Swamp Game Mat

One of the earlier game mats that I purchased was the Swamp mat from Deep Cut Studio.

The image below shows the mat in all its glory.

What is really interesting about the mat - artistically - is how the overall effect tends to blend in to the background, and yet the the level of detail in the mat itself is actually very high indeed.

If you click to open the image, and zoom in, you will be greeted by a huge and surprising level of detail that include individual tree roots that meander across the swamp's floor; foliage from individual trees; different colours of swamp foliage and plant life in the underlying background; several different species of plant life; and more besides.

The only thing missing is an over abundance of mosquitoes to be perfectly honest. But I will leave the flies to some Nurgle armies for the moment.

Overall, I am very impressed with this purchase. The mouse mat backing of the game mat means that it won't be slipping any time soon and the fall of die on the surface will not cause a huge clattering noise. The surface is wipe-able with a damp cloth, and anything spilt on it can be mopped up quickly with a minimum of fuss (well, maybe not red wine stains: I'm not at that level of consumer testing to be honest! ....Yet). A full 5 stars from me on this mat :)

Kraken Mats: Desert Warzone City

I have bought Kraken mats before from their online retailer, FantasyWelt and been really pleased with the high quality of the product. Today is a quick review of my second purchase from the same company: the Desert Warzone City map.

This mat is of the exact same high standard that I have come to expect from Kraken. It really is high quality, durable and with a rubberized backing to make die rolls muted and the table surface non slip during any gaming activity.

The colours of the map itself are incredible. This was the thing that really stood out to me when I was considering a purchase. I didn't want to get just another city or city-scape map -- I wanted something a little bit edgier and unique. That was what the Desert map encompassed for me.

The production of these maps feature high quality photographs of real gaming board that have been custom built by Kraken. This is what sets their maps apart from a number of competitors. For Kraken, there is no subtle background that can be found elsewhere with these maps: they are real. Well, they're more than real. They're obviously enhanced digitally later on after the principle photography is complete.

The mat features a number of ruined buildings on the terrain, replete with debris inside them, as well as a road feature snaking through. One aspect that I had not fully realized is that these maps are symmetric. Hence if I bought another one, it would tessellate with this map perfectly to create a huge gaming board. This is such a lovely touch, and not an idea I've seen much of in 6x4ft gaming mats before.

To say I'm pleased with this purchase would be an understatement. These mats are fab!

Symmetric Deployment

Over the years, the methods by which armies are deployed on the table top have varied strongly. Once upon a time, they were all just lined up in a row and directly faced off against each other in a pitched battle style reminiscent of Fantasy armies arrayed in long rows and columns. For a young mind, the idea that one could do this using the short edges as well as the long edges was novel to me. Then there was the battle in the back of the Rogue Trader rule book where the main force was surrounded and the enemy came in from any old angle. This also was amazing to my young impressionable mind.

What these kinds of deployments have in common is symmetry. Whether this is the long edges, or in the centre of the board, they are almost always rotationally or mirror symmetric. I really favour this kind of set up. Indeed, one of the biggest compliments that I can give the 30k battle ethos is that each and every one of them are symmetrical in some manner. One of the core examples that folks might not have seen much of is below (Clash of the Line). 

Increasingly, there are more and more deployments that feature somewhat asymmetrical deployments. Or worse: terrain that is very biased to a particular deployment zone. Now, of course, that is just realistic at some level. However, for a game such as Warhammer 30,000 where everything has been so very carefully balanced in terms of their points value on the board, I think there is a lot of merit in retaining symmetrical deployments as much as possible. Not only is it simpler, but it means that the players start on a roughly equal footing supposing that the terrain is also reasonably balanced and well positioned. Symmetrical deployment is therefore a concept that I have really come to like - doubly so for tournament play, even though I also like the narrative of unequal forces and terrain in general.

Alien Wasteland Gaming Mat (Kraken Mats)

Following a high profile and well-conceived kickstarter campaign a few years ago, Kraken launched a wide range of gaming mats for sale. They presently retail through the German company, FantasyWelt, for about the same price as high quality mats from other companies (about the same as special runs from Game Mat EU for instance -- which in turn is higher than their regular gaming mats or mats from Deep Cut Studio). 

One of the key things that Kraken sells their mats on is that they really constructed genuine playing boards for their principle photography. Most of their mats has their basis in a custom board that has been specifically constructed for gaming. After building and painting their boards, they then proceed to photograph it professionally at high resolution multiple times over. After this, it enters post production where the individual photographs are stitched together and overlaid (if needed) to produce a final big composite image. This image then has some post-processing applied to it. Some of their gaming mats have more post-processing effects applied than others it seems. The bottom line though is that the final image for production in to a gaming mat is simply not one hundred per cent digital. It really is based on a custom board build specifically to be photographed and transferred to mouse mat material for printing. 

It was on this basis that I decided I would make a purchase or two from Kraken.

Below is one of my purchases, laid out in partial sunshine in my back yard. This is the Alien Wasteland gaming mat. Clearly, it is Necron inspired in background from a first glance. But there is a whole lot more going on within the details here. 

The first thing that strikes me about the mat is the sheer level of detail present. Unlike some rival products, the gaming mat is not simply a backdrop that is filled up with much bland detail -- I'm sure many of us know of featureless mats of green grass, yellow sandy deserts, or NASA produced pictures of the Martian surface from orbit for instance. Instead, since the gaming mat has been produced from a real textured gaming board, there is an incredible level of detail present here. This ranges from the grains of red and black sand that are clear in the board, through to the painting of the green highlights that streak across the plains. 

My only real criticism is that some of the shadows and reliefs might have been implemented better. But to be honest, it really is not noticeable at all. Plus: it is actually what it should look like from a top-down vantage point anyway. Hence this is no criticism at all. It is actually a compliment that the photography is absolutely spot on and what it should look like in "real life". 

Below is a close up of one of the plateau regions.

The shadows caused by the nearby "raised" plateaus are clearly visible here toward the lower right of the shiny molten looking sea portion. Speaking of that, it is very clear that a whole lot of work has gone in to the construction of the real life custom board that was produced for this photograph. Everything, and I mean everything here is just in so much detail. The game mat is just as much a piece of artwork as anything else if I am perfectly honest. The raised plateaus have been done tremendous justice with their green markings across the surface. I have no idea how the molten looking ocean was made, but that is a real highlight for me as well. It really is so well textured overall. As if that were not enough, the paint job looks splendid with the right combinations of what I presume are airbrush techniques, highlighting and some selective drybrushing going on. It really is just splendid. 

How does it play though?

I subjected it to the best test that I could come up with. The daughter test. Jumping up and down on the mat and dancing and twirling all over it caused no real issue for it, and my girl was delighted with the mat. She wanted to use it herself for her own games (of Warhammer ... and of other games too). Full marks for robustness from me then. The rear of the mat is mouse mat material (I refuse to use anything else these days) hence the tumble of die on its surface is muffled rather than very loud. Additionally, any little spills of water on the surface of the mat can be rubbed / wiped away with minimal fuss.

Overall then, this is a very high quality product. I am highly pleased with this purchase and would certainly recommend these mats to my friends across the blogosphere and the gaming community. 

My intent is to try to produce some pseudo-necron looking scenery in the longer term to go with this gaming mat. I'm thinking dark coloured monoliths highlighted by green streaks across their surface (see here for a much earlier prototype) or maybe even electronic looking devices strewn across the surface to make for a very alien feeling planetscape. 

Tactical Objectives for 8th Edition

Alongside other purchases, I bought a set of 8th Edition Tactical Objectives for the new Warhammer 40,000 rules.

The quality of these cards is high. Or maybe I just used to play with dilapidated playing cards too much when I was younger? They are easily shuffled if needed and dealt out with ease. That said, these cards are matt finished, rather than anything else. I might grab some of my old Magic:The Gathering card sleeves for these cards perhaps in order to improve their longevity.

The design of the cards is very functional. This ranges from their rounded corners through to the rules themselves and the pictures on the (sub set of) cards that illustrate their point (or are gratuitous space marines!).

Now, I know that many people have a dislike to these kinds of tactical objective cards. And I for one can readily understand why. The lack of option to ditch one of these cards that is simply not obtainable is a royal pain. I would expect to see many house rules allowing players to re-draw a card that is simply not obtainable. That said, there are of course command points in play that can help a player do exactly that. So maybe its not all bad?

Of course, at its base level, the cards are adding in an extra random element to certain games of 40k in 8th edition. Whether this is good as a ground levelling concept, or bad just because it is too random is up for debate.

That said, I do like these cards and their implementation. I just had hoped for them all to be usable in all missions.

8th Edition Command Dice - Thoughts

I decided to order a set of Games Workshop's "command dice" when I ordered my copy of the hard back 8th edition rule book.

These die are a bit of a novelty thing for me if I'm perfectly honest. In the picture above, I show them fresh out of the plastic cylinder tube (top of image) that they came in. The skulls on the die in the middle of the image make it tough to see or discern the actual number being rolled in my opinion. For die, it would have been better to just use pips or a single number in a recognisable font. 

That said, the express purpose of these die is to keep track of the command points that one has in their pool. It is for this purpose that I'm going to give them a pass mark. The thing is, these die are very obviously different to any other die in anyone's collection. As such, they are hugely distinct. This is fundamentally what makes them perfect for this kind of "keeping tabs" usage. I will personally be using them in this manner. Most assuredly, I will never be using them for rolling purposes. 

The final six die (lower part of the image) are for combat statuses. They make it simpler to keep track of various things that are going on during the game and the phases that happen. I am uncertain if I will actually use these particular die. I'm a bit on the fence about them. Take, for instance, the ones that show footprints inside an arrow. The design is precisely the same as the plastic counters / markers that came out with 5th edition. I never even used the full array of counters -- particularly the run ones! Hence, my feelings about these 6 die are exactly the same that I had in 5th edition. Just a bit of a gimmick really. 

Hence, overall, I'll be using some of these die, but not all of them. Would be interested to hear other people's point of view in the comments or via Facebook. 

Note to Self: Mission Design

There exist a wide variety of ways in which to design missions for Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer 30,000, Age of Sigmar, and all manner of other games. One of the defining features of the Games Workshop approach to mission design is that there is no "automatic win" button. In some war-games, the killing of the general might represent an automatic win condition and the game would stop at that very instant. This generally does not happen in 40k.

Indeed, the closest thing to an automatic win is usually (but not always) a complete massacre of the opposing force.

When this condition is met, the winner usually is considered to have won the "primary" mission. Arguably, they have also secured all of the secondaries and perhaps tertiaries (if they are being used) as well.

But herein is the point that I want to make. If the winner in a massacre is presumed to have achieved maximum points, what about the loser? 

In our recent tournament, we designed it so that both the winner and the loser had things to still play for even late on in the game.

For those people aiming for a massacre style victory, we awarded one additional point for achieving this goal. Hence we had some players attempting to avoid being completely massacred just for the sake of not giving away that final tournament point to their opponent if at all possible. This is a good thing and reflects not wanting to give up. Added to this, we implemented secondaries and tertiary missions that could be achieved even if a massacre victory was scored against them.

The most obvious one is "Slay the Warlord". This can be achieved even if one is massacred (and obviously happens by default if one is victorious in a massacre victory!). 

Another is "First Strike" -- this is the same as first blood, but either player can achieve it. All they have to do is kill an entire unit in the first turn of the game. This not only alleviates the bias from achieving first blood from who goes first (which is undeniably a huge contributing factor), but gives both players something to aim for.

Other examples include moving a particular unit to a particular destination during the course of a game. This can still happen for anyone who subsequently gets massacred.

Hence, when designing missions, we like to frequently include at least one or two (secondaries or tertiaries) that can be scored by someone who eventually gets massacred regardless. It still gives people something to play for. Of course, there are still aspects of the game, such as having a unit in the oppositions deployment zone at the end of the game, that cannot be achieved if one is massacred. Instead, perhaps award a secondary or tertiary for moving all of ones own units out of their deployment zone (and thus score secondaries that way) rather than depend on the state of the game on the final turn. In this way, both players have things to aim for that they can achieve tournament points for during the game, and not just at the end. Meanwhile, having that extra point for a total wipe out victory will drive the win-at-all-costs player onward, and probably to distraction (as we experienced the other week!). 

DeepCut Studio: Neo-Tokyo Game Mat

One of the gaming mats that I have recently purchased is the Neo-Tokyo mat from DeepCut Studio. We used it for the first time on Friday just gone for one of our kill team games (although only 4x4 ft of it, rather than the full 6x4 ft). 

I must admit, I am really pleased with this purchase. I was hesitating between this one and a different city-scape from a different company, but I am very glad indeed that I purchased this one. The level of detail contained in the print is simply glorious. I like the layering that has been done here. Not only are the macro details lovely and crisp, but the small scale attention to detail is splendid. I really like the hints of spills here and there, the odd white spots, the yellow paint, and the general night-time ambience that the mat communicates. The diagonal arrangement of the roads only accentuates the feeling of a far flung future city. It really does the job terrifically well and makes a superb addition to the family of gaming boards that our local group is using (see the earlier article on the Frost Grave mat, for instance). 

As with the previous purchase, I selected to buy the mouse mat style mat to ensure zero slippage on the table top. The thickness is a couple of millimetres, and the weight is a few kilograms, so its not too bad to carry around and transport at all. As with the previous purchase, the transit time was under one week from Lithuania to the United Kingdom. 

This is one of the mats that I hope to use if and when we run a Warpstone Flux tournament. And if that event is successful, I will be investing again in DeepCut Studio's products in the future (certainly before the full exit of the United Kingdom from the EU occurs so I can take advantage of tariff free trade within the EU whilst it exists). 

Space Hulk Deathwing Gameplay Video Review

"Inside the Sanctum Imperator these impious creatures will find much to conceal their whereabouts and movements. Be on your guard, brothers" 

The above is the opening line to the recently released 17ish minutes of gameplay footage taken from the Space Hulk: Deathwing PC game that will soon be released. The video of this gameplay can be found here and the image below is a screen capture of part of said video.

From the outset, the game comes across as a vast labyrinthine maze riddled with genestealers, genestealer hybrids and monstrous tyranid creatures. Almost from the outset the growls of the creatures can be heard in the background and that sets the ambience and purpose of the game straight from the word go.

The player appears to control a Deathwing Librarian. Initially, he is armed with a force sword and a storm bolter. But in later play, it becomes evident that he can trade these in for other armaments. Imagine, for instance, a Librarian armed with an assault cannon and a power fist. No problem for this computer game at all -- you get to have your cheese (and cake) and eat it here! Nice!

The video shows that as battle carries on, various portions of the terminator armour become more damages (see the centre right of the screenshot) and it is entirely possible for other members of the team (which in this video appear to be computer controlled, but can be given basic commands by the player characters) to get injured and even die during the missions. Luckily there is an apothecary with the main player character it seems!

Navigating the space hulk and twiddling doors open, closed and locked is all part of the tactics that can be employed here. But the thing is: given that you can execute pincer movement on the genestealers also means that they're going to try to do the same on you. I think this is evident at a number of critical junctures in the gameplay where the enemies come from multiple directions all at once.

The variety of bad guys is decent. Ranging from the hack and slash of the rapidly moving purestrain genestealers, through to the very ranged hybrids that tote missile launchers, and the large big bad guy tyranid monsters at the end of one of the levels (plus enemy psykers) makes for a potent mix. The space hulk itself is vast and almost more like a city than a spacecraft. I guess that's the point though!

The gameplay looks good with a nice combination of first person shooter style coupled with hack and slash of swords and power fists in addition to beautiful and potent psyker abilities employed by the main player character. The orders given to squad mates appear to be executed very nicely with the computer artificial intelligence appearing to do a rather good job of things. 

In terms of negatives, I thought that the repetitive nature of squad members declaring that there is a missile launcher up ahead was annoying. Very annoying. At least, I think it would get on my nerves a lot if I played this game for a while. If only they could have more and different dialogue recorded for the game it would not grate on me as much I think. 

There are some features that I don't quite fully understand either yet -- in terms of resource management and upgrading various bits and pieces. I guess that will become more apparent when the game gets fully released on Dec 9th 2016.

Overall, looks good, wish the dialogue was more, and more varied, and seems like it'll be decently challenging. 

Drop Pod - No Man's Sky

I have been playing a lot of "No Man's Sky" lately on my rig. Its a new game released only last month to a barrage of criticism and acclaim. In very broad terms, it is a survival and exploration game similar in some respects to Elite / Elite: Dangerous, but with not only space trading and combat, but also plentiful land exploration. Indeed, there are over 18 quintillion planets in the game -- all procedurally generated. Most of the criticism of the game originates in what was suggested might happen by the developers (Hello Games) versus what was released. Indeed, there are features missing when one makes that comparison, but given its a small indie team who were almost wiped out by a flood in their office, I'm amazed it went ahead at all. For me personally, I'm loving the game! Can't wait to see what the devs might release for it next to be honest.

Anyhow. I was happily wandering along on my own merry way and found this.

Does this remind my readers of anything in particular?

Heck, even within the game its called a drop pod. To me it looked very much like a Dreadnought Drop Pod from 40k/30k! Inside it was an upgrade for my exosuit, which was nice to have (it gave me a bonus slot for carrying more stuff -- which was incredibly useful!). I will be looking out for more of these in the game!

And if you see any planets discovered by "jabberjabber", then gimme a shout -- you know who to blame!

Planetary Empires Campaign - Round 3 Update

Following on from the last round (what seems a long time ago due to the Summer Holidays), the campaign map now looks like this.

I think the map says it all really! The Eldar player is undefeated in the entire campaign so far, with the rest of us having won at least one game each. 

As for my Alpha Legion forces, we're now split between tiles on diametrically opposite sides of the planet. The Space Wolves are similarly divided. The Chaos Space marines meanwhile at least have a pair of contiguous tiles, including one (tougher to conquer) mountain tile left. 

Since I lost (against the Eldar) last round, I get to challenge first in the next round. I think I might try to take on the Chaos Space Marines. I at least have one extra manufactorum (meaning extra points in the coming battle) compared to him, and might have a slight advantage. I'm not sure what (collectively) we can do about the expansionist Eldar though. Its simply a very tough codex to beat down for all of us it seems!

Planetary Empires Campaign - Round 2 Update

Continuing a few reports based on our local campaign, Round 2 has now played itself out and the Planetary Empires map has been updated accordingly. 

So what happened here?

Well, my 30k Alpha Legion forces played against the Space Wolves (40k) in this round. The mission was "harvesting", in which there were 4 objectives and each player gains 1 victory point for controlling any objective and the end of the OTHER player's turn. 

In playing against the Space Wolves, I did something that I've not done much before: chose something other than infiltrate for my mutable tactic. Instead, I selected counter attack as I knew my opponent was running a bucket load of wolves backed up with long fangs and Wolfen. Further, due to the way the games are set up, I was at a 75 pt disadvantage. I didn't think I had much to lose, so I castled up in one corner of the board with a terminator squad hunkered down in a land raider for most of the game. This remarkably paid off, and I scored a victory as I took out the Space Wolf army piecemeal, whilst retaining the bulk of my army in a largish blob. 

In the other game, the Eldar massacred the Chaos / Khorne forces by a very very narrow margin. I was thinking that their game could have gone either way -- and it could have right down to the last moment. A few saving throws here or there gone the other way and it would have been a massacre the other way around. A very tense game.

This means that the updated map shows that the Eldar are winning with 6 tiles in total (they're undefeated!). Both Chaos and my Alpha Legion have 1 win and 1 loss each, but I now have 4 tiles and Chaos has 3. The Space Wolves are yet to score a victory and have been reduced down to 1 tile. In the next round, I will be facing off against the Eldar. I'm not looking forward to those D-Scythes to be honest with you. But we'll see what happens!

As a result of these battles, I stole one of the Space Wolves tiles right at the top of the map, whilst the Eldar conquered one of Chaos' tiles adjacent to their territory. We both expanded in to the only unclaimed land. Much building of manufactoria proceeded (they give +50 points value for a battle) and we now find ourselves in this situation. We're having a week off, so round 3 won't be until 2 weeks time. Wish me luck! (I'm going to need it against 40k Eldar!). 

Planetary Empires Campaign - Round 1 Update

As readers may be aware, we're currently engaged in a small scale Planetary Empires Campaign. For this, we are using the modified "Blended Empires" rules that have been posted here a long time ago. (See: here and here). 

Earlier this week, I posted a video battle report of my own battle against the vile forces of chaos… which I lost miserably due to my daft deployment and not handling the Heldrake very well at all. Meanwhile, the Eldar scored a massacre victory over the Space Wolves. 

These results gave 8 Empire Points to the Eldar, 7 to Chaos, and 3 each to us "loyalists". 

And now, Round 1 is over with, and Empire Points have been earned and spent by the players. The only rule we impose for Round 1 spending is that players may not conquer other player's tiles. Therefore everyone expanded in to unclaimed tiles, did various upgrades, and bought veterans and reinforcements.

The updated map is below.

In the next round I will be facing off against the Space Wolves (on 1425 points-- 1300 points base, plus 1 manufactorum, plus 1 reinforcements) whilst I will face them with 1350 points (1300 base plus 1 manufactorum), plus one unit to be upgraded with a veteran rule thanks to my Bastion. I'm thinking some +1 initiative for my marine squad to be able to strike first against I=4 wolves. 

Deep Cut Studio Frost Grave Gaming Mat

The observant amongst my readers may have noticed that we've been using something new recently for our games and some of our photos. I recently invested in a gaming mat purchased from Deep Cut Studio. The image shows the purchase: a 6 ft x 4 ft mat in the Frost Grave style. Due to the height I took the image at, the resolution is not perfect, but rest assured that the detail in the gaming mat is simply amazing. 

In terms of construction, the mat that I got is a "mouse mat" style. This means that image is printed on a linen upper surface whilst the lower surface is effectively a large rubberised anti-slip mat. The thickness is around a few millimetres and the weight a couple of kilograms. 

We've already used the mat for gaming on in our local group and we are very pleased with the results. Not only does the mat stay in place, but the surface is an excellent finish. It doesn't fade and is nicely scratch resistant. Moreover, rolling die on the surface doesn't make such a huge clanging noise as one would expect otherwise -- its a muffled or muted clatter as they hit the surface. This makes a subtle but very nice difference to our games. It also makes picking up the die a lot easier than on a flat wooden surface if I'm totally honest as well. 

The level of detail is simply tremendous. The picture reveals multiple areas of the map that are frozen and can be seen underneath other "layers". It has clearly been proceeded with a high degree of care on a computer generated image and reproduced superlatively well by the printers at very high DPI. There's plenty of interesting features that can be used as a staging area for terrain pieces, or even potentially harbouring a subtle cover save in some places. 

Overall, despite the cost and the transit time of a week, I am very pleased with this purchase. We will certainly be using it way in to the future!

On the Gameplay and Deletion of Freeblade

Overview.

Prior to Christmas, I downloaded the Freeblade game application to my mobile device. In short, I wanted something to play with on my travels around the UK that was categorically nothing to do with my work and hopefully something to also help me switch off; proverbially speaking.

Freeblade was released late November 2015. In a nutshell, it features the player as the pilot of an Imperial Knight supported by the Dark Angels space marine chapter. It enables the player to face off against threats like Orks and their machines through a series of missions, whilst adding in a mixture of resource management, upgrades, and general levelling up.

Good Points.

I'm going to start with the very obvious strong point of the game: the graphics. The graphics are absolutely amazing. I've played so many games over the years, ranging from BBC micro computer games like Repton 3 (I'm showing my age here), through to modern massive multi-player online roleplaying games such as Guild Wars 2. 

Freeblade is up there with the best of them in terms of the graphics. 

The Imperial Knight is beautifully animated, and the player can customise the colours of the Knight right from the start. That said, some of the colours needs to be unlocked - much like some of the Knight's other abilities - throughout the game.

The setting is similarly beautifully rendered and animated. The Orks are green, their machines are mean and feature a gritty, grim-darkness, neorealism that strongly evokes the absolute feeling of the far flung future in which war is the only way of life. Surrounding them are plentiful buildings and semi-rural scenes that come directly from built up hive cities, towns and their surroundings. I won't spoil the game itself, but suffice to say that all of the enemies are just as well rendered as the Orks and their machines. 

Really, I cannot overstate how impressive the graphics and animations are in this game. They're simply beautiful with not much to rival it anywhere. On top of this, its all on mobile devices - not a desktop or a laptop, which makes this doubly impressive to my mind.

In terms of gameplay, I really enjoyed the upgrades that were available. Each and every bit of armour has a separate and distinct upgrade possibility (like the head, the calves, etc.) in terms of its statistics that can influence the game. The weapons can be swapped in and out for different things -- thermal cannons, battle cannons and so forth. 

To control the weapons, there are three fundamental taps to do on the screen. Holding down on a specific location will fire the minor hull-mounted weapon at that location until it needs to cool down -- typically after several seconds. This is good for taking out infantry enemies. Holding down two fingers and releasing activates the main weapon. This is generally good for taking out heavily armoured tanks, or ground based infantry that just have to die in a very large blast. Then there is the missile launcher that is activated by a double tap. It launches heaps of missiles at everything on the screen that is nearby. In other words, its excellent at clearing a space. 

Although it takes a little getting used to, the game paces the introduction of these three weapon types over the early chapters of the game nicely, and it becomes easy enough to control. 

The full game is an excellent shoot-em-up style arcade experience brought right up to date. I can't complain about that!

Bad Points.

Look, I'm going to be honest here. The adverts in the game are a pain. At first, they're not such an issue. After several sessions, they really interrupt the game flow in a very peculiar and painful way though. For example, one gets that chance to watch an advert video if one wants to obtain some upgrades for the upcoming mission. These are usually power boosters, loot improvement, or similar. 

It is worse than that though. Almost every upgrade revolves around adverts ultimately. If the player does not want to watch the advert, then there's always the option to pay for extra resources. Clearly, paying for micro-transactions is nothing new in this day and age. Yet it amounts to the usual meme of paying to win. 

If, like me, you do not wish to expend any money on the game, then you need to expect a harder, tougher, more time consuming grind to get the requisite materials to upgrade your Knight and beat the levels. That involves watching adverts. Many of them must be viewed to make good progress if I'm honest. 

Speaking of levels, there are some really tough ones in the game as well. Early on, for instance, I personally got a bit stuck just before the missile launcher rack became available to me. I needed to spend about an entire session repeating previous levels to grind out upgrade materials, crafting better equipment and generally levelling up to be competitive. 

As a lesser complaint, the boosters have to be used as soon as they're obtained. There doesn't appear to be a way of storing them for later!

Deletion.

Ultimately, the grind coupled with my desire to not spend a single penny or cent on the game meant that my progress was halted. I'm not a bad player, I'm not the best either: but my lack of progress was incredibly frustrating. When it just became a bit much to watch yet another advert on the bus or train, I was done with the game. The adverts are so completely integrated with the game that it is a huge detriment to it, in my opinion. Hence an experience that started off as a 4 or 5 star game for me rapidly deteriorated in to a 1 star rating game.

How could the game be improved? I think I would only play it again if it were available as a premium game. That means that I'm willing to pay for it so long as I don't have to endure stupid integrated adverts and that the micro transactions are completely removed. That latter would entail having to re-balance the game though. Hence I'm not expecting it to happen any time soon. It would, however, make the game truly awesome, rather than the current pay to win.

It is such a pity really. I had very high hopes and expectations for this game. Its downfall and ruination came from the monetization and commercial nature of it. I will not be playing it again personally and I've deleted it from my devices. These are just my personal opinions though.

[Image Credit: Official Freeblade Trailer]

The Melta and Armoured Ceramite Conundrum in 30k

Overview.
I think there is a conundrum in 30k around Armoured Ceramite and Melta weaponry. It also connects to game theory very nicely. Let me explain.

Background.
In 30k, Armoured Ceramite is a reasonably common and very available upgrade to vehicles in legion (and other armies, such as the Solar Auxilia) armoury. In brief, it negates the special melta weapon rules that provide an extra die for amour penetration.

The Conundrum.
Let's see if I can explain this using a logical chain.
(i) Because Armoured Ceramite is available, players are going to take it to negate against melta weapons.
(ii) Because players are taking Armoured Ceramite, it logically follows that players will respond by not bothering with melta weaponry. They'll take something like lascannons to deal with heavy AV armour instead.
(iii) Because players are no longer bothering with melta weapons, it logically follows that players do not need to invest the points sink in Armoured Ceramite.
(iv) Because players are not purchasing Armoured Ceramite, one should take melta weaponry to exploit them.

And therein is the conundrum, the contradiction, and (if nothing else) a downright paradox!

In some games that I've played, its clear that the meta is somewhere in the region of step (i) or step (ii). Armoured Ceramite is very popular (and probably rightly so). And this is leading to a decrease of melta weaponry in accord. I've not heard anyone reach the logical step of (iii) just yet, but it does follow quite naturally. I just don't think folks are thinking that far along the logic chain to be honest. And that's completely understandable if everyone is still salivating over Armoured Ceramite's ability.

But, being slightly twisted, and playing the Alpha Legion in 30k, I'm totally taking melta weaponry in the form of a melta support squad. Because my Alpha Legion force is rightly already at step (iv)!

Or at least that's what I keep telling myself. The reality is far removed from this, naturally, as most folks are still at step (i). But I will keep on taking the melta just to exploit folks who are not taking the Armoured Ceramite. That, and I think that melta guns are very powerful weapons if you're able to get in range of an enemy, and can cause significant damage to even terminator squads with the right positioning (which I plan on achieving with Armillus Dynat's warlord trait).

Rules of Yesteryear: AD&D THAC0

If you already know what "THAC0" stands for, then you probably already know what I'm going to say in this post as you've probably got analogous experiences to me!

In Dungeons and Dragons, the chance to hit (and indeed: to wound) an enemy was determined by the THAC0. In short, it stands for "To Hit Armour Class 0". Every player character (and opponents!) had a numerical (integer) THAC0 value that started out at a modestly high level for lower level characters, and got lower as the player character increased in level.

In turn, everyone also had an Armour Class. The better the armour that someone was wearing, the lower that armour value would be. It even extended to negative values. 

Let's take an example to make this concept a bit more obvious. A level 5 warrior has a THAC0 of 16. That means that if he (or she) is facing an opponent with an armour class of 0, they need to roll 16 or more on a d20 to hit and wound that enemy. If the opponent was wearing slightly worse armour, they might have an armour class of 10 instead. Therefore, the warrior receives a modifier of 10 to this. Hence they'd need a 6 or more to damage them. And if their armour was superb, they might have an armour class of -2. That would need a roll of 18 or more on a d20 to do damage. And so forth.

THAC0 was eliminated from Dungeons and Dragons with the advent of 3rd edition (in the year 2000). Armour classes were reversed such that higher values of armour were better (rather than lower). Yet, the concept of THAC0 and its abbreviation will (I'm assuming!) sit strongly in people's minds if they've played Dungeons and Dragons in yesterdecades. 

Rules of Yesteryear: 40k Modifiers to Hit based on Range

Back to Rogue Trader in today's post. In this earliest of editions of 40k, there were bonuses and penalties to hit your target based on your range. 

In the example below, the las pistol (which I also bet you didn't know had a nickname of "bloogers"?!) there is a bonus to hist of +2 if you're within 8 inches of the target, but a penalty to hit of -2 if you're between 8 and 16 inches away.

Rules of Yesteryear: 40k Target Priority

The year is 2004, and the 4th edition of the Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook is released, alongside the Battle for Macragge (which had a whittled down version of the rulebook).

One of my fondest memories of this edition was the "target priority" rule.

It was an attempt to try to capture the sheer immediacy of battle. If a unit wanted to shoot at an enemy other than the closest one, it had to take a leadership check to be able to do so. I personally really enjoyed this rule, even if it did make the game slightly clunkier, as I felt it really captured what a tabletop war-game should be in essence.

The downside was that most units would have at least a leadership value of 9, meaning that these kinds of rolls were marginally pointless most of the time. Equally, in several tournaments, forcing my opponents to use this rule really saved my bacon a few times. So it is one of those rules that has really stayed with me. I genuinely liked it, and wouldn't mind seeing some kind of analogue to it reintroduced (if some way could be devised to do it so that it wasn't just another pointless dice roll!). 

Rules of Yesteryear: 40k Vehicle Damage

Inspired by my post yesterday, I thought I'd pull out a few old rules that have long since been discarded. Today, we're going to take a quick, and very visual, tour of the old vehicle damage charts from 1992's "Vehicle Manual". The first picture is of the front cover of the manual.

These rules were released in White Dwarf prior to this publication, but feedback from the public and play testers modified it. Yes: seriously. People wrote letters using pen and paper and sent them to Games Workshop HQ. You don't have to believe me, the authors wrote exactly that in the introduction to this tome!

This next image explains what the system was ultimately all about. The overhead sheet! Basically, you put the crosshairs on where you are targeting on the vehicle (see the next image that shows a Rhino in the cross hairs). 

Here, I'm aiming for the fuel tank. We then proceed to hit (etc.) and you can read what happens next in the summary on the targeting grid.

If you got a palpable hit, then the charts on the reverse of the rhino's sheet would be consulted. The above is an example of what might happen if the fuel tank got hit. I like the 4-6 result of the tank essentially turning in to a heavy flamer! 

Equally, I can totally see why this entire system was got rid of. Its slow, unwieldy, too detailed, too labour intensive (imagine having a sheet for every tank, dreadnought, Tyranid big bug, and variant thereof) and frankly the current more abstract system just flows a whole lot better. 

I regard this as one of the prime examples of the rules changing over the years for the better. But I fear we have reached the stage where cutting back of 40k rules will happen once more as the rule book has become too bloated and the armies too complex. Just an opinion. Regardless, I hope you've enjoyed this trip down memory lane and found these images educational (they're reproduced here for just that purpose - please don't sue me GW!). And for those of you who've never seen this stuff before, I trust its been an eye-opener!!