Happy (early) Halloween!

Let 'The Night Of The Carver' begin!

One of the things the folks over at Wyrd have added to the second edition of Malifaux is story based encounters.  Some of these encounters come as pre-packaged box sets (The University Of Transmortis being the first one) and some of them revolve around one special character or model who features centrally in a scenario.

The Carver is a Neverborn model that has it's own scenario in Malifaux and has also had a Through The Breach one-shot adventure written around him.  The Carver is one of those new takes on a horror classic that Wyrd seem to do so well.  This time a scarecrow that seems to go one step beyond the stuff of basic nightmares.

I had really hoped to be able to play Night Of The Carver around Halloween but unfortunately it's just not going to work out for me this year.  However on the plus side I've had the good fortune to loan the model out so at least some other players can make use of it and play a cool scenario appropriate to the season.

Best of luck to everyone facing down The Carver this Halloween....you'll need it.

-Jay 

First Thoughts - Frostgrave

I've now had the opportunity to play 3 games of Frostgrave with 2 different wizards against 3 different opponents and I wanted to share my thoughts.

First up a bit about the game.  Frostgrave is a skirmish level fantasy campaign game set in a ruined city where competing warbands led by a variety of wizards search the ancient ruins looking for treasure and relics of days gone by.
The game is mechanically very straight forward, it uses a D20 to resolve all actions and you are typically rolling off against an opponent where each of you has 1 die plus or minus 1 modifier to get your total (high wins).
The basic game rules are very simple and straight forward, going into it my one concern was that it would be overly simple and might get repetitive quickly.  Based on my limited experience so far that seems unlikely.  although the rules themselves are quite simple the order you activate in really drives you strategy and makes careful planning really important.  The other thing is the variety of spells along with them having varying degrees of difficulty for various casters mean there are a lot of value judgements being made during the game.
On the downside the placement of treasure seems to create a situation where in many scenarios you just won't bother crossing the centre line of the board.

Overall I really like Frostgrave.  Osprey Games has hit on that perfect middle ground of 'easy to learn, difficult to master' and the campaign system seems to do a good job of maintaining balance.

If you like D&D, Pathfinder or Mordheim I highly recommend this game.

-Jay

Do you feel in charge?

About two months later than I thought I'm finally getting into my figures for Batman: The Miniatures Game.

I'm starting off with the Arkham Origins version of Bane and his crew but the plan is eventually to transition into The Suicide Squad.

First up is the man himself; Bane.

Bane has been one of my favourite Batman characters for a long time.  I've always liked the idea that he looks like the typical comic-book brick stereotype while also being a tactical genius.  The Arkham Origins version of the character straddles the line between his traditional luchador-look and a more paramilitary version.

When I get some of goons done you'll get a real sense of how big he is.  It's hard to tell in a single shot but he's standing on a 40mm base.

More on the way soon.....

-Jay