios like Mythic and Bioware, maybe you should be asking what it would take for them to replace the incompetent managers at the parent company with a long, long history of being unethical screwups.

Maybe pigs will fly and I'll get rich writing a blog.

Terrain: Plaster - Hirst Arts

So when it comes to making terrain to play with out of plaster, Hirst Arts is the first and last website you should go to. Bruce Hirst is the primary artist selling plaster molds for terrain making, most places selling plaster molds or plaster terrain are doing what they can to copy from him. Go direct to his videos page and you can see exactly how it is done along with some other extra helpful stuff. His videos cover how to use plaster molds, how to use resin in them, how to paint, painting lava, and best of all how to make water features.

The basics are you buy a mold, poor wet plaster into it and let dry, then you have super detailed building blocks for making a sturdy building of whatever you like.

In addition to the buildings you can make with blocks from his mold (My buildings are pictured to the right), he also has a wealth of information on how to do other terrain effects and general hobby advice. Whether you are looking for sculpting techniques,
creative tabletop monsters, creating realistic water fountains,
making colored windows, dead trees, tips for painting futuristic models and a lot of other tips and tricks then Bruce Hirst's site is the one to visit. I have to give an extra special notice though to his river sections, they're just amazing and create the most realistic water you could ever want to play on.

For the Anima Tactics players I have to recommend all the Gothic molds Hirst has for evoking the setting really well. Shard or other sci-fi game players could do really well with the Schematic Mold which I have my building pictures of above and to the right. Though I'm eager to see a Neo-Soviet player make good use of the Pipe Molds and create an impressive Soviet chemical factory.





























Have I convinced you to have a look at his website yet?

This just about concludes the series I had intended on tabltop terrain. If you got anything else I should add, a different series idea, or whatever please leave a comment.