Dice Scrollcase Holder

I found this item at the Halifax "Have Yourself a Gothic Little Christmas" craft fair at the Halifax Forum. It was their 11th annual fair and it had many interesting items. I have a few dice bags but not a dice container that protects the table itself! For $25 I procured this item. As you can see it is small enough to fit in most gaming bags.

Folder out, it just needs a little bending back to have a flat surface to roll on.

About 14 dice could fit into here and it zips shut. The zipper looked study enough for repeated gaming nights use.

Tiny Epic Dungeons

Tiny Epic Dungeons, by Gamelyn Games, is a cooperative dungeon crawler game with two parts. The first part is the exploring, dispatching of goblins/minions, and enhancing your character. The second part can only be achieved by dispatching a number of minions equal to the number of characters and finding the lair of the final boss. Then the boss, randomly one of six, must be dispatched.

You start on a card representing the stairs. There are four facedown cards on the cardinal points of the doorways. A player gets a heroic action, a move action, and as many free actions as they would like. They can do any of these actions in any order. The rooms have various effects and rewards.

After a player's turn is done, the torch is lowered by one on the torch tracker card. This may trigger enemy actions, add a goblin at the entrance, or end the game on the last space. You may notice that there are four goblin spaces and that is because once all four goblins are on the board and another goblin needs to be added you lose the game. There are also different types of goblins that can be randomly drawn from the goblin deck: stabby, poky, shooty, bomby.

Here is a table at the end of my first solo game, which was unsuccessful. You definitely need to explore to reveal the minions while taking advantage of abilities and dungeon spaces that increase the torch marker on the board. In solo games you play as two heroes.

The eight heroes cover all of the typical tropes and are all different. After dispatching monsters and exploring both characters had very good items that stacked their potency but it came late in the game.

There are eight minions have more than one hit point and are stronger in combat. When dispatched they offer greater rewards and increase the torch marker.

I am looking forward to trying this game again, knowing what I know now. It was confusing deciphering all the symbols and what they mean and requires at least one playthrough before getting the system.

Marvel Champions - Cycle 2

In this cycle of Marvel Champions there was added to the game the first campaign expansion, Rise of the Red Skull, four additional Hero packs, and the scenario pack The Once and Future Kang!

The Rise of the Red Skull expansion first has two hero packs included: Spider-Woman and Hawkeye. Spider-Woman has been a little tricky to get the hang of as she gets more powerful for each aspect you play during your turn but has middling abilities otherwise. Hawkeye is much more variable and has more abilities to thwart schemes and attack both the villain and their minions. The expansion also has five villains to fight against standalone or in a progressive campaign. The villains are Crossbones, Absorbing Man, Taskmaster, Zola, and Red Skull himself. I played some villains individually but the first full playthrough of the campaign was with none other than Captain America and that was the perfect hero to go through it. A very fun expansion.

The four hero packs I tried out were:

Ant-Man: This hero needs to change between giant and tiny sizes every turn for increased effect but needs some help from teammates from time to time..

Wasp: Not great against tough independent villains but very good thwarting and against minions. A good teamup with Ant-Man..

Quicksilver: Could not beat Rhino with Bomb Scare after four tries but does well when teamed up with other heroes. Needs time to develop upgrades.

Scarlet Witch: Very good solo but because of her powerful abilities flipping encounter cards, needs to finish the game before the encounter decks is refreshed too many times or they are swamped with scheme markers to reduce.

Team Ups: In my last Marvel Champions post I spoke briefly about the ability to do solo play team-ups. Since the heroes in this cycle are very suitable for it I tried Scarlet Witch/Quicksilver and Ant-Man/Wasp team-ups against Rhino, Klaw, Ultron, and the Rise of the Red Skull initial villains.

The Once and Future Kang: For this interesting scenario pack, after Kang is defeated the first time, he splits the heroes he is against into independent play areas. After the level two villain is defeated by a hero, they can choose which hero join until all level two Kangs are defeated. The final Kang will be increased in side schemes depending on how well the heroes did. This plus his ability to give heroes debilitating or annoying obligations means he can be tough to face but not impossible. I decided to use Doctor Strange and it was a good choice as the game was challenging but always had a way to keep going forward.

Next it is onto phase three with the Guardians of the Galaxy!

Call of Cthulhu: Keeper Tips 40th Anniversary

A small little book with lots of great content, for horror and regular RPG storytellers, is the Call of Cthulhu Keeper's Tips. Some are in the Keeper's Handbook but many are from RPG industry people who know their stuff. The sections are on things like preperation, players, designing scenarios, gameplay, horror, NPCs, monsters, and props & handouts. It is contained in a small booklet for the 40th anniversary of the game but currently out of print. 

In the meanwhile, there is this gem of advice for people new to running games in the Call of Cthulhu or most RPGs on Reddit here. 

Call of Cthulhu - 7th Edition Core Books and Screen

Call of Cthulhu is one of the classic roleplaying games that has stood the test of time. Published in 1981 it has gone through six editions and is now on its seventh. The rules are pretty much the same except it has gone to a percentile system but their books include a conversion system for older material. These roleplaying books allow for a more robust roleplaying experience than the starter set, reviewed by myself here. They are also a RPG fan favorite and their system has been in the top ten of RPGGeek for a very long time.

The Investigator book is geared towards players of the game: Introduction, character creation (including skills and occupations), organizations the player can be a part of, the life of an investigator, the main setting of the game in the 1920's, player advice, and references. Everything a player needs.

The Keeper rulebook has a more basic player creation section but it is geared towards running a game set in the Cthulhu mythos setting: the game system, combat, chases, sanity, magic, playing, tomes, grimoires, artifacts and devices, monsters/beasts/alien gods, two scenarios, and appendices. Very comprehensive and lots of good advice to make the game engaging and thrilling.

The Keeper Screen Pack has maps, reference booklet, screen, and two scenarios with handouts as well as blank character sheets. Very handy for running a good game.

I very much love this roleplaying game and it has improved a lot since I first played it in the early 1980's and of a much better quality. It could even be used for generic horror roleplaying without the Cthulhu Mythos universe but you would be limiting your possibilities if you do. Highly recommended.

Battletech: "Counts As" Vehicles

 Not all of the vehicles have miniatures for them in the Battletech universe. Some are also hard to find. When looking through my old miniatures I found these that I had bought decades ago in a cool little game store in Hawaii. I painted them in generic colours so that any of my factions can use them in Alpha Strike. Painted Cold Steel with Thamar Black, Bastion Grey, and Khador Red paints. All these model rules can be found on masterunitlist for Alpha Strike rules.

This is my "counts as" Swift Wind Scout car. Eight tons and loaded with communications equipment it has no weapons but can call in artillery, indirect fire, or areospace support. Can come as an internal combustion or cargo versions. It will be handy in Alpha Strike games.

A halftrack that is my "counts as" Flatbed Truck. At ten tons it has little armour and no weapons but there are weaponized variants at the expense of cargo space.

Three different Armored Personnel Carriers, or APCs, of various types and time periods. Can have various weapons and gear but it's main job is to get troops deployed and support them in the battlefield. All ten tons.

A Centurion tank as a "counts as" Scorpion tank. At 25 tons it is an inferior version of a Vedette but has the same weaponry of an autocannon-5 and a machine gun.

A Merkva tank also as a "counts as" Scorpion tank but used for the SRM and LRM variants.

Battletech Ral Partha Vehicles

 Here are some Battletech vehicles I found that I had purchased in the mid to late 80's, made by Ral Partha. I painted them in generic colours so that any of my factions can use them in Alpha Strike. Painted Cold Steel with Thamar Black, Arcane Blue, Bastion Grey, Cygnar Yellow, and Khador Red paints. The bases are from packs of different sizes of wooden hexes found in local dollarstores.

Savannah Master: 5 ton hover vehicle that is blazingly fast and a medium laser. Usable in late succession war era and beyond by Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth factions.

Striker Light Tank: 35 tons, wheeled and fast with LRM-10 and SRM-6. Used by pretty much all Inner Sphere and mercenary factions from late succession war era and beyond.

Bulldog Medium Tank: 60 tons and tracked with large laser, SRM-4, and machine gun. Used by Inner sphere, Periphery, and Mercenary factions.

Vedette Tank: 50 tons, tracked, fast, Autocannon-5 and machine gun. Used since late succession war by Inner Sphere, Periphery, and Mercenary factions and in later eras by clan factions.

Transit Fighter: 50 tons, Autocannon-20 and four medium lasers. Many variants and used mostly by House Laio, House Marik, and minor inner sphere and periphery factions.

Battletech: Game of Armoured Combat box number Two

 In order to have more mechs for my Outworlds Alliance and Mercenary Company, the Patchwork Guild, I picked up another Battletech: A Game of Armored Combat box. It also provides me with another beginners rule book, reference sheet, maps and such. See my previous post for details of the mechs in this box set, and here for my Outworlds Alliance paint scheme. The Patchwork Guild paint schemes are variations of the ones here.

Battletech: Inner Sphere Direct Fire Lance and the Patchwork Guild or "The Unseen"

The Battletech Inner Sphere Direct Fire lance has four plastic mechs: Atlas, Orion, Marauder II, and Crusader. The Atlas and Orion are painted with my Federated Suns Regulars colours. the Marauder II and Crusader are for a mercenary group I created, The Patchwork Guild" or "The Unseen". More on them below in this post.

Atlas: 100 tons, slow, Autocannon-20, LRM-20. SRM-6, two medium lasers forward and two medium lasers rear. Painted in Federated Suns Regular colours. 

Orion: 75 tons, regular speed, autocannon-10, LRM-15, SRM-4, two medium lasers.

The next two are part of a mercenary company called the Patchwork Guild and their paint scheme reflects this. They are a made up group by myself and not part of written Battletech cannon. They are mostly veterans of Houses of the Inner Sphere, Periphery groups, Mercenary companies, and Clan warriors who had become disillusioned with their factions. They take contracts that do not target innocents and strive to make things better. Even though the are picky about their contracts the Guild never seems to lack spare parts. When in public they wear patchwork jumpsuits and black full head masks with mirrored frounts, as many are wanted by their original factions, and mimicked for their mechs. They are also nicknamed "The Unseen" because of this.

Crusader: 65 tons, average speed, two LRM-15, Two SRM-6, Two Medium lasers, Two Machine guns. Primed black, heavily drybrushed Iosian Green and drybrushed mix Iosian Green and Menoth White Highlight. Patches of Khador red Highlight, Cygnar Yellow, Cygnar Blue Highlight, Khador Red Base, Murderous Magenta, and Beaten Purple used. Cold Steel on metal parts. Washed with GW Nuln Oil. Sulfur Yellow for missiles, Khador Red Base for lasers, and Thamar Black for projectile weapon barrels. Thamar Black applied to head area with Cryx Bane Base drybrushed on then Cryx Bane Highlight lightly drybrushed on, and Army Painter Gloss used on cockpit window. Base painted cheap black then GW Technical Armageddon Dunes used on base. Army Painter Matt White applied on frount and back base arcs, and finally paint pen was used to write the name of the mech.

Marauder II: 100 tons, slow with jump jets, LB-10X autocannon, two extended range particle projection cannons, and two medium lasers. Primed black, heavily drybrushed Cygnar Yellow and drybrushed mix Cygnar Yellow and Menoth White Highlight. Patches of Khador red Highlight, Iosian Green, Cygnar Blue Highlight, Khador Red Base, Murderous Magenta, and Beaten Purple used. Cold Steel on metal parts. Washed with GW Nuln Oil. Sulfur Yellow for missiles, Khador Red Base for lasers, and Thamar Black for projectile weapon barrels. PPC barrel painted Meridius Blue and in center painted Arcane Blue. Thamar Black applied to head area with Cryx Bane Base drybrushed on then Cryx Bane Highlight lightly drybrushed on, and Army Painter Gloss used on cockpit window. Base painted cheap black then GW Technical Armageddon Dunes used on base. Army Painter Matt White applied on frount and back base arcs, and finally paint pen was used to write the name of the mech.

"

      "The Unseen" will be made up of mechs that in the real world history of Battletech went through legal troubles. They were called this because FASA, the original company that created Battletech, paid money to a company that claimed it had exclusive rights to the mech images from the original Japanese anime outside of Japan. In the mid-90's FASA was sued by Harmony Gold, who owned the Macross Saga rights in the USA, because of the use of several mech images that Harmony Gold owned the rights to. FASA lost the legal battle initially and all the mech images used from any Japanese Anime were severely altered. The originals of these mechs were called "The Unseen". After several decades Topps, the current holders of the Battletech license, won the rights to use the original images. Since I played Battletech when the original images were used and stopped playing (no connection to the removal of the original images) I wanted to make a mercenary company as a nod to these original mechs. A good article on SarnaNet goes into more detail.