Modiphius Entertainment - Modiphius News #9

A round-up of all the news from Modiphius...
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Hi there, Welcome to Modiphius News #9, our regular digest designed to give you quick hits and the hottest info on all the latest game releases and news currently happening at Modiphius towers. Congratulations Christopher Baker, who won the latest £100 prize from issue #8! Check your inbox as we'll be in touch shortly to deliver your prize. Anyone who has signed up to our mailing list by mid September, will get a chance to win another £100 gift voucher to spend in the Modiphius store. Imagine what you'd buy with £100 worth of goodies: Fallout, Conan, Star Trek, John Carter, and much more! Every issue we'll be giving away cool prizes like this, so please share this with friends who can sign up for the list here. We'll be drawing the winner at random and the winner's name will be announced in the next issue. Now on with the news ! “He who controls the spice, controls the universe.” Modiphius is hugely pleased to announce we've partnered with Gale Force 9 to produce the official DUNERoleplaying Game! Patience, further details will emerge in the fullness of time, muad'dib, but sign up here to be the first to hear all the news and announcements! We have a NEW FORUM! It's in Beta so please get involved and help improve the experience for everyone. This will be part of the forthcoming MODIPHIANS community hub. The old forum will be removed soon so make sure to grab any content you need from there asap before it's turned off. Hither comes Conan in Nameless Cults, a brand new PDF source book which delves into the cosmology, gods, cults, and otherworldly entities of Conan’s world including their priesthoods, and the strange and terrible rites of their followers! Elsewhere the amazing new Unity RPG from Zensara Studios has just opened a print pre-order shipping in late September with the full PDF available now. This fantastic new RPG features four factions with one destiny in a gorgeous new fantasy setting. Our advice? Don't miss it! Symbaroum fans have waited patiently for some new releases for the Swedish dark fantasy RPG and then three come along all at once! Adventure Pack 3 presents new adventures against the Sun Church, while the Monster Codex and Monster cards detail a wealth of new adversaries to battle and conquer - check them out as part of our Symbaroum Collection! Mutant Year Zero fans, your time is coming, with new Zone Compendiums 4 & 5, Eternal War and Hotel Imperator which complement the new Mutant Mechatron release and the original MYZ game. Check them out as part of our Mutant: Year Zero Collection! Mindjammer Press have launched their beautiful Capharnaum - The Tales of the Dragon-marked Roleplaying Game set in a world of Arabian Nights, Argonauts, and Crusaders. Inspired by the One Thousand and One Nights, the myths of ancient Greece, and the legends of the Crusades, it’s where history meets myth, and legends are born. Achtung! Cthulhu Combat has just launched! This FREE simplified PDF rules set allow you to play faster and larger games tabletop battles in the Achtung! Cthulhu universe, with multiple players. and also includes force guides for four major factions in the game! Star Trek Adventures Operations Division Supplement will be going on pre-order on Tuesday September 4th so expect lots of new material for engineering and security players and missions. PDFS will be available on purchase! Finally, lovers of Clockwork's splendid Steampunk Space 1889 will be delighted to hear, they now have a chance to explore inner space with the advent of City at the Center of the Earth, a brand new adventure in the footsteps of Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs! That's all until next time ... Modiphius out! Best wishes, Modiphius Entertainment

Modiphius Entertainment Ltd | 39 Harwood Road, London, SW64QP United Kingdom

Sunday Round-up

I've yet again managed to evade my captors for a week despite their intensive search methods...

...but having overstayed my welcome in the alternate version of London in which I was hiding with Henrietta Hyde's Monstrous Menagerie...

...I briefly stepped through a portal back to World War 2 where apparently they frown upon you 'borrowing' their Tanks and so after playing around with some Sherman's and Panther's...

...I popped through another portal to a strangely familiar world filled with many heroes of the super variety including a particularly heavily armoured Iron Man in his Mk44 Hulkbuster Suit...

...Though he seemed to have a bee in his bonnet about escaped fugitives for some reason so I went to seek some more morally flexible assistance in the form of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and Sabretooth...

...however all this moving about has made me a bit homesick so next week I'll be journeying back through my favourite hole in reality to the city of Malifaux where I'll be investigating several new recruits to the various factions vying for power there...as long as I can keep one step ahead of my pursuers that us...

On a more mundane note I've added several of the recent unboxing features to the 'Other Unboxings' tab and I'll be adding in the last few Malifaux ones to the 'Unboxing Malifaux' section over the next few days. Hopefully I'll see you all next week...

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.

Tanks - Panther Vs Sherman Starter Set

I recently acquired this simple but fun game from my friendly local gaming store Titan Games mainly because the starter set was around £16 so it didn't seem like much of a risk and secondly because the demo I had was very fun indeed despite me losing when my Panther exploded due to an unexpected Ammunition explosion from a critical hit...

In this feature we'll have a brief review (not written by me) as well as the usual look at the box contents with especial attention been given to the three tanks within...

Tanks 'Starter Set' - Box Cover

It rather unsurprisingly comes in a box...

Before we move onto the goodies within here's a review courtesy of a former Games Workshop employee and part owner of my friendly local game store.

Tanks 'Starter Set' - Review

Were you brought up on a diet of Commando comics and fifties war films? Do you like nothing better than sitting down on a Sunday afternoon with a good cup of tea to watch A Bridge too Far? Then TANKS may be just the game you are looking for.

Released by Gale Force 9 a couple of months ago TANKS is a 15mm skirmish game using a rules system that isn’t a million miles away from that used for X-wing (although it isnt a total copy, there are enough differences to make it more suitable for WWII tanks rather than spaceships).

The starter set comes with a rulebook, dice, counters, 2d cardboard scenery (representing buildings and woods), a good selection of cards for the tanks and upgrades and three tanks (one German and two American). The tanks can either be built as a German Panther or Jagdpanther and an American 75mm or 76mm Sherman.

To go along with the release of the game, Gale Force 9 have released several other tanks for the German and American forces. The Germans have received the Panzer IV and the Stug G and the Americans have been given the Pershing which can be built as a Pershing or a Super Pershing. The Panther and Shermans from the starter set have also been relesed seperatley.

The starter also contains a lot of extra cards for tanks that haven’t been released yet, primarily the Russians. This is probably because the models for these are already technically available. Gale Force 9 are pretty much the same people as Battlefront who produce the gorgeous looking Flames of War, a game that is already incredibly popular, and the tank kits for TANKS have been taken straight from there so that should answer any questions regarding quality.

Having played quite a few games now we wouldn’t say TANKS is the most historically accurate game but its definitely a lot of fun and we would recommend it to anyone who wants a cheap fun game to pass a few hours with.

Gary

Tanks 'Starter Set' - Instruction Booklet

The game isn't particularly complicated so the instruction booklet is brief but to the point. It contains instructions on how to play the game in both words and pictures, missions to play through and assembly instructions for the miniatures from the starter set.

Here's some better pictures of the instructions from the games website. The originals can be found on this page here. These models are essentially the same as the Flames of War equivalents and that website has far more detailed guides including what all those spare bits and pieces you end up with on the sprues are for...instructions for finding those can be found here.

Tanks 'Starter Set' - Terrain and Tokens

Here's pictures of both sides of the card-stock pieces that you can use as terrain (they're flat of course but will do for quick games if you don't have some actual terrain available) and the tokens you'll need to mark damage, which models have moved and for measuring your tanks moves around the table. It also comes with some dice...

Some dice...

Tanks 'Starter Set' - Stat and Upgrade Cards

As mentioned in the review the core box also contains cards for the two American and one German tank models included as well as additional ones for the Americans, British, Germans and Russians. It also contains the damage cards you'll need to keep track of critical hits including two of those pesky 'Ammo Explosion' ones that allowed my Panther to be killed by that bloody Sherman...

The aforementioned upgrade and damage cards...

 Tanks 'Starter Set' - Sherman's and Panther

The box contains a pair of American tanks and a single German one and by adding an eight point upgrade card to the German one you can have a very small but evenly balanced forty point game using just the box contents.

Panther

Unassembled

Here's pictures of both sides of the Panther Sprue. This sprue can also be used to make a Jagdpanther instead but I went with the Panther as that was the one the instructions were for.

 Assembled

The turret is separate and can be rotated independently of the tank itself.

Sherman

Unassembled

Here's pictures of both sides of the Sherman Sprue of which you get two in the box. This sprue can be used to make either the 75mm or 76mm versions and unlike the Panther there's no need to choose as each sprue contains the necessary parts to make both turrets which is the only difference. I therefore built both turrets so I could chop and change as I pleased...

Assembled

Here's a picture of them opposite one another so you can get an idea of scale.

If this has piqued your interest then you can get more information from their dedicated website here or from the Gale Force Nine website or by contacting a local stockist and asking for a quick demo.

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.