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.