Wizard Kings campign rules question (update)

I thought I'd update on the Wizard Kings campign.

My son and I started a campaign for Wizard Kings, it is a set of custom campaign rules by Jason Little and can be downloaded from the Board Game Geek file section in the Wizard Kings forum.

The campaign itself is very well done and has been a lot of fun, we are about halfway to being done with the first capaign (3 campain wins to win the overall war).

My son has been playing the forces of evil, I am the forces of good. The scenarios and system are well balanced, and we have been having very close games (my son's forces of evil are only in the lead by 1 point, which I intened to correct tonight! (insert evil laugh here) bwahahaahaa!)

In anycase, the only drawback I see for doing this long term is the lack of scenarios in the campaign pack (you need 10 points to win a campaign, which is anywhere between 3 - 8 games or so, depending on how much of a victory you are having) and then you need to win 3 campaigns to win the war (which could mean up to 5 campigns if it is close, which it has been). I know by the second time through these scenarios we'll be wanting to get some fresh ones.

Otherwise Jason did a super job, anyone who wants to have an ongoing series of games, with a nice point system (victory points) go for it!

AT-43, taking the plunge.

My son has mentioned an interest in this game, and it looks like it might be a good alternative to Warhammer 40k. I have decided that I want to make a purchase of some items for him and I to try out. His birthday is coming up in a few weeks, so I need to hurry and make a decision. I have been mostly playing board games with my gaming group lately, but do miss the days of 40k. I'm more than happy to purchase this game for him and play it with him.

However, in looking on "The War Store" I am not quite sure what to get. I see the AT-43 Initiation Set Operation Damocles which states it is a full game for 2 players and includes a 120 page rule book, than it also shows a "rule book" for another $20. Is this rulebook the same book, just a hardcover version, or is this a more advanced rule set? Is this needed to start off? (We have both played Warhammer and 40k in the past, so advanced rules are not an issue if they make the game more enjoyable).

The main box says it includes an Army called the White Stars and an army called the Therian (aliens?), then the add-ons and supplements have armies called AT-43 Red Blok, AT-43 Therians and AT-43 U.N.A.

It looks as though the UNA is the White Stars, so here is what I was thinking of getting:

1) Main boxed set

2) Rulebook (if it is needed to enhance the game)

3) Extra squad of White Star guys

4) Extra squad of Therian guys

Any suggestions, thoughts, etc., also, are there any recommendations on which extra squads to get?

Wizard Kings: Happy with random expansions...

I got my expansions today (16 expansions in total) and I was quite happy with what I got... I laid all the sticker sheets out and only had about 4 or 5 duplicates! (each one has 3 sheets in it, so out of 48 sheets, only a few duplicates as nice!), I was really worried about hearing here there were so many people getting the same things over and over again!

Now, just to clarify, that isn't to say some units dont appear on more than one sheet, for example, I have some sheets that have a Harpy on them, but the other 6 units dont match, etc. I was pleased with what I ended up with though, I'll search my stickers and see if there are any units I have that are not listed here and let you know!

In case anyone is wondering, I ordered mine from an online seller on BGG (rsolow), he is a great guy (Robert) and goes the extra mile to help out... He also has great prices. I did not order directly from Columbia Games as many people have said they did.

From what Robert told me, it sounds like he had a stack of them in his inventory, but not enough to fill my order, so he ordered the rest of them in from his distributor. It appears as though I got an excellent mix of first and second wave stickers because of this (with the inventory Robert had on hand being from the first wave and the new batch from his distributor being from the second).

With that being said, the changes of that happening to me again will probably be slim, the more I think about it, the more I realize that if I order another big lot, it will probably be all series 2?! I dont know, what do you all think? 

I REALLY wish Columbia would get on the ball and just post a list. Who cares if there are not "hundreds" of them available now, I think what happened was they got the "over 300" number in everyones head, so everyone rushed out and bought a crap load of the expansions, only to discover that maybe 120 of them or so were out, apparently coming in 'waves' as talked about in other messages...

EDIT: Note to Chris Farrell, I haven't had a chance to sit down with them all yet and review the info in the Wiki, but should by this afternoon and I will confirm what the deal is... I think that (like with Merv and Fredrik I ended up getting lucky with a mix of 1st and 2nd "wave" decals) I really wish Columbia had a list for us to reference though. :P

Stargate SG-1 Advanced Game

As you may recall from my post in April, I wasn't too thrilled with the Stargate game (based on the game Fleets by Fleet Games, Inc.) so I have been working on some advanced rules of my own. The advanced rules called for some special dice, so I have been working on a set, and thought I'd get some feedback/suggestions by posting some sneak peek images here.

Attack Vector: Tactical (update)

Alright gang... here is an update after a couple of hours tonight on the web poking around. 

I read the PDF rules summary from the BGG files section, as well as all of the messages there in the forums (and also on the Saganami Island forums), I also poked around on some various websites and read all of the Geek Lists that this game and Saganami were featured in.

I have come to the conclusion that there are pretty much two different views people have on this game... the first view is "This is the Holy Grail of Tactical Space Games" or "This game is too complex for me to understand"...

In reading the summary rules PDF, I completely understood everything I read as well as how the AVID works, and I really see how the little "box minis" are perfect for the game setup with the tilt block... however, I am a big "mini" fan, so more than likely I'll use the little box minis, but still have some minis off to the side to represent the box minis better. 

I will mostly be playing this with a friend in my local gaming group who is into this type of game, and my 13 year old son... My son is very intelligent, and is a math wizard... he can multiply double and triple numbers in his head, how he does it, I have no clue, but he has shown amazing skills with numbers since he was a little boy, so I have no doubt he will be fine with complex rules and the advanced thinking that I think this game will require.

I am going to hunt around more, and hopefully find someone in my general area that plays this game and would be willing to have some sessions with me, but in any case I'm going to look around for a copy of the game to purchase (can anyone suggest a good online dealer that has these for a reasonable price - I haven't looked yet, or asked my regular supplier).

Thanks for all of your help everyone, I apprecitate the time you have taken to comment.

Attack Vector: Tactical

Hey everyone, a friend of mine, myself and my oldest son have been looking for a good tactical spaceship combat game and a few people have steered me in this direction, so I am checking this out... I have read a little and see some people saying the rules are very complex, which is ok with us.

Has anyone here played Battlefleet Gothic? I had played that for years quite awhile ago, but Games Workshop stuff has been getting so expensive, nobody I know has wanted to get into that game again. How does a game like this compare?

Is there a link anywhere to the different miniatures available that can be used in this game? I quite like moving little minis around on the grid rather than cardboard markers. I also like the hex map much better than using a measuring tape (games workshop), but a question I have is - does anyone have any resources to purchase a black 'star field' looking grid that will work with this?

I did see some of the photos on BGG and have been reading up more on it, and the '3d' feel of the game really seems to add a lot to it in my opinion, I have read some bad reviews and some good reviews, it almost seems like there is a small fraction of people really into this game, and the rest of the people just don't grasp it.

I personally have gotten to a point where I no longer have the time to start painting a lot of miniatures (one reason I got away from Warhammer and 40k), but I do like little space ship minis though, so when I saw this game and photos for it using minis I was a little more interested, however, I do see the benefit of the little cardboard 'cubes' of the ships, it is a really interesting concept to take a flat hex grid and make it 3d like that using the plastic holders, very nice!

This looks like a very detailed and difficult (in a good way) game that might fill the gap in my gaming needs that I have been looking for! when I first started reading up on it and trying to see if it is something I would like, I was completely lost, then as I read a little more and looked at some photos it all just all of a sudden clicked (the way they have the 3-d environment setup) and I was thinking 'Wow! I can't wait to try playing this!'...

Formula Dé is on my mind...

I have been thinking of getting this game, mainly to play with my 13 year old son (nobody in my gaming group would be into this kind of game - most of them are hard core wargamers or into miniature gaming such as Warhammer).

In any case, it was recommended to me by my game provider, and taking a quick look, I think my son and I could have fun with it. Here are some questions I was hoping some of you who are experienced in this type of game could answer for me.

1) How does this compare to other racing games, and can you give specifics about how this compares to other games, and not just "it's better" or "it's not as good", etc.

2) I did read some messages about the other tracks no longer being made? (Expansions?), how hard are they to track down, and what kind of price would I find them for? I think that if I did get this game, I would like to have a few different track selections so it isn't the same game over and over...

3) How many tracks come in the main set (#1 and #2?), and also how many cars are there? The photos on here are a little confusing for someone like me who doesn't. know what he is looking at. It says number of players is 2-10, so I assume 10 cars?

4) For 2 player games (which is probably mostly what this game will see), is it still fun? I know some games are not going to give their full potential until you get more than 2 players... with only 2 players how many cars does each player control? 5 each? or are there only 2 cars on the track?

5) I see it says the game takes a couple of hours, how many laps around the track do you make?

Another game that was recommended to be was Bolide, and I read up on that one too, but it seemed to me that my son and I would like the 'look' of the Formula De better when I compared the two, also one person on BGG made a comment that Formula De has a lot of fast action by rolling dice and having to make a decision, which seemed to simulate high speed racing better than Bolide which was said to give you more time to plot and plan moves with less luck... While I normally dont like "luck" in a game, the way Formula De has been described by many people, it seems like it would work well in the game. 

Thanks in advance for any info you can give to me, I will update with my decision, but I'd really like more info before putting down the cash for it.