HoNoToGroABeMo Day Thirty-One: It Is Done
6 years ago
1:59 PM
A couple of interesting items graced my mailbox the last couple of weeks.
I recently bought and played Battleground: Fantasy Warfare from the Woodbridge Game Parlor as Garrett and I had a long weekend with just us fellas, and I wanted to have something new to play around with. The game looked pretty good, albeit generic, from what little I'd seen from GENCON reports, etc. As I posted earlier, the game is a pretty good time and a very tactical oriented 'miniatures with cards' approach. I bought just the little basic starter decks for Humans (Men of Hawkshold) and Undead. I was impressed enough after a couple of plays to go out and purchase the two follow up expansions, the Human and Undead Reinforcement Packs.
Much of these decks is "More of the same" .. units in the starter set but many more of them. Each reinforcment deck introduces a few new units-- in the case of humanity, Knights and Pikemen, both specialists (the Knights can charge, the Pikemen can defend). The main benefit is the sheer number of units added on to the deck mix:
Bowmen (5/7)
Great Swordsmen (3/6)
Heavy Infantry (3/5)
Light Cavalry (3/4)
Longbowmen (3/4)
Militia (6/8)
Peasant Mob (5/8)
Scouts (3/5)
Spearmen (4/6)
Swordsmen (5/7)
Knights (4/4)*
Pikemen (6/6)*
(the number to the right of the slash is the total number of this troop type adding in the the starter set-- the asterix indicates NEW units.)
The Undead add two new ones, a swarm of rats and a very twisted giant catapault (literally, it uses half of a dead giant)
Abomination (3/5)
Death Knights (3/4)
Ghoul Pack (4/6)
Skeleton Bowmen (5/8)
Skeleton Cavalry (4/6)
Skeleton Horde (5/7)
Skeleton Spearmen (4/)
Skeleton Trolls (3/4)
Zombies (6/8)
Zombie Trolls (3/4)
Swarm of Rats (5/5)*
Giant Catapault (4/4)*
As you can see by the "before and after" numbers, getting an expansion pack is almost a must. You are far more flexible with an army that has so many options.
One of the better parts of the expansion deck is the ADVANCED RULES BOOKLET. There's a lot of straight miniatures stuff in there; mostly rules for terrain and
battlefield obstacles. which goes a really long way to making this a true miniatures ruleset. I would suggest looking for some top-down terrain tiles for expanding your battlefield with. Dewayne Aginn's truly wonderful HEROQUEST site has a great page loaded with freely available terrain tiles designed for use with that game.
Many of them are designed for outdoor terrain, as well. Something to look into.
As I've said from the git-go, the game needs some magickal stuff. I may end up writing my own system or modifying some of the material from my ancient ITTY BITTY BATTLES GAME to create some battle magic for this game. By the way, I just ordered the Orcs and Orc expansion pack, I have to admit I am grudingly getting hooked on this system.
I just spent the evening putting all my Battleground Fantasy Warfare cards into deck protector sleeves while I was watching the stunning season end of ROME tonight. The "Ultra Pro" brand fits the card EXACTLY and appers to work with a dry erase marker or crayon. They also come with multicolor backs for handy color coding of armies— black for undead, pale blue for humans, green for orcs and gobbos, etc. I found that one of those plastic hinged "Deck armor" boxes is good for the starter set and all of the extra expansion troops, but you'll need another one to hold all your command cards. The series may not have magick yet but it surely is starting to look like a real miniatures rule set.
I bought Atlas Games' Gloom over a year ago and generally liked it a lot.. it's got a "fun in a seriously Edward Goreyesque way" feel to it. Like what life would be like if life in the Adaams Family was made into a card game. I've always been interested in Gloom's transparent card mechanic, which is something truly unique in gaming.
For the big blurb on this, go to the Atlas Games Gloom Webpage
At the time, though, I got very fed up with GLOOM, very fast. The earlier printing of the inks on top of acetate cards was very flimsy, and after ten plays or so many of my cards were unreadable. I also was sent a deck missing some key characters, making one "family" unplayable. The mechanics are kind of repetitive with a few other players though the game will certainly shine like a beacon with the right crowd of overwrought drama queen goth players. Or, as in my case, people who like to goof on said people...
So I fired off a terse and somewhat ungenerous (for me) missive to Atlas lecturing them about quality control, and threw the game on the shelf, not to be played again. Months later (just recently) I received an email from Atlas "Better late than never" Games customer service trying to close out the email. In consolation for taking so long to answer my email, Atlas sent me a replacment deck of the main game and the new expansion deck, totally gratis (that's some NICE customer service...)
Allegedly they have 'solved' the printing problem, we'll see. I havent' played with the expansion deck yet, but from the description the rules have been expanded greatly, with more deaths, new locations and a new family of victims. I'm looking forward to giving GLOOM another go, it certainly appeals to the comedic side of schadenfreude...
Battleground Fantasy Warfare Expansion Packs
I recently bought and played Battleground: Fantasy Warfare from the Woodbridge Game Parlor as Garrett and I had a long weekend with just us fellas, and I wanted to have something new to play around with. The game looked pretty good, albeit generic, from what little I'd seen from GENCON reports, etc. As I posted earlier, the game is a pretty good time and a very tactical oriented 'miniatures with cards' approach. I bought just the little basic starter decks for Humans (Men of Hawkshold) and Undead. I was impressed enough after a couple of plays to go out and purchase the two follow up expansions, the Human and Undead Reinforcement Packs.
Much of these decks is "More of the same" .. units in the starter set but many more of them. Each reinforcment deck introduces a few new units-- in the case of humanity, Knights and Pikemen, both specialists (the Knights can charge, the Pikemen can defend). The main benefit is the sheer number of units added on to the deck mix:
Bowmen (5/7)
Great Swordsmen (3/6)
Heavy Infantry (3/5)
Light Cavalry (3/4)
Longbowmen (3/4)
Militia (6/8)
Peasant Mob (5/8)
Scouts (3/5)
Spearmen (4/6)
Swordsmen (5/7)
Knights (4/4)*
Pikemen (6/6)*
(the number to the right of the slash is the total number of this troop type adding in the the starter set-- the asterix indicates NEW units.)
The Undead add two new ones, a swarm of rats and a very twisted giant catapault (literally, it uses half of a dead giant)
Abomination (3/5)
Death Knights (3/4)
Ghoul Pack (4/6)
Skeleton Bowmen (5/8)
Skeleton Cavalry (4/6)
Skeleton Horde (5/7)
Skeleton Spearmen (4/)
Skeleton Trolls (3/4)
Zombies (6/8)
Zombie Trolls (3/4)
Swarm of Rats (5/5)*
Giant Catapault (4/4)*
As you can see by the "before and after" numbers, getting an expansion pack is almost a must. You are far more flexible with an army that has so many options.
One of the better parts of the expansion deck is the ADVANCED RULES BOOKLET. There's a lot of straight miniatures stuff in there; mostly rules for terrain and
battlefield obstacles. which goes a really long way to making this a true miniatures ruleset. I would suggest looking for some top-down terrain tiles for expanding your battlefield with. Dewayne Aginn's truly wonderful HEROQUEST site has a great page loaded with freely available terrain tiles designed for use with that game.
Many of them are designed for outdoor terrain, as well. Something to look into.
As I've said from the git-go, the game needs some magickal stuff. I may end up writing my own system or modifying some of the material from my ancient ITTY BITTY BATTLES GAME to create some battle magic for this game. By the way, I just ordered the Orcs and Orc expansion pack, I have to admit I am grudingly getting hooked on this system.
I just spent the evening putting all my Battleground Fantasy Warfare cards into deck protector sleeves while I was watching the stunning season end of ROME tonight. The "Ultra Pro" brand fits the card EXACTLY and appers to work with a dry erase marker or crayon. They also come with multicolor backs for handy color coding of armies— black for undead, pale blue for humans, green for orcs and gobbos, etc. I found that one of those plastic hinged "Deck armor" boxes is good for the starter set and all of the extra expansion troops, but you'll need another one to hold all your command cards. The series may not have magick yet but it surely is starting to look like a real miniatures rule set.
Gloom Replacement Deck and Gloom Expansion Pack
I bought Atlas Games' Gloom over a year ago and generally liked it a lot.. it's got a "fun in a seriously Edward Goreyesque way" feel to it. Like what life would be like if life in the Adaams Family was made into a card game. I've always been interested in Gloom's transparent card mechanic, which is something truly unique in gaming.
For the big blurb on this, go to the Atlas Games Gloom Webpage
At the time, though, I got very fed up with GLOOM, very fast. The earlier printing of the inks on top of acetate cards was very flimsy, and after ten plays or so many of my cards were unreadable. I also was sent a deck missing some key characters, making one "family" unplayable. The mechanics are kind of repetitive with a few other players though the game will certainly shine like a beacon with the right crowd of overwrought drama queen goth players. Or, as in my case, people who like to goof on said people...
So I fired off a terse and somewhat ungenerous (for me) missive to Atlas lecturing them about quality control, and threw the game on the shelf, not to be played again. Months later (just recently) I received an email from Atlas "Better late than never" Games customer service trying to close out the email. In consolation for taking so long to answer my email, Atlas sent me a replacment deck of the main game and the new expansion deck, totally gratis (that's some NICE customer service...)
Allegedly they have 'solved' the printing problem, we'll see. I havent' played with the expansion deck yet, but from the description the rules have been expanded greatly, with more deaths, new locations and a new family of victims. I'm looking forward to giving GLOOM another go, it certainly appeals to the comedic side of schadenfreude...
