Nuklear Winter 68

A couple games have appeared at the club lately.  First up was our trial of In Her Majesty's Name (the photos of which I still haven't looked at,) and a new(ish) boardgame, Nuklear Winter 68.

One of Scott's finds, it's an alternate history/Weird War Three tactical boardgame, played through a series of thematically linked scenarios. The rulebook starts with a surprisingly comprehensive history of the second world war. Briefly, Hitler is assassinated, Himmler takes over, builds bunkers for the Thrird Reich to hole up in, Allies nuke Germany, build a wall round it to keep people either in or out, nuclear winter for a few years, radiation levels start to dissipate, Third Reich reappear, Mutants appear, chaos ensues.  Three factions are available in the game, each scenario dictating who fights whom; The Third Reich, NATO (with added Russians) and The Black Hand (the mutants from the nuclear wasteland.)

It has a random sequence of platoon activations mixed in with some, normally random, events; not all your units are guaranteed an action every turn, there's a nice balancing mechanic which essentially means most of your units will probably activate each turn.

The core combat mechanics is fairly familiar (stat + 2D6 +/- modifiers to beat a target number,) but with an interesting twist.  Each unit has three states, shaken, reduced, dead.  Attacks can reduce this piecemeal or with one powerful attack.  Although this can make the game a little dicey, it's still suitably difficult to kill something in one shot - a good thing.

Now, this isn't really the type of game I usually would go for, (I usually go for a bit more bling on my boardgames) but the theme and execution here really drew me in.  The board is both large wonderfully detailed, especially considering it's of a nuclear wasteland.  There are plenty of units available for each faction, including aircraft, artillery and the occasional nuclear mutant, and each unit acts appropriately to it's type, digging infantry out of urban areas is suitably sloggy.

I've had a loan of this copy for a couple weeks now and have played through about half the scenarios. Almost all appear well balanced, although the smaller games suffer from flukey dice rolls (looking at you Mr Brown.)  We're planning to run one of the three player scenarios soon, all three factions are fighting to control the crashed alien spaceship, what part of that doesn't sound fun.  Frustratingly for me, the first print run of the game itself is currently out of print, although the author is taking preorders for an expansion.

Heartily recommended.

Btw, If anyone knows where I could get a copy or if you have a copy for trade, please get in touch using the link on the right.

Death Angel Expansions and Relationship Advise

So I had to spend a bit of time today in town after work, shopping for the Mrs birthday present.  Didn't find much, so I'm stuck tonight on t'internet trawling through websites, credit card at the ready!

And a quick aside for some relationship advice.  NEVER get yourself a reputation for giving good presents.  Not only will you have to do all the shopping for her relatives as well as yours, having that rep each year piles pressure on you to keep up your run.  Not sure what's wrong this year, but I just can't find what I'm looking for this year.  If anyone knows where I could get one of those big DNA/Molecule models (as seen on the Big Bang Theory) in the UK with 24 hour delivery, let me know.

On the way home I nipped in past the local comic-book-with-small-gaming-section store for a browse.  I don't spend too much cash there because, as I've mentioned in the past, it isn't that friendly a place.  Still, it's the only place we have in town and I like to support them when I can.

Today, I spied a bit of a bargain, two expansions for the Space Hulk: Death Angel card game.  For those unfamiliar with the game (you can read my review here) it is a card game recreation of the classic Games Workshop, Space Hulk.  It's a very tight, very taxing co-op card game that I find very rewarding to play.  How taxing?  I've probably beaten the game only on a handful of occasions, despite playing it at least fifty times!

The first two expansion packs released were in Fantasy Flight's Print-On-Demand range.  Essentially they were a small number of cards that complemented the base game (one was extra characters, the other new mission cards) without changing any fundamentals.  The following two expansions, those I bought today, are still Print-On-Demand, but are much larger and change how the game is played.

The Tyranid Enemy Pack adds a variety of enemies, replacing the original Genestealers, to the game.  As a fan of the Tyranid background material, I'm really happy with the range of cards and in particular the artwork on them.  Some of the enemy abilities are pretty mean however.  The Deathwing Space Marine Pack replaces the original twelve Blood Angel Terminators with Terminators from the Dark Angels chapter.  On offer are a whole new range of abilities, some look immense although I can't see the point of one particular ability.

I've wanted these for a while, but never got round to ordering them (actually I did, from Maelstrom....)  The clincher for buying them today was the fact that the store had gotten the price wrong on these two packs; they had them for £4.99 each, while the RRP if £11.99 each!  Sweeet!  Can't resist a bargain.  I managed a couple quick games this evening with the Deathwing, but I want another couple games before posting my thoughts.

Fear To Tread - Two Minute Review

When it comes to reviews, it takes a pretty strong reaction to force me to put one up on the blog here.  And a strong reaction is exactly what was provoked by the latest Horus Heresy 40K novel, Fear To Tread by James Swallow.

Over the previous twenty books, the Horus Heresy series has shown us a side to the 40K universe that we haven't seen before.   However that unique viewpoint of the Horus Heresy has been lost and it often feels we're just going through the motions, until the authors get round to the battle for Earth.  In my opinion, the best HH books (Legion, The First Heretic, Fulgrim) have been those that start before Horus has fallen to Chaos and chart those events from another Legions point of view.  Some (The Outcast Dead, Mechanicum, Nemesis) were just garbage.

Now when you read licensed fiction (i.e. something set in a pre-existing universe,) you accept that the author doesn't have free reign as to where they take their story.  Accepting that, you are entitled to expect some core elements from the existing universe.  When it comes to 40K and the Horus Heresy books, that includes plenty of action, decent dialogue, appropriate imagery and an insight into the particular legion you're reading about.

Fear to Tread does a pretty good job of portraying the Blood Angels; loyalty and division in droves.  The dialogue is pretty engaging too and from unexpected quarters; the dialogue between Horus, the daemon and the Word Bearer is outstanding, as is the way the plot to turn Sanguinius to Chaos is revealed.  Sadly, the rest of the book is spent trawling through some rather underwhelming bolter-porn.  As the legion succumbs to rage and mindless violence, all the finesse in the writing disappears.  I lost all respect for the book when a group of Space Marines were attacked by lampposts.  Yes, you read that correctly.

Then there's the blood.  Yes, they're Blood Angels and a lot of the imagery and symbolism of that legion revolves around the idea of blood; loyalty, sacrifice, anger, violence, family etc.  Fear to Tread really takes this to extremes, however, and some of it is comical - Wait, that blood isn't Blood Angel Blood, that blood is someone else's blood!  Sigh.

Sadly, I'd hoped for so much more from Fear To Tread.  Although the plot is engaging enough, the the writing nowhere nearly up to scratch; really a big missed opportunity.  What really surprises me is the number of 10/10 or ***** reviews you can see online.  Seriously?  I know GW have a lot of fanboys out there, but overall Fear To Tread is just terrible!  Hopefully we won't see James Swallow near another HH book for some time.  Abnett has another Eisenhorn/Ravenor book out later this year, all I'm saying is that it had better be good or I'm going to have to start sending out those threats again.

I bought a house today.

OK, sorry, that's a corny old post title.  The first of Battlefront's french village range arrived today; the Calais House.  On impulse I opted for the subscription deal for all twelve(?) buildings, plus some extras.  I've no idea of the release schedule or what building is when, but as BF are billing each house separately, it isn't a big initial outlay.

To be honest, I've not bought this for immediate use, but with an eye for the future.  Not only are my Fallschirmjager sitting accusatively on the painting desk, but I really struggle to set up a 6 x 4 table in our house.  However, we are trying to sell up and move somewhere bigger (and if the economy would like to pick up, that would be a big help.)  The Mrs is a big of a obsessive lister and on her prospective house checklist (big kitchen, reasonable garden etc) she has put "Scott's space or Nerd room" in the definate column.  So I'm starting to look forward to the time when I'll have a dedicated space for gaming and painting (and, you know, raising a family etc.)

Onto the Calais House though.  The house comes in three separate resin pieces and each floor easily holds two medium Flames of War bases.  The paint job is pretty basic and quite rough in places.  Like most of the Battlefield in a Box range, this will benefit greatly from a little extra work.  I've heard that the painting standard varies quite wildly so be prepared for a little work if you go for one of these.

Despite this, I'd say that this is still well worth the slightly high price for two reasons.  Firstly, I'm quite happy to pay a little extra couple pounds to have someone else fo the guts of the painting.  Secondly, and probably more importantly, it will take a big effort to force me to buy a lot of unpainted resin and get it on the table (hell, haven't got my army done yet,)  so buying these simultaniously prods me to get some painting done and should make gaming more enjoyable in the future.

Lord of the Rings: The Card Game - Gameplay

Today, I'd like to carry on talking about Lord of the Rings: the Card Game (LotR) and specifically the gameplay.  You can find my first post on the game here, where I've given an overview of the core box game and components.

Three Lore heroes from the starter box, a Threat cost of 30, about average. 

The core mechanic in the game is the concept of Threat, essentially, how serious or risky the situation for the heroes is.  This is used in all areas of the game, from setting the initial difficulty to deciding what enemies will attack you.  It is also, in essence, a resource to manage, if a players individual Threat level gets too high, that player is eliminated from the game.  During set up, each player sets their Threat counter to the total Threat of their three heroes.  In the example above, the player would set their Threat meter to 30 (10 + 12 + 8.)
 

Player area on the left, Staging area in the middle, Encounter deck on the right.  

The are three areas used in the game, the player area, the staging area and the quest/encounter area.  The object of the game is to move through the deck of quest cards, usually no more than three cards, by earning enough Quest points and meeting any conditions on those cards.  Trying to stop you is the Encounter deck, from which the various Enemy, Location and Treachery cards are drawn into play.  The player area is where the heroes are set out and where any further characters are placed.

LotR plays in a seven phase turn, which sounds long, but is very streamlined once you are familiar with the sequence.  The turn starts with the Resource, followed by the Planning phase.  The two are essentially one big phase, Resource starts with each hero getting one Resource token and each player drawing one additional card into their hand.  So far, so good.  Planning then lets players spend their hero's resource tokens to put cards from their hand into play.  As I mentioned last post, the cards you can play are either Allies, Attachments or Events.  A key choice you make here is whether or not to get more characters into play early in the game or to save your resource tokens for later to afford more expensive cards.

In this Planning phase, players would have to beat a score of 5 Threat

Following is the Planning phase where your heroes and characters make progress on the current quest.  They do this by Exhausting (placing the card on its side) and once all players have decided who to Commit or not, they total up the Wisdom of all these characters.  To make progress, this total has to exceed the Threat total of the Enemy and Location cards in the staging area.  Sounds straightforward right? Well kind of.  Before you calculate the final Threat total from the staging area, one card per player is drawn from the Encounter deck, possibly adding to the Threat total.  Either way, the total Wisdom and Threat is compared and any difference is converted into progress tokens on the quest (higher Wisdom) or added to each players Threat meter (higher Threat.)  Something to remember though is that characters who Quest will not be able to do anything else in the turn (such as attack or defend.)

The next two stages help players remove Threat from the staging area.  The Travel phase lets the players make a Location card the active area, removing its Threat from the staging area. The downside of this is that while there is an Active Location, players won't make any progress on the Quest until it is dealt with.

The Bight Patrol will engage Players with a Threat above 5, which
 would be almost everyone.  The Marsh Adder, Threat 40, will only attack
 the strongest players when things are very serious!
  

The Encounter phase firstly lets each player choose to Engage an Enemy card in the staging area.  The Enemy card is taken from there and moved to opposite the players area, again removing its Threat from the Planning phase.  Now the Enemy is up in the players face, it will attack in the next phase.  However, things aren't quite as straightforward as that. Each Enemy has an engagement Cost on their card, if a players Threat meter is equal or higher than any Enemy's cost, those enemies will Engage that player as well.

Ah, Faramir, one of my favourite cards.  Helps others Quest with his

ability, good at defending and can take a bit of a beating!

Next up is the Combat phase, where Enemy cards engaged with players will attack and then players can attack in return.  I'm not going into any detail here, as I'll do that in the future. Lastly is the Refresh phase, where all Exhausted cards are readied and each player increases their Threat rating by one.

So there's the game turn in a nutshell.  Hopefully I've conveyed that, above all else, LotR is a risk management game, where every decision you make has an unknown element to it. Have I dedicated enough characters to Quest this turn?  Do I go to this Location or try and progress the Quest?  Do I play lots of Ally cards to get more characters in play or do I play Attachment cards and have a small group of really powerful characters. Making the correct choices is fundamental to success.

There are lots of occasions, however, where you'll be faced with some awful luck, and draw the one card you had hoped to avoid.  One of the mechanics I enjoy most about LotR, is that each phase has a point where players can act, either by playing an Event card or making use of a special ability.  As a result, you always have the opportunity to act or react (assuming you have said card or ability) to an unexpected enemy or effect; too many enemies in play?  Play a snare card to stop them attacking.  Too many location cards? Play a scout character to help explore it.

Don't want to deal with a specific Location card?  Attach this to lower it's threat!

Of course, using these depend on having the correct combination of cards in your deck as much as it does luck, and this is the last core mechanic of the game: deck building.  Now this is a whole other area of the game to explore.  There are a couple of rules to follow in building a deck (max of three heroes, minimum of fifty cards and no more than three copies of each card,) but other than that, you're free to mix and match whatever combination of cards you have.  Of course, buying any of the expansion and adventure packs greatly increases the choice of cards you have available (and those things are like crack, addictive!) I'll talk more about this in the future, if there's any demand, as I am a complete novice when it comes to this kind of game.

Finally, a word or two on the difficulty level.  Common practice at the moment is for designers to make cooperative and solo games as difficult as they possibly can be.  The reasoning being, if difficulty is set too easy, gamers won't stick with the game long term. With LotR, you could be forgiven for thinking that the game is monstrously hard.  Now that is true to an extent, but to understand the game properly, we have to return to an earlier point I made.  The core box set is a great little game in it's own right, but it is, in essence, one long introduction to the full Lord of the Rings card game.  The aim of the core box is to teach you how the different spheres behave and point you in the right direction when building your own deck.

In case you haven't picked up on it yet, I love Lord of the Rings: the Card Game.  The designers have managed to get the balance of risk, choice and luck just right and I enjoy the mental exercise of trying out different combinations of cards.  Next time I'll try and put up a report on an actual playthrough of the game.  I'm trying to come up with a way of doing that without it simply being a long post with lots of pictures with cards.  Until then. . .

Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

For my birthday this year, I decided to treat myself to a new game and, after a lot of deliberation, I jumped for the Lord of the Rings: The Card Game by Fantasy Flight Games. This is a bit of a departure for me, not having played many card games in my time.  A couple months ago, Adam at the club ran me through the Game of Thrones card game and I really enjoyed the experience.  I was tempted to just get my own copy of that, but the fact that LotR can be played either co-op or solo swung the decision for me.

The game as it looks with one player.

There was a bit of a palavar actually getting the game.  Nowhere locally had the core box in stock, so I had to order if from Maelstrom Games (with a nice discount.) Suddenly, it was unavailable there too, leading me to get it from Amazon, but, as we were close to leaving on holiday, I ended up forking out for next day delivery!  Still, it arrived the day before we left, so it all worked out fine.

FFG market LotR as a Living Card Game.  The core box set has everything you need to play some enjoyable games and there is plenty of variation and replayability on offer.  The "living" part of the games comes from the model FFG use to expand the range.  After the core box comes a "cycle" of six adventure packs, each containing a fixed selection of cards to add to the original game.  After the first cycle, comes an expansion, then another cycle of six and so on.  From what I understand of other games, for instance, Magic: The Gathering, the difference here is that the contents of each pack are not random, so you're not at risk of dropping some cash only to get duplicate or useless rare cards.  Instead, you can pretty much choose if you want to buy a pack or not with no real detriment to your game.

The player area, complete with three heroes and two allies.

The game contains four starter player decks, one each from the four spheres of influence in the game.  Each sphere has its own strengths and drawbacks; for instance, the Tactics sphere has cards that excel in combat and dealing damage to enemies, but struggle when it comes completing quests.  Ultimately, LotR is a deck building game, and the real meat of the game in the long term involves building a set of cards that complement the heroes you've chosen and your preferred style of play.  Each adventure and expansion pack increases the amount of player cards you can choose from and you'll find there are lots of ways to go about creating your own decks.  Another quirk of this model is that FFG can add different mechanics to the game without requiring extensive rule changes.  The first cycle of adventure packs add "Song" cards that fit seamlessly into the game.  Quite appropriate, as in the books, you can't read five straight pages without someone bursting into song - it's worse than Glee (ok, not really.)

The Staging area with one active Location, two Enemies and another Location

FFG have made some interesting choices in where and when they have set the game.  Obviously the game is set in Tolkien's Middle Earth, but the game takes place in interegnum between the Hobbit and the Fellowship of the Ring novels.  As a result, you are not slavishly following the plot of any one book (with all the continuity problems of getting a "wrong" outcome,) but charting a different journey with different heroes through the same Middle Earth.

Ally, Event and Attachment cards from the Player deck.

And ultimately you are on a journey.  The base box gives you three quests; Passage Through Mirkwood, Journey Down The Anduin & Escape From Dol Guldur, and each can be played individually or as one large linked quest.  The adventure pack cycles follow the same pattern with a range of thematically linked scenarios.  The first adventure pack cycle, Shadows of Mirkwood, sees a group of heroes trying to track and capture Gollum, on the way fighting Trolls, helping the odd eagle and getting lost in some eerie ruins, all very familiar.

Three of the twelve heroes in the core box.

So what do you get in the box?  Well its an FFG game, so you get two big sheets of tokens, a well written rulebook (decent index and an excellent reference page) and 226 playing cards.  The cards are divided into three general catagories; quest cards, player cards and encounter cards.  The quest cards give you details of what the quest you are on actually involves, how to complete it and any special rules or effects that take place.  Player cards include the heroes you play the game with, allies who assist them, attachments like weapons and armour you can give them and event cards that help them or hinder their enemies.  The encounter cards consist of enemies (including grunts and some named enemies,) locations the heroes need to explore and treachery cards that hinder the heroes progress.

Enemy, Location and Treachery cards from the Encounter deck.

As I've come to expect from FFG, production value is pretty high, the cards have a nice finish to them (although I'll probably buy some protective sleves) and the tokens are the made from the usual FFG card.  The text is very clear to read and the design and layout of the different card types is pretty logical. A word or two has to go to the artwork used in LotR, all original artwork (I think) and all very appropriate and characterful.  Most player cards also have a sentance or quote from one of Tolkien's novels, it's a little thing, but they are all apt for their card and add just a little extra flavour to the game (especially if you read the full text every time you play the card!)  I love all these little touches littered throughout the game, you can tell that the designers not only know their Middle Earth, but are genuine Tolkien fans.

Three of the named Enemies from the core box.

There's very little in the game I feel able to criticise, which is pretty unusual.  If pushed, I could mention that the sphere of influence logo on the player cards is on the wrong side for a right hander, making sorting through the cards a little awkward.  The wording on a couple cards could be clearer too, but I believe the FAQ covers all the ones I've noticed. All in all, this is a great purchase and I'm really glad I opted for something a bit different.

Having played about a dozen games or so, I'm comfortable enough with the game mechanics to start to see potential combinations and, ugh, synergies (I hate that word.)

Next time, I'll go on to talk about the actual gameplay and then I'll try and find a way of posting up a report on a game.  In the meantime, FFG have made a video overview of the game, complete with "American Voiceover Guy" check it out here.

Hoplite Headache

   

I mentioned earlier that I've been a bit fed up lately.  So in an effort to pick myself up, I did what any self respecting wargamer does in that situation. . . I bought some more toy soldiers!

Thanks to Maelstrom Games 25% discount offer, I picked up a box of Warlord/Immortal 28mm Hoplites.  Never painted any hoplites (at any scale) so these should be something fresh to get my teeth into.

I had, however, to choose between the Ancient and Classical box.  Officially, the difference seems to be that the Ancient box is more suitable for the Persian Wars, whilst the Classical box more for the Peloponnesian and Alxandrian Wars.  Looking on a few forums blurred this distinction however, with most people happy to use both boxes - but the odd vocal individuals raising their voices about using Pilos helms at Thermapolae or bronze cuirass at Ipsus.

So I opted for the ancient box, seeing as I'm more interested in the Persian Wars than in any other Hoplite period, and waited for the box to arrive.

Arrive the box duly did, but I received a Classical box.  Never mind I thought, they were bought as a distraction, so I'll just carry on regardless.  So I started sorting through the sprues.

Eight figures with eight shields

Four large sprues have components for eight Hoplites each, with multiple helmets and spear options - confusingly, the sprues are marked as "Ancient Greek Hoplites".  Four smaller sprues, marked "Classical Greek Hoplites" have two torsos each with multiple helmet options.  I assume that the three Hoplite kits available from Warlord Games all have the same big sprue and four small sprues with the specific components (Ancient, Classical or Spartan.)

Two figures with no shields, what am I missing?

What I can't work out, however, is how you make forty Hoplites out of one box - there are only thirty two left arms in the whole box!  It's not like there are any musician or skirmisher parts you can use, so have I missed a really obvious solution to this or is there a missing sprue or two?  Confusing.  I've emailed Warlord Games, so I'll wait to see what they say.

Lastly, to finish on a positive note, what a great set of plastics though.  Great sculpting, excellent casting quality and lots of options make this a superb kit.

Black Crusade - Hand of Corruption

  

I was stoked to finally get my copy of Hand of Corruption, a supplement for Black Crusade by Fantasy Flight Games.  FFG seem to be following their usual 40K RPG release practice of a rulebook, GM kit then campaign rulebook.  Now this is out, hopefully Black Crusade will get it's own players handbook and GM Guide soon.

   Lots of this on offer. . . . . text
  

Hand of Corruption sees your group of heretics infiltrating an Imperial prison planet, Saint Annard's Penance, with a view to conducting an aracane ritual and converting the planet to Chaos!  The three linked adventures try to hit the sweet spot for a Black Crusade campaign; infiltration, insurrection and, of course, action!

   Hello, How may I pervert you?  (Anyone get the reference?)
 

There's a fair amount of content, lots of background and info on Saint Annard's Penance, plenty of GM advice, a decent proportion of written dialog and scripted events.

Like most of the 40K RPG books I have, production is to a really high standard (with zero typos spotted so far!)  Hand of Corruption has a really nice mix of artwork, including new material, older/existing GW artwork (including the classic Necron Codex cover) and in plenty of different styles.

I'm glad that Hand of Corruption has finally been released, as the whole process has been surprisingly drawn out.  As I recall, both Rogue Trader and Deathwatch had their first two full supplements out in the first few months.  Black Crusade has been out for close to six months now so should have had a bit more support than it has.  I hope that any delays were due to the Collectors Edition release, which took an absolute age.

   Haven't seen this image anywhere before - Chaos Lord on pile of dead guardsmen
   

The problem with getting a campaign book first (or reading it first) is that you're going to have to run the adventures yourself (because, well, you know what's going to happen.) Fortunately, I've ran most of our Black Crusade sessions and am looking forward to seeing how our group of heretics fare in this campaign, particularly against the big guy in act three!



Three more followers to say hello to as well; Headologist (a nice mix of historical and sci-fi,) Monty (historical gaming - with some great looking armies) and Lee Hadley (more commonly known as BigLee and for his Miniature Adventures!)

15mm Reinforcements and Review - Museum Miniatures

My Museum Miniatures order turned up the other day, so I thought I'd put up some pics and thoughts on what I'd bought.
 

First up are some Landsknecht Arquebusiers, three poses in total, two firing and and one loading.  All the MM sculpts seem to the the "new" style 15mm i.e. about 17-18mm to the eyes and up to 20mm at the top of the hat.  Proportionally, I'd say the sculpts are a bit off, the leg are a little scrawny and the heads, especially the hats and beards, are just a bit too big.  These are supplied in packs of eights, all of the same sculpt.
 

Here are the three sculpts next to a Venexia Landsknecht.  Compatable in terms of height, but the proportions are just a bit too different to include both ranges in the same unit.  On the same table, however, there won't be any problem.  I'm planning using these MM Landsknechts as an individual Medium Infantry unit (three to a base in Field of Glory: Renaissance,) while the Venexia will be based as Light Infantry (two to a base.)
 

Next we have the two types of cannon I've ordered.  As there isn't a picture of the large cannon on the MM site (seriously, no pic?) I only bought one of these - and I'm glad I did.  My knowledge of this period of history isn't encyclopedic, but I had expected a different design of cannon (and the picture of the light gun is quite misleading.)
 

Still, all three should look fine on the tabletop, same comments as before apply to the crew models.  I'll need to order at least one more large cannon for an Italian/German army list, as they usually come in units of two, three or four models.

Lastly, here's a bit of an indulgent purchase, three packs of eight Ashigaru.  One is armed with the Naginata, another the Yari and the last with Katana.  Towards the end of 2011 I toyed with the idea of collecting a Sengoku Period Samurai army, but, for a few reasons, decided to opt for the Great Italian Wars instead.  That doesn't mean, however, that I've lost all interest in the period and at 23p each, I can afford not to feel too guilty about these guys.

These are sculpted in a completely different style to the Landsknechts, with the head, torso and legs all in much more realistic proportion to one another.  Detail on the face is a bit on the light side, but is mostly obscured by the Jingasa/Dou style hats.

One thing I was particularly impressed by was the weight and rigidity of the metal used on the Ashigaru.  Out of eight figures in the Yari pack, seven didn't need any work straightening out the weapon shaft. Unlike many manufacturers, these guys shouldn't suffer from wobbly spear syndrome.

Overall, some great purchases (especially with the 25% sale that seems to be still running) and two ranges I'd heartilly recommend.  Just remember, as you're paying a lot less per figure than some manufacturers (Xyston, Venexia etc) don't expect that quality.

Space Hulk: Death Angel - A Review

I've decided to try and post up some reviews of games and books I've picked up and found interesting or enjoyable.  I'm not a fanboy or advocate for any particular company, but as I generally don't enjoy writing negatively, I don't think many negative game reviews will appear here.  First up is Space Hulk: Death Angel, a standalone card game from Fantasy Flight Games.

This isn't the kind of game I would normally opt for, not having played many card games in my time.  However, three things persuaded me to pick this up; Firstly, I've been looking for a couple of smaller games to add to my collection and, after hearing some favourable comments, thought this might fit the bill.  Secondly, the fact Death Angel can be played solo and, finally, the fact I got a nice, big discount on the RRP.


Death Angel is essentially a slimmed down version of the board game, Space Hulk, minus the board and miniatures.  If you're unfamiliar with Space Hulk, then imagine the film Aliens, but set on a derelict space ship and with much more heavily armed, and armoured, marines - you won't got far wrong.  Set in the Warhammer 40K universe, Death Angel pits Space Marine Terminators from the Blood Angels Chapter against swarms of Genestealers.

The games starts with your marines arriving at the void lock (airlock) and seems them progress through various locations in the ship, on the way fighting through larger numbers of Genestealers, in an attempt to meet the victory condition at the final location.  During set up, players randomly choose their teams of marines and set up the mission by randomly picking hidden location cards for the squad to travel through.  Given the fact there are six marine teams and eighteen locations with four seperate victory conditions to (randomly) choose from, there is a fair amount of replayability.  Add in the fact that there are eight terrain cards and thirty event cards to choose from each turn, the chances of playing exactly the same game twice are fairly slim.

Here's Death Angel set up on turn 1 - beer optional

Once you've familiarised yourself with the rules, Death Angel itself plays out very smoothly indeed.  So smoothly, in fact, that it's initially quite difficult to see the tactical choices available to you. Instead, the game relies on you taking time to look at your available options, set up your marines to support each other and take risks by, for instance, forcing you to choose between defending yourself and progressing the mission.


The rules themselves are elegant and surprisingly complex given the simple way combat is handled.  The turn has four seperate phases that flow together quickly enough, so that each player isn't left doing nothing for too long.  Each team of two marines picks an action to perform that turn, they carry out that action, the genestealers attack and, lastly, an event card is drawn, spawning new or moving current genestealers and resolving a random event.


Tactical choices come into play in a couple of interesting ways.  For instance, players can't show each other the action cards they've chosen that turn, all cards are revealled at the same time (you can, however, discuss your situation and options.)  Actions are then carried out in a strict order, so that one team completes their actions before another starts theirs.  An example of this could be:


Marine 1:  I'll go and activate that control panel, if you support me by killing the genestealers behind me.
Marine 2:  No problem, go for it.
. . .
Marine 2:  Damn, I a haven't been able to kill them all.
Marine 1:  Ok, I'll still move up, but just defend myself, not activate the panel.
Marine 2:  Lets hope more Genestealers don't arrive then.


Add in the fact that each marine team can't choose the same action for two turns in a row, marines can't defend themselves when attacked from the rear, genestealers can move in their phase and that event cards can both help or hinder the marines, then you're presented with a game with a good level of tactical depth, variety in games and random decisions (for instance, combat is resolved with a die roll.)

It's obligatory for one of the players to say "They're coming out of the God Damn walls!!!" whilst playing this game

So, have I any criticisms of the game?  Well only a couple.  Firstly, I think it would have been helpful if the author/publisher had acknowledged that Death Angel needs a certain degree of abstraction on the behalf of the player.  The cards representing individual marines are arranged in a column called the Formation.  However, the Formation has nothing to do with any actual tactical formation you adopt, rather it's simply a device to organise the table.  However, in our first game, I had difficulty explaining this abstraction to the other players, especially when the game has other mechanics called "Movement" and "Travelling."  This may simply be down to the fact I've little experience with card games, but a quick paragraph setting the player's expectations would have been useful.

Secondly, the rules are presented in a peculiar way that, initially, really put me off playing the game.  You're initially shown how set the game up, but are constantly directed to the back of the rulebook during this step.  Then you're shown the turn sequence and again directed to other areas of the book.  This is really a complaint with the rulebook, not the rules themselves and, of course, once you've learned the rules, it ceases to be an issue.

Death Angel after turn 5 - a random event card just moved all the Genstealers behind the marines.

Two turns later, it's all over.

So there we are; Death Angel, a great little game, ideal for casual gaming over a few beers, for killing some time at the club waiting for other players to finish or even for getting your gaming fix without needing lots of miniatures, terrain and space etc.  At an RRP of £20 (and obviously available for less,) Death Angel is an enjoyable game, either solo or with some mates, with lots of replayability and a surprising amount of depth.