Thinking Outside the Box

Since I returned last weekend I haven't really done much hobby stuff, as my time has been occupied by holiday preparations, band rehearsals, work, and being sick. I haven't let that icky 'real world' stuff keep me completely away from the realm of geekdom however. On Thursday night I made the trek down to Trilogy to play some games with Uncle Mike and James. It was their regular monthly night for Strange Aeons . Rather than just play a straight up game of Strange Aeons though, James and I ended up doing a play test game of Kulten  instead. I was going to pit my lowly snake man cult up against his mighty Cobra army...but after looking at the massive point difference, we decided to try one of the Alert the Authorities  options instead. So I opted for having my cult sit  out, and an elite Threshold team worth a whopping 60 points took their place. Long story short James was able to achieve victory with minimal damages. We found a possible rule that needs some tweaking ...

Just returned home from a 4-day conference for work. Tons of information and lots to do now that I'm back, both at home and at the office. I'm actually glad to be back home, even if it is snowy, cold and nothing at all like Honolulu. Yes that's right feel sorry for me damn it! Actually I wouldn't mind a little sympathy. Less than two hours off the plane and some infernal plague attacked my immune system and I'm now sick. I'm actually going to blame the air conditioning at the conference for that though... It was really cold in the meeting rooms, but 32 C or more outside on average. So I was alternating between sweating or freezing my ass off for those four days. Top if off with a lengthy dunk in the Pacific for some snorkeling, and then not sleeping on the flights home...I'm not really surprised that I'm sick! Even under the weather I still soldiered on and went to Trilogy as I had promised, to run some demo games of DreadBall . The reception was pos...

Canada Prepares For Crackdown on BitTorrent Movie Pirates -  http://www.globalnews.ca/pages/story.aspx?id=6442761468 Have a read over the article and see what you think. I'll wait. Right, welcome back...I promise I'll be brief. While I agree that downloading music and movies is illegal, what I don't agree with is ISPs being essentially forced to provide their clients personal information to seemingly whoever asks for it. I don't know the legality of it, but it seems to me that the whole policy could be abused should it be overseen by the wrong people, or perhaps seen just as a way to prop up sagging revenues. Does the whole thing violate any of the service providers own privacy policies? What about any constitutional rights or laws? What constitutes 'downloading'? Is streaming OK? Is an IP address alone enough to convict someone on? Drop a comment below and let me know what you  think!

For the last few weeks I've been trying to decrease the number of items on my painting table, without a lot of success. That's probably because I keep adding more stuff to the backlog than I actually clear off! I've got several pieces of scenery and markers, a 'hero' model for SuperSystem which will also serve in my Nazi Death Cult for Kulten , plus the Lycaon and Vampire starter boxes for Empire of the Dead sitting up there. There are also a ton of primed figures-in-waiting up on top of the fridge (to keep them out of reach from both the cat and curious little-people fingers). Sunday turned out to be a lazy sleep-in-then-stay-home day, which was pretty nice as they don't seem to happen terribly often. I did a few things around the house that required doing, watched some TV and then continued work on a few things from the miniature projects to-do list. As you may have seen in my previous post I also received a large batch of stuff for a  Stargate  ...

Another box full of unpainted metal goodness showed up at the post office for me yesterday. After getting it home and dumping it all on the table (then cleaning up the resultant mess of green packing peanuts) here's what I found. What you see there is an assortment of the officially-produced 28mm Stargate miniatures by Phoenix Icons in (or around) 2007 or 2008. I ordered them from Cold War Miniatures in the UK and they arrived two weeks to the day after. They had quick service, nicely packed and shipped, and there was also a friendly little handwritten note inside saying thanks. In case you can't tell by looking at the full-size image here's a run down of what I picked up: 2x Stargate & DHD 1x Jaffa First Prime 2x Skull-capped Jaffa 4-pack 2x Serpent Guard Jaffa 4-pack 2x Hawk Guard Jaffa 4-pack 2x Jaffa Heavy Cannon w/ gunner 1x SG-1 Team (O'Neill, Teal'c, Jackson, Carter and Mitchell) 1x SG-9 Team (5 generic SGC dudes armed w/ P90s) In...

Spent some time this week out and about...gittin' me sum culture! Well, CULTURE depends on your opinion on the matter I suppose. Sunday night Wes and I headed down to the Palomino Smokehouse to catch Jim Byrnes play some old-time blues and country tunes. I've had the good fortune of seeing Jim play a few times before (which I believe I wrote about on this very blog). The crowd was pretty thin, which was disappointing to me, but didn't seem to phase Jim at all. His regular partner Steve Dawson wasn't able to join him, but the fellow he brought along to help out was no slouch either! In between sets I made sure to go pick up a copy of Jim's new CD, I Hear The Wind in the Wires , chat with him for a few minutes and get a signature. The show was really entertaining and both Wes and I thoroughly enjoyed it. You can easily see just how much Jim loves what he does when he's on stage, because he's smiling the whole time. I haven't had a chance to sit down w...

I've always been the kind of person who has too many things on the go. Or at least that's what people often tell me, wondering how I can ever keep it all straight, or finish anything. The truth is that, for me, I need to have all those things happening so that I can keep myself entertained. I almost wrote focused  instead of entertained, but even I'm not so self-deluded to think that I possess much in the way of focus when it comes to my hobbies. Obsessive perhaps, but not focused. You see, I know I have too many hobbies and the reality is that I don't have time for all of them. Nowhere near really, but that's part of the appeal. For some reason, the way my brain is wired, I will zero in on some activity or concept for a length of time, produce some interesting or cool stuff (yep, aren't I modest), and then move on to something else. For the past 6~7 months I've been pretty firmly rooted in working on miniatures and terrain building. However, I regularl...

Last week Uncle Mike and James made their regular monthly visit to Trilogy , despite the awful weather we were having. I was the only player to show up (which is not unusual), so we ran through a few play test games of Kulten . I was playing with an unpainted army, and these are play test games, so there are no photos...sorry folks. The first game was a "chance encounter" between my Nazi Death Cult and James' Cobra troopers. I rolled five of my cultists onto the table and James got a measly three. A few bad moves by me allowed James to take out three of my figures, dropping me to below 50% of my starting members and won him the game. In the post-game phase I was able to roll up skills on both of my surviving cultists, which worked out really well for me, and I didn't end up with any lasting or terrible injuries to worry about. Just a note however, that James' Cobra army/cult is really cool looking. He's done a great job converting all kinds of stuff, ...

I recently picked up two new additions for my gaming shelf and had a chance to try both games out yesterday. The first one is Eaten By Zombies: In Cahoots! . This is a stand-alone box with enough cards to be played as a two-player game, or added in to the core game to expand it up to six players. We played it on its own with two players. The artwork and card design is the same level and quality as the base game. Thematic, lots of colours and nicely done overall. Unfortunately, also like the base game, In Cahoots!  still suffers from rampant spelling, grammar and general editing errors; both in the card text and the included rule sheet. In fact, there is one error on the rule sheet that is SO bad that a new player to the game would end up playing a fight scenario completely wrong. There is also one instance in the rule sheet where the name of the game itself is spelled incorrectly. This kind of poor quality control really shows a lack of care and I personally find it extre...

Now I do have to admit that I've strayed a little bit (fine...a LOT) since I put out my "What Should I Paint Next?" survey a few months ago, but I haven't forgotten about the  Pulp City  starter boxes that were chosen by my readers. Yep, that's right...thanks to all three of you out there that voted! When I received all my Pulp City figures (and rule book) I was really excited. It was a huge box of toys and the price had been a really, really good deal from a fellow over on Lead Adventure Forums . Unfortunately after going through all the figures I found an even dozen of the models that were supposed to be included were not. The cards for the figures were evidence of that. I was told several times that they had been shipped but as of my last inquiry, over a month ago now, I haven't received anything, nor a response to my email. It's a real shame because Nate seemed like a nice guy. However at this point I feel like something not-quite-right went on a...

Nov 2,  1922 From: Carl Selinger, Commanding Field Agent To: Director Silver, Calgary Field Office RE: Case File SA-121031-tDD Director, All Hallows' Eve conjures up image of ghouls and demons, or dark supernatural forces for most folk. While they are right to be afraid of those things, I'm happy to say that the world is safe little while longer. Threshold intelligence reports proved correct. As we had suspected a leak from our recent difficulty in keeping our ciphers secure, the false report that we tendered paid off and my team was able to follow the trail. The artifacts that were stolen during our operation on case file SA-120816-RtA were indeed being used to power a nefarious doomsday device. Our adversaries were obviously hoping to go unnoticed, but vague reports of heavy vehicles and strange sounds from the locals helped us pinpoint a forested area west of Calgary near the hamlet of Cremona, Alta. As twilight began to take hold my team found this ...

Recently I scaled back my weekly VS System stuff to once a month, and yet people still didn't bother to show up for that. I organize (or try to) near-weekly game nights at my house, and again most of the time the folks I invite can't seem bothered to reply, or don't always show up even if they do reply. I've got board games, card games and miniatures all over the place, most of which I know to be great fun, and yet I can't seem to convince many people to actually sit down and play games with me. Now to be clear, I'm not painting everyone I know with this brush as there are a few exceptions. However, I wanted to set the stage for what I'm talking about here with some context for you folks that are not local to me. So these sort of things have gotten me thinking about what makes games actually fun. Is it the rules, the components, the theme, the gameplay, the other players, or some other nebulous concept? Obviously in some cases such as a card game l...

So things have been pretty exciting on the miniature gaming front for me recently. First off the DreadBall campaign recently finished and the survey was sent out by Mantic shortly afterward. I had already pledged for all the extras I thought I'd need and filled my survey out quickly. I did end up adding a few more things but missed two of the MVP figures because I didn't realize they weren't included in the Striker package. I'm sure I can pick them up at a later time easily enough should I desperately decide I need them. There have been some preliminary conversations between myself and the folks of my gaming shop of choice (Trilogy Gaming Club) about DreadBall as well. We've made some plans for demoing the game at an upcoming Blood Bowl tournament; to be followed up by two different league nights. Originally I had thought there would just be one event weekly. After talking about it however, it looks like we'll try doing two events per week. The one I'll be...

When I started testing the Kulten beta rules I thought it would be fun to put together a "Weird War" style list using some Nazi troopers, a mad scientist and some zombies. I had already picked up a really cool squad of Nazi Gestapo troopers and a leader from Bob Murch's Pulp Figures line. The leader came in a pack with a scientist figure, and I had dozens of zombie miniatures floating around so in reality I was already all set to go. I used the Strange Aeons rules for human cultists to equip my troopers and their leader. The resulting six profiles were a nice even 25 points. The mad scientist and his batch of test zombies worked out perfectly at 15 points to round out the 40 points starting cult size. Since these models weren't properly painted, I only used them once in a test game. They won that game and the list was a lot of fun to play, so I've been itching to use them again ever since. I do hope to finish painting them shortly after Halloween, which is the...

I've been asking around for a set of rules to play Weird War type scenario skirmish games with lately, and one of the suggestions I received was to try Flying Lead , which is based on the Song of Blades and Heroes  engine by Ganesha Games . I had never heard of the system or the publisher so I dug around a bit and found that there was a new edition of  Song of Blades and Heroes  released in September. A few moments, and $8 later, I was reading through the PDF book and wondering why I'd never heard of it before. The reason I decided on this book, rather than one of the themed books was pretty simple: other than Hordes , I don't own any skirmish rules for fantasy gaming...so I wanted that one. The book isn't very long but provides detailed, yet simple, rules for movement, melee and ranged combat, morale tests, larger scale battles, scenarios and campaign play. At the end of the book are several pages containing a very comprehensive list of profiles for all kin...

Did a little previewing last week. First up was our monthly Strange Aeons night at Trilogy. Uncle Mike and James were there with some newly made terrain pieces when I arrived. As soon as I sat down Uncle Mike nudged a binder at me, "check in there and make sure I spelled your name right" he said. Opening it up I found the printer-proof of Shocking Tales of Madness & Mayhem , cool! Inside the upcoming book are three different Black Dossier adventures, the conclusion the "The Council of Thirteen" and tons of new Lurker profiles. Plus the book looks excellent. I can't wait to receive my copy as soon as it arrives. Mike and I also had time to play a game. I ran a Lurker list comprised of a Winged Nightmare, Cult Leader and two measly .22 pistol-armed cultists. I ended up losing, but was able to drag one Agent off the board and kill another. Mike's character survived but will be in pretty tough shape after this adventure. I'm sure I'll get paid b...

Last Thursday was supposed to be our VS System night but it ended up being only William and I. Neither of us seemed too concerned about playing so we chatted while he sorted through a newly arrived package from Greater Than Games . Seems he had gotten in on the Kickstarter campaign they had a while back to help with the enhanced edition of Sentinels of the Multiverse . Last year I introduced Sentinels to my group to pretty much universal acclaim. I believe it was some time in August that I was trying to track down a local Canadian retailer that could get it for me. I met with zero success and ended up ordering directly from the publisher. Shipping ended up costing me half again what the game did, but I was the first person around to have it. Shortly after making my enquiries at a few shops, the game started popping up with quite a bit of regularity...so I guess my asking around did have an effect. While going through the box William put a few things on the table and said that I was...

October 1, 1922 Attn: Director Silver RE: Field Operative Roster Update Director, After a short break to allow myself and Mr. MacIntyre to recover from our recent injuries I've chosen some Agents from those listed on file as available. As per your previous communication, I've issued recall notices to their last known field offices and await their arrival. We'll be ready to deploy immediately upon their assembly. Please have the files for the following personnel updated to reflect their status as active members of my field team. Dr. John McDermott Archaeologist Doctor McDermott's experience in ancient architecture, language and culture will prove invaluable in our efforts to retrieve the artifacts lost in pursuit of case file SA-120816-RtA. He has also proven a steady hand in the face of the assorted...creatures we're likely to face. Walter Daniels Former Occupation Unknown I realize that Agent Daniels has spent the last few months under observati...

The fine folks from Uncle Mike's Worldwide and Trilogy Gaming Club will be co-hosting a tournament of Strange Aeons on Saturday night at Fallcon 2012 . There will be four or five boards set up for demos and tournament play; some of which, if the rumors are true, are brand-spanking-new custom creations of the diabolical Uncle Mike himself. I'll be there representing the congregants of the Cult of the Black Goat , providing demos for new players and death, destruction and mayhem to all those pesky Threshold Agents. If you'll be in the Calgary on Saturday September 29th, 2012 drop by the convention (see the Fallcon link for venue details) any time between 8 pm and 12 midnight to join in the dark deeds! Links for you inquisitive types: More information about Strange Aeons . More information about Trilogy Gaming Club . More information about Fallcon .

Over the weekend I took a fairly lengthy road trip and ended up having a little bit of time to stop in at a game shop on the way. I won't go into my experience at the shop or say what shop it was, because my impressions were mediocre at best. However, I did pick up a few things while I was there. I had never been able to find the original The  Adventurers: Temple of Chac , board game, and so when I saw a decently priced copy I grabbed it. Having read through the rules, set it up and tried a few basic turns I'm not sure how well it will get received in my regular group, but we'll give a go sometime soon and I'll post up my thoughts then. What I was really looking for when I walked into the shop were some reasonably priced western-themed figures. When I asked for something like that I was told, without hesitation, to "go check a dollar store, I don't have anything like that here," but upon looking around a little I found two packs of nicely pre-painted 2...