I saw Gorebelly

Has anyone here seen any of these minis in person? If so, what did you think?

I saw Gorebelly the other day, a local gaming store had been given one for a preview and to show customers. My initial thoughts were they were a little smaller than I had though. Larger than most minis, but still not as large as I was thinking for some reason. They seemed smaller than the Mutant Chronicles minis I saw about a week ago.

As for the mini itself, I was quite impressed with the sculpt and paint job. Aside from the fact that the face was not painted, just a huge green splotch, but I was told that this was an early sample and the face was unpainted. With that one thing aside though, the mini was amazing.

The base was quite neat and I liked it, however this one had a bright pink base (again, because it was an early sample), but the concept and look were quite nice.

Has anyone else seen these in person and care to make specific comments? I play WoW on the computer maybe 2 hours on the weekend each week, so I am familiar with the characters and monsters, although not an expert. I am looking forward to this one.

Star Wars Miniatures with my 5-year-old son (Part 2: The Fall of Kenobi)

Well, after our first game of Star Wars Minis last week my son really has been really eager to get back in and play it again. We have been mostly playing the basic HeroScape and he has done quite well, but I think he likes the SW game better because he is such a huge fan and always watches the movies and cartoons and has no trouble pointing out characters by name, making the game flow much faster since he already knows who is who in the Star Wars Universe. Also, since he knows the game is for the "older kids", being able to play it (even the very basic streamlined version that we play) makes him very happy with himself.

My older son likes the D&D Minis, so it looks like I'm going to be getting hooked on buying into the whole collectible game thing again (something I had no plans of doing after MageKnight, HeroClix and MechWarrior), at least I like these minis better (the D&D and SW minis), and I like the cards with fixed numbers better than those clix dials anyhow.

I wanted to add some rules into the game this time around and slowly make it more complex so he can learn one or two new things at a time and handle it without any frustration. This time around we added in Vader and Kenobi. My son has been having a great time playing the Empire, so he continued and took Vader to lead his troops. I explained his special ability to double attack in hand to hand if not moving and he understood this quite well.

We setup our cards, and used poker chips for the hit points (each chip was worth 10 points, so Vader had 14 chips, Kenobi had 10, etc.), this method of stacking the cards with the chips seems to work better than trying to use those little cardboard point tokens when they take damage, or trying to keep track of it on paper, it just makes the game flow faster and is a bit easier - especially for him being only five.

If you read my last session report, I controlled some Rebel Fleet Troopers as they tries to gain access to one of Vader's bases, they were killed, and as a result we decided that this time the Empire should have an advantage because they knew Kenobi's forces were on their way.

My group of characters consisted of the Rebel Trooper Captain (I will keep calling him Captain Antilles, but he was not named that on the card), and a small band of Rebel Fleet Troopers. They were all lead by Ben Kenobi. My son had a squad of Stormtroopers with one Heavy Stormtrooper in there (doing more damage per hit) and they were lead by Vader himself. The point totals were completely equal except I did not let Kenobi use any special force powers, only Vader with his double attack.

The special bonus he got for winning the last scenario, was to setup his guys wherever he wanted, and when we entered the base he would have the first attack. It actually worked out quite well for him, he did a great job putting his guys around corners and setting them up nicely. Perfectly positioned to defend against Kenobi's soon to come assault. I wanted to take out his heavy Stormtrooper as soon as possible but it wasn't possible for me to get any shots at him in the beginning.

As the game began, my Rebel Fleet Troopers met a lot of resistance entering the base and I lost two of them right off the bat, but I was determined and my wave of troops pressed forward into the main base, taking out Stormtroopers left and right. The feel of play really felt like the movies, troopers vs troopers as shots blasted back and forth down the hall, the only thing missing were R2 and 3PO trying to cross the hall between them. :)

After a few turns had gone by, we were down to a few troopers on both sides, that ended up in a shoot out in a hallway on the right side of the throne room. While this battle raged on, Vader and Ben finally met in the hallway on the left side of the throne room. Kenobi and Vader had an epic (and long) lightsaber battle while the battle on the opposite side ended with Captain Antilles being the sole survivor. 

As the lightsaber battle continued, Vader was doing quite well and Kenobi was quickly running low on health, so Captain Antilles ran to his aid. Antilles arrived too late though, he managed to get a couple of shots off, only one of which actually managed to hit and damge Vader, but it was at that moment that Vader's saber cut down poor old Ben. 

As Vader turned and moved towards Antilles, I did what any Rebel Captain would do when facing the Dark Lord, I turned and ran! I managed to get out of the base before Vader was able to reach me, and I told my Son he was going to call for help and get Luke and Han to join him in another attack.

It was a great game and lasted about 45 minutes or so. My son has been improving in his math skills quite a bit with this game. In HeroScape we never needed to figure any double digit numbers, and in this game it seems as though all of the numbers are double digits, making it more difficult for him to figure out some of the dice rolls and once in awhile he needs some help, but overall it isn't bad and he is learning the rules quite well.

Thanks to everyone who helped me with suggestions from my last posting, I think that I'll be enjoying Star Wars Mini games with my 5 year old for some time to come now, and have as much fun with him and this game as I do playing with adults my own age.

Review: Star Wars Miniatures with my 5-year-old son.

My 5 year old son has literally grown up around gaming. I have held game nights every other weekend for years and play everything from board games to light mini games, to heavier games like Warhammer. (Note: That didn't sound right and caused some confusion, I was trying to illustrate how the games my gaming group played were heavy for my 5 year old, meaning that games like Warhammer were out of the question to try and simplify for him because there is just too much going on, whereas a game like HeroScape of Star Wars Minis has more potential because they come with fixed weapon stats, little cards to help you understand the pieces, less dice rolling and math, etc.)

He has always shown an interest in gaming, he plays with his toys and rolls dice as he moves them and things of that nature.

Now that he is able to count and do simple addition and subtraction, I thought it might be good to bring him into some real gaming (we have done things like Kids of Catan and Candyland and whatnot), but recently I introduced him to HeroScape using the basic rules and simplified a bit... he loved it and caught on rather quickly!

Earlier this morning he asked if we could play with the Star Wars Miniatures. I am not a big player of the game myself, but my oldest son (age 14) is, and we have quite a collection. I know the game is for 12 and up (I think), so I tried to talk him out of it, but he really wanted to give it a shot. "Please Daddy, Please! I love Star Wars, I can do it!"

So I finally agreed and set up a map (one with inside walls, rooms, turbolifts, etc. and asked if he wanted to be the good guys or the bad guys. Of course he started pulling out Darth Vader and armies of Stormtroopers. So I had him calm down a bit and suggested that we take it slow for our first game, he agreed.

I setup a small 3 man unit of Stormtroopers. One was an Elite and had a larger gun (I'm sorry if I am not being extremely accurate here, my oldest son could tell you anything you wanted to know about this game, but I am pretty new). Anyhow, I gave myself three Rebel Fleet Troopers, one of them was a Captain. Our groups were evenly matched.

I said "Ok, let's set them up and then I'll explain the basic rules to you" and his reply was "Yeah, but what is the scenario!" I laughed that he used the word correctly, but sure enough, he wanted to know the back story before we would begin the game.

"Ok" I replied as I took out a mini of Vader and a mini of Ben and placed them out on the table, "We are not going to use these minis right now, but let's pretend that Ben is on a mission to Capture Vader, and he is starting off by sending in these Rebel Fleet Troopers to determine the location of Vader."

My son seemed quite eager to hear more. It seems as though his imagination is such that he really got a better experience out of our game by me setting it up nicely for him, so I continued, "If I can take out your three Stormtroopers, then in our next game, when Ben meets Vader, he will get some kind of a bonus for being able to take out the Stormtroopers... and if your Stormtroopers win, then in our next game Vader would know Ben was on his way and you'll be able to have a trap set for me!"

My son was really excited about the game now, "Let's play!" he shouted.

So the rules I used were EXTREMELY streamlined. I figure that I will do like I did with HeroScape and slowly introduce a rule for each new game we play, making it more complex up to as much as I think he can handle at one time.

I noticed the hit points and the damage each mini could do were all in 10's, so I used poker chips for the health. For instance, on the Elite Stormtrooper, I think he had 30 health, so he had 3 poker chips. I figured this game would be easy to keep track of the damage, but when using Vader or Ben or anything character like that, I noticed some high numbers, like 140 health... so I figured in future games the poker chips would be a valuable tool to help the game run smoothly and keep track of hit points and damage on some of the more powerful guys. He understood the concept quite quickly.

For movement I explained that each guy could move 6 squares and then shoot, or he could move 12 squares and not shoot. He understood that right away as well.

For the shooting and damage I just rolled the D20, added the attack number, and if it beat the defense of the person he was attacking then it was a hit, subtract the damage as indicated.

That was the entire set of rules I used for the first game and it worked wonderfully! Because of the dice being a D20, he had to do some more complex math than he was used to, and there was quite a bit of counting on his fingers, but it all worked out well in the end and I feel as though games of this nature will be a big benefit to him when he goes back to school after the summer.

As for the game itself, my first move was to enter the complex and take positions near some walls, I split up my guys into 2 groups. For his first move, he ran out into the hall to confront me at both spots, which was a huge mistake because I was able to get the first attack.

He realized after his turn was over that he should have waited for me to enter the room his Stormtroopers were in so he would be able to shoot at me first. Again, I feel as though this is really helping to teach him things such as match and strategy and problem solving too.

As my turn started, I did as promised between turns, and I opened fire on him. One of his troopers was down on the first turn. He returned fire and took out two of my guys.

It was now one of my guys against 2 of his. And we were both separate now. I moved my trooper down a hallway to try and get to a good spot to fight him, and he actually managed to come in at me from two sides, and in another turn he had taken me out and won his first game.

It was a super experience, and I hope to play more with him soon and slowly work him into more rules.

I am not sure how to approach some of the bigger characters though, we are not using any of the special abilities as listed on the big white area of the card, mainly because I think it is way to complex to start off with. I know he is eager to have a lightsaber battle and use some of his favorite guys, but I don't want to ruin the game by making it over complex for him.

Can anyone give me any suggestions or tips and let me know what I can do? How well would Vader do without any special abilities? He has a butt-load of hit points, so he'd last awhile, but how uneven will battles be if I omit those abilities and still use the point values on the card?

Mutant Chronicles - Saw it at a FLGS today!

Don't get your hopes up just yet, it was not for sale, it was an early release preview copy, but the game store owner let me open it up and look through it. I had my 5 year old son with me, so I wasn't able to play, but I did get a good amount of time to look the game over and thought it was really well done.

I had read some people's thoughts on the mini's, and to be honest with you, I thought they were really good. They appeared to be of average table top standard from my experience. I also was amazed at their size. I knew they would be bigger, but didn't realize how large they would be in person. I thought I wasn't going to like it, but I actually really did.

In my opinon the minis were great, and I am really looking forward to getting the game now! I just wanted to post here to let you all know my thoughts (again, I haven't PLAYED it yet, just looked at it), and from what I saw it looked great. (the map was also pretty good, not the best, but much better than I had thought).

FFG - Are the Rumors True?

So, are they? Will FFG no longer be carrying AT-43 and Confrontation?

I heard it from a distributor that said he got a list of discounted items from FFG that they were no longer planning on carrying. All of the AT-43 and Confrontation stuff was listed, so I am not sure if it is legit or just a restructure thing or something.

Maybe FFG is redoing the packaging or something and they are clearning out of all of their current inventory?

Further digging has yielded some interesting secret information - you heard it here first! I have uncovered a strong rumor that FFG is putting out it's own AT-43 type of game, based on their DUST universe, and as a result, they want to cut their ties with AT-43 and Confrontation since it would be in direct competition with themselves to carry both lines.

I also went to FFG right after I heard that and posted my question, thinking maybe they'd have posted news about it, but nothing... I saw that league stuff that just went up.

UPDATE: On Oct 16th FFG posted an official statement on their website which confirmed much of the speculation I posted above. Interesting. 

Session Report: HeroScape with my 5-year-old

My son Parker just turned 5 years old in May. I have been a long time gamer, and he has grown up watching me have friends over for strategy board games and miniature games. He asked me the other night if there were any of 'my' games he was able to play.

I decided to try him out with a simple game of Heroscape. I had never played using the basic rules before and decided to give him a really streamlined version of the game.

He went to pre-K last year, and can count to 100, do the alphabet, add and subtract single digits and read and spell simple words with common sounds. So I felt he could handle it, and boy was I right. Not only could he handle it, but in both games we played he beat me!

Let me explain what we did and how we played... First, I chose not to use any special terrain rules or high ground, so I used a mat I had purchased from www.HouseMouseGames.com (a GREAT store by the way, try them out if you are looking for any HeroScape stuff, and the play mats are great, although I'd love them to be a little larger, but that is only my personal opinion - for the game I played with my son they were just perfect!).

I chose a unit of the Roman soldiers with spears and also a unit of Roman soldiers with bow and arrows. He chose two units of Marro (I forgot which ones, they had the guns). We did a simple deployment and lined all of our units up on our edge of the play mat. We rolled a 20 sided die to see who would go first. My son won the roll, and I let him move and shoot with both of his units (I did not use the little turn order signs, I figured I would keep this game as basic and simple as possible, and slowly introduce new rules over the next few weeks of gaming.

He studied his cars for a moment (I had explained movement, range, attack and defense values ahead of time), he looked at the board and advanced his guys forward as far as he could. He was not yet in range, so I took my move and did the same thing, however, my archers WERE now in range, so I figured I'd open fire and attack him, I killed one of his guys.

As we moved on to the next turn, he again won the roll to go first, and moved his guys slightly forward but not enough to allow my hand to hand unit to engage him - I thought it was very smart since I hadn't even told him that, he figured it out on his own). He opened fire with both units, and at the end of that round I was left with only 1 spearman and 2 archers. He really devastated me in that assault.

I should mention here, that I was using the older dice, the ones that were red and blue in color, not the white ones. This made it easier for him to figure out how many of which to roll and read the results. I personally like the white ones better, but the colored ones were much easier for him to understand more quickly (especially since they perfectly matched the colors on his cards that he was referring to).

My turn came next and I was able to move in with my last spearman and take out on of his Marro, my archers also managed to take one out. His move came next and he was able to wipe me out and take the victory!

Our second game went pretty much the same way, but I had one spearman that lasted quite a long time against him, several rounds of rolling dice and blocking before he won.

Overall, he really liked the game a lot, and his math skills really helped out, he quickly grasped the rules and understood what needed to be done. I am looking forward to more games with him in the upcoming weeks. I'll introduce him to some more rules, maybe add some terrain and make it slightly more complex, and try and help him understand some basic strategy.

Bottom line is that I thought he would be too young at age 5 (recently turned 5), but he was not and did much better than I had hoped. He is eagerly awaiting our next game!

I'd like to hear from anyone else who games with youngsters and if anyone has any comments, ideas, suggestions, etc., to help me in future games I would appreciate it!