Where Do I Go From Here

Well, 2011 is over and it has been a very crazy year. I spent a lot of time refocusing my hobby efforts. This lead to several things. First, I split my time between miniature gaming and board gaming. It seems that I like to go in spurts between the two. Second, I decided to sell off a good chunk of items that I was not using anymore (not that you could tell if you look at my game room).

So first, out with the old. Things I sold off in 2011:

- Several boardgames that I will not miss. Instead of keeping games just to keep them, I decided that if I did not like a game, I would just sell it.

- All GW products. At this point, I do not own any GW products except for my blood bowl teams. I do not miss those games one bit

- Uncharted Seas. After playing Dystopian Wars several times, I decided that I no longer needed Uncharted Seas. Dystopian Wars uses a similar system but it combines air, ground, and naval. Unfortunately, at the end of the year, Spartan Games decided they would make some "rules clarifications." By clarifications, they mean rules changes and big modifications. This game is now on the back burner again until the new rulebook comes out so I do not have to shuffle through the old rules and 3 separate PDF documents.

- Infinity. Overall, the game was decent. However, the rules were a pain and hard to memorize unless you played it all the time. The biggest flaw in the rules is that the books do not come with any scenarios. Unfortunately, the game requires scenarios to be good. Otherwise, there is no reason for either side to leave cover. I could make my own scenarios but I am lazy and frustrated by game companies that do not produce a complete product. Most importantly, this game was beaten out by Urban War which I will discuss later.

In with the new. What I focused on most in 2012:

- Solo Boardgaming. I spent a lot of time playing solo boardgames. I found two companies that focus on the solo gamer, DVG games and Victory Point Games. Both companies produce hi quality and fun solitaire games. I cannot say enough about the two companies and their games.

- Combat Commander. I got to play tons of my favorite WW2 board game, Combat Commander. If you have not played it, do yourself a favor and check it out. It is by far the best war-game I have ever played.

- Gears of War. This game was released in August this year by Fantasy Flight Games. It is an awesome cooperative sci-fi dungeon crawl game.

- Warmachine/Hordes. Mark II of the rules turned out to be a terrific second edition of the game. I got in several games with one friend and even got another friend to dust off his models after 7 years. These rules are by far the best set of rules I have seen. Whether you like the game or not, the rules are airtight. They are relatively short, easy to follow, and are very comprehensive. It is one of the few games I have played where the answers to questions that pop up are always in the book.

- Urban War. This game took off like wild fire for me. I tried the first edition a few years ago with my friend Tim. We both thought the game was decent, especially since it was skirmish based and only had about 10 models a side. However, the rules were written between 3 magazine articles so it was tedious and hard to find stuff. It never got played again. This summer, while cruising on the net one night, I found that they released a second edition of Urban War. Luckily, the rules were released as a PDF so I had to buy them. I read through them and loved what they did to the game. They kept the core of first edition but streamlined it and made it a quick, simple game. My friend Rob and I tried it and we were immediately hooked. Armies are roughly 8-12 models and the game is very scenario oriented. The company is fantastic (Urban Mammoth) and has posted at least 15 scenarios in addition to the several included in the rules. Games take about an hour, they are always close and each faction has its own play style. This game is perfect for me in every way.

- Malifaux. This game is a skirmish game that hit the scene in 2010. I have been playing it since it came out and overall it is a decent game. Again, this is a skirmish game and each army has about 6-8 models. The games play in an hour or so and overall the game is decent. I think there are some play balance issues but if you play with the right people the game is fun. I expect this to get less play in 2012 and I will likely sell of some of my collection.

- Two Hour Wargames. I have had mixed feelings about this system for years. Originally, when Ed from Two Hour Wargames started pumping out rules, I began to purchase them to support him, especially since he was from Arizona. The most intriguing part of the game company is that all of their games are designed to be played solo, cooperatively, or against each other. This is a very unique concept. About 4 years ago, I sat down with Tim and tried THW's WW2 game NUTS!. About 20 minutes into the game, we were both miserable. The rules were poorly written and disorganized. We called the game a disaster. About 6 months after that, my friend Tom and I decided to try another one of the THW games, All Things Zombies. This time, we played on the same team fighting against the evil horde. This game was more enjoyable than NUTS! but the rules were poorly written and hard to find things you needed during a game. Since the game of All Things Zombies, I have purchased almost every rules set THW has produced but I never played them. The games seemed to play themselves and quite honestly, the rules are so poorly written that I did not want to deal with them. Oddly enough, as I became so interested in solo games this year, I decided to give them another try. My friend Jerry was nice enough to run me through a game of 5150 Star Army, Two Hour Wargames' new sic-fi game. It was amazing. I have never played such an immersive miniatures game before where I felt like I was playing out a story. Don't get me wrong, the rules are still horribly written and it is impossible to find things in the rule book, but I am willing to over look that for such a fun solo game.

- Blood Bowl. The end of year saw a resurgence of this classic board game. A friend of mine started a league in December and it was tons of fun. The second league should be starting in January.

Flames of War. FOW has a huge resurgence this year and I was able to get a lot of games in. I hope to continue this trend.

Where do we go from here:

2012 should be a great gaming year. I expect to have a lot of free time and I plan on splitting my time between board gaming and miniature gaming.

Boardgames I am looking forward to playing:

- Combat Commander

- Commands and Colors

- Gears of War

- Descent (second edition releases first quarter!)

Miniature games I expect to play:

- Lots and lots of Urban War

- Warmachine/Hordes

- Two Hour Wargames

- Blood Bowl

- Force on Force. This game is from Ambush Alley Games and produced by Osprey Publishing. I recently bought the rules and some scenario packs. The system looks very interesting and I want to try these in the coming year. Basically, the games focus on platoon based actions which is the largest I like my games to get.

- Tomorrow's War. Sci-fi version of Force on Force.

- Flames of War. I still really like this game. I would like to round out my mid-war Germans and mid-war Russians this year.

- HOTT. Several of us have toyed with small scale fantasy games for a while and this year is probably going to be the year we give this game a shot.

As 2012 continues, I am sure that I will come up with some more gaming ideas. I am sure I will focus on skirmish gaming since that is my favorite. Possible genres include Old West, Pirates, WW2, fantasy, Gothic Horror, and Pulp.

Let's see what the new year brings. Happy New Year!

Purge, Purge, Purge....

Well, it's been a very busy couple of weeks around here hobby wise. As I mentioned in another post, I have started to lose interest in miniature games. I am tired of collecting, cleaning, assembling, not painting, and hauling tons of crap around to play a game. It led me to the decision to sell off a lot of my miniatures. For the first time since 1995, I do not own any Warhammer 40k or Warhammer Fantasy miniatures. I have also sold off my first of three Lord of the Rings armies. While I am tempted to keep my last two LOTR armies (Uruk Hai and Dol Guldor), I will likely put them up for sale on eBay by this coming weekend. I used to love LOTR, but in the past couple of years, the shine of the system has disappeared. The game that I used to think had lots of maneuver and strategy is really a game of who can roll the most sixes. If you roll sixes, you will win. If you cannot roll a six, you will certainly lose. Not my idea of fun.

So, what am I going to be doing hobby wise? Lately, I have really enjoyed the simplicity of boardgames. Get the game of the shelf, open it up, and play. Very simple and easy. For the time being, although I rather play board games, I am not purging all of my miniatures. I will be keeping Flames of War, Malifaux, Uncharted Seas, Infinity, and Hordes for now. What do these games have in common? Other than FOW, they are all skirmish games.... my favorite.

Not Collecting Much Anymore

It's been a really long time since I have posted to this blog. I hope to change that this year. There have been a lot of changes though..... My interest in gaming has changed drastically. How you may ask?

I've branched out and met some new friends to game with. I've lost interest in most of my miniature games. I've sold all my Games Workshop games except for a few Lord of the Rings tidbits. So long GW. I'm done with you. I've also sold off about 400 boardgames.

It's time to focus on quality, not quantity. It's time to play quality games with quality people.

Stay tuned for this new gaming adventure......

Warhammer Fantasy Battle

As many of you know, I try to play a lot of games in my free time. One of the games I wanted to get to the table a lot this year was Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Since December 2009, I have been able to log 6 games which is pretty good.

My friend Tom had some free time this weekend and a new/old army to try out. What is a new/old army? Tom bought a Tomb Kings army several years ago off of ebay when a small group of us started talking about WHFB. At the time, our talk never made it anywhere so Tom traded the army to Tim. In December 2009, I had some Orcs and Goblins that I was not thrilled with so I traded my O and G to Tim for the TK. After a couple of games of TK under my belt and a new dwarf army from my wife for our anniversary, I traded the TK army back to Tom.

Tom decided he would jump in with two feet and we played a game at 2250 points. Overall the game went very smoothly. Tom chose a really interesting army list that consisted of 3 chariots, a unit of skeleton warriors, a unit of tomb guard, 3 units of archers, a unit of carrions, a unit of skeleton cavalry, and a bone giant. I took a non-standard dwarf army, Why was it non-standard? I only had 20 handgunners, 4 combat blocks, and no anvil. My list consisted of two units of handgunners, 2 units of warriors, 1 unit of longbeards, a unit of ironbreakers, 2 bolt throwers, an organ gun and a cannon.

The first few turns consisted of the TK trying to work their way across the table to engage the dwarven battleline. As the TK marched across the table, they met heavy gunfire from the dwarf warmachines. The cannon and bolt throwers were very effective. However, the Tomb Kings started to close by turn 4 with a pretty decent force. Tom was finally able to get the bone giant into my battleline. Tom deployed the giant very well and he was protected by several units to make sure I did not kill him before he reached the dwarf side of the table. Tom's tactics were rewarded and one of my dwarf warrior units failed a terror check and fled off the table. This lead to an overrun into the dwarf ironbreaker unit. After a round of combat, the ironbreakers needed snake-eyes to stick around. The break test was not successful and the giant smashed into my bolt thrower. The warmachine was destroyed the following turn which allowed the giant to smash into my longbeards. At the end of turn 6, both armies had taken a decent number of casualties. The TK had about 150 more victory points than the dwarfs which meant the game ended in the a draw.

Overall, the battle was great and I am fairly confident that any mistakes in the rules were minimal. I look forward to playing many more games of WHFB this year.

Time to prime the dwarfs!

Warmachine MkII

Well, after a long and horrible game of Warmachine last year, I said I would never play again. I sold all my stuff, made some money. and reinvested in my hobby with other games (have you seen my collection?).

Along comes Warmachine MkII, the leaner, meaner and better Warmachine. Privateer Press is really a great company. All of the models from the previous edition are compatible, there is no "model creep" in the new edition, and PP listened to the fans and let them help shape the game by creating an open public beta test to formulate the second edition rules.

My friend Eric is as big of a game whore as I am when it comes to miniatures games. He has been known to get me into games head first and I have done the same in return. So, when Warmachine MkII came out, Eric jumped in. How could I say know to Eric when he has spent lots of money on games that I wanted to play.

Being a fan of Cygnar in first edition, I set out and bought some Cygnar models. I quickly got the models together. This is a huge accomplishment if any of you have ever played Warmachine. Their models are a real pain to put together. Anyhow, last night I got in 2 games with the new edition of the rules.

I am sold on them. Simple as that. Privateer Press did a great job with the new rules. The rules play quick. I was able to play 2 games in one night which I could never do with the older rules. The gameplay is more streamlined and makes a lot more sense. In first edition, every unit did something special. Every unit had a leader that had different abilities than the rest of the unit. Every unit could be in three formations. Come on!!!!! All of this is gone. Units have one formation, they may have one ability, and the leader has the same abilities as the grunts. This is a much better system that helps the game play much faster.

My biggest gripe about Warmachine was that the game sold people on the idea that big steam-punk warjacks ruled the battlefield. By the time PP released all the books for first edition, there was no reason to take warjacks and the best armies were infantry armies. Furthermore, warjacks died easily on the battlefield. Each jack has a damage matrix. When it receives damage, a d6 is rolled and the damage is taken to that column of the matrix. If the damage spills over, you carry over to the next column. Arms, movement, and things of that nature have markings in the damage column, when all of the markings of a part are gone, you could no longer use that part. One part, called the cortex, was the heart of the jack. In first edition, when the cortex was gone, your jack was finished. This essentially meant that one or two shots on a jack would kill it. In second edition, every damage box must be filled in before a jack is useless. Now if the cortex is destroyed, your warcaster (your general) cannot feed focus to the jacks. Focus is essentially points that your warcaster can assign to itself or jacks each turn that allows the caster or jacks to do special things in the rules. So, with this new damage system, jacks stay on the table much longer and earn their points. Another nice touch is that each warcaster receives a certain number of bonus points per game. Those points must be spent on jacks or forfeited. As an example, Stryker is +6 which means I can spend an additional 6 points on my army as long as I field a jack with those points. So, in a 25 points game, I can essentially field 31 points. While this sounds like a way to model creep the game, it does not. It makes sure you field jacks. In the army list I played last night, my army only had 19 models. Not bad for Warmachine.

I would like to point out one last nice touch. Privateer Press revamped the points system. Instead of having 500-1000 point games, the point system has been restructured so games are now 25-35 points. It is much easier to show up for a game and build your army on the fly. I should also mention that if you own an iPhone, there is a decent Warmachine army builder application.

So, where does this leave me now? I cannot wait to play my next game of Warmachine. The model counts are low and the games are quick. This is my type of game. Oh, did I mention I have a ton of Cygnar now and just started buying Khador...........

A busy 3 months

I have not had any posts since mid-February but it does not mean that I have not been busy. I have been able to get a few games in... mostly Combat Commander: Europe, Uncharted Seas, and a game of Flames of War.

However, in the last 3 months, I have been very busy with work. As most of you know, I am a lawyer by day and only a gamer at night. I have spent the last 3 months in trial on a case I have been working on for years. It was a very high profile case with a lot of pressure. On May 10, 2005, the Defendant shot and killed a police officer in cold blood during a routine traffic stop. The jury found him guilty of First Degree Murder and other charges in early May. For the past couple of weeks, we have been doing the penalty phase of the trial. Justice was finally served when the jury sentenced the Defendant to death.

If anyone is interested, you can see the entire verdict and sentencing at www.kpho.com. If you look today (May 27, 2009), you want to click on the second local video on the right middle part of the screen. The video is 3:40 and you can see the verdict through the sentence. I think it is rather chilling.

Anyhow, on to more fun things.... More posts about games coming soon!

Le Havre

It is has been a while since I have talked about board games but that does not mean I have not had the chance to play. Lately, I have wanted to talk about my miniatures because I was very happy that I sat down and painted minis during the past month. However, I have recently played a boardgame that I want to talk about, Le Havre. Le Havre is a little gem that is not readily available in the United States, although you can find a copy at Funagain Games if you really want one. There is not an official English edition of the game (yet), but the publishing company, Lookout Games, printed a German and Austrailian (what the fuck) edition of the game. Let's just say that the Austrailian Edition is pretty much English...


One of the main design credits for the game goes to Uwe Rosenberg. Now, to you non Euro-gamers, that name really will not mean much to you. Uwe has been around awhile as a designer and received some recognition for his 1997 game Bohnanza ("The Bean Game"). He became really popular in 2008, when his biggest game, Agricola, made it to the United States for its first English/US printing. Agricola became so popular that it shot to the #1 game on Boardgame Geek rather quickly and unseated Puerto Rico, which had been the #1 game for a really long time (actually, for too long of a period of time. It is one of the most overrated games ever). I really do not want to turn this post into a discussion about Agricola, but I will say that it is an ok game, it is very overrated, and now that I have played Le Havre, I have no interest in playing Agricola again.



Le Havre is resource management and worker placement game. The board is made up of 7 port spaces, resource warehouses, buildings that can be used, and buildings that can be purchased or built. Players alternate taking turns. Every player starts their turn by moving their boat to the next unoccupied dock space on the board. Every time a player does this the dock space indicates which two resources are generated for the warehouses. After the player generates resources for the warehouses, the player much decide whether to take all of the resources from any one warehouse or use a building. The pressure part of the game is that this choice alone is critical and stressful as you always need more resources and you always need to use buildings to manipulate your resources.



For instance, on my turn, I can choose to take wood, money, cattle, grain, clay, iron, and other resources for one warehouse or I can use a building which will enable me to convert grain to bread, cattle to meat, or iron to steel, etc. Why is this important? First, at the end of every round (7 turns), you have to provide a certain amount of food to your people. Food consists of fish, bread, or meat (or you can use money but that hurts you in the end game as money counts as victory points). If you do not have enough food, you have to take out a loan which is negative points at the end of the game if they are not paid off. Second, you need to manipulate your resources in order to create resources that you need in order to build other buildings in the city. Buildings cannot be used until they are built (or bought). Furthermore, if you own the building (you built it our bought it), you receive its victory point value at the end of the game. Now, this game sounds a little complicated, but it really is not. The rules themselves are simple. The "stress' factor of this game comes from the agonizing choices you have to make each turn.



I probably have not done Le Havre justice in my description as it is a hard game to discuss when you are trying to keep the word count down. However, I am willing to teach any of my friends how to play this excellent game. I have had the chance to play Le Havre 3 times in the past week and it is already one of my favorite new games. I can see this game being my game of the year even though there is plenty of 2009 gaming left.