November 05, 2013

Dead Games and New(ish) Games

Part 1: More New Sh...er Stuff

Two more packages showed up last week. Both unassuming little parcels shipping via Royal Mail. With all the Kickstarter campaigns I've supported lately they could have been any number of things. It turns out these are the shipments for season 3 of Dreadball and the one and only package for Empire of the Dead: Requiem.

I've had a chance to go through the Dreadball stuff in detail and everything I ordered was included minus a few extras. The packing manifest and included note explained why they were missing and I'm fine with it. I know they'll be sent out to me as soon as possible. Besides, I have so much Dreadball stuff to work on now the extra few missing bits won't even be noticed for a few months at the very least!

The very next day another box was waiting. Once again I was stumped as to what it could be...there didn't seem to be a return address on it anywhere. I did find the little sticker on the side after I'd cut into the packing tape, now excited to look through all of my new Empire of the Dead figures.

At first glance everything seems in order, although I'll need to open up all the packages to ensure everything's inside. It's nice to get a package that actually has some retail-looking packaging for a change. As cool as it is to receive buckets of figures, sometimes a little logo here or there makes it feel more special. I guess all those marketing folks who create logos and packaging designs are onto something after all! In the end though, I know I'm more interested in the contents than the packaging, so whatever!

I was going to take photos of this stuff, but who wants to see pics of unmarked baggies full of model parts?!

Part 2: The Old-But-New-To-Me-Stuff

Less than a month after my dive off the deep end into Tannhauser I've apparently proven myself wrong about not needing to buy more stuff. Need isn't correct, it's definitely WANT. I should just admit the fact that I'm totally addicted to collecting tiny little people & vehicle toys and lock myself in a room with no internet access, no phone and no windows. At least if I did that I wouldn't keep finding more useless shit that I want, but totally don't need.

I got into miniature games with Warhammer 40k, just before 5th edition came out. I bought the starter box and some paints, learned that my one tactical squad was about 10% of a required army and waited until the Black Reach box was released to buy more. With those added Space Marines I actually had almost enough toys to play small battles with my Obsidian Fists.

Around the same time as this was happening Rackham Entertainment was releasing their two new pre-painted games AT-43 and Confrontation: Age of Ragnarok. I'd seen some of the Confrontation figures on clearance but not AT-43, until last week.

Some of gamers on a board for local events had been discussing AT-43 so I looked it up and really thought the figures looked good. They were amenable to showing me the game and I really dug it. The figures and books are excellent looking and the fluff and artwork are really nicely done. At first glance, the game rules are also quite solid.

Back in 2009 and 2010, both of these games were essentially on clearance and could be had for cheap. Sadly now that I'm interested in acquiring some they've become more difficult to find seem to cost retail prices again. That doesn't mean I won't go questing after some, it will just temper how much I buy and how quickly. I can see how a lot of folks would have been priced out of the game when it was originally released as it can be very pricey to build a good size army.


One of the aforementioned local folks was super kind and gave me an excellent starter UNA army. I'm pretty sure the base points for them would be around 2000AP, and with added weapons and commanders I'm pretty sure could scale up to 3000 no problem. So a huge thanks to Rick for those spiffy toys!



With a very nice UNA army I needed someone for them to fight. Sentry Box had a few Cogs items available (for around 30% discount). I picked up the Army box and three hero boxes, as well as the Operation: Frostbite campaign box, and a large addition for the UNA. It was fairly pricey even with the discount. However, I've got another new game to play with some good sized armies, and will continue looking for Therian, Red Blok and Karman armies to add to my newest collection.


2 comments:

Simon Quinton said...

Lots going on then. How big do you think your leadpile has just got? Mines now quivering around the 120-140 figure mark as a guess

Obsidian3D said...

Oh if only it were so low. I think the Reaper Bones 1, is around 120 all by itself. I honestly try not to think about it and just enjoy having all the options to paint whatever my mind wants. I'll be posting up a fourth Dreadball team as soon as I can get some pictures done.