Mandarin's Manor: State of the Hobby

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March 12, 2007

State of the Hobby

Sorry about the lack of updates. Plenty of stuff going on in real life, (mostly progress I guess). As busy as I am with work, cleaning out old hobby stuff for sale, and dealing with the new house, I am actually getting plenty done hobbywise, in brief:

LOTR- A lot of my buddies are into this system, and eventhough I do not collect I tend to just show up and play when I have the time. Recently after about 18 months of painting, Chris has finally finished his Mumak (horay!) So we decided to give it an outing.
The scenario chosen is the one in the Two Towers movie where Frodo and Sam spotted the column of evil troops moving down the road, subsequently getting ambushed by Faramir and his rangers. It's a typical "stealthy foe ambushing a convey moving down the road" scenario (now how many time have I gamed that in Colonials?) As trite as it sounded, it's actually a good scenario with a lot of tension built in to the scenario rules.
The evil (convey) enters the board in 3 different waves. They went from the least powerful wave first (Easterling foot), to the Cavalry (commanded by yours truly), followed by the ultimate weapon of the Mumak coming on last. Each wave is only triggered if the previous wave either reaches far enough on the road, or gets wiped out. Thus the evil folks have an incentive to hurry along and I am always of the opinion that scenario that forces you to rush along produces tense games. All in all, the most enjoyable LOTR game I had in a long time. Some exellent pictures here.

Flames of War- I have found a regular opponent in the local FoW scene. We are both casual gamer who's keen on the rules, but not fanatical about it (as some in the store can be quite intense). It's a good crowd who's knowledgeable and helpful to newbies like myself (even the "intense" ones are fine compare to some of the problem players I have encountered in the past).
I have now built (pretty much from scratch) a 1500 point US Mech Infantry force. Looking back on my 20+ years of miniature gaming, this is actually the very first time I got into the "using equal point forces , line up and play" style of games. Previous I was always in the more scenario based mode of playing where in a majority of cases I am the game master putting on a game. It's quite a refreshing change actually. I suspect that I am seeing the "good" side of the scene due to the folks I am playing with, and I suspect that my attitude might change if I ever meet a rules lawyer/power gamer type mentioned in legend.

Hordes- Now here's a fine game system that I tried to get into but failed, so the figures have found a new home. I have been observing Privateer Press in the last year or so and I think they are the closest thing that's giving GW a run for its money (at least here in the US). I am seeing a lot of league play in the local stores, the games are well supported with a nice forum and an in house full color magazine, they have an interesting setting, and the game play is full of tactical depth (I equate it with a fusion of miniatures and Magic the Gathering). So what is the problem? For me anyway, the problems are as follows:
1. The cost- I like nice figs, and Hordes figures are nice in their own right, but they are in the same league if not more expensive in some cases compare to GW. Granted total outlay is probably same or smaller compare to 40k or WHFB since games tend to be smaller in size, but I still have a problem paying >$5.00 for a single humanoid size figures.
2. The Assembly- Privateer figures all come in blisters that contains multiple small parts, and requires some serious assembly before one can get down to business of painting them. I like playing and painting, but hated glueing (or in this case pinning since these are pewter figs which are hard to work with). Doing this for the entire army is becoming a serious pain.
3. The Style- I liked the rules a lot (reminded me of a MtG dual done in miniatures), but I am not in general a fan of "big shoulder pad" scifi/Fantasy (in case of Warmachine which is the dominant game in the store I frequent), or "strange mutant-y looking creatures" (In case of Hordes). The Circle of Oberos faction is pretty cool (having a more natural motif of wolves and such) and that was what I went with, but was never IN LOVE with the figures like that of a Thunderbolt Mountain Fantasy, or even a LOTR figure from GW.
Oh well, at least I got most of my money back. I did keep one figure, a Circle Warcaster that I painted myself which can be used as some generic combat mage type in any fantasy setting.

Waken The Storm- Speaking of generic fantasy setting, I pop the $ and got this set of rules from my buddy Patrick Wilson from TVAG. It's a Fantasy adaptation of The Sword and the Flame (probably the most popular set of non-fantasy rules ever published). In my mind it's a good fit, since the loosy goosy feel that's always associated with TSATF is something I associate with classical fantasy setting which one shouldn't take too seriously anyway. Given that TSATF is "Colonial goes Hollywood", Waken the Storm will probably play more like "The Beastmaster" than "Lord of the Ring" if I may use a movie analogy. And that's probably not a bad thing. Will give it a test drive soon (will be Thunderbolt Wood Elves vs some LOTR Orcs and Easterlings).

More Selling- Packaging up my 25mm Carthaginians for sale as both Jeff and I agreed to get rid of our compatible armies (Jeff is going into small scale, and I am getting out of Ancients for now, but might be back later in plastics). We had a last hurrah last week by having a last game with them, using PIQUET's latest supplement: Archon 2.
It did not turn out well. when it counted I was initiative starved (a frequent complaint about these rules, and we are using straight D20 roll off which didn't help). when I start to get the pips I am dashing my crappy stuff on to his triarii. Very ugly.
We have not played this set of rules for so long that we spend a lot of the game looking things up. After a long exposure of the excellent C&C:Ancient I find this quite tedious. Plus given all that extra rules I don't think this game is any more "realistic" than C&C. I think my project of using massed plastics to do a scaled up C&C:A will probably be my next ancient project (if it ever gets off the ground). Pictures of the battle can be found here.

Posted by msoong at March 12, 2007 11:38 PM

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