Hail!

There is a video in swedish of a short roleplaying session on our stream on-demand library. Check it out! It's called "Fredagsrollspel med Hate"
http://www.livestream.com/svartblodgaming

Ave Victoria!
/Hate

Death to the world - Cthulhu's come!

Hail!

I have returned. I have made a decission to start writing on the blog on a weekly basis, again. So there's that. There has been difficulties with finding time to write here, but I'll make time.

So, what's the deal with the song and the title? Well, we played Call of Cthulhu last week and I felt like writing about it.

Call of Cthulhu is a horror investigation game first published back in 1981, based on the weird tales of H.P. Lovecraft. The philosophy of the game can be captured in a quote from his essay Supernatural Horror in Litterature: "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.". Unlike many other role-playing game there is little to no focus on combat situations, but instead investigation. My father is one of the role-playing pioneers here in Sweden, and he told me that what he heard from his friends playing this back in round '82 was "Well, you won't have to bother keeping track of your hitpoints. Your character will likely go insane and end his misery with a bullet to the brain before any of the horrors harm you".

I won't go in depth on who/what Cthulhu is, that would require the entire post to describe. So if you don't know, go look it up on wikipedia.
I will instead focus on the system itself and my first experience of it.

The system uses the Basic Roleplaying (BRP) system. Which, in my opinion, is indeed a basic system making character generation simple and playing the game as simple. You start up with rolling up some characteristics, like STR and DEX, then you pick an occupation, like antiquarian or journalist. Last of all you divide skill points in different occupation and interest skills. Then you are done. The first character TC and I rolled up pretty much only took 20 minutes.

Skills are, well, skills. They range from how much you know about archaeology or law to how good you are at fast talking or fighting with a broken chair's leg. Every skill goes from 0-100%, but only the Cthulhu Mythos skill starts out at 0%, a skill that measures your knowledge of the mythos. You divide your skill points to the skills, every point raising the skill by 1%, adding it to the starting modifier. So if you wish to be the master of the art of fighting with chair legs, you can add 75% to your Fighting (chair leg) skill, putting it to 95% (base 20%). Giving you a 95% chance of success whenever you check the skill. Very easy, really.

The Cthulhu Mythos skill on the other hand cannot be raised by regular means, and you always start out at 0%. This measures what you know about the mythos, it's monsters and magic. You gain points in this skill by reading books of the mythos and encounter all of its different horrors. Speaking of horrors, that brings me to what makes CoC so very special - Sanity and Insanity.

Your current level of sanity is measured by your SAN, ranging from 0-99. 0 being permanently insane, and essentially unplayable and 100 being the happiest person in the world without a single trouble on his mind. Your starting SAN is probably somewhere between 40-70, higher and lower points possible. When you encounter horrible things, your SAN will drop. This can be caused by something natural, like seing a corpse or watching your friend being beaten to death. But also the supernatural, "the unknown", things such as monsters or magic. You can never have more sanity points than 99 subtracted with your Cthulhu Mythos skill. Knowing the actual truth about the universe makes it harder to keep your sanity.
 
I really liked that part of the game. Sanity and insanity is something I find deeply intriguing. The game plays really well, there were no times we had to stop to check the rules, which is great.  It is very easy to learn and understand. Lovecraftian horror also makes for great roleplaying, I noticed.
As much as I, and I hope my players liked it, it's not be a game for everyone. It is very slow paced and atmospheric, to me that's good. Some may play RPGs for fast paced action, then this is not the game for them. Making an ex-military guy who kept all his weapon may be good that one time you assault a cult. But when you explore an ancient temple consisting of to our minds impossible geometries, the weapons will only serve as ways to kill oneself when insanity gets the better of you. Or maybe even the entire party if the guy decided to bring a bazooka (8d6 damage, your average hp is 8-12) into the temple. So before trying out this game, make sure you have the right players for it.

That pretty much summarizes the game system, and my thoughts about it. It's very easy for players to get into, but a bit harder for the Keeper (read:DM). The keeper needs to read up on the magic and monsters of the mythos, but also thing such as mental disorders. I found it interesting, but it's just not something you can pick up without any preparation. The keeper needs a well thought out mystery for the players to solve, otherwise the game loses all meaning.
... Unless you play an ex-military guy with a bazooka. Then you can blow things up, and that's always something..

I ran the scenario "The Haunting", which apparently is a real classic that has been in every edition. I liked it, it turned out great. I might write about the session next week, unless TC wishes to write about it from his perspective. We shall see.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn...

Ave Victoria!
/Hate

The CF times - Orcs Must Die, Apartment 5 and the hardships of HDF terrain.

Hey everyone!
Sorry for not updating last week, dunno what got into me.
Either way, I've been pretty busy with playing Orcs Must Die! 2 and getting together two sets of Apartment 5 from Micro Art Studios, as well as getting some gaming in. Had a grand total of four games of Infinity yesterday too, which felt great!

Either way, first thing's first, and that's Orcs Must Die!

So, I recently bought this game, and it's simply a blast!
Basically, you play as either The War Mage or The Sorceress, and run around shooting Orcs FPS style... While you place traps! Basically, Orcs Must Die is the bastard child of FPS and Tower Defence, and for any TD lovers out there, you'll love this too. The story isn't rather involving or deep, you don't get much diversity in your gameplay, but you get A LOT of traps to put out in the best possible way, given the map you're playing on. And since it's 3D, traps are placeable on both walls, floor and ceiling. You see arrows flying out of walls against the oncoming horde of Orcs as some of them flies away due to your spring traps whilst you pepper them with blunderbuss fire, listening to their screams of "ALL MY LIFE IS FILLED WITH AGONYYY!".
In layman's term, I love this game and recommend it to any player who know that they love playing Tower Defence.

Now, let's move on to Infinity. Sadly I haven't been able to paint more, which I really ought to be doing, but anyway... Instead I built some terrain!

No, sadly, that's not mine. I'm not that good. I just wanted to discuss HDF terrain a little with you.
First, these apartments are amazing! Really beautiful, love 'em and they're perfect for Infinity. However... If you get these, you might find these tips useful:
Make sure you've cut everything out good, and that when you put them together you put them ALL THE WAY together. It's really easy to just push it 1 cm too short and it has some bad effects. Also, make sure you know what parts of the house are supposed to be up, and what parts are supposed to be down. I didn't make sure, so heh. Eh.
And finally, painting the damn thing. You need a real primer, so GW spray won't do. Also, even a primer might be insufficient as the house is made out of wood, and wood absorbs liquid. So my advice is to first spray it with some kind of varnish or a thing layer of PVA glue perhaps, anything that'll coat the wood in a layer for the paint to grip on to. And if you want it white, spray it grey first. That'll get you good. If you don't, well, joke's on you as you'll be the one redoing the spray more than you want to. I know I did.
But I've gotten them good now! They're not painted, but all roofs and doors are sprayed grey and everything else white, so they're good to go when it comes to gaming! Sadly I cannot upload pictures at the moment, but I'm sure to do that when I'm able to!

Hope this was informational, and until next time...
Happy Gaming!

The CF weekly - Vagrad's Backstory

So, seems like our group is getting the saturday roleplay back in action after a rather odd summer. As you might have read in The Tale of Five, Hate is running a new AD&D campaign set in his own world. Sadly I wasn't able to join the first sessions, but I was there the second session and made my character during a long time of trying to get any good idea!
And finally came... Vagrad.

Just barely more than a century ago, another Dwarf was born. This locally joyous occasion might seem unimportant to the great machinations of things, and fate has yet to sho whether that's true or not. Whichever the case, the newborn was named Vagrad.
Vagrad was born in the Thunderpeak Mountains by parents of the priesthood, and especially his father was a prominent member in the religious caste of the Thunderpeak Dwarves. As common practice by the Priests, he sought the blessing of the gods upon his child. He took his newborn up to the peak of the mountain and, after rigorous and long ceremonial preparations, called out:
"Oh, Spirit of the Mountain, Father of Dwarves and our Sacred Ancestor! I call upon you to bless this child! Give him the constitution of a--"
However, he was promptly interrupted by the thunder, seemingly striking from nowhere. He flinched a little, but kept his eyes closed as he used to during prayer.
"-- of a guardian, the wisdom of a sage and the strength--"
Another lightning struck.
"-- the strength OF A BRUTE!"
A third and final lightning bolt came down, much closer than the other ones. The priest and father opened his eyes only to discover that an immense lightning storm had gathered around the peak during his prayer. A nearby patch of snow, dangerously close to the ceremonial circle in which his son laid, had melted during the last lightning. He hesitated... this had not gone as planned. He did not want his son to recieve the blessing of The Thunder God. Hurriedly he grabbed his son and ventured back inside the mountain. Another lightning struck.

His father never spoke of that day, and Vagrad grew up as a slighty taller, well-built, hard-working and ,most importantly, short-tempered dwarf. In fact, his temper was so short that it came to no surprise to anyone when he chose, much to his parent's dismay, to join the Battle-Ragers. For a few decades he lived on the border of the Stronghold, recieving training as a Battle-Rager and protecting the Thunderpeak stronghold. He was taught the customary battle-songs and recieved the tattoos and piercings. The high-ranking members in charge of the defense of the stronghold used him and his brethren as a point-and-click way of destroying insurrections of goblinoids and such, though only when in dire need. For a short-tempered dwarven youth, this was almost a dream coming true. He did not contact his parents at all during this time. All he cared about was the ecstatic rage and killing. That was all he lived for.

But no mindset is eternal, not even for a stubborn dwarf. Eventually, his rebellious period came to pass. For a long time he felt hollow, and slaughtering didn't help filling that hole. If anything, it only made the hole deeper. Eventually he realized that he had to seek out the only ones he knew he could trust to help him: his parents.
So began his trek to back where he began, all the while his temper and rage gnawed at him, screaming at him to brandish his axe, even against his kinsmen. It felt like a herculean effort to suppress the urge, but he managed to do it. And finally, he reached his destination.
His parents were surprised to say the least, seeing their son now covered in blue tattoos, rings in his lips, ears and nose and having dyed his hair a dark shade of red, seeking reconciliation and wanting to ask them if there were more things in life than violence. Naturally, being priests, they gave him the religious answer... however, after much hesitation, his father decided to tell him more than that; he told him of the day he sought blessing for Vagrad and how the lightning answered. He was ashamed to accept that his son had been blessed by The Thunder God, but it was the truth and so should not be kept a secret.
Vagrad, being the short-tempered and hasty character he is, immediately decided to seek purpose in life from The Thunder God. He asked where the closest temple lies, and, after a short break home, continued his trek to the nearby mountain peak on which it was constructed.
He told them his story and his wish to become a full-fledged priest of The Thunder God. They reluctantly accepted him, but only at the request of Tular.
Tular saw potential in young Vagrad, and remembered what it was like living with the rage. Tular was a retired Vindicator.

During decades, the priesthood taugth Vagrad the theoretical and practical parts of their religion. The prayers, customs, blessing and virtues were slowly imprented into his mind, and he accepted it. They also taught him which gods to respect, which to despise, and which he should smite at sight. They told him a great deal about the evil God of Thunder, how to recognize his followers and customs and rituals of that religion, so that he might recognize it and eradicate it wherever he went. He dropped the piercings, and altered the tattoos in honour to his deity, but kept the dyed beard as a reminder. All the while Tular acted as his mentor, teaching him how to control the rage and focus it against evil and the enemies of The Thunder God. He taught him how to survive alone, how to tend to his wounds, and some human customs. In short, everything he had learned as a Vindicator he now told Vagrad.

Eventually, after all his training and preparations, he was ready to ascend into full priesthood. Upon his 100th birthday, he stood atop the highest part of the temple, bellowing out to the thunderstorm that raged on the very same day:
"OH, GOD OF THUNDER, SLAYER OF THE WICKED AND FORCE SUPREME! I CALL UPON THEE TODAY TO ACCEPT ME AS YOUR FOLLOWER! FOR A CENTURY I HAVE BEEN YOURS, ALBEIT ME UNKNOWING! BUT I CAN SEE IT NOW! I HAVE BEEN CHOSEN BY YOU! CHOSEN TO BE YOUR STORM WHERE YOUR LIGHTNING CAN'T REACH! CHOSEN TO BE YOUR AXE UPON THE EARTH, TO SMITE YOUR FOES AND ERADICATE EVIL! TO BRING DOWN ALL THAT IS WICKED AND UNWORTHY! FROM THIS DAY, AND EVERY DAY FORTH UNTIL THE END OF THE END HAS COME, I SHALL BE YOUR VESSEL OF DESTRUCTION!
FROM THIS DAY FORTH, I AM YOUR VESSEL OF DESTRUCTION!"
The storm answered with lightning crackling across the sky, thunder booming all around him. At his side stood Tular.
"You know what must be done, Vagrad. I am proud to have taught you the lessons I learned as a Vindicator. Now it's your turn. Go forth... Be his Vessel of Destruction, Son of Thunder."
All the preparations had already been made, equipment has been donned, axes hanging at his sides, the tools for survival in his backpack.
That day Vagrad left the Thunderpeak Mountains.

So, that's his little story. I hope it was inspiring to ya'll.
Look forward to hearing of his epic adventure... or his imminent demise.

The CF weekly - Basic Infinity Tactics, Tips and Strategies

Hey there!
So, this week I haven't been making much progress. Or well, I kind of have as I finished painting my first Shasvastii Seed-Soldier and Shasvastii Shrouded Pioneer.
But anyway, I felt like that was too little to speak about, so I figured I should talk about some basic Infinity tactics instead!

Now, these tactics are nothing professional, nor facts. These are just the things I've learned are useful to think of when you're playing. All in all, it's only my advice with my own experience.

So, to keep some kind of order, I will give my Tips & Tactics coming in the order of the game, beginning with list-writing.

List-Writing
Alright, so the main important things with your list are:

The Balance.
Make sure your list is balanced. Putting all eggs in one basket or doing a one-trick pony is generally a bad idea. It might work once or twice if your enemy himself doesn't have a truly balanced list, and you get a slight upper hand as you surprise him... But once he figured out what you're doing, you won't be at an advantage anymore.
Simply put: Include a little bit of everything. You need your long range offensive, short range offensive, stealth support, the tank etc etc. If you spend many points on one units, such as a TAG or a expensive HI, make sure you've got a backup plan should he fail.
Once you've covered all the bases, you should have an answer to everything your opponent can throw at you, and you'll be in a position where you can change tactics on the fly to better suit your position.

Deployment
This is the phase that wins games, seriously.

The first thing you do is look. You have to thoroughly analyze the battlefield. Where are the firing lanes? Where are the choking points? Where are the advancement routes? Where are the fire towers? Where are the defensive positions? Note that different positions on the battlefield aren't exclusive, they can be many of these types at the same time. For example, a long narrow corridor would be a firing lane, an easily defended position, a choking point and, with sufficient cover, a good advancement route.

To easier understand, let describe these positions for you:

Firing lanes:
These are the long, open routes of the battlefield where your men are able to get a clear view of, well, a lot. These places are good to place your units that are good in the reactive turn (Total Reaction, Snipers, Fireteams etc).
My own experience of this comes in placing a Noctifier with Missile Launcher in cover, overlooking a street that almost stretched across the whole battlefield. My opponent tried to push it, and lost.

Choking Points:
These are the narrow positions where battle is likely to commence. For example, an alley between two houses could be a choking point because your opponent is likely to want to push through it, and so are you. That means there's going to be a conflict there, and there are two good ways to deal with these; Either reinforce it, or go around it. The first option is the most straightforward. The second option costs you orders to do, but could take you opponent by surprise since he most likely reinforced it. However, if you leave the choking point unguarded your opponent might advance too easily.
My own experience of this involves setting up camo'd troops, mines and Suppressive fires on a door... and the walls beside the doors covered 2/3 of the width of the table.

Advancement Routes:
These are often synonymous with choking points and/or firing lanes, but measure how smart it actually would be to take this route. It mostly depends on how much cover is placed on the way, both ordinary and total cover. Actually, pretty much everywhere you can walk is an advancement route, but you need a good eye to locate the good ones and the bad ones. By doing so you can easily plan on how to maneuver and predict your opponent's moves.

Fire Towers:
These are the high towers that trace LoF to a grand part of the battlefield, and you know there's gonna be a sniper in it. Your options are either to use the, or avoid them. Or, well, actually they might have no impact on the game if no one brings anything with infiltration, but if someone does... Well, a well-placed sniper is dangerously lethal. So, you should always just take these positions into account when planning.

Defensive positions:
Another simple concept, these are the areas with cover that are hard to reach, yet have a good firing lane in front of them. Your job is to reinforce your own and find ways to break through your opponent's defense.

In addition, take note that if you have first turn, you don't need to deploy all your dudes in cover. I'm sure you'll know which guys to advance with and which to hold back. The one's you're going forward with are best placed on the deployment line so they can reach their positions ASAP. The other guys should stand in cover.

If your opponent has the first turn, then you need to make sure that he either cannot or does not want to be able to trace LoF to your guys. Simply put, hide as many as you can and/or put some in a cluster so that your opponent will fear their ARO.

Also, if you're deploying second you should consider the possibility of only deploying on one half of your deployment zone. That will give you a strong flank to work with as well as rendering some of your opponent's force too far away to be used efficiently.


During the Game
Now, after deployment you should have a pretty good idea of your game plan. In fact, I'm not even sure why I'd bother writing this section. Just for completeness, I guess.

Ramboing:
The act of only using one powerful model to totally decimate your opponent's force. This is a really common gameplan, and it is likely to fail once our opponent gets himself a good defense. What you as a rambo player has to do them is to make sure you've got support to back the powerful guy up with.

Shepherding:
A term I just invented to refer to the acting of trying to shepherd your opponent. Basically, you do not want your opponent to go around the house to the right. What you'll do is spend orders to place mines and suppressive fire corridors there. It doesn't take much to seriously intimidate your opponent into taking another route. Also usable with infiltrating troops.

Cheerleading:
Another common thing, it means having a few Line Infantry whom only provide orders for your big guys. I only included it here to mention that a unit with AD: Combat Jump or something of equal effect will seriously hamper the guy using cheerleaders if he's not careful. If you manage to get in there and kill the cheerleaders, then you'll be in a good situation.

Outflanking:
This is a seriously big tactical advantage. If you place a strong unit on one side of the table and manage to the flank, then you've seriously hampered your opponent's options of advancement and can plan ahead accordingly.

Lockdown:
Similar to the Shepherding trick, but this involves doing the trick in both sides of your opponent's force. It only works if his force is really centered behind a building or equivalent, but it means that he won't be able to move.

Over-extending:
This is a bad side-effect ramboing might have. If you forget to pull your rambo back before the end of your turn, he will most likely die. Don't do this unless you're very certain that your opponent cannot bring your big guy down. As such, this paragraph is not a trick or a tactic, just something I want to stress that you should not do.

Surgical rambo:
One of my favorite tactics, it involves going rambo with one unit with the sole intention of removing some unit critical to your opponent before withdrawing. A few surgical strikes and your opponent will only have basic grunts left or guys in a bad position of the board.

Defensive advancement:
This is basically the opposite of ramboing. Instead, you move most of your units forward to good defensive positions and set up suppressive fire corridors and garrison your chosen firing lanes with 2 - 3 guys.



All in all, I think that concludes what I consider to be the basics of Infinity tactics (and to a pretty big degree, the tactics of many other games). I hope it has been helpful, and would love to hear your thoughts and comments!
Until next time.
Play safe!

The tale of Five. Session 1

Today a new tale began

That's right good folk, Svartblod has started a new campaign! It is yet to have a name, but for now I will refer to it as the tale of five. I would like to mention that we have a few new players this time replacing those that could not make it this time, so the chances being that five will turn to seven is quite likely. Or heck, that five will turn to four or less is quite possible too with some bad luck with the dice. The end has is not written yet, but the beginning has already started to write itself. I shall now tell you the tale of how our first session begain

The Tale of The Five begins with five heroes coming together in the large city of Aargard, all for various reasons. In the middle of Spring an adventure was to begin.

First of the five we have Nuizar, the bard. A tall half-elf who came to the city of Aargard searching for adventure, fame but most of all stories to tell.

Second we Frost, an albino elf ranger who came to Aargard in order to explore the world, having only experienced her home forest she had decided it was time for her to leave, at the young age of 90.

Third is the thief mage Miranda, a gray elf born here in the city of Aargard who longed for greater treasure and knowledge than she was able to obtain in this place.

Forth we have Vienna, a human cleric of Loreo(?), who had left her home as a missionary. Her mind was set on furthering Lore(?)'s cause. Vienna had brown hair and brown eyes.

Lastly we have Tarbar, the red haired/bearded paladin nearing the end of his twenties.Tarvar is the second human in the group and also the tallest. He came to Aargard, freshly out of his training, to prove himself as a paladin.

The group came quickly together once in Aargard and decided to leave it together, all for various reason. THe party after discussion decided it was best to leave with someone else and decided to sign up as sellsword; much to Tarvar's objection. Though once there the job they were offered was to escort two merchants, with clear instruction that THEY MUST NOT LOOK AT THEIr WARES. Which Tarvar immmideatily refused. frost and Miranda attempted to persuade him to accept the deal regardless, but it was pointless. They left the Sellswords HQ and entered a closeby tavern. While the rest of the party sneakily entered, Tarvar entered as normal. Which attracted unwanted attention the in the form of a huge brute, much taller even than Tarvar. This brute threatened to throw Tarvar out, yet Tarvar remained unfazed by this man's threat. And this would most likely had occured if it was not for Miranda who stepped up and flashed her breasts for the man, sating his anger.
Without a word of the incident, they returned to the table and the argument soon started all over. Until Miranda came upon the wonderful idea that it was best to calm us down with some drinks. She left the table and fixed beer, though she gave Tarvar secretly a many many times stronger liquor. Before they began to drink Tarvar made them all promise to not to commit any deals until tomorrow when they influence of alcohol was gone. They gave him their word.

Tarvar quickly became intoxicated and noticed early that his beverage was tempered with. Though by then it was too late. Together with Nuizar, Miranda quickly created a contract which promised Tarvar to protect the party indefinitely. All that was missing was Tarvar's signature. Miranda attempted to fool Tarvar by tricking him that she was a slave and could only be freed by signing the contract. This didn't work with Tarvar at first who instead got the idea that he should have her face retribution for flashing earlier and began carrying her out of the Tavern. Frost followed rather quickly after while the rest stayed behind. When Tarvar asked for direction to the local jail he suddenly puked all over the poor man he had decided to ask. Frost and Miranda decided to bring Tarvar to Miranda's home and put him into her bed. Where they finaly persuaded him to sign the contract and allowed him to rest in the bed soon fetching the rest of the party to return to the Sellswords HQ to accept the job. Having completed this, they all returned to Miranda's small house and spent the night.

The following morning they presented the contract to Tarvar who had no memory of the deal. He responded with a laugh and returned the paper, agreeing to follow them; for now. Soon they set out to meet the two merchants at the city gate and set out on their travel, towards the mountain. No further explaniation of their goal was provided. They marched the whole day, with Frost scouting ahead. Resting, all tired at the night. The following day they continued their march, this time encountering a group of vagabonds, dressed in hoods with an ogre in the middle of them. Talking provided no response and a fight quickly ensued, which was hard won. The two merchants had died. Searching the merchants belongings strange pendants radiating evil were found.

(Apparently this looked like a cat...0_o? )

Following up we uncovered their wagon and as soon as we did that a foul smell reached us. The wagon was filled of various rotting body parts. WE HAD BEEN ESCORTING DEAD BODIES. Lastly a strange statuet was found at the bottom, Nuizar reached up to take it, it burned at touch. But Nuizar threw it at Tarvar who he thought might be able to divulge some information of it. It was clear it was a statue of a demon, it radiated strong evil. Though it was unknown which.

With their quest giver dead, an argument of what to do next ensued. The body parts were burned and they left in order to return to Aargard. The party decided to spend the night back in the cover of a nearby village.

Thus ended the first session of The Tale of The Five. Sadly enough, I couldn't do justice in portraying the other players but I did my best. Regardless I hope it was a great read.

P.s I just found this adorable tiefling and had to share it with you. <3
HUGS AND KISSES! <3<3<3<3<3<3<3

Getting back into things.

So, having gotten everything back to normal, I'm starting to get back into things. I have brought out my paints again, getting hyped for the Paradiso book and finally figured out a colour scheme for my Shasvastii! And I might also have motivated a few members in my group to take part in the Relic Knights kickstarter...

So, first things first. Let's begin with me showing you my own, reposed and converted Dragao, Acontecimento Dragoon!



Oh yeah, I know. He's big, he's imposing and he's coming for you!
So, the story about this one. I, as many others, consider the Dragao to look absolutely ridiculous the way Corvus Belli made him. Shoulder-mounting a Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannon while wielding a puny flamethrower and having a ammo feed that insists on defying gravity... No, just no.
So I decided to try and fix it. I'm only decent with greenstuff, can't sculpt anything, is a little impatient but able to pin decently. I knew it was a risk. But I started cutting him apart.
I think it took me three days to get him right, and even then his left arm is slightly misshapen, but it was worth it.

Then, a little preview of what my Shasvastii will turn out like:


Naturally, the models in the picture aren't finished it's all base colours there, and a little highlighting. Gotta highlight/shade all the model, and paint the unpainted areas. Then I might add some OSL and blending... Might. We'll see what I'll do, as I'm still not completely sure myself. Seriously considering changing the way I highlighted him.


And now, let's talk a little about Relic Knights.

So, if you watched the video before reading this, you might just have got a pretty good idea of what it's about. If not, let me tell you.
Relic Knights is a miniature wargame based on over-the-top manga. Yes, you heard me. Over the top manga.

So let's break this down. I'm gonna talk about aesthetics and about gameplay.

Regarding aesthetics, well... You can see it yourself. There's mechas, there's half-naked chicks, there's demons and awesome weapons. Soda Pop miniatures did not go easy on the manga inspiration. And to be truthful, I enjoy it. It's a nice, refreshing breath of air in all the seriousness of most other wargames. I actually look forward to painting these, as you can go pretty much as crazy as you want because frankly, if you're playing Relic Knights as a serious game then you might just be doing it a little bit wrong. Plus, manga chicks is always a bonus.

And now for the crunch. Note that I have not read the rulebook, only looked at the video put out explaining gameplay mechanics, so I might have gotten something wrong. I have to say though, Soda Pop Miniatures seems to have captured the feeling of manga and anime battles quite well. But basics first!
The thing that pops out to you is that the game does not use dice, it uses cards. Every player has an Esper deck. Esper is basically mana. At the beginning of the game and at the end of each turn, each player draws/discards so that his/her hand contains five cards. The most common cards have one big coloured symbol and one small coloured symbol. You get to play (read: Discard) any card in exchange for either two esper of the big symbol or one of the small. These are then used in order to activate the specialy powers of units, such as Pounce (and attack) or Shield Wall (a defense).
The game also features alternating activations, and a card for each of their units. Basically, both players have an "Idle pool", a ready pool and an active pool. The active pool is where you place the card of the active unit. In the ready pool lies two cards of the upcoming activations (so you have to plan some steps in advance!), and as soon as the card in line becomes active, you have to fill the empty ready slot with one card from your idle pool, which is where all the other cards lie.
When you activate a card, you get to move it and (if you've got the esper) to use an ability. For example, Agha (demon-wolves) may attack with their pounce or render a ready opponent idle using their howl. Knights may attack or use their shield-wall for defense. Aghas have no defense however, so they're... defenseless! Another example given was a knight piloting a giant mecha who had the power to teleport six inches and the blow away every unit close to him (read: jump into the middle of the action and land with a deafening sound causing a shockwave that sends every foe flying).

That pretty much sums up the rules.. At least as we know them for now!
Until next time!
Oh, and don't forget to comment!

School start and Castle Story

Hi everyone! Sorry for the lack of activity during the summer, but I'm the kind of person that without a schedule can't find the time to do things. But now, when school is back and running, I will try to update as often as possible. Hopefully every friday, but we all know how that will go...

So anyway, the first thing I'd like to talk about is... a video game?
I know, video games are neither my specialty, nor my main interest, but this game sure caught my eye.

So, what's this game you ask?
Well, easiest way to describe it in as few words as possible would be "Voxel-based RTS castle building simulator"... Or something along those lines. I suggest we look at each aspect of the game separately.

As might have guessed, the main thing with Castle Story is that you're building castles. Tadaa! What's more interesting though is that you're building them brick by brick. I'm sure most of you guys out there wanted to build your own castle, so here's your chance to build it exactly as you want it.
But you don't have an unlimited amount of bricks. In fact, to start you don't have a single one, and this is where your small yellow fat minions, the Bricktrons, come in. They do all the dirty work for you. You send the to harvest lumber or mine for stone... Which is used to make bricks to build with. They'll even fight for you if you give them the tools.

Oh yes, I did say fight. In the game world, there are bad guys too, known as the Corruptrons, whom are a primal version of the Bricktrons, and boy do they hate your Bricktrons. Luckily, you have got your castle up to defend yourself with from the assaults of Corruptrons.

So, I'm thinking you'r beginning to get the picture here. First, you send to minions to gather resources. They you send your minions to build a castle to defend yourself from the evil Corruptrons. I don't know about you, but I see a true beauty in being able to build the castle just as you want it. I know I'm gonna aim to build a castle in connection to a mountain, in which I will have a grand main hall. And of course a moat and a drawbridge. And some Archers on the walls, supporting my catapult whilst my knights hold the gate (should the Corruptrons break in).

Anyway, that's all the good things about the game. And yes, there is a bad thing: The game is not done yet! Sauropod Studios, the guys who are making this indie game have so far been working on it for two years, and they just finished their Kickstarter which collected 700k worth of dollars!!! Which incidentally is just a tad more than their goal of 80k. Heh. But for now, they're working on their Prototype and Beta, and the estimated delivery of the Beta would be November earliest. Or at least, that's the common crowd's best guess, since Sauropod Studios themselves hasn't been able to estimate how much longer it will take. I think that's fine, since this actually is their first game nd they want to get it right.

So, that's the game in a nutshell. If you're not convinced yet or convinced and want to see more, here's the official trailer Sauropod Studios released in July:



Hope you enjoyed it, and happy gaming!

The Savage Tide has been unleashed

A group of four heroes born in the city of Sasserine had ended up saving the city from smugglers that attempted to seize control of the city's trade. The group had risen up from nothing, into being the talk of every citizen of Sasserine. The four heroes were as follow, Lady gold, Ayna, Violet the Oracle and lastly Lord Malfeitor. Their story began with the young lady Lavinia Vanderborren's request to open her family vault.

Lady Gold was a mysterious witch with unknown background, it was known she had lived her earlier days in Sasserine but that she one day dissapeared, only to return with great powers. She became feared and hated during these years, but also loved. For she had alone financed the building of one of the city's first orphanages. She brought many children out of the slum of the Azure District, but only for a while. The money was gone and Lady Gold never returned from her last journey. The children with time, was forced to return to the streets.

Yet even more interesting is the tale of the young girl Ayna, she was one of the girls taken care personally by Lady Gold. The girl possessed strong and powerful magic, always being surrounded by a magical beast that protected her in time of danger. Her mother had died in childbirt and her father had died by the very beast the now protects her. Now though, it is believed Ayna followered her parents into the beyond.

The third member of the party, was an oracle known only as Violet. At an early stage of her life she had lost both her parents out at sea, her only living relative, uncle Jack. Had her sent to a monastery after recognizing her godly powers, there she was guided on her path until the day she left after Lavinia requested her aid. She left no standing legacy of her own.

The tale of the tiefling known as Malfeitor ended like the others, without conclusion. Malfeitor had seized control of the poor district Shadowshore through an more or less open war with the current holder of title. Scandals surrounded him every since the day he was born, but none as big as the ones of the love between him and Lady Lavinia. People used to ask, how could a young beatiful maiden come to love a hideous demon? And how could a demon do the same? Was their love doomed to fail or was it strong enough to persist through death?

We shall never know, for their story ended after departing from Shadowshore on a journey to The Isle of Dread. The heroes were never heard of again and The Savage Tide was unleashed upon the world.

With this, I mean to tell you that the campaign Savage Tide was very recently laid of by the groups decision. Which greatly saddens me, it is my first truly successfull and serious campaign. I had never before put so much effort into one game and nor have I had so much fun role playing before.

Thank you, I hope I was a good game leader.

Hail!

I have been very busy lately, so I haven't had the time to write anything here. There has been a lot of things I wanted to write about here... But now they all seem outdated. But, today I have a day off so I decided to write something. And what will that something be? A review of a 13 year old game. Yep.

I remember when I played this as a kid... I was really terrible at it. But this time I got the hang of it. I actually had to rebuy this game on GOG because when I installed it from the CD I own it said something about my video card being bad... In any case, it was 6$ well spent.

The game is a Might and Magic first person party RPG adventure. It's actually the first Might and Magic game that I've really played, I've only tried out MMI and MMII... They were a bit to confusing (to say the least...) for my taste.

The game starts off with party creation, you create four adventurers aspiring to become mighty and magical in the name of blood and honor. I personally ran the basic knight, thief, cleric and sorcerer. There are a good amount of options here, I just choose to run something very basic. You can pick classes like: monk, ranger, archer and druid also. You also pick their race and name them. Sadly, naming them is about as far as the roleplaying goes in this game... In any case; I made a goblin knight, human thief, dwarf cleric and elf sorcerer.  

 

The first thing that happens in the game is that your characters are competing in a contest on a little island called Emerald Island for the fiefdom of Harmondale. Of course, my characters won the competition! ... Just to find out that the castle they won was ruined, bummer. Also a tribe of goblins had moved in. "Aha! I will talk to my goblin brethren!" Hate, the goblin knight said. But as they moved in to their castle they noted that the goblin tribe felt more inclined to trade throwing axes with the party rather than words. The new lords of Harmondale made sure that not a single goblin woman nor child was alive after the encounter, otherwise the butler wouldn't tell them they had finished their task.  Then the butler told the party they had to seek out the dwarves, they were the only ones who could fix their castle. And so they did....

Well, as I mentioned earlier, naming your characters is as far as the roleplaying goes in this game, which is sad. I would have liked more roleplaying aspects in the game. I would have liked if your goblin character could have tried to talk to the goblins infesting your land. But, sadly that is not the case. Instead, all you really do is ask people which dungeon you should enter. Then you go there and exterminate all it's inhabitants.

Later on in the game you will get to choose between the path of light and the path of darkness. So you can choose the path of rainbows, kittens and friendship or the path of misery, pain and assholishness. I hate when games do this. It's nearly as stupid as Fable. It is sort of explained in the end why you had to pick a side like that, but meh. It just feels dumb and forced.

The story works out pretty well. I like the added sci-fi which apparently is a big part of the Might and Magic games. However, the story isn't that intresting, it just works out well. It could have been way better if they would have added roleplaying options like asking questions and such. Becuase, all you do is blindly following the orders of some guy you don''t truly know who it is until the end. In any case, I really love the ending. It feels truly mighty and magical.

 Hate the Champion with an artifact platemail and a blaster rifle...

The core game mechanics are simple, yet complex enough to be intresting. Whenever you level up your character, he will gain a number of skill points, five skills points the first few levels. Then you have a couple of skills you can add them to, like sword, water magc or stealing. Every skill starts out at one, and to advance it to the second level you need to spend two skill points, three skill points for the third level and so on. Once a skill has reached level four, you can start searching for an expert trainer, to make you an expert in the said skill. At level seven you look for a master trainer, and level 10, a grandmaster trainer. This system works out really well, and once your characters become grandmasters in skills you feel a great sense of accomplishment. Sadly, there is something really annoying as well.. You have to promote your classes. The knight turns into a cavalier, the sorcerer becomes a wizard and so on. To promote your characters you need to do some promotion quests. And this is where I got stuck when I played the game as a kid, the wizard promotion quest. You're supposed to build a golem. Sounds easy enough. But what you have to do is search exactly every area in the game for golem parts. This time I had internet as aid (don't know why I didn't do that last time...) so I actually was able to finish this quest. Without that promotion you pretty much can't beat the game, so that really sucks. Class promotions are needed to become master and grandmaster in skills. I don't like this system of class promotions, but they are needed for game balance, but still, meh.

The soundtrck is actually really good, the only downside is that the soundtrack resets whenever you enter a house, so when you're looking for a trainer among the houses, you'll hear the intro of the song quite a lot...Also, the voices are terrible. Seriously, you'll start hearing "It's just a scrath, but I need it fixed!" in your head with that annoying female elven voice. It will haunt your nightmares. It will haunt your everyday life. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE FROM THE TERRIBLE VOICE ACTING!
.....
......
Ehm... To sum things up...
I liked the game a whole lot in general, not one of my favorite games, but it was fun. I love how mighty and magical you become in the end. One of the last things I did was entering the Titan Stronghold and pretty much fought all of the titans and dragons in there at the same time without dying. That's mighty and magical for you!




The story is forgettable. But the gameplay and audio (NOT THE VOICES) is actually really good, and it makes the game very playable and enjoying. Allthough, you'll have to keep in mind that the graphics are pretty terrible by today's standards, it doesn't bother me, but it might bother you.

I think I might do a review of Arcanum in the near future. Stay tuned.

Ave Victoria!
/Hate