Tag Archives: Tabletop

Skirmish

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I’m taking a plunge into a few skirmish-level games that have come out over the past few years, some of which I picked up some time ago, others I just picked up.

Necromunda

I don’t want to think of myself as a Games Workshop fanboy, since I’ve pretty much given up on keeping up with whatever version of Warhammer 40K is currently out there.  Even Kill Team is less interesting to me.  But Necromunda has always been an interesting game, both background and core rules, which plays much like earlier editions for 40K.  This and Blood Bowl are the only two GW games that I’m planning on playing.

Marvel Crisis Protocol

If anything this scratches the itch for superhero gaming, more than the Marvel Champions card game does.  There’s nothing wrong with the card game, I just bought too many supplements for it.  For MCP I’m sticking to the core set and a handful of supplements that I find interesting.  I’m probably not getting Thanos, for example.

Five Parsecs From Home

I had picked up the previous two versions of this game from the designer through Wargames Vault, and was about to embark on a campaign, when I found out the the 3rd edition was being put out by Modiphius, the game company that currently has the Star Trek and Dune RPG licenses.  This has proven to be a fun one to play, a solo skirmish game, miniatures agnostic, which allows me to mix and match miniatures for my crew and adversaries from ones that I own, thought I bought minis for the next game that I’ll probably use for this one, too.

Stargrave

After watching a lot of review videos, I picked this one up, along with the miniatures sets, even though this one is also miniatures agnostic.  Like 5PFH, this one involves creating a crew to run missions, though this one is designed to be played with at least 2 players, though I may have found a solution around that.

Hostile Tactical AI

This card set emulates an opponent in 2-player skirmish games, like all the ones listed above.  I haven’t tried playing with it yet, but I hope to soon, with one of the games systems listed above, or possibly with Memoir ’44 and the Commands and Colors games in my collection.

Five Parsecs From Home – Mission 3

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I should have been posting after action reports here instead of just on Facebook.

Anyways, I sent the crew on the following assignments:

  • Exploration: Mal Castle
  • Trade: Ban Rolo and Jake Banner
  • Training: Pepsiman
  • Find a Job: Nick O’Donnel and Harry Brisbane

Mal found nothing while exploring, though he did get some alone time.

Ban and Jake acquired an auto rifle, which was given to Harry.  They also received a quest rumor.

Pepsiman gained experience and raised his Combat Skill attribute.

Nick and Harry met up with the Vulture crew’s Patron, Bungo McJankeypants, who offered the following job:

Fight off a group of Abductor Raiders, who may have arrived ahead of a possible planetary invasion.

The crew were outnumbered 7-to6, but in the end the crew were victorious, but sustained casualties.

Pepsiman suffered a potential crippling injury, and will be in the ship’s sickbay for the next 4 campaign turns.

Mal suffered a serious injury, and will be in the ship’s sickbay for the next 2 campaign turns.

Nick suffered a minor injury, and will be in the ship’s sickbay for the next campaign turn.

The crew was well paid for the job, but found no loot in the area post battle.  They also gained another quest rumor.

Oh, and the planet is about to be invaded.  The crew is going to high tail it out of here in the next campaign turn.

Shallow Rabbit Hole

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There’s just too many miniatures out there.  Period.

Though I did buy a few.  As I do.  But believe me when I say that after my first expansion choice, it took me a couple of days to decide to actually get others, and then decide which ones.

You can play with the core set as is, I just wanted a little variety.  Plus, painting miniatures is fun.

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Marvel Burnout and Rebirth

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I’ve played Marvel Champions maybe a half-dozen times, mostly with Spider-Man and Captain America.

I’ve played solo, and I have yet to play this with my gaming group.

I bought too many expansions which have yet to be played, so I stopped buying every expansion as it came out.  That was the completionist in me.

When this game came out, another Marvel game came out as well, one that I was interested in but didn’t want to get into, because miniatures were involved, which is bad for my completionist tendencies.

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At my signal, unleash hell.

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I wish there was a better solo system for this game.

I’ve had this game in my collection for a while, probably over a decade, but I can count the number of times I’ve played on one hand.

I’ve played more games of Memoir ’44, also by the same designer (Richard Borg), than I have this game, and the only time I played against a human opponent was at Dice Tower 2019.

I decided to revisit C&CA because I had preordered a Samurai version of the game sometime last year.  As I was browsing Amazon for expansions (I got the 1st and 6th expansions over the years, Greece and Eastern Kingdoms, and Spartan Army, respectively) I saw a damaged copy of C&C Napoleonics on sale for almost 50% off retail price.  I’d never played any Napoleonic wargame, but it’s been something I’d wanted to try, so I ordered it.

Cool, I thought, I’m going to play this one as soon as it comes in.  I was planning to develop a bad French accent to use while playing.

The next day I got an email that the game I had preordered had shipped.

Welp.

So in the span of a week I’ve gone from 1 of these games to 3 variants, or 2 to 4 if you include Memoir ’44.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still possible to play these games solitaire, with one of my plushies or action figures on the opposite side of the board to represent my opponent, but they’re more fun and challenging when playing against a live person.

For now, it’s time to assemble the playing pieces for the Samurai Battles game.

Stand by!

Battletech Update

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I reviewed my Clan Invasion Kickstarter pledge, and found that I had already locked in my order, consisting of even more Inner Sphere stuff.

So I went and ordered a lower tier late pledge and added some Clan Stars to it.  It also allowed me to get a PDF copy of the House Davion handbook for much less than it’s offered on Wargame Vault.

I also took a dive into some of the Clan lore, and saw that there’s a lone green Mad Cat mech piloted by a mechwarrior named The Bounty Hunter.

So I’ve decided to take that lone Mad Cat that I have and make a similar unit, with mechwarrior Dyn Djarin of Clan Mudhorn.  He named his mech the Razor Crest.  I might paint his green, too.

This is the Way.

Sitrep: Battletech

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Over the last week I took an inventory of the Mech miniatures in my collection.

60-odd mechs in 15 lances.  All Inner Sphere, more or less.

Except for a single Mad Cat.

Which makes me think that when I choose Mechs for that Clan Invasion Kickstarter that I backed, I should choose mostly Clan Mechs.

I guess.

*shrug*

EN GARDE

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Re-reading my stack of Nexus Magazines + internet access in bed = eBay purchase!

Never did get this game back in the day.  But re-reading some of the articles sparked my interest in it again.

Nexus published a pirate AND a samurai variant for this one.  I’ll be playing both.

ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL!

*cue theme from BBC’s Musketeers series*