It's Over....

..Salute is over. This makes me very unhappy and do you know why? Why is because it was AMAZING! More than I ever thought it could be and the funny thing is......I'm not sure why it was so good.

Maybe it was all the amazing displays, maybe it was the opportunity to meet the creators of the games I love so much, maybe it was because for once I didn't have to think twice about blowing £400 on toy soldiers in a matter of hours (hell, that part's almost mandatory!). Whatever it was, it was a magical experience. Disney World can ram it. For those of you who are even reasonably interested, here's what I bought at Salute:

- INFINITY! Getting back into some hardcore ARO action with those lovely mutated deviants from Bakunin, courtesy of Simple Miniatures (buy 3 get one free offer) and Mr Andy B. Bakunin Starter, Morlock box set (good god they're sexual), Cassandra Kusinagi, Rev. Custodier, a Prowler and a Sin Eater w/HMG for Burst 4 ARO shenanigans.... heh heh heh.........

- PULP CITY! One of my main plans for Salute was to stock up on Polish superhero goodness and I did go a bit mad fer it! Dr Red & Howler box, Doom Train & Night Fright box, Green Serpent & Ninjas box, Tanuki & Shadow Mask box and finally................ a monster! RARR! Got the monster for £35 quid due to a 'miscast' (one half of a toe is missing, I can deal with that!) Soon Cthulhu will be smashing puny Giant Hadron into atoms!

This is the monster kit, it is very large. (about 7" tall)

- EDEN! I was only planning on getting a few things from Taban, until I saw these guys were available.........

............ and by golly if I didn't just geek-gasm right there on the spot! (no pics of the mini's unfortunately). So after an impromptu pants change I wiped myself off and went ahead and bought each box for these guys (which include assorted gribblies, which I wanted to get at some point anyway) as well as the stuff I intended to buy and threw in a dominant lycal and some bases while I was at it! Another £100 down, totally worth it.

Next to Taban was an unassuming little stand, with one guy sitting quietly behind it. Not much to see really, until I glimpsed their display case and instantly fell in love with Ammon Miniatures check them out. DO IT NAOW! I'll wait...........

........ ain't they cool :D I got the Cyber Monkey with the intention of using him as an ARC (Ape Revolution Commitee) minion for Pulp City. I also bought the wee scientist big-head guy because he was cool. - £16.

BUSHIDO! - Sadly, GCT didn't have any advance stuff on sale but I did get the last two waves for Savage Wave and Cult (minus the Oni Slaver because, frankly, I can't be dicked painting another one) - £30

MERCS! - I wanted to get a new game at Salute, and since a few buddies of mine already have Mercs stuff it seemed like the obvious choice. USCR box and the (lovely) rulebook - £70

That's about it aside from quite a lot of resin bases from various companies. Looking at it all now, it really doesn't look like £400 worth but hey......... who gives  fuck! TOYS! HUNNERS OF TOYS!!!!!!!

I'll be back to Salute next year for sure, but this time I'll make sure to bring some money so I'm not limited to my maximum withdrawal! MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, in other news....... I broke my oath (see previous posts). I broke it within a week of Salute. The worst part.......... I broke it buying Games Workshop products! THE SHAME! THE HUMANITY! THE UTTER BALLS THAT IS 'FINECAST'! I am quite deeply remorseful about this, so I won't go on any longer.

There was other stuff at Salute, but I completely neglected to photograph any of it. Andy did though so pop on over to his blog here for pics the 10mm rapid-prototyped resin load-inducing sexuality that is Dropzone Commander!

I'm bored now and need to go stick dinner on, so I'm going. BYE!

Elementary Notions - Why I Really Like Eden

Eden is a character driven skirmish game set in the world of not-Malifaux and has been around for ages. I've been eyeing it up as long but no one really seemed to give much of a hoot about it, so it stayed in my 'covet' pile for a while. A couple of months ago, my good friend Andy messaged me saying 'Them noo Eden moduls are ded prutty, wanna gie it a shot?'....... a week later I had two factions without even having played a game! Word got out, the popularity of the game snowballed and soon enough we had at least one player for every faction.... now that's progress!

Anyway, had a couple of games so far with my good friend Dave and these are my thoughts.....

IT'S FUCKING AWESOME.

Let's start with the models. As we all know (well, some of you won't) but as shallow as it may sound if the game don't look purty that's half the battle lost. Eden is produced by a company named Taban, who are French and as we all know the French tend to make some of the best models currently available. I believe some of their sculptors have worked for Asmodee in the past, creating the frankly stunning minis for Hell Dorado and that level of skill is evident in the Eden sculpts. THEY ARE REALLY FUCKING NICE. Here are some that made me wet my pants in excitement:

Yeah.... hell yeah in fact.

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On to the game itself....... yikes! There's a lot of resource management in the game, and I mean a lot. It works off of an ever-popular 'AP' system (that's Action Point for all you losers reading this), but with a bit of a twist as you'll use those same AP's to activate during your opponents turn as well. I say activate.... it's more about opening up your options in melee. During your turn, each model gets 3 'standard' AP (some may have more, to my knowledge no model has less thus far)... as you may expect these are used to move, attack, interact, etc.... however, when you're attacked in melee you can spend any remaining AP's to try and dodge or riposte... and that's one of the reasons I love the game so much. If you run out of AP's before the chainsaw wielding thug in front of you attacks, you're boned. However do you want to try and get rid of him first? Do you want to save some AP's for defence or do you want to spend them elsewhere and just hope for the best.... it adds a lot of depth to the activation system....

But wait, there's more! At the beginning of the game, you calculate a number of 'SP' (that's Strategy points) and you will use these for myriad reasons. To activate a lot of special actions you need to spend SP, to play from a hand of cards you chose at the beginning of the game (that can affect the game in many varied ways) you need to spend SP. Hell, you can even use them to bid for initiative for that turn that you just *need* to go first.

It sounds like a lot of micro-managing, but it actually comes very naturally. The actual mechanics of the game are very simple, so I've never found myself getting overly confused (well, no more than usual). I'm not going to bother going into the actual mechanics, as you're probably panting to learn more already, so I'll just point you towards http://www.taban-miniatures.com/ where you can go and download the rules, and all necessary stat, tactic and mission cards to play.

I've actually found myself likening it to Warmahordes in terms of gameplay, the mechanics are rather different but if has that same'super-tactical' feel to it. However, where in Warmahordes I find the rules take over the narrative of the game too much, Eden manages to balance it by being very characterful. So the games still feel like watching a story unfold - which I prize as about the most important thing any game can accomplish.

Now, it's not all fun and games, it has it's issues....most of which are to do with translation. Some of the missions/tactics/special actions make absolutely no sense whatsoever, which is obviously a problem. However, any issues I've had I've posted on the forum and the ever-charming Berf has calmed my confusions post-haste. It is a well supported game and clearly loved by the staff at Taban. Some of the translation problems can lead to some charming results though, from now on 'basics' shall be known to me as 'Elementary Notions', isn't that sweet?

Another, quite major issue is the lack of a rulebook....... that's right, you get the rules in the starters (or you can download them for free) but it's just the rules.... no fluff, no pretty pictures......this is bad. The game stands as itself as a great feat of gaming engineering but without any fluff (that's stories to you losers out there) it's quite hard to piece together the weird, post-apocalyptic world the game is set in.... why are drug-riddled clowns fighting giant Japanese robots? Why are there, for want of a better term, bondage nuns running about...... you may know more if you speak French as there is some french fluff up on the site but that doesn't help us ignorant English speakers now do it? Personally, I can stand not having a rulebook but it confuses me that there isn't one.... gamers like shiny books and the game would rocket in popularity if we had access to some super-sexy book filled with all the information us gamers desire to immerse ourselves in any world that isn't this one.

So, in short. Play Eden, just try it. You'll love it.

The Oath

So, as part of my new year's resolution I decided to try and NOT BUY ANY NEW TOYS until last April, 2012, when I shall be heading to scary London to visit Salute 2012..... think a big hall full of big men dribbling over tiny metal men. The reason for this 'oath' was so I can work through my backlog of things to paint, the plan is to have everything done by Salute, so I can spend more of my free time with my lovely lady (or playing computer games, reading comics and eating sandwiches) I found it hard at first, especially after selling a bunch of stuff which loaded my paypal right up. Managed to hold off so far, and it is getting a lot easier as the days go by........ but hot damn them if them new Morlocks for Infinity ain't just too pretty! (see below)

No New Toys Until Salute.... sigh.....

Welcome.....

So then..... I decided to write a blog. Nothing fancy or about anything in particular, it will exist purely at my whim and will likely get ignored quite often. Still, I can give you a brief estimation of what to expect, should anyone actually end up reading it.......

- TOYS! And by 'toys' I mean, of course....... miniature wargaming! Yes, another geek has found yet another reason to never leave the safety of their living room! The internet is a wonderful boon to all of us sallow-skinned, overweight, dice wielding evolutionary apexes. I'll mostly be writing about the games I play, why I like them, what I don't like about them etc. I'm also a fairly avid painter, so expect to see some right shoddy photos of some nicely painted miniatures in the future :D

For 2012 I intend to be playing lots of: Malifaux, Eden, Pulp City, Carnevale and Bushido - so stay tuned for existing news in regards to my forays into these games. Huzzah!

- COMICS! I'm not talking superheroes here.... those spandex wearing gimps can all piss right off. I don't really know what genre I consider myself to like..... Horror? Crime? Who knows.....

- TELLY! I loves me some telly :D Sadly, Telly ain't what it used to be so expect a lot of ranting.....

- FILMS! As telly....

- ARSEHOLES... of the people variety of course. Anyone pisses me off, you're damn right my handful of readers will be hearing about it so watch out....

..... and I reckon that's about it for now. I'm sure there shall be other things, but until they happen who knows what they will be.

Bye now.