Sources Say - Ghost Archipelago: Gods of Fire

Name: Ghost Archipelago – Gods of Fire

Produced By: Osprey Games
System: Ghost Archipelago
Genre(s): Fantasy, Pirates, Tribal elements, Greek myth

Welcome back to another Sources Say and another one about a Ghost Archipelago supplement. This time, I’m reviewing Gods of Fire, the second expansion for the game and with a focus on Tribals. In the core book, tribals are one of the many enemies a Heritor and their crew might face in the Archipelago, and it’s neat to see them explored.

The first chapter is a forward from the creator, talking about what the book contains, which is pretty standard for these books. As we’re going to review these chapters, that’s all I’m going to say about this part.

 The second chapter is all about those Tribals. This chapter delves into the tribes and how isolated they can be. There’s also some new rules for them, allowing players to make their own tribes, with a series of beneficial traits and negative traits. Tribes can only have two benefits, but as many negatives as a player wants. Once these are settled, there’s rules for using Tribals as enemies run by a GM, with a host of new Tribal members to use, as well as rules for building “crews” of them. With that done, there’s some sample tribes you can use, if you so choose. I really like these additions, as I’ve started using goblins as my Tribals, because I have a fair amount of them. I tried using them as Dricheans but that was a little too confusing for my friend Jay, but I really do think they’ll work better for Tribals. And since one of the traits Tribes can get is Pygmie, it’s perfect for them. Better yet, it’s a negative trait, which means I can give them two beneficial ones in exchange for it.

Moving on to the third chapter, the one with the new Specialist Crewmen. The first one is a “Bowman” which a bit of a joke as it’s about bows, not bows. I mean, a ship’s bow, not a bow for shooting. But, at the same time, it’s also about bows you shoot with. In a later chapter, they introduce a swivelbow you can put on small boats and this crewman is an expert at using them. That was far too many words for that weak of a pun. The next crewman is something of a bow (as in the one with arrows) sniper, getting a special ability to aim before shooting. Following this, we have a “swordmater” but they’re really a duelist. Perfect for crews that a light on crew but also if you have a model with a rapier. Now, we have the first new Tribal crewmen, the Totem Warrior. They can make a Will roll to gain a bonus of their choice for the rest of the game. The next Tribal crewman we have is the Tribal Darter, who uses a blowgun. While an interesting idea, I don’t know how useful they would be, given the poor damage modifier and range on a blowgun, even if it is poisoned, especially as one of the most expensive crewmen so far. After that, we have the Tribal Guide, who gives you the chance to move them and another model after deployment but before rolling initiative. The last crewman we get is the Vanguard, and one of the more interesting crew options. They’re 75gc, wear heavy armor and carry a shield, and use a hand weapon and throwing spear (I’ll talk about that when we get to the chapter). They could be a good alternative for Freebooters and Men-At-Arms, being priced between them, but with heavy armor, but their stats are divided between ranged and melee. It’s a tough call to make, as the spear isn’t as useful as a bow, much less a crossbow, but that 75gc cost is very tempting. I might try them out as see how they do.

 The fourth chapter is the new weapons, all two of them. I don’t know why this is a separate chapter, as this could have easily been added to the end of the last one. The two weapons are both ranged and you can’t take them as normal equipment. Again, why is this its own chapter? The blowgun, as I mentioned, is poisoned but has a -4 damage modifier and a shorter range than a bow. With that low of a chance of being able to poison a model besides a standard crewmen, I don’t think the model that carries it (see above) is really worth it. The other weapon we get is the Throwing Spear, which is a slightly better Throwing Knife, but is one time use. If it wasn’t unavailable for my Heritor, I would totally use it in place of Throwing Knives, or even bows, even if it’s one time use. I suppose I’ll have to start making that exception…

Moving on to the fifth chapter, we have new rules for small boats. Not going to lie, this is half the reason why I picked up this book. These rules include rules for capsizing your boats. I like how it’s realistic but I don’t feel the need to use it. Then again, if I get in some more games with small boats, maybe I’ll want to use them. Speaking of things I want to use, this chapter also gives us the option of canoes. They’re not as big as small boats, but that kind of works, given how you’re probably not going to fill up your boats anyway. I think the idea of the canoes is great and wish they had been in the original book. The final thing is the Swivelbow weapon. It’s 200 gc PER BOAT and are overpowered crossbows. I don’t know if I’d ever use them, as they also impose a penalty to hit, even if they do a lot of damage. Then again, there is the Kraken to think about… Of course, they work better if you have Bowmen, but that’s another 50gc per guy, and those are Specialist Crewmen.

The sixth chapter is the first of a few campaigns in the book. This first campaign is three scenarios, but they’re different than you’d expect. Before you start the campaign, you have to figure out who is going to control a force of Tribals. That’s because one player will be playing the Tribals for two of the three scenarios, while the other player gets beaten to hell and back. What happens is that the player who plays the Tribals gets to make a pretty beefy force, while the other player plays their normal crew, but doesn’t get to heal between scenarios. Then, in the third scenario, the other player’s regular crew pops up, fresh and ready. So, yeah. All in all, it sounds like a neat little campaign, especially since it ends with a flooding temple and a bunch of aquatic monsters that get unleashed. I think it might work better if you did it co-op, with two crews fighting the Tribals, and then taking on a fresh Heritor crew in the end. However, I could see it being run as is, if one player has a much higher level than the other, with the higher level one being the one suffers through the first two scenarios.

Moving on the seventh chapter, we have another campaign, but it’s only two scenarios this time around. Instead of fighting against Tribals, you get to have some join your force, and you’re fighting cathaka this time around. Those are buzzard-men, just so you know. The first scenario is going up a rocky road to the gate leading to the city they’re taken over, with the second one being a fight on the tops of the buildings of the city. It’s a short one, and sounds really dangerous in the second one, but also seems like it might be fun.

 The eight chapter is another campaign, but this time it’s four scenarios long, and two of them should be played twice. This one involves a volcanic island and a not quite Crystal Pool. The scenarios have players trading off between playing their regular crews and playing the Tribal forces, and one of them lets the Tribal player take a cyclops! Of the three campaigns in this book, I think this one is the best. I wish they hadn’t made the other scenarios in the book so set and just made it easier to play them as normal scenarios, and then had this campaign as the only one. Anyway.

Chapter nine is the mandatory treasure chapter, with all the cool new toys you MIGHT get to play with, assuming you roll well. There’s some really good stuff in this one, with a regenerating ring, a golden skull that gives you a chance to take over the undead, and some weapons that give you a boost to your swimming rolls. The items they have in here aren’t really specific to the book or seem to be unbalanced. For the most part, they’re nice little bonuses to have, if your Warden has the right spells, and some things that can help in the right situation.

The final and tenth chapter is the bestiary. We finally get giant rats in the Archipelago, took long enough. There’s a little bit for every monster type, including some new dinosaurs, as well as some new intelligent races, like the cyclops and buzzard men I mentioned earlier. If you were paying attention, you might have noticed that I mention a kraken. Yeah. That’s here too and it is wild. I’m actually surprised that there wasn’t a scenario that involved it. Anyway. The kraken has several limbs that act independently, and can even move on land to represent their reach, and then you get the head that pops up. This thing should be the only creature you face in a scenario, it’s that intense. In fact, I might even make up a scenario myself. Who wants calamari?

If you’ve been playing Ghost Archipelago already, this book would be good to add to your collection, as it really expands how Tribals work, gives you some neat treasure, and has some interesting monsters to fight. It’s worth it.

Horror Show: USX - Modern Day Heroes

 

Ever heard the phrase “having is not as good as wanting”? Well, I recently had an experience with this.

You see, some time ago, I stumbled across some minis for a game called “USX: Modern Day Heroes” that looked kind of cool, when I was looking for more stuff for Zona Alfa and a few other things. After I bought some, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have another minis game, right? And this one has robots, magic, Mythos monsters, and zombies, even vehicles, so what’s not to like? Well… It would help if the damn thing was complete! In short, I feel like I got ripped off.

I’m not kidding. All this book gives you is rules. Which is great and all but without stats for any of the models in the line. And the game uses square 30mm bases, which is more common with fantasy or historical games, because of the old “rank and flank” style of games. There’s one other modern game that I’ve encountered that uses square bases, and I know the reason this game uses them is because they have a fantasy and historical games that use the same system as this game. 

 Anyway. It does have rules. And those rules are… Okay, I guess? But they’re not exactly user friendly. There’s a mix of letters, numbers, and other symbols like &, #, @, etc and you have to compare things on a chart. For example, if you have a melee combat, you would compare Melee Attack Class and the Defense Class (which would be letters) to see how well you’re going to do in a fight. And you do the same for ranged weapons. It’s a bit insane, as you could have just used numbers, as it makes more sense to more people. At least, I would think so. I wonder if they were worried about getting sued by GW or something? I mean, yeah, that’s always a concern in this space but this is a bit of unnecessary nonsense. Moving on. When you compare the numbers between the attacker and defender, you get a multiplier for the damage dice of the weapon you’re using (between ½ and 2, but mostly 1) and then what number you score the hits on when you roll the dice (between 4+ and 6+), and then roll the dice from your weapon and see how many hits you scored. This is needlessly complex. It gets even worse when they start getting into autofire weapons, as you can make multiple attacks, but you drop one dice as you make further attacks. This can mean that you’re rolling upwards of 20 dice for a single attack, if you get really lucky. Because everything is d6 based, of course. 

 It gets worse, as they have a morale system. There’s going to be a longer post about this, but I really do not like morale systems in skirmish level games. I don’t have a problem with it in larger, army sized games, and there’s all kinds of tactical levels to those games. While the system is designed to go up to true “wargaming” scale, with that good ol’ Rank and Flank stuff, you shouldn’t have it be a core element of the smaller level game. It would be fine if it was confined to using horror, as the Cthulhu Mythos has fear and horror as a core element, but it’s not. There’s also a magic system, such as it is, which also calls for morale checks, but there’s no reason to make it sure a core element.

One of the major problems with RAFM continuing to sell this game is that the game requires you have the model’s character card. And, of course, there’s another problem here, because you can’t find the cards anymore. They don’t sell them with the models, even in the boxed sets, and the links on their website are long dead. So, they’re selling a poorly designed game that you can’t even play! There are a few sample cards in the back of the book, but not nearly enough to break it down to figure out how much things should cost. Oh, and that’s another thing, the point costs. A zombie costs 950 points. A minor grunt costs 1,470 points. That’s insane. That means that a small game would probably have a points limit of 10k or so. Another factor in selling cards for the minis is that you’re going run into a really cool mini that has crap stats. And you won’t know that until you buy the mini, as the stats aren’t in the book.

 Sure, the PDF on their website is only $5, but it’s a literal waste of five bucks. Assuming you get it, which I have a story about. I saw a physical copy for $12 on eBay, down from the full sale price of $20. As I’d bought a lot of the minis, I thought I would pick it up. But I thought I might buy the PDF of it first. So, I go to the RAFM website and find out that they do have PDFs of the game. I order it, but I did it without making an account, so I made the account and I still don’t have my PDF. I’ve thought about sending an email but it’s not worth it. So you, before I bought the PDF, I ended up buying that physical copy… And after reading it, I decided it wasn’t worth it to waste my time for a game I couldn’t even play, much less ask for a refund.

There’s just so much wrong here. There’s so much missing, even weapon templates, and there’s no support for it online. It’s garage. It’s incomplete. Even if this an expansion, as it’s technically “Universal Soldier EXTREME” as their system of games is called Universal Soldier, it doesn’t say that it requires the other books. You shouldn’t be selling this if it isn’t ready to play from the start, unless you say that you need other things, too. A hot mess doesn’t even begin to describe it, I swear. It really sucks because under these broken things and missing content, there’s almost a really interesting and unique game just waiting to come out. The latest edition of the this game is from 2008, plenty of time to cook up a fix, or even release the stuff you need online. It’s just frustrating.

However, with all of my complaining and anger, I do want to say that RAFM’s models are great and you should totally buy those if you want them. Just save your money and don’t buy this game.

Sources Say: Ghost Archipelago - The Lost Colossus

Name: Ghost Archipelago - Lost Colossus

Produced By: Osprey Publishing
System: Ghost Archipelago
Genre(s): Fantasy, Greek Mythology, Pirates

Here we are, the first supplement for Ghost Archipelago. This one has a few things going on that makes it a solid choice if you’re going to play Ghost Archipelago. Let’s get started.

The book begins with an introduction from Joseph A. McCullough, talking about Ghost Archipelago, the campaign, and so on. It’s a fun little read but not really important for this review.

 The next chapter jumps right into the campaign. The campaign is about trying to locate the pieces of a giant statue that once pointed to the Crystal Pool. But, things happen, and the colossus was shattered and spread around the islands. Now, if you can find the pieces, you’ll get a head start on finding the location of the Pool. An interesting part of the campaign is letting one player get “advantage” during the games. Thankfully, it doesn’t unbalance things, just lets them pick which scenario is played next. I think that’s probably the best way to give a successful player a reward, without causing them to overwhelm the other players. The scenarios are going to require a lot of unique pieces of terrain and some new monsters. However, in the introduction, the author does point out that you can use proxies or terrain that’s close enough, because he knows that you’re probably not going to have all this just sitting around. To give you a brief list, you’ll need a 10 by 10 inch building, with a small 10 by 10 side board, to represent the base of the statue, and a few Snake-Men, for the first scenario. The second scenario requires a precipice (a cliff, they mean a cliff) and some new monster, glider snakes. I think this one is kind of neat, as you have to climb up some old rope ladders or scale the cliff. The third scenario is about getting on to a bridge that’s made from one of the legs of the colossus, crossing a river with a few fishes inside. This one also lets you take a small boat, which I am always a fan of. The fourth scenario is set up around a plateau, with a lot of treasure and some new monsters on top of it. The fifth scenario is about the other leg of the colossus and it’s a fun one. Why? Because there’s some Snake-Men that are trying to knock it loose and make it start rolling to crush the crews! I suggest queuing up Yakki Sax. For the sixth scenario, you have a monolith with the eye of Colossus, protected by the Ancient Guardian. This Ancient Guardian is a unique demon with a big sword and a bad attitude. There’s also a bunch of old traps that will be triggered when you roll low on initiative. Moving on to the seventh scenario, you’re trying to read stuff on the toes of the Colossus and get to deal with some Snake-Men ambushes. When it comes to the eight scenario, it’s now the arm and hand of the Colossus, and you get to fight a giant scorpion and some aggressive plants. Scenario nine is one of my favorites, because it’s about killing the Dragon Bull (one of the new monsters, we’ll get into it) that’s made its lair under the face of the Colossus. The final scenario is about the heart of the Colossus being protected by a Snake-Man priest and his band of followers. It’s a water board with some islands, which means that you get to use small boats. If it lasts long enough, you get to fight off a Sea Serpent, too.

Whew. Anyway. The third chapter is very short, just introducing two new Specialist Crewman; the Bosun and the Topman. The Bonsun or Boatswain, is perfect was for crews that use small boats a lot, while the Topman is great for crews that do a lot of climbing in their games.

The fourth chapter is all about Snake-Men, which will be a theme for future supplements for the game. This chapter gives us the strange magic of Snake-Men, used by their priests. While not intended to be used by crews, it’s more for when you want to have a game run by a GM. This magic is called blood magic and gives us eight spells to choose from. There doesn’t seem to be any limit on how many spells the priest can take but I’m sure that players can figure it out. However, it isn’t intended for players to use them, but I could easily see someone making up something for it. If it were me, I’d have them build a crew like normal, with a Snake-Man Heritor, a Snake-Man Priest in place of a Warden with four spells, the Snake-Men from the core book as typical crewmen, and the new Snake-Men from this book (I’ll talk more about them in the bestiary chapter) as Specialists at 100 gc each. There you go, a quick and dirty way of making a Snake-Men crew.

The fifth chapter is the new treasure for this campaign and some new editions for the general treasure. We’ll start with the treasure for the campaign. There’s a few things in here that annoy me, the first being the inclusion of rope as treasure. Why is this treasure? Why not just make it a normal item? It’s pretty damn useful, so now we have to travel back to the mainland to get some, or hope that we get it in a random roll. Ahem. Anyway. The next part of the chapter is a revised and expanded magical weapons and armor tables. Designed to replace the tables in the core book, they really give you a lot of new abilities. There’s boosts to damage, boosts to hit, vampiric blades, battering shields and weapons, throwing daggers that return, and a lot of others. If you’re thinking about buying this book, this is easily the best reason to do so. It’s worth it.

The sixth and final chapter is the bestiary. It starts with some new critters, like glider snakes, huge wasps, and giant scorpions. Then there’s a new type of enemies, plants. That’s right, we’ve got man eating plants. One try to stick to you and the other spits poisoned spines at you. Just going to show that everything in the Archipelago is out to kill you. The next beasty is the Dragon Bull, or a triceratops, that’s a new saurian. Now for the Snake-Men. There’s the Priest, and then there’s the Warrior, Hunter, Rattler, Ripper, and Striker.

And that’s all there is in this supplement. And it’s a good one. For the first one for Ghost Archipelago, it was a good start.

Let's Talk: About Not Supporting Spikey Bits

 

Random Warhammer 40k picture because I felt like it

 

Welcome back to Let’s Talk and we’re going in a different direction today. I’m going to stir up some drama and offer some commentary. In order to defend myself against frivolous legal action, I’m going to preface this by saying that I’m showing an opinion, a response, and then my own opinions and commentary. I would suggest you do your own research before making your own decision about who to support and what actions you want to take.

First off, I’m a member of the Reaper Forums and stumbled across a thread about supporting Spikey Bits subscription boxes. One user offered the following in a post:

A lot of sketchy things that he does. A lot of his revenue is from traffic so he does a LOT of clickbait titles (another name for him is Spikey Baits), he does a lot of deliberately misleading writing, and he's actually stolen other sites' photos and articles, not to mention taking someone's breaking news and claiming claiming it as their own. I have even heard of a story about him stealing someone's pics and then threatening the original creator with lawyers just because they asked for them to be removed. Rob Baer is a greasy character all around, and one that I make sure I don't support in any way.

Which was then followed by this response from the guy behind Spikey Bits:

Hi (user), I appreciate your opinion about the site and myself, but I will caution you about making false and accusatory statements about my character and our business practices on a public forum without any proof or support.

Regarding the accusations you have published, we had put out our statement explaining the truth behind them, which, unfortunately, isn't as exciting as you make it out to be. With a daily readership of 30-40,000 users just on the site alone, we have arguably the largest reach across all platforms in tabletop wargaming.

That's bound to ruffle a few feathers such as yours, so I welcome you to read the actual truth behind the things you said above to help clear up any confusion in the future.

You can find the article at this URL: https://spikeybits.com/does-spikey-bits-steal-content

Thank You

Rob Baer

Founder & Managing Editor www.spikeybits.com

Co-Founder: Long War TV

Member of GAMA

I’d like to point out that he made an account to make this post. Under his real name.

Okay, so, yeah, that was a thing. I’m no lawyer, but making a legal threat like that, valid or not, could be killed with an Anti-SLAPP counter suit. I’m not going to explain what that is, but I encourage you to look it up, as it’s a useful thing to know about. The only edit made to the post was the removal of the user’s name, and some for formatting.

Now, personally, speaking for myself, this reaction makes me NOT want to support this person or their company. In my opinion, to react in such a vehement manner to A SINGLE POST shows that he has a very thin skin. And there was a delay of over nine months between the original post and his response. Also, in my opinion, reacting like this shows that there’s probably more than a little truth to the accusations. Now, I can’t prove it, nor am I trying to, as I’m offering an opinion on what was said, based solely what was said. It’s very slimy to react like this, in a public manner, to a single post. Threatening legal action is never okay, especially since about half of what was said looks like an opinion and rumor. When it comes to the accusation about the picture thing, that’s the only thing that seems a little slanderous, but hey, feel free to take people to court. I’m sure that if you’re right, you’ll prevail, right? Excuse me, my eyes rolled back a little too far from that one.

Threatening legal action over a single post is not something you want to do. It’s not a good look. It could be that there were other posts that were removed, but I don’t know. It doesn’t look like it, but I can’t say for sure.

Now, in the past, I’ve bought some bits from them, back when I played 40k. But I stopped playing for a lot of reasons. And I have no intention of returning to it because of Games Workshop’s litigious habits, in addition to many other problems I have with the company. Threatening to sue, or actually suing someone, is a good way to lose my business. Of course, since I’ve been away from GW and 40k, I haven’t read any of the articles (at least that I know) from Spikey Bits, but I sure as shit won’t be now.

To sum things up: Fuck you, Rob. Fuck your shitty website. Fuck your attitude. Fuck your little defensive blog post. And fuck your threats. That’s my OPINION of you. Based on one post. That’s enough to sour me on you. So, again, fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

Blast From The Past: ReZolution

Why is the future always terrible? Oh, wait, that’s because we’re people…

Have you ever found something and wished you had found it sooner? And known that it would have been great for you? For me, that’s ReZolution. I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s loop back around to this.

ReZolution is a miniatures game made by a company called Aberrant Games and was released in 2004. It’s a dark future cyberpunk-ish game, full of grit and grime and sexy outfits. It’s 2175 and the world is, in a word, fucked. Pollution has caused climate change and the seas have risen, Mars is being terraformed, and there’s even colonies around Alpha Centauri. But earth is in bad shape. A lot of governments have collapsed and reformed, with several corporations becoming nation-states themselves. Africa was decimated by a virus called Pale Horse. The entity that replaced the UN uses slave labor to mine the moon and Mars. At some point, AI and robots achieved sentience, had a rebellion, and now have a moon around Neptune. The Vatican, under a new name, even has a massive space station. Oh, and in addition to the massive internet infrastructure that requires hackers, there’s also people with psychic powers. 

 

In this game, there’s four major factions you can build crews from, and each one is unique and different. Not just in terms of game play, but also of who they are and what their goals are. While they’re mostly similar, with nominal leaders, squads of grunts, hackers, psychics, and heavy weapon folks. What differences there are, are based on who they play, along with their aesthetics. Let’s get started.

APAC is a major company that owns and controls most of Asia, as the company was once called the Asia Pacific company. Based out of what was once Japan, they have a very strong Japanese look to them, including the killer school girls. Their leaders are supernatural beings with massive psychic powers. Their main grunts are their Enforcers, who carry blades and pistols, sometimes two pistols as once. They have psychic nullifiers, called Numb Sisters, that have a Geisha look to them. There’s also the aforementioned killer schoolgirls. And a few other things. When it comes to how they’re suppose to play, they’re a mid range and close combat type force. Personally, of all the factions, I like these the most in terms of how they look.

Next up, we have the CSO or Central Security Organization, that’s one part military and one part police force. They’re the only “real” army left and let me just say, there’s some deeper commentary on the police these days, but I doubt they meant that at the time. Anyway, the CSO has a leader in the Marshals backed up with groups of Troopers, Peace Keepers, and Penal Legions. They’ve got Rangers, who are investigators, and the expected Medics and Engineers. If you do pick up this game and want the shooty group, this is the one for you. However, they’re also expensive in terms of points.

The next faction is the Ronin, who are the hired muscle of the various corporations. In fact, the other three factions can take a percentage of their units to balance them out. They have a leader, a second in command, hackers, psychics, punchers, shooters, heavy weapon people, and mechanics. Unlike the other factions, they don’t really have troops or groups to fill out their numbers. Each model is going to have a different role in terms of combat and other things. Visually, they have a more Road Warrior look, combined with a similar vibe of the APAC crews, but with even more skin showing.

The last major faction is the Dravani and they’re unique in a lot of ways. The Dravani are aliens that arrived on earth, centuries ago. The last survivors of a race that feeds on biological energy and can take the form of humans, along with massive psychic powers, they’re clearly the source of vampire myths on earth. Now, their race is in even worse shape but have a solid control over things on earth. Of course. Their history is long and complicated, but is really interesting. The short version of it is that earth isn’t really habitable for them, but they can mimic and feed on humans. As time as gone on, they’ve had several conflicts among themselves, further reducing their numbers, but they are now a (mostly) united group. And what a group they are. They’re the close combat group of the factions, using humans for basic troops, but having those that have failed them to be used as dangerous hunters and mutilated close combat fighters. Of course, their own butchers and monsters are also melee combat models.

The last group, while not being a faction in and of themselves, are the mercenaries. Really, these are previews of the factions they intended to have in expansions, as there’s a Cardinal and Nun from the not-Vatican, which seems to have been fleshed out into a faction in the only expansion this game got. There’s also an emissary of the Nile Empire, which I feel was supposed to be another faction that would have been introduced in full.

 

Okay, let’s have a talk about the rules. They’re pretty standard fare for the time, as this came out in 2004, which was around the same time as the 4^th edition of Warhammer 40k, and it shows. Thankfully, rather than rolling fist fulls of d6s, you roll 2d6 and add the stat needed. There’s stats for movement, shooting, close combat, a toughness like stat, and the stats for hacking and psychic powers, which not every model has.

When it comes to damage, things get interesting. Each weapon does a set number of d6s in damage, reduced by the target’s armor. For every roll that meets or beats the toughness stat of the target. As the model takes more damage, it suffers more penalties. There’s also different types of damage, beyond just ranged and melee, with each having different effects on different models. As this was also the heyday of Warhammer 40k, there’s also templates for weapons. There’s blast templates in 2/3/5 inches, a flame template with different range marks on it, and a template for smoke grenades. Honestly, if I had found this game while I was still playing 40k, I would have been over the moon for this stuff. Now, however, it show its age, as you can’t really find those templates easily and they put them in the middle of the damn book, so making a copy is a pain.

Another thing that show its age is how there’s units in the game, but only a few, that still require unit coherency. Add to this the fact that they wanted a 300 point game, at the small side, up 1,000 points, it feels like they wanted to make a skirmish game, but didn’t know how to do it, and took too much from 40k and the size of those games. The fact that units have morale stats and have to make tests only makes it more obvious.

When you get right down to it, this game is one that could have been a well known one. If it had come out a little bit later, and with a few changes, it could have been something we talk about in the same breath as Malifaux, Warmachine/Hordes, and the Grave games. The rules are solid, if a bit dated, but the real problem comes from what the creators were trying to do, make something that was near the scale of Warhammer 40k, with touches of skirmish game rules. If they did a new edition, or perhaps a continuation of the original, with a focus towards proper (or current) skirmish game rules, this could really take off. A unique and interesting setting, several interesting factions, and a unique aesthetic to how the minis look makes for a great combination in today’s wargaming environment, especially with new resin minis, or even just STL files, could make some waves. 

 

Personally, I’m glad I ended up with a copy of this game. I really like the art design by Sophie Ross, and how that’s reflected in the designs of the models. The only faction they didn’t seem to have designed is the CSO, making for a bit of clashing visuals. Sure, it’s very fetish fuel type art, but I think it fits (and I like it, so sue me) because fetishization is very much a part of the cyberpunk genre. I even picked up some ACAP models, as I found some good deals and I liked the designs. They’ll work for something like Rogue Stars and StarGrave easily enough.

If you think this is something you’d like, several models can be found online, but they should be easy enough to proxy. The rules can be found on Wargame Vault for $12, and even the expansion is there. Maybe I’ll pick it up. Maybe not. We’ll see what happens.

Let's Talk: About The "Grave" Games

Hello and welcome back to Let’s Talk. Today, I wanted to take some time to talk about the FrostGrave/Ghost Archipelago/StarGrave games and system. This is going to be a bit negative but I do want to say that I really like Ghost Archipelago and I plan on getting in some StarGrave games at some point.
So, why don’t I love the X-Grave system? What is it about it that makes me not enjoy it as much as others seem to? I think there’s a few reasons that I can point to. 

 

Powers Cost Health:

You see, I’m okay with this for the Heritors in Ghost Archipelago. For whatever reason, I think it fits, and the thing is that you don’t HAVE to use your Heritor Powers. I’ve always looked at them as something you pull out when you need to. Need to stop a model from getting too close while you snag some treasure? It might be worth the risk. Have you finally worn down that enemy Heritor or big bad monster and need to make sure to put it down? There’s a power for that and it’s probably worth it. But what is it about the spells in FrostGrave that I don’t like? Well, it’s because you lose health if you fail, and only if you fail, further punishing you for using your magic. Magic is dicey in FrostGrave, which has never really jived with me, because it’s a game about wizards. You’re suppose to be throwing around spells and stuff. That’s the name of the game. And yet, magic is so risky, and wizards have far lower health than Heritors, it makes me not want to use spells. And yet, you need to use spells to gain more XP, so you can improve your characters. And you need to improve your characters so you can lesser that risk.

When it comes to StarGrave, I think we have the best the system has been, as not every power costs health, just the more powerful ones. I like this, as I can keep those powerful abilities in my back pocket, so to speak, and choose to take that risk when I need to, not every time I use anything. I know that this all boils down to Risk Versus Reward but it doesn’t feel like that with the original FrostGrave. It’s also hard to swallow when you can’t give your main characters healing items to start with, so you can off-set the cost of health you have to pay.

 

Lack Of Customization and Main Character Focus:

When it comes to this one, it’s not that you can’t customize your leaders, it’s that you can’t customize anything else. The game is completely focused on around the main character, the leader of your group, and offers a little bit of stuff for the second in command, but it depends on the game. In FrostGrave, your apprentice is an interior copy of your wizard and the only things you can really change is the gear they carry. Ghost Archipelago is better, as there’s tons of difference between Heritor powers and Warden spells, making for a much more customized core group. StarGrave is good, too, in that same way, and you can really go all own with filling gaps in what you want to do. However, that’s all you can really customize. For example, I’d love to give my troopers shotguns in StarGrave. It just seems cool to me, to have a bunch of dudes with shotguns. But I can’t do that. I can’t even find a single crew member that starts with a shotgun. Those are for Captains and XO only, when you start. As the systems are random, you can’t really buy them, either. And that’s another thing that factors into all of this. You can’t fully equip anyone exactly how you want. Want to give your leader a healing potion? Well, better hope you find one. Want to have a crewmen start with a different weapon? Too bad.

And this factors into my next point, that the games are entirely focused on your main character and their second in command. It’s all about them. You don’t even have to make rolls for the free crewmen or warband members if they get removed during a game, unless they’re holding something special, and then it’s really to see if you lose that thing. And that’s what sucks. You don’t want to invest in these “lesser people” because the game makes them disposable. They’re just bubblewrap for your leader and second in command, to protect them and to help them accomplish their goals of stealing treasure. The best way to put it is that the game feels a like like chess, with your King and Queen, the various specialist crew being the Bishops and Knights and the like, while your free crew are the Pawns. Honestly, if this is how the game was presented, I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with it.

Before you say “well, you can play other games for that customization” I’d like to point out that many of those games are not as mechanically easy as the X-Grave system(s) and they’re usually nowhere near as popular.

 

Too Many Missions/Scenarios/Etc:

This one is a minor complaint but it feels like every time I look at one of the expansions for the game, there’s a ton of new missions. Like, six or more. And the core books come with a lot of them, I think seven is the lowest from Ghost Archipelago. And almost all of these missions require specialized terrain, models, or something else. There’s very few more basic missions, ones that don’t require complex terrain or buying more minis. Give us something more than missions. Give us new rules, or new ways to play the same missions we are already prepared for. New missions feels a little cheap. I don’t mind campaign books, because you’re going to need new missions for that, but I do feel like there’s a push to sell more minis to people with the missions. And that can be okay but when your first campaign calls for EIGHT of a new monster, I can see what you’re doing. It just feels like the only creativity is being drawn into making more missions, to the exclusion of anything else. I do understand that it’s not easy to come up with things that don’t unbalance the game or require a lot of play testing, as opposed to just cooking up a new mission. It just feels like that’s all we really get from the expansions and the like.

FrostGrave 2nd Edition has 20 core missions, while Ghost Archipelago has 8. With each expansion of FrostGrave providing at least six new missions, that's an insane amount of missions to play. Sure, most of the ones I have include campaigns or mini campaigns, but that means that you end up with so many missions, you're probably never going to play them all.

 A Lack Of Diversity:

No, I don’t mean diversity in humans, as that can easily be solved with paint jobs and buying minis from different companies. No, what I mean is that there’s no rules for dwarves, elves, or anything else. And that’s a shame. There’s so much you can do with this, so much that can improve your world but it’s not there. And it sucks. It is a bit of a mixed bag, as it does make it easy to just grab any mini you like and throw it on the board. But it also makes it easy to model for advantage. For example, I got a decent group of Mouselings that I could use to make a Warband for FrostGrave. Since they’re so small, trying to hit them at range is going to be hard. So, an easy way to cheat. Or at least abuse the system. And adding in rules for different races could be a great thing to work into supplements and make them a little more interesting.

I also feel like StarGrave could really have fun with new races, as you could give players that ability to make races, not just pick them. You could really let people match their collection or make crews that have a lot more flavor to them.

And it’s not even the humanoid races that are out there, there’s things like centaurs, who are going to require a bit of some work to fit into the rules. But they could add a lot of flavor to a group. And there’s a lot of other races that can do the same. While we have rules for having dogs, and some other summoned or manufactured things, there’s a lot of other animals that we could have be part of crews.

With all of this said, I do like playing Ghost Archipelago, and do want to give StarGrave a real chance. I’d even like to run through the Thaw of the Lich King campaign for FrostGrave with a friend or two. So, I don’t want you to think that I’m coming from this of a place of hate or dislike. I do like the ideas, I just wish it was better. And, yes, I’ve been working on some modifications to the games to fit my tastes. It just feels like there could have been improved on its own.

Painted Minis, Part Four: Return of Warhammer 40,000

 That's right, we're doing something related to Warhammer 40,000. While I no longer play the game, I do still have a pile of minis laying around. Some of these were painted years ago and some were painted not too long ago. These are some of my Chaos Space Marines, one of the two armies I have. Of course, as they're not based on the warbands in the books, I do have some canon in my head about them. I'll share that if I ever return to anything related to Warhammer 40k... But let's get on to the pictures.

First up, we have the some renegade Space Marines. As I'm sure you'll notice, they're just Assault On Black Reach marines that have been slightly modified using some CSM vehicle sprue bits. I hope you'll figure out what Chaos God they're slowly starting to worship...

Next up, we have some test models I've been working out for my Slaansh Marines. I've only finished a handful as painting that color up from black has been killing my will to live. I also need to paint up all the shoulder pads and backpacks and the mere though of that fills with a dread beyond words...

 

Finally, we have a modified AoBR Dreadnought that has been converted to Chaos, again using the CSM vehicle sprue. The paint scheme is for my Tzeentch marines. I don't know when I'll get to them but I really like the colors I chose for them. And, yes, I know that Chaos calls Dreadnoughts something else. This is me giving a fuck.

And that's all for now. We'll see when I end up with more to show off...

Painted Minis, Round Three: The Search For Talent

 Well, it's been a very long time since I've done one of these. And I actually have some painted stuff to put up here. That was painted recently. I know, I'm as shocked as you are. Let's get started, shall we? Oh, fair warning, there's some boobies in some of these. If you're offended by tiny little breasts, you have problems.

First up, were have some Reaper minis I'm using for a Ghost Archipelago crew I call the Amazons. Most of the models are from the Savage Beauty boxed set.

As you can see, not all of them are finished yet but I will be working on them when I have the time. I've also been experimenting with skin tone but it's still a work in progress. When they're finished, I'll be back with more pictures of them.

Next up, we have another Ghost Archipelago crew, this one I call the Warlord. The Warden was originally from the same Savage Beauty set but I found another mini I really liked instead. My story behind this crew is that they're from a land closer to FrostGrave, which is why they have better weapons and armor.

This crew might also be used for a FrostGrave warband as well but I'd need to pick some different models for it.

Now, we move away from fantasy stuff to some more modern stuff, Super Heroes!
I've been slowly building up a bunch of models I can use for super heroes but finding a system for them hasn't been easy. I recently downloaded some that I need to look over but I hope against hope that Osprey will drop one of their "bluebooks" with a Bring Your Own Minis super hero game.

Figuring out a final minis to make this a five-person team wasn't easy, as there's only four elements in the West. The middle model, in my head canon, has electrical powers, sticking with the elemental theme. I call this team the Five Furies. I plan on using them for a Perilous Tales game in the future.

Speaking of Perilous Tales, here's a group you might remember from the game of that I played a while back. I finally got some paint put on them.

Sadly, I haven't finished them all. And I changed the color schemes because, let's face it, I already cheat enough with black clothes and stuff. Instead, I drew from different sources of inspiration beyond Sucker Punch. I really wanted them to stand out on the table and I think they will.

Next up, we have a bunch of demons, one of which I posted before. There's aren't heroes, they're villains. Trying to find a group unique or interesting models wasn't easy.

If you don't recognize the one on the motorcycle, it's from the original Reaper Bones Kickstarter. I almost went for the nude one, but I didn't want to pay $25 more. Now that I'm going for the "metal album cover" paint scheme, I'm glad I didn't go for the nude one. And the last one is really suppose to be a troll but I needed another demon.

Our last group is another set of heroes and includes a mini that isn't from Reaper. However, they're also not finished. But I wanted to show how things were going with them.

That last one is the one that I really want to finish. I was going to go for a black and blue color scheme but I wanted to do something different. While Iron Man has a yellow and red color scheme, I wanted gold and red, to make it a little different.

And that's all we've got for now. I do have some more that I've panted and photographed but this one was already a lot. So, come around next month and find out what turns up.