Gencon Follow-up: My First Time in the Iron Arena!

If you were following a bit of my run up to Gencon posts, you might have noticed that within the last year I've really gotten back into Warmachine with my brother. Luckily for me, I had pretty much hung on to almost all of my minis from the Mark I version of the rules, including Cygnar, Trollbloods, and Mercs (mostly dwarves). Of course that didn't stop me from picking up a small force of Retribution (elves) as well, but that's more of a digression at this point.

We decided that we were going to try to play in the Iron Arena this year at Gencon. We had spent the last year playing between a half and full dozen games against each other trying to brush up on the rules, and we were having a TON of fun with it. Lots and lots.

Let me go over the format real quick, but Iron Arena is a unique way to play the game. Basically you purchase a ticket for the entire day (or days - 2 in our case). You report to the Privateer Press area and register yourself and what state/country your from. This part is important and you'll see in a bit why.

Then you play pick up games pretty much the whole day with other Iron Arena contenders! You can play any faction, any size game, any number of players, whatever your heart's desire.

For each game you play, for every hour, you can report the results, and you end up gaining skulls. You can earn skulls for playing 50 point games (the tournament standard), a fully-painted army, for playing on a scenario table, for playing someone from a different state or country from you, for playing an army composed of forces specifically designed for your warcaster/warlock (known as a "tier list" which basically grants special rules for your army on the condition that you limit the units you can build your army with), and several more things.

You can then spend your skulls on items like art prints, dice, measuring templates, and in the most skull-intensive items, "extreme" alternate sculpts of big models. It's a pretty great selection.

So the strategy here is two-fold. Obviously you want to play a fun list because all these games are for-fun. The other half though is to figure out how to maximize your skull income. That leads into the prep work for the con!

Preparing for War! Basic Miniature Basing.

Hey fellow hopeless readers! Long-time no see. I realized I've been doing a lot of gaming stuff and not talking about it, which is of course a waste of perfectly good blogging material.

I haven't been doing nearly as much role playing in recent times simply because I've been away from my group since moving and don't have a bunch of possibilities locally. That being said, I've rerouted my gaming fuel into design and have been working on a few different games for a while. Maybe one day I'll finish one. Maybe.

In other news, I've gotten back into Warmachine big time, which was a game that I basically grew into a gamer with when I was younger. I've always loved the lore of the game and thought it would be great to play a Role Playing game in. Recently I ran the intro adventure from the Iron Kingdoms Unleashed Adventure Kit. I highly recommend it as everyone had a good time regardless of their familiarity with the setting.

I've also always wanted to be a good player. I've been doing a lot of research and following on general strategies nowadays. I'm not good, but I'm learning, and having a lot of fun doing it.

One thing I've always been terrible at and generally assumed I just had no skills in was painting miniatures. Lately the Hopeless Wife has given me some tips and tricks, and I've really taken to painting. Like to the point where I actually have some pieces I'm proud of and paint a bit each day. It's actually quite addicting.

One of my favorite parts of painting miniatures is getting the bases complete at the end. Each time I've done it it feels like it really ties the thing together. In Warmachine, every model generally has a front and back arc, so as you see the photos below you'll notice the bases are all colored.

I thought it might be useful for those of you who want to get into this part of the hobby to see just how crazy easy it is to do a simple, good-looking (in my opinion) base.

Step 1: Getting your materials together.

I go for a basic gravel/grass kind of terrain for my bases at the moment, and for that, you don't need much in the ways of materials.

Here's what you need:

• Mod Podge - basically Elmer's glue that you can pour out, available anywhere hobby stuff is.
• A Small Paper Plate - or something you don't mind glue drying on. You're going to pour a little bit of the Mod Podge onto this as your pallet, so to speak. 
• A wide bowl - you're going to pour your basing material in there, so it helps to have enough room to maneuver the miniature.
• An old paint brush - one you can have some control with but don't mind ruining.
• Basing Material - for my stuff, I use Woodland Scenics Blended Turf (the green stuff) and Medium Ballast (the brown stuff) because I got it cheap from the Gencon Auction store. I believe this is actually a model train brand, so it shouldn't be too hard to find this stuff or something similar. There are tons of options out there for this ingredient. 

You'll of course need miniatures, which I have a picture of the four I did this morning at the top of this post! Pour a puddle of Hod Podge onto the plate, and you're ready for step 2!

Select Painting Competition Models from Gencon 2014

The Gamer Wife is a big fan of painting miniatures. It helps that she's a much better painter than myself, but we both appreciate a pretty mini. She likes her some speed painting as well, and if you're a hobbyist when it comes to miniatures, Gencon has a wonderful area with tons to do, including the fun paint-and-take where the group gives you a mini to keep and you can use all the supplies you might need to make it pretty!

I decided to take some photos again this year of the competition miniatures. Check out the photos below!

Gencon 2014 Privateer Press Booth

So in my last post I talked a bit bout how Warmachine is synonymous for Gencon with me, and that it's been the focus of more cons than not in my life. I'm not a competitive player and can't see myself ever getting into that mindset, but I have a really great time reading the fiction, thinking about painting different color schemes, and playing casual games with my brother.

As always, the Privateer Press booth at Gencon is one of the busiest every year with a wave of pre-release items available for purchase. The lines are always crazy as people clamor to get the hot new figures, and lucky for us, this was a Hordes year of releases. We'll probably eventually wander back into playing some Hordes, at least me with a good 35 points+ of Trollbloods from years back, but for now we're sticking with Warmachine.

Below you can find some of the models that were on displays at Privateer's booth, both studio models and some models for the P3 painting competition.

Gencon Means War(machine)!

Wow has it been a while since I posted anything to The Hopeless Gamer, and for that I'm sorry. I decided enough was enough, and in anticipation of going to Gencon next week, it was time to get back into things.

I notoriously take a long time to get excited for Gencon every year. This will by my 14th Gencon in a row/ever, and finally, just a few days before setting off from Iowa to drive to Indy, the excitement is building up in my quite rapidly.

A big part of that is that my brother emailed me out of the blue the other day asking if I was interested in getting back into Warmachine for a bit. My first reaction was "absolutely" followed a few hours later, after flipping the house upside down to see what I still had of my Cygnar, Trollblood, and mercenary forces after three moves and years of absence from the game, was "hell yes!"

Since then, just last week, I have been in a whirlwind of getting myself acquainted with the Mark II rules, which was actually the last book I bought for the game, conveniently. I went to Privateer's site and ordered a bunch of updated character cards, and have been putting together some army lists.

My brother sold off his Protectorate and random Hordes stuff a few years ago, so he's diving back in fresh, but this time with Khador, and I'm absolutely stoked. I still have my templates, dice, focus markers, measuring tape, the whole deal, even down to my old army transports bag.

And all this is going to be packed up for Gencon, ironically, not to play in any official capacity, but just to get some gaming in with my brother. Sure we see each other several times of the year and play games, only living two hours apart, but there's just something special about Gencon for getting together with people and playing some good games.

For the first seven or eight Gencons I attended, it was synonymous with Warmachine and Privateer Press. I've been a loyal Cygnar player (when I was a player at all) the whole time, and I can't be more excited to get back into the game.

All this coming week I hope to be bringing you posts and lots of pictures from the convention, so be sure to check back from time to time. It's good to be blogging again!

Reaper Kickstarter Delivers Part 3! Ridiculously Gigantic Dragon Edition!

Welcome to part 3 of my series on the Bones Kickstarter from Reaper Miniatures. We've already looked at what the massive lot of miniatures looks like right out of the box, and last time I posted a series of horrifying, sanity-questioning pictures of the gigantic Cthulhu that we ordered as an add-on.

Today I wanted to spend some time posting pictures of the monstrous bone dragon Kaladrax. I was not prepared for the size of this thing upon opening it. If you've seen my Cthulhu pictures, you'll know how big he is. Well, Kaladrax is at least twice the size. He's a big bastard, no doubt.

Just like with Cthulhu I included my stalwart adventures, three other miniatures that were included in the basic Kickstarter level we backed at just to give you an idea of the terrifying size of this guy. He's not a miniature. He very clearly crosses the line to statue. That's pretty cool.

Anywho, check out the pictures below. They'll do the big guy more justice than I could.

Reaper Kickstarter Delivers Part 2! Giant Cthulhu!

The Gamer Wife and I took some time this weekend to tear open our Bones Kickstarter care package which arrived late last week. Over the next couple of posts, starting with today, I'll be throwing up some huge picture posts to share with you all.

Today I'll be focusing on the gigantic Cthulhu we ordered as an add-on to our backer level for the Kickstarter. If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time, you can probably guess that we're pretty huge Cthulhu fans, specifically the Call of Cthulhu RPG. Granted, it doesn't use minis, but I figured it couldn't hurt to have a giant, imposing dead, but dreaming monster at the table for those games we play.

Enjoy the pictures after the break!

Reaper Kickstarter Delivers!

The Gamer Wife and I were extremely excited yesterday to receive our Reaper Miniatures Kickstarter care package in the mail. The box was nice and huge as we backed at the Vampire level and purchased a couple of the larger mini's (and that's a loose term for those big guys - more on this later though).

I snapped some pictures last night opening up the box, and while we knew from a quantitative perspective just how many miniatures we were receiving, both of our jaws dropped as soon as we popped open the Vampire level box to see how many were packed inside.

As you can see below, this is an obscene amount of miniatures. Reaper did not disappoint. We didn't have time yesterday to start popping each individual mini open, but I'm so excited to just lay them all out on our table and see them all together.

I'll probably be posting some more pictures in the next week or so as we begin to unpack our Kickstarter reward. I will say for now that I like the feel of the plastic used. It's different than other plastic miniatures I've held in that it has a little bit more give. They're some where between Games Workshop's plastics and the plastics WOTC used for their D&D and Star Wars miniatures lines, tending more toward Games Workshop's plastics.

Enough with the speakin'! I'll let the photos do the talking.

Gencon Aftermath Picture Post - Mini Painting Extravaganza!

Hey everyone, hope you're having a good pre-Labor Day week so far! I've still got a bunch of photos to get through from Gencon. As a result, I've made a decision to combine two of the posts into one thematically larger post! It still works, trust me!

Gencon is jam-packed full of amazing artists and artisans of the gaming world. There are more mini painting competitions than you can shake a paint brush at. For today's post I've combined two of those competitions. First you'll see below some of the miniatures entered into the grand Gencon painting competition. It's the traditional one sure, but it's still worth taking a look at.

The Sedition Wars at Gencon

I got a chance to talk to Mike McVey of Studio McVey this year at the Cool Mini or Not booth at Gencon. It was a special occasion because this year marked the tenth anniversary of Mr. McVey teaching me how to play Warmachine back when Gencon was still in Milwaukee, and I was but a wee child still in high school. Mike's one of my favorite industry guys and has a resume with sculpting, painting, and other design work as long as his arm. He and his wife Ali broke out on their own from Privateer Press (of which they were founding members) a couple of years ago to start Studio McVey. I was first won over when seeing the first mini in their sci-fi line and hoped desperately for a mini's game to go with it. My hopes have come to fruition, and I got a peak at the board/mini hybrid game, Sedition Wars last week.

We'll definitely be providing more coverage to the game as the rules are going to be put up online this week for free to try, and I was able to pick up a copy of the poster game board they had at the convention. For now however, take a look at the painted mini's they had on display for the main forces in their starting set to be released next year. The last two pictures, while not from the Sedition Wars line, are just of some awesome minis from Studio McVey. Enjoy!

How do you grow a game?

I've been reading this thread over at rpg.net, and it's got me thinking. The thread is a discussion of how RPG's can attract a bigger audience. It's an old discussion that pops up from time to time, and I definitely don't have the answer to how we can get games back into the high schools or whatever else completely non-nerdy market there might be out there.

Instead I've been thinking about two smaller concepts: how does a new RPG become popular and the "it" game within communities of role-players like rpg.net (known as the "rpg.net darling syndrome") that allow the game to catch a fanbase, and how can we expand gaming to attract nerds who aren't already playing tabletop RPG's. It all seems to be about word of mouth either way.

More after the jump!

Rusted Heroes Dragon Knights, Painted!

Hail. hail, the gang's all here!

So these six minis technically only count as one for my NaMiPaMo goals (all but the Mercenary Assassin were done before November started), but I'm still happy to finally have the unit finished! This is the first time I've set out to paint a GROUP of minis (my attention span is usually limited to one or two at a time) - Paul's request to have each fighter be a different "dragon color" helped keep things interesting. Keep reading for close-ups and technique notes!

12 Reasons to Give to the Pakistan Flood Relief Fundraiser

I love the amount of support that's been pouring out to DrivethruRPG's most recent efforts to assist those who are going through a cataclysmic tragedy. From blogs to message boards, the word is out - head over the DrivethruRPG and donate $25.00 to Doctors Without Boarders right now. Just do it. Need a better reason than me just telling you to do it? Well if you go donate now or before this Monday at 10:00 AM Eastern you'll also get yourself over $700.00 worth of RPG products.

I donated the first time they ran a fundraiser like this for Haiti, and while the RPG products cost total was higher, I think we actually get a nicer selection of core game products than last time. There's some really great games offered I've already got like Icons, Don't Rest Your Head, and the Pine Ridge Horror (a very fun Savage Worlds adventure). There's a bunch of stuff here that I don't own yet, and I can't wait to sink my teeth into.

These are really the perks I get from donating $25.00 to a truly good cause:

1. Contenders - I've heard this is a very fun and brutal GM-less game centered around the world of boxing. It sounds very unique and that's always a trait that'll get my attention.

2. Dragon Warriors - This is one of the classics that I probably wouldn't have really dug any further than reading about online if not for this deal. Now I get to check it out without a huge money investment!

3. Exalted Second Edition - One of the big rulebooks from Whitewolf. I've never had a chance to check it out before but have always been curious to read more about it. Now I will!

4. Fear Itself - I've been eyeing this for quite some time now. We haven't ever used the Gumshoe system, but now I'm very excited to investigate it further and maybe try a game. Perfect timing with Halloween too!

 5. Harnmaster 3rd Edition - Another classic that I wouldn't have looked at otherwise - Smart inclusion!

6. Hot War - This is one of those indie games I was just waiting to get around to. It's a really neat setting (basically post WWII - what happens when the cold war goes hot? Also bad news with other supernatural type stuff).

7. House in the Hills - A solo horror adventure? Yes please!

8. Spycraft 2.0 Rulebook - This falls in the same category as Exalted 2nd Edition. A hardcopy would run at least $20.00. With my recent fascination with spy games, I was very excited to see this listed in the deal!

9. Starblazer Adventures - The number of big fat corebooks is staggering. I've wanted to look into Starblazer Adventures for quite some time. Now I will.

10. Sufficiently Advanced - Another little indie game I've heard of in several spots. It looks like a very polished product with a neat premise.

11. Time & Temp - A sci-fi game developed by the creator of Dread and Dread House? YES! Somehow I had missed this all this time, but I want to run it so bad. It's the first book that really tripped my trigger.

12. Wild Talents Second Edition - Progenitor and Kerebros Club - two amazing looking settings for Wild Talents. Now I've got the core I may take another look at the source books.

Setting the Mood - Doing Horror Right

No, not THAT mood. Playing horror games is all about the atmosphere to me. The right GM and roleplaying can create atmosphere even in the busy atmosphere of a Con. Here are some tips, tricks and items you can use to help with your next horror game. Some of these I even use in horror board games like Arkham Horror, Last Night on Earth and Betrayal at House on the Hill.

Music

At Halloween I was always afraid of the houses that played creepy music, so my first focus on creating atmosphere was to find some appropriate music. The right music can really help set the tone of a game. Sometimes I want games where the focus is more serious and music can really help with this goal. Midnight Syndicate is my go to music choice. I bought my first Midnight CD on ebay pretty cheap, but have made it a priority to buy CDs from them in person at GenCon. These purchases are worth paying a little more since it helps fund new CDs. I have three of their fine discs so far and will continue to buy more. Of course, now I am the one playing this creepy music when the kids come trick or treating at my house.


Lighting


Sometimes dim lighting is the best for horror games. Sometimes I use complete dark except for small, battery operated tea lights so that players can only see their sheets and maybe each other. (Flashlights can also work for this effect). If I am playing Cthulhu in the 1920s, I have a few lanterns that can be very useful. I don't use candles since most gaming materials are flammable, but I could see putting some on shelves or countertops near the table.

Pictures

Tons of pictures are available on the internet that can be easily introduced into games. If you have a type of monster, simply search for it and grab the best picture. I also make sure to only show the monster to those people with characters that actually see it. Often the unknown combined with player reactions can add to the mood better than actually seeing the monster/beast.

Descriptions

The environment can work against he characters confidence. Is it cold, raining, humid, oppressively dark? Bring the environment up often. The rain keeps pelting at the characters faces, soaking their clothes and perhaps slowing them down. Sight is reduced to only a few yards when suddenly the intensity increases and pieces of hail start pelting the characters. A dark, unidentified shape looms in the distance. Maybe it is a red herring janitor or maybe it is the big bad. Try not to use red herrings too often, but a fake scare can be very useful. Next time or next game the characters may assume a fake when the real monster presents itself.

Check out your favorite horror movies or stories for some good descriptive tools. Personally, I like Silent Hill (movie or video game) for atmospheric horror. The cell phone (movie) or radio (game) that increases static when something bad is about to happen really amps up the horror factor. You can get a small radio and find a static station before hand to add noise at certain times when horror will show up.

Other props

Is there a chest that the characters will be forced to confront containing some secret book, snakes or skull? This time of year is great for finding inexpensive horror props. Use a small chest and really up the description before it is opened. Add some fake spider webs or blood and warn about the chest. Maybe even have something pop out at the players like the old peanut brittle in a can gag. Items like these props can add a different kind of anticipatory fear to a game.

Anyone else have some good ideas for running horror games? I am always looking for more tips and tools.

Our Shocktober 2010 Geek List over on The Geek

Just made up a list of the games we'll be (and have been) talking about this month. Go check out The Hopeless Gamer Shocktober 2010 Halloween List to grab a sneak peak of what we'll be writing about for the rest of the month! And while you're there, give us a thumbs up so more people can find out about the blog. It would be ever so kind!

Also, on a sidenote, we got our 160th follower tonight. Congratulations Lowell Francis you are officially awesome! You can find Lowell's blog, Age of Ravens here. I also wanted to give a quick shoutout to edige23 over at The Geek for spotting me some geekgold so I could finally afford my own avatar. I believe that means I've officially arrived!

When the player fails, the story wins.

I've been thinking a lot lately about some of the basic assumptions of a role-playing gaming. The thing that's sticking in my craw is character failure. There are some really great GM and game mechanic reactions out there, and there are some that just completely ignore character failure (and I'm being polite here in not saying that these are lame (although they are)). I really want to make my players look forward to their failures - afterall tabletop gaming is about fun, and there's no reason we can't make failure fun!

Remember Your Wand

Remember Your Wand (RYW) is my first attempt at re-skinning Gregor Hutton's Remember Tomorrow (RT). For more information on RT, go check out my review of it I posted yesterday. As soon as I finished my first read through of the rules, I knew RT was ripe for spin-offs and modding. For some reason the first setting I would work on repurposing RT for had to be Harry Potter (HP). It may be because there aren't a whole lot of Harry Potter RPG's out there or it could be that I just marathoned the first four movies last weekend with my niece, but I'm in the HP mindset. Keep reading to see what I did with it and how much I screwed up Gregor's game.

Review: Remember Tomorrow by Gregor Hutton

Gencon Indie

Indie games tend to grab my eye quite a bit. Sure I love your Dungeons and your Dragons, your Worlds of Darkness, and your Legends of your 5 Rings, but when it gets right down to it, like with movies, music, and comics, some of the best, most exciting stuff on the market is on the bleeding edge, and this is where we tend to find indie RPG's.

Of course we began playing table top games with the best horror RPG out there - Dread - which is also an indie game. Dread first attracted us in its gimmick of using a Jenga tower for conflict resolution instead of dice. It was also statless and kept things simple. The focus is on story, and this is something that we seem to see a ton in indie games.

We tried several other games (and liked several of them), but it wasn't until Fiasco that we found our next big game. Fiasco keep things simple like Dread but focuses on a different theme - that of the plan gone horribly, terribly wrong - and twists it to be GM-less. I'd wanted to find a good GM-less game, and after playing Fiasco just once, we knew we could always rely on it for a good time. Keep reading to see what Remember Tomorrow has to offer!

Review: Savage Worlds Starter Kit

Warning: Contents Under Pressure And Considered Extremely Awesome

One of the things I heard about going into Gencon was this odd little item that contained mostly stuff that I owned. It was announced over at Pinnacle that they would have a show-exclusive item, the Savage Worlds Starter Kit. For some reason, I really needed the darn thing. Maybe it was the fact that it was in extremely limited supplies and only available at Gencon. Maybe it was that it included a fresh copy of the Explorer's Edition of the rules (mine's seen better days) amongst tons of other stuff. Or maybe (definitely) it was the fact that you got everything for a mere twenty bucks.

 Keep Reading to see what's in the box!

Last Speed Paint practice before the real thing!

She's hanging out on a copy of bOOleO N-Edition, in case you're wondering:













First contest at 11 for me, wish me luck!!!