Zombicide - Characters

I painted the characters from the original Zombicide boardgame. I based them so they are compatible with my Walking Dead All Out War miniatures, and I can use them as potential extra characters in that game too. They're pretty good minis with some nice details considering they are designed as boardgame pieces...

WINTERS END - The Walking Dead Tournament...

 

Last weekend I drove over to Stockport to take part in the Winters End tournament at Element Games. Organised by Paul from "Weight of Fire", it was a thematic 4 round tournament for the Walking Dead All Out War miniatures skirmish game from Mantic Games. There were 16 players.

 

WEIGHT OF FIRE - WINTERS END

 

Participants had to design their own 250 point team - plus a 50 point mysterious survivor who would join their group at some point during the competition. Paul introduced some limitations on team building to try and level the playing field - weapons & armour items could only be taken once across the team - I thought this was a great idea, and it led to some interesting teams. You can download the PDF of the tournament rules etc from the link below:

 

WINTERS END SCENARIO BOOKLET

 

 

My Team - Sandra, Derek, The Survivor, Greg and Charlie

 

This was my team (including survivor) - I didn't have a particular strategy in mind, I wanted to try out the new "Hunters" faction that has just come out, and my thinking was to try and get a mix of skills across the team. My team was 4 people plus the survivor. It turned out that the most popular team size was 5 plus survivor. The extra person giving more actions. I spent the equivalent in points of an extra person on a couple of the new Veteran skill cards for my team - which I didn't really get much of an advantage from.

 The Hunters are interesting characters, but I couldn't use their special rules to any advantage in any of the games I played. They have cool benefits whilst in area terrain, but there wasn't any area terrain on any of the tables. The "Pick them off" skill never came into play - 8" is quite a large distance on a 24"x24" table, and when opponents are aware that you have it, they don't let you get the chance!

The 4 new scenarios that had been designed by Paul and Daniel were very very cool... (they are all in the booklet pdf - see link above). There have only been a handful of official player vs player balanced scenarios suitable for tournaments from Mantic (I'm not including the many scenarios in the expansions in this - they are for playing through scenes from the comics - and are great... but not designed for tournament style play) - so this has really opened up the game for me.

GAME 1 - (pic from Weight of Fire)

GAME 2

GAME 3

 

(pic from Weight of Fire)

GAME 4

(pic from Weight of Fire)

Some of my loot... in addition to this all players got two booster packs (one signed my Mark Latham the game designer)

I came 15th out of 16.... but I won the "BEST PAINTED" mug!!!
 

(pic from Weight of Fire)



Andy from the BLACKJACK LEGACY Youtube Channel was taking part in the competition, and he was live streaming on the day... Here's a link to the coverage of the top table in the final round (you can find the 1st 3 rounds plus a load of other gaming content on his youtube page)...

What a fantastic day out. Congratulations to Paul (and Daniel) for such a well organised event.  Everyone was really friendly and helpful. I learned a lot from the experience, and I can't wait for the next one!!

Birthday Zombicide....

For my birthday this year I thought I'd invite some old "non-gamer" friends over to play Zombicide. These guys are all into the Walking Dead and classic zombie stuff, and they were all up for giving it a go. My friend Kes from the Sheffield Boardgames club brought over his copy of the game and he talked everyone through the rules. I really enjoyed the game - and I think everyone else did too... there were a few confused faces at times, and the game went on quite a long time... so two people didn't last right to the end, but Alan, Kes and myself stuck it out (taking over the extra characters)...



My friend Sid surprised me by creating this image...
took me a few seconds to realise that it was my house in the background!

We did the first scenario from the original rulebook, but with extra toxic zombies from the expansion set... 3 Characters made it off the board in the end after reaching all the objectives and collecting the food resources we needed. Towards the end Alan was swarmed and eaten by zombies when he opened a door and the zombies got an extra activation... and Kes was last seen stuck in a building completely surrounded by the zombie horde with no hope of escape....

Me and Sid contemplate the apocalypse.

 

Kes explains the rules to Sid, Alan and Dennis...

 

Toxic abomination!

 

A bit of rules confusion??

 

Alan gets eaten.

 The next day everyone was talking about playing again sometime now that they know what's going on... I think I'll suggest a shorter/faster game with a smaller board next time so people don't lose interest...

 Photos by Sid and Dennis.

Mansions of Madness - First impressions...

 I got to play the boardgame MANSIONS OF MADNESS by Fantasy Flight games for the first time on Sunday evening. I really enjoyed it. There were four of us there - Aneurin, Kes, Neil and myself. It was Aneurin's game, and he was the "keeper" - running the adventure and controlling the monsters etc... 

I have played two of Fantasy Flights other Lovecraftian themed games previously:

 

ARKHAM HORROR - which is a very long game, has a huge variety of expansions - and ultimately I found to be quite tedious.

 

ELDER SIGN is a much better game than Arkham - essentially it is a dice rolling game, you have to roll the correct sets of symbols to complete tasks to stop the big bad beasties from taking over the world. I got ELDER SIGN OMENS for Carolyn's Android device - and sold my copy of the boardgame immediately - the game works much better as a solo game app - and is much more thematic too.

 

The artwork on all 3 of these games is very nice indeed - and a big chunk of it is the same in all 3 games - artwork is expensive, so I can see why Fantasy Flight did that.

 

There is new Fantasy Flight boardgame with a Lovecraftian theme called ELDRITCH HORROR which folks are saying replaces Arkham as a better game... I haven't played it, and I'm not really tempted by it now that I've played MANSIONS OF MADNESS....

Right from the start of the game, as a player you are immersed in the creepy horror theme of the game. In the scenario we played, the three investigators were searching a sinister mansion in a race against time, looking for clues as to the whereabouts of a missing lady... we found a dead body, which one of us was mysteriously compelled to eat a part of... a running flaming zombie..which we had to fight, and that left parts of the building on fire... there were axe wielding maniacs who were trying to take samples of our hair for some unknown black magic ritual... one of us was killed by a maniac - and two of us went completely insane! - In the end things were looking pretty bad for us - but in the last turn Kes managed to pull off a crazy last minute dice roll using his special ability, and he killed the main maniac guy. The decisions you make in the game create a horror story which you really feel you are part of. The mechanics of the game are pretty easy to pick up - and I really love the little puzzles you have to do to open doors and re-wire circuits to try and get the lights to come on in darkened rooms. It's not good to be in the dark. Not in a house like this......

Aneurin was really lucky to get his copy of Mansions of Madness for half the retail price off ebay...It is quite a pricey game brand new - but there's a load of quality components, and the figures that come with the game are great. He's suggested we try and play once a month - sounds good to me - this is by far the best horror themed boardgame I've played to date - Can't wait for the next game!!

 

 

Kes pulls off his crazy dice roll!!

 

 

Audiophiles - take note...

It's been a while, so another podcast round-up is in order!.... The podcasts I'm listening to at the moment are roughly falling into three camps: Audio Drama, Literary Reviews, and Podcasts about boardgames. So here's what's been on the mp3 player over the last few months...

We're Alive (the zombie survival audio drama serial) is just about to reach the end of Season 3...I can't really say much about this without giving away any spoilers, but things are not going well for the survivors! The writing, the acting and the production on this are absolutely fantastic, well worth checking out if you haven't already... all the back episodes are available for download from their website.

19 Nocturne Boulevard is the home of Julie Hoverson and her unstoppable audio horror drama production machine.. over the last few months she's put out some excellent shows, her own adaptations of H.P.Lovecraft's THE RATS IN THE WALLS and THE SHUNNED HOUSE are both excellent, and her FATAL GIRL series (currently 4 stories) is great fun - her own audio version of a  dark supernatural Japanese Anime series with strong female characters...

On the "literary review" side of things, The H.P.LOVECRAFT LITERARY PODCAST is still going strong, Chad and Chris have exhausted all of H.P.Lovecraft's stories now, and have moved on to talking about stories by other authors. Their new criteria is that these stories were all mentioned by Lovecraft in his famous essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature". So far they have covered:
"The Repairer of Reputations" by Robert W. Chambers
"The Yellow Sign" by Robert W. Chambers
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
"The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs
"The Upper Berth" by F. Marion Crawford
"The Signal Man" by Charles Dickens
"The Great God Pan" by Arthur Machen
and they have just started on "The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood. The H.P.Podcast guys have also decided to start charging a subscription fee for their content. The fee is very small ($6.66 every 3 months) and in my opinion is worth every penny.

The Double Shadow podcast folks, taking inspiration from the H.P.L.L.P, are covering the dark literature of Clark Ashton Smith. They have just finished talking about his "Averoigne" series which were all set in an alternative medieval France populated by necromancers, werewolves, vampires and batrachian witches.... with episode 15 they are moving on to the "Poseidonis" stories....

A Podcast to the Curious - The M.R.James literary podcast, doesn't come out as regularly as the previous ones mentioned, but this is quality stuff, and well worth the wait! They have recently done "An Episode of Cathedral History", "The Diary of Mr.Poynter" and "The Residence of Whitminster". Very enjoyable creepy stuff - and very well researched. They've also done a nice little interview with Robert Lloyd Parry, a performer of M.R.James stories... very interesting indeed - inspired me to get some tickets for one of his Christmas one man shows when he's playing not too far from here at Buxton Opera House... looking forward to that!!

The guys at NEWS FROM PNAKOTUS are still doing their news show about anything Lovecraft / Cthulhu related. It's still a great fun show with loads of info, quality content and knowledgeable presenters, but recently they have done something which to me is VERY ANNOYING. They have changed their file format from MP3 to shiny new MP4, which means if you've got some kind of new fangled expensive listening device you can get nice images to accompany your listening pleasure. Or on the other hand, if you're like me and have an a nice little "old" MP3 player, you can't listen to it at all. I listen to quite a lot of audio whilst I'm at work, or when I'm doing stuff around the house after the kids have gone to bed. So to listen to this now I have to put time aside to be sat in front of my computer doing nothing else - which I will now have to do as it's such a great show. Well maybe it's just me. Bah.

So onto the boardgame related podcasts... there are loads of these, and you can't do much better than going to the DICE TOWER and checking out all the ones on the Dice Tower Network... The Dice Tower podcast itself is great, and I also recommend The LITTLE METAL DOG SHOW, a UK boardgames podcast. Micheal the presenter has just got back from this years Essen gaming show, so he's done a ton of interesting interviews from there... two podcasts that I've started listening to lately which are really funny, and concentrate on the less "serious" side of boardgaming, are FLIP THE TABLE and THE GAME NIGHT GUYS.

THE GAME NIGHT GUYS is a podcast in which the presenters Brian and Curtis get together every week, sometimes with other friends too, and they tackle a boardgame. More often than not the games are weird games they've picked up from charity shops (Hello Kitty Big Roll Bingo!), but they will play modern designer games too. Whilst they are playing, the guys chat about their lives and what they've been up to lately. It's all great fun and very engaging. I love it!

FLIP THE TABLE - "a podcast about The Other Side of Board Games. Most board game shows focus on the latest-and-greatest, or time-tested classics. We have taken it upon ourselves to comb our local charity shops and salvage stores for the other stuff...we're talking licensed cash-grabs, kids games that kids are too smart for, gimmicky games with strange (and only occasionally functional) gadgets, and all the other games that tend to gather dust in the back of closets..." so far the Flip The Table crew have played: Transformers, American Idol, WWE DVD boardgame, Lingo DVD game, G.I.Joe boardgame, Heartthrob, Halo DVD game, Pac-man cardgame, Donkey Kong boardgame, Donald Trump game, Robocop VCR game, Nightmare VCR game, Ewok boardgame, Gone Birding, Dexter boardgame, and Mystery Mansion....  after playing the games they go indepth into dissecting the mechanics of the games, and then end up playing a fun quiz of their own silly design inspired by the themes of the games they've just played. These guys have a lot of knowledge about boardgame mechanics,which lends this to be a very interesting and fun show at the same time.

I think that's about it for now... apart from to mention the Halloween special of The Gaming Gang, which has a couple of really creepy Old Time Radio shows tagged on to the end.... it will give you the willies!!

Print and Play...

I like games. Boardgames. Card games. Table top miniature wargames... all kinds of games... the internet has spawned a whole new genre of non-computer 3 dimensional games: PRINT & PLAY... basically anyone who's got the idea for a new type of game can produce it on their computer - upload it to a website, and then anyone who wants to play it can download the rules and print out all the bits they need to play - cards/tokens/board...whatever! -It's a great idea, and in the old punk rock spirit of D.I.Y, quite a lot of this stuff is available for free! (of course you have to pay for ink/paper/card etc...) A lot of these games have their own community forums, so people can play-test the games and give feedback to the designers, or even upload their own modifications, additions, or even their own alternative versions...

Here are a few links to things that have caught my eye... Please note - I haven't played any of these games yet - but they certainly look up my street!! Watch this space for reviews at a later date!

 ZOMBIE IN MY POCKET - a solitaire game involving small tiles and cards... play time 5 - 20 mins... really nicely designed - and it's about zombies!! - Looks great and fits in your pocket (like it says!).. there are a load of other versions of this (pirate / alien in my pocket etc) - but this apparently the original and best!! You can download a copy from the files section at :

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/33468/zombie-in-my-pocket

 Next up are a couple more zombie games - these two are both zombie survival board games...ZOMBIE PLAGUE and DEAD OF NIGHT... not sure how they compare, they both involve map tiles and zombie standees - there seem to be a couple of versions of each:

http://www.fortressfigures.com/zombieplague/

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/27736/dead-of-night

THE ISLAND OF D - looks like good fun, I read a good review of it... seems to be another solitaire card game - this time with a sword and sorcery theme...
http://www.hullahop.biz/jackdarwid/IOD/IOD.html

"The Island of D is in great danger. The Black Knight has seized the Dark Castle, and he wants to rule the island by chaos.
The Black Knight seals the castle gate with a strong magic so noone can go in, and he prepare the Dark Ritual in the castle's tower to
open the portal to the dark world.
Goblins, Orcs, and Goblorcs slowly spreading in the Island of D. The Black Knight just needs another 4 weeks to complete his ritual, to
pour those creatures into the island.
The Village of Dew, the nearest village to the Dark Castle has call upon all heroes in the Island to defeat the Black Knight, since the
Village Elder can help only one person a day to enter the Dark Castle's gate. Many heroes and wanna-be heroes have tried, and so far
no one has returned...."

GOBLORKS indeed! -

And now for some giant Japanese monster action... Here's what it says on the boardgamegeek page: -

"“Oh No, There Goes Tokyo!” is a multi-player combat game in which each of 2-4 players controls a segment of Tokyo under attack by the dreaded Godran, Self-Appointed Emperor of Monsters. Players must protect their areas from the rampaging monster by deploying units of the national guard while at the same time evacuating tasty populace units. As key production units in each sector are destroyed by Godran, the players’ resources dwindle. Perhaps only a hastily-developed super weapon can save the day!
Players have many options in “Oh No, There Goes Tokyo.” Each turn, their remaining production centers generate a number of “Mega-Yen” to be spent in a variety of ways. First, players bid “Mega-Yen” to control Godran. Each turn, Godran could be controlled by a different player. Victory point incentives will keep Godran rampaging - but if you win the bidding, Godran will rampage someplace other than your back yard!

Mega-Yen can also be used to activate defense units, to evacuate panicked yet recalcitrant citizenry, and to develop super weapons to combat the mighty Godran. Jury-rig a Death Ray and hope for a quick knockout punch, or undertake the longer and more expensive, but more sure-fire, process of researching Godran’s origins to find his weakness. The Mega-Yen is an imaginary currency whose value, for the purposes of this game, is ridiculously high.

“Oh No, There Goes Tokyo!” plays essentially the same with two, three or four players.

“Oh No, There Goes Tokyo!” (Also known as ON,TGT!) contains a fold-out map that represents a hypothetical section of downtown Tokyo. It could be any city, but Tokyo seems to be the most attractive to monsters. Players are encouraged to substitute cities they particularly dislike if the urge strikes. The game includes a set of counters representing Godran, destroyed buildings, the national guard in four colors and populace units in four colors. Also included are a small selection of cards - representing potential origin points for Godran and hair brained schemes to control the beast. Relevant charts are included in the back of the rules for ease of access. Play requires the use of multiple six sided dice to resolve combat and scrap paper for record keeping."

I've downloaded the files - the whole thing looks mega!! - A lot of work has gone into designing this game, the artwork is great - I hope the game plays as good as it looks! -

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/14410/oh-no-there-goes-tokyo

Kaiju attack part two!! - Another Japanese monster boardgame that looks absolutely fantastic is

SMASH MONSTER RAMPAGE...3d papercraft boardgame involving a giant monster.... all available for free - a game for 2 players, and really nice touch by the guys who made the game, is that they explain on their website exactly how they designed the game.... looks like there is going to be a huge amount of papercrafting involved in making all the bits - but that's all part of the fun, and check out their little trailer to see how cool the whole thing looks when it's done!

http://www.smashmonsterboardgame.com/

And lastly for now, (thanks to a link I came across on the cardboard warriors forum) is FLIPIT PAPER COMBAT...

"Flipit: Paper Combat is a fast-paced tabletop miniatures game in a setting similar to WWII. Players lead forces from one of the four major nations into the conflict for Jurop. Armies are built of models players can download, print and build for almost free (you still have to supply the ink, paper, and glue). There are simple starter rules available, which may be supplimented by optional advanced rules to make gameplay more challenging."

This presses all the right buttons for me - papercrafting and wargaming on a big chunky scale... the minis are absolutely superb - beautifully designed with just the right touch of humour... the whole thing is the brainchild of J.Bowen (the same guy who did all the hammerheadz paper model designs).. FLIPIT has it's own forum, and there are a load of rules updates and other designs and photo's and stuff to see on there - well worth a look!

http://www.flipitpapercombat.com/index.html

A couple of good places to find out about other Print & Play games are THE PRINT AND PLAY PODCAST, and on the boardgamegeek website at:

http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/46557/item/1047869#item1047869

There is a world of great free stuff out there (if you know where to look!)...

Audio updates.....

I've been searching out some more audio delights for my mp3 player over the summer... to fill the hole that the WE'RE ALIVE summer hiatus has left...(season 3 will be starting in the Winter!! - Can't wait!!)...

The H.P.Lovecraft literary podcast is still going strong - definitely the best podcast I have discovered so far - Chad and Chris have just done episode 93 "The man of stone"... Chris Lackey is also co-presenter (with "Paul of Cthulhu") of NEWS FROM PNAKOTUS podcast - which is pretty essential listening if you're into Cthulhu Mythos stuff - they cover Cthulhu related news on up-coming games, literature, film and anything else you can think of...

MAXIMUM ROCK AND ROLL RADIO -  I was listening to a few years ago, then forgot about for a while, and I've got back into again, - It's D.I.Y. punk rock radio - they play underground international punk rock from all over -sometimes the sound is a bit sketchy - but it's the kids playing punk rock - and it's friggin great!! - There is a new show every week - they just did podcast #1264!!

THE INEVITABLE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE is a website with any zombie related news you can think of - and the two guys from there have been doing a sporadic podcast - just 7 shows so far - but definately worth a listen... they started off when the first season of The Walking Dead tv show was on last year - they did a podcast after every show, discussing the show and other zombie stuff - but they've done a few more shows over the summer doing film reviews, and I'm guessing they might do some more when Season 2 of the walking dead starts... they're good fun - and it's nice to hear some other zombie fans talking about zombie films that I've seen...

Not that I've played any roleplaying games since I was at school, but I have recently been listening to some recordings of Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green roleplaying sessions that the guys from ROLE PLAYING PUBLIC RADIO have put up on their website... they're pretty long, usually about 3 hours - but I've been getting into them whilst I've been doing my delivery round at work - the guy ROSS who runs most of the games is very good, keeps the games moving nicely, and isn't affraid to kill off the players - good creepy stuff!!

The CTHULHU podcast is another nice little show that I've just discovered... The chap who does it: "FNH" seems to be pretty prolific - he does about 6 different podcasts by the look of it - I'm going to have to check out some of his other ones too.. but anyhow, the CTHULHU podcast episodes usually follow a specific format, they usually start with a reading from "Into the Brazillian Wilderness" which is a real-life account of 1920s exploration in South America (To be honest I find this bit a tad dull - so I usually skip to the next part) - then some 1920s/30s music to get you in the mood for some pulp action...and then the 3rd and main part of the podcast, which is a reading of a Cthulhu Mythos story - and there are some very good ones on here - some old and some new ones too. FNH has got a very nice reading voice - gets me sucked in to the creepy horror everytime!!

I Haven't listened to it yet - (downloading as I type!) but the first part of  Julie Hoverson's audio drama version of  the DUNWICH HORROR is just out from 19 Nocturne Boulevard - should be good!

That's about it for now... untill WE'RE ALIVE starts back up again...