Heroscape is Back!

Over the years my friend and I have been playing Heroscape. The game is still fun and fast to play. To speed things up, he has made thematic teams that also combine models that have rules which support one another and with the rest has made leftover squads.

    Heroscape, licensed through Renegade Games, has started making revamped terrain hexes, new models, and new factions. We have found that the new items are well made and the new models are very fun.  

    The unfortunate thing is that Renegade isn't reprinting the classic Heroscape models. Fortunately there are lots of resellers out there that do, but you have to do some research to ensure they have a good reputation. Sometimes you can get lucky at a garage sale, flea market, or charity store.

    Websites are out there that provide a community and information for folks who play or want to get into it again, like Heroscapers, Gary's Heroscape Site, and Board Game Geek (under the files and forums sections).

    I have my heroscape items, purchased during a few years ago, specifically for the tiles. I have used them for Battletech: Alpha Strike games, but not for Heroscape. My friend has almost everything for the game so no need to double up.

4e Malifaux Beta and its Changes, so far

Myself and a friend tried out the current Malifaux 4e Beta of the rules, May 29th version. He took Guild and Family, Perdita, and I took Outcast and Mercenary, Viktorias. We almost got to the end of turn two, after four hours, but this was no different than 3e when we transitioned to that ruleset. So far, we like the new rules and changes that make models and crews more unique. There are a lot less dual faction models, but are no longer any dual faction crews.

Setup

-Terrain: Range of 45-65% of play area covered with terrain as long range actions intended to be limited, a minimum and maximum required as climbable platforms for models, requirement for all the different types of terrain.

-Scenarios and Schemes: Base scenarios use strategy markers which cannot be affected (moving, removing, or targeting) unless the model card or scenario specifically says so, pick one from three random schemes, and only have one scheme each turn.

-Faction, Leader, and Hire Crew: Pretty much the same, not spending all your points important for having soulstones as many models use them for various effects.

Turn

-Start Phase: Initiative for turn 1 is always the attacker and in subsequent turns the player who did not activate the last models chooses who gains initiative, hand size is seven instead of six, If you have no Master your henchmen can become the leader until the end of the game (gaining an action each turn too) for a soulstone.

-Activation Phase: If you have the same or less models then opponent you can pass your activation, cannot pass twice in a row, Masters get three actions if game is 50 or more soulstones, Peons get only one action and cannot interact, the lightning bolt free action is now called signature actions, you get one free signature actions per model during its activation but can do it again for another action.

End Phase

-Score Strategy: Can score up to 5 VP with them during the game.

-Reveal Scheme: Can reveal a scheme to gain up to 2 VP during the game.

-Abandon Scheme: Can reveal and discard a scheme without gaining VP.

-Select New Scheme: If you revealed or discarded a scheme you can select one of the three printed at the bottom of the scheme.

-Check for End Game: Four turns instead of five

Other

Character Driven: The rules and abilities for each model, we found, are more unique and better fit what they do. They’re more fun to see what new stuff they can do.

Crew Cards: Each Master can choose which of two they are and they come with different crew cards. For friendly games we are just going to put them on a different base size if they have that change. These crew cards provide extra abilities and actions for each member of the crew that has the same keyword as the Master. A handy list of tokens the crew will be using, and their effects, are on the back of the card. One, or more, of these tokens are special to the crew card and Master chosen.

Tokens: OK, there are now 21 types of tokens across each faction. Add to that the crew card specific tokens. That means you need to make more tokens to show what’s what on the playmat.

Firing into Melee: Cannot find it. Looks like friendly models do not grant cover but enemy models do.

Well, that is a quick overview and once the rules and models cards are locked I will make some helper sheets as I have done for 2e and 3e. Looking forward to playing more games of the new edition. Link to Wyrd's 4e page. To access the 4e beta files you need a forum account.

Visiting the Knight Models Warehouse

I was at the Knight Models warehouse in Madrid in early May. I was in the area on vacation so I took a morning to go there to get replacement for items missing or not shipped that I ordered during the Black Friday sale.

    A nice person helped me by first looking through a big box of ready to be mailed shipping envelopes of replacement parts. Since my name was not on any of the labels, they got replacements from the warehouse floor. They also gave me a model to thank me for coming.

    At the start of the conversation, they looked over the my notes in English and Spanish, starting with my order number and missing parts, when their finger scrolled down the first page and got to the questions there (fixing the App, starting to engage with the public, next miniatures) they shook their head and waved at it. Seems like the person can't or won't answer any of them.

    The warehouse had many organized shelves of models ready to go in their boxes and some larger cardboard boxes of items ready to ship to retailers. I never got to my questions about fans or staff being able to update the compendium and make a more organized rulebook, more environment cards, campaigns, scenarios, hiring more people to address the backlog and make new models, status of Escape From Arkham Asylum, status of Harry Potter second edition.

    The big question of the relationship between Knight Models, DefCon games, and OC Games was also never gotten to. If anyone has a better language skill in Spanish, although they understood most of what I was saying, and are traveling to Madrid perhaps they can visit to ask questions and report back?

End of 2024 and Looking Ahead to 2025

The year 2023 was varied for the amount of role playing, board, computer, and miniature games played. I am hoping to increase the amount of role playing and miniature games played, but time will tell.

For roleplaying my group finished the Pendragon starter box adventure in six sessions (two last year and four this one). My review of Pendragon is here for those who are interested (Hint: We really liked it and will be carrying on with another adventure). Twilight: 2000 first came out in 1984 and players are allied soldiers alive in Eastern Europe after WW3 and a limited nuclear exchange. They have to survive and get back to friendly lines. The original game seemed like it would be good , but as teenagers it just became fantasy with us controlling tanks and attack choppers blowing up stuff. The new version, by Free League Publishing, is set in 1998 and is much grittier and realistic. After five sessions, my character is recovering in a prison taken over by a cult leader as the other two players are trying not to get killed by a turncoat that knows and hates one of them. Intense!

For boardgames, a mighty eighty-seven were played. Games I most liked this year are marked by an asterisk (*). In order from most to least played are:

9: *Marvel Champions (3 Player)

7: *Heat

6: *7 Wonders Duel, Death My Die, No Thanks!

4: *Arcs, Biblios

3: Crib, *Terraforming Mars

2: *7 Wonders Duel: Middle Earth, 200, *Apiary, Daybreak, Five Crowns, Kollide, Pandemic: Hotzone NA, Play 9, Settlers of Catan, Undaunted: Normandy, Vendetta, Watergate

1: 7 Wonders, Andromeda's Edge, Campaign Trail, Carcassonne, Command and Colors: Napoleon, Freedom, Greece Lightning, King of Monster Island, Lord of the Rings Customizable Card Game, Lost Cities, *Mega Empires (Western Empires), *Mind MGMT, Splendor, Ticket to Ride: NY, Victory in the Pacific.

For solo boardgames, I just played two games of Campaign Trail.

For computer games, I just played one with a group, Terraforming Mars, and solo I played six games of Terraforming Mars.

For miniature games, I played thirty-one. The Batman Miniature Game was most played with ten games (see here for the year in review), seven of Battletech: Alpha Strike (year in review here), seven Marvel Crisis Protocol (year in review here), six Malifaux (year in review here), and one game of non-violent Gaslands (performance cars with one lap around a track).

I also read a lot of Battletech books this year, thanks to a Humble Bundle I participated in in 2023. It is interesting how many bore books you can read when flossing, brushing, and being out and about. I have been reading them in chronological order and they were: *Warrior Trilogy, Wolves on the Border, Heir to the Dragon; *Blood of Kerensky Trilogy; Legend of the Jade Phoenix-Way of the Clans.

For miniatures painted this year it was horrible. Only four Malifaux and two Batman Miniature Game figures. I have high ambitions this year: 

-Batman Miniature Game: The Batman Starter Box, all the Law Forces police, more Law Forces models, Organized Crime faction

-Battletech: Draconis Combine, Patchwork Guild Regulars, Generic Faction Vehicles and Fighters.

-Guildball: Two Union, Masons/Butchers/Fishermen remaining models, 

-Malifaux: Remaining Versatile models, Zipp crew, Ressurectionist versatile, Dr McMourning

-Marvel Crisis Protocol: Finish Spider Foes and Agents of SHIELD.

-Terrain: As much as I can!

Have a great 2025!

The Batman on Bike (Robert Patterson)

If you need more movement distance to get around the board this Batman on Bike (Robert Patterson version) is the same cost as the starter box version. There is different abilities and either by special action, or automatically when an enemy suspect is revealed, you switch out with the starter box model.

All paints are TTCombat unless otherwise mentioned. Primed black, rough drybrush Dark Slate Grey, heavy drybrush Anchor Blue Grey, Drybrush Midnight Blue, light drybrush Vega Bluegrey, Black wash, light drybrush Light Azure Blue on armour, black wash, very light drybrush Opulent White, Black on leather parts (gloves, utility belt, boot soles, Batman symbol on chest), Black wash on cape and non-armored parts. I think I inadvertently did a non-metallic metal finish on the body armour, which was nice. For the lower face I used Adriatic Skin, Halfling Skin drybrush, White Knuckle Flesh light drybrush, Flesh wash.

Bike painted same as Batman but one less wash in the middle. Light and tire illumination painted Spotlight Yellow, Buttercup Yellow, and Opulent White with a yellow wash. Base made with Basius 2 Victoriana plate and green putty, dollarstore Black, dark grey, light grey, and washed with black. Base rim painted PP Cygnar Blue.

The Batman (Robert Patterson)

From "The Batman" starter box I painted The Batman (Robert Patterson) model. This model has a unique rule where if it is the leader they can defer being the boss to a sidekick. Since this Batman model is generally on their own this ability is a good thing for the rest of the squad.

All paints are TTCombat unless otherwise mentioned. Primed black, rough drybrush Dark Slate Grey, heavy drybrush Anchor Blue Grey, Drybrush Midnight Blue, light drybrush Vega Bluegrey, Black wash, light drybrush Light Azure Blue on armour, black wash, very light drybrush Opulent White, Black on leather parts (gloves, utility belt, boot soles, Batman symbol on chest), Black wash on cape and non-armored parts. I think I inadvertently did a non-metallic metal finish on the body armour, which was nice. For the lower face I used Adriatic Skin, Halfling Skin drybrush, White Knuckle Flesh light drybrush, Flesh wash.

Statue painted Shadowline Grey, drybrush Ash Grey, light drybrush Anchor Bluegrey, wash of GW Nihilakh Oxide. Rooftop painted Dark Slate Grey, drybrushed Stone Grey. Metal supports painted Capo Red, drybrushed Viscera Red. Base drybrushed Black wash. Base rim painted PP Cygnar Blue.

Malifaux in 2024

I really enjoy playing Malifaux. It was unfortunate that I played only six games this year, but school and a long trip to the Maritimes does that for miniature playing. This skirmish character driven game will always be a favourite of mine for its strategy and scheme centred gameplay. Often the game can be won without taking out an opponents model and each game changes. Even with myself playing the Outcast Amalgam (Leviticus) faction each game was different.

    Here are pictures from assorted games played this year. I hope to play more next year. Enjoy.

Marvel Crisis Protocol - Intro

Marvel Crisis Protocol is a fun character-driven skirmish game with simple enough rules that are enhanced by the individual characters from the Marvel Universe. Even if there are different versions of the same character, they will have enough differences that alter their playstyle and change their usability, depending on the X and X's determined for the game's scenarios. Like Malifaux, Batman, and other modern miniature games winning happens for those who play the scenarios better than their opponent.

Although the game dice can be very swingy, and I'm not talking Spider-Man here, they are generally equally swingy. This feels like a comic book game and the great thing is that if both players are familiar with the rules and make decisions quickly enough you can play a game in one hour and set up for another one with ease. You can even mix and match heroes and villain models, with some restrictions. The low model counts are a good thing about this game: bring ten models ten team tactic cards, and three each of the two kinds of Crisis cards. I like this game a lot.

Here are some pictures of games I have played from the ten last year and seven this year. 

I have only painted two models for this game (Iron Man original starter and new starter box) and intend to paint more. After realizing that I was behind in getting models painted a friend pointed me to an ad on FB for already painted models. I did the math and the time it saved me was worth it. Here is my total collection of painted models.

The factions I am striving to finish now are Spider-Foes and Agents of SHIELD. Many other games compete for my time so we will see how far I get this year.

The first thing I painted was the measuring sticks. For those unfamiliar with the game the numbered ones are for range and articulated ones are for movement.

A great resource is Jarvis' Protocol which has lots of detailed images of model, team, and crisis cards as well as factions. There is also the Atomic Mass resources which include many useful items including the free rulebook.

Batman Miniature Game in 2024 - 3rd Edition

I have dusted off my old models and playing the Batman Miniature Game again, from Knight Models. I bought a large amount of metal 1st edition Batman Miniatures from a game store that was having a clearance of them in May of 2017, because of SKU problems and supply chain issues. By the time I painted enough models and got together some terrain together it was February of 2018 before I had my first game. Other games took priority because a new 3rd edition came out that wasn't supporting their older models, so my pile of miniatures lay in the dark. You can see my posts for the game here.

Then early January hit and a friend connected me with someone who wanted to play this game. Honestly I was hesitant because I thought I would have to buy my models all over again and wasn't impressed by the 3rd edition rules on a first read-through. After looking through the recent revision I gave it a go and connected with the person who was interested.

He had the models for the new starter set, above, based on the Robert Patterson "The Batman" film. The models were nicely done and there were fan made and company approved starter scenarios to learn the game. They were cleverly done so that each basic rule built on the other such that after five scenarios, available at the bottom of their downloads page of their Batman Blog site here, you were playing a full game. That website is where you can also find character cards for the models in the box set, rules, encounter cards, faction cards, objective cards and a whole lot more, all for free. And a shocker...along with the fan made scenario cards are many of the cards for older models! The free app Knight Models has is the best way to make a crew and to check abilities models may have.

After the five scenarios I was back to playing this game. I also picked up a few more models, mostly ones that filled in gaps and multi-faction models, as well as the new starter box. Besides the five scenarios we played ten games this year and believe we have figured out the rules. A warning: some rules are scattered throughout the rulebook. I am working on a cheat sheet, with page numbers in the rulebook, that will make it easier to check rules and waste less time. I have some updating to do but the current version is here.

It is also fortunate that I have been increasing my modern era terrain options because I have started into Marvel Crisis Protocol. Still have more terrain to build and paint, but that should not take long.

Below are more pictures from the game we have played this year. Be ready for more posts on this game in 2025. Enjoy!

Battletech Alpha Strike in 2024

After seven games of Alpha Strike in 2024 I am still very happy with this game. I played Battletech from when it came out in the mid-80's until the mid-90's, but much prefer this scaled down ruleset so that we can use lances of mechs and vehicles and finish in the same amount of time. My friend and I have altered some rules: divided ranges so the gradients are +1 each stage, use d12s with one different coloured skill die, and a few more minor tweaks including from the group at Death From Above. Here are some pictures from some games over the last year. As you can see, my friend has great terrain!

We are looking froward to more Battletech: Alpha Strike in 2025 with the new wave of miniatures, thanks to the kickstarter.

Pendragon Starter Box

The Pendragon starter set has been an excellent way to introduce yourself to this interesting world of knights and chivalry. Produced by Chaosium it was originally created by Greg Stafford in 1985 he carried it through many editions. This is the sixth edition of rules. 

Over one solo session and six group sessions with two friends we completed the adventures in the book. The rule system is straightforward and is firmly set in the age of chivalry. Women can also be played in this setting. The passion and trait system mean that the more you act a certain way the more likely you will become extreme in that passion or trait over years of play. This could mean that your knight becomes known for being energetic and forgiving, but also selfish and cowardly. We all liked this game and want to continue with it. I have purchased the full core rulebook and the Grey Knight adventure book and will read them thoroughly over the coming months.

This game is also played as a generational one, meaning that each adventure happens during a year then after gaining experience you age and carry on. Over the years you can marry (with your lord's permission), gain an estate, have to run it, sire children, train them, then pass away and start roleplaying one of your children. Although previous editions have much more detailed rules for all sorts of things, but are available here, there has been no new printed ones yet.